The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann disappearance case has been linked to a school boy snatched 11 years earlier.
The German detectives who are investigating Christian Brueckner, 43, have contacted the family of René Hasee .
They have told his relatives that they are looking into his 1996 abduction again.
The young boy was running along the beach of Aljezur ahead of his parents while on a walk.
His parents lost sight of René for a moment and then they never saw him again.
All that they were left with were his clothes, which were lying on the beach.
Aljezur is 25 miles way from Praia da Luz in the Algarve, where Maddie went missing.
In 1995 Brueckner was thought to be living in the area.
At that point he had already been convicted of sex offences against children, despite being just 19 at the time.
René’s dad Andreas Hase said he was contacted by the police yesterday for the first time in 20 years.
He admitted that there may be a "connection" between his son's disappearance and Maddie's.
"He was actually also a very careful child, he would not have easily climbed into the Atlantic alone," he told The Sun.
"Of course you start thinking, yes. I don't imagine that René is still alive."
Yesterday it was reported that prosecutors have reopened an investigation into Brueckner over another girl's disappearance in 2015.
Inga Gehricke vanished from Diakoniewerk Wilhelmshof in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, during a family outing.
Then aged five, Inga disappeared on May 2, 2015 - 48 miles away from where the suspect owned a home.
She had gone to look for wood for a fire in the forest but "did not return," according to ZDF.de.
His [Brueckner’s] property in Neuwegersleben, Saxony-Anhalt, was searched in February 2016 in connection with Inga's disappearance, according to the Volksstimme newspaper.
However the line of inquiry was not pursued further, reports said.
Brueckner reportedly had no alibi but the case was closed just four weeks in.
Detectives searched for years but did not find a trace of young Inga, in a case that has been compared to Maddie's.
In a 2017 interview Inga’s mum Victoria gave to Stern, she said: "My feeling tells me that she is still alive."
She said initially she thought 'you will definitely find my child, it is just a matter of time'.
Brueckner has been convicted for sex offences against girls.
He and a pal were in a German bar watching a TV report on the case in 2017 when he allegedly said he knew what had happened to Madeleine, the Sun reports.
The alleged confession to her abduction came on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance.
Brueckner is also alleged to have shown to a witness video footage of him raping a woman.
Reports say this led to his conviction and being jailed in December last year for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005.
