Kate & Gerry Mccann: ‘Maddie May No Longer Be Alive'

A German man has been identified as a suspect in the case of the missing toddler

- April Glover and Stephen Downie

The German prisoner identified as a suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann has been on the police’s radar for years, New Idea understands.

The German national was known to be “in and around” the area of Praia de Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast around the time 3-year-old Maddie went missing on May 3, 2007. He lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007 and has two prior convictions relating to “sexual contact” with under-age girls.

Portuguese police have named the suspect as 43-year-old Christian Brueckner.

Robbyn Swan, who co-wrote Looking for Madeleine with husband Anthony Summers, exclusively tells New Idea Portuguese police eliminated Brueckner as a suspect years ago. “There seems to have been some back and forth with this suspect for quite some time. If reports out of Portugal can be believed, the original Portuguese police investigation looked at this man and eliminated him as a suspect,” Robbyn explains.

“The Portuguese, who have been working on the case more recently in 2012 and onward with British and German police, took this as a very serious lead and passed [it] onto [the]Brits as a person of interest to be followed up on.”

Robbyn added: “They have registered some surprise it wasn’t followed up on sooner.”

In another breakthrough in the 13-year-old case, prosecutors believe Maddie is dead and are treating the case as a homicide. “The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig is investigating a 43-year-old German national on suspicion of murder,” Braunschweig state prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said.