A suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann allegedly confessed to taking a child from a Portuguese apartment, his cellmate has sensationally claimed in court.
Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner, who was in and around the Praia da Luz resort area on the Algarve coast at the time McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007, has never been formally charged but was named as a prime suspect in 2020.
He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
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The 47-year-old German is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.
He is also on trial for several unrelated sexual offences he is alleged to have committed between 2000 and 2017.
In court on Wednesday, Laurentiu Codin, 50, claimed Brueckner had confided in him about his past while they were both on remand at Braunschweig Prison.
“He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there,” Codin told Braunschweig Regional Court, The Sun reported.
“He was in an area of hotels where rich people live … and when he went to the hotel area, there was an open window somewhere, he told me. And he would have entered this window for money and gold.
“However, he did not find any money, but came across a child and took it with him.”
He claimed Bruckner said he “left the area” and “took the child with him … and drove away, while the place was full of police and dogs”.
“He drove off in the car and he was gone. He asked me if the DNA from a child could be taken from bones under the ground.”
Codin claimed Brueckner also asked for advice about potential evidence, including whether he ”might have left any traces” such as a strand of hair or when he supported himself to jump out a window, the German newspaper Bild reported.
“He told me all these things in the hope that I was a paedophile too.”
After the witness said Brueckner was clever, the defendant’s lawyer asked whether he thought it was clever to tell someone in prison about such crimes, to which Codin said: “Perhaps … he misjudged me.”
The trial continues.
McCann disappeared from her bedroom on May 3, 2007, during a family holiday while her parents were dining with friends nearby in the resort of Praia da Luz.
German police said in June 2020 that McCann was presumed dead and that Brueckner was likely responsible for it, however, he has not been charged with any crime related to it.
A body has never been found.
– with AP