The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been released from German prison.
German drifter Christian B, 48, who cannot be fully identified under German privacy laws, is thought by investigators to have kidnapped and murdered Madeleine, but he hasn’t been charged and denies any involvement.
He was let out of Sehnde prison near Hannover on Wednesday after being fitted with an electronic ankle tag, and has been told he must surrender his passport and register his permanent address with probation officers.
But what was he in prison for and why is he the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case?
What was Christian B in prison for?
He was serving a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.
The offence took place at the victim’s flat in Praia da Luz – the same town Madeleine disappeared from two years later on 3 May 2007, and where Christian B lived.
He was first arrested for raping the woman in 2018 and then convicted in 2019, but he already had a history of violent sexual crimes.
He was given a two-year prison sentence in Germany in 1994 for a sex attack on a six-year-old girl, before moving to Portugal with his then girlfriend in 1995 following his release.
The rapist moved back to Germany in 2007, soon after Madeleine’s disappearance, when the town became the focus of global media attention.
Back in Germany, he lived in the city of Braunschweig, where he ran a kiosk between 2013 and 2016.
In 2016 he was sentenced to one year and three months for “abusing a child in the act of procuring himself and possessing child pornography”.
By June 2017 he had been sent back to prison, this time on a 15-month sentence for sexually abusing a child. He also has convictions for theft, drug trafficking and forgery.
In October 2022, prosecutors charged him with five further sexual offences unrelated to the McCann case, but they were later dropped by a court in Germany.
How did Christian B become a suspect?
He was first made a key suspect by German police in Madeleine’s disappearance in June 2020, in a move her parents Kate and Gerry McCann called “the most significant development in 13 years”.
Police said they believed he may have broken into an apartment in the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz – where Madeleine was on holiday with her family – before spontaneously kidnapping her.
He had lived in a ramshackle old farm opposite a footpath that runs from above the beach where Madeleine and her family played during their week’s holiday in 2007.
The suspect left the rented property a year before Madeleine disappeared, but police think he then lived out of an early 1980s VW camper van, regularly going between Portugal and Germany.
The van, which he is believed to have been dealing drugs from, was pictured in the Algarve in 2007 – a key piece of police evidence.
They said his phone located him in the area near where Madeleine went missing, and he received a 30-minute call an hour before her parents said she disappeared.
As Christian B was named, German prosecutors said they believed Madeleine was dead and police were treating her disappearance as a murder investigation.
Christian B allegedly confessed in a bar
When they named him as a key suspect, German prosecutors revealed Christian B was alleged to have confessed to his part in Madeleine’s disappearance to a man in a bar in 2017.
They were sitting in a German bar when a news report about Madeleine’s disappearance came on TV, it is claimed.
Christian B allegedly said something to suggest he was responsible for her going missing.
Later, he allegedly showed his companion a video of himself raping the 72-year-old victim in 2005.
That prompted the informant to call German police to alert them to the suspect. At that time, he was already in prison in Germany and being investigated for alleged child sex abuse crimes.
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Since becoming a suspect, Christian B has denied confessing, and maintained his innocence over Madeleine’s disappearance.
Searches relating to Christian B end without new evidence
In recent years, police searches were revived in areas traced to Christian B.
Portuguese investigators started a new search of the Arade Dam, 31 miles from the McCann’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, after “certain tip-offs” in 2023.
It had already been scoured by private investigators in 2008, but police decided to conduct the first active search in the case for 10 years after it was revealed Christian B allegedly visited the reservoir regularly with his drug dealer, describing it as his “paradise”.
Another major search followed in June this year, this time in the east of Praia da Luz, close to where Madeleine was last seen and near the former home of Christian B.
Around 30 German officers, including forensic experts, scoured more than 20 plots of land, with Portuguese police also on the ground – but nothing was found.
Refusing to speak to British police
Christian B remains a suspect in the Metropolitan Police’s investigation of Madeleine’s disappearance, as well as with German and Portuguese authorities.
The rapist has refused to be interviewed by the Met Police over the toddler’s disappearance, Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell revealed on Monday.
“We have requested an interview with this German suspect but, for legal reasons, this can only be done via an International Letter of Request which has been submitted,” he said.
“It was subsequently refused by the suspect. In the absence of an interview, we will nevertheless continue to pursue any viable lines of inquiry.”
‘A risk of reoffending’
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who leads the Madeleine investigation, recently told Sky News he had “almost” enough evidence to charge the suspect, but could not justify arresting him and stopping him from being freed.
He said: “We do consider him very dangerous and assume there is a risk of reoffending.”
He said he had not ruled out the chance of charging Christian B: “At the moment, we still have lines of investigation we are pursuing, and we hope we may gain more evidence or indications.
“If that happens, our situation would, of course, improve, and we would prefer to go to court with that stronger position.”
Philipp Marquort, one of Christian B’s lawyers, said his strict release conditions were “an attempt by the public prosecutor’s office to keep him in a kind of pre-trial detention where they would have access to him at any time,” adding they would “not accept that”.
