18 years after the disappearance of British girl Maddie McCann in 2007 in Praia da Liza, southern Portugal , investigators resumed their investigations this morning.
The new searches are concentrated in the area between the Luz Ocean Club - where the McCann family was staying the night of Maddie's kidnapping - and the cabin where the German Christian Brueckner , considered the main suspect in the little girl's case, lived at the time.
The search, which is expected to last until Friday, is being carried out under a warrant issued by German authorities : today officers are said to be inspecting two wells about a 10-minute drive from where Maddie disappeared.
Christian Brueckner is currently being held in a German prison for raping an American tourist : if no further evidence is found, he will be released in September after serving his sentence.
The man, who worked occasionally for the Ocean Club, allegedly confessed to a cellmate that he had kidnapped a child from the facility and boasted that he had entered several rooms to steal jewelry, money and passports.
The night Madeleine disappeared, the little girl's parents were having dinner with friends in one of the hotel's restaurants not far from the room where their three children were sleeping: Maddie and the twins Sean and Amelie, who were two years old at the time. The next day they would leave Portugal and return home to England.
The McCanns had checked on the children every 15 minutes throughout the evening until they discovered Maddie was missing around 10 p.m.
(Unioneonline/vl)