Processes
Expert: Christian B. in the top league of dangerousness
An expert comes to the conclusion that the defendant Christian B. is dangerous. (Archive photo) Photo
© Moritz Frankenberg/dpa-Pool/dpa
The trial against the suspect in the Maddie case is nearing its end. A psychiatric expert comes to a clear assessment of the defendant – but also makes limitations.
The sex offender, who has been convicted several times, is accused of three rapes and two cases of sexual abuse of children, which he is said to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. The trial is attracting a lot of attention primarily because the defendant in the case of three-year-old Madeleine “Maddie” McCann, who disappeared from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007, is suspected of murder. However, Maddie’s case is not the subject of the current proceedings. The presumption of innocence applies.
Not a favorable prognosis
B. is currently serving a prison sentence for raping a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal, to which he was sentenced by the Braunschweig Regional Court in 2019. But he could have served this next year. The probability that B. will then be imprisoned again in the next two years is 30 to 50 percent, said the expert. According to established analysis methods, almost 100 percent of comparable sex offenders have better prognoses than the defendant.
In the event that the court convicts the defendant, the expert recommends that he be placed in preventive detention after imprisonment because almost all of the criteria for this are met. The doctor referred, among other things, to the convictions of Christian B, who was proven to have abused children as a teenager. As the psychiatrist said, the defendant was more concerned with illegal things than legal things in his life. The doctor did not even want to quote in court from texts that were attributed to him. Because what he read in it was, for him, one of the greatest aberrations that he knew.
Process on the home stretch
Without speaking to the defendant himself, the expert could only rely on the main hearing in the Braunschweig courtroom and the prisoner’s personal file. This resulted in arrogant, cynical and rude behavior, which also led to four disciplinary proceedings. According to the file entries, Christian B. considers himself innocent and expects compensation. He is said to have threatened to “finish this prison.” He is said to have described employees of the facility as torturers.
With the expert’s report, the process enters the home stretch. Next Wednesday there is another date for decisions on applications. “From the chamber’s perspective, we had all the witnesses,” said the judge. If there are no surprises, the taking of evidence is about to be completed. Pleas would be possible in the second week of October.
The 47-year-old’s defense attorneys emphasized several times during the trial that, in their view, the defendant would be acquitted of all charges.