A former friend of Christian Brueckner told the court about the abuse the Madeleine McCann suspect subjected an elderly woman to, with the victim said to have been tied to a table and beaten by the German criminal.
Convicted rapist Brueckner, 47, is accused of three rapes and two sexual assaults that allegedly took place on Portugal’s Algarve coast between 2000 and 2017. Bar owner Manfred Seyferth, 68, testifies for the prosecution .
Seyferth previously described Brueckner as a “bad, bad man”, and in 2019 he and his friend Helge Busching, 50, helped jail him for seven years while describing images showing him raping an elderly woman in her home in the Algarve. in 2005.
While Seyferth testified at the latest trial, which is being held in Braunschweig, near Hanover, Brueckner stared at the judge and the prosecutor, occasionally whispering something to his lawyer.
Seyferth told the court that he found Brueckner “arrogant” and then described how he and Busching had broken into the villa where he lived and found a video camera and a gun.
Convicted rapist Brueckner, 47, is accused of three rapes and two sexual assaults. He is pictured arriving at court.
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has arrived in court for his ongoing sex trial with a former accomplice and is due to testify first.
The case is not directly related to Madeleine and Brueckner denies any involvement in her disappearance.
Manfred Seyferth, 68, is due to testify for the prosecution and in previous interviews described Brueckner as a “bad, bad man.”
The attacks took place just minutes from where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.
Seyferth said: “There was a bit of chaos in there and Helge found the camera and we took it. Then we walked away from the house.
“Helge saw the video and said there was a woman and a girl on the tape and they were being abused.”
When asked to describe what else was in the video, he said: “There was an old woman at a table.
“He was about 60 years old and something was hitting his chest, it looked like a ruler.
“There was also a girl,” he added.
Seyferth said the man in the video was masked but told the court he recognized the voice as Brueckner’s.
The attacks of which Brueckner is accused took place just minutes from where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007, where she was staying with her parents Kate and Gerry and her siblings.
Madeleine has not been seen since, and in June 2020, German police sensationally named Brueckner as the man responsible for her “kidnapping and murder,” but he has yet to be charged with anything related to her disappearance.
Brueckner arrived in a van with a police escort and was dragged inside for the start of the hearing and escorted to the courtroom flanked by guards and handcuffed.
Seyferth lived in a caravan next to Christian’s house, a few minutes’ drive from Praia da Luz, where three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.
Offender Seyferth and Busching also said during the 2019 case that they had seen footage of a young teenage girl also being attacked and recognized the perpetrator as Brueckner.
In a previous interview, Seyferth said Brueckner was an “evil psychopath” “capable of kidnapping a small child.”
And he added: ‘Christian is a bad, bad man. He is evil.
“I never liked him and he’s a psychopath. He’s obsessed with little kids and I didn’t like him.
“He always had a young girlfriend with him and I think he is easily capable of taking a small child.”
In 2007, Seyferth lived in a caravan next to Christian’s house, a few minutes drive from Praia da Luz.
Brueckner is escorted to the courtroom in Braunschweig, near Hanover, flanked by guards.
Brueckner arrived in a van with a police escort and was dragged inside before the hearing began.
In his opening statement, lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said Seyferth and Busching were “unreliable” because of their known problems with drugs and alcohol. In the photo: Brueckner with his lawyer.
Speaking about that time, he admitted: ‘I stole some diesel and some solar panels.
“I’m a thief, but I don’t do anything else, not like Christian, who is sick.”
Seyferth also revealed that he and Busching had found a gun in Brueckner’s apartment, but panicked and threw it in a nearby storage room.
He added: “After Maddie disappeared, I didn’t see him (Brueckner) for a few months until a hippie festival in Orgiva (Spain) a year later.
Seyferth said he knew Brueckner was robbing tourists in the Portuguese town that year.
In 2019, Seyferth and his friend Helge Busching, 50, helped imprison Brueckner for seven years. Seyfruth takes a photo with the police today
At the 2019 trial in Braunschweig, the same location as his current hearing, the court heard from Seyferth and Busching and their testimony was instrumental in catching him.
They described how they had found a horrifying video in Brueckner’s Portuguese home that showed him torturing and then raping the elderly American woman.
Other images were said to show a young teenage girl tied to a wooden post as she called for help while he sexually abused her.
Madeleine McCann (pictured) disappeared on May 3, 2007, when she was just three years old. She has never been found. Christian Brueckner has been named by German prosecutors as the main suspect in her disappearance.
Seyferth said: “He is evil because of the things I saw on the video with the old lady and the girl.”
“She wasn’t a young girl like Madeleine, she was older, maybe 15 and that was the usual age of his girlfriends.”
Speaking about how he testified against Brueckner in the rape trial, Seyferth said: “When I saw him in court, he made me shiver. He has a cold, hard face and evil eyes.
The main suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, Christian Brueckner, appears in court at the start of a sexual assault trial in Germany.
Last week the current trial heard how Irish tour manager Hazel Behan, who waived her anonymity, feared Brueckner would “decapitate” her after he attacked and raped her.
He is also accused of raping two other women, including an unidentified woman between 70 and 80 years old and another 14-year-old.
Other charges also include indecent assault against a 10-year-old German girl and an 11-year-old Portuguese girl.
All charges are said to have taken place between 2000 and 2017 and on the Portuguese Algarve coast.
Christian Brueckner was named the main suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020
The case is not directly related to Madeleine and Brueckner denies any involvement in her disappearance and his lawyer Friedrich Fulscher has also said it is not related to the current proceedings.
In his opening speech, Fulscher said Seyferth and Busching were “unreliable” due to known drug and alcohol problems.
Fulscher also claimed that the police had intervened in conversations Brueckner had had with his legal team to see if he would incriminate himself in Madeleine and the other cases.
He added that as a result of the link with Madeleine, his client had been under “media fire around the world”, but so far “no charges had been laid” and “files” had not been provided.
Mr Fulscher said: “The greatest challenge for the court in this process will be to free itself from these ulterior motives in investigating the procedural truth and evaluating the evidence in relation to the allegations made.”
The trial continues.