In Portugal, new excavations are taking place to try to find a trace of Maddie McCann, a young girl who has been missing for 16 years. Suspicion hangs over one man in particular.
He is the man on whom all suspicion weighs. But in 16 years of investigation, his guilt has never been established. No element has so far confirmed that Christian Brückner is the kidnapper of Maddie McCann. The file does not contain a single clue linking this man with the disappearance of this little German girl. Could the situation change this Tuesday, May 23, 2023? This is what investigators from the Portuguese, German and English police hope. The three entities are jointly carrying out an excavation operation in the Arade dam, 50km north of Praia da Luz, a town located in southern Portugal, where the child was abducted. But who is the prime suspect in this case and why is he getting all the attention?
Already charged in several rape cases
Christian Brückner is a well-known man in the German justice system. He is implicated in three rape cases, details Picture : a first would have been committed in 2004 on a 20-year-old Irish woman, a second on a septuagenarian in 2005, a third on a young girl aged at least 14, in the same period, without the precise year being given known. What do these three attacks have in common? They all took place in Portugal: one in Praia da Rocha (the first) and the other two in Praia da Luz, where Maddie was kidnapped. In addition, he is accused of having forced two little girls (10 and 11 years old) to watch him masturbate, on a beach in Faro in 2007 then on a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines, in 2017.
Currently, Christian Brückner is in detention in Oldenburg, Germany, where he has been serving a seven-year prison sentence since 2019 for the rape of the septuagenarian. The other files must be the subject of a trial in a few weeks. Incarcerated, he is nonetheless suspected of the kidnapping of Maddie McCann.
The Maddie McCann case revived?
Sic Noticias announces that new excavations are being carried out this Tuesday, May 23, 2023 in Portugal, the country in which the young girl disappeared 16 years ago. It is at the Arade dam, about 50km from Praia da Luz, in the south of the country, that the research will be carried out. The objective of the investigators: to try to find the child who was going to celebrate his four years a few days after his disappearance. The site is not the place where the little girl was abducted since it was in Praia da Luz that the disappearance occurred. Why are the police interested in this particular area? According Espresso, the main suspect in this case – a German pedophile – (read below), had referred to this area as “his little paradise”. The search should last until Wednesday. Will they be more decisive than in 2008 when nothing had been found?
What do we know about the disappearance of Maddie McCann?
Maddie McCann is a little German girl, missing since May 3, 2007. On that day, almost 4 years old (she was to celebrate on May 12), she spent her holidays with her parents and her little twin brothers (2 years old ) in a hotel in Praia da Luz, in the south of Portugal. In the evening, the parents decide to have dinner at the restaurant with friends, near the hotel. They leave the children in the room and do a rotation to check that everything is going well. However, when Kate McCann, the mother, returned to the room around 10 p.m., her daughter was no longer there.