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Investigators leading the search for Madeleine McCann reportedly believe there are two other areas in Portugal they can scour for clues.
Investigators last week searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve, which prime suspect Christian Brueckner referred to a ‘little piece of paradise’ and is located 30 miles from where Madeleine was taken in 2007.
Police said they found a ‘relevant clue’ during their search of the beauty spot after an informant was able to match photographs showing Brueckner close to the reservoir.
And now it is understood there could be other areas surrounding Praia da Luz, where Madeleine had been staying with her family, that police can search after German detectives scoured through more than 8,000 photographs belonging to Brueckner.
A source told the Sun: ‘German officers have gone through more than 8,000 pictures belonging to Christian B. That forensic work led to them to Barragem – but there are other places that have come up in the pictures too.
Investigators last week searched the remote Barragem do Arade reservoir in the Algarve (pictured)
Authorities gather at a Judiciary Police (PJ) makeshift base camp in the Arade dam area during the search operation amid the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance on May 23
Madeleine (left) was aged three in May 2007 when she vanished from her bedroom in the apartment her family were staying at in the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast. German prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner (right) is behind her disappearance
‘Detectives are seeking to work out where they are and why Christian B was taking pictures of those places.’
Last week, investigators cleared a large area of woodland at the reservoir and dug eight deep holes to collect samples of soil, which have been sent for forensic and DNA testing in Germany.
A ‘relevant clue’ was found during the last day of the search, leading police to focus on a specific area of the secluded beauty spot.
Several items were removed from the site, which may or may not be of relevance to the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. They include a bra strap, pieces of clothing and plastic items.
The source said German cops believe that the original investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance by Portuguese cops was flawed.
They said: ‘German detectives remain hugely skeptical about the way the investigation has been carried out in Portugal which is why they are keen to carry on searching and looking at areas – even those where Portuguese cops claim to have examined.
‘They believe fresh work could unlock new clues which move the case forward.’
Last week’s probe was first major search for the toddler in nine years and comes after German police discovered photos of Brueckner at his self-described ‘little paradise’ in the Portuguese region, it is understood.
Brueckner, 45, would camp by the reservoir for weekends or sometimes even a full weekend and is understood to have set up a sinister camp there to ‘cleanse himself’, it emerged last week.
A former friend of Brueckner, who has lived on Algarve for nearly 30 years and has been helping police with their investigation, claims the criminal would visit the reservoir ‘often’ but was ‘always secretive about it’.
The German mother-of-three, whose identity has not been publicised, recalled how Brueckner would drive his camper-van to the edge of the lake because he ‘liked to be near the water’.
She claimed he always camped in the same location and ‘there was usually no one else around’.
‘This was his exact special spot that he said he liked to come to cleanse himself,’ she said of his campsite, telling The Sun: ‘I don’t know what he did there as he was very secretive.’
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Details of Brueckner’s secret lair came to light as a British couple told The Mail on Sunday how they spotted a bizarre ‘shrine’ to Madeleine in the reservoir just seven months after she vanished.
The retired couple, who have asked to be named only as Ralf and Ann, were so disturbed by what they saw they took pictures and sent them to Portuguese detectives, thinking they were of significance but, amazingly, never heard back.
Consisting of boulders in the shape of an arrow pointing towards a picnic site which was dug over by police last week, the makeshift memorial was weighed down by a large rock and had a bouquet of flowers and a photograph of abducted Madeleine on it.
Last week investigators cleared a large area of woodland at the Algarve reservoir and dug deep holes to collect samples, which have been sent for forensic and DNA testing in Germany
Christian Brueckner, 45, would camp in the Barragem do Arade reservoir where cops last week searched for clues in Madeline McCann missing persons case. The convicted rapist and paedophile is understood to have built a circle out of stones from the water (pictured)
For more than a decade, Madeleine’s anguished parents Gerry and Kate (pictured together in 2017) have waited in vain for any news – any clue – that their little girl is somehow alive after all this time
Three years ago – when prime suspect Christian Brueckner, 45, was identified by German police – the couple contacted detectives after seeing an appeal for anyone who was on holiday in the Algarve when Madeleine went missing in May 2007 to get in touch.
This time, the German officers from the BKA (criminal investigation unit) responded within hours of Ralf and Ann emailing them and quizzed them on the telephone for several hours before asking them to give a formal statement.
It raises the question whether it was their information that prompted the German authorities to request a search of the remote picnic area campsite on the edge of the reservoir near Silves, which Brueckner sinisterly used to call his ‘little paradise’.
German prosecutors last year named convicted child abuser and drug dealer Brueckner as the prime suspect in McCann’s disappearance.
Madeleine was aged three in May 2007 when she vanished from her bedroom in the apartment her family were staying at in the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast. The reservoir is about 31 miles inland from the resort.
Bruecker is currently behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve region from where McCann went missing.
Pictured: Christian Brueckner was filmed at the wheel of a battered VW campervan weeks before Madeleine was kidnapped
The German suspect had lived in a warehouse outside Praia da Luz for several years but moved into a campervan just before Madeleine vanished
Sources close to Brueckner’s legal team said any new searches will be a ‘waste of time’.
The source told the Sun: ‘He didn’t kill Madeleine and all of this is taking attention away from the job of finding out who really did.’
Brueckner was known to break into Algarve hotel rooms and apartments to supplement his income from drug dealing, and left the south of Portugal suddenly in 2007 – the year Madeleine vanished – after more than a decade living there.
He is alleged to have admitted abducting Madeleine to a friend in a bar – and German investigators are said to firmly believe he killed the three-year-old.
But more than three years after linking Brueckner to Madeleine’s disappearance, he has still not been charged regarding her abduction as prosecutors do not have enough evidence.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
