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German police are said to have requested the searches in Praia da Luz – the town in the Algarve where she went missing almost two decades ago – to begin on Tuesday.
Madeleine was three years old when she vanished from the holiday resort on May 3, 2007, sparking a Europe-wide police investigation.
German national Christian Brueckner was formally identified as an official suspect in the toddler’s disappearance in 2022.
Brueckner has denied any involvement and has not been charged with any crime related to the case.
The search for traces of the child’s body will focus on an area between Praia da Luz and one of the houses where Brueckner lived when the three-year-old disappeared 18 years ago.
The last search for Madeleine was carried out in May 2023, when police searched an inland reservoir in the Algarve.
Watch: Madeleine McCann’s father Gerry describes moment he realised daughter was missing
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 05:30
‘Gerry McCann broke the secrecy code and told me what really happened’
The assertion that 47-year-old Christian Brueckner could be the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann looked a little thinner when he was acquitted in October on five unrelated sexual offences – two of which involved children – following a trial that began in February 2024.
Despite the huge amount of interest around Christian Brueckner’s past, the verdicts were no great surprise. They had been anticipated since last July when the presiding Judge, Uta Inse Engemann, in the German regional court of Braunschweig had ruled that there was “no longer sufficient evidence of guilt for all of the charges”.
Brueckner, a German national, remains in jail, serving the final months of a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz — the same hotel where Madeleine went missing two years later. But as he seeks early release from the 2019 sentence, police in Germany are hurrying to charge the prime suspect in the disappearance of the British toddler before he walks free from prison.
David James Smith reports:
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 05:00
‘No plans’ to charge suspect in Madeleine McCann case, prosecutors say
German prosecutors have “no plans” to charge a man they suspect was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann despite his potential release from prison.
Christian Brueckner has been serving a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of a woman in Portugal’s Algarve region, in the area where Madeleine went missing.
Rachel Clun reports:
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 04:30
Watch: Madeleine McCann campaign shares video on missing girl’s 20th birthday
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 04:00
Madeleine McCann detectives launch fresh search in Portugal
German police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are set to conduct fresh searches in Portugal this week.
Madeleine, then aged three, disappeared in 2007 while on holiday with her family in the resort of Praia da Luz after her parents went out to dinner and left her sleeping in a room with her toddler twin siblings.
According to The Sun, the searches will take place this week near where she was last seen.
Read the full story here:
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 03:30
Watch: Divers filmed searching reservoir for Madeleine McCann two years ago
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 03:00
When did Madeleine disappear and from where
Madeleine McCann, then aged three, disappeared on 3 May 2007 while on holiday with her family.
They were staying in the resort of Praia da Luz in Portugal.
The girl went missing after her parents went out to dinner and left her sleeping in a room with her toddler twin siblings.
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 02:30
Timeline of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance
Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old girl from Rothley, Leicestershire, was reported missing from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May 2007, a case still unsolved and still the subject of intense interest among the public and press.
Here is a reminder of the events of the case:
What happened to Madeleine McCann?
Kate and Gerry McCann’s eldest daughter vanished from Portuguese holiday resort 16 years ago but emergence of new suspect has brought fresh hope of answers and closure
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 02:00
Watch: Sniffer dogs and pickaxes used to scour reservoir
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 01:30
In pictures: The last search for Madeleine McCann at a reservoir in Portugal
Tara Cobham3 June 2025 01:00
English (US) ·