Friend of Christian Brueckner describes suspect Madeleine McCann’s collection of child and animal pornography as he says in sexual assault trial that he found the German ‘strange’
Madeleine McCann suspects Christian Brueckner’s former boyfriend said the German seemed ‘strange’ and would brag about his burglary skills.
Convicted rapist Brueckner, 47, returned to court today for his ongoing trial for sex crimes in Germany, which are unrelated to the British three-year-old’s 2007 disappearance.
He previously told MailOnline that the ongoing case against him was ‘ridiculous’.
Among the witnesses who gave evidence at the hearing was former friend Christian Post, who used to hang out with Brueckner in Portugal.
Post told the court he found CDs at Brueckner’s home with labels on them suggesting they contained child and animal pornography.
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has arrived back in court for his ongoing sex crimes trial in Germany (pictured)
Dressed in his trademark crumpled gray suit that he has worn to all previous hearings, he shook hands and smiled with his legal team as he was led into court
Convicted rapist Brueckner, 47, who previously told MailOnline the case was ‘ridiculous’, arrived amid heavy security just after 10am local time
Among the witnesses who gave evidence at the hearing was former friend Christian Post (pictured), who used to hang out with Brueckner in Portugal
Music technician and part-time teacher Post said in his testimony that he first met Brueckner around 2002 or 2003 and remembered him as “strange.”
He said: ‘I noticed that for a relatively young man he was dressed quite strangely with a jacket, which didn’t really suit the type of person he was.
‘This was my first impression. For me, this combination didn’t really make sense. This was my personal visual impression.’
Post told the court he had met Brueckner “between five and 10 times” in the Portuguese coastal town of Lagos, where the convicted rapist worked as a waiter.
He described seeing “piles of paperwork and passports” at Brueckner’s home and recalled bragging to him about his burglary skills in the Algarve, where Madeleine disappeared while on holiday in 2007.
It is believed Madeleine was taken from her family’s holiday home while her parents were at a nearby restaurant.
Post said: ‘He said he was active at night in Praia da Luz. He said he would climb into buildings with the windows open and take stuff with him.”
As he spoke, Brueckner – dressed in an open-neck shirt – listened attentively but showed no emotion, occasionally glancing at a file he held in his lap.
Post also described how he found sickening child pornography on CDs that Brueckner had asked him to leave his home in Portugal while Brueckner was in prison in Germany.
He said: ‘The bag was full of some stuff but I had no interest in looking in it, but the labels on the CDs made it clear what was on them which made me think there was some stuff involving young people.
‘But I quickly saw it and thought it was all too poor. So I threw this away. I haven’t watched them personally. I just saw the label and then made a decision.
“Some were pornographic practices,” Post told the court. “One thing I noticed involved dogs, so this is (one) thing I subsequently threw away.
“I can’t remember the full details, but there were a few things like this, and I didn’t want to risk transporting something like this.”
Post has since moved to Cambodia.
Brueckner is the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the three-year-old British girl who disappeared on May 3, 2007 while on holiday with her family in Portugal
In the photo: the holiday complex where the McCanns stayed in the Portuguese Algarve in May 2007, when their three-year-old daughter disappeared without a trace
His comments came in a three-hour video statement he gave in December that was played in court after he told officials it was “too far” for him to fly.
Post, 56, raised suspicions that Brueckner was behind Madeleine’s disappearance.
“I knew Praia da Luz because I played music there,” he said, “and Brueckner said he climbed trees or climbed buildings, and he could name specific buildings.
“I remember there were trees in the village and at the resort where Maddie was taken. And I think he did say he was operating in that area, but he didn’t go into detail.”
Under cross-examination by Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher, Post said he had given media interviews about his relationship with the man German police say is the “main suspect” for “kidnapping and murdering Madeleine.”
But he added: ‘I didn’t say it was him, but I can say I think it could be him, but these are assumptions not based on any evidence.’
Brueckner arrived today under heavy security, just after 10 a.m. local time.
Armed police stood guard outside the courthouse in Braunschweig, while those entering the building were subjected to airport security checks.
Dressed in his trademark crumpled gray suit that he has worn to all previous hearings, he shook hands and smiled with his legal team as he was led into court.
Brueckner is currently behind bars after being convicted of raping a 72-year-old American woman in the Algarve in 2005, just a few kilometers from where Madeleine would disappear two years later.
He is currently on trial in Braunschweig for three rapes and two sexual assaults that allegedly took place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
Meanwhile, German police are convinced he kidnapped and murdered Madeleine, and the investigation continues years after her disappearance – with the most recent high-profile searches taking place at Arade Lake, some 30 miles from Praia da Luz.
Brueckner himself has repeatedly denied any involvement in her disappearance and his lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, has responded to the allegations, warning that they risk muddying the waters of Brueckner’s unrelated ongoing trial.
He said in court last month that the pedophile had been under “global media fire” since he was named by German police as the main suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020 – with no charges yet brought against him.
Brueckner’s latest court appearance came days after armed police were seen at an allotment garden in Germany looking for a man who could hold vital information about Madeleine’s disappearance.
The man He is said to have connections to Brueckner.
Firearm-wielding officers gathered last week at a small house in the Kennelblick district of Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and spent an hour outside the property owned by a man named Ralph H.
The 56-year-old is said to have worked closely with Brueckner; the couple rented townhomes on the Kennelblick site.
Christian Brueckner was named the main suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020
The Kennelblick allotments in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany, where Ralph H is said to live and was a neighbor with Christian Brueckner
He allegedly admitted to robbing houses with the pedophile and the police wanted to speak to him so they could ask him questions about Madeline, who is now said to be 20 years old.
Informants within the BKA – the Bundeskriminalamt, Germany’s answer to the FBI – say they need to speak to him ‘urgently’ about his relationship with Brueckner.
It is understood that Ralph H is not a suspect in her disappearance, but may have information that could help investigators.
More to follow…