Lawyer for German suspect in Madeleine McCann case has no comment

A lawyer representing the German man suspected of murdering Madeleine McCann, a British girl who disappeared in Portugal in 2007 aged 3, said on Saturday he had no comment on the case.

Germany is investigating a 43-year-old German national on suspicion of murder, the Braunschweig state prosecutor said on Thursday. Lawyer Jan-Christian Hochmann confirmed he was representing the suspect, Christian B. He declined to confirm the suspect's surname in full.

"It is correct that I and my colleague David Volke are representing him, but we are not making any comment at the moment," Hochmann told Reuters by phone. McCann vanished from her bedroom on May 3, 2007, while her parents were dining with friends nearby during a family vacation in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

The disappearance sparked an international search, with missing posters of the little girl's face papered across the world and celebrity appeals for information that could help track her down and bring her abductors to justice. Nobody has ever been found.

Braunschweig state prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said on Thursday: "We assume that the girl is dead." The family and their supporters have always held out the hope that she might be alive somewhere.

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