Maddie suspect ‘had cleaned hotel’s pools’
Probe links Brueckner to crime scene
THE prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case cleaned the swimming pools at the hotel where she disappeared, it has been claimed.
German investigators believe paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner murdered Madeleine after abducting her from her holiday apartment at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz in 2007.
Brueckner, 45, had used a mixture of odd jobs and crime to fund his lifestyle in Portugal around the time the threeyear-old vanished as her parents dined at a nearby tapas restaurant.
This included running a swimming pool business, selling advertising and breaking into hotels to steal passports which he sold. He also swiped solar panels from houses and diesel from yachts.
But reports in Germany have now claimed Brueckner “is said to have cleaned the pools of the Ocean Club while he was doing his pool business”.
If true, the claim also ties with information in a documentary which aired on German television last night.
The show, by the German broadcaster SAT. 1, claimed Brueckner must have had a very detailed working knowledge of the hotel where Madeleine’s family were staying. The documentary also claimed he had been there several times to carry out maintenance work and detailed how mobile phone analysis suggested he was no more than five minutes away when she vanished.
It delved into other evidence including a former online friend who said the German revealed his sick fantasies, alleging he said he wanted to “capture something small and use it for days”.
But jailed Brueckner has written from his cell to protest his innocence and says the idea he abducted Madeleine is as “absurd as starting a nuclear war”.
He is currently serving a jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.
The Mirror revealed last year that he is being held in a high security prison in Oldenburg, near Bremen.
Nicknamed The Alcatraz of the North, its doors and windows are made from reinforced glass so guards can keep an eye on prisoners at all times.
Escape is thought to be almost impossible at the hi-tech facility which is surrounded by a 22ft wall.