German prosecutors have said a number of items recovered in searches last week that may be linked to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance have not yet been confirmed as evidence.
The searches, which took place in Portugal after requests from German investigators, involved a large section of the Barragem do Arade reservoir being cordoned off, in an area about 30 miles from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine went missing in 2007.
Police flattened an area of woodland and dug a number of holes near the remote reservoir as part of the three-day operation.
In 2020, German police said they believed Madeleine to be dead and identified Christian Brückner, a convicted sex offender, as probably responsible.
Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor for the city of Braunschweig, said: “A number of items were seized as part of the investigation. These will be in the evaluated in the coming days and weeks.
“Whether individual items actually have a connection to the Madeleine McCann case cannot yet be 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”.
After last week’s searches concluded, Portuguese police said materials had been sent to Germany for testing. They were given the go-ahead to search the area after German prosecutors received “certain tips” about the case. Heavy machinery, sniffer dogs and pickaxes were used during the operation.
Brückner is in prison in Germany for the rape of a woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, and is suspected of further rapes and child sexual abuse committed in the area between 2000 and 2017.
Mark Hofmann, a criminal profiler in Germany, said Brückner, who is serving a seven-year sentence, had a history of keeping “trophies” from his crimes. He said: “From chat histories with like-minded people and from other crimes, it is known that Christian B tends to do exactly this: documenting his crimes.”
Brückner has reportedly denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Madeleine was three when she vanished while on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz, after they left her and her younger twin siblings asleep in their apartment while they went out to a tapas dinner with friends.
The Home Office granted an extra £110,000 in funding this financial year for the Metropolitan police to assist with finding Madeleine, down from just over £300,000 last year. The total funding given to Operation Grange amounts to just under £13.1m since 2011.
