Madeleine McCann murder inquiry needs more information or could ‘end without charge’, prosecutor says

Current evidence not strong enough for court action, official says

An investigation into a child sex offender suspected of killing Madeleine McCann needs more information or could end without a charge, a German prosecutor has said.

Hans Christian Wolters told the BBC that investigators had “evidence against the accused which leads us to believe that he really killed Madeleine”, but that it was not strong enough to take the 43-year-old convicted paedophile to court.

German authorities have previously said they believe Madeleine is dead and they are investigating their suspect on suspicion of murder.

“One has to be honest and remain open to the possibility that our investigation could end without a charge, that it ends like the others have,” Mr Wolters, from the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, said.

“We are optimistic it will be different for us but for that we need more information.”

However, he told the BBC the evidence they have is “strong enough to say that the girl is dead and strong enough to accuse a specific individual of murder”.

Earlier this week, Mr Wolters called for the public to come forward with information, especially over where the suspect has lived in the past, so authorities can conduct searches.

He told Sky News on Monday that investigators had some evidence that Madeleine had been killed but not enough for a trial.

“The hard evidence we don’t have, we don’t have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann‘s body,” Mr Wolters said.

He called on British tourists who visited Praia da Luz between 1995 and 2007, when the suspect is thought to have lived in the area, to come forward with any information.

The suspect, named in reports as Christian Brueckner, is currently in prison for drug trafficking and is also being investigated over the disappearance of a five-year-old girl in Germany in 2015.

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

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson has said the UK force is still treating her disappearance as a missing person inquiry for lack of ”definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead”.

Additional reporting by Press Association