Investigators spent three days last week searching around a dam 30 miles from the resort of Praia da Luz in southern Portugal, where the 3-year-old British girl was last seen 16 years ago.
German prosecutors said Thursday they will examine items found in a search in Portugal last week for clues to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, but cannot yet say whether they are linked to the Briton who disappeared in 2007.
Investigators spent three days last week searching around a dam about 30 miles from the resort of Praia da Luz in southern Portugal, where the 3-year-old girl was last seen 16 years ago.
The investigation was launched by prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are investigating a German man in her disappearance.
In a brief statement Thursday, prosecutors said “certain items were secured,” without giving further details.
“These will be assessed over the coming days and weeks,” they added. “It cannot yet be said whether individual items are actually related to the Madeleine McCann case.”
He thanked Portuguese and British police for their cooperation and added that they expected their investigation into the 46-year-old suspect in the case to continue for a long time.
In mid-2020, German officials said the German citizen, identified by the media as Christian Brueckner, was a suspect in the case. Brueckner denied any involvement.
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
He is under investigation on suspicion of murder in the McCann case, but has not been charged. He spent many years in Portugal, including Praia da Luz, around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
The case of Madeleine McCann has sparked global interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far as Australia, along with a series of books and television documentaries about the case.
British, Portuguese and German investigators are still piecing together what happened the night the little girl disappeared from her bed in the southern Portugal resort on May 3, 2007.
She was in the same room as her brother and sister – 2-year-old twins – while her parents dined with friends at a nearby restaurant.
