Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Maddie witness ‘is worst you can get’
Lawyer says informer is ‘a cheat’
THE lawyer for Madeleine Mccann suspect Christian Brueckner claims the witness against him is a crook seeking police favours.
The witness is thought to have claimed convicted paedophile and rapist Brueckner, 43, told him in a bar that he knew what had happened to missing Madeleine.
Lawyer Friedrich Fulscher says he believes the informant is unreliable and may have made the claims to get help from detectives.
He claims the witness may later have got early release from a jail term in a foreign country.
Mr Fulscher said: “If this is the same person, I think it’s the worst witness you can get. A human who’s spent his whole life cheating people for his own benefit is never a reliable witness.”
Prosecutors have said they believe Madeleine is dead but they do not have enough evidence to charge Brueckner.
He is being held in isolation in jail in Kiel, north Germany, amid fears he could be targeted by inmates.
Mr Fulscher said the claims against Brueckner mean he “won’t be able to lead a normal life... without being recognised and facing hostility”. Brueckner was flagged up as a potential suspect as early as 2013 – six years after Madeleine vanished on a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Portugal, just before her fourth birthday. The informant told police of his alleged confession in 2017. Brueckner was extradited to Germany from Italy in 2018 under an arrest warrant that cited a drugs conviction.
But he was subsequently convicted and sentenced for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal.
Mr Fulscher has filed a request with authorities demanding Brueckner’s release.
He said: “It is very hard to be in a cell seven days a week, 23 hours a day, without having a chance to do some sports or something similar. I have noticed that he has been getting slimmer because of the lack of movement.“