The prime suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann is living on the streets in Germany after being released from prison last month, local media reported on Thursday.
Christian Brueckner, who was revealed as a suspect in the case of the missing toddler in 2020 but never charged, was released from prison in Germany on September 17 after serving a sentence on separate rape charges.
Brueckner is now sleeping in a tent in a park in the northern city of Kiel, according to Der Spiegel magazine, with two police officers constantly protecting him from “possible attacks by the public”.
After his release from jail, Brueckner was taken to a halfway house in Neumuenster, just south of Kiel, the magazine said.
But when local residents found out he was living there, they “verbally abused and threatened him”, forcing him to leave nine days later escorted by police.
Brueckner then travelled to Braunschweig, where he tried to confront the prosecutors who accused him of abducting Maddie, but was turned away, the report said.
He then moved on to Kiel, where his lawyers are based, staying in a series of cheap hotels only to be thrown out when people recognised him.
Three-year-old Madeleine vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz in May 2007 while her parents dined at a nearby tapas bar.
Despite a huge international manhunt and global media attention, no trace of her has been found and no one has been charged over her disappearance.
In a bombshell announcement in 2020, German prosecutors named Brueckner, who is known to have lived in the area on and off at the time, as their top suspect.
They have said they have “concrete evidence” – but not enough to secure a conviction, and have therefore refrained from charging him over Maddie’s killing.
Brueckner has a string of previous convictions for crimes including theft, drug trafficking, assault, child pornography, child abuse and rape.
– With AFP
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