Madeleine McCann’s investigation into Christian Brueckner could face major setbacks as it turns out key witness dies of cancer

The Madeleine McCann investigation into Christian Brueckner could suffer a major setback as it has been revealed that a key witness is dying of cancer.

Convicted rapist and pedophile Bruckner, 47, was sensationally named by German police four years ago as the man responsible for Madeleine’s ‘kidnapping and murder’.

Helge Busching, a former friend and now key witness in the investigation, warned police about Brueckner seven years ago, when he told them that Brueckner had “confessed” to him that Madeleine “didn’t cry when I took her away.”

But it has now been revealed that Busching, a convicted criminal, has recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer, which could delay the investigation if police lose him as a witness. Sky News reports.

Then three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from a ground floor holiday apartment while on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in May 2007.

Despite police naming him as a suspect, Brueckner has still not been charged and is currently on trial in his native Germany, accused of unrelated sex crimes that took place in the same area where she disappeared.

Busching appeared in court this week to give evidence in the current Brueckner trial, but not until another former friend of Brueckner’s, who gave evidence today, revealed Busching’s cancer diagnosis.

Michael Tatschl, a former partner in crime of Brueckner, told the court he spoke to Busching on the phone this week.

‘We discussed general matters, including his cancer. It’s pretty bad. He didn’t get his diagnosis until a few months ago,” Tatschl said.

Tatschl also said his involvement in the investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance changed his life “negatively” and that he had lost his job, home and friends.

Earlier today, Tatschl told the trial that Brueckner would break into holiday apartments naked.

He said Brueckner would use the bizarre modus operandi of leaving no evidence and dropping his clothes on surfaces.

Tatschl said: ‘He climbed the walls. He once told me he had broken in and there were three teenage girls sleeping in the living room. He was naked. One of them woke up when a phone rang and screamed.

‘The girl’s father heard the scream and came, so Christian had to run and jump from a balcony. He broke in naked a number of times because he didn’t want to leave any traces.’

Timmerman Tatschl, 50, is the last witness to testify at the court in Braunschweig, where Brueckner arrived early on Friday under a heavy police escort.

Previously, Tatschl told how he was a ‘partner in crime’ with Brueckner when they lived in Portugal and told German media he heard him talking about ‘selling children to a pedophile gang in Morocco’.

In an earlier interview, he also said he was “convinced” Bruecker took Madeleine, saying, “I know he did it.” He is more than capable of taking a small child.”

Asked if he still believed Brueckner had stolen Madeleine to sell her to a pedophile ring, Tatschl replied: “That was my suspicion because he wanted money.”

Tatschl said his suspicion was that it was a pedophile network operating in Morocco because it was “close” to Portugal.

Tatschl told the court he had also heard about the explicit videos showing Brueckner attacking and raping an older woman and a young girl.

He said: ‘I heard about it from Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth, but I don’t remember who told me first.’

Tatschl added that he had seen “whips and masks” in Brueckner’s Portuguese home and a “stash of 500 passports that he kept as trophies.”

In a shocking revelation, Tatschl then told the court that Brueckner had boasted to him in prison how he had once “kidnapped a girl of about 14 to 15 years old and tied her to a post in his house” before letting her go .

Brueckner and Tatschl were jailed in 2006 for stealing fuel in Portugal and shared the same cell before being released just a few weeks before Madeleine disappeared.

In his testimony, Tatschl, wearing a white shirt, described how he met Brueckner in early 2006 and became friends with him over the following weeks.

He said: ‘He told me how he made money, he broke into houses, tourist houses, hotels, at night when they were not there.

‘He even broke in when they were sleeping and when they were on the first or even second floor. He had a box with stolen items, jewelry and watches.’

Earlier, Brueckner was led into court in handcuffs and greeted his legal team with warm handshakes.

Police in Portugal have always claimed that Madeleine’s kidnapper entered the apartment through a window.

They say the perpetrator likely left with the child through a door or by climbing back out the window.

Kate and Gerry, from Rothley, Leicestershire, have spearheaded a high-profile campaign for information about her disappearance.

Brueckner is on trial for raping three women and abusing children between 2000 and 2017 in the Algarve.

He was jailed for seven years in 2019 after being convicted of raping an elderly woman in the Algarve in 2005.

His current trial began in February and has heard witnesses who say they saw Brueckner in graphic sex tapes showing the rape of an older woman and a young girl.

Brueckner’s defense has tried several times to exclude witnesses, saying the case was unfair and biased against their client because of the link to Madeleine, but all attempts have failed so far.

The trial is expected to last throughout the spring and summer.