Madeleine McCann search analysis 'will take several weeks'

It will take several weeks to analyse materials gathered during a new search in the Madeleine McCann investigation, German authorities have told the BBC.

A search of an area 31 miles from the Portuguese resort where the three-year-old disappeared ended on Thursday.

There had been good reason to scour the Arade reservoir area in the Algarve, a German prosecutor told the BBC.

Police in Germany believe Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old German national, killed the toddler.

Brueckner, a convicted sex offender, was made a formal suspect by Portuguese prosecutors in 2022. British police continue to treat the case as a missing person investigation.

He has never been charged over Madeleine's disappearance and has denied any involvement in her May 2007 disappearance from a holiday complex at Praia da Luz on the Algarve.

Brueckner is serving a prison sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz, two years before Madeleine went missing.

Speaking to the BBC, Braunschweig prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said the German-led investigation is ongoing out of the public eye and has included other searches.

He said: "We work continuously on this case but not everything we do is made public. We continuously investigate and interview.

"There are repeated searches, not all of them are in the eye of the public like this one was. Much of what we're doing you won't notice."

Digging equipment and dogs were used to scour a peninsula jutting out into the Arade reservoir from its western shore this week.

The lake is 31 miles (50km) from where Madeleine went missing while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz 16 years ago.

Brueckner is thought to have often stayed in the area, which is known to have been used as an unofficial camping spot, in his Volkswagen T3 camper van.

Commenting on the investigation, Mr Wolters said: "Nothing has changed with regard to our suspect in the last three years. We have found nothing in the last three years that would contradict our suspicion.

"We haven't found anything which would exonerate him. We've found nothing which would rule him out. We haven't yet disclosed all the evidence against him and we don't want to do that now.

"Of course, you can rightly assume that within the last three years various pieces of the puzzle were added but it's not the right time for us to publish that."

German authorities have previously declined to say what triggered the new search but said they were acting on the basis of "certain tips".