A good 16 years after the disappearance of the then three-year-old Madeleine McCann in southern Portugal, according to media reports, the police want to start a new search operation. The search is therefore taking place at the request of the German police.
The search will start on Tuesday at the Arade reservoir and is planned to last two to three days, the state news agency Agência de Notícias de Portugal, SA (Lusa) reported on Monday, citing the Portuguese criminal police. Other media also reported on the new search operation, citing the police. According to the Lusa report, this new search is taking place at the request of the German police. In addition to Portuguese and German officials, British police officers should also take part. The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, which is investigating a previously convicted German on suspicion of murder in the “Maddie case”, initially did not want to comment. The “Policia Judiciaria” in Portugal did not respond to an inquiry for the time being. Germans are considered suspects. The Arade reservoir is located about 50 kilometers northeast of the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz. There Maddie disappeared from a holiday resort on May 3, 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday. The German Christian B. is considered a suspect in the missing person case. The 45-year-old is currently serving a seven-year sentence for raping an American woman in Praia da Luz in 2005. The girl’s body was never found, investigators suspect that she was kidnapped and murdered. However, a body was never found. The last known major search operation in this case took place almost three years ago, in the summer of 2020. Suspect in the Maddie case: process burst Maddie McCann appeared? Forensic scientist explains
