German suspect in ‘Maddy’ case
MADELEINE Mccann, the British girl who disappeared in Portugal in 2007 aged three, is assumed to be dead and an imprisoned German child abuser is suspected of having murdered her, a German prosecutor has said.
Madeleine vanished from her bedroom on May 3 during a family holiday in the resort of Praia da Luz in the Algarve, while her parents were dining with friends nearby.
Her disappearance sparked an international search, with missing posters of the girl’s face papered across the world and celebrity appeals for information that could help track her down and bring her abductors to justice.
Braunschweig state prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said: “We assume that the girl is dead. The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig is investigating a 43-year-old German national on suspicion of murder.”
German police said the suspect, who had lived near Praia da Luz, had made a spontaneous decision to kill Madeleine during a break-in of the apartment where she was sleeping.
In a statement issued before the German prosecutor spoke, Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate Mccann, said: “All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive, but whatever the outcome may be we need to know as we need to find peace.”
Wolters said the suspect was a sex offender with multiple convictions, including for sexual abuse of children.
German police said the man, who was not publicly named, lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and worked in the catering industry, burgled hotels and holiday flats, and traded drugs.
He was serving a sentence for a different matter.
British and German police appealed for information about the man, who lived in Braunschweig, northern Germany, before moving overseas. They released photographs of a Volkswagen camper van and a Jaguar he used at the time.
British police said the case remained a missing person inquiry and they wished to speak to an unidentified second person who spoke with the suspect from a Portuguese phone number on May 3, 2007 at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.