San Francisco Frontiers - New search in Madeleine McCann case finished: Portuguese police

Investigators, who spent three days scouring areas near the southern beach resort where Madeleine disappeared during a family holiday, did not detail the results of their latest searches.

Madeleine was just three years old when she vanished from the apartment where her family was vacationing on the Algarve coast, triggering a race to find her -- and massive global media coverage.

The new search, which began Tuesday, was carried out at the request of investigators in Germany, who are probing whether a convicted German sex offender was implicated in the disappearance.

Between Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon, around 25 German police officers assisting Portuguese authorities searched for evidence near the Praia da Luz seaside resort, where Madeleine disappeared on May 3, 2007, while her parents had dinner nearby.

Using shovels, rakes and a weed whip, investigators combed an overgrown wooded area bordered by several dilapidated, abandoned houses between Praia da Luz and the nearby city of Lagos, said AFP journalists at the scene.

They also used ground-penetrating radar and an excavator to search another area around the village of Atalaia, Portuguese media reports said.

A previous search in 2023 of a lake near the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz yielded no results.

That is near one of the lodgings where Christian Brueckner, a convicted rapist now serving a prison sentence in his native Germany, stayed during a stint in Portugal in the 1990s and 2000s.

Brueckner, a drifter with a criminal record, was living in a camper van on the Algarve coast at the time Madeleine vanished.

A mobile phone registered in his name was traced close to the family's accommodation on the night she went missing.

Authorities have played down expectations for the new search effort.

"As to whether or not something will be found, personally I'd remain rather prudent towards the results we can expect," Christian Wolters, a spokesman for the Braunschweig prosecutor's office in Germany, which issued the new search warrant, told AFP on Tuesday.

- 'Cruel rapist' -

Brueckner, 48, is serving a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz. He is due to complete his sentence in September.

He was acquitted in October 2024 in Germany at a trial for two other sexual assaults and three rapes committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

German authorities in 2020 said they were convinced Brueckner was involved in Madeleine's disappearance, which gained worldwide publicity and has seen several false leads.

He has not been charged in connection with the McCann case.

Brueckner, who according to German media had a string of previous convictions, including for sexual offences, assault and theft before he was convicted of rape, worked as an odd-job man during his 10 years in the Algarve.

He also burgled hotel rooms and holiday apartments.

On Tuesday, a journalist from Germany's RTL television recounted his correspondence with Brueckner, and how he had met him in prison.

Brueckner, the journalist said, complained that "half the world" considered him a "cruel rapist". He said he wanted to eat steak and drink beer when he is released from prison.

He returned to Germany in 2007 -- the year Madeleine disappeared -- settling in Hanover, but still spent time in Portugal.

On the 18th anniversary of their daughter's disappearance this year, Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said they were still determined to find out what happened.

"The absence still aches," they wrote on their website last year.

R.Moore--SFF