Germans fear Maddie suspect was behind more Algarve horrors
GERMAN prosecutors have urged police in Portugal to investigate ‘more sexual abuse and rapes’ they believe Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner may have carried out on the Algarve.
Chief prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, heading the Madeleine probe in Germany, confirmed the move as he gave fresh details of a child sex offence linking Brueckner to the Algarve a month before the British youngster vanished. ‘We are investigating whether he committed more crimes in Portugal,’ Mr Wolters told Portugal’s state broadcaster RTP.
‘I’m not able to say how many cases are under investigation at the moment. But we think there could be more crime, more sexual abuse, more rapes. We are asking the Portuguese authorities to investigate whether that possibility exists.’
He confirmed that Brueckner was a suspect in an April 2007 crime, when a man committed a solo sex act in front of a young girl on a beach near the Praia da Luz resort from where Madeleine vanished on May 3 that year.
Referring to the suspect only as Christian B, Mr Wolters said: ‘We think he could be responsible for a crime of sexual abuse on a ten-yearold German child in Portugal in April 2007. He has not been charged. He is only a suspect.
‘German police asked Portuguese authorities if there had been any sexual crime in Portugal around the time Madeleine McCann disappeared and they came back with this case. It was in the same area where Madeleine was kidnapped.
‘We have spoken to the victim. I cannot confirm at the moment if she recognised Christian B. I don’t know if the police have tried to speak to him about it.’
German media reported that the girl was grabbed on Salema Beach, a 15-minute drive west of Praia da Luz. She was saved when adults rushed to her aid, causing the man to flee the scene.
A link with Brueckner emerged after he was named as the main suspect in the Madeleine case.
The young victim is reported to have contacted police to state she was now ‘99 per cent’ sure he was the perpetrator.
Drifter Brueckner was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of exposing himself to young children at a playground in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines, a 40minute drive from Praia da Luz. Police discovered after his detention he was wanted by Germany on an international arrest warrant for child sex abuse and possession of child abuse images.
He was extradited to his homeland and was never prosecuted in Portugal following his Algarve arrest.
The criminal probe was mothballed, despite protests from the youngster’s angry parents.
The 43-year-old suspect is currently in Germany’s Kiel Prison for drugs offences and is due to start a sevenyear sentence for the 2005 rape in Praia da Luz of an American pensioner. He was convicted of the horrific sex crime late last year.
Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said recently that his client was ‘innocent’ of any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
‘Girl of ten was saved when adults rushed to her aid’