Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B could be free by NEXT WEEK thanks to new parole bid
THE prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann could be out of prison on parole by next week.
Prosecutors in Germany are fighting to keep paedo Christian B inside after his lawyers filed a request for him to be freed after serving two-thirds of a 21-month drug rap sentence.
They fear he could flee the country — leaving them unable to pursue him through the courts.
His lawyers last week applied to a court in Kiel, where he is in jail, requesting his parole.
However, it was sent to another court in Braunschweig where he lived for them to decide.
Now it has been passed to Germany’s Federal Court in Karlsruhe for consideration and officials are expected to decide within the next week if he should be released.
Drifter Christian B, 43, was sentenced to 21 months in 2011 for his part in a drugs trafficking ring that supplied marijuana to VIP clients.
Prosecutors announced this month that the convicted paedophile and rapist was the prime suspect for three-year-old Madeleine’s 2007 abduction in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and said they have concrete evidence she is dead.
A source close to the German investigation said: “If the superior court decides to free him then it will severely impact the case.
“He could vanish and then we will not be able to put him on trial. We are fighting for him to be kept in court.”
Christian B's legal team are also in the European Court of Justice where they are claiming there was a breach of European Arrest Warrant regulations when he was extradited from Italy to Germany.
He was flown back in 2018 on a warrant which was issued for the 2011 drugs offence.
Christian B could vanish and then we will not be able to put him on trial.
But he was subsequently put on trial and convicted of raping a 72-year-old American woman at her villa in Praia da Luz in 2005.
He was sentenced to seven years in December.
But because he is appealing against the rape conviction, under German law the sentence is yet to be imposed.
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Christian B has a long history of appalling crimes. He was still a teenager when he was jailed in Germany for molesting a six-year-old.
On his release in 1996 aged 19, he fled Germany but is thought to have committed further crimes, including burglaries and sexual assaults, abroad.
In 2006 — the year before Madeleine vanished from parents Kate and Gerry’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz — Christian was jailed in Portugal for 8½ months for stealing diesel.
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