The trial of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner - accused of sex offences against women and children in Portugal - has been adjourned today.
The convicted paedophile was pictured in court today ahead of his long-awaited trial on the sex charges. He was also snapped arriving at Braunschweig Regional Court in a police van and then being escorted into his courtroom minutes later.
But, in front of approximately 100 journalists from across the world, the judge Dr Christina Engelmann adjourned the case after Brueckner's lawyers had argued the lay judge was unsuitable. They alluded to social media posts the lay judge had allegedly made, in which they are believed to have called for the assassination of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsanaro.
It was the first time Brueckner, 46, has been seen in public since being linked to the Maddie case in 2020. He denies any involvement in her disappearance and has never been charged with anything in connection to it.
But the paedophile is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping an American pensioner in the Algarve. If he is cleared by a judge in Braunschweig, Germany, at the end of the trial, he could be freed in September next year.
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Prosecutors appear no closer to proving he was behind Madeleineâs disappearance - despite claiming they have proof she is dead. And they face the nightmare scenario of seeing their prime suspect walk free if they cannot convict him of the new Portuguese charges. He is going on trial accused of carrying out five offences in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. They include the alleged rape of an Irish tour rep, who was attacked in her apartment Praia da Rocha in 2004.
Brueckner is also accused of raping a teenage girl in his Praia da Luz home and raping an elderly woman in her holiday apartment. He also faces a child sex charge for allegedly exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007. His final charge relates to an alleged indecent exposure in front of an 11-year-old in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines in 2017.
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