A German man has been officially named as a suspect in connection with the 2007 disappearance of a 3-year-old British child. Madeleine McCann, who went missing while on vacation with her parents in the Algarve, The Portuguese authorities announced on Thursday.
Christian Brückner, who is currently imprisoned in Germany for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman, is now considered a “debate“Translated to”named suspect. ”
The classification was made by German prosecutors on Wednesday, at the request of Portugal, according to AFP. Brückner, 45, was charged with raping a 20-year-old Irish woman in 2004, three years before McCann disappeared, and is also being investigated. The rape and strangulation of a 13-year-old boy and the disappearance of a 5-year-old girl. Over the years, he has also been charged with theft, forgery and drug trafficking.
Brückner is the first and only official suspect in the case since McCann’s parents, Kate and Gerry, were investigated by investigators in 2007 but were later cleared.
Earlier this year, a German documentary crew discovered that Brückner worked as a janitor at the resort where McCann had disappeared, the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, in the spring of 2007, during the period. family stay.
In a statement for the German newspaper Bild, Brückner’s lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, said that his client has yet to be charged, calling the move a “procedural trick to avoid the impending statute of limitations in the next few days”. Under Portuguese law, murder expires after 15 years; Fülscher noted that the statute of limitations in the McCann case will end on May 3.
If Brückner is formally charged with McCann’s kidnapping and murder, he could be tried in Germany or Portugal.
McCann’s body was never found. German prosecutor told Kate and Gerry McCann in 2020 that they were “Concrete proof” their daughter is no longer alive.
As a child, Brückner was subjected to “terrible abuse” by his parents, being locked in the basement for hours on end and “not even allowed to drink a glass of water”. the Times of London last year’s report.
Brückner first emerged in 2017 as someone interested in McCann’s disappearance. Then in a fragmentary letter to a German documentary film crew, Brückner maintained his innocence, writing, “If possible, only drive during the day so that my shabby ‘hippy bus’ doesn’t attract attention, only drive on the roads I need to. come and most importantly never provoke the police. That means no crime, certainly no kidnapping. Having said that, this seemed to me at the time as absurd as starting a nuclear war or slaughtering a chicken.”
In 2020, while waiting in a cell to appear in court on a non-drug charge, guards broke two of Brückner’s ribs while trying to restrain him in a melee. The incident is said to have started when Brückner, who allegedly refused to wear shackles, smeared yogurt on the cell wall and intentionally clogged the toilet.
That same year, German police discovered a secret cellar beneath a garden on a piece of land where Brückner used to live. Investigators have recovered many items from space, including a bucket containing children’s toys.
Brückner continue to maintain my chastity. In June last year, he called the continuing investigation into his involvement in McCann’s death an “unbelievable scandal”.
