German police investigating new Madeleine McCann suspect over third missing child
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German police are said to be investigating the new Madeleine McCann suspect for possible involvement in the disappearance of a boy in Portugal in 1996.
They are re-examining the disappearance of Rene Hasee, according to German media.
The then six-year-old from Elsdorf, Germany, went missing from a beach while on holiday with his family in the Portuguese Algarve.
It follows the launch of an investigation into whether the suspect was involved in the disappearance of another child – Inga Gehricke.
The five-year-old vanished during a family barbecue in the Saxony-Anhalt region on 2 May 2015.
She is thought to have wandered into a forest in search of firewood and is known by German media as “the German Maddie”.
Officers have named the suspect – a convicted child sex offender – only as Christian B and have not revealed his surname for legal reasons.
Christian B is currently in a German prison serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal 15 years ago. He was convicted of the offence at Braunschweig District Court in December last year.
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her bedroom on 3 May 2007 during a family holiday in the Algarve, Portugal, while her parents were dining with friends nearby in the resort of Praia da Luz.
German police said he lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007.
He became a suspect in the Madeleine case after police were tipped off by a man who claimed Christian B had indicated he was responsible for her abduction.
