Fresh police searches are due to start tomorrow near the spot where Madeleine McCann was last seen.
German police are said to have requested the searches, expected to take place between Praia da Luz where the three-year-old vanished on May 3 2007 and a house near the holiday resort where principal suspect Christian Brueckner used to live.
A well-placed Portuguese source confirmed this week’s operation was scheduled get underway tomorrow but said some preparation work may take place beforehand.
He said: ‘They will be land searches only. The main objective is to look for any signs of Madeleine’s body.’
Sources said the searches would take place on more than 20 privately-owned pieces of land near to a ramshackle rented cottage on the outskirts of Praia da Luz where Brueckner spent several years living before 2007.
One said: ‘The search will take place on 21 privately-owned pieces of land which in some cases are open and not fenced off. Wells, ruins and water storage tanks will be searched.’
Portuguese police are understood to have agreed to cooperate with the search after it was approved by the country’s judicial authorities following a formal request from German cops and prosecutors.
The search is expected to last around three days unless anything relevant emerges.
It will be the first search in Portugal for more than two years, following a near-week-long operation involving Portuguese, German and police officers at a remote dam a 40-minute-drive from Praia da Luz.
The searches in May 2023 at Arade Dam, an ‘area of interest’ that Brueckner reportedly called his ‘little paradise’, came to nothing.
Madeleine McCann, who disappeared from a holiday flat in Portugal in May 2007
Principle suspect Christian Brueckner pictured in court in October 2024
It is not clear if detectives are now acting on a new tip-off about where Madeleine’s body could be.
The German police team is expected to include forensic experts, who were also present for the May 2023 Arade Dam searches.
They were the first major searches in Portugal for Madeleine McCann in nine years following an earlier June 2014 operation when British police were given permission to carry out digs in Praia da Luz that involved sniffer dogs trained in detecting bodies and ground-penetrating radar.
Those digs were linked to the leading UK police theory at the time Madeleine died during a break-in and burglars hid her body nearby.
They also failed to produce any evidence pointing to the missing youngster’s whereabouts.
In a smaller operation in July 2020 Portuguese police and firefighters searched three wells for Madeleine’s body but failed to find any trace of her.
Prime suspect Christian Brueckner remains in prison in Germany where he is serving a seven year term for rape.
The 48-year-old convicted paedophile faces having his hopes of being released from jail in September scuppered after reportedly being accused of new offences against prison guards behind bars.
He is under investigation on suspicion of abduction and murder in the McCann case but has denied any involvement in the girl’s 2007 disappearance.
Portuguese authorities at a base camp in Silves, Portugal during the May 2023 search
Authorities scoured the area around the Arade Dam in Silves but found nothing
While German investigators made the unusual move of naming the convicted paedophile as a suspect in the case, he has not been charged.
Brueckner’s prison term is set to end with his release this September – much earlier than prosecutors had hoped for after he was acquitted of unrelated sexual offences in court last October following a trial.
The convicted rapist is no longer being held in solitary confinement as he nears the end of his sentence.
With Brueckner’s release looming, pressure is mounting on prosecutors to charge him following explosive revelations in a Channel 4 documentary and evidence found in a former factory, which authorities believe may link him to Maddie’s abduction.
The materials, unearthed at a disused box factory in Germany, include a vile catalogue of depraved documents, children’s clothing, small bikes, and more than 75 swimsuits and toys believed to belong to young girls.
Some were reportedly buried beneath the body of Brueckner’s dead dog, which was exhumed during the police search.
‘The clock is against the case here and investigators do not want to see Brueckner walk free,’ a source told The Sun.
‘Their best option could be intervention from UK cops but they have to be prepared to take it on. There are 20,000 pages of Madeleine evidence and the Germans are ready to translate the lot.’
The searches are expected to take place between Praia da Luz where the three-year-old vanished on May 3 2007 and a house near the holiday resort where principal suspect Christian Brueckner used to live
A vehicle of Portugal’s Emergency Services carries wheelbarrows at the site of a remote reservoir during the search in Silves, Portugal, May 22, 2023
Portuguese police at a makeshift base camp in the Arade dam area, Faro district, one day before the official start of the 2023 search
Officers scoured the area around the Arade Dam in Silves in May 2023, but made no significant progress in their investigation.
The site is about 45 minutes from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine vanished without a trace in 2007 aged three.
It was the first major operation of its kind since June 2014, when British police were given permission to dig in Praia da Luz using sniffer dogs trained in detecting bodies and ground-penetrating radar.
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’.
