Eligible for parole but likely to remain in jail

THE new suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann is unlikely to be released from custody despite being eligible for parole tomorrow.

Christian Brückner is currently serving a 15-month sentence for drug offences. He has not been formally charged over Madeleine’s disappearance and so cannot be held for it.

The 43-year-old German is also facing a separate sentence for rape and can be held on remand until appeals are exhausted. Brückner was convicted last year of the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese

town where Madeleine disappeared, and sentenced to seven years.

Brückner is yet to serve that sentence because he appealed against the conviction – on an extradition technicality – and, under German law, sentences are not imposed until the appeal process is exhausted. But the appeal court ordered that he be remanded in custody until it can hear the case.

This means even if he is granted parole tomorrow, he is unlikely to walk free from the high-security prison in the German city of Kiel.

Prisoners are eligible for parole in Germany when they have served twothirds of their sentence but it is not automatically granted.

Any decision to release Brückner from his sentence early would be at the discretion of the parole board.

But even if he were granted parole, he would still be on remand. It would be for the appeal court to make a ruling on whether he remained in custody.