An individual has been declared an 'official suspect' in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann by Portuguese prosecutors.
Agence France-Presse, one of the world's oldest news outlets, earlier reported that a suspect had been charged over the young British girl's disappearance. However, it has since said this was incorrect.
It was reported earlier on Friday that Christian Brueckner had been made an official suspect, but his lawyers denied at the time that charges had been brought.
The Evening Standard reported on Friday morning that sources had confirmed Brueckner had been made an "arguido" - meaning named suspect or formal suspect - by Portuguese authorities.
The decision to move on Friday was reportedly due to concerns about the impact of Portugal's statute of limitations on the case. Under the country's rules, offenders punishable by a maximum prison sentence of more than 10 years cannot generally be prosecuted once 15 years has passed. McCann disappeared nearly 15 years ago.
It's the first time anyone has been formally designated an official suspect in the case since the child's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were named suspects after her disappearance 2007. They were later cleared due to a lack of evidence.
In an interview last year, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said he was "100 percent convinced" Brueckner had killed the child.
"It is now possible that we could charge. We have that evidence now. But it’s not just about charging him. We want to charge him with the best body of evidence possible."
He said at the time he hoped to bring charges in 2022, but admitted the evidence was only "circumstantial", with no scientific evidence about how McCann died or that links the man to the girl.
Evidence investigators had collected included a "confession" by Brueckner to a friend and records of a phone call Brueckner made near the Praia da Luz apartment before McCann disappeared, Wolters said.
A "well-placed source" told the Daily Mail on Friday that the "legal grounds for making Brueckner an arguido include the fact that he allegedly confessed to a friend he had snatched Madeleine and mobile phone records placed him in Praia da Luz the night she vanished".
But the source said it was also linked to the looming 15-year deadline.
Brueckner was first revealed as the prime suspect in the case back in June 2020, more than 13 years after the three-year-old went missing from an apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, sparking one of the most followed missing persons cases in history.
While British authorities continue to treat the case as a missing persons one, German investigators - involved in the case due to Brueckner's nationality and current whereabouts - believe McCann is dead.
Brueckner has been in a German prison for sex crimes.
He has denied being involved with McCann's vanishing, calling himself an "innocent person" in a letter obtained by German media in June. Brueckner said the prosecutors were engaged in a "scandalous pre-denial campaign in the present against me as an innocent person" and were "not suitable for an office as a lawyer for the honest and trusting German people".
Brueckner was living in the area McCann went missing from at the time of her disappearance and has since been imprisoned for sexual contact with girls, drug crimes, and raping an elderly woman in Praia da Luz. He's also been linked to other missing children cases.
