Christian Brueckner, the top suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, has been accused of many sex offences, but crucially not the kid’s abduction.
German police announced two years ago that convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was the guy behind Madeleine’s kidnapping in May 2007 with a fanfare that garnered international media attention.
Despite the heartbreaking news that prosecutors had “solid proof” that the little girl was dead and that he was the perpetrator, no charges have been brought against him subsequently and the investigation has not been able to conclusively connect him.
Instead, German investigators charged Brueckner today with the rapes of two unidentified women in Portugal, the rape of Irish tour guide Hazel Behan in 2004, sexual assault in April 2007 on a Portuguese beach near the location of Madeleine’s disappearance a month later, and a subsequent sexual assault case in 2017 — once more in Portugal.
When Brueckner was allegedly traveling between his own Germany and Portugal between December 2000 and June 2017, the alleged crimes are believed to have occurred.
The police were informed of a video footage of Brueckner allegedly assaulting the two unidentified women, and they later filed charges in connection with the rapes of those women.
Two important witnesses and former acquaintances of Brueckner, Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth, are accused of stealing the camera with the video from Brueckner’s home close to Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast.
They tell how an old lady and a little girl are raped by a guy they identify as Brueckner, and the crimes take place in his house on the now-disappearing video.
But parents Kate and Gerry had thought that Brueckner’s arrest would put an end to the 15-year-old mystery surrounding Madeline’s disappearance from their vacation rental in Praia da Luz, so their disappointment at the news that he has not been prosecuted will only deepen.
Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor, responded to a question concerning the McCann case by saying to MailOnline: “We hope that we can devote all of our focus into the McCann case after the other investigations have concluded.”
But we are still optimistic since the case is still open for the time being. Maybe we can bring a charge, maybe we can’t.
Brueckner is presently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Oldenburg for the 2005 rape of an elderly American lady in her Praia da Luz home.
After DNA from a hair found in her bed was matched to him, he was found guilty. Brueckner and Friedrich Fulscher, his attorney, have denied any participation and maintained that he was found guilty after a botched inquiry.
Brueckner wrote: “In the 2005 rape of the elderly woman, the perpetrator was characterized as having dark eyes and being quite powerful in a letter to a friend that was obtained by MailOnline. I was found guilty, although I never had black eyes or had Dwayne Johnson’s looks.
There is simply no proof that I committed this heinous act, he continued. No DNA, nothing at all. Things suddenly materialized where none had been before.
It just so happens that my hair from the 2005 case—13 years ago—appear in the BKA (German police) laboratory. It was one of 15 hairs discovered, but strangely, only two of them—mine and the elderly woman’s—had DNA.
He said, “No more words are necessary.
Now, Brueckner’s attorney has submitted an appeal request to the German courts, requesting that the 2019 rape conviction be reexamined due to insufficient supporting evidence.
The octogenarian could not have been raped, according to the evidence in the new instances under investigation, according to German investigators, who allege the tattooed guy who committed both the assault on Behan and the one on Brueckner.
Even while he told MailOnline he wasn’t optimistic that his appeal would be successful, Mr. Fulscher pointed out that his client doesn’t have any tattoos and so couldn’t have committed the rapes.
Only a vanishingly tiny percentage of applications are accepted, he said.
The particular allegations against Brueckner involve a rape that is said to have occurred on an unidentified lady who was between 70 and 80 years old somewhere between December 28, 2000 and April 8, 2006.
According to reports, he allegedly tied the lady up, sexually assaulted her in the bedroom of her vacation condo, and beat her with a whip while recording the incident.
He is charged with raping a 14-year-old German girl in a similar manner in his Praia da Luz residence on a different day between the same dates.
The accused is said to have traveled to Praia da Rocha in Portugal on June 16, 2004, about three in the morning, and utilized the balcony to break into Hazel Behan’s residence.
The accused is alleged to have sexually assaulted a ten-year-old German girl playing on the rocks on April 7, 2007, at approximately 3:30 p.m. while only wearing shoes and otherwise being nude on a stretch of beach near Salema in the Faro District of Portugal.
He is said to have carried out a similar assault ten years later in a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines, Portugal, where he was apprehended by local authorities.
German citizens who are charged with crimes abroad may have their cases tried there under German law.