Lisbon, (BLAZETRENDS)
The Judicial Police (PJ) explained in a statement that during the search “some material” was collected that will be handed over to the German authorities for analysis and assured that the interests of the investigation still underway in Portugal were “safeguarded”.
three days of searching
The operation ended this Thursday after three days of searches in the Arade reservoir, about 50 kilometers from where the British girl disappeared 16 years ago and a place frequented by the main suspect, the German Christian Brueckner.
The searches were requested by the German authorities, but they were carried out under the coordination of the Portuguese Police and with the presence of British and German agents.
Investigators, criminal experts and security personnel participated, as well as members of the Portuguese National Republican Guard (GNR) and Civil Protection at the logistical level, reported the PJ.
The authorities have not provided further information on the results of the operations.
Withdrawal of the police cordon
After the withdrawal of the operation, the police cordon that prevented access to the search area has been lifted and the effects of the excavations carried out by the police in the area have been seen, with large piles of earth, broken rocks, uprooted brush and marks of the use of heavy machinery in a limited area a few meters from the shore of the reservoir.
The Arade dam was a place frequented by Brueckner, who spent long periods with his motorhome in the area.
The tip of an informant, according to local media, led the German authorities to request search work in the reservoir.
The first tracking of the area in 2008
The area was already searched in 2008 by private investigators without success, but forensic medicine experts agree that technological advances in recent years are essential to solve the case if evidence of the girl’s disappearance is finally found.
Missing since 2007
Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared on May 3, 2007 from the room where she slept with her little brothers in a tourist complex in Praia da Luz.
After years of investigation, the case took a turn in 2020 and the German Christian Brueckner, imprisoned in his country for other crimes, became the main suspect.
The German Prosecutor’s Office in Braunschweig works with the theory that Madeleine died at the hands of Brueckner, who has a long history of crimes for sexual abuse and pedophilia, some of them in Portugal.