The man suspected by German authorities of murdering missing British girl Madeleine McCann has a string of previous convictions and has been described by prosecutors as a “dangerous psychopathic sadist”.
Christian Brueckner, 47, is currently serving a sentence in Germany for the rape of a 72-year-old woman and has previously been convicted of other crimes, including the sexual abuse of children.
However, Brueckner has not yet been charged in the McCann case, and today he was acquitted of two unrelated child sex crimes and three counts of rape, ending a closely watched trial in Germany that could have kept him behind bars.
Last week, prosecutors asked that Brueckner be sentenced to 15 years for the alleged crimes and said that if he was released from prison, there was a “high degree of certainty” that he would reoffend.
But today, the judge disagreed, saying Brueckner “could not be convicted of the acts of which he is accused,” while acquitting him of all five charges.
During the trial, a psychiatric expert described Brueckner as “in the absolute league of dangerous,” according to German media reports.
Christian Brueckner arrives at the state court in Landgericht Braunschweig for one of the final days of his sex crimes trial on October 7, 2024.
Madeleine McCann was three years old when she disappeared from her parents’ bedroom while she was sleeping on vacation in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
“It doesn’t get any higher than this,” the expert said, predicting a 30 to 50 percent chance that, if released from prison, Brueckner will reoffend within two years.
Trial evidence included notebooks in which Brueckner is said to have documented his sexual fantasies, including a “guide to the detailed abuse of children and women.”
The expert described the notes as “appalling” and some of the “greatest perversions” he had ever seen in his professional life.
However, the defense had raised serious doubts about the proceedings against Brueckner, which were based on testimony but not forensic evidence.
Notebooks seized from Brueckner detailing his sexual fantasies were also used as evidence. But, despite their disturbing content, they did not provide any direct link to the alleged crimes.
According to German police, Brueckner lived in Portugal’s Algarve region, where Madeleine disappeared during a family vacation, between 1995 and 2007.
They say he made a living doing odd jobs in the area and also stole hotel rooms and vacation apartments.
The psychiatric expert stated that Brueckner had always been “on the margins of society” and had led a “socially isolated, nomadic and parasitic life.”
Brueckner’s current rape sentence runs until September 2025, according to Christian Wolters, spokesman for the Brunswick prosecutor’s office.
His lawyer Friedrich Fuelscher has stated that the accused could be free in the spring.
Christian Brueckner, 47, is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of an American pensioner in 2005 and for drug trafficking, and is also the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. He was acquitted today of five separate charges in a German trial.
For Brueckner not to be released, the German authorities will have to prove that he represents a danger to society in order to impose “preventive detention” on him and keep him behind bars.
Other questions have been raised about Brueckner’s psychological state.
Speaking to Sky News in 2020, a former neighbor from Portugal said Brueckner “was always a bit angry, driving fast from one side of the lane to the other, and then one day… he just disappeared without saying a word.”
He lived in Hannover since 2007, according to German media, and then divided his time between Germany and Portugal for several more years.
When German police searched a plot of orchards the suspect once owned near Hannover, the owner of a neighboring property, Wolfgang Kossack, told the Daily Mail that Brueckner had been living there off the grid.
“He never took up gardening. “He didn’t plant anything or try to grow anything,” Kossack said. “He would just sit around drinking beer.”
A house near the Praia da Luz and Lagos resort in the Algarve, Portugal, which was used by Christian Brueckner, a German suspected of the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann.
Brueckner was born on December 7, 1976 near Würzburg, according to the German newspaper Bild.
He grew up in a foster home where he was subjected to neglect and violence, including being locked in dark rooms and beaten with a belt, the popular newspaper said.
Brueckner was first convicted of sexually abusing children when he was still a teenager, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
In 2020, his criminal record already contained 17 entries, according to the report, including driving without a license, causing bodily injury, theft and driving while intoxicated.
He was first tried in Bavaria in 1994 for “abusing a child” and “performing sexual acts in front of a child,” Der Spiegel reported.
When he was 17, Brueckner received a two-year juvenile sentence, of which he served only part.
In 2016, the Brunswick district court sentenced him to one year and three months in prison for “creating and possessing child pornographic material,” according to Der Spiegel.
At the time he was revealed as a suspect in the McCann case, Brueckner was in prison in the northern German city of Kiel, serving a sentence for drug trafficking.
His prison record documents arrogant behavior, according to media reports, including calling prison officers “torturers.”