A 43-year-old man identified only as Christian B has been named as a suspect in the case of a British girl who disappeared from a resort 13 years ago, according to multiple reports out of the UK and Germany.
Madeleine McCann went missing at the age of 3 while on vacation with her family in Portugal.
According to the BBC on Thursday, German prosecutors have said they now believe the little girl is dead, and they are treating her disappearance as a murder.
The suspect is currently serving a prison sentence in Germany for another crime.
Police said the suspect and was in and around the Praia da Luz resort area on the Algarve coast at the time McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007.
McCann vanished shortly before her fourth birthday. Her parents say Madeleine went missing after they had left her and her twin siblings asleep in their holiday complex while they had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
Officers were tipped off about the suspect following a 2017 appeal. Police said the suspect, described as white with short, blond hair and a slim build, was linked to a camper van seen in the Algarve in 2007 and was believed to be in the resort area in the days before and after May 3 that year.
Christian Hoppe of Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office told broadcaster ZDF the suspect, a German citizen, is currently imprisoned in Germany for a sexual crime. He spent numerous years in Portugal and has two previous convictions for “sexual contact with girls.”
Hoppe said German police aren’t ruling out a sexual motive.
The suspect is being investigated on suspicion of murder by prosecutors in the German city of Braunschweig, where he was last registered before moving abroad.
Police from Britain, Germany and Portugal launched a new joint appeal for information in the case Wednesday. They asked to come forward anyone who had seen two vehicles linked to the suspect — the Volkswagen camper van and a Jaguar. They also sought information on two Portuguese phone numbers, including one believed to have been used by the suspect on the day of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Police believe there could be other victims.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)