MADDIE COPS FIND SECRET CELLAR
COPS IN DIG FIND CELLAR AT VEG PLOT
POLICE hunting for Madeleine Mccann have dug up a hidden cellar at allotments where prime suspect in her disappearance Christian Brueckner once lived.
POLICE hunting for Madeleine Mccann have unearthed a hidden cellar at an allotment where the prime suspect in her disappearance once lived.
Officers discovered the dungeon-type basement in the foundations of a building which neighbours say was demolished a few months after the British girl vanished in 2007.
Investigators have been removing slabs of building materials in a two-day search using ground-penetrating radar and sniffer dogs trained to look for dead bodies.
Convicted child sex offender Christian Brueckner, 43, lived “off-grid” at the site in Seelze, Hanover, after returning to his native Germany following the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
German police suspect Brueckner snatched and killed Madeleine though he has not been questioned, arrested or charged and has denied any involvement.
Wolfgang Kossack, 73, who owns the plot next to Brueckner’s former allotment, said he realised the link to the suspect when police started digging.
“I remembered his face from the pictures in the news,’’ he said. “And I remember his van and his dogs. I had completely forgotten about him up until then. Christian Brueckner had the garden next to mine.
“He arrived in 2007 and left within a year. He told me that he was living off the grid, that he had not registered with the authorities – no-one knew he was there.
“He never did any gardening. He did not plant anything or try to grow anything. He just sat around drinking beer.”
Mr Kossack added: “At the time there was a building on the garden.
“It was a small wooden structure with only one room to keep tools and other things but it had a kitchen.
“The building was not really a house, you might call it a shed. But it had a cellar and underneath there would be foundations. This building was destroyed in 2008.’’
Mr Kossack said Brueckner, who also had an apartment in Hanover, disappeared in 2008 and he never saw him again.
Up to 100 officers were involved in the search operation. German police have so far released few details about the allotment operation beyond confirming that it was part of the Madeleine investigation.