Status: 04/22/2022 1:49 p.m
The Portuguese public prosecutor’s office is pressing ahead with its investigation into the “Maddie” case. A German suspect is now officially accused. Presumably it is the imprisoned Christian B.
In the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in 2007, the Portuguese public prosecutor’s office has declared one person a “formal suspect”. The public prosecutor’s office in the southern Portuguese region of Faro did not give a name in a statement published on the Internet. However, she emphasized that German authorities had acted on the basis of an international request for legal assistance from the Portuguese public prosecutor.
Suspect presumably Christian B.
Portuguese and British media assume that it is the 45-year-old German who is currently in custody in Germany. The then three-year-old British girl disappeared from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007 while her parents were having dinner at a restaurant. Despite large-scale international searches, the case was never solved, and to this day there is no trace of the girl. The case made headlines around the world.
In June 2020, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Braunschweig public prosecutor announced that the imprisoned Christian B. was suspected of murder in the case. The 45-year-old is currently serving a several-year prison sentence in Oldenburg for raping a woman in 2005 in her house near Praia da Luz.
Formal step due to statute of limitations
The formal designation of a person as a suspect does not constitute an indictment, but is a prerequisite for one. Because the measure interrupts, among other things, the statute of limitations, which occurs after 15 years under Portuguese law for murder. Since the girl disappeared from the apartment complex in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, the statute of limitations would have expired in a few days.