A German prisoner has been identified as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. The parents of the young girl, Kate and Gerry McCann believe this is a potentially significant step in finding out what happened to their daughter.
Madeleine went missing when she was just three-years-old during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007.
German police have called on the public to come forward if they have any relevant information about the prisoner.
He has been described as a 43-year-old white male with short blond hair, 6ft tall with a slim build.
It is believed he was spotted around Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast around the time Madeleine disappeared 13 years ago.
Police say a phone call was made to the prisoner’s mobile phone approximately an hour before the young girl vanished. He has also been linked to an VW T3 Westfalia camper van which was spotted in the Algarve in 2007.
Scotland Yard confirmed that the man was driving the vehicle in the area days before Madeleine’s disappearance.
German police said he has been “sentenced on numerous occasions to prison terms for sexual abuse of children in the past".
Kate and Gerry McCann have promised that they will never give up hope of finding their eldest daughter and they are grateful for the continued investigation. “We couldn’t bear for Madeleine to be forgotten or to become just a ‘story’. She is a real person and still our ‘little girl’ and as we always have, we will endeavour to do whatever it takes to find her.”
