Madeleine McCann suspect sent letter about case to police, reports say

Wales Online

9 hours ago

Madeleine McCann suspect sent letter about case to police, reports say
He reportedly said 'decisive questions can never be answered'
Christian Brueckner, in a light-coloured suit, stands next to his lawyer prior to the verdict in his trial on five unrelated sex crimes in Germany last year
(Image: MICHAEL MATTHEY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images )
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann sent a letter to police saying "decisive questions can never be answered", according to reports.
Christian Brueckner, who is in prison for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005, reportedly sent a letter to officers saying questions which would implicate him in the case of the three-year-old British girl, who vanished from the same resort 18 years ago, cannot be answered.
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In the note, seen and translated by The Sun newspaper, Brueckner reportedly wrote: "It is the important questions, the decisive questions, that can never be answered.
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"Was I or my vehicle clearly seen near the crime scene on the night of the crime?
"Is there DNA evidence of me at the crime scene? Are there DNA traces of the injured party in my vehicle?
"Are there other traces/DNA carriers of the injured party in my possession? Photos?
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"And, don't forget, is there a body/corpse? All no, no no."
It is not clear when the letter was written.
Brueckner spent time in the Praia de Luz area between 2000 and 2017 and had photographs and videos of himself near a reservoir.
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It comes as German and Portuguese investigators finished three days of searching a 120-acre stretch of land near Lagos, Portugal, on Thursday as part of attempts to source evidence to implicate Brueckner.
In the searches, requested by German authorities, crews spent three days scouring scrubland and abandoned structures.
Brueckner is due to be released from jail in September if no further charges are brought. In October last year he was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
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Madeleine McCann was three years old when she vanished on May 3, 2007, after her parents left her asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve, Portugal.
Madeleine McCann
(Image: PA )
Since then hers has become one of the highest-profile unsolved missing person cases in the world with British, Portuguese, and European police forces involved in the investigation.
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Police forces from across Europe have launched multiple searches for Madeleine since her disappearance in 2007.
Early efforts focused on the Praia da Luz resort where she was last seen in her family's holiday apartment. In 2013 British police began Operation Grange, a formal investigation into the case. Searches have included digging in scrubland, draining reservoirs, and using sniffer dogs and ground-penetrating radar.
Most recently German authorities searched the suspect's old place of residence in Praia da Luz, covering a large patch of land near the home of their prime suspect and the McCanns' holiday apartment.
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Brueckner moved to Portugal in 1995 after serving a two-year prison sentence in Germany for sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl in 1994. He is known to have been renting a cottage in Praia da Luz at the time of Madeleine's disappearance. Soon after the media descended on the resort in 2007 he moved back to Germany.
Police have previously claimed he made a 30-minute phone call from the same area just an hour before Madeleine disappeared.
He is alleged to have confessed on two occasions to kidnapping and sexually abusing the toddler – once to a friend in a German bar in 2017 and again to his prison cellmate in 2020.
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The German national was formally identified as a suspect in 2022 but has denied any involvement. He also denied committing the 2005 rape for which he was convicted of in 2019.
In October 2024 he was acquitted of two charges rape and two of sexual abuse in a German trial where it was argued there was a lack of evidence and witnesses who were not credible.
Brueckner has not been charged in the McCann case but German authorities began investigating him in June 2020 for her alleged kidnap and murder.
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German authorities maintain that he is the main suspect in Madeleine's disappearance and are pushing for charges before his scheduled release in September.