by German prosecutors said on Thursday they will examine items found in a search in Portugal last week for clues to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, but cannot yet say if they are related to the British girl who went missing in 2007.
Investigators spent three days last week searching around a dam about 30 miles from the Praia da Luz resort in southern Portugal, where the 3-year-old girl was last seen 16 years ago.
The search was instigated by prosecutors in Braunschweig, Germany, who are investigating a German man in connection with her disappearance.
In a brief statement Thursday, prosecutors said «some objects were seized,» without elaborating.
“These will be evaluated in the coming days and weeks,” they added. «It cannot yet be said whether the individual objects are actually related to the Madeleine McCann case.»
They thanked the Portuguese and British police for their cooperation, adding that they hope the investigation of the 46-year-old suspect in the case will continue for a long time.
In mid-2020, German officials said that the German national, identified by the media as Christian Brueckner, was a suspect in the case. Brueckner has 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 in Praia da Luz, around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
The Madeleine McCann case aroused worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far as Australia, along with a host of books and television documentaries on the case.
British, Portuguese and German investigators are still piecing together what happened the night the girl disappeared from her bed in the southern Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007.
He was in the same room as his brother and sister, 2-year-old twins, while their parents were having dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
