German suspect 'raped US pensioner in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine McCann disappeared'
A German suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann may have been jailed for raping a US pensioner in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz two years before the British toddler vanished, according to reports.
The 43-year-old man was sentenced to seven years for the 2005 attack at a district court in Braunschweig in 2019, after footage of his crime was allegedly uncovered years later.
A man of the same age is currently being investigated over the possible abduction and murder of Madeleine. He was said by German investigators to have lived regularly in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007.
He was staying just two miles from the McCanns’s holiday apartment at the time Madeleine vanished on May 3 2007.
Now a report in the Braunschweig Zeitung claims the individual at the heart of the latest line of police inquiry shared many identical details with a criminal convicted of raping an American tourist aged 72.
He was said to have lived near Praia de Luz, with the home of the victim situated on his route to the beach. She had been in her house alone when the man opened her patio door, tied her up and raped her.
The attacker was caught when a witness came forward years later, claiming to have found video recordings of what looked like rapes on a camera he had stolen from the man.
In one harrowing clip, an older woman was raped and beaten by a masked man, the witness claimed, but the footage had since been lost.
Investigators eventually linked the witness account to an unsolved case from September 2005 - less than two years before Madeleine’s disappearance.
DNA analysis subsequently confirmed a body hair taken from the victim’s bed came from the suspect, according to the German report.
German witnesses at the time described how the man drove a Jaguar - the model of car that Scotland Yard said was linked to the latest Madeleine suspect - and traded in passports and stolen goods, possibly obtained during burglaries.
His sentence for raping the US woman is still pending an appeal on extradition technicalities.
The suspect’s last place of resident was Braunschweig, where the region’s public prosecutor said it was investigating a man on suspicion of Madeleine’s murder.
It came as German investigators said the prime suspect in the toddler’s abduction was a sex offender who had been convicted of multiple crimes - including the sexual abuse of children.
His time in the Algarve had included several years in a house between Lagos and Praia da Luz.
The man, who has not been named, was in Praia da Luz on the day of Madeleine's disappearance and received a telephone call in the area an hour before the girl vanished.
Two images of vehicles belonging to the man were released, along with a phone number he was using at the time and the number of the person who called him.
It is understood that police in the UK and Germany have interviewed the suspect in jail but he has declined to help with their inquiries.
Forensic testing has been carried out on both vehicles. Scotland Yard said the man was "white and in 2007 is believed to have had short blond hair, possibly fair. He was about 6ft ... with a slim build. He is 43 years old, but in 2007 may have looked between 25 to early 30s.
"He is connected to the area of Praia da Luz and spent some short spells in Germany. This individual, who we will not identify, is currently in prison in Germany for an unrelated matter."
Christian Hoppe, of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, told the media the suspect has two previous convictions for "sexual contact with girls."
