Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B DROPS bid to be freed from jail early after ‘losing faith’ in German justice system
THE Madeleine McCann suspect last night dropped his bid to be freed from prison early claiming he is “losing faith” in the justice system.
It came hours after cops investigating the Brit youngster’s disappearance dug up an allotment just four miles from Christian B’s former home.
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The convicted rapist and paedo, 43, applied for early release from a 21-month drugs trafficking sentence eight weeks ago, and was eligible after serving two thirds of his sentence.
His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher had filed the request but told a German press agency on Tuesday evening: ”My client had withdrawn his request.
“He has lost faith in the judicial system.”
It comes after evidence bags are believed to have been removed from the garden in Hanover, Germany, yesterday.
Forensic officers and sniffer dogs were seen hunting through the allotment for clues – with an underground tunnel at the centre of the dig.
Christian B was already due for parole after being given time off for good behaviour from a 21 month sentence imposed by a German court in 2018.
But he has now withdrawn the application for early release and will stay caged until late January next year.
A seven year jail term for the 2005 rape of an elderly American widow in Praia da Luz is due to kick in then.
Lawyers have appealed against that conviction on a technicality and the European Court of Justice is due to rule soon.
A legal source said this evening: “[His] legal team appear to be focussing on getting him cleared of the rape while resisting all moves to implicate him of involvement in the McCann case.
“This puts a clear marker down – police have six months to get enough evidence to charge him over Madeleine, or he walks.”
Forensics have been probing land between Hanover-Ahlem and Seelze-Letter since 5.30am yesterday.
Locals said up to 100 police officers have been at the scene.
Two red mini-excavators dug up the plot — which is four miles from the fiend’s former home and two miles from a car workshop where he used to work.
Ground-penetrating radars scoured the decades-old tunnels, where prisoners were forced to labour in World War Two.
An unnamed source told the newspaper Bild Christian B had once lived on the garden site in his caravan.
One local said he was often seen at the allotment in his distinctive yellow and white VW Camper van – the subject of a previous cop appeal.
Christian B's timeline of crime:
CHRISTIAN B was a career criminal and repeat sex offender who lived in Portugal when Madeleine went missing in 2007.
1976: Born, probably in Bavaria, Germany.
1992: Some minor crimes before a string of thefts.
1994: On trial for the first time, aged 17, for child sex abuse and sentenced to two years.
1995: Got out early and started dealing drugs.
1996: Goes to Portugal with his then girlfriend. Thought to have been living between Germany and the Algarve from as early as the mid-1990s.
1999: Arrested in Portugal and extradited to Germany, where he serves a youth sentence.
2005: He ties up, rapes and robs an American woman, 72, in her home near Praia da Luz, but is not caught.
2006: Lives in a bungalow about two miles from the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz. In this year, thieves steal a camera showing a brutal rape and attack, which eventually leads the police to him.
2007: Christian B lives in a VW T3 camper van near one of the McCann’s favourite beaches. A 1993 Jaguar saloon with German plates, owned by him, has its registration swapped on May 4 — the day after Madeleine’s disappearance.
2010: Returned to Hanover in Germany and began living in a caravan while working in a car repair shop.
2011: District court in Niebüll, Germany, gives him a suspended sentence for drug dealing which is later activated and he is jailed.
2013: He sexually abuses another child, it is claimed.
2014: Christian B is in Braunschweig, Germany, where he claimed to be starting a business.
2016: Braunschweig district court gives him a year and three months jail for “sexually abusing a child in the act of procuring and possessing child pornography”.
2017: From June he is held on pre-trial remand over child pornography charges before being jailed in July. Christian B is convicted of assault.
2018: He is released in August, but is homeless. Police monitor him but then German authorities have him arrested in Milan in September after he flees to Italy. He is jailed for drug offences. He is then jailed for rape.
2019: He is hit with another prison sentence for violation of the Narcotics Act and then charged with the 2005 rape of the 72-year-old American in Praia da Luz. Now 43, he is jailed for seven years.
2020: While in prison he is hit with another jail sentence for drug offences.
The public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig told The Sun Online the action was linked to the probe into Madeleine, who vanished in Portugal 13 years ago.
In a statement, prosecutor Julia Meyer said: “I can confirm that the search is in connection with our Madeleine McCann investigation.
“However, I will not comment on the background and aim of this action or the status of the ongoing investigations.”
Christian B, 43, was identified last month as being the prime suspect in her abduction.
German police have repeatedly said with confidence they know Madeleine in dead, and they believe Christian B is their man.
He lived in Hanover in 2010 after living in Portugal and began living in a caravan and working in a car repair shop before being convicted of forgery of documents that same year.
Hanover’s district court sentenced Christian B for falsifying documents in 2010, and then three years later he was sentenced for a joint theft.
Madeleine is believed to have been snatched from the Ocean Club apartment where she was sleeping alongside her twin siblings Sean and Amelie on May 3, 2007, in Praia du Luz.
Described as a “twisted loner”, the sex offender is understood to have been a kind of drifter around the resort at the time.
Madeleine would have turned 17 last month, and the family have described the identification of Christian B as “potentially very significant”.
