SILVES, Portugal, May 25 (Portal) – A German prosecutor on Thursday played down hopes of an early breakthrough in the search for the 16-year-old missing British woman Madeleine McCann, as police completed the search on the shore of a reservoir in Portugal and began to withdraw.
A source familiar with the investigation told Portal there was “nothing to report” after three days of searches. The Portuguese police, which operates the command center, which has already been partially dismantled, declined to comment.
German authorities, who have named a suspect in the case, have been helping Portuguese crews comb the remote inland area of the Algarve seaside town where McCann, then three, went missing while on a family holiday in 2007.
“Of course there is some expectation, but it’s not high,” prosecutor Christian Wolters told Portal. It is important to show that the authorities are investigating the case, he added.
Last year, German prosecutors named Christian Brückner as an official suspect in McCann’s disappearance. The convicted child molester and drug dealer is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same part of the Algarve.
Brueckner has denied any involvement in the disappearance. No body was found.
“Of course we’re still looking for the body,” Wolters said. “Of course we’re not just looking for that. There are other things too.”
Any clothing found could help the investigation, he said. “A lot is conceivable.”
Authorities had not yet given a time for the search, Wolters said, but witnesses said British police, who were assisting their Portuguese and German counterparts at the reservoir, left early Thursday afternoon and then German investigators set up camp at a hilltop camp reduced.
A previously deployed tractor-mounted pruner was also removed and Portuguese police began dismantling the two large blue command center tents.
Sources said all samples collected would be analyzed in Germany.
Reporting by Jan Schwartz and Marco Trujillo, additional reporting by Catarina Demony, text by Rachel More and Andrei Khalip, editing by Andrew Heavens and Nick Macfie
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