- Maddie McCann, 3, disappeared in May 2007 while on vacation in Praïa da Luz, Portugal with her parents.
- For thirteen years, the investigators never discovered the secret of his disappearance despite the examination of ten tracks.
- On Wednesday evening, the public prosecutor's office in Brunswick (Germany) announced that it had identified a new suspect: a repeat pedophile currently imprisoned for another case.
The feelings are necessarily mixed. On the one hand, the hope of knowing what happened. On the other, the fear of discovering the horror. Thirteen years after the facts, the investigation into the disappearance in Portugal of the small Maddie McCann, 3 years, knew a rebound, Wednesday evening, with the identification of a German suspect of 43 years revealed by the parquet floor of Brunswick ( Lower Saxony), in northern Germany.
The investigation was opened into a qualification of murder. "From there, you can understand that we think the little girl is dead," said a spokesman for the prosecution, in words reported by The Guardian .
Supported by his counterparts from the Metropolitan Police in London, the German authorities have launched a call for witnesses to find out more about this man who is presented as a repeat pedophile and who is currently serving a prison sentence "for another case". 20 Minutes takes stock of the situation…
What do we know about this new suspect?
In a short video statement posted on Twitter, the head of the Metropolitan police in London (England) explains that the suspect is a 43-year-old German "white man". According to the evidence collected, in 2007, he was 1.80 m tall and had short blond hair.
#MadeleineMcCann | Significant Investigative Update
Suspect identified as 43yo German man. We reveal 2 vehicles suspect is known to have used around the time of Madeleine's disappearance & phone numbers relevant to investigation.
📽️ | DCI Cranwell appeals for public assistance
In a statement released Wednesday evening, the Brunswick prosecutor's office said that he was a "sex offender who had been convicted several times, including for sexual abuse of children". He is currently incarcerated in Germany for another case.
What are the clues that link him to the disappearance of Maddie?
Maddie McCann disappeared, during the evening of May 3, 2007, while her parents lived in a hotel complex in Praïa da Luz, in the Algarve region of Portugal. She stayed in the hotel complex's bedroom to sleep with her two other brothers while their parents went out to dinner nearby.
However, the Brunswick prosecutor's office revealed that the new suspect "regularly" lived in this Portuguese region between 1995 and 2007, in particular in a house located near Praïa da Luz. According to German investigators, he worked several odd jobs in the region, notably in catering. But he also reportedly made a living from petty theft by robbing hotels and vacation homes or by being involved in drug trafficking.
According to the BBC, the investigators would have acquired the certainty that this man was in the area of the disappearance of the little girl by studying the telephony. He would have received a thirty-minute call between 7:32 p.m. and 8:02 p.m., just before she disappeared.
What is this new call to witness based on?
The investigators launched a new appeal to try to have more information on the potential implication of this new suspect. They are particularly interested in the two vehicles used by the suspect at the material time: a white and yellow Volkswagen T3 Westfalia van with a Portuguese license plate and a dark Jaguar XJR 6 that carried a German license plate registered in Augsburg, Bavaria . The police even ask everyone who took a vacation in the area to look at their photos from the time to see if one of their vehicles is not in the background.
The investigators also and especially seek the person who was on the phone with him shortly before the facts. To do this, they broadcast the suspect's number at the time (+351 912 730 680) and the number from the telephone that called him (+ 351 916 510 683).
How did the girl's parents react?
A time implicated in the disappearance, Maddie's parents indicated, via their spokesperson, that they had never "lost hope of finding her" but that they were "realistic", 13 years after her disappearance in this Praïa da Luz hotel complex (Portugal). "They need to know to find peace," added their spokesperson.
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