Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B’s campervan spotted by satellite nearby hours after she went missing
MADELEINE McCann cops are today probing newly unearthed satellite pictures of prime suspect Christian B's campervan days after she vanished.
A Spanish investigator has spent days scouring old satellite imagery after the 43-year-old serial child sex beast was identified last week.
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And German police and Scotland Yard have now been sent a picture which could show the roof of the VW Westfalia T3 van parked near his former Praia da Luz home.
The image could prove crucial because it suggests the distinctive van was taken back to open land Christian B was familiar with after living close-by for six years.
But it raises questions over why Christian B returned to the farmhouse just days after Madeleine vanished when he was living in the campervan, not the run-down home.
Imagery shows the white roof of a van of similar dimensions to the VW parked beside a hedge yards from a ramshackle single-storey former farmhouse plot.
He lived there with a German lover from 1999 to 2006, when he did a runner and left the building strewn with debris including wigs and smashed computer gear.
But the picture shows the van appears to have been driven back to the plot - which is surrounded by scrubland littered with deep, abandoned well shafts.
One of the old stone wells is visible a few feet from the van.
The image was captured days after three-year-old Madeleine went missing at the very start of the massive police search.
A Portuguese investigating source said last night: “If that is the van in that spot - so soon after the abduction - the image could be extremely significant.
“He would have known that area well having lived there for six years but he had left the farmhouse months earlier.
“So why did he go back at a time when everyone was looking for missing Madeleine?”
Christian B, now 43, split with his German partner after tempestuous rows at the ramshackle farmhouse.
In June 2014, Scotland Yard detectives - backed by a team of cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar - excavated land 300 yards from the building but unearthed no clues.
But their focus was on ground closer to the main road and it is not clear if they checked the many wells dotted around the landscape.
The beauty spot is also well known to Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry, who regularly jogged around Black Rock after launching the hunt for their daughter in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
Cops are now preparing to dig up land around two Portuguese lairs where he lived.
Locals - who described Christian B as a “quiet, angry weirdo” - say he would have known the area well and believe vital evidence may have been missed.
Spanish investigator Heriberto Janosch Gonzálezfound discovered the picture during a trawl of satellite records last week.
He said: “For the last five days I was looking for evidence concerning the houses and vehicles belonging to Madeleine McCann's crime new suspect Christian B, following Scotland Yard Operation Grange and German Bundeskriminalmat (BKA) appeals.
“I found a NASA satellite photograph taken days after the abduction of Madeleine.
“It shows one of the houses where he lived, and an image totally congruent with the dimensions and colour of the VW Westfalia van that the suspect were using at that time.
“I have passed this information to Operation Grange and German Bundeskriminalmat (BKA) yesterday (Sunday).
“If he is involved in Madeleine McCann abduction, as the police appeals suggested, maybe he carried her to that place, and some evidence or her remains were hidden in that location.
“Will the police search that house and the field around, including the wells?”
Police in Germany fear the drifter, who stole from hotels in Praia da Luz, may have snatched Madeleine after first entering the holiday home to raid it.
Among the growing body of facts linking him to Madeleine's disappearance is he was revealed to be living in a campervan in the area around the time the youngster vanished on May 3, 2007.
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As well as the campervan, the drug dealer and burglar also been linked to a 1993 Jaguar XJR6 with a German number plate seen in Praia da Luz and surrounding areas in 2006 and 2007.
On May 4, 2007 - the day after Madeleine vanished - he got the Jaguar re-registered in Germany under someone else's name although it is believed the vehicle remained in Portugal.
German police believe one of the two vehicles were used in the disappearance of Madeleine.
