German investigators have found ‘evidence’ of missing Madeleine McCann in the van of prime suspect Christian Brueckner it was sensationally claimed tonight – 15 years to the day Maddie disappeared in Portugal.
The evidence in question is thought to be ‘telltale’ fibres from the three-year-old’s pyjamas.
Speaking on Portuguese TV, prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters again reiterated he believed the toddler was dead and insisted Brueckner, 45, was the man responsible.
Mr Wolters was interviewed on a show called Sabado, in an hour long programme to mark the 15th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance from her parents holiday apartment at Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast.
When asked by host Sandra Felgueiras whether it was ‘true that you have found something of Madeleine McCann in Christian Brueckner’s van’ in connection to the fibres, Mr Wolters replied: ‘I’m not going to comment on the details of the investigation.’
But when pressed by the interviewer: ‘But you can’t deny it?’ Mr Wolters responded: ‘I don’t want to deny it.’
Convicted rapist and paedophile Brueckner was named by German prosecutors as prime suspect in the case two years ago with investigators saying they had ‘concrete evidence’ she was dead.
But since then there has been little sign of him being charged, prompting speculation there is not enough evidence of his involvement in her disappearance and earlier this week it emerged Brueckner claims to have an alibi the night she vanished.
He has insisted he was with an 18-year-old German woman, having sex in his camper van miles away from where Madeleine vanished from and he has given full details to a US documentary.
When he was named in June 2020 police asked for information in the distinctive yellow and white T3 campervan and DNA experts have been examining it ever since.
Mr Wolters added cryptically: ‘The investigation is still going on and we have found some new facts, some new evidence, not forensic evidence but evidence.’
He then repeated his 2020 claim that Brueckner was responsible for her murder and said: ‘We are sure that he killed Madeleine McCann. I can’t give you any more details for the moment.’
In her report Sandra highlighted how the fact that Mr Wolters refused to deny that something of Madeleine’s had been found was proof of his guilt.
Mr Wolters also revealed how he had not been in touch with the McCanns and said: ‘There is no relationship between the McCanns and me. I have never spoken with them and I have never written to them. There is no relationship.’
He also highlighted how the fact that Portuguese police had made Brueckner an ‘arguido’ or suspect in the case showed the German investigation was ‘going the right way’.
Brueckner is currently serving seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, two years before Madeleine was snatched and he is in Germany’s Oldenburg jail.
Prosecutors are investigating him over the rape of a Irish tour guide Hazel Behan in the Algarve as well as a sexual assault in Praia da Luz on a ten-year-old German girl a month before Madeleine disappeared.
He is also being probed over an indecent exposure in a children’s playground in the Algarve and last month MailOnline revealed he was also being investigated over two further rapes.