The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has spoken out for the first time since being named as a potential perpetrator in her disappearance.
Christian B, a 44-year-old convicted rapist and child sex offender, slated the ongoing investigation and branded it a "scandal".
He found himself at the center of the long-running case in 2020 as it was reported that authorities in Germany had "concrete evidence" that Madeleine was dead, and further evidence linking Christian B to the crime.
Per The Mirror, Christian B wrote a letter, dated May 8, addressed to the German press and proclaimed his innocence. In the letter, he urged the investigators to step down as they were building a case against "an innocent person".
This marks the first time he had publically commented on the Madeleine McCann case.
He wrote in the letter, according to the paper: "Charging an accused is one thing. Something completely different - namely, it is an unbelievable scandal - when a public prosecutor starts a public campaign for prejudice before a court case is opened.
"Freedom of expression is not a basic right so that everyone can say and write what they want. Freedom of expression does not protect the majority. It protects the minority. It does not protect the most logical, most convincing, or most popular views, but rather the outsider position.
"I call on the Brunswick public prosecutors Wolters and (Ute) Lindemann to resign from their offices.
"Both are proving worldwide through my arbitrary condemnation in the past and through their scandalous pre-denial campaign in the present against me as an innocent person that they are not suitable for an office as a lawyer for the honest and trusting German people and you bring shame onto the judiciary."
Alongside the public letter, the suspect included a cartoon in which the prosecutors Wolters and Lindemann are seen eating in a restaurant and ordering "Filet Forensics". This is thought to be a reference to the fact that there is no forensic evidence linking him with Maddie's disappearance.
Christian B, whose letter does not indicate that he has an alibi for the case, is currently serving seven years behind bars at Oldenburg jail near Bremen for raping an elderly lady in her own home in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2005.
Two years later in 2007, three-year-old Maddie went missing during a vacation with her family in the same town.
A source close to the suspect said, per The Mirror: "He basically has had enough of how he is being treated by the German judiciary.
"He was identified publicly by the Prosecutor as the main suspect and yet he has not been charged or shown any of the evidence the authorities claim to have against him.
"He is of the view that they should either put up or shut up. It is not fair the way he is being treated. What happened to innocent until proven guilty which is a fundamental principle?"
Madeleine McCann, who would now be 18 years old, had been on vacation in Praia da Luz with her parents Gerry and Kate and her then-two-year-old twin-siblings in May 2007 when she was taken from their holiday apartment.
