‘He enjoyed torturing me’
WOMAN’S MADDIE SUSPECT RAPE HELL
MYSTERY: Missing Madeleine
Chief Crime Correspondent A WOMAN raped by the prime suspect in the hunt for Madeleine Mccann told police: “I felt that he enjoyed torturing me.’’
Masked sex beast Christian Brueckner broke into the 72-year-old’s home – near the apartment from which the British youngster vanished – armed with a foot-long sword.
He then dragged her by the hair to her bedroom where he gagged, blindfolded and tied her up with rope.
As he put the frail widow through a sickening 15-minute ordeal, he beat her with a metal whip.
Stolen
He then demanded money and frogmarched her into the kitchen where the terrified woman handed him 100 euros from her wallet.
His victim – now 85 – was left so traumatised she quit Portugal and moved home to her native United States, where she has slept with lights on ever since.
She told police her sadistic attacker “enjoyed” torturing her and put her through what she believed was a “methodical procedure” which was “long and planned”.
Drifter Brueckner, who has 17 convictions and began abusing girls as a teen, then shut the woman in the bathroom and fled with her computer.
He committed the shocking crime in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2005 – two years before three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort.
Brueckner, 43, was jailed for seven years for the rape six months ago in his native Germany after shocked “acquaintances” viewed footage of separate attacks on a video camera stolen from his home and tipped off police.
Yesterday German police, who believe Madeleine is dead, said he was the prime suspect in the girl’s case.
He spent 12 years on the Algarve coast before the youngster’s disappearance on May 3, 2007. His mobile phone received a half-hour call in Praia da Luz around an hour before she vanished.
Brueckner reportedly fell under suspicion after police received a tip-off from one of his pals that he had confessed during a drinking session that he “knew all about” what had happened.
Christian Hoppe, from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, said two of Brueckner’s convictions were for “sexual contact with girls”.
Last night Brueckner was locked up in Kiel jail in northern Germany. But we can reveal he may soon be free.
He has appealed to the European Court of Justice that German authorities did not have the right to prosecute him for the rape.
The court – based in Luxembourg – is due to rule on the matter soon.
Meanwhile, the Met Police say they have received more than 270 calls and emails since an appeal for information was launched on Wednesday.