17 February 2024 , 20:05
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The man suspected of abducting Madeleine McCann, Christian Brueckner, has complained about the impact that his current trial is having on him.
The convicted sex offender spends his days inside his cell and feels like he is constantly in danger from other prisoners, a source has told reporters. Brueckner has also been moaning about his “awful” conditions behind bars and says that he cops are “playing a game” to try and make him crack up.
In the past lawyers for Brueckner, who is appearing in court charged with a string of violent sex crimes, have talked of their client’s “poor physical health”.
Speaking to German TV Brueckner’s lawyer Dr Fülscher said: “He’s been two years in solitary confinement, so of course he is not healthy.”
He added that the press attention was also upsetting his client, saying: “Brueckner found the media presence extremely stressful because the media are here for the Madeleine case, not this one. He is in poor physical health.”
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Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007 in Praia da Luz, Brueckner is accused of committing sex crimes in the same area (PA)A source reportedly told the Sun that Brueckner, 46, had been “moaning” about the impact of the trial. "He thinks he is paraded as part of a game the police are playing and that the whole thing is just designed to try and make him crack up,” they added. "He knows the police want him to confess to things he’s not responsible for."
Brueckner's reported complaints come one day after he was pictured arriving at Braunschweig Regional Court, the first time he has been seen 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. The case was postponed until next week after Brueckner's lawyers successfully argued to have the judge replaced.
Prosecutors appear no closer to proving Brueckner was behind Madeleine’s 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.
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.