Maddie’s parents say ‘welcome news’ on probe into suspect

Images of Madeleine McCann's parents and the beach resort in Portugal where she disappeared as well as a garden that was searched in Germany in 2020. (AFP)
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Updated 22 April 2022
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Maddie’s parents say ‘welcome news’ on probe into suspect

  • The girl's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said in a statement on their website that the announcement was a reflection of "progress in the investigation"
  • Portuguese public prosecutors announced late Thursday that a man had been named as an "arguido", or formal suspect in the high-profile case

LONDON: The parents of British toddler Madeleine McCann, who went missing while on holiday in 2007, said Friday they “welcome the news” that Portuguese authorities and German prosecutors have declared a convicted German rapist the prime suspect in her disappearance.
The girl’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said in a statement on their website that the announcement was a reflection of “progress in the investigation” into the “disappearance of our beloved daughter Madeleine.”
“Even though the possibility may be slim, we have not given up hope that Madeleine is still alive and we will be reunited with her,” they added, however.
Portuguese public prosecutors announced late Thursday that a man had been named as an “arguido,” or formal suspect in the high-profile case.
While they did not name the suspect, it is understood to be Christian B., the same person German prosecutors in Brunswick are investigating on suspicion of murdering “Maddie.”
No charges have been brought yet against Christian B. in either country however, and nobody has been found.
The McCanns said in their statement that it “is important to note the ‘arguido’ has not yet been charged with any specific crime related to Madeleine’s disappearance.”
Christian B.’s lawyer, Friedrich Fuelscher, told AFP the Portuguese announcement “should not be overrated.”
He said the “arguido” move appeared to be linked to Portugal’s 15-year statute of limitation for certain crimes.
“I assume that the statute of limitations was interrupted by this step,” Fuelscher said.
Brunswick prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters also suggested the step was a formality and unlikely to indicate a major breakthrough in the Portuguese probe.
“Portugal apparently by now also sees reason to suspect” Christian B., Wolters said.
But he said he would be “surprised” if the Portuguese probe was further along than the German one.
Portuguese prosecutors said they were working “in cooperation with English and German authorities.”
Christian B. is currently serving a seven-year sentence in Oldenburg, northern Germany, for raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in 2005.
Madeleine McCann, then aged three, went missing from the same seaside resort on May 3, 2007.
Her disappearance sparked a huge manhunt and international media frenzy, with photographs of Maddie plastered across billboards and news bulletins.
Maddie’s parents Gerry and Kate were at one point also declared “arguidos” in the Portuguese investigation, before the status was lifted for both of them.
The latest step “is related to the statute of limitations,” agreed ex-police inspector Goncalo Amaral, who led the inquiry into Maddie’s disappearance in Portugal in 2007.
“It’s a procedural trick by the public prosecutors,” he said.
Amaral was sued by Kate and Gerry McCann over a 2008 book in which he accused them of concealing her body after she died accidentally.
Portuguese police shelved their controversial investigation — which saw Amaral sacked — in 2008, but reopened it five years later citing “new elements.”
British police opened their own inquiry in July 2013, but on-site excavations in Praia da Luz yielded no evidence.
The case appeared to have gone cold until Brunswick prosecutors made the stunning revelation in June 2020 that they were certain Maddie was dead and that they believed Christian B. killed her.
Christian B. was at that time already serving a jail sentence for drug trafficking in Kiel, northern Germany.
He has a long criminal history including sex offenses and convictions for child sexual abuse.
Christian B. lived just a few kilometers (miles) away from Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region at the time Maddie vanished from her family’s holiday accommodation, according to Brunswick prosecutors.
Wolters said his team was currently also investigating Christian B. on suspicion of raping an Irish woman in 2004 and over suspected cases of child abuse in Portugal.
Wolters said he hoped to complete those probes soon, while the Maddie investigation “could take a while longer.”


New Delhi’s high-tech suburb drowns in trash as sanitation workers flee

Updated 26 July 2025
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New Delhi’s high-tech suburb drowns in trash as sanitation workers flee

  • Local residents took to social media to show extent of garbage problem in Gurugram
  • Photos and videos show garbage piling up in residential areas, sideroads covered in junk

NEW DELHI: One of India’s most modern, high-tech, and upscale urban centers, Gurugram, is sinking in municipal waste that has not been collected for months, residents say, as sanitation workers have fled fearing a police crackdown on undocumented migrants.

Formerly known as Gurgaon, the city of skyscrapers and luxury apartments is located about 30 km south of New Delhi and was transformed over the last two decades from farming fields into a major hub for technology and outsourcing companies.

