‘Number of items seized’ in Portugal amid search for Madeleine McCann, German authorities say
German authorities on Thursday revealed that “a number of items were seized” in Portugal amid renewed search efforts for Madeleine McCann, a British toddler who vanished during a family vacation more than 16 years ago.
“These will be evaluated in the coming days and weeks,” the Braunschweig district attorney’s office in Germany said in a statement. “It is not yet possible to say whether any of the items are actually related to the Madeleine McCann case.”
The announcement comes after German authorities and Portuguese crews spent three days last week searching a remote area surrounding a dam some 30 miles away from Praia da Luz, a resort in Portugal’s Algarve region, where the 3-year-old girl was last seen alive.
The toddler’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, had left Madeleine and their two other children sleeping in their apartment while they went to a restaurant nearby. They returned regularly throughout the evening to check on them — but when Kate returned around 10 p.m., she discovered the door flung open and Madeleine nowhere to be found.
Nearly two decades later, authorities are still working to piece together exactly what happened that night. Last month, Madeleine’s parents shared a heartfelt tribute on what would have been her 20th birthday.
“Happy birthday, Madeleine,” they wrote on the Official Find Madeleine Campaign Facebook page. “Still missing. Still very much missed. Still looking. For as long as it takes.”
In the years since her disappearance, investigators have failed to track down the missing girl. The latest search was instigated by prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are investigating a German man, identified by media as Christian Brueckner, in connection with her disappearance.
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005, two years before Madeleine went missing. He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case, but he has not been charged. He has denied any involvement.
Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor for the city of Braunschweig, said the “investigations conducted here in Braunschweig against the 46-year-old suspect are expected to continue for a long time.” He added that the joint operation between German, British and Portuguese authorities went “excellently and very constructively.”
With News Wire Services