Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B ‘molested girl, 10, on beach 7 miles from where Brit tot vanished 3 weeks later’
MADELEINE McCann suspect Christian B. has been charged with a sex attack on a girl just days before the Brit tot vanished.
The convicted paedo, 45, allegedly struck seven miles from Portugal’s Praia da Luz, where Maddie, then three, disappeared in 2007.
Cops also charged him with attacking four other women and girls.
Detectives hope to charge paedophile Christian Brueckner with Madeleine McCann’s abduction and murder later this year.
The news came as Brueckner was accused of a series of sickening sex crimes in Portugal’s Algarve, including one days before Madeleine vanished from there.
Authorities said yesterday the convicted German sex monster remains a prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007.
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Sources revealed that “a concrete case” is being built against him and detectives are looking to bring charges by the end of the year.
German prosecutors yesterday revealed details of five separate attacks allegedly carried out by Brueckner along the Portuguese holiday coast between December 2000 and June 2017.
They include an assault on a ten-year-old girl just 26 days before Madeleine vanished from Praia da Luz, seven miles away.
The sick drifter is said to have pounced on the German youngster as she played on rocks at a beach in Salema on April 7, 2007.
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Prosecutors state he was naked apart from a pair of shoes when he ran up behind her.
He grabbed the terrified child by the wrist and forced her to engage in a sickening sex act before he let her go and fled, police papers say.
Prosecutors have also charged Brueckner — who often videoed his alleged crimes — with three rapes and another sex attack.
He is currently in Germany’s Oldenburg jail serving seven years for the rape of a 72-year-old woman at Praia da Luz in September 2005.
Specifically, the accused is charged with three offences of aggravated rape and two offences of sexual abuse of children
Braunschweig Prosecutor's Office
Yesterday’s charges detail another violent rape on an elderly woman at some point between December 2000 and April 2006.
Police allege he “surprised an unknown, approximately 70 to 80-year-old woman” in her holiday rental accommodation.
The statement added: “The suspect is charged with having tied up and raped the victim.
“He then hit the victim several times with a whip. The accused is said to have also recorded the entire event.”
The second rape alleged yesterday was an attack on a 20-year-old Irish woman at her holiday apartment in Praia da Rocha.
She was woken in the early hours of June 16, 2004, by a masked fiend clutching a knife. The victim was then tied to a table and raped before another violent sex act was performed.
The rapist again filmed much of his attack on a video camera then fled via the balcony.
The third rape charge — which appears to be supported by video evidence — relates to a sex attack on a teen between December 2000 and April 2006. Brueckner is accused of taking the German-speaking girl, “aged at least 14”, to his apartment in Praia da Luz where he tied her up.
He again filmed himself lashing the girl with a whip and forcing her to perform a sex act.
The fifth charge brought against him yesterday relates to an attack on an 11-year-old girl in São Bartolomeu de Messines, near a snail festival popular with families.
Police said the suspect pounced on the youngster as she sat on a swing in a playground at around 2am on June 11, 2017.
He exposed himself before she ran to her father. Brueckner was grabbed and arrested after Portuguese police were called but was never prosecuted.
The alleged sex attack at the beach places Brueckner — who had a Volkswagen camper van — in an area just a 14-minute drive from Praia da Luz days before Madeleine vanished.
Brueckner’s alleged victim, now 25, has told police she recognised his face on TV.
He was chased by her brother and father, who were unable to catch him.
Three-year-old Madeleine’s disappearance from her ground-floor holiday apartment at Praia da Luz’s Ocean Club sparked the biggest missing person hunt in history.
Bungling Portuguese police focused on her parents — who were eating with friends nearby — rather than an opportunist child snatcher.
The trail then went cold before German police identified Brueckner as their prime suspect.
They are now convinced Brueckner snatched and killed Madeleine and say they are building a “concrete” case against him.
However, anguished mum Kate, 54, and her husband Gerry, 55, from Rothley, Leics, have never given up hope she may one day be found alive.
Yesterday’s German police statement on the new offences said an arrest warrant had been issued against Brueckner because their evidence raised the “highest possible level of suspicion”.
The dossier against him on the five charges was said to run to more than 100 pages after “very intensive and extensive investigations in several European countries”.
The statement added: “The investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance is ongoing — irrespective of this indictment.”
German police are leading the hunt because their legal system allows nationals accused of crimes abroad to be tried at home.
Meanwhile, Brueckner’s lawyer has filed an appeal requesting his 2019 rape conviction be re-examined, claiming the evidence used to convict him is weak. Brueckner was convicted after DNA from a hair in the victim’s bed was matched to him.
His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said last night that the new charges had come as a “complete surprise”.
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He went on to claim that the allegations were based on “dubious witnesses and on video evidence that no one has been able to find”.
The McCanns had not responded to requests for comment last night.
Trail that led to sex charges
- Some time between December 2000 and April 2006: Accused of raping and whipping a 70 to 80-year-old at a holiday home. Also accused of raping and whipping a German girl of “at least 14” after tying her up at Praia da Luz apartment.
- June 2004: Accused of raping, tying up and torturing an Irish woman, 20, at knifepoint after scaling a balcony in Praia da Rocha.
- Sept 2005: Rapes and tortures a 72-year-old US pensioner at her Praia da Luz holiday home and is later convicted and jailed.
- April 2007: Accused of a naked sex act in front of a ten-year-old German girl on rocks seven miles from Praia da Luz.
- May 2007: Madeleine McCann disappears from her Ocean Club apartment in Praia da Luz.
- June 2017: Exposed himself to a Portuguese girl, 11, at a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines. Was caught but never prosecuted.
- June 2020: German police reveal Brueckner is their suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
- October 2022: Brueckner is charged with five sex offences including three aggravated rapes.