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CRIME

15 years on, Portugal eyes German suspect in missing Maddie case

Almost 15 years after British toddler Madeleine McCann went missing while on holiday, Portuguese authorities have followed German prosecutors and declared a convicted German rapist the prime suspect in her disappearance.

Published: 23 April 2022 10:09 CEST
A note asks journalists not to enter in the house where a German suspect, related to the Madeleine McCann case, was living when the three-year-old girl disappeared 
In this file photo taken on June 5, 2020 a note asks journalists not to enter in the house where a German suspect, related to the Madeleine McCann case, was living when the three-year-old girl disappeared in 2007, near Lagos, Portugal. A man has been declared an official suspect in Germany at Portugal's request in connection with Maddie's disappearance. CARLOS COSTA / AFP

Portuguese public prosecutors announced late Thursday that a man had been named as an “arguido”, or formal suspect in the high-profile case.

While they did not name the suspect, it is understood to be Christian B., the same person German prosecutors in Brunswick are investigating on suspicion of murdering “Maddie”.

No charges have been brought yet against Christian B. in either country however, and no body has been found.

Christian B.’s lawyer, Friedrich Fuelscher, told AFP the Portuguese announcement “should not be overrated”.

He said the “arguido” move appeared to be linked to Portugal’s 15-year statute of limitation for certain crimes.

 “I assume that the statute of limitations was interrupted by this step,” Fuelscher said.

Brunswick prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters also suggested the step was a formality and unlikely to indicate a major breakthrough in the Portuguese probe.

 “Portugal apparently by now also sees reason to suspect” Christian B., Wolters said.

But he said he would be “surprised” if the Portuguese probe was further along than the German one.

Portuguese prosecutors said they were working “in cooperation with English and German authorities”.

Christian B. is currently serving a seven-year sentence in Oldenburg, northern Germany, for raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in 2005.

Madeleine McCann, then aged three, went missing from the same seaside resort on May 3, 2007.

Her disappearance sparked a huge manhunt and an international media frenzy, with photographs of Maddie plastered across billboards and news bulletins.

Maddie’s parents Gerry and Kate were at one point also declared “arguidos” in the Portuguese investigation, before the status was lifted for both of them.

Criminal past
The latest step “is related to the statute of limitations”, agreed ex-police inspector Goncalo Amaral, who led the inquiry into Maddie’s disappearance in Portugal in 2007.

“It’s a procedural trick by the public prosecutors,” he said.

Amaral was sued by Kate and Gerry McCann over a 2008 book in which he accused them of concealing her body after she died accidentally.

Portuguese police shelved their controversial investigation — which saw Amaral sacked — in 2008, but reopened it five years later citing “new elements”.

British police opened their own inquiry in July 2013, but on-site excavations in Praia da Luz yielded no evidence.

The case appeared to have gone cold until Brunswick prosecutors made the stunning revelation in June 2020 that they were certain Maddie was dead and that they believed Christian B. killed her.

READ ALSO: ‘Concrete evidence’ that Madeleine McCann is dead, says German prosecutor

Christian B. was at that time already serving a jail sentence for drug trafficking in Kiel, northern Germany.

He has a long criminal history including sex offences and convictions for child sexual abuse.

Christian B. lived just a few kilometres (miles) away from Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region at the time Maddie vanished from her family’s holiday accommodation, according to Brunswick prosecutors.

Wolters said his team was currently also investigating Christian B. on suspicion of raping an Irish woman in 2004 and over suspected cases of child abuse in Portugal.

Wolters said he hoped to complete those probes soon, while the Maddie investigation “could take a while longer”. 

READ ALSO: German police resume Maddie McCann allotment search

   

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CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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