Madeleine McCann: Woman says she saw missing girl speaking German in Portugal in 2017

A former teacher has told Portuguese police she believes she spotted Madeleine McCann in a supermarket in Portugal three years ago.

McCann disappeared at the age of three from a resort in the country's Algarve area on the evening of 3 May 2007 – with the unsolved case garnering extensive media attention back then and still being routinely analysed by the press.

The retired teacher claims McCann, who would now be 17, was talking in German to another girl in a supermarket near the city of Albufeira, which is 37 miles from the resort where Madeleine went missing.

She told police the unique marking in her right eye – which stems from a rare condition called coloboma – made her think it was Madeleine, according to Sky News.

The witness says she clocked it could be Madeleine after noticing her and then waited by the checkout to see if she saw her but did not catch a glimpse of her again.

“I saw the spot on her right eye and after some time I associated the face with Madeleine, but unfortunately it was too late, they had already left the supermarket,” she said.

The ex-teacher, who has got in touch with the McCanns’ Lisbon-based lawyer Rogerio Alves, said she spotted her in Apolonia supermarket on the resort of Gale three years ago but did not come forward about the purported incident back then.

She is set to tell her story anonymously in an interview on the investigative news show Sexta at 9 which is being broadcast on state-funded Portuguese television channel RTP on Saturday night.

Portuguese police are believed to be due to interview the witness but do not think the teenager she saw was Madeleine, Sky reported.

There have been nearly 9,000 alleged sightings in 101 countries worldwide – spanning from Canada to New Zealand – in the wake of Madeleine’s disappearance. Her case has been branded ​the most intensely reported missing person case of modern times.

The retired teacher told her family she thought she had spotted Madeleine but only contacted police recently after seeing recent media coverage of Christian Brueckner who is suspected of kidnapping Madeleine in 2007.

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has said he has evidence Madeleine is no longer alive. Wolters is attempting to put together a murder case against Brueckner.

Brueckner was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for raping an American woman in Portugal in 2005. The convicted paedophile is presently serving drugs and rape sentences in Kiel jail near Hamburg.

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