Madeleine McCann prosecutor terrified Christan B will WALK FREE if he botches case and paedo is acquitted
MADELEINE McCann prosecutors have admitted they are terrified their prime suspect will walk free if the case is botched, according to reports.
In June, convicted rapist and paedophile Christian B, 43, was identified by German cops as the prime suspect for Madeleine's disappearance in Portugal 13 years ago.
The suspect is currently in jail after being convicted of raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005 - two years before the British youngster vanished from the same resort in May 2007 aged three.
Prosecutors said in June they had ''concrete evidence'' Madeleine was dead and that Christian B was responsible.
However, no charges have been brought yet and fears have been growing that the case has stalled.
Hans Christian Wolters has admitted that the prosecutors are wary of charging Christian B over the disappearance of Madeleine due to Germany's strict double-jeopardy laws.
"If we file charges and he is acquitted, then the case is dead forever," the chief prosecutor told the .
“In Germany, once you have been acquitted, you cannot be charged again, at least only in very exceptional cases.
"If we now are hasty and he was acquitted because the court said ‘Ah, we still have a few doubts’ then we would not be able to get him later."
Wolters added: "Therefore we want to collect as much evidence as possible."
MONSTER CAGED
Christian B is set to be moved to a maximum security prison ahead of questioning in the New Year after judges rejected his appeal on a rape conviction earlier this month.
He had appealed against the conviction on a technicality but judges dismissed it, which left Madeleine investigators delighted.
One said: "It's great news. It means he won't be going anywhere for a very long time and so we can carry on building up our case against him."
He will be moved from Kiel maximum security prison to one 200 miles south in Lower Saxony at either Celle or Wolfenbuttel, and parole will be an option only from 2023.
It comes after he was pictured shackled two weeks ago after having two ribs broken in an alleged jail-attack at the hands of prison guards at a court in Germany.
A source at the court said he had "thrown a tantrum'' in his cell, smearing it with yoghurt and blocking the toilet with loo roll, because guards were filming him.
Earlier this month, Wolters revealed holiday snaps from Brits could help build a case against Christian B.
But an international row broke out as a leaked memo revealed Portuguese cops rubbished the German probe into Madeleine's disappearance.
Local officers insisted counterparts in Germany have no solid evidence that Christian B was involved in snatching the British toddler.
The leaked memo from the Policia Judiciaria, seen by The Sun, revealed dismissive comments made in an internal email following a top secret conference in Lisbon.
Officials from the Policia Judiciaria in Portugal, Germany's BKA and Scotland Yard had met to discuss the state of the probe.
'SO BAD'
An unidentified Portuguese officer claimed that the German BKA had no solid leads and were just holding the suspect in jail in the hope they can make two other sex cases against him stick.
He wrote: ''There is no evidence, just speculation. When reading the German case I was shocked. I never thought that the BKA would investigate so badly.
"It is not a serious and objective investigation, but only just to keep the suspect in prison at all costs.
''The meeting was to get the point of the situation, the BKA wants to investigate the other two cases of possible sexual harassment, so that the suspect does not leave prison until the end of the year and they will drop the suspect.''
Portuguese cops have been accused of bungling the investigation and lead officer Goncalo Amaral was later fired after pursuing a false theory that Kate and Gerry McCann were responsible.
Last month Christian B's lawyer Friedrich Fulscher - who insists his client is innocent - called on prosecutors to reveal their evidence to be ''fair'' to his client and the McCann family.
He added: ''The prosecutor has not revealed anything to us about the investigation.
"They are adamant but they are chasing someone who is just convenient to them.''
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Madeleine was three when she vanished from a flat in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz while on holiday with her family in May 2007.
Three wells near the resort are known to have been searched in July but police and firefighters failed to find any trace of Madeleine.
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The abandoned wells are a 15-minute drive from Christian B's rented cottage on the outskirts of Praia de Luz, on a narrow road leading down to a beach where the paedophile used to park his VW camper van.
Christian B is also being probed in Germany over a 2004 Algarve rape and a sex attack on a beach near Praia da Luz a month before Madeleine vanished.
