Christian Brückner, main suspect in the Maddie McCann affair, acquitted of separate crimes – Libération

German justice acquitted this Tuesday, October 8, Christian Brückner, considered the main suspect in the disappearance of Maddie McCann, who was on trial for several sexual offenses in a procedure separate from the investigation into the British girl. A sentence of fifteen years in prison was requested by the public prosecutor in this trial. This 47-year-old German has been appearing since February for two sexual assaults and three rapes committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal. These cases are distinct from the Maddie case, who disappeared in 2007 in the same country, a criminal enigma with worldwide repercussions where false leads and twists and turns have been numerous.

In their indictment, prosecutors described the accused, a repeat sex offender, as “dangerous psychopathic sadist”. An expert psychiatrist estimated that it belonged to “the dangerous elite”. But after several months of hearings, the court did not appear convinced by the statements of several acquaintances of the accused or witnesses on whom a large part of the accusation in the crimes tried in Brunswick rests. Traces of DNA are missing in the various cases.

This acquittal paves the way for the release of Christian Brückner during next year, when he will have finished serving the sentence for rape which has put him in prison for several years in Germany. It would also be a setback for the Brunswick public prosecutor’s office, which hopes that a new conviction – and a new prison sentence – will give it more time for its investigations into the Maddie McCann case. The German prosecutor’s office has indicated that it will appeal the acquittal verdict. “We consider that the judgment is erroneous,” said Attorney General Christian Wolters

Masked rapist

German justice caused a sensation in 2020 by saying it was convinced of the involvement of Christian Brückner, then detained in Germany, in the disappearance of the British girl. In 2007, Maddie disappeared at age 3 from the rental apartment where she was vacationing while her parents dined nearby. His disappearance gave rise to an international campaign and extraordinary media mobilization.

At the material time, the accused lived on the Portuguese coast of the Algarve, near the McCanns’ vacation spot, and a cell phone in his name rang near their home for half an hour on the evening of the disappearance. German investigators claim to have “concrete evidence” of Madeleine’s death. On the contrary, the defense denounces judicial relentlessness. In the cases tried since February in Germany, Christian Brückner’s lawyer also believes that the evidence is insufficient.

Intense gaze, often in jacket and shirt, the brown-haired accused did not speak during his trial. Two complainants identified him after his photo went around the world in 2020 in connection with the McCann affair. They included a woman who was sexually assaulted when she was 10 on a beach in the Algarve in April 2007, just weeks before Madeleine McCann disappeared. In another case, Brückner was accused of exposing himself to an 11-year-old Portuguese child on a playground. He was also on trial for the rape of a woman in her seventies, tied and beaten in her holiday apartment, of a child of around 14 tied to a post in her house and of a 20-year-old Irish woman in whose home he was accused. to have entered via the balcony. The latter gave chilling testimony in court describing a rape accompanied by violence and filmed. The author was masked.

Christian Brückner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the rape, in 2005, of an American woman aged 72 at the time, in Praia da Luz, the town where Madeleine McCann disappeared.