German Prosecutors Say British Girl Madeleine McCann ‘Assumed Dead’
By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News
(Worthy News) – German prosecutors say British girl Madeleine McCann, whose disappearance in 2007 made world headlines, is “assumed” to be dead.
A 43-year-old German man is being investigated on suspicion of murdering her, the public prosecutor added. “We are assuming that the girl is dead,” stressed Hans Christian Wolters, from the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The British girl went missing in southern Portugal 13 years ago, but Madeleine McCann’s parents still nurtured hope their daughter would be found alive one day.
McCann was three at the time of her disappearance from an apartment while her family vacationed in the seaside town of Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, in 2007.
The suspect in the case, named in German media only as Christian B., is currently serving a prison sentence. “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,” Wolters explained Thursday.
Christian B. was reportedly regularly living in the Algarve area between 1995 and 2007, where he had jobs, including in catering. But he also committed burglaries in hotels and dealt drugs, prosecutors said.
Christian B. was allegedly near the location where Madeleine was last seen while on holiday in Portugal. Police appealed for the public’s help in solving the case after initially announcing they had a new suspect on Wednesday.
Christian B. has also been investigated over the disappearance of a German girl, German media reported.
The five-year-old German girl, named only as Inga, went missing from a family party in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on May 2, 2015, and has never been found, reports said.
Police declined to confirm the investigation or comment on reports that officers searched an area of nearby land belonging to Christian B. in February 2016.
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