‘Strange, she didn’t scream’: Prime Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner’s sinister claim to the friend who reported him to police over young British girl’s disappearance in Portugal
- Brueckner has mounted concerted effort to clear name by writing several letters
The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case has revealed he was named by an informer as the man responsible after telling him ‘strange she didn’t scream’.
Convicted rapist and paedophile Christian Brueckner, 45, makes the admission in a letter seen by MailOnline in which he again attacks the police investigation against him as groundless.
Brueckner has mounted a concerted effort to clear his name by writing several letters all of which contain gripes about his treatment in prison, where he is seven years for rape.
In the letter he attacked informant Helge Busching – who initially contacted police in 2017 to say he had information on the case – while he was serving a jail term for people trafficking in Greece.
The two men had been pals in Portugal in the early 2000s but as Brueckner explained in his latest missive he says they fell out after a drugs deal went wrong the year Madeleine went missing and never spoke again.
Madeleine McCann went missing from her room at the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz on the Algarve on 3 May 2007
Convicted rapist and paedophile Christian Brueckner, 45, makes the admission in a letter seen by MailOnline in which he again attacks the police investigation against him as groundless
A map shows the movements of Brueckner around the Algarve at the time Madeleine disappeared while on a family holiday
READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE – ‘The world believes I killed Maddie, I didn’t’: Extraordinary letters written by Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner from his German prison cell are revealed for the first time – as he tries to convince world of his innocence
Brueckner’s four-page letter ends with a drawing of a daisy (pictured) having its petals picked and the words ‘not guilty’ and ‘guilty’ circling around it and the caption ‘Spring is coming…’ alongside it
He wrote:’ The following sentences from the ‘witness’ Helge B in 2017 were responsible for all the public hunting and hatred against me by the German authorities.’
Then quoting Busching he writes:’ I was at the hippy festival in 2008 in Spain. Manfred (Seyferth another witness) was also there as well and Michael (Tatschl another witness), Manfred, Christian and I then started talking about Portugal.
‘It was then Christian made a comment about the missing girl. Christian asked me if I was still going to Portugal, I replied; ‘I’m no longer going to Portugal because there are too many problems there, Portugal has too many police for me on account of the missing child.
‘It is indeed strange that she disappeared without a trace. Christian replied:”Yes, she did not scream.”
Slamming the claims Brueckner added:’ It’s not even worthy of comment,’ before going on to explain how they fell out over a drug deal.
He said:’ In 2007 Helge B sole one kilo of hashish to me and when I arrived in Germany with it, I saw it was only 750g. After that he wasn’t existing for me anymore (sic).
‘There wasn’t any conversation in 2008. Not even Manfred existed for me anymore after this. The point is that the main leader of all the investigations Helge B, who came free (sic) a long time before the regular end of his prison in Greece.’
It is known that Busching was convicted of people trafficking in Greece and in 2017 media there reported how he had been released so he could meet with officers from Scotland Yard after telling them he had valuable information.
Brueckner has mounted a concerted effort to clear his name by writing several letters all of which contain gripes about his treatment in prison, where he is seven years for rape
Brueckner led a nomadic existence while he was in the Algarve, living most of the time in a campervan
In his letters Brueckner insists he is innocent over the disappearance of Madeleine
At the time Greek media reported how he was questioned in a city centre hotel for several hours in a hotel room that was swept for bugs before officers for the Operation Grange team met with him.
Busching gave the statement in 2017 after being arrested while trying to smuggle migrants from Greece to Italy, it is claimed. He had a previous conviction for a 2011 assault on a beggar in Italy.
While under investigation, Busching was put in touch with Operation Grange – the Met Police team investigating Madeleine’s disappearance – where he gave them details about Brueckner.
According to a Greek police report, Busching’s evidence was ‘given voluntarily and without monetary or other consideration’ it is not known what his final sentence for people trafficking was and whether her served it all.
Busching and Seyferth have also told police they broke into Brueckner’s home in the Algarve in 2007 and stole a camcorder and gun from which they later threw into a lake.
Both men claimed the camcorder contained scenes of sexual violence and torture against two women and they recognised Brueckner in the footage and it was this testimony that led to him being convicted of raping a 73-year-old woman in the Algarve the year before Madeleine vanished.
Previously MailOnline revealed Christian Brueckner, 45, wrote a string of letters hoping to get publicity for his campaign to exonerate himself of anything to do with the mystery
A graphologist, who examined the letters and Brueckner’s neat handwriting for MailOnline, says they show he was ‘distorted, deluded’ and his ‘fantastical views are constant, unchanging’
A police search team walk on the shore of the Arade dam near Silves, Portugal, in May 2023
Portuguese police at the request of the German authorities searched Barragem do Arade Reservoir in Silves on the Algarve. The area is around 25 miles north of the holiday apartment where Madeleine disappeared from in Praia da Luz
A timeline shows Brueckner’s life from birth in 1976 in Germany to being jailed for raping a pensioner on the Algarve
However the camcorder and gun have never been recovered and Brueckner claims that it was this testimony that kick started the investigation against him and led to him being named as prime suspect in 2020 by German authorities investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.
She vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in May 2007 – where Brueckner was living at the time – and has never been seen since.
Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said:’It remains to be seen whether this conversation took place at all as we have other witnesses who said it didn’t.’
The revelation comes just days after German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters confirmed items had been found following a high-profile search last month at the Arade dam just 35 miles from where then three-year-old Madeleine was last seen.
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