McCann suspect in German trial for unrelated sex offenses
The primary suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann has made a court appearance in Germany as part of a trial unrelated to the case.
Christian Brückner is currently on trial in Braunschweig, facing three charges of rape and two of sexual abuse dating back to between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal.
He is already serving a seven-year jail sentence for rape and has never been formally charged in connection with Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Brückner has consistently denied any involvement in the case.
This public appearance marks his first court appearance since being identified as the main suspect in the McCann case four years ago.
However, his unrelated trial in Braunschweig was promptly postponed for a week after his defense team alleged that one of the lay judges had expressed radical views on social media, though unrelated to Brückner’s case.
Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region in 2007, and her case remains one of the most high-profile missing persons cases globally.
Christian Brückner, aged 47, was identified as a suspect by German investigators in June 2020, leading to a murder inquiry. He was later made a formal suspect, or arguido, by Portuguese authorities. However, no formal charges related to the McCann case have been filed against him, and the specifics of the German investigation remain undisclosed.
His recent public court appearance in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, marks his first since being connected to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. The charges he currently faces, in a trial without a jury, pertain to five separate and unrelated offenses in Portugal.
The rape of a woman aged 70 to 80 in her holiday apartment in Portugal between 2000 and 2006
The rape of a German-speaking girl of at least 14 at a house where he lived in Praia de Luz, again between 2000 and 2006
The rape of an Irish woman whose holiday flat he is alleged to have broken into from her balcony in Praia da Rocha in 2004. In all three rape cases, Brückner is accused of whipping the victim and filming the assaults
Sexual abuse of a 10-year-old German girl on a beach in Salema in 2007. This was three and a half weeks before Madeleine McCann disappeared
Forcing an 11-year-old girl to watch a sex act at a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines during a festival in 2017.
The trial is taking place in the north-western state of Lower Saxony because that was where Brückner was last officially registered.
According to the German criminal code he could be given between five and 15 years in prison if found guilty.
Brückner’s lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, has previously said that the charges are based on “very, very shaky foundations” and recently told the BBC he expected his client to stay largely silent during the trial.
But “no negative conclusions” could be drawn from this, the lawyer emphasized.
Christian Brückner was born in Bavaria, Germany in December 1976 and reportedly spent time in care during his youth.
Brückner is said, by prosecutors, to have lived “more or less permanently” in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007, working in odd jobs.
BBC Panorama has seen parts of his Portuguese criminal file which shows years of convictions including petty crime, theft, and rape.
In the immediate wake of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, Brückner was not closely investigated.
However, Portuguese police went on to name the three-year-old’s parents as suspects.
Kate and Gerry McCann’s arguido status was lifted in 2008 and the couple later received an apology for how the case was handled.
Brückner would go on to move back and forth between Germany and Portugal.
He is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old American tourist in 2005 in Praia da Luz.
This trial may determine whether he remains behind bars after that sentence, which is due to end in December 2026.
