[imagesource: Getty]

Convicted German paedophile Christian Brueckner (also written as Brückner) has been the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann for some time now.

Despite reports of ‘concrete evidence’ against Brueckner as far back as late 2020, he has never been arrested and charged with the crime.

He’s currently serving seven years behind bars in Germany for raping a woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal, back in 2005 – two years before Maddie vanished from a holiday apartment in the same resort.

For the latest, here’s The Independent:

Brueckner “repeatedly worked” at the resort from which she disappeared, according to a new documentary.

[He] was said to have carried out repair work at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz before the three-year-old vanished from there in 2007.

Image: BBC / Google Maps

Evidence gathered for a documentary by SAT.1, a German channel, showed Brueckner was “very familiar” with the Portuguese resort and surrounding area.

The findings of the documentary have been shared with police.

At the time of Maddie’s disappearance, Brueckner was living in a camper van in the area.

According to phone records allegedly obtained by the documentary makers, Brueckner was “no more than five minutes away from the Ocean Club when she disappeared” and had earlier taken a 30-minute phone call near the resort.

For the first time, Brueckner has responded publicly regarding the allegations against him, writing letters professing his innocence.

Below via Sky News:

[He] wrote that he survived as a drug dealer because he was careful.

“I was never caught by the police because I followed a few key principles.

“Where possible, only driving during the day so that my battered ‘hippy bus’ didn’t attract attention, only driving on the roads I needed to and, most importantly, never provoking the police. So that means not committing any crimes, certainly not abducting anyone.”

Nicole Fehlinger, Brueckner’s ex-girlfriend, who says she was dating him at the time of Maddie’s disappearance, has also given an interview to The Daily Mail this week.

In the interview, she made it clear she “was his lover, not his accomplice”:

Fehlinger recalls Brueckner ringing to say he would be driving his Winnebago campervan from the town of Tomar, 200 miles from the Algarve, to her home in Foral, 38 miles east of Praia da Luz, on the night Madeleine went missing,

While the most direct route would not have taken him through Praia da Luz, Ms Fehlinger does not recall him arriving at her house that night.

‘I don’t know if he came late that night and parked his vehicle outside and slept in there, and left that morning again, or he did not turn up,’ she said.

She also said that Brueckner told her “he liked small bodies of women and he liked the bodies of girls before they reached puberty”.

Nicole’s father, Dieter, says he recalls an incident where Brueckner told him he could easily hide a child or cannabis inside his van.

Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, who is working with support from Scotland Yard detectives and Portuguese police, said all leads would be followed up.

The documentary, SAT.1 investigativ: Neue Spuren im Fall Maddie, aired in Germany last night.

[sources:independent&sky&dmail]