Madeleine McCann suspect to be released in less than three weeks

German investigators’ prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann will be released from prison in a matter of weeks, local authorities have confirmed.

Christian Brückner, who is serving a sentence in northern Germany for a rape conviction, will be released by 17 September at the latest, the lead prosecutor investigating the toddler’s disappearance told the BBC.

Hans Christian Wolters also said that he believed the 48-year-old German national was dangerous but that the current legal situation meant he must be released from prison without delay.

Brückner has never been charged with any crime in relation to Madeleine’s disappearance and denies any involvement.

The then-three-year-old vanished from an apartment complex in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on 3 May 2007, sparking a Europe-wide investigation that has become one of the highest-profile missing persons cases.

Madeleine’s parents had been dining with friends at a restaurant a short walk away while their daughter and her younger twin siblings were asleep in the ground-floor apartment.

They had checked in on the children periodically until her mother, Kate, discovered she was missing at around 22:00 local time.

The case remains unsolved, but German prosecutors have pointed to evidence suggesting Brückner may have been in the area when Madeleine disappeared.

Mr Wolters said that while he and other prosecutors did not believe they had enough evidence to formally charge Brückner in relation to the McCann case, their efforts would continue.

Brückner “is not just our number one suspect, he’s the only suspect”, he said. “There is no-one else.”

“We have evidence which speaks against [Brückner], which indicates that he is responsible for the disappearance and the death of Madeleine McCann,” he said.

“We haven’t found anything in the last five years that exonerates [him]. We found evidence that strengthens our case. But in our view it’s not strong enough to make a guilty verdict likely, and that’s why so far we couldn’t charge him or apply for an arrest warrant.”

Due to differences in legal systems, German authorities suspect Brückner of murder in relation to Madeleine McCann, while British police continue to treat her disappearance as a missing persons case.

The prosecutor – who has led German efforts to solve Madeleine’s disappearance since they announced that Brückner was their prime suspect in 2020 – added that an expert had recently assessed Brückner as a danger to society.

“You have to expect [Brückner] to commit further crimes.”

As a result, prosecutors were applying for restrictions to be placed on him when he is released – including fitting him with an ankle tag, Mr Wolters said. These conditions will be decided by a court hearing that will not be open to the public.

Madeleine’s disappearance was initially investigated by Portuguese authorities, before German prosecutors took the lead. Portuguese authorities have also named Brückner as a formal suspect, or “arguido”.

Brückner, who spent many years of his life in the Algarve, was a drifter, a petty criminal and a convicted sex offender. He has several previous convictions, including for sexually abusing children in 1994 and 2016.

He is known to have spent time in the same part of Portugal between 2000 and 2017. German prosecutors have linked his mobile phone data and a car sale to their case against him.

Brückner is currently imprisoned for the rape of a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal in 2005.

Portuguese and German police conducted a fresh search in June of land between where the McCanns had been staying and addresses linked to Brückner, but this yielded no breakthroughs.

However, Mr Wolters said items that were seized during the search were still being analysed.

He said he understood the ongoing investigation by prosecutors in the northern German city of Braunschweig could have lost credibility after five years of inquiries with seemingly no tangible results.

“I can only ask for your understanding that we would certainly not have positioned ourselves so clearly five years ago if we only had hot air.”

The German prosecutor said he had not ruled out further searches.

Last year, Brückner was cleared by a German court of rape and sexual abuse in an unrelated trial.