The main suspect in the Madeleine McCann case twice slipped through the net of Portuguese investigators, court documents and witness testimony suggest.

Christian B, as the German drifter is known, has been revealed as the prime suspect being investigated by a German prosecutor who believes Madeleine is dead.

Court documents from the suspect's conviction for fuel theft in the Algarve in 2006, a year before Madeleine vanished, reveal that he hid his paedophile past.

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