Christian Brueckner: To be or not to be

..'corroborate issues they have already hypothesised'. In other words, lie.

Madeleine McCann: Police digging near reservoir

   Published

55 minutes ago

By George Wright & Jasmine Andersson
BBC News

Police officers have started digging near a reservoir in Portugal in a long-running investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The Arade dam is 31 miles (50km) from where the British toddler went missing in Praia da Luz 16 years ago.

The operation is being led by German police looking for evidence to link her disappearance to Christian Brueckner.

The 45-year-old German national was made a formal suspect, or an "arguido", by Portuguese prosecutors in 2022.

Brueckner is known to have visited the picturesque spot around the time Madeleine, who would now be 20, went missing.

Early on Tuesday, police teams set up tents around the dam.

Officers from Portugal, Germany and the UK held briefings, as divers gathered nearby. Officers in boats went out into the reservoir and sniffer dogs worked their way along the bank.

Making a statement to German TV channel RTL, German state prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said he could not "give any concrete information" on the clues on which the search operation is based.

"They are not tips that come from the accused... but you can imagine that we don`t start searching somewhere in Portugal on the off chance, but that there must be a good reason for it.

"We do have one, but I ask for your understanding that I cannot disclose it here at the moment for tactical reasons."


Specialists are combing through the area located 31 miles (50km) from the apartment where Madeleine went missing

Around lunch time, more than 20 officers were digging beside the reservoir. A number of bags have been taken away from the search area, although it is not known what is in them.

There are reportedly four areas of interest to be searched this week.

A short statement from the prosecutor's office in the German city of Braunschweig has confirmed the search but did not say why it was taking place.

The Metropolitan Police said its officers were in Portugal so they can inform Madeleine's family of any developments.

It is not the first time the reservoir has been searched as part of the investigation.

In 2008, Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia paid specialist divers to check the waterway after an apparent tip-off from criminal contacts that Madeleine's body was in the water.

   Follow our live coverage of the search
   The Madeleine McCann case: A timeline

Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, was three years old when she went missing on 3 May 2007 while on holiday with her family in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

Her parents, Kate and Gerry, had gone for dinner with a group of friends at a resort restaurant, leaving Madeleine and her younger brother and sister sleeping in their apartment 100 yards away.

The adults had devised a rota to check on all of the group's children during the evening. But when it was Kate's turn, she discovered Madeleine had gone.

Mr Wolters is treating Brueckner as the main suspect in the McCann case, although he has never been charged over Madeleine's disappearance and has denied any involvement.

The state prosecutor said a growing amount of evidence had connected Brueckner to the case, including his mobile phone records showing he was in the Praia de Luz area at the time of Madeleine's disappearance.

Brueckner is currently in prison in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in 2005 in the same area where Madeleine went missing.

He was living near the Praia da Luz resort when the McCann family was on holiday, and spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017.

The most recent search in Portugal in relation to Madeleine's disappearance was in 2014, when British police were given permission to examine scrubland near where she vanished.

Earlier this year three other charges, unrelated to the McCann case, were thrown out of court because Brueckner's lawyer argued that, because of Brueckner's last place of residence in Germany, prosecutors in another German region should be responsible.

State prosecutor Mr Wolters has launched an appeal against this, and in Tuesday's comments to German media, clarified that he is still the prosecutor in charge of the case.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65680151

ETA:

What are they digging for - never heard of ground penetrating radar technology, or is the movie low budget?

Careful where you leave that inflatable ....

According to someone who lives in Portugal and knows and has done the research, the Arade lake is at about 25% of the volume it was in 2007, hence it is clearly down by as much at 10m. from its normal level where the heavy vegetation starts. That explains the huge area of bare earth we are seeing.
Anything thrown into the lake unless into a serious deep area and weighted down will be lying in the open on the area where people now seem to be wandering about.  Dead dogs, beer bottles, bags of rubbish, picnic chairs, sunken kayaks, and dead children the same.

I feel an EXCLUSIVE Esther McVey coming on.

It's important that we never lose sight of all the high profile persons embroiled in the Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann - the list is streamingly endless.

