Madeleine McCann prime suspect gives first interview as new searches launched

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has revealed his plans for when his current prison sentence ends.

Christian Brueckner has given his first face-to-face interview with a German newspaper, as police face a race against time to charge him in the Maddie case.

He is currently in prison for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005 and is due to be released in September if no further charges are brought.

Ulrich Oppold, a journalist from German broadcaster RTL, visited Brueckner in prison in Germany, who said if he gets out of jail the thing he is most looking forward to is a steak with a beer.

Brueckner refused to answer any questions relating to Madeleine after discussions with his lawyers.

He told the journalist that if he does get out of jail, he will leave Germany for a country with no extradition treaty and lie low as he is so well known.

The convicted sex offender said: ‘The fact that I have been in prison for many years for something that I cannot have committed and that therefore, through the participation of the media, half the world considers me a cruel rapist.’

Speaking earlier this year, one of his lawyers, Philipp Marquort, said they had discussed moving abroad if he is released – and even the possibility of getting plastic surgery.

A new search is being carried out at the request of the German federal police as they look for evidence that could implicate Brueckner in the McCann case.

He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

German investigators along with Portuguese police officers and firefighters are working in a little-developed area of countryside a few miles from Praia da Luz where Madeleine was last seen in 2007.

Then aged three, she vanished while on holiday with her family in the Algarve resort after her parents went out to dinner and left her sleeping in a room with her toddler twin siblings.

The Sun reported that investigators are also planning to use radar equipment that can scan beneath the ground.

Personnel wore safety gear such as gloves and hard hats as they worked in the dense vegetation, and firefighters and police were seen using a yellow hose to drain a well.

Around a dozen officers focused on one abandoned building where digging was taking place, while another member of the search team cleared large rocks.

TV footage showed two Portuguese police officers guarding the end to a narrow lane that leads through an area of fields and scrubland with a few houses and a vineyard.

It has been variously reported that investigators will look where trenches were dug near the resort at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, at wells, ruins and water tanks, and that there are plans to examine 21 pieces of land.

In October last year, Brueckner was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

Around 30 German police officers, including forensic experts, are expected to take part in the search along with Portuguese officers, with the activity due to last until Friday.

The Metropolitan Police said it is aware of the operation but that British officers will not be present.

German investigators and Portuguese officers last carried out searches in the country in 2023 near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz.

Brueckner, who spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017, had photographs and videos of himself near the reservoir.

It was previously searched in 2008, when Portuguese lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia paid for specialist divers to search it after he claimed to have been tipped off by criminal contacts that Madeleine’s body was there.

British police were later given permission to examine scrubland near where she vanished in 2014.

Last month, Madeleine’s family, who are from Rothley in Leicestershire, marked the 18th anniversary of her disappearance.

They described her as ‘beautiful and unique’ before her 22nd birthday and expressed their determination to keep searching.

A statement from her parents Kate and Gerry McCann and the family said: ‘The years appear to be passing even more quickly and whilst we have no significant news to share, our determination to ‘leave no stone unturned’ is unwavering. We will do our utmost to achieve this.’

In April, ministers approved more than £100,000 in additional funding for Scotland Yard detectives investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.

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