Prime Madeleine McCann suspect charged with separate sex offences

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been charged with several sex offences, German prosecutors said.

The investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance is continuing irrespective of the charges brought, the prosecutor’s office said. .

Convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner is accused of committing five offences between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, the public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig said, with the charges not related to the McCann case.

Investigators believe the 45-year-old killed Madeleine, then three, after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3 2007.

Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in the case, was identified as a suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020.

The Madeleine McCann suspect charged in Germany with several sexual offences is Christian Brueckner, lead German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has confirmed to the PA news agency.

The convicted sex offender has been charged with the alleged rape of a woman in her 70s in her holiday apartment in Portugal at an unknown date between 2000 and 2006, and the alleged rape of a 20-year-old Irish woman in Praia da Rocha in 2004.

Brueckner is also alleged to have orally raped a teenage girl in her home in Praia da Luz after tying her up and whipping her on an unknown date between 2000 and 2006. He is claimed to have filmed the incidents.

He allegedly exposed himself to a 10-year-old German girl in Faro in 2007 and to a 11-year old Portuguese girl in Bartolomeu de Messines in 2017.