Madeleine McCann suspect is released after serving time in unrelated case : NPR
The police try to stop a British photographer while taking photos in a car leaving a prison, carrying a suspect in the disappearance in 2007 of the British toddler Madeleine McCann, in Sehnde, Germany, Wednesday, September 17, 2025.
Markus Schreiber / AP
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Markus Schreiber / AP
Sehnde, Germany – A German national who is the subject of an investigation in the disappearance of the British toddler Madeleine McCann 18 years ago was released on Wednesday after having served his sentence in an unrelated case, police announced.
The man, who was identified by the media as Christian Brückner, had served a seven -year sentence which stems from his conviction in 2019 for the rape of a 72 -year -old American woman in Portugal.
A car accompanied by several police vans hunted Sehnde’s prison near Hanover, in northern Germany on Wednesday morning. Police confirmed that the man had left.
In June 2020, the German prosecutors said that the man was the subject of an investigation suspected of murder in connection with the disappearance of McCann on May 3, 2007, in a complex of apartments in the Portuguese complex of Praia da Luz. They said they assumed that the girl died.
Police has since been searched in Portugal. But the suspect, who denied any involvement in his disappearance, was not charged in the case. The investigation is not affected by his release. There is also a suspect in an investigation into the disappearance of McCann carried out by the British metropolitan police, who says that he refused his request for maintenance.
His lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, said charges would have been deposited against his client a long time ago if there had been enough evidence.
The 48 -year -old man spent many years in Portugal, especially in the seaside resort of the Algarve of Praia da Luz at the time of the disappearance of Madeleine.
Investigators from the United Kingdom, Portugal and Germany still reconstitute what happened at night, Madeleine, 3, disappeared. She was in the same room as her brother and sister – 2 -year -old twins – while their parents, Kate and Gerry, dined with friends in a neighboring restaurant.
The suspect was tried last year on several unrelated sexual offenses that he would have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017 and was acquitted in October. The judge president said that the evidence was insufficient for a conviction, that the court had heard unreliable witnesses and that some had been influenced by media reports on the defendant.
The State Court of Hildesheim said that he could not legally reveal if he will have to meet the conditions after his release. But FülScher confirmed to the regional public broadcaster NDR that his client will have to wear an electronic foot label, regularly report to probation services and abandon his passport. The German Weekly Der Spiegel reported this decision, without naming sources.
He still faces a date of an audience of October 27 in Oldenburg in northwestern Germany in a case in which he is accused of having insulted a prison employee. A city district court sentenced him to six weeks in prison for this, but the defense appealed.
