German prosecutors are seeking a change of court for a possible new rape trial of the man suspected of the murder of British girl Madeleine McCann in 2007, a spokesman told dpa on Saturday.
In addition to overturning the acquittal, the public prosecutor’s office has requested a new trial of the suspect, identified as Christian B in line with German privacy rules, at the Göttingen Regional Court in northern Germany.
The aim is to ensure that the trial material is handled as impartially as possible, said spokesman Hans Christian Wolters.
In October 2024, the Braunschweig Regional Court acquitted the 48-year-old man of several serious sexual offences.
At the time, the presiding judge cited insufficient evidence to convict him of the five offences in Portugal, where the 3-year-old British girl disappeared in 2007 from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz.
The public prosecutor’s office has appealed against the ruling, and the Federal Court of Justice is therefore reviewing the verdict for legal errors. The defence had described the acquittal as the only correct outcome of the proceedings.
The Göttingen Regional Court has not been involved in the proceedings in any way, Wolters said, which is why the prosecutors believe that the case should no longer be heard in Braunschweig, also known as Brunswick in English.
It is still unclear when the Federal Court of Justice in Leipzig will decide on the appeal.
After the Braunschweig trial for three rapes and two cases of child sexual abuse, the public prosecutor’s office had demanded a prison sentence of 15 years followed by preventive detention.