At the request of the Portuguese justice system, a man has been officially declared a suspect in Germany in connection with the disappearance in 2007 of the British girl Madeleine McCann, who had shocked the world, the Prosecutor's Office of Portimao (southern Portugal) reported on Thursday.
The suspect's identity was not disclosed.
German authorities have claimed since 2020 that they have evidence of the murder of Maddie, who disappeared in Portugal at the age of 3, and have identified as the main suspect a repeat German pedophile, identified as Christian B. This man is currently serving a prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in 2005 in the south of Portugal.
Speaking to the British newspaper DailyMail this Thursday night, Christian B.'s lawyer categorically denied reports in the press that his client had been accused of the disappearance.
Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007 shortly before her fourth birthday in Praia da Luz, a tourist destination in southern Portugal where her parents were on vacation with a group of friends.
Her disappearance gave rise to an exceptional international campaign to try to find her. The photos of the girl, with brown hair and light eyes, went around the world.
After 14 months of controversial investigations, in which they even indicted the parents, the Portuguese police closed the case in 2008 and reopened it five years later.
But it wasn't until June 2020 that the case accelerated when the prosecutor's office in Brunswick (Germany) named a 43-year-old man detained for another case responsible and assured that the girl would be dead.
According to German researchers, Christian B. lived at that time a few kilometers from the hotel in Praia da Luz where the girl disappeared.
(With information from AFP)
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