Garden search in Madeleine Mccann probe
A garden in Hanover is being searched by German police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann.
Pictures have shown an excavator at the scene and officers using shovels. German investigators believe Christian Brueckner, 43, killed Madeleine soon after abducting her from a Portugal holiday apartment in 2007.
German investigators are searching a garden in Hanover in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann.
Police began work at the site on Monday and were there yesterday and expected to remain at the garden today.
Julia Meyer, a press spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, confirmed that the activity was linked to the investigation, but could not comment further.
Local media reports included pictures of an excavator at the scene and officers using shovels.
Madeleine was three when she went missing while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve in Portugal, on 3 May 2007.
German investigators believe Christian Brueckner, 43, killed her soon after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the resort.
Brueckner is in jail in Germany for drug dealing, and is appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-yearold woman, also at Praia da Luz.
He is a suspect in a string of unsolved crimes, reportedly including an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in the resort in 2005, one of a series of incidents where young girls were targeted.
Brueckner is believed to have been in the area where Madeleine was last seen while on holiday. Police said the suspect was regularly living in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and had jobs in the area, including in catering, but also committed burglaries in hotels and dealt drugs.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into Brueckner, previously said that prosecutors have “concrete evidence”, but not “forensic evidence” that Madeleine was killed by the suspect.
He said they may “know more” than Scotland Yard, who are still treating the case as a missing person investigation.
There has also been search activity in Portugal. Earlier this month a national newspaper reported that police and divers in the Algarve examined three disused wells around ten miles from Praia da Luz.
Last month, the Metropolitan Police said the case remained a “missing persons” investigation in the UK because there was no “definitive evidence” as to whether Madeleine was alive or not.
However, German investigators have said they are assuming Madeleine is dead.
After the latest police appeal, Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry Mccann, said: “We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive, but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know as we need to find peace.”