Suspect’s ex-lawyer: he could have taken MADDIE BRUCKNER A PSYCHO SAYS HIS BRIEF

A LAWYER who represented Christian Bruckner in court fears he was the one who kidnapped Madeleine Mccann.

Serafim Vieira, who represented the suspect in a separate criminal case, believes the German paedophile has psychopathic traits.

Asked if Bruckner, 43, could have snatched the British youngster, he replied: “I believe he may be behind the disappearance of Madeleine.”

Mr Vieira acted for Bruckner in 2006 after he was arrested for stealing diesel from HGVS in Portugal’s Algarve.

During the court hearing the German admitted his secret paedophile past. This was a year before three-year-old Madeleine disappeared.

Bruckner told a judge he served 18 months in prison for a sex attack on a youngster in his homeland when he was a teenager.

The revelation that authorities knew of his conviction has piled further pressure on Portuguese officials.

A police source previously said the reason Bruckner was never quizzed about Madeleine was because they did not know he was a sex offender.

But official documents show he publicly revealed his past crimes in court a year before Madeleine vanished from her parents’ holiday flat in Praia da Luz in May 2007.

Mr Vieira told Portugal’s RTP TV channel he thinks Bruckner might be responsible for her disappearance. Asked if his former client had a psychopathic temperament, he said of Bruckner: “I can’t say he didn’t. On the contrary.”

Molested

And about claims Bruckner was involved in Madeleine’s disappearance, he said: “I’m not surprised.”

Bruckner was caught stealing fuel from HGVS in Portimao with an Austrian drifter, Michael Tatschl, in April 2006. At their first court appearance in the Algarve town, the then 29-year-old German came clean about his past. He told Judge Antonieta Nascimento he was 17 when he was convicted of thefts and sexual offences in his home country.

Mr Vieira said the German was held on remand for eight months because he refused to give his address in court.

He was living in a rented ramshackle farmhouse in the hills outside Praia da Luz at the time of his arrest.

But in court he claimed to live in a camper van at a German-owned scrap yard in the hamlet of Barrocal.

Authorities in Germany stunned the world a fortnight ago by announcing the Bruckner probe 13 years after Madeleine vanished while on holiday with parents Kate and Gerry, from Rothley, Leics.

Police are also probing if Bruckner is linked to the cases of five children going back to 1996 in Germany, Belgium and Portugal.

Two were found murdered and three are still missing.

Yesterday it emerged that material collected from a 2004 rape scene at a flat 30 minutes away from Praia da Luz was destroyed two months before Madeleine’s disappearance.

It means the chance of linking the two cases if the same offender was responsible could now be impossible.

I would not be surprised by claims he might be involved