A prime suspect has been identified in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, police have revealed.
The man, who has been named by sources in Portugal as Christian Brueckner, is the subject of a joint appeal for information by British and German police.
The new suspect in this case which had arrived a standstill has been identified as 43-year-old Christian Brueckner, a German sex offender. The man is around 6ft tall with a slim build and at the time would have had short blonde hair.
According to police sources, the suspect was seen around the Praia da Luz resort on the Algarve coast at around the same time that McCann went missing from her hotel room.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor’s Office, Hans Christian Wolters, announced that “In connection with the disappearance of three year-old British girl Madeleine McCann on May 3, 2007, from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz, in Portugal, the Braunschweig prosecution is investigating a 43-year-old German on the suspicion of murder.
Sadly, the police are not entertaining the possibility that Maddie could still be alive as they have admitted that they “are assuming that the girl is dead.”
In regard to the suspect, the police have described him as a “sexual predator” who already had a long history of conviction for “crimes against little girls” and who is “already serving a long sentence.”
The police have noted that Brueckner was living in the Algarve area between 1995 and 2007, the year McCann went missing. During his time in the southern region of Portugal, he worked numerous jobs in the gastronomy business but also had his fair share of involvement in criminal activity such as thefts in tourist accommodations and drug dealing.
The reason why the Braunschweig police is involved is because before the suspect moved abroad to Portugal, his last residence was in Braunschweig.
The German police have made it known that it is highly likely that other individuals are withholding information regarding the little girl’s disappearance which occurred just before her fourth birthday. They have reason to believe that, other than the suspect, other individuals know details about the crime and potentially where her body was left.
The newly named suspect is currently serving a prison sentence for a sexual crime; however this is not his first time, as he has also had two previous convictions for sexual contact with girls. For this reason, the police are not ruling out that her disappearance had a sexual undertone attached to it.
Apparently, the suspect is currently serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old woman of American nationality which occurred in 2005 in Portugal, however, he was only convicted for this crime last year.
The primary theory is that the suspect could have easily broken into the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was on holiday with her parents and her twin siblings. She is believed to have been kidnapped whilst the parents were having dinner with some friends.
Another suspicion that police have concerns the 30-minute phone call that the suspect received on his Portuguese mobile around an hour before Madeleine was missing.