While its poor waste management system has made local headlines over the years, the problem worsened recently with garbage piling up in residential areas, sideroads covered in junk and trash burning becoming increasingly commonplace, prompting mass complaints from residents who posted visuals across social media platforms.

“There is a serious crisis in Gurgaon on waste management. Wastes are lying everywhere and the administration does not have a clue how to handle that. This is the crisis created by the administration and its policies,” Saurabh Bardhan, owner of Gurugram-based waste management company Green Bandhu, told Arab News.

Indian authorities have detained hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants in recent months, with a Human Rights Watch report published on Wednesday saying that at least 1,500 ethnic Bengali Muslims were expelled to Bangladesh “without due process” between May and June, as expulsions continue.

As many of them are employed as informal garbage collectors in Gurugram, the crackdown has affected waste management in the city.

“The migrant workers have been collecting waste for years in this so-called millennium city and they have never bothered to regularize their jobs. These workers were carrying the load of managing the city waste to a great extent,” Bardhan said.

“I heard they are being detained and this has created panic among them. But if we think that only these migrant workers are affected we are wrong. It is the whole society that is suffering because of the government’s hasty and unmindful act.”

S.S. Rohilla, public relations officer at the Municipal Corp. of Gurugram, told Arab News on Saturday that the local government is “trying to resolve the problem,” adding that the situation was “not as bad” as reported by media outlets.

But for Kalyan Singh, the waste problem in his residential area in Gurugram was a crisis.

“For the last two to three days we have been facing an acute crisis of waste lying everywhere in my (area). Never before have we faced something like this,” Singh told Arab News.

“This problem has cropped up, we learnt, after the migrant Bengali-speaking laborers have left en masse after the government’s drive to detain suspected Bangladeshis and foreigners. I hope the situation is addressed soon.”

Meanwhile, other Gurugram residents took to social media to raise concerns over public health risks and express their frustrations with the government.

“Bad roads. Poor waste management. No drainage system. Yet what does the Gurugram gov’t. choose to act on? Not infrastructure. Not public welfare. (But) targeting the people who keep this city running — the migrant workers who clean our homes and city,” Aanchal Jauhari wrote on X.

“Health Danger! Sector 70 (of) Gurugram drowning in garbage. Breeding ground for diseases,” another X user, Gautam Dhar, said. “Please help. Citizen’s health (is) at severe risk.”


Hungary’s Orban to block EU budget unless funds released

Updated 26 July 2025
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Hungary’s Orban to block EU budget unless funds released

  • Nationalist leader has for years clashed with Brussels over migration, LGBTQ rights and what critics see as eroding democracy in Hungary
  • The EU has suspended billions of euros earmarked for Hungary while a rule-of-law dispute drags on

BUDAPEST: Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban threatened on Saturday to torpedo the European Union’s new seven-year budget unless Brussels unlocks all suspended EU funds.

The nationalist leader has for years clashed with Brussels over migration, LGBTQ rights and what critics see as eroding democracy in Hungary. The EU has suspended billions of euros earmarked for Hungary while a rule-of-law dispute drags on.

“The approval of the new seven-year budget requires unanimity and until we get the remaining (frozen) funds, there won’t be a new EU budget either,” Orban said in a speech at a summer university in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad.

The European Commission has proposed a €2 trillion ($2.35 trillion) EU budget for 2028 to 2034 with emphasis on economic competitiveness and defense.

Orban also criticized the EU for supporting Ukraine and accused Brussels of planning to install a “pro-Ukraine and pro-Brussels government” in Hungary at next year’s vote.

He also accused EU leaders of risking a trade war with US President Donald Trump’s administration that Europe “cannot win.”

“The current leadership of the EU will always be the last to sign deals with the United States and always the worst deals,” Orban added, urging a change in the bloc’s leadership.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will meet Trump on Sunday in Scotland in search of a trade deal.

Orban, who swept the last four elections, faces a tough new opposition challenger Peter Maygar, whose center-right Tisza party has a firm lead over the ruling Fidesz in most polls at a time of economic stagnation.

Magyar told a rally on Saturday that Hungary must be firmly anchored in the EU and NATO military alliance, and Tisza would bring home all suspended EU funds if it wins in 2026.

“Hungary is an EU member and our relations as allies cannot be built on a political style of putting a spoke in the wheel,” Magyar said. He added that Tisza could not support the EU budget in current form but would be ready for talks on that.

“We need to make a clear and firm decision that our place has been and will be in Europe,” Magyar said, criticizing Orban’s close relations with Russia.