No wonder the prime suspects still roam free and the circus continues ....

a little round up from all and everywhere.

expresso portugal says no significant findings, they had attention for fabrics and garments, and dig some when dogs indicated. 

correia de maiha talks about 'they are looking for fibers of the pyjama'. good luck with that, because it is not something that could be easily proven to be from the pyjama, there is no piece left of the originals, only a alike one, and cotton fibres are known to be hard to almost impossible to dedicate them to a specific batch.

sic noticias had a former police officer in, and talked about looking for objects and maybe something like clothing. 

bild germany i do only see a link to a video, it looks not to be a headline type of news for them.
the reporter tells nothing was told so far about results, all was pretty quiet. about 60 people take part in the searches. they have a bit more, if you have a subscription to bild online, so we have to wait until other media have copied that.

sic noticias yesterday told it was actually the fourth time the german police had asked the portuguese to search somewhere. 

rtl netherlands has the headline dinghies, dogs and divers with a bit of video. it sounds much better in english than dutch; bootjes, honden en duikers.

one of the international cnn you tube accounts has an hour long live view , source looks to be the anp, most coverage of today looks to be from this same source. it is a lot of standing, walking and handshaking people, a bit of overview, putting the correct liners in the correct bin. there is not really that much of action, but who wants to spare an hour staring at a screen, look here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsBy_c6Fo6k

the germans still have little to say, there is a very short message for the press on their site, in german;
https://staatsanwaltschaft-braunschweig.niedersachsen.de/startseite/aktuelles/presseinformationen/aktuelle-ermittlungsmass

translated by deepl it gets to this;

Within the framework of the investigations in the Madeleine McCann case, criminal procedural measures are currently taking place in Portugal. The measures are being implemented by way of mutual legal assistance by the Portuguese prosecution authorities with the support of officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office.

More detailed information on the background is not being released at this time for tactical investigative reasons.

all in all it is just the next happening that is made by media attention, not on substance of the event itself. 

why is it a problem for the uk media to understand it is an investigation in portugal and the only possibility to do such things is when portuguese police officers are doing their job and will do and lead that investigation. 

i find it pretty offensive that someone as jim gamble is named as the senior child protection officer, who was there in 2007 in portugal, okay but as soon as his boots did reach soil in portugal, he was just a civilian by law of portugal. why is there that need to live in fairy land, there is life and law outside the uk too. 
even the germans get it. because that is how it works. 

so it is not a german investigation, not a british investigation, but a portuguese investigation. it must be very painful to recognize that, because usually the uk media paint them only as the local sardine munchers. 

if this search stays in the established boundaries of searches by the uk and a certain dreamer, they possible will tells us tomorrow they have found a sock. such a shame their is not even one sock missing going by the story to follow as painted by a certain d-notice. so socks do not count as a result. 
and in reality it is impossible to be sure what you have put in bags and boxes after finding it, usually you have to do a fair bit of study on all of it to know what it is or was, and that is just the start, what it means, and if it means anything for the investigation you have taken on, it can simply means weeks or even months before you can know it. so do not expect much tomorrow.

Madeleine McCann investigation: 'The German police want to keep the case alive'-Mark Williams-Thomas



Oh dear Dan Dare, oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Oh well, the media and press across the broad spectrum have taken the story on board without reservation..

Madeleine McCann investigation: Police begin search of Algarve reservoir after tip-off | Mark White

This charade is getting mass coverage across mainstream and social media/press.

I remain sceptical until further notice.



Nothing to discuss until the reasoning behind this extravaganza is made apparent - if ever.

Meanwhile I'm anticipating nothing but a void.

After all this time the most that can be anticipated is fabricated story lines to either pin the tale on the jackass or extend the case for another xyz years.

Wake me up when it's over.

What's needed here is a back to basics approach, not a prolonged saga of what might or might not be concealed in a reservoir or it's surrounds.

Whatever, it's inevitable if anything is found it will be something that will connect with an abducted three year old child.

Dan Wootton knows nothing about the case, and has done no research.

the independant has a livestream today, yesterday too, even longer than the cnn18 one.

this is the link to their you tube account;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpXwI1r-qFs

a lot of tents, very small people, a lot of water and a lot of bushes. not much moving at the moment. 

the bbc live blog is still up, but not running at the moment, but this is the link for who want to follow on;

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-65676619

A report in the Mirror states the new search of the reservoir is because of photo's found at CB's dilapidated factory.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-madeleine-mccann-cops-found-30055425?int_source=nba

It reminds me of the photo of Myra Hindley and the photo of her crouching down in a spot on Saddleworth moor that sparked a new search of the area years later.

