Watch: First pictures from the scene of the reservoir search for Madeleine
By Jasmine Andersson & Damian McGuinness in Berlin
BBC News
Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are to carry out searches in a reservoir in Portugal.
A search of the Arade dam will begin on Tuesday, 50km from where the toddler went missing in Praia da Luz in 2007, local media reported.
Christian Brueckner, 45, was made a formal suspect, or an “arguido”, by Portuguese prosecutors in 2022.
The search was requested by German police as the area was visited by Brueckner when she disappeared.
Three-year-old Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, was on holiday with her family at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve when she went missing on 3 May 2007.
Earlier this month, the McCann family held a vigil to mark 16 years since her disappearance.
An area of the reservoir’s peninsula just over a mile long was sealed off by police after midday on Monday, Portuguese television network SIC reported.
Blue tents have been erected near the site to conduct the search over the course of Tuesday and Wednesday, it said.
Image source, SOLARPIX
Police have been seen at the remote reservoir in the Algarve, a site 50km away from where Madeleine disappeared
German officials would not confirm the police search, but indicated the media reports were correct.
Hans Christian Wolters, German state prosecutor in Braunschweig, told the BBC a short statement of confirmation would be released on Tuesday morning.
Brueckner, who is currently in a German prison for the rape of a woman in Portugal in 2005, has never been charged over Madeleine’s disappearance and has denied any involvement.
But Mr Wolters is treating Brueckner as the main suspect in the McCann case.
Brueckner, a German national, lived near the Praia da Luz resort when the McCann family was on holiday.
He spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017.
Image source, SOLARPIX
Police have cordoned off a stretch of the reservoir to conduct the search
It is not the first time that the reservoir has been searched as part of the investigation.
In 2008 Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia paid for specialist divers to check the waterway after he claimed to have been tipped off by criminal contacts that Madeleine’s body was in the reservoir.
The most recent search in Portugal in relation to Madeleine’s disappearance was in 2014, when British police were given permission to examine scrubland near where she vanished.
Earlier this month, Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry issued a short statement on their Find Madeleine Campaign website to mark the 16th anniversary of her disappearance.
On 12 May, they marked their daughter’s 20th birthday, vowing to “never give up” on finding their daughter.
The family said: “Today marks the 16th anniversary of Madeleine’s abduction. Still missing… still very much missed.
“It is hard to find the words to convey how we feel. The police investigation continues, and we await a breakthrough.”
