Christian Brueckner, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007, has been released from a German prison earlier today. German authorities formally identified Brueckner in 2020 as the prime suspect in the case of the three-year-old who went missing from the Praia da Luz holiday complex in May 2007. Brueckner, who previously served a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for rape, has declined a request from British police for an interview regarding the child’s disappearance in Portugal while she was on vacation with her family.
Born in Germany in 1976, Brueckner moved to Portugal in his late teens and resided there from 1995 to 2007, primarily working in the food industry. He was living in a rundown farmhouse on the outskirts of Praia da Luz when Madeleine disappeared. In 2005, Brueckner committed a heinous crime against a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz and received a seven-year jail term in Germany. According to German prosecutors, phone records indicate Brueckner was near the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the day Madeleine vanished. However, he claims to have been elsewhere with a young German woman.
Despite being named the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case in 2020, Brueckner has not been formally charged and denies any involvement in her disappearance. German authorities are conducting an investigation, with chief prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters stating there is incriminating evidence against Brueckner. Wolters mentioned that while the evidence is not conclusive, Brueckner remains the sole suspect in the case. Search efforts by German teams earlier this year in Portugal did not yield significant evidence against him.
Wolters suspects that Madeleine was likely killed shortly after being abducted, but the absence of crucial evidence like the child’s body hinders the ability to press charges. London’s Metropolitan Police, leading Operation Grange in the search for Madeleine, has reached out to Brueckner for cooperation, but he has refused to engage with them. The possibility that Madeleine’s abduction was orchestrated by a notorious pedophile network, previously associated with Belgian criminal Marc Dutroux, has been raised by a former police official overseeing the Dutroux investigation. The official highlighted intelligence suggesting a trafficking group may have been involved in seeking a young child around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
In a separate development, it was reported that German prosecutors declined to investigate claims implicating a couple in a potential hit-and-run incident involving Madeleine. Portuguese authorities sought further action after receiving information from a British informant, who suspected her brother and his German spouse might be concealing facts about the case. The investigation has predominantly focused on Brueckner, overlooking other leads. The British informant has since passed away, and the German wife’s current status remains unknown. German authorities reportedly rebuffed requests from Portuguese investigators to pursue a line of inquiry related to an alleged vehicular incident involving Madeleine.
The ongoing search for the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case will be discussed in the upcoming program “Madeleine McCann: Searching For The Prime Suspect” airing on ITV1 on Wednesday, September 17 at 9pm.