Madeleine McCann suspect boasted about breaking into hotels in Portugal before toddler vanished
A man who claims he committed burglaries with the chief suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has revealed the convicted paedophile’s chilling brag.
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The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case allegedly boasted to a friend about breaking into hotel rooms in the Algarve, Portugal.
Christian Brueckner, 43, identified by German investigators in June, is known to have been living in the Praia de Luz resort around the time of three-year-old Maddie McCann’s disappearance in 2007.
According to The Sun, a pretty thief who used to pull robbery jobs with Brueckner has revealed that the convicted paedophile boasted of going “right inside the rooms” of hotel guests.
Prosecutors began investigating Brueckner following his conviction in December last year for the rape of a 72-year-old in the same resort in August 2005.
The conviction came after a former friend told police about finding video evidence of the rape on a camera he had stolen from Brueckner’s home.
He said the tape also included footage of a younger woman tied to a wooden beam in a different house.
The man said he had previously carried out a number of small-time burglaries with Brueckner, but what he saw on the tape was “out of the question”.
Brueckner was convicted of the 2005 rape after DNA evidence placed him at the scene.
Speaking to German broadcaster RTL, he added: “[Brueckner] told me he does his break-ins in hotels and really goes right inside the rooms.”
Brueckner also has multiple previous convictions for the sexual abuse of children.
Prosecutors have said they have strong evidence tying Brueckner to Madeleine’s disappearance, but have not yet disclosed it publicly.
Data from a mobile phone mast shows that he was in the Praia de Luz resort or the surrounding area at the time she went missing.
Brueckner is known to have lived in properties in the region and to have spent time travelling around and sleeping in a camper van.
He is also alleged to have confessed to abducting Madeleine while sat in a German bar with a friend and watching a news report about the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.
Last month, police excavated a block of land he is known to have used for a time near the city of Hanover, Germany.
Neighbours recalled seeing him remove large amounts of earth from the plot.
The owner of another allottment in the city of Braunschweig claimed that Brueckner once asked her if he could build a cellar beneath the site.
MADDIE SUSPECT MOLESTED FRIEND’S DAUGHTER
It comes as it was revealed that Brueckner was once jailed for sexually abusing his friend’s five-year-old daughter.
The suspect, Christian Brueckner, attacked the little girl in a public park before taking graphic photographs of her, The Sun reported.
The disturbing photographs were found on his digital camera and laptop as police investigated him over a separate claim of domestic violence.
The child was abused when Brueckner was living in Braunschweig, northern Germany.
At that time, police were hunting for Madeleine McCann who had vanished while on holiday in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
He was running a kiosk at the time, selling drinks and confectionary.
Brueckner had been accused of assaulting the woman he was living with, who was not the mum of his victim.
After his flat was raided by the police, they discovered the laptop and camera containing the images of the girl.
Cops were able to track down the scene of the hideous crime and find the girl, who had moved to a different part of Germany with her mum.
He was pulled back onto the police radar following reports he had exposed himself to children at a park 40 miles from Praia da Luz.
In 2005, Brueckner was jailed for the torture and rape of a 72-year-old American woman.
It was recently revealed that he made another early jail release bid claiming the case is based on an “unreliable” witness.
His lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, said the main witness against his client is a criminal who swapped information for police favours.
The witness is thought to have told detectives that 43-year-old German drifter Brueckner told him in a bar that he knew what had happened to Madeleine, who was three at the time she vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment in 2007.
Mr Fulscher believes the informant may later, in return for telling cops this information, have got early release from a sentence he was serving in a foreign country.
Mr Fulscher told Sky News: “If this is the same person, I think it’s the worst witness you can get.
“A human who has spent his whole life cheating people for his own benefit is never a reliable witness.”
Meanwhile, the McCann apartment in Praia da Luz was the “prime location” for crime, police told Madeleine’s distraught parents after she was abducted.
Earlier, police launched an excavation of a site Brueckner lived in between his stints in Portugal.
Brueckner lived “off-grid” near the Hanover allotment being searched by police in the years after Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007.
Locals told reporters the convicted sex offender “lounged around drinking beer” and told people he was a “car mechanic” while living in a van.
The find was made on Wednesday afternoon (local time), with the “basement” underneath a house that has since been demolished, reports The Sun.
The tenant of an adjacent plot said the cellar had been at the site for years but was not filled in when its above-ground structure was torn down in 2007 – the same year Madeleine disappeared.
The search at the site began after another allotment holder at the site tipped off police after watching a Crimewatch TV show about unsolved crimes that featured Madeleine’s case.
Specialist ground radar and sniffer dogs have been brought in to help the search as police used diggers and shovels to dig up the earth.
Police also removed a huge skip-full of evidence for analysis from the allotment dig site.
Pictures showed the skip crammed with rubbish including rubble, gravel, a child’s bucket and old plates.
CHILD ABUSE IMAGES FOUND IN SUSPECT’S MOBILE HOME
Last month it was revealed that thousands of child abuse images and children’s clothing were found in a mobile home that Brueckner claimed he used to “transport children”.
Police seized the motorhome in May 2016 as part of an investigation into the disappearance of five-year-old Inga Gehricke, according to a documentary by Spiegel TV.
Police reportedly found computer memory sticks with more than 8000 files, mostly containing pictures and videos of child abuse, which were in a carrier bag buried underneath the body of Brueckner’s dog, the report said.
Brueckner, who was living near the resort in Portugal where Madeleine vanished, allegedly kept a van that he used to drive across Europe.
The mobile home was purchased in 2010, but the jailed rapist has been a suspect in other disturbing cases.
— with Stephen Drill in Europe
Originally published as Madeleine McCann suspect boasted about breaking into hotels in Portugal before toddler vanished