crime
Police want to search for Maddie again in Portugal
The Arade dam was already the scene of a search operation in 2008. photo
© Lusa Luis Forra/EPA Lusa/dpa
Shortly before her fourth birthday, little Maddie disappeared from a holiday resort without a trace. It’s been 16 years now.
A good 16 years after the disappearance of the then three-year-old Madeleine McCann in southern Portugal, investigators want to start a new search operation. This had been requested by the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), said the Portuguese criminal police. It will take place “in the next few days” in the Algarve region. In addition to Portuguese and German officials, British police officers are also to take part in the new search operation.
The Polícia Judiciaria did not announce any further details for the time being. However, the state news agency Lusa, citing the police, reported that the search should begin on Tuesday at the Arade reservoir and last two to three days. The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, which is investigating a previously convicted German on suspicion of murder in the “Maddie case”, initially did not want to comment on the dpa request, but announced a short message for Tuesday. The Federal Criminal Police Office initially gave no information.
The Arade reservoir is located about 50 kilometers northeast of the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz. There Maddie disappeared from a holiday resort on May 3, 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday. Investigators suspect that she was kidnapped and murdered. However, a body was never found. The last known major search operation in this case took place almost three years ago, in the summer of 2020.