that was said also by a unknown woman during the live stream of the independent, you could hear some people talk in the back ground, it was no official comment. the stream does pick up some comments from the background.

it was said from their source, because they had found pictures or other things on his laptop, and also they had found information cb did indeed stayed around that reservoir 20 years ago. 

but it looks to be just a guess because the searchers are pretty busy with looking around, without searching and keeping their eyes on their laptop, or ipad. besides looking from pictures restored from cb, it could also simple be looking for the most likely waterline in 2007. water heights are most times pretty well known, and you could with a handheld, very small laserand gps device bring back what parts we do now see to its original boundary between water and land in 2007 from may 3 on. 

yesterday it was said there have been searches on 4 area's around the reservoir.
i have looked a bit on and of this morning, but seen nothing other than the drone and a lot of mapping. it is no longer the date and age you have to do that on paper. 

the story of pictures from the boxfactory from the mirror are not in favor to all news outlets, from a direct tipp off, old material on a laptop from cb that told that he frequented the place 20 years ago. no body did tell the media what they are looking for, or why they look at this reservoir and surroundings. 

the same with the chainsaws, they do not sound like chainsaws, more like bush cutters, and that would be understandable if they make use of the dogs. most under growth is pretty course and dead grasses. 

the media can do just the same as we can do, just do some guesswork ans see where it will come too.

The only difference is, we don't rule out the obvious suspects.

CaKeLoveR wrote:Dan Wootton knows nothing about the case, and has done no research.

Well he ruddy well should have done his research before speaking before the world about a serious crime - for that is what it is.  Farage is also guilty of hosting the circus last night on GB News.

GB News claim to be the people's channel (whatever that means), no spin, no bias, the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth - how can you make such an audacious claim when showcasing fabrication?  They let you down on just one subject and it throws their whole being into question.

It is indeed   .

Journalists shouldn't be allowed to mislead the public with their muckspreading - it's unethical, they are supposed to work within a code of conduct.  They couldn't conduct a double-decker bus.

I'm very disillusioned by this hype - can't somebody in the public eye step out of line and throw some doubt on this apparent fiasco?  Someone genuine, not a microphone or camera poser with an agenda.

The Great Portugal Adventure will not lead anywhere, no matter how many bags of silt and weeds they carry away from the scene - we've been this way so many times before, as usual it's having the desired effect by keeping the nail-biting audience on the edge of their seats waiting for the next episode.

Why not make it more atmospheric - a refugee pass before the camera with a bag of swag, a drag queen floating on the rippling waters, an Afro-American banging out reggae on a tom-tom, a dinghy delivery off shore.  That'll get tongues a wagging and audience participation.

At least it brings Madeleine back into focus and we get to rubbish the journalists crappy reports.

Herr Wolters has to do something to try to pin Madeleine's disappearance on CB before it's taken out of his hands.

But why are the PJ going along with this?

I'd like to know the reason for that also.

Professional courtesy? I'm sure the Portuguese police would love to see an end to the fiasco.

Apparently the search is for the PJ's Maddie wasn't wearing when she wasn't abducted.

crusader wrote:At least it brings Madeleine back into focus and we get to rubbish the journalists crappy reports.

Herr Wolters has to do something to try to pin Madeleine's disappearance on CB before it's taken out of his hands.

This is true crusader but the problem is people believe what they see and hear, on CMOMM we are only a minuscule representation of the world's population. If you take a look around you will see how people believe Brueckner is guilty of Madeleine McCann's fate - whatever that might be. I'm all for bringing the name Madeleine McCann back into focus, providing the lead is based on evidence and case intelligence. None of this fits in with evidence, it's a wild goose chase.

Over the past few days the press and media have been whipped-up into a frenzy - but why? Because German authorities who have been pushing Christian Brueckner up-front for a few years - without a scrap of evidence to further their cause, have arrived in Portugal to swim and dive and rummage about a reservoir for some sort of evidence. A reservoir which incidentally was searched many many years ago.

It's propaganda in it's purest form.



I do however agree with the few comments about the reason for Portugal's acquiescence - but then they did also agree to the Operation Grange invasion in 2014, which likewise they participated.

Jill Havern wrote:Apparently the search is for the PJ's Maddie wasn't wearing when she wasn't abducted.

Or grubby worn-out swimsuits that just happen to fit a three year old child as found in the camper owned by Brueckner - allegedly.