Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner acquitted of rape charges, set to be freed next year

Prosecutors urgently launch an appeal and consider charging rapist Christian Brueckner of murdering Madeleine McCann after German legal shock.

Christian Brueckner speaks to his lawyer in court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

German prosecutors are considering their next steps, including charging prime suspect Christian Brueckner for the murder of missing British child Madeleine McCann after the convicted rapist was found not guilty of another five sexual charges on Tuesday.

Brueckner, 47, showed no emotion when the not-guilty decision was handed down after a 40- day trial in Germany.

But the public prosecutors in Braunschweig are now preparing an immediate appeal, and also considering if the Madeleine McCann evidence they have against Brueckner would be sufficient to issue an arrest warrant.

In what is one of the world’s highest-profile missing persons cases, Madeleine, three, was taken from the bedroom of a holiday home in Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3, 2007 while her siblings were asleep next to her and her parents were dining at the resort restaurant with friends.

Prosecutors had been hoping that the latest five unrelated charges – three for rape and two for indecent exposure between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal – against their prime suspect would ensure Brueckner would spend life in prison. But after the not-guilty verdicts he may be eligible for release as early as next year having been sentenced to seven years for another unrelated rape of an elderly American woman.

Madeleine McCann.

Senior public prosecutor Hans-Christian Wolters told reporters outside the court: “We are appealing to the Federal Court of Justice. The court will then examine the verdict for legal errors. We hope that a decision will be made before the prisoner is due to be released in September 2025. Then we would have the opportunity to consider applying for a new arrest warrant.”

He then added: “We will also examine whether we can apply for an arrest warrant in the Maddie case. We have evidence that suggests that Christian Brueckner killed Maddie McCann.”

The trial had heard chilling evidence from an Irish woman, Hazel Behan, who was tied up, dragged, whipped and repeatedly raped by a masked man over a period of several hours in Portugal in 2004 when she was aged 20. She waived anonymity for the trial and said she believed Brueckner had raped her because she recognised Brueckner’s bright eyes and a mark on his thigh. She said he had also filmed the attack. Footage of two other rapes of an unidentified woman were found in Brueckner’s home.

Mr Wolters said a request for one of the judges to be removed from the case, alleging they had made up their minds before the case, had been rejected. Mr Wolters said: “We believe one of the judges was not open to the possibility of Brueckner being guilty – and they had made their minds up before the case even started.

“We think there is a case to show bias among the judges and we believe we can show that.”

In the latest case, Brueckner’s lawyer, Friedrich Fuelscher, said acquittal was the only correct outcome because two of the rape victims, a teenager and an elderly woman, had never been identified and the witnesses were not credible.

Brueckner is considered the main suspect in the McCann disappearance because of his criminal history, as well as the mysterious disappearance of several other children, and he had spent many years in the Algarve region of Portugal.

The case had been front-of-mind for the past 17 years with Madeleine’s doctor parents, Gerry and Kate, hoping their daughter was still alive. Recently, there had been mounting international pressure in the case, including a British police review of the Portuguese investigation.