MADDIE SUSPECT: I did not kill her
Maddie suspect claims he is not involved in case McCanns given no evidence by police who say she’s dead
MADELEINE McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has for the first time denied abducting the British toddler.
His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher made the revelation yesterday after speaking to the convicted rapist who is currently in solitary confinement in a German jail.
But he refused to say anything further as it emerged police found items of children’s clothing, including several girls’ swimsuits, in a Tiffin Allegro motor home that Brueckner used in Germany.
Six USB sticks with 8,000 vile child abuse images were also found among the bones of a dead dog at his derelict home in Germany.
Mr Fulscher was asked directly if his client had anything to do with Madeleine’s abduction, and replied that Brueckner “denied any involvement”. The existence of the Winnebago-style motor home was revealed in a German TV documentary on Monday night.
The motor home was never seen in Portugal, where he had a campervan and a black Jaguar.
In Portugal, friends of Madeleine’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann accused German police of “playing games” with the heartbroken couple by failing to reveal what evidence they have that she is no longer alive.
German prosecutors Hans Christian Wolter confirmed he had written to the couple saying that Madeleine is dead – but without revealing how this was known. The McCanns said they had not yet received the letter.
But a source close to them said the time had come for prosecutors to tell them what they know. The source added: “It’s like Hans Christian Wolter is playing funny games with the McCanns, without being funny. Those close to the McCanns are getting really mad with the German approach.
“If this German prosecutor is insistent in his belief that Madeleine is dead, it’s time her parents were told what the evidence is.” Kate and Gerry, from Rothley, Leics, have remained silent on the row between police forces involved in the investigation. But it is very unusual for a close associate of the couple to criticise investigators in this way – and highlights the frustration they feel as answers have yet to be found 13 years after their daughter vanished. Portuguese authorities have
begged criminal friends of Brueckner, 43, to come forward – promising them immunity from prosecution.
It comes as it emerged Brueckner could be released from prison on July 17 if the European Court of Justice overturns his conviction for raping a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz, the resort where Madeleine vanished in May 2007, at the age of three.
He is challenging the conviction because German police extradited him from Portugal for a separate drugs conviction, but then put him on trial for rape. His lawyers are arguing that this was illegal.
The ruling is set to be made on July 16 in a hearing that has been fast-tracked because of the unusual circumstances of the case.
There are three potential outcomes of any ECJ ruling. The first is that the Portuguese could give retrospective permission for the extradition on the rape charge, so that the conviction stands and Brueckner stays inside for his seven years sentence.
The second is that the ECJ could order a retrial of the rape.
The third possibility is that the judge could rule there should not have been a trial, the conviction is overturned, Brueckner is released and he cannot be rearrested.
He could then potentially leave and go to a country that does not have an extradition agreement with Germany.
However, Mr Wolters stressed this was a worst-case scenario and that he did not expect it to happen.
Brueckner is now under investigation for the sickening rape and murder of a 13-yearold boy in Frankfurt.
Tristan Brubach’s body was found in an underpass near the Frankfurt-Hochst train station.
He had been beaten unconscious, strangled, raped and tortured.
Frankfurt chief prosecutor Noah Kruger said: “We are checking whether there are any connections between the two cases.
“In itself, however, this is not unusual, but routine. The sequence of events and the e-fit from the Tristan case could be similar.”