Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner not involved in her kidnap, claims senior official: 'He's innocent'
Madeleine McCann's disappearance in 2007 gripped the media and the news spread like wildfire around the world. In the 13 years since the incident, the case has been dubbed as the "most heavily-reported missing person case in modern history". German police believe Christian Brueckner to be the prime suspect in the McCann case, but a senior Portuguese official has claimed that Brueckner was not involved in the disappearance.
The statement was released to a local Spanish news agency by an anonymous Portuguese police chief. The officer, who had in-depth knowledge of the McCann probe, told ABC, "There's no evidence Christian Brueckner is involved in her disappearance. Strong enough reasons to be able to charge him were never found. People talk about surprises in the Madeleine McCann case with the capture of this German man, but for me, it's no surprise. This individual was already investigated around four years ago," the officer said.
Brueckner, 43, is currently serving a seven-year jail term for raping an American woman, 72, in Praia da Luz, Portugal. He is housed at Kiel Jail in northern Germany. He is now the prime suspect in Madeleine's disappearance from 13 years ago. Madeleine vanished at the age of 3 while she was on a vacation with her parents at a Portuguese resort called Ocean Club in May 2007. "At this stage of the investigation, I think they've done it because they think it's needed to shake up the case and attract new witnesses," the officer shared. "They work very closely with Portugal and now they've wanted to turn this case around. They're not looking to solve it now, because that's very difficult. What they're looking to do is agitate the waters," he added.
We had earlier reported that Brueckner was allegedly aware about the routines of Madeleine's parents' — Kate and Gerry McCann, their friends, and he reportedly even knew that the couple left their valuable belongings in their room while heading out for long dinners. According to a Portuguese local news station called Correio da Manha, Brueckner was tipped off about Kate and Gerry's routines by a former Ocean Club employee who had left his job at the time, Mirror reports. The publication said, "The theory shared by the Portuguese and German police is that the suspect panicked. The objective was to carry out a burglary but he saw Madeleine and her siblings and decided to take the oldest one."
"An old employee of the Ocean Club had the number in his diary and revealed who it belonged to, a then 30-year-old German who lived nearby and didn’t have a known profession. The friend said he committed petty crime including thefts and had spoken to him about the British group the McCanns formed part of. It was in 2007, days before Madeleine disappeared," it said. "The friend told him there were several apartments and the group would spend hours over dinner, leaving their valuables," it added.
German police are also reportedly probing the prime suspect in Madeleine's disappearance, Brückner, over another case of a missing little girl dubbed the "German Maddie". Police revealed that they are re-investigating Brückner in the disappearance of five-year-old German girl Inga Gehricke, who went missing in May 2015.