Portuguese police have stated in a leaked document that German authorities have no evidence that convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner abducted Madeleine McCann.
The Policia Judiciaria said they were ‘shocked’ after a briefing on the German case against Brueckner, adding there is ‘no evidence, just speculation’ that prime suspect Christian Brueckner was involved in snatching the British toddler in 2007. Portuguese detectives added they believe the allegations against Brueckner are designed to ‘keep him in prison at all costs.’ They further accused their German equivalents of failing to conduct a serious investigation into McCann’s disappearance and the alleged involvement of Brueckner. Brueckner, is currently being investigated by police in three countries as part of a joint operation.
Officials from the Policia Judiciaria in Portugal, Germany’s BKA and Scotland Yard met to discuss the state of the current probe into the kidnapping of the then three to four-year-old McCann. An internal email released reveals concerns following the top-secret meeting in Lisbon discussing the 13-year-old cold case, Dailymail reported.
In June, the convicted rapist and paedophile was identified by German cops as the prime suspect for Madeleine’s disappearance in Portugal 13 years ago.
Prosecutors at the time said they had ”concrete evidence” McCann was dead. Still, since then there has been no significant development in the long-running saga, leaving parents Kate and Gerry in a state of confusion and despair pleading for answers. Despite ongoing developments in the case, McCann’s parents have said, “We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive, but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know as we need to find peace.”
In the leaked memo, an unidentified Portuguese officer claims that the German BKA have no solid leads and are just holding the suspect in jail in the hope they can make two other sex cases against him stick.
The unknown official writes: ‘There is no evidence, just speculation. When reading the German case, I was shocked. I never thought that the BKA would investigate so badly.
It is not a serious and objective investigation, but only just to keep the suspect in prison at all costs.’
They added, ‘The meeting was to get the point of the situation, the BKA wants to investigate the other two cases of possible sexual harassment so that the suspect does not leave prison until the end of the year, and they will drop the suspect.’
Portuguese police have long been accused of messing up the investigation, and lead officer Goncalo Amaral was later fired after pursuing a false theory that Kate and Gerry were responsible.
Brueckner is currently in the Justizvollzugsanstalt Kiel prison after being convicted of raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005. It was just two years before when the young British Madeleine McCann vanished from the same resort in May 2007 aged three. McCann disappeared from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast, on the evening of 3 May 2007, while her parents were with friends at a nearby tapas bar. McCann’s sudden vanishing sparked one of the largest police hunts across Europe for decades investigating various false leads.
Brueckner was sentenced to seven years but is appealing the decision. German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters responded to the Portuguese cops, stating: ‘We don’t want to comment on this.
‘The accused will have to stay in prison for the next few years anyway.’
Brueckner is also being investigated in Germany over a 2004 Algarve rape and a sex attack on a beach near Praia da Luz a month before Madeleine vanished. While, in Portugal, prosecutors have reopened their investigation into a sex crime in a playground he was arrested over in 2017.
The man was previously held on suspicion of exposing himself to young children at a playground in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines a 40-minute drive from Praia de Luz.
Police additionally discovered after his detention that Germany authorities wanted Brueckner on an international arrest warrant for child sex abuse and possession of child pornography.
Detectives had said prior that phone data proves Brueckner was near the Praia da Luz resort when Madeleine vanished, but have not yet revealed ‘smoking gun’ evidence proving that he is the one who took her.
Asked last month whether forensic evidence can place Brueckner inside the flat where Madeleine vanished, Wolters, the prosecutor leading the German case said: ‘I have an answer, but we have decided not to divulge this information. He added, ‘I can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as that would bring a thousand other questions and I cannot go into details. But you have to believe me when I say we have more evidence. Here in Germany, our Public Ministry only divulges things when they are solid.’
Brueckner has previously said he is innocent of any crime relating to McCann. However, The Guardian reports that Brueckner has been investigated over the disappearance of two other children, adding that he shared disturbing child abuse fantasies with an acquaintance during a Skype chat in September 2013 that he wanted to ‘catch something small and use it for days.’
A British journalist, Mark Williams-Thomas, who is also a former police officer who has investigated the McCann case recently told 7News: ‘Fast forward to 2017, and we have then seen significant development, which was when Christian B was in a bar in Germany when he saw an appeal on the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance. During that conversation with a friend in the bar, he is alleged to have told that individual that he was involved in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.’
Authorities have confirmed in an interview with 60 Minutes they believe that McCann is dead. Police have also said they found 8000 disturbing videos on hard drives and USBs buried with his dog at a property owned by Brueckner. While his former girlfriend expressed to The Sun, that Brueckner told her he had a “horrible job to do” the day before McCann disappeared.
“I have a job to do in Praia da Luz tomorrow. It’s a horrible job but it’s something I have to do and it will change my life. You won’t be seeing me for a while,” he allegedly said.
Portuguese newspaper Correio de Manhã has also reported that an employee at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, where McCann vanished, told a man the young girl’s parents would be out for dinner and their apartment would be easy to break into.
The publication added that the suspect’s phone number was in the employee’s mobile contacts.
Wolters has previously stated they would not need to find McCann’s body in order to prosecute Brueckner of her murder.
Anyone with information that could aid the long investigation is being asked to contact authorities.
