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There is currently no prospect of the suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance facing charges, the German prosecutor investigating him has admitted.
It emerged in 2020 that prosecutors in Germany were investigating a man named locally as Christian B in connection with the murder of the British child, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Algarve while on holiday with her family in May 2007.
Christian B had been known to authorities, but did not become a suspect until information was received as a consequence of a 2017 appeal, according to Scotland Yard, which still considers the case a missing person inquiry because there is no “definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who has been leading the investigation, told the BBC in 2020 that he believed the public would reach the same conclusion over Christian B’s alleged involvement if they “knew the evidence we had”, but has never made this alleged evidence public.
However, Mr Wolters has now warned that there is no current prospect of Christian B facing an indictment, as he admitted that he is still trying to find forensic evidence linking him to Madeleine’s disappearance.
“There is currently no prospect of an indictment in the Maddie case,” Mr Wolters told Sky News. “As things stand, the accused Christian B’s imprisonment will end in early September.”
The suspect – who has always denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, and insists he was miles from the Praia da Luz resort on the night she went missing – is already in prison in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.
Christian B has previously been convicted for sexually abusing children and is thought to have lived on and off in the Algarve region between 1995 and 2007. He is alleged to have confessed to a friend that he had knowledge of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Following Mr Wolters’ latest comments, Philipp Marquort – one of Christian B’s defence lawyers – told Sky News: “This confirms the suspicions that we have repeatedly expressed, namely that there is no reliable evidence against our client.
“We regret that we have not yet been granted access to the investigation files. We have not yet been able to effectively counter the public prejudice arising from statements made by the prosecutor’s office.”
The Independent has approached Mr Marquort for further comment.
In a separate trial in October, Brueckner was acquitted after facing three charges of aggravated rape and two of sexual abuse of children that took place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
Prosecutors had argued for the German national to be handed a 15-year sentence and placed under preventive detention, whereby particularly dangerous prisoners are not released even if they have served their sentence.
But the judge ruled the evidence against him was “insufficient”, and his lawyer Friedrich Fülscher argued that he should be acquitted, questioning the veracity of witness statements and telling the court: “The trial should never have taken place.”
Madeleine was just three years old when she disappeared from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz on 3 May 2007 while her parents were dining with friends nearby.
Last May, Madeleine’s family said they were still “living in limbo” as they marked 17 years since her disappearance.
Speaking to Sky News following Mr Wolters’ remarks, Jim Gamble, a former head of the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, said the German prosecutor has “implied the whole way through that he has something more than the public are aware of”.
“He’s made fairly definitive statements about whether Madeleine is alive or dead so you would expect their strategy to have been to charge him sooner rather than later,” said Mr Gamble.
“From what he’s said today I wonder if we’re witnessing the re-positioning of something to manage the disappointment that’ll come.”
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