Police are determined to find conclusive evidence to link 48-year-old German paedophile Christian Brueckner to the Madeleine McCann case before he is set free from prison

The 48-year-old was formally named by German police in 2020 as the prime suspect in the three-year-old’s disappearance from a Praia da Luz holiday complex back in May 2007. Brueckner, who is currently serving a seven-year sentence in his home country for rape, is set to be released from prison in September. It’s feared he will disappear as soon as he is given his freedom – meaning detectives only have a few months to uncover more evidence, and definitively link him to the case. After last week’s search failed to turn up any definitive answers, here’s what we know about Brueckner – and why police believe he could be their man.

Detectives face a race against time to tie prime suspect Christian Brueckner to the Madeleine McCann case(Image: Phil Harris)

His time in Portugal

Brueckner was only a teenager himself when he was handed his first conviction for child sexual abuse in Germany in 1994.

He fled to Portugal the next year in a bid to escape his youth custody sentence, but was extradited to to Germany in 1999 to serve his sentence.

Upon release from prison, Brueckner went back to Portugal, where he lived a nomadic lifestyle in a VW camper van. He stole from hotels and holiday flats to support himself financially.

In 2005, he raped a 72-year-old American woman, an offence for which he was jailed 14 years later.

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday flat in Portugal in May 2007(Image: PA)

Brueckner spent time in the Praia de Luz area of Portugal between 2000 and 2017. His home was just one mile away from the Ocean Club, where the McCann family were staying when Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007.

Years later, investigators reportedly found his mobile phone had received a call close to the holiday flat complex around one hour before the three-year-old was reported missing.

Brueckner has previously been convicted of multiple sexual offences, including rape(Image: SPIEGEL TV)

His time in Germany – and ‘confession’

Brueckner abruptly left his car in someone else’s name the day after Madeleine disappeared, and exited Portugal soon after.

He returned to Germany and settled in the city of Braunschweig, near Hanover.

But in 2017, German police received a tip-off alleging that Brueckner had drunkenly claimed he knew what happened to Madeleine. He said to have told a friend: “She didn’t scream.”

The German paedophile has denied any involvement in the toddler’s disappearance(Image: The Daily Mirror)

Detectives’ initial enquiries uncovered a long criminal history, and in June 2017 he was arrested again and convicted for ‘sexual abuse of a child in the act of creating and possessing child pornographic material’ in a separate case.

Further convictions for drug dealing and trafficking followed over the next few years, and he was handed a seven-year-sentence in 2019 over the 2007 rape of the US pensioner in Portugal.

In June 2020, he was officially identified by German prosecutors as a suspect in the Madeleine McCann case. Officials said the three-year-old was “assumed dead” and that Brueckner was responsible for her disappearance, though he has denied any involvement.

Brueckner was living a mile away from Ocean Club in Praia Da Luz at the time Madeleine went missing(Image: PA)

Unearthed hard drive and more ‘confessions’

While investigators have been tight-lipped about what information they have linking him to Madeleine, some details have made their way into the public domain.

According to a documentary by The Sun, suspicious items found in a German warehouse bought by Brueckner a year after Madeleine’s disappearance included guns, 75 girl’s swimming costumes, and a car with chemicals hidden in the boot.

Remains of a dead dog were uncovered along with a hard-drive, as well as a number of child kidnap stories believed to have been penned by the paedophile.

A former inmate in the same prison as Brueckner has also alleged that he once told him about a number of offences he had committed, including reportedly snatching a girl from a flat in Portugal.

His court appearances on other offences

Police in Germany, Portugal and Britain all have separate investigations into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance(Image: PA)

Last year, Brueckner was acquitted of carrying out five other sexual offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017 after a judge in Braunschweig said there was not enough evidence to convict him.

But German investigators – determined to keep the dangerous Brueckner behind bars – have continued to build a case against him regarding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Last year, one police source revealed they had gained access to a Hotmail account which contained messaged allegedly ‘related to the killing’ of the young girl.

In May this year, he returned to court on charges of insulting a public official. Despite prosecutors urging for an extended sentence, he was only given probation with a minimum of one additional month in prison.

Before one of his court appearances, the Mirror asked him if he knew what had happened to Madeleine McCann. He responded with a smirk.

A joint search team searched a 20-acre rural spot in Lagos, Portugal last week(Image: PA)

‘Clothes and bones’ found in new search

Last Thursday, German and Portuguese investigators finished three days of searching a 120-acre stretch of land, thirty miles from Praia da Luz, in an attempt to find new evidence against Brueckner.

During the search – the first to take place since 2023 – crews spent three days scouring scrubland and abandoned structures, including an abandoned farmhouse.

While there, they are reported by German media to have found tiny fragments of clothes and bones, which have been sent off for testing.

The Met Police, who took over the UK missing persons investigation for Madeleine in 2011, said they were “aware” of the new operation but did not have any officers involved.