The Portuguese public prosecutor's office is pressing ahead with its investigation into the "Maddie" case.
A German suspect was officially accused, said the public prosecutor in Portimão on Thursday.
She did not provide any information about the identity of the accused.
Maddie McCann disappeared from her family's home at a holiday resort on Portugal's southern Algarve coast on May 3, 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday, while her parents were having dinner at a restaurant.
Despite large-scale international searches, the case was never solved, and to this day there is no trace of the girl.
In June 2020, there was a surprising turn of events: the public prosecutor's office in Braunschweig announced that they were investigating the murder of the German Christian B.
He has a criminal record for sex offenses and lived regularly in the Algarve from 1995 to 2007.
Suspect already in custody several times
The suspect's lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, told the "Bild" newspaper on Thursday: "The step taken by the Portuguese authorities should not be overestimated." statute of limitations” in Portugal.
A spokesman for the Oldenburg public prosecutor's office confirmed to the newspaper that a request for legal assistance had been received from Portugal.
B. is currently serving a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman.
He was extradited from Portugal to Germany in 2017 on the basis of a European arrest warrant for child sexual abuse.
After serving a prison sentence, he left Germany in 2018, but was extradited again a year later by Italy.
The basis was a second European arrest warrant that had been issued for a drug-related offence.