He is the main suspect in the disappearance of little Briton Madeleine McCann, a criminal enigma with worldwide repercussions: a 47-year-old German is on trial from Friday February 16 for separate charges of sexual crimes and offenses.
The trial of this man before the Brunswick court, in the north of Germany, will be particularly scrutinized because since his indictment in the
“
Maddie affair
”
, the justice system has remained very discreet about his case.
Referred to by the court as
“Christian B.”
, he will be tried for several months for sexual assaults and rapes committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal.
His designation, in 2020, as the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, was a major moment in this investigation with international ramifications where there were numerous twists and turns, false leads and hypotheses.
“Maddie”
disappeared in 2007 shortly before her fourth birthday at a seaside resort in Portugal.
Christian B. has not been formally charged for the disappearance of the child, but the investigations of the German justice system in this case are at the origin of the trial which opens on Friday, according to Christian Wolters, spokesperson for the prosecution from Brunswick.
“Without the investigation into the Maddie affair, these alleged crimes would not have come to light
,” he told AFP.
Silence of the accused
The accused with the profile of a repeat rapist is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the rape in 2005 of an American woman aged 72 at the time, in Praia da Luz, the same town in the region of Algarve (southern Portugal) where Madeleine McCann disappeared.
In one of the cases for which he will appear this Friday, February 16, he is suspected of having sexually assaulted a 10-year-old German girl on a beach in April 2007, just a few months before the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
In another case, he is accused of exposing himself to an 11-year-old Portuguese child on a playground.
He is also on trial for the rape of a woman in her seventies, tied and beaten in her vacation apartment, of a child of around 14 tied to a wooden post in her house and of a 20-year-old Irish woman in whose home he entered via the balcony.
Christian B.'s lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, assures that his client plans to defend himself by remaining silent, but that this
“does not mean that he has anything to hide”
.
“Guaranteeing a fair trial will be the greatest difficulty: the media's prejudices about the accused are unprecedented
,” Friedrich Fülscher told AFP.
Notes and sketches
Among the incriminating evidence that the prosecution will produce at the trial are witness statements as well as notebooks seized from Christian B., according to Christian Wolters.
These handwritten notes and sketches offer insight into the accused's
“sexual fantasies
,” he says.
Maddie had disappeared from the rental apartment where she was spending a family vacation while her parents were out to dinner nearby.
Her disappearance gave rise to an exceptional international campaign to try to find her.
Photos of the little girl, with her light brown bobbed hair and her large light eyes, went around the world.
The suspicions officially brought to bear on Christian B., almost four years ago, had revived the hope of parents Gerry and Kate McCann that the case would finally progress.
The investigation stalled for years before this man, who lived at the time of the events a few kilometers from the hotel, attracted the attention of the authorities.
In this case, the Portuguese police carried out searches near a water reservoir in the south of Portugal at the end of May 2023, at the request of the German authorities.
“ Elements
”
were discovered, according to the Brunswick public prosecutor's office, which then estimated that it was
“still too early”
to determine whether they were linked to the disappearance of the child.
German investigators, however, claim to have
“concrete evidence”
of Madeleine’s death.