Cops scour dam after twist in McCann case
Police zero in on suspect’s ‘little paradise’
Police have launched a new search for British girl Madeleine McCann in the first major operation of its kind related to the case in nine years.
German police investigating prime suspect Christian B are searching a reservoir in Algarve, Portugal, that the convicted rapist is believed to have used, according to The Sun newspaper.
The reservoir is a 45-minute drive from the Ocean Club resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine vanished from in 2007 aged just four while holidaying with her parents.
Police have erected tents and officers have begun scouring the shoreline at Baragem do Arade dam, near Silves.
The search – the first major operation in Portugal of its kind since June 2014 – is expected to last at least two days.
Mike Neville, a former police chief investigator who worked on the McCann case for years, said the search “smacks of desperation”.
Mr Neville said there hadn’t yet been any concrete evidence that key suspect Christian B was involved in the case.
“This (reservoir) is vast and, how they are going to search that in a couple of days – it has been searched before – it is just really tragic in my view,” Mr Neville told Sunrise. “We need some closure to this case, but I just don’t see where the specific intelligence has come from and why they are searching it now.”
The new search is expected to include divers exploring the depths of the reservoir. Police are also expected to dig in the woods by the water.
Portuguese broadcaster SIC reported that German police sought permission to search the dam in an official judicial request to Portugal after concluding it was an “area of interest”.
The broadcaster said: “Investigators know suspect Christian B used to come to this dam regularly. He would call it his little paradise and would often spend the night here. He was seen here often.
“The German authorities considered this reservoir to be an area of interest and ended up sending an international letter of request, or letter rogatory.”
It was not immediately clear when the German search request was made but it is thought to have been sent to Portugal several weeks ago.
The suspect also spent time living in and around the hamlet of Foral, about 19km from the reservoir.
The reservoir was searched twice, in February and March 2008, by divers hired by Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia, who claimed he had been tipped off by underworld contacts that McCann had been murdered and her body thrown into the reservoir within 48 hours of her disappearance.
Two bags containing small bones were found during the second search after divers earlier recovered several lengths of cord, some plastic tape and a single white cotton sock.
Portuguese police were alerted following the discovery but subsequently ruled out the possibility the bones were human because of their size.
The girl’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann had previously dismissed Mr Correia as a selfpublicist and said there was no evidence suggesting any link between their daughter and the reservoir.
It is not thought to have been searched since March 2008 as part of the investigation into her disappearance.
The peninsula jutting into the reservoir was sealed off just after midday on Monday (local time).
Several local council trucks were spotted on the piece of land as tents and other structures were erected.
I don’t see where the intelligence has come from
Mike Neville Former police investigator