The best friend of the suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has made startling claims about his former housemate.
AUSTRIAN Carpenter Tatschl has admitted to being the “best friend” of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner, and believes she was probably “abducted and sold” by him. Forty-six-year-old Tatschl said he lived with 42-year-old Brueckner in Praia da Luz back in 2006. In recent interviews with the press, he described Brueckner as “a pervert” and “more than capable of snatching a child for sexual kicks or money”.
Tatschl claimed that Brueckner was “obsessed with the dark web” and probably used it to “deal in pornography and drugs. Brueckner boasted about selling kids,” he said, adding that he believes “Madeleine was sold to a sex ring” – although no evidence of this has been found to date. “He talked about selling kids, maybe to Morocco. I was living with him at the time. He was my best friend. I know he did it,” he added.
Tatschl’s name emerged last week after Portuguese authorities granted access to Brueckner’s court records. Both spent a short stint in jail together in a Portugal prison after they were caught stealing diesel from lorries. He said he “moved to the hippy enclave of Orgiva in Andalucia” in Spain back in April 2007, just weeks before three-year-old Madeleine vanished on May 3. He also revealed that Brueckner turned up to see him in Spain shortly after Madeleine’s disappearance – around late May/early June – “driving a Tiffin Allegro Winnebago.”
Tatschl said he wondered where Brueckner got the money from to buy it. “We assumed it was from a big drug deal or something,” he said although now suspects “it was Maddie.” Brueckner only stayed a couple of days before returning to Germany after which they lost touch and Tatschl returned to his home in Austria some years later. He said he was interviewed over two days in April 2019 by both German and Austrian police.
Tatschl claims that he suspected his friend Brueckner of Madeleine’s disappearance after watching a documentary about it on Netflix. “When I saw the documentary I knew immediately that he was guilty,” adding that he believes “an arrest is imminent.”
