Madeleine McCann: Suspect Christian B moved to own prison cell over safety fears

The suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has been moved into a single jail cell for his own protection.

As police re-examine more unsolved murder and rape investigations, the prison authorities fear for Christian B‘s safety.

He is currently serving sentences for drugs and rape in Kiel prison in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s most northern state.

The state’s justice minister, Claus Christian Claussen, said: “He is in a single cell for Christian B’s safety and security against possible attacks from other inmates.”

Christian B, a 43-year-old German drifter, has applied for parole after completing two-thirds of his drugs sentence.

His lawyer says he has behaved well in prison.

A judge’s parole decision is expected early next week, but it is understood the state prosecutor and the jail authorities are opposing his release.

He is also challenging the legality of his extradition from Italy in 2018, which led to his arrest, conviction and seven-year sentence for the rape of an elderly American woman in Portugal in 2005.

Christian B, as he is known under Germany’s privacy code, is the prime suspect in what the German authorities say is a murder investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in 2007.

The German prosecutor in his home town of Braunschweig says he has evidence that Madeleine is dead – but will not say what the evidence is.

He told Sky News this week: “All the facts say she is dead, there is no chance she is still alive.”

The former landlady of Christian B’s favourite bar in Braunschweig, where he ran a corner shop kiosk, has urged the suspect to tell police what he knows of Madeleine’s disappearance.

Brigitte Szegedi said: “My heart was broken when I see the picture of Christian B in this kiosk.

“When I saw the first picture of Christian I felt a shiver through my whole body.

“I wish for Madeleine’s family the case can be solved. They need to know what he’s done.

“Whenever they talk to him, he should tell them exactly what happened.”

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Claus-Peter Erdmann, the caretaker of a nearby apartment block, said: “Every morning the kids came to me and they said we’ve been to Christian and he gave us presents.

“Then I went to him and said: ‘Christian, the kids are always happy that you give them gifts,’ and he said: ‘yeah, chewing gum or gummy bears’.”

The suspicions around Christian B are growing every day as police forces dust of their files and re-examine unsolved cases.

Belgian authorities have re-opened their investigation into the murder of German teenager Carola Titze whose body washed up on a Belgian beach 24 years ago.

Phil Kerton believes Christian B might have been involved in the disappearance of his daughter Louise, who vanished in Germany 19 years ago.

Student nurse Louise, from New Ash Green, Kent, had visited her boyfriend’s family as she awaited exam results, though she believed she had failed them.

She was planning to catch a train from Aachen to Ostend in Belgium and then a ferry home, but there were no sightings of her anywhere.

Mr Kerton said: “Initial reports of Christian’s activities cover quite a wide geographical range and a range of ages, and he seems to have been active around the time she disappeared in 2001.

“It would be useful to know if he was in the area or what other people there were who shared his interests. I don’t know whether to contact the relevant German police or the consul who has been helpful to us in the past, but I think someone should look again at the investigation.”

(c) Sky News 2020: Madeleine McCann: Suspect Christian B moved to own prison cell over safety fears