Madeleine McCann: Major suspect in disappearance of Madeleine McCann could be out of prison on parole by next week
German prosecutors are fighting tooth and nail to keep the major suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in jail as his lawyers try to secure his parole.
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The major suspect in the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann could be out of prison on parole by next week – giving him the chance to flee from investigators.
Prosecutors in Germany are fighting to keep paedophile Christian Brueckner behind bars after his lawyers filed a request for him to be freed.
Brueckner has served more than half of a 21-month sentence for drug crimes.
Prosecutors know that if he flees the country they will not be able to pursue him through the courts.
His lawyers last week applied to a court in Kiel, where he is in jail, requesting his parole.
However, it was sent to another court in Braunschweig where he lived for them to decide.
Germany’s Federal Court in Karlsruhe is now considering the request and a decision on whether he should be released is expected next week.
Brueckner, 43, was sentenced to 21 months in 2011 for his part in a drug trafficking ring that supplied marijuana to VIP clients.
Prosecutors announced this month that the convicted paedophile and rapist was the prime suspect for three-year-old Madeleine’s 2007 abduction in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and said they have concrete evidence she is dead.
A source close to the German investigation told The Sun: “If the superior court decides to free him then it will severely impact the case.
“He could vanish and then we will not be able to put him on trial. We are fighting for him to be kept in court.”
His legal team are also in the European Court of Justice where they are claiming there was a breach of European Arrest Warrant regulations when he was extradited from Italy to Germany.
He was flown back in 2018 on a warrant which was issued for the 2011 drugs offence.
But he was subsequently put on trial and convicted of raping a 72-year-old American woman at her villa in Praia da Luz in 2005.
He was sentenced to seven years in December.
NEW MUGSHOT OF MCCANN SUSPECT EMERGES
A new mugshot of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has emerged, showing what he would have looked like around the time of her disappearance.
The German paedophile is seen with longer hair in the 2006 mugshot taken when he was 29 years old after he was arrested for stealing diesel from trucks in Portugal. It was taken 11 months before Madeleine vanished in Praia da Luz.
Another image, believed to be a passport photo, shows Bruckner in 1996 after his release from a German prison, where he spent time behind bars for molesting a six-year-old girl.
He fled his native German soon after went to Portugal.
‘PSYCHOPATH’: NEW CLAIMS STUN IN MADDIE MCCANN PROBE
A former jail mate of the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case claims: “I know he did it”.
Michael Tatschl, 47, who lived with Christian Brueckner in Portugal and Spain, helped him with a fuel-theft racket and they shared a remand cell.
He told The Sun: “I know he did it. I was living with him at the time. I was sure it was him the minute the police came to find me last April.
“He even talked about selling kids, maybe to Morocco, I think he probably sold Madeleine to someone. Maybe a sex ring. I didn’t really think about it at the time. Perhaps I should have.”
The ex-carpenter, who lives in Graz, Austria, alleges Christian B “was definitely a pervert and more than capable of snatching a child for sexual kicks or money”.
He added: “When I saw the Madeleine Netflix documentary a few days before I saw the police I knew immediately he was guilty.”
It comes as Brueckner’s former lawyer said he was a “psychopath” who “may be behind” the toddler’s disappearance.
Serafim Vieira represented Brueckner in the fuel-theft racket the year before Maddie vanished.
“I believe Christian Bruckner may be behind Maddie’s disappearance,” he told Portuguese television.
Speaking to MailOnline he added: “I will not surprised if Christian Bruckner is found of guilty of the murder of Madeleine McCann.
“If it was Bruckner that kidnapped her I hope he will be made an example of. He must pay for what he did.
“I believe it could have been Bruckner because of the circumstances and what I learned about him.”
Meanwhile, a former friend of told The Mirror Brueckner mocked German police after they first called him in for questioning in 2013 over Maddie’s disappearance.
The man said Brueckner waved a legal letter over the case in front of him as if he was proud of it.
“He laughed about it and said it was a summons. He was just waving this piece of paper about. I felt like it was like a little trophy to him,” he said.
“After a couple of weeks we started winding him up about it saying ‘Maddie’s downstairs in the cellar. Come on Christian get Maddie out of the cellar’.
“He’d smirk and laugh and then say ‘leave me alone, leave me alone’.”
POLICE WANT TO RETEST SALIVA FOUND IN APARTMENT
German investigators want to re-test a mystery saliva sample found in the holiday apartment where three-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing to see if it matches new suspect Christian Brueckner.
Portuguese forensic tests on the sample apparently found no DNA match to Brueckner, but German police want their own scientists to examine it, Britain’s Sky News reports.
The saliva sample is believed to have been found on Madeleine’s bed and is potentially vital evidence.
