UPDATED: British police plea for help in Madeleine McCann case, German police treating case as murder
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Police are appealing for the public’s help in solving the, after they announced a child sex offender was the new suspect in the Madeleine McCann case.
The 43-year-old German man, who has not been named, is currently in prison on other crimes. The suspect, who is not being named because of German court privacy rules, has been described as white with short blond hair and about 6ft (1.8m) tall with a slim build at the time
He is believed to have been in the area where Madeleine was last seen, when she disappeared in Portugal 13 years ago.
Police have also released photos of two vehicles – a VW camper van and a Jaguar car – which are believed to be linked to the man, as well as a house in Portugal.
An undated handout photo made available by German Federal Criminal Police Office shows a house police mention in connection with the disappearance for missing girl Madeleine McCann, in Portugal, issued 03 June 2020. EPA-EFE/GERMAN FEDERAL CRIMINAL POLICE HANDOUT
Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, felt the latest development was “potentially very significant”, the family’s spokesman said.
Clarence Mitchell, who has represented the family since the three-year-old’s disappearance, said that in 13 years he couldn’t “recall an instance when the police had been so specific about an individual”.
An undated handout photo made available by the German Federal Criminal Police Office shows a Jaguar car which police mention in connection with the disappearance of missing girl Madeleine McCann
The Met Police, who are working with German and Portuguese police, said the case remained a “missing persons” investigation because it does not have “definitive evidence” as to whether Madeleine is alive or not.
An undated handout photo made available by Federal Criminal Police Office shows a Volkswagen (VW) T3 Westfalia camper van which police mention in connection with the disappearance of missing girl Madeleine McCann.
German police in news conference on Thursday about new Madeleine McCann suspect said that they think Madeleine McCann is dead and treating it as a murder case.
“There is reason to assume that there are other persons, apart from the suspect, who have concrete knowledge of the course of the crime and maybe also of the place where the body was left,” said German police.
They added that the suspect is a convicted sex offender and that he is in prison at the moment – having been convicted of the rape of an elderly woman in the Algarve in 2005 – around two years before Madeleine vanished.
The 43-year-old German man, who was not publicly named, lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and burgled hotels and holiday flats as well as trading drugs, German police said.
An undated handout photo made available by German Federal Criminal Police Office shows the interior of a house police mention in connection with the disappearance for missing girl Madeleine McCann, in Portugal.
Madeleine went missing shortly before her fourth birthday from an apartment in Praia da Luz on the evening of 3 May 2007, while her parents were with friends at a nearby tapas bar.
Her disappearance sparked a huge and costly police hunt across much of Europe – the most recent Metropolitan Police investigation, which began in 2011, has cost more than £11m.
