Portuguese, German and British investigators investigating the mysterious disappearance of little Madeleine McCann in 2007 conducted their second day of research on the banks of a reservoir in southern Portugal on Wednesday.
The police left the scene at the end of the day on Wednesday, after having continued the excavations and raked certain portions of land along the banks of this reservoir using in particular brush-cutting machines, noted AFP journalists.
According to local media, the excavations, which were initially supposed to last two days, will continue on Thursday.
This new research was launched on Tuesday at the request of the German authorities, who have said since 2020 that they are convinced that the British girl is dead and suspect a multi-repeat German sexual assaulter already incarcerated in Germany for a rape in Portugal.
In addition to police officers from the three countries concerned, the operation mobilized gendarmes, firefighters and civil protection agents near the Arade dam, located about fifty kilometers from the place of "Maddie's" disappearance.
On Tuesday, the investigators had also surveyed the parched banks of this lake located in Silves, a town in the hinterland of the tourist region of the Algarve until heavy rain began to fall at the end of the day.
The Portuguese judicial police announced on Monday that "new excavations" would be carried out "in the coming days", but have not communicated since.
Investigators reportedly collected soil samples and gathered several shreds of fabric found on the spot, but no link could so far be established with the case.
According to the popular Portuguese daily Correio da Manha, which is usually well informed by local police sources, the police are looking for a pink blanket or the pajamas Maddie was wearing on the evening of her disappearance, on May 3, 2007, shortly before his fourth birthday.
The girl was vacationing with her family in the resort town of Praia da Luz when she disappeared from her room at a resort while her parents were dining with friends at a nearby restaurant.
Her parents, a couple of British doctors, then launched an exceptional international campaign to try to find her, but the case remains one of the great criminal enigmas of recent years.
The research site had already been searched in 2008, including by divers who had found only animal remains. Also according to local media, the German suspect went there regularly and described the place as his "little paradise".
This man, who is serving a prison sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American in 2005 in Portugal, was identified in 2020 by German investigators as Christian Brueckner, a repeat pedophile who lived for several years in the Algarve .
According to the weekly Expresso, it was the testimony of an informant collected by German investigators, "considered very credible", which led the police to take an interest again in this sector.
05/24/2023 22:40:42 - Silves (Portugal) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
