Madeleine McCann suspect suffered broken rib in prison assault by inmate: Jail beating revealed as Christian Brueckner gives first interview... while new police dig for clues begins in Portugal
The Prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has given his first jail-based interview in which he revealed he suffered a broken rib after being attacked by a fellow inmate.
Convicted paedophile Christian Brueckner, 48, is the man German investigators believe abducted Madeleine from her family's rented holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007.
Just as investigators will begin hunting for Madeleine's body today in the Algarve in a search Portuguese cops predict will come to nothing, Brueckner has given a face-to-face interview to German network, RTL from Sehnde Prison near Hanover.
He is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the brutal rape of a 72-year-old American woman, Dianne Menkes in the Algarve in 2006, which he still contests.
Brueckner claimed to journalists that he was 'assaulted by another inmate — at least one rib was broken. I now stay in my cell 24 hours a day. I don't go out. Not even for food.'
Photos show his cell fitted with a thin yellow curtain, a single bed on the left side, and a small table to the right with a white chair and a blue table cloth.
The revelation about the convicted rapist being attacked by a fellow prisoner comes after he had two ribs broken by prison guards in 2020 after he threw yoghurt around his cell and blocked the toilet.
According to a report, Brueckner was rushed to hospital for treatment after he 'threw a tantrum' in his courthouse cell by smearing it with food and filling the toilet with loo roll.
Meanwhile, the search for evidence in the Maddie McCann case is underway today in Portugal.
Should investigators uncover any relevant evidence, this could mean they finally press charges against Brueckner.
German authorities have requested the four-day searches close to the ramshackle cottage Brueckner used to live at near to the holiday resort of Praia da Luz where Maddie vanished 18 years ago.
Despite being named in 2020 as the prime suspect in the Maddie McCann case, Brückner has still not been charged.
Around 30 officers from Germany's FBI - the BKA - arrived in the area around 7.30pm yesterday after Portuguese colleagues sealed off dirt roads and erected blue tents by scrubland in preparation for today's operation.
The major search, the first for more than two years in Portugal, will focus on wells, ruins, and water storage tanks on 21 plots of privately-owned land thought to cover around 120 acres.
But cracks were already appearing this morning between the Portuguese police who have made it clear they are simply 'complying' with decisions they haven't taken and their German counterparts.
After his interview, the RTL reporter Ulrich Oppold said: 'After a thorough search, I was led into a visiting room together with the relatives of other prisoners, where the prominent prisoner greeted me.'
'Christian B. seemed intelligent to me, perhaps a little distant, and I think he had prepared himself very well for our conversation.He knew exactly what he wanted to say and, above all, what he didn't want to say.'
Prison staff at Sehnde prison have described Brückner as reclusive and emotionless.
But for the RTL journalist, he came across as confident and remorseless.
'Christian B. made a very confident impression on me, he seemed serene, spoke with a slight Franconian accent and I had the feeling that I was looking at a man who was not aware of any guilt.'
Brückner's defence team have applied for him to be released early.
But he still has to pay his court-issued fines for insulting a prison officer at Sehnde prison – and as he apparently has no money, then this will have to be paid in time by spending more days in prison.
He will soon have to face yet another court hearing for also insulting another prison officer when at Oldenburg prison in northern Germany.
Brückner said he does not expect to be released any time soon, but should it come to that, he would have to go into hiding, saying he is 'as well-known as a colourful dog.'
And he added that he 'is most looking forward to a proper steak with a beer.'
During the trial last year, Brückner was acquitted after being charged with five non-related sex offences, including 3 separate counts of rape and two cases of exposing himself to children.
But forensic psychiatrist Dr Christian Riedemann said Brückner was among the highest category of dangerous persons, and said he was a 'psychopath with paedophilic tendencies.'
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