The man suspected of kidnapping Madeleine McCann insists he was miles from the scene having sex in his motorhome with a young woman who will back up his alibi.
Christian B says he took the woman to Faro airport, Portugalto catch a flight home the next day and were stopped and photographed at a police checkpoint.
The suspect, a German homeless woman, claims she was arrested at airport security for carrying illegal pepper spray and later appeared in court.
Christian B, as he is known under German privacy laws, believes that the Portuguese police must have a record of those events that will establish his relationship with the young German woman who was on vacation with her parents.
Christian B is suspected in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
German police apparently found a photograph of the woman lying in her motorhome during their investigation into a rape for which 44-year-old Christian B is now serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany.
When he first spoke of his alibi, he was unable to recall the woman’s full name, but it is understood that he has since been able to identify her.
If true, the alibi would contradict vital but circumstantial evidence of cell phone data antennas which police say place him near the apartment where Madeleine disappeared from her bed 15 years ago in Praia da Luz on May 3. from 2007.
According to police, the suspect’s mobile phone was in the village when he received a call between 7:32 p.m. and 8:02 p.m.
Madeleine’s parents said she disappeared between 9 and 10 p.m. Christian B insists that by 10 p.m. she had driven miles along the east coast to Faro.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the Madeleine investigation with Portuguese and British detectives, told Sky News: “I guess if he has something that exonerates him, sooner or later he will share it with us and then we will check it.” What happens then, let’s see.
“So far he hasn’t told us anything, he hasn’t given us an alibi. Therefore, we can only work with the evidence that we have found so far in our investigation. And there was nothing to exonerate him.”
Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007
But German prosecutors never, until two weeks ago, formally interviewed Christian B, a convicted sex offender, even though he has been the prime suspect for more than four years.
They interrogated him on April 21 on behalf of the Portuguese authorities who had just given him an arguidoa formal suspect, for his own purposes to avoid the statute of limitations for serious crimes under Portuguese law.
But as an arguido, Christian B had a right to silence and refused to answer questions about his whereabouts the night Madeleine disappeared.
Madeleine was almost four years old when she disappeared from the family’s rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on the Algarve coast.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were having dinner with friends near the resort and had left her sleeping with her younger twin brothers. They and her friends took turns checking on the sleeping children every half hour.
The McCanns were once suspected in their daughter’s disappearance, but were later cleared of all suspicion. They hold on to the hope that they will still find her alive.
Madeleine’s parents cling to the hope that they find her alive
Portuguese police and UK detectives have investigated, but German authorities took the lead in 2017 when a friend of the suspect told them that Christian B had allegedly claimed to know what had happened to Madeleine.
Said Wolters: “We haven’t really found a single piece of the puzzle in the two years that would have in any way helped exonerate Christian B. So it’s not really anything that could in any way be an alibi or anything like that. None of that has come.” in the light, really anywhere.
“What we found out, it all went in the other direction, so it was quite incriminating, which I can’t elaborate on now.
He added: “However, it is not foreseeable when we will come to an end. So I cannot say that we will definitely conclude the investigations this year. That really also depends on how this plays out.”
Wolters has said in the past that he believed Madeleine was dead, but did not reveal what evidence he had.
He is also investigating Christian B for three other allegations of sexual assault, including the rape of a young Irish woman, Hazel Behan, who was working as a holiday agent in the Algarve in 2004.
She has spoken publicly about being raped in her apartment in Praia da Rocha and waived her right to anonymity.
Reference-news.sky.com