Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

German prosecutors presume Madeleine McCann is dead as they investigate new suspect

Investigators in Germany authorities said on Thursday they presumed Madeleine McCann was dead rather than missing as they investigate whether a Germany sex o was responsible for the disappearance of the British girl 13 years ago.

Published: 4 June 2020 14:25 CEST
German prosecutors presume Madeleine McCann is dead as they investigate new suspect
Public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony on Thursday. Photo: DPA

During a press conference held on Thursday June 4th, Hans Christian Wolters, from the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor's Office, said: “In connection with the disappearance of the then 3-year-old British girl Madeleine Beth McCann on May 3rd, 2007 from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz in Portugal, Braunschweig prosecutors are investigating a 43-year-old German citizen on suspicion of murder.”

“You can infer from that we assume the girl is dead.”

“With the suspect, we are talking about a sexual predator who has already been convicted of crimes against little girls and he's already serving a long sentence.”

The suspect has been named in German media as Christian B.

Madeleine, aged three, vanished from an apartment at a holiday complex in southern Portugal in 2007, sparking a huge investigation.

Portuguese police closed their case in 2008 but theories about what might have happened to the girl continue to swirl.

Detectives in Britain and Germany said on Wednesday night a 43-year-old German man with a history of child sex abuse was now a prime suspect, raising hopes of a breakthrough.

The parents of Madeleine, known as “Maddie” welcomed a new appeal for information about the suspect in her high profile disappearance, their spokesman said on Thursday.

  
Clarence Mitchell, a spokesman for Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry, told the BBC: “They are grateful and they welcome this appeal.

READ ALSO: German prisoner identified in disappearance of Madeleine McCann

“They have not given up hope of finding Madeleine alive, despite the length of time – they've never given up that hope.

“But they are realistic and they say that whatever the outcome of this appeal and the police work, they do need to know because they need to find peace.”

German suspect lived in the Algarve

The Metropolitan Police in London, which opened its own inquiry in 2013, said on Wednesday the new suspect was identified after a tip-off in 2017.

They alerted their German counterparts and police in Portugal were also contacted.

Madeleine McCann's parents in 2002. Photo: DPA

The man was initially convicted of drug trafficking and in 2019 for raping a senior citizen in Portugal. The convictions took place in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, reported Spiegel Online.

He regularly lived between 1995 and 2007 in the Algarve – the same region as the Praia da Luz resort the girl disappeared from – and did occasional jobs in the area, including in the catering industry, police said.

Police cited two vehicles the suspect was known to have used as well as two phone numbers.

Mitchell echoed British police in calling the suspect's identification “significant”.

“Of all the thousands of leads and potential suspects that have been mentioned in the past or discussed in the media, there has never been something as clear-cut as that from not just one, but indeed now three, police forces,” he said.

British police have insisted they are treating their probe as a missing persons case.

But lead investigator Christian Hoppe told Germany's ZDF television their inquiry had led police to suspect that the man had killed Madeleine.

Mitchell added the family wanted closure.

“They simply want to establish what happened to their daughter, to find out the truth and to bring whoever was responsible for her disappearance to justice,” he said.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

German authorities said Friday they had arrested a 27-year-old Syrian man who allegedly planned an Islamist attack on army soldiers using two machetes in Bavaria.

Published: 13 September 2024 11:17 CEST
Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

SHOW COMMENTS