Madeleine McCann’s parents brace for Christian Brueckner verdict as German court prepares to announce ruling on suspect’s sex crimes trial

Madeleine McCann’s parents are bracing themselves this week as the main suspect in their daughter’s disappearance, Christian Brueckner, faces sentencing in his trial on separate sex crime charges.

Brueckner, 47, arrived in court this morning for the final stages of his trial, and the judge is expected to deliver his verdict tomorrow.

Brueckner greeted his three-member legal team warmly and – dressed in the same light blue jacket and open-neck shirt he has worn since the proceedings began eight months ago – listened intently as his lead lawyer Friedrich Fulscher opened his closing argument. in the courthouse in Braunschweig.

Convicted rapist and pedophile Brueckner was sensationally named by German police as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s 2007 disappearance in June 2020, but no charges have been filed since.

He is currently on trial for three rapes and two counts of child sexual abuse between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, near the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared while on holiday with parents Kate and Gerry McCann.

Last week, prosecutor Ute Lindemann argued that he should be jailed for 15 years, labeling him a “sadistic psychopath.”

In July, the prosecution suffered a major blow after the current judge ruled that the evidence against him in the current trial was “insufficient”, which was widely interpreted to mean he could be acquitted.

Mr Fulscher opened his argument by saying that the trial ‘should never have taken place’ and then questioned the reliability of the witnesses involved.

He added: “We are here to decide the freedom and fate of one person, Christian Brueckner.

‘He is accused of five offences, but what actually happened does not match what is alleged.

“This is why the prosecutor loses emotional distance from the case. This process should never have happened.

“If it had been anyone else, the trial would never have gone to trial based on this evidence.”

Sources close to Brueckner’s legal team have told MailOnline that they expect a ruling in the case as soon as Tuesday.

If he is acquitted, it means he could be released next year from the seven-year prison sentence he received in 2019 for the rape of an elderly American woman in the Algarve.

That would have huge consequences for German prosecutors who want to blame Madeleine’s disappearance – they also claim to have ‘concrete evidence’ that she died, but have not yet released any details.

It is possible that prosecutors could request that Brueckner be held in “preventive custody” if he is acquitted of the current charges, giving them time to gather more evidence in the Madeleine case.

During the current trial, Brueckner’s former cellmate Laurentiu Codin told the court that he had “confessed” to him that he had once kidnapped a child in Portugal.

Codin told the hearing: ‘He was looking for money. He said he didn’t find any money, but he did find a child and took the child with him.

‘He said two hours later there were police and dogs everywhere, so he left, out of the area.

‘He said he took the child in his car in Portugal and in the time the police and dogs were at the house he drove away and was gone.

‘He asked me if a child’s DNA can be extracted from bones underground.’

Also important in the current case – and that of Madeleine’s disappearance – are two super witnesses Helge Busching and Manfred Seyferth, former partners in crime with Brueckner.

They claim to have found a video at Brueckner’s home in Portugal showing him masked and raping two women, although the clip was never discovered and lawyers have questioned its existence.

Busching also claims that Brueckner told him a year after Madeleine disappeared at a festival in Spain that it was “strange that she didn’t scream,” which investigators also say is crucial to the case, and he even told Scotland Yard about it 2018 about.

Met officer Mark Draycott testified in court in May how Busching had contacted them and was questioned in great secrecy in Athens about his claims after being released from a Greek prison for human trafficking.

But again his defense team has expressed scorn over claims suggesting Busching made up the story.