Madeleine McCann investigators to keep searching for missing girl until 'all possibilities have been exhausted'
A top investigator involved in the missing case of Madeleine McCann has claimed that they will keep searching for the toddler until they “feel we have exhausted all” possibilities. Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said that the Scotland Yard and the German authorities were working "really, really closely" before adding that the probe’s nature has not changed, The Sun reported.
“We're continuing to work very closely with our colleagues in the BKA (Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office) in Germany, as you know, and the PJ (Policia Judiciaria) in Portugal. We do have our small team still working on that and there's no significant change for us in terms of our resourcing or posture. As you know, we have some funding to continue that and we are continuing it,” Dick told reporters. She added: “We will continue until the time that it is right, either because much more light has been thrown on this and, or, somebody has been brought to justice. Or, if we feel we have exhausted all possible opportunities. We're not any of those stages at the moment, and the team continues."
However, when Dick was questioned if they have received each and every piece of information from the German authorities, she stated, “We're working really closely with the German authorities. I would not expect necessarily every single piece of material to be shared with us. I'm sure they're sharing the relevant things at the relevant times with us. We are working really, really closely with them."
Earlier, prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the three-year-old’s disappearance case in Germany, said that he has "concrete evidence" that Christian Brueckner was behind Madeleine’s murder. German investigators believe that after kidnapping the toddler from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007, the 43-year-old killed her. Though they claimed to have “concrete evidence”, Brueckner has not been charged yet. However, the convicted child sex offender was defended by his lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, who said that cops are behind the wrong person.
Brueckner was named the prime suspect in the case in June. Currently, he is serving his time behind bars for drug trafficking in the northern German city of Kiel. In addition, he was also found guilty of raping a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 and awarded seven years in jail, at a court in Brunswick, Lower Saxony. The elderly woman was raped in the same resort from where Madeleine vanished. A previous report has stated that the authorities are shifting the rapist to a maximum-security prison ahead of questioning in the New Year. At the time, Wolters said, “Whether and when charges will be brought in these cases cannot be predicted at present. I am also very confident with the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance but due to the scope of the case, the other proceedings can be expected to conclude earlier.”
Meanwhile, recently, prosecutors overseeing Madeleine’s years-old case said that they are afraid that Brueckner would not face charges if the case is not handled properly. In a statement, the chief prosecutor stated, “If we file charges and he is acquitted, then the case is dead forever. In Germany, once you have been acquitted, you cannot be charged again, at least only in very exceptional cases. If we now are hasty and he was acquitted because the court said ‘Ah, we still have a few doubts’ then we would not be able to get him later. Therefore we want to collect as much evidence as possible."