AN urgent arrest warrant has been issued for the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann – over three rapes and a child sex abuse case.
Authorities in Germany said they have issued the new warrant in separate cases for Christian B, 45, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he also committed in Portugal in 2005.
His prison term is scheduled to end in September 2025.
Concerned that he might be released before standing trial again, prosecutors in the northern city of Braunschweig announced last month that they had charged the 45-year-old in five separate cases.
He was charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of the sexual abuse of children, in alleged crimes spanning 17 years between 2000 and 2017.
They include an assault on a ten-year-old girl just 26 days before Madeleine vanished from Praia da Luz, seven miles away.
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The Braunschweig state court said it has approved an arrest warrant on the grounds that there is urgent reason to believe he was behind three cases of serious rape and two cases of child sexual abuse.
The arrest warrant must still be approved by authorities in Italy, where he was arrested in 2018 before being extradited to Germany.
The Braunschweig court has said a decision on whether to send the case to trial a necessary step in the German legal process is still pending.
Due to its calendar of other cases, the opening of any trial cannot be expected before next year, it said.
The convicted paedo has not been charged in the McCann case, in which he remains under investigation on suspicion of murder.
He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine's disappearance in 2007.
He has denied any involvement in her case.
Authorities have said the paedo remains a prime suspect in Madeleine’s case.
Detectives hope to charge him with Madeleine McCann’s abduction and murder later this year.
Sources revealed that “a concrete case” is being built against him and detectives are looking to bring charges by the end of the year.
The paedo is currently in Germany’s Oldenburg jail serving seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old woman at Praia da Luz in September 2005.
Last month Christian B was charged with the rape of an elderly woman at some point between December 2000 and April 2006.
The second rape allegation was an attack on a 20-year-old Irish woman at her holiday apartment in Praia da Rocha.
The third rape charge — which appears to be supported by video evidence — relates to a sex attack on a teen between December 2000 and April 2006.
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He is accused of taking the German-speaking girl, “aged at least 14”, to his apartment in Praia da Luz where he tied her up.
The fifth charge brought against him relates to an attack on an 11-year-old girl in São Bartolomeu de Messines, near a snail festival popular with families.
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