Could the suspect be back on streets within weeks?

THE man suspected of abducting and killing Madeleine McCann has applied for his early release from prison.

Christian Brueckner made an official request to be freed after serving twothirds of a sentence for drug dealing.

Authorities must now decide if his remaining sentence is suspended.

Brueckner, 43, is in a high-security prison in the northern port city of Kiel in Germany after he was jailed for 21 months for selling drugs. On Sunday, he reached the two-thirds point of his sentence, meaning he was eligible for parole.

He has not been charged over Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007 and cannot be held for it. Prosecutors admitted they did not have enough evidence to question him.

Mark T Hofmann, a German crime analyst, said state lawyers would now be desperately trying to find grounds to charge him with the Maddie case to avoid the embarrassing situation in which he could be freed. He added: ‘In my opinion they need one of three things – that is a body, witnesses or a confession. Without one of these three things there is a high probability that he will be free very soon.

‘The problem is, he is only in prison for drugs – this is considered a relatively minor offence.’ Brueckner has also been handed a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72year-old widow in the Algarve in 2005.

He was prosecuted in Germany last year, but appealed, arguing the trial was unfair because he had been extradited from Portugal in 2017 on a different matter.

Lawyers said he could only be prosecuted in Germany for the offence for which the European arrest warrant was issued.

The case is now being considered by the European Court of Justice. Under German

law, sentences are not imposed until the appeal process is exhausted.

The Kiel Regional Court yesterday confirmed the public prosecutor’s office had been asked to provide statements on his release and why they would oppose it. Brueckner has also given a statement himself.

Typically, a judge will rule on early release after interviewing the prisoner, taking into account their behaviour in prison and the crime they have been sentenced for. A spokesman for the court said this process usually took ‘weeks not months’.

Brueckner’s lawyer, Jan-Christian Hochmann, said yesterday: ‘We have decided to give no comment for the time being.’