Madeleine McCann: Probe makes new developments as German police get 'excellent' leads from British tourists
The investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are becoming interesting. The German police investigating the case are reportedly eager to return to Portugal after receiving "excellent" leads from British tourists who were holidaying at the time. Prosecutors are becoming more and more confident that they will be able to charge prime suspect Christian Brueckner.
43-year-old convicted paedophile, Brueckner, was extradited from Portugal twice for sex crimes against children. But the authorities investigating the disappearance there never considered he could be involved. Brueckner was identified as a suspect in June. He is currently serving a 21-month sentence on an unrelated drugs matter at a prison in Kiel in Germany. He will be transferred to Wolfenbuttel in January to start a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese resort from which Madeleine vanished.
"German officers think getting their team's boots on the ground would be a massive boost to the investigation," a source that is reportedly close to the case told The Sun. "German detectives have received a lot of excellent information in the past few weeks, especially from British holidaymakers who were in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine's disappearance. There are leads, tips and lines of enquiry from those witnesses that urgently needed to be followed up. That's why they want to return to Portugal as soon as possible to try and move forward in the investigation."
But this might not be the easiest of investigations. German officers might have plans to get to Portugal but the local cops there will have problems. Relations between the German and Portuguese teams remain very poor. And so, officials in the Algrave will need to be consulted before any new moves.
Madeleine McCann was on a holiday with her family and close friends in 2007 when she was reported missing from her holiday apartment at a resort in Praia da Luz.
On Thursday, Scotland Yard, meanwhile, said that it had no plans to end its missing person investigation, regardless of the fact that the German prosecutors believe she was murdered. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick reportedly said, "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. 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."