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Former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas
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Mark, welcome to the show. You're a veteran of this case. Is there anything new that gives you fresh hope here
0:09
Hi, Martin. Well, unfortunately not. So what we've got is we've got the German authorities
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leading on this investigation. They've got their prime suspect, Christian B, who's currently in jail for other matters
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He's due to be released in September, and the German authorities have been investigating him now
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for over seven years. still don't have sufficient evidence to bring any prosecution
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They haven't even interviewed him in relation to their view that he killed Madeleine McCann
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The German prosecutor is very clear that he is responsible for murder
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although, of course, there is no Madeleine McCann, there's been no body, and there's been no confirmed death
0:46
What's happened now is that the German authorities have been granted permission
0:50
by the Portuguese judge to search an area, an area of wasteland
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which has a number of wells and derelict buildings and it is some distance probably about 30 minutes
1:01
walk from an area where Christian B was living but 10 months prior to Madeleine disappearance so this is really about the German authorities throwing everything at it in the final months to try and get enough before Christian B is released And in a quick nutshell they be
1:21
searching for any kind of compelling evidence of DNA, forensic evidence to try and pin it on him
1:26
finally. Yeah, don't forget, I mean, as your opening says, these are years gone by since
1:32
Madeline's been missing. And of course, as time goes by, evidence disappears. We're talking about
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wasteland here we're talking about temperature huge temperature variations uh out there so the
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likelihood of finding any evidence is very very slim is there a chance of course to finding
1:48
something well they're looking for they are saying they are looking for a body it's as simple as that
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in order to hide a body over that period of time you either have to have buried them or put them
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potentially into a building or to a well over those years those buildings will have been visited
2:04
by people and in fact interestingly enough i think the large majority of that area was searched in the
2:09
early days after madeline went missing it's not that far from prior to lose so they're probably
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just going back over those areas uh it's unfortunately for the mccans and don't forget
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they are they are at the center of this it's unfortunately for them more news it's going to
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bring more disappointment
