Christian Brueckner arrives in court where a former boyfriend – who found a video camera showing Madeleine McCann’s suspect raping an elderly woman – will testify in a sexual assault trial

Madeleine McCann suspects that Christian Brueckner has arrived in court for his ongoing sex trial with a former partner in crime because he has to testify first.

Convicted rapist Brueckner, 47, is accused of three rapes and two sexual assaults that allegedly took place on Portugal’s Algarve coast from 2000 to 2017.

The attacks happened just minutes from where then three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007 from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, where she was staying with parents Kate and Gerry and her siblings.

She has not been seen since and in June 2020, German police sensationally named Brueckner the man responsible for her ‘kidnapping and murder’, but he has yet to be charged with anything related to her disappearance.

Brueckner arrived in a van with a police escort and was swept inside before the start of the hearing and escorted to the courtroom in Braunschweig, near Hanover, flanked by guards and in handcuffs.

Bar owner Manfred Seyferth, 68, is due to testify for the prosecution and has described Brueckner in previous interviews as a “bad, bad man.”

In 2019, Seyferth and his friend Helge Busching, 50, helped jail Brueckner for seven years after describing how they found a video camera at his home that showed him raping an elderly woman in her Algarve home in 2005 .

Seyferth lived in a caravan next to Christian’s house, a few minutes’ drive from Praia da Luz, from where then three-year-old Madeleine disappeared in May 2007.

Small-time crook Seyferth and Busching. Also described in the 2019 case, they had seen images of a young teenage girl also being attacked and recognized the perpetrator as Brueckner.

In an earlier interview, Seyferth said Brueckner was an “evil psychopath” who was “capable of taking a small child.”

He added: “Christian is a bad, bad man. He is bad.

‘I never liked him and he’s a psychopath. He’s obsessed with little kids, and I didn’t like that.

‘He always had a young girlfriend with him and I think he is perfectly capable of taking a small child with him.’

In 2007, Seyferth lived in a caravan next to Christian’s house, a few minutes’ drive from Praia da Luz.

Speaking about that time, he admitted: ‘I stole some diesel and some solar panels.

“I’m a thief, but I don’t do anything else, not like Christian who is sick.”

Seyferth also revealed that he and Busching had found a gun in Brueckner’s apartment, but panicked and threw it into a nearby reservoir.

He added: ‘After Maddie disappeared I didn’t see him (Brueckner) again for a few months until a hippie festival in Orgiva (Spain) took place a year later.

Seyferth said he knew Brueckner robbed holidaymakers in the Portuguese seaside resort that year.

During the 2019 trial in Braunschweig – the same location as his current hearing – the court heard from Seyferth and Busching and their testimony was crucial in catching him.

They described finding a gruesome video in Brueckner’s Portuguese home showing him torturing and then raping the elderly American woman.

Other footage allegedly shows a young teenage girl tied to a wooden post as she begged for help as he sexually assaulted her.

Seyferth said, “He is evil because of the things I saw on the video with the old woman and the girl.

“It wasn’t a young girl like Madeleine, she was older, maybe fifteen years old and that was the usual age of his friends.”

Speaking about testifying against Brueckner during the rape trial, Seyferth said, “When I saw him in the courtroom, he made me shudder. He has a cold, hard face and angry eyes.’

Last week the current trial heard how Irish tour representative Hazel Behan, who has waived her anonymity, feared she would be ‘decapitated’ by Brueckner after he attacked and raped her.

He is also accused of raping two other women, including an unidentified 70-80 year old and a 14 year old.

Further charges also include indecent assault against a 10-year-old German girl and an 11-year-old Portuguese girl.

All charges are said to have taken place between 2000 and 2017 and on the Portuguese coast of the Algarve.

The case is not directly related to Madeleine and Brueckner denies any involvement in her disappearance and his lawyer Friedrich Fulscher has also said he is not involved in the ongoing trial.

In his opening statement, Mr Fulscher said Seyferth and Busching were “unreliable” due to known drug and alcohol problems.

Mr Fulscher also claimed that police had listened in on conversations Brueckner had had with his legal team to see if he would incriminate himself over Madeleine and the other cases.

He added that as a result of the Madeleine link, his client had been under “global media fire” but that so far “no charges had been laid” and no “files had been provided.”

Mr Fulscher said: ‘The greatest challenge for the court in these proceedings will be to free itself from these ulterior motives in examining the procedural truth and assessing the evidence relating to the allegations made.’

The process continues.