But the Portuguese police — who have been heavily criticised for their handling of the investigation — are unlikely to send the sample, partly because of recent comments by the German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters.
Mr Wolters last week criticised the Portuguese police, saying they still believed that Madeleine’s parents were responsible for their daughter’s disappearance.
Earlier, it was revealed that German convicted rapist Brueckner, who is now the chief suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, kept kids’ swimwear in a mobile home that he claimed he used to “transport children”.
Thousands of child abuse images and children’s clothing – mostly “small swimsuits” – were reportedly discovered several years ago by authorities looking into Brueckner over the disappearance of a German girl.
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 8,000 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.
Spiegel TV said police had also found numerous items of children’s clothing – mostly “small swimsuits” – in the motorhome, even though Brueckner does not have any children.
Brueckner, who was in the area in Portugal where the little girl vanished in 2007, 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.
A friend of Brueckner, described in a German documentary as Born R, said the German national’s behaviour was bizarre while he lived in Portugal.
“Alcohol sometimes loosened his tongue. He said that he was in Portugal and he got in everywhere and stole cameras,” he said.
“In order not to be recognised where there were cameras, he took off his clothes and put on diving goggles so he wouldn’t be recognised.”
The mobile home was also part of reports last week, when a former ambulance driver claimed that Brueckner had said he used it to transport children.
“He told me, ‘I can transport children, kids, in this space. Drugs and children, you can transport them in this van, it’s a safe space in the van, nobody can find them. Nobody can catch you’,” the ambulance driver said.
MCCANNS’ DENY RECEIVING CONFIRMATION OF DEATH
Kate and Gerry McCann, the British parents of Madeleine, who was three when she disappeared, dismissed reports that German police had written to them telling them that she was dead.
The reports caused “unnecessary anxiety to friends and family and once again disrupted our lives”.
“Since the recent police appeals regarding Madeleine’s disappearance there have been many inaccurate stories reported in the media,” the statement said.
“The widely reported news that we have a received a letter from the German authorities that states there is evidence or proof that Madeleine is dead is false.
“Like many unsubstantiated stories in the media, this has caused unnecessary anxiety to friends and family and once again disrupted our lives.”
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the investigation into Brueckner, said that a letter had been written to the couple, but would not reveal what it said.
“I’m not able to say whether the letter has reached the family or is still on the move,” he said.
“They don’t know all our evidence, but they know that we assume that Madeleine was killed by our suspect.”
Mr Wolters said prosecutors have “concrete evidence”, but not “forensic evidence” that Madeleine was killed by the suspect and may “know more” than Scotland Yard, who are still treating the case as a missing person investigation.
The McCanns’ Portuguese lawyer Rogerio Alves has called on German police to share the evidence they claim to have about her death.
German investigators believe Brueckner, 43, killed Madeleine soon after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007.
Brueckner was jailed in Germany for drug dealing, and was appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old woman, also at Praia da Luz.
He has not yet spoken to investigators, who say they are convinced that he has committed other sex attacks.
Brueckner was a suspect in a string of unsolved crimes, reportedly including an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in Praia da Luz in 2005.
He was being investigated over the disappearances of Rene Hasee, who went missing at the age of six while on holiday with his family in Portugal in 1996, and Inga Gehricke, who was five when she vanished from a forest in the Saxony-Anhalt region of Germany on May 2, 2015.
It has also been reported in German media that Brueckner is a suspect in the rape and murder of 13-year-old Tristan Brubach in Frankfurt in March 1998.
COPS TO SEARCH WELLS NEAR SUSPECTS’ HOUSE
It comes as police are reportedly preparing to search wells at Brueckner’s rented Portuguese villa in the hunt for Madeleine’s body.
A single-storey property the German suspect rented in 2007 is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old was staying with her family when she disappeared.
The building has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach the McCann family reportedly went to.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Brueckner say he will refuse to answer questions because prosecutors must have proof of his involvement in her disappearance, according to a newspaper report.
German investigators believe Brueckner killed Madeleine soon after abducting her in May, 2007 from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.
The Times says investigators are searching for a link connecting Brueckner to an incident involving a 10-year-old British girl in the same resort in 2005, the same year Brueckner had raped a woman at a villa nearby.
The paper said police were also aware of nine sexual assaults and three attempts against British girls, aged six-12, who were holidaying in the area from 2004-06.
Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher was quoted by The Times as saying: “Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings.
“It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime. No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.”
Brueckner, 43, is in jail in Germany for drug dealing. He is appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape.
Asked how Brueckner responded to reports linking him to other cases around Europe, Mr Fulscher said: “We are reviewing every article and will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to take legal action against the media concerned”. Meanwhile, a former German police chief has admitted it was a “huge mistake” to notify Brueckner in 2013 that he was a person of interest in Madeleine’s disappearance.
