Suspect in the Madeleine McCann case fails before the ECJ

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European Court of Justice (archive image): Defeat for Christian B.

Photo: Arne Immanuel Bänsch / DPA

The suspect in the Madeleine McCann case failed in his attempt to get his release before the highest European court.

The subsequent expansion of a European arrest warrant from 2018 against the man was legal, ruled the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.

For the German judiciary, the judge's verdict means that the Braunschweig Regional Court was able to convict the 43-year-old German Christian B. in December 2019 for raping an American woman.

He committed this act in Portugal in 2005.

Christian B. had demanded that this judgment be overturned: the European arrest warrant issued by Germany was issued due to other criminal offenses;

the Portuguese judiciary had also not consented to prosecution.

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) as the highest German criminal court submitted the case to the ECJ.

B. was arrested in Italy in 2018.

The Italian judiciary agreed to an extradition to Germany - both because of the original reasons for the European arrest warrant and because of the rape case brought in later.

The European Court of Justice found that the country that executed the arrest warrant decides on the extradition.

In this case, then, all that matters is the consent of Italy.

The judicial authorities of the EU countries agreed on this procedure in 2002.

According to the Luxembourg judges, the Portuguese right of objection only related to another European arrest warrant from 2016. However, this was done: B. was convicted in Germany for the offense committed in Portugal and had served the sentence.

Then he left Germany voluntarily for the Netherlands and Italy.

The German authorities had filed for the second and still valid European arrest warrant from 2018, because B. was supposed to serve another sentence from 2011.

The regional court of Braunschweig sentenced Christian B. to seven years' imprisonment for raping the 72-year-old in Portugal.

If B. fails with his appeal before the BGH, the judgment becomes final.

He is currently serving a prison sentence for drug trafficking in Kiel.

B. is also suspected of kidnapping the then three-year-old Madeleine McCann from a holiday resort in Portugal in 2007.

The investigators in Germany are convinced that the child is dead.

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bbr / dpa / AFP