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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
National
Rachel Hagan & Ashlie Blakey

Madeleine McCann: Police give major update on reservoir search as 'number of items' seized

Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann seized a 'number of items' in a search at a reservoir in Portgual.

Detectives from the Federal Criminal Police (BKA), Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, spent days searching land next to the Arade reservoir in Silva last week. They used sniffer dogs, radar and search teams to scour the location just 31 miles from where three-year-old Maddie vanished in 2007.

Prime suspect Christian Brueckner, 45, once referred to the location as his 'little paradise'. Today (June 1), police said they had seized a number of items during the search which will now be analysed, the Mirror reports.

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Officers cannot yet confirm whether the items are linked to the disappearance of Madeleine. A spokesperson for the Braunschweig public prosecutor, who is coordinating the investigation, said: "The search operation ended as planned on Thursday after three days.

"A previously exactly specified area along the reservoir has been fully searched for possible pieces of evidence searched. A number of items were seized as part of the investigation. These will be evaluated in the coming days and weeks.

"Whether individual items actually have a connection to the Madeleine McCann case cannot yet be said. Thank you to all the police officers involved in the search.

Police investigators digging at the Barragem do Arade Reservoir (Getty Images)

"The cooperation between the Portuguese police, police officers from Great Britain and the Federal Criminal Police Office went excellently and very constructively. The investigations conducted here in Braunschweig against the 46-year-old suspect are expected to continue for a long time."

After the dig cops left behind two-foot-deep boreholes and it is believed the soil they recovered from them is being forensically analysed in Germany.

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