Madeleine McCann suspect is convicted rapist

It is claimed that a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is a convicted rapist with a history of abusing girls.
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Christian Hoppe, from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), told the country's ZDF television channel the 43-year-old is serving a prison sentence for a sex crime and has two previous convictions for ‘sexual contact with girls’.

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And German newspaper Braunschweiger Zeitung reported the suspect is carrying out a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.

Madeleine McCann's parents hold a computer generated age progression photo of what the missing girl might look like now (Pic: PA)Madeleine McCann's parents hold a computer generated age progression photo of what the missing girl might look like now (Pic: PA)
Madeleine McCann's parents hold a computer generated age progression photo of what the missing girl might look like now (Pic: PA)
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The newspaper said he was convicted of the offence in December last year.

Police in Germany revealed yesterday that a sex offender is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007 shortly before her fourth birthday.

She disappeared from an apartment she was sleeping in with her younger brother and sister while their parents were socialising with friends at a nearby restaurant.

Mr Hoppe, from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, said officers have not ruled out a sexual motive and are treating the case as murder.

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A police appeal said: “There is reason to assume that there are other persons, apart from the suspect, who have concrete knowledge of the course of the crime and maybe also of the place where the body was left.”

The German national is known to have been on the Algarve coast at the time Madeleine went missing.

A half-hour phone call was made to his Portuguese mobile phone around an hour before Madeleine is believed to have gone missing.

The suspect has been linked to a camper van which was pictured in the Algarve in 2007.

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He has also been linked to a 1993 Jaguar XJR6 with a German number plate seen in Praia da Luz in 2006 and 2007.

The day after Madeleine went missing, the suspect had the car re-registered in Germany under someone else's name.

Both vehicles have been seized by German police for examination.