German prosecutor is `sure' suspect killed British girl
A German prosecutor has said he is “sure” that Madeleine McCann — the British girl who disappeared from a resort in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three — was killed by suspect Christian Brückner.
Hans Christian Wolters, who is investigating the case, told Portuguese broadcaster CMTV on Tuesday that investigators had found “new evidence” that connects Brückner, who is a convicted rapist and child sex abuser, to the child's disappearance. Brückner is yet to be charged.
“The investigation is still going, and I think we found some new facts, some new evidence, not forensic evidences, but some evidence,” Wolters told the broadcaster.
“We are sure he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann,” he said.
Wolters was speaking on the 15th anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine — who was also affectionately known by the name Maddie — from a holiday resort in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve region, on May 3, 2007.
She went missing from a hotel room during the evening, while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were dining at a nearby restaurant.
Last month, Portuguese and German officials named Brückner, who is German but lived in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007, as an official suspect.
It was in 2020 that prosecutors first said that they suspected Brückner, who due to German privacy laws they refer to as Christian B, had been involved in Madeleine's disappearance. They said at the time they believed the child was dead.
It was the first time Portuguese prosecutors identified a formal suspect in the case since clearing Kate and Gerry McCann, who were initially named as suspects in 2007.
In a statement published on April 22, after Portuguese and German officials named Brückner as the official suspect in the case, Kate and Gerry McCann said they “welcomed” the news.