Madeleine McCann suspect 'confessed to abduction'

The Sun newspaper claims that the man admitted to a friend that he had ‘snatched’ the young girl as they drank in a German bar.

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The suspect reportedly shared the revelation as the pair watched a TV news report on the case, with him claiming he knew what had happened to Madeleine.

A new appeal for information on the disappearance of Madeleine has resulted in hundreds of emails and phone calls this week.

A £20,000 reward is available for information leading to the conviction of the culprit responsible for Madeleine's disappearance.

DCI Mark Cranwell, who is leading the Metropolitan Police investigation into the case, said more than 270 calls and emails had been received by 4pm yesterday.

It followed British, German and Portuguese authorities launching an appeal for information on Wednesday night relating to the suspect.

German prosecutors have said they believe Madeleine is dead and are investigating a child sex predator on suspicion of her murder.

The suspect is a 43-year-old German national said to be serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005.

He is known to have lived on the Algarve coast when Madeleine went missing and his mobile phone received a half-hour phone call in Praia da Luz around an hour before the three-year-old vanished on May 3 2007.

The Met's investigation was tipped off about the German national, already known to detectives, following a 2017 appeal 10 years after she went missing.

Madeleine disappeared shortly before her fourth birthday, while her parents were eating dinner with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.

Metropolitan Police detectives are still treating the case as a missing person inquiry because there is no ‘definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead’.

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Kate and Gerry McCann, from Rothley, in Leicestershire, have welcomed the appeal, saying: "We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive."