process
Second attempt: Reading of charges against Maddie suspect
After a delay, the charges against Christian B. are now to be read out on the second day of the trial. photo
© Julian Stratenschulte/dpa Pool/dpa
The trial against Christian B. will continue at the Braunschweig regional court on Friday. After a scandal surrounding a female lay judge dominated at the start, the focus is now on the actual allegations.
A scandal over a biased lay judge prevented the reading of the charges at the start of the trial against Christian B. – on the second day of the trial on Friday, the focus will now be on the allegations against the multiple-convicted sex offender. The 47-year-old German is accused of three rapes and two cases of sexual abuse of children in Portugal at the Braunschweig regional court. The man is in focus because he is in the case Maddie is suspected of murder.
After just a few minutes of negotiation time last week, the criminal trial is scheduled to continue from 9 a.m. The indictment didn’t even come about last Friday because the defense filed a motion for bias against the honorary judge. She has now been excluded from the trial. An investigation was initiated against her on suspicion of publicly inciting crimes, as the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office announced upon request. The woman is said to have spread a call to kill former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on social media.
The reading of the charges is now scheduled for the second day of the trial. In October 2022, the public prosecutor’s office presented an indictment of more than 100 pages after investigations in several European countries. Among other things, the defendant is said to have raped a then 20-year-old from Ireland in her apartment. All acts are said to have occurred between December 2000 and June 2017. “Witnesses have not yet been called for this Friday,” said a court spokeswoman.
The defense is seeking an acquittal for Christian B. “The public prosecutor’s office has not yet presented me with anything that could make me doubt his innocence,” said lawyer Friedrich Fülscher. “I think the evidence on which these charges are based is simply ludicrous,” he said publicly before the trial began. He also spoke of media prejudice.
The trial is arousing great interest because the 47-year-old is suspected of murder in the case of Madeleine McCann, known as Maddie, who disappeared from a Portuguese holiday resort in 2007. German investigators believe Maddie is dead, even though her body was never found. The case of the missing, then three-year-old British girl caused horror around the world, but is not the subject of the current trial in Braunschweig.