Police in Braunschweig, northern Germany, sent Brueckner a summons seven years ago to appear for “questioning” in relation to the “missing persons case Madeleine McCann (crime scene Portugal)”, The Telegraph reported.
The move happened before a significant police investigation, and might have allowed Brueckner to destroy any evidence which might have existed, experts told the German newspaper Der Spiegel last week.
Ulf Kuch, former head of police in Braunschweig, said sending the letter “was a huge mistake”.
Kuch said he did not know about the Brueckner summons despite his role at the time as supervisor for the officer who issued the notice, The Telegraph reported.
Portuguese police are said to be considering searching abandoned wells near a farmhouse rented by Brueckner on the outskirts of Praia da Luz in the hope of finding clues surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance, The Times says.
HOTEL EMPLOYEE MAY HAVE HELPED SUSPECT TARGET MADDIE
It comes as the Times revealed a hotel employee may have helped Brueckner target the apartment where Madeleine was asleep, knowing that her parents had gone out to a nearby tapas restaurant, according to German police.
Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor heading the investigation, suspects that a member of the Ocean Club staff made a phone call on the night of the girl’s disappearance to tip off Brueckner that the family’s apartment was free to burgle as the parents had left the girl sleeping with her twin siblings.
German investigators are trying to trace the owner of the mobile phone used to call Brueckner. “We are investigating if an Ocean Club member of staff helped the suspect on the night Madeleine disappeared,” Mr Wolters revealed.
“This is of interest to us. The phone call made by the suspect could be between him and a member of staff who told him when to break into the McCanns’ apartment.”
The call was made just prior to Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3, 2007 and received on a mobile handset belonging to Brueckner at 7.32pm and finished at 8.02pm.
Madeleine was last seen at 9.05pm, when her father, Gerry, checked in on her as she slept. He closed the bedroom door and left via the unlocked patio doors.
Police theorise that instead of stealing valuables Brueckner took Madeleine.
There is no evidence the Ocean Club employee knew about Madeleine’s kidnap in advance.
“Our evidence tells us the suspect was doing burglaries in Praia da Luz and Lagos [a nearby resort] at the time,” Mr Wolters said. “We want to speak to the person he spoke to on the phone before we interview the suspect in prison.
“We haven’t found that person yet.”
Mr Wolters said while the phone places the suspect was in Praia da Luz on the night Madeleine went missing, he could still say the phone was not in his possession.
That’s why locating the person to whom he spoke is crucial.
“This is the evidence we want before we issue an arrest warrant and then interview him for the murder. It would help the case against him — but we would also need more evidence,” Mr Wolters said.
Kate McCann, Madeleine’s mother, suspected that the restaurant’s booking details could have been passed to their daughter’s kidnapper.
“To my horror, I saw that, no doubt in all innocence … the receptionist had added [that] … we wanted to eat close to our apartments as we were leaving our young children alone there and checking on them intermittently,” she wrote in her book about the case.
LINKS TO OTHER CASES, BUT KEY EVIDENCE MISSING
Mr Wolters confirmed that an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in 2005 in Praia da Luz forms part of the inquiries against Brueckner.
Nine sexual assaults and three near-misses took place on British girls aged between six and 12 while their families were on holiday in the Algarve between from 2004 to 2006, according to the Metropolitan police.
Police in Braunschweig, a city in Lower Saxony known as Brunswick in English, investigated the tip at the time and saw on their database that Brueckner was a known sexual offender. He was sent a summons to appear as a witness in the Madeleine case, and German media said last week it would have “given him enough time to remove any evidence”.
However, Wolters pointed out the suspect had already had 2007 to 2013 to remove any evidence of the murder.
An arrest warrant has not yet been issued against Brueckner for Madeleine’s murder because senior police and prosecutors would be forced to reveal their evidence against him. “We’re not ready to do that yet,” Mr Wolters said.
“The best thing [to solve the case] would be a confession. Or when we find the body, that would be a big step, but it could be possible that we find other things. Some objects that would help. We don’t know what we will get. We just need some more evidence to go to court.”
Mr Wolters said a key piece of evidence obtained by his team provided “100 per cent” certainty that Madeleine is dead.
“We don’t want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be theoretically possible.
“I know it’s important for the British people when I say she is dead, but I did not know it was so important.”
Brueckner had been living in Praia da Luz in a farmhouse overlooking the holiday resort.
He had fled to Portugal in 1995 as an 18-year-old to escape a two-year custody sentence for child sex offences.
He was later convicted of the sexual abuse of another child and the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz.
He is currently serving a 21-month jail sentence in Kiel, northern Germany.
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