Grimsby Telegraph

Suspect ‘linked to second missing girl’

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THE new suspect in the Madeleine McCann case is being investigat­ed over the disappeara­nce of a five-year-old girl in Germany.

The 43-year-old German national, who is a convicted child sex offender currently in prison in his home country, has been named in reports as Christian Brueckner. German prosecutor­s believe Madeleine is dead after she vanished from an apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family. A preliminar­y investigat­ion has also been opened into whether the suspect is linked to the 2015 disappeara­nce of a five-year-old girl in Germany, prosecutor­s in the northern town of Stendal told the dpa news agency.

Inga Gehricke vanished from a nearby forest in Saxony-Anhalt on May 2, 2015. The suspect, who has been partially identified as Christian B by local media due to the country’s strict rules on the naming of criminals, reportedly had a property Neuwegersl­eben, around 60 miles southwest of Stendal when she went missing.

It comes after claims, originally reported by Sky News, that the suspect confessed to his part in Madeleine’s disappeara­nce to a friend as they watched a TV news report on the case in a German bar on the 10th anniversar­y of her disappeara­nce. Scotland Yard said his name was already known to its investigat­ion, but he did not become a suspect until after informatio­n was received as a “direct consequenc­e” of a 2017 appeal.

The force’s Operation Grange still considers the case a missing person inquiry because there is no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.

But German prosecutor­s have said they believe she is dead and are investigat­ing the child sex predator on suspicion of her murder.

The suspect is reportedly serving a sevenyear prison sentence in the German port city of Kiel for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005 after he was convicted of rape at Braunschwe­ig District Court in December last year. Der Spiegel reported his criminal record contains a total of 17 entries, including a conviction for the sexual abuse of a child in 1994 when he was aged 17, and a 2016 conviction for abusing another child and possession of child abuse images. Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann welcomed the latest appeal.” The suspect is known to have been living in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007, where he funded his lifestyle by committing crimes, including breaking into hotel complexes and holiday apartments.

His Portuguese mobile phone was in Praia da Luz when it received a half-hour phone call around an hour before Madeleine, then three, was last seen. Detectives said he was believed to have been living in a distinctiv­e early 1980s VW T3 Westfalia campervan at the time and re-registered a 1993 Jaguar XJR6 in someone else’s name the day after her disappeara­nce.

 ??  ?? Missing Inga Gehricke
Missing Inga Gehricke

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