Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner says German police trying to frame him for crimes

Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner claims German police are vying to frame him for multiple crimes in the hope he will crack and confess.

Brueckner, 45, is already serving a seven-year prison sentence for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.

He said police were trying to make him confess to a string of other crimes so he can ‘escape from this mental torture’.

Brueckner spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007, but denies any involvement and has not been charged — though he remains under investigation on suspicion of her murder. 

Madeleine McCann (right) suspect Christian Brueckner, 45, (left) said police in Germany were trying to make him confess to a string of other crimes

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

In a letter from prison obtained by The Mirror the convicted German rapist wrote: ‘There is no evidence at all that I committed any of these crimes. No DNA, nothing.

‘The prosecution are trying to trap me and hope that I will capitulate under the mental pressure.

‘They hope that I will just say “yes” to everything which will give me a chance to escape from this mental torture.’

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said Maddie is dead and he is ‘100% sure’ Brueckner is to blame.

He said investigators are working ‘solely’ on the investigation.

Last month Brueckner was charged last month with a string of sex crimes — but none of them relates to the disappearance of the British girl.

Christian Brueckner (left), was charged last month with a string of sex offences said to have taken place in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. He is also suspected of kidnapping Maddie (right) from the same area in 2007, but has not been charged

Brueckner was not charged last month over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the holiday apartment of parents Kate and Gerry (pictured) in Praia da Luz

Brueckner 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.

Until last month no charges had been brought and the investigation had failed to positively link him to Madeleine, despite prosecutors giving the heart-breaking news they had ‘concrete evidence’ the little girl was dead and that Brueckner was the culprit.

German investigators charged him on October 11 with five offences between 2000 and 2017, when Brueckner was travelling between his native Germany and Portugal.

They include the rapes of two unknown women in Portugal, the rape of a 20-year-old Irish woman in 2004, the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old German girl in April 2007 on a Portuguese beach – close to where Madeleine vanished just a month later – and another sexual abuse case in 2017, again in Portugal.

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,.

Brueckner is now charged with five sex attacks in the same area where Maddie vanished in 2007. He has been named as the chief suspect in her disappearance, but not charged

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.

In April 2007, the defendant allegedly ambushed a 10-year-old German girl playing on the beach at Salema in the district of Faro in Portugal, wearing only shoes and otherwise naked. He allegedly forced her to watch him perform a sex act.

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.

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.