The individual implicated in the Madeleine McCann investigation has been exonerated from a series of sexual assaults in Portugal that are not connected to the missing British infant.
Known as Christian B under privacy regulations, he had refuted allegations of three rapes and the sexual exploitation of two young girls while residing on the Algarve coast.
During a trial that commenced in February, lead prosecutor Ute Lindemann described the German wanderer as a “sadistic psychopath” and urged the presiding judge to impose a 15-year prison sentence.
She argued that he posed such a significant risk – having prior convictions for rape, child sexual abuse, theft, and fraud – that he should be placed in preventive detention upon completing his sentence.
However, his attorney contended that Christian B was prosecuted for these sex offenses solely because he was a suspect in the abduction of Madeleine, who disappeared from her family’s rental accommodation in Portugal in 2007.
Madeleine McCann vanished in Portugal in 2007. Pic: PA
In his final remarks this week, defense attorney Friedrich Fulscher stated: “This case serves as a lesson regarding the severe repercussions that can arise when public prosecutor’s investigators lose the needed emotional detachment from a case, and this mindset is tragically compounded by inept investigations from a police authority.”
He maintained that Christian B should never have faced charges for the sexual offenses.
Turning to the prosecutor directly, he continued: “Your choice (to prosecute) would likely have differed if the accused were not Christian B, the individual to whom you also assign a crime that has captivated global attention and has cast a shadow over these proceedings.”
Christian B, who alternated between his home country of Germany and Portugal from the 1990s until his arrest and subsequent deportation in 2017, has been the primary suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance for at least seven years.
Hans Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor overseeing the Madeleine inquiry, has previously indicated that he suspects Christian B abducted the three-year-old and that she is deceased.
Nevertheless, the 47-year-old suspect, currently serving a seven-year prison term for the rape of an elderly American woman in Portugal, has not been formally charged concerning Madeleine and denies any role in her disappearance.
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The ongoing trial in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, has been conducted intermittently over the past eight months.
The primary allegation against Christian B involved the rape of Hazel Behan, an Irish holiday worker, in her accommodation at the resort of Praia da Rocha in 2005. She has renounced her right to anonymity.
Ms. Behan was raped multiple times and assaulted by a masked assailant wielding a knife, in a prolonged ordeal that bore striking similarities to the rape for which Christian B is currently incarcerated, as stated by the prosecutor.
However, his attorney asserted that Ms. Behan’s portrayal of her attacker did not align with Christian B’s features, particularly regarding a cross-like mark she claimed to have observed on his right thigh, which he contends does not exist.
Mr. Fulscher suggested that Ms. Behan’s conviction that Christian B was her assailant may have stemmed from the pervasive influence of media coverage concerning his rape conviction.
He accused two key prosecution witnesses, former associates Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth, of fabricating information regarding video recordings they claimed to have seen, allegedly depicting Christian B assaulting an elderly woman and a girl approximately 14 years old in his rented home in Portugal. The video recordings, according to him, were fictitious.
Christian B was also accused of seizing the wrist of a 10-year-old girl and exposing himself in front of her on an Algarve beach, as well as masturbating before another young girl during a festival in a hillside village overlooking the coast.
The five sexual offenses were alleged to have occurred between 2000 and 2017.
With the conclusion of this trial, the Braunschweig prosecutor’s office will face pressure to redirect its focus back to the Madeleine investigation and determine whether to file charges against Christian B concerning her disappearance.
