Criminal trial against Maddie suspect starts in February

Crime - Criminal trial against Maddie suspect starts in February

This trial is likely to cause a stir in early 2024: The Braunschweig Regional Court has admitted the charges of rape and abuse against the German man who is also a suspect in the Maddie case. The trial against the then 47-year-old is scheduled to begin on February 16.

He is accused of three cases of aggravated rape and two cases of sexual abuse of children. The Braunschweig public prosecutor's office charged him in October 2022.

Body has not been found

The man has been in the spotlight for some time, however, primarily because German investigators suspect him of murder in the case of the missing Maddie from the UK. In June 2020, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the public prosecutor's office surprisingly announced that they assumed that the girl from the UK was no longer alive. However, a body has not yet been found.

Regardless of the indictment, the investigation into the Maddie case continues, the prosecutors have emphasized several times recently. In May 2007, the then three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared from a vacation resort in Praia da Luz in the Algarve. Her parents had left her in the apartment on the evening of May 3, 2007, when they were having dinner with friends in a nearby restaurant. Madeleine's fate has been unknown ever since.

What crimes was he charged with?

The suspect is alleged to have committed the crimes in the current trial between the end of December 2000 and June 2017 in Portugal. He was charged with allegedly tying up and raping an unidentified woman aged between 70 and 80 in her vacation apartment between December 28, 2000 and April 8, 2006. During the same period, he allegedly tied an unidentified German-speaking girl, aged at least 14, naked to a wooden pole, beat her with a whip and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

The German is also alleged to have brutally raped a 20-year-old woman from Ireland on June 16, 2004. He then allegedly tied his victim to a table and raped and whipped her again. He is said to have recorded these acts on video. In addition, in April and June 2007, he allegedly showed himself naked to two girls aged ten and eleven and masturbated in front of them.

The more than 100-page indictment was preceded by several years of intensive and costly investigations in several European countries, primarily by the Federal Criminal Police Office, the public prosecutor's office announced last year. The prosecutors in Braunschweig and the regional court there have jurisdiction because Christian B. had his last German residence in the city in Lower Saxony before his stays abroad.

Seven-year prison sentence

The sex offender, who has already been convicted several times, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Oldenburg for the rape of a US-American woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005. The regional court in Braunschweig had already sentenced him to this in December 2019. According to earlier information from the public prosecutor's office, the accused would have served the full sentence in September 2025.

"The defendant has so far remained silent about the allegations," said his defense lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, on Thursday regarding the renewed indictment. In procedural terms, this silence is tantamount to a blanket denial, he told dpa. Despite massive prejudices in public, he hopes for a fair trial for his client. "My co-defense lawyers and I will spare no effort and no conflict to ensure this," said Fülscher.

As a youth protection chamber, the second criminal chamber admitted the charges on suspicion of crimes against sexual self-determination, the regional court said. The court went on to say that it would only be clarified in the main proceedings whether the allegations were true or not. Every person charged with a criminal offense is considered innocent until proven guilty by law. So far, 29 dates have been scheduled until the end of June.