Russia seizes second village in central Ukraine

Updated 26 July 2025
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Russia seizes second village in central Ukraine

  • Russian army said its forces ‘liberated the locality of Maliyevka’ in Dnipropetrovsk
  • Deeper Russian advances could mean more attacks on one of Ukraine’s largest cities

MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it had wrested a second village in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region in a fresh advance in the industrial mining hub.

Overnight strikes between Ukraine and Russia meanwhile claimed five lives – three in central Ukraine and two in western Russia, according to officials.

The army said its forces “liberated the locality of Maliyevka” in Dnipro, a part of Ukraine’s mining heartland, particularly for coal that powers the electricity grid.

Further Russian advances could harm Ukraine’s economy and energy supplies.

Authorities have already been ordering civilians with children to flee a front line that is creeping closer.

Deeper Russian advances could mean more attacks on one of Ukraine’s largest cities, Dnipro – though Russian troops are around 200 kilometers (120 miles) away.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea – that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.


Trump hits Scottish golf course as protesters set to rally

Updated 55 min 5 sec ago
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Trump hits Scottish golf course as protesters set to rally

  • His presence has turned the picturesque and normally quiet area of southwest Scotland into a virtual fortress
  • US president professes a love of Scotland, where his mother was born, but has an uneasy relationship with the nation

TURNBERRY, United Kingdom: US President Donald Trump played golf on the first full day of his visit to Scotland Saturday, as protesters prepared to take to the streets across the country.

Trump emerged from his Turnberry resort with son Eric and waved to photographers following his arrival in Scotland on Friday evening.

His presence has turned the picturesque and normally quiet area of southwest Scotland into a virtual fortress, with roads closed and police checkpoints in place.

Officers on quad bikes or horses, others on foot with sniffer dogs, patrolled the famous course – which has hosted four men’s British Opens – and the sandy beaches and grass dunes that hug the course.

The 79-year-old touched down Friday at nearby Prestwick Airport, as hundreds of onlookers came out to see Air Force One and try to catch a glimpse of its famous passenger.

The president has professed a love of Scotland, where his mother was born, but his controversial politics and business investments in the country have made for an uneasy relationship.

Speaking to reporters on the tarmac, Trump immediately waded into the debate surrounding high levels of irregular migration.

“You better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore,” he said, adding that it was “killing” the continent.

Trump’s five-day visit has divided the local community.

“A lot of people don’t trust Trump and I’m one of them. I think the man is a megalomaniac,” retiree Graham Hodgson said.

“He’s so full of himself. I think he’s doing a lot of damage worldwide with his tariffs. And I think it’s all for the sake of America, but at the moment I think America is paying the price as well for his policies.”

But at Prestwick Airport a boy held a sign that read “Welcome Trump” while a man waved a flag emblazoned with Trump’s most famous slogan – “Make America Great Again.”

“I think the best thing about Trump is he’s not actually a politician yet he’s the most powerful man in the world and I think he’s looking at the best interests of his own country,” said 46-year-old Lee McLean, who had traveled from nearby Kilmarnock.

“Most politicians should really be looking at the best interests of their own country first before looking overseas,” he said.

As the police rolled out a massive security operation, the Stop Trump Coalition announced demonstrations on Saturday near the US consulate in Edinburgh and another in Aberdeen, where Trump owns another golf resort.

Police are also monitoring any other protests that might spring up near Turnberry.

Trump has no public meetings in the diary for Saturday, but he is due to discuss trade with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday and meet UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.


Italy’s Meloni: Recognizing Palestinian state before it is established may be ‘counterproductive’

Updated 26 July 2025
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Italy’s Meloni: Recognizing Palestinian state before it is established may be ‘counterproductive’

  • ‘I am very much in favor of the State of Palestine but I am not in favor of recognizing it prior to establishing it’
  • France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September draws condemnation from Israel and the US

MILAN: Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Saturday that recognizing the State of Palestine before it is established could be counterproductive.

“I am very much in favor of the State of Palestine but I am not in favor of recognizing it prior to establishing it,” Meloni told Italian daily La Repubblica.

“If something that doesn’t exist is recognized on paper, the problem could appear to be solved when it isn’t,” Meloni added.

France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September drew condemnation from Israel and the United States, amid the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. On Friday, Italy’s foreign minister said recognition of a Palestinian state must occur simultaneously with recognition of Israel by the new Palestinian entity. A German government spokesperson said on Friday that Berlin was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term and said its priority now is to make “long-overdue progress” toward a two-state solution.