HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) – A German prosecutor played down hopes of an imminent breakthrough in the 16-year-old hunt for missing British girl Madeleine McCann on Thursday, as investigators spent a third day searching a reservoir in Portugal.
German authorities, who have named a suspect in the case, are helping Portuguese crews comb the remote area inland from the Algarve coastal resort where McCann – then aged three – went missing from her bedroom during a family holiday in 2007.
“Of course there is a certain expectation, but it is not high,” prosecutor Christian Wolters told Reuters. It was important to show that authorities were investigating the case, he added.
German prosecutors last year named Christian Brueckner an official suspect in McCann’s disappearance. The convicted child abuser and drug dealer is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in the same area of the Algarve.
Brueckner has denied any involvement in the disappearance. No body has been found.
“Of course we are still looking for the body,” Wolters said. “We’re not just looking for that, of course. There are other things too.” Any discovery of clothing could help the investigation, he added. “A lot is conceivable.”
(Reporting by Jan Schwartz, Writing by Rachel More, Editing by Andrew Heavens)
