Maddie suspect denies abducting her as he is linked to boy’s murder
MADELEINE McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has for the first time denied abducting the British toddler, his lawyer has said.
Friedrich Fulscher commented yesterday after speaking to the German national who is in solitary confinement in jail.
Mr Fulscher refused to comment further as it emerged police had found children’s clothing, including several girls’ swimsuits, in Brueckner’s motor home.
They also found six USB sticks with 8,000 child abuse images hidden under the remains of a dog at his derelict home in Germany.
Asked if his client had anything to do with Madeleine’s abduction, Mr Fulscher said that Brueckner “denied any involvement”.
He spoke as it emerged Brueckner is also being investigated over the 1998 murder of a German boy of 13.
Madeleine, three, vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.
Friends of her parents Gerry and Kate have claimed German police are “playing games” with the couple by telling them Madeleine is dead but not revealing how they know.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolter confirmed he had written to the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, to say Madeleine is dead. Mr and Mrs McCann have stayed silent on the row between international police forces but a source close to the couple said: “It’s like Hans Christian Wolter is playing funny games with the McCanns without being funny.
“If this German prosecutor is insistent in his belief that Madeleine is dead it’s time her parents were told what the evidence is.”
Portuguese authorities have urged criminal friends of Brueckner, 43, to come forward, promising them immunity from prosecution.
Meanwhile Brueckner, who once rented a kiosk in Brunswick, Germany, could be freed from jail on July 17 if the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturns his conviction for raping a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal.
His lawyers say German police acted illegally by extraditing him from Portugal for a separate drugs case, then putting him on trial for rape. The ECJ will rule on July 16 in a fast-tracked hearing because of the unusual circumstances of the case. Depending on the ruling, experts say Portugal could give retrospective permission for Brueckner’s extradition on the rape charge so the conviction stands and he serves his seven-year sentence, or the ECJ could order a retrial. The third outcome, said by Mr Wolter to be a worst case scenario, is a ruling that there should not have been a trial and Brueckner’s conviction being overturned.
He could then be released and cannot be rearrested. That means Brueckner could potentially leave Germany for a country with no extradition arrangement. Mr Wolter stressed however that he did not expect this to happen.
It was revealed yesterday that Brueckner is being investigated over the murder of Tristan Brubach, 13, who was raped, strangled and tortured. His body was found dumped in a Frankfurt subway in 1998.
Chief prosecutor Noah Kruger said authorities were checking for any connection with the disappearance of Madeleine.
He said: “The sequence of events and the e-fit from the Tristan case could be similar.”
Brueckner has been linked to various abductions and murders in Portugal and Germany since he was named a suspect in Madeleine’s case.