Police find cellar at Madeleine McCann suspect‘s allotment

Madeleine McCann suspect reportedly told a friend he wanted to line a cellar like Austria’s bunker horror kidnapper Josef Fritzl.

The site of the two-day search at the garden allotment Hanover. Picture: AFP.

German police have reportedly found a hidden cellar at the allotment where the Madeleine McCann suspect allegedly lived in 2007.

Police discovered the basement in the foundations of a building in Hanover which was demolished months after Madeleine vanished, Bild newspaper reports.

A sniffer dog was used to search a cavernous space beneath a concrete slab on the site.

It came as a former friend of the convicted sex offender told local media the convicted sex offender told him he had a cellar at a different property which he wanted to line with metal sheets ‘like Josef Fritzl’s’.

Madeleine McCann was three when she disappeared in 2007.

Josef Fritzl held his daughter Elizabeth captive for 24 years inside a concrete lined cellar at his home in Amstetten, Austria. Elizabeth eventually escaped in 2008.

Authorities revealed in June that they were investigating a 43-year-old German over the disappearance of the three-year-old British girl, saying they believe he killed her.

The suspect, who was not named by police but identified by German media as Christian B, reportedly lived in Hanover from 2007, and travelled around that time to Praia da Luz, from where Maddie disappeared.

Police were digging under the foundations of a demolished building. Picture: Getty Images.

Wolfgang Kossack, who owns the plot next to Christian B’s alleged former allotment, told MailOnline that the suspect had lived off-grid at the site in 2007 and talked about returning to southern Europe.

Officers used sniffer dogs and an excavator as they dug up the site, with several police vehicles parked around a cordoned-off area.

The sky above the plot was declared a no-fly zone, according to the local Hannoversche Allgemeine newspaper.

Police began digging at the plot in the early hours of Tuesday. They have given no details of how the search is connected to the case or what they hope to find.

A digger at the search site. Picture: AFP.

Christian B reportedly dropped a bid on Wednesday for early release from an 18 month prison sentence.

Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007, a few days before her fourth birthday, as her parents dined with friends at a nearby tapas bar.

Despite a huge international manhunt, no trace of her has been found, nor has anyone been charged over her disappearance.

German prosecutors said in June they had “concrete evidence” that Madeleine was dead, despite British police continuing to treat her disappearance as a missing persons case.

With AFP