Police hope to charge Christian Brueckner with Madeleine McCann’s abduction and murder before Christmas: News comes as rapist is accused of ‘molesting girl, 10, on beach near resort where British three-year-old vanished just weeks later’

• Convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was named as prime suspect in McCann case
• He has now been charged with five offences by German prosecutors
• Brueckner was not charged with crimes relating to Madeleine’s disappearance

Police reportedly hope to charge Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner with the toddler’s abduction and murder before Christmas.

The news came as convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was charged with a series of sex crimes – but none of them relating to the disappearance of Madeleine.

According to The Sun, Brueckner remains a prime suspect and ‘a concrete case’ is being built against him.

He was named as the man responsible for Madeleine’s May 2007 abduction two years ago by German police in a fanfare which sparked worldwide media attention.

But since then no charges have been brought and the investigation has failed to positively link him, despite prosecutors giving the heart-breaking news they had ‘concrete evidence’ the little girl was dead and that Brueckner was the culprit.

Instead, German investigators charged him with five offences between 2000 and 2017, when Brueckner was travelling between his native Germany and Portugal.

In April 2007, the defendant allegedly ambushed a 10-year-old German girl playing on the beach at Salema – close to where Madeleine vanished just a month later – in the district of Faro in Portugal, wearing only shoes and otherwise naked. 

He allegedly forced her to watch him perform a sex act. 

German prosecutors have named Christian Brueckner (left), who is currently in jail for rape, as the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s (right) disappearance. Convicted rapist Brueckner, 45, was named as the man responsible for the May 2007 abduction two years ago by German police, but has not been charged. He was charged with a series of other sex crimes

The fact that Brueckner has not been charged over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the holiday apartment of parents Kate and Gerry (pictured) in Praia da Luz will bring fresh heartache as they had hoped this would mark the end of the 15-year-mystery

Ten years later, he is said to have carried out a similar crime against a girl at a playground at Bartolomeu de Messines in Portugal. Prosecutors say the girl ran to her father for help and the suspect was arrested by Portuguese police at the scene.

Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said the new charges had come as a ‘complete surprise’ to him and his client, and said they were based on ‘dubious witnesses and on video evidence that no one has been able to find’.

The charges in relation to the rapes of the two unknown women come after police were told about a video recording of Brueckner allegedly attacking them.

Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth – two key witnesses and former friends of Brueckner’s – are said to have stolen the camera with the recording on it from the German’s house near Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast.

In the footage – which has since disappeared – they describe how an elderly woman and a young girl are raped by a man who they identify as Brueckner.

The charges brought against Brueckner include a rape said to have taken place sometime between December 28, 2000 and April 8, 2006 on an unknown woman aged between 70-80 years old.

He is said to have tied the woman up and raped her in the bedroom of her holiday apartment and hit her with a whip while filming her ordeal.

On another day between the same dates he is accused of raping an unknown 14-year-old German-speaking girl at his home in Praia da Luz in a similar way, allegedly tying her up and videotaping the act.

In June 2004, the defendant allegedly gained access at night to the apartment of a then-20-year-old woman from Ireland via the balcony in Praia da Rocha. The sleeping woman was then awakened by the masked suspect at knifepoint and raped.

The accused is also alleged to have filmed large parts of the attack with a video camera he had brought.

Under German law, German nationals accused of crimes in other countries can be tried in their home country.

Investigators believe the 45-year-old also killed Madeleine, then three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007. However, he has not been charged with her disappearance.

Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in the case, was identified as a suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020.

But the fact that Brueckner has not been charged for Madeleine’s disappearance from the holiday apartment of parents Kate and Gerry in Praia da Luz will bring fresh heartache as they had hoped this would mark the end of the 15-year-mystery. 

The Braunschweig prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the accused was the same person under investigation in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.

‘Specifically, the accused is charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of sexual abuse of children,’ the prosecutor’s office added. ‘The investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann continues,’ it noted. 

Madeleine went missing from this apartment in the resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on holiday there with her family in 2007

When asked about the McCann case prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told MailOnline: ‘We hope that we can put all our energy into the McCann case once the other investigations have ended.

‘But we don’t know how it will end, for the time being it is still open, maybe we can bring a charge, maybe we can’t, but we are still hopeful.’

Reacting to the string of new charges, Brueckner’s lawyer Fulscher told MailOnline: ‘This has come as a complete surprise to me and my client. 

‘The charges appear to be based on statements from two dubious witnesses and on video evidence that no one has been able to find.

‘These same two people have also given evidence in the McCann case and I have not even been shown their testimony.

‘Part of the evidence in the case of the rape [of the 20-year-old woman] is that the attacker had a large tattoo or birthmark on his leg and the prosecution knows full well my client has neither.

‘To bring charges the prosecutor has to be convinced the information in the case is reliable and relevant and we believe it is not. This is not a fair investigation.’

The case against Brueckner is expected to start next Spring. 

Brueckner is currently in Oldenburg jail serving seven years for the rape of an elderly American woman in her home in Praia da Luz in 2005.

He was convicted after DNA from a hair in her bed was matched to him. Brueckner and his lawyer Fulscher have denied his involvement and insisted he was convicted after a bungled investigation. 

Hans Christian Wolters, the German prosecutor investigating Madeleine’s disappearance, recently warned there’s no end in sight for the three-year-old’s probe

In a letter to a friend, seen by MailOnline, Brueckner said: ‘In the 2005 rape of the old lady, the offender was described as having dark eyes and incredibly strong. I got convicted but I never had dark eyes or looked like Dwayne Johnson.’

He added:’ There is absolutely no evidence that I committed this cruel crime. No DNA – just nothing. Things just appeared when there wasn’t anything before.

‘My hair from the 2005 case – 13 years it just happens to appear in the BKA (German police) laboratory. It was one of 15 hairs that were found but mysteriously no DNA was found on 13 but on two there was – mine and the old lady. 

‘No more words are needed,’ he added.

Brueckner’s lawyer has now filed an appeal request in the German courts asking that the 2019 rape conviction be re-examined because the evidence used to convict him is weak.

He claims evidence in the new cases being investigated prove Brueckner could not have raped the pensioner as German authorities say that attack and the one on Behan were carried out by the same tattooed man.

But Mr Fulscher has pointed out his client has no tattoos and so therefore could not have carried out the rapes although he told MailOnline he was not hopefully of his appeal being granted.

He said: ‘Only a vanishingly small proportion of applications are successful.’

Earlier this year, on the 15th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, her parents said it is ‘essential’ to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter.

On the same day, the Metropolitan Police, which continues to treat the case as a missing persons inquiry, said it is ‘committed’ to finding the truth.

In July 2013, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine’s disappearance.

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