Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner‘s lawyer has sensationally admitted he understands ‘concerns’ over his client’s sickening child sex and rape convictions.
Brueckner, 48, prime suspect for the ‘murder and abduction’ of Madeleine was released from jail earlier this week after serving six years of a seven-year sentence for rape and there are serious fears he will reoffend.
His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher confirmed he had refused to take part in a programme to rehabilitate sex offenders because Brueckner felt he was ‘unrightly convicted’ of the horrific attack on a 72-year-old woman.
The sickening assault on the American pensioner took place in 2005 in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast just two years before then three-year-old Madeleine vanished from the same resort, and he has convictions for child abuse dating back to the 90s.
When asked if he understood people’s fears Mr Fulscher said:’ Certainly. Fear is often a very irrational feeling. But given Christian Brueckner’s past one can certainly find rational reasons for such concern.’
Earlier this evening, the paedophile declared himself homeless and is currently in emergency accommodation in Neumunster, 40 miles north of Hamburg.
In a previous interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Fulscher once said that ‘Brueckner was not the sort of man you would like to look after your children’ and he told German media that society would have to ‘live with it’ as he had served his sentence in full.
Mr Fulscher added that he had ‘spoken with his client about the Madeleine case’ but said he ‘had seen no evidence to make him think he was involved’.
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has been declared homeless after his lawyer confessed that he understands ‘concerns’ over his client’s sickening child sex and rape convictions
In 2020, German authorities declared Christian Brueckner their prime suspect for the abduction and murder of Madeleine. He was released from jail earlier this week after serving six years of a seven-year sentence for rape and there are serious fears he will reoffend
He went on to say the evidence prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has in the Madeleine case was too weak to support charges, going on to say he thought ‘it will ever come to that’.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters has also admitted he thinks Brueckner is ‘still a dangerous individual’ and a case review in July ruled that ‘women were at risk from him’.
While at a trial last year for unrelated sex crime, forensic psychiatrist Dr Christian Riedemann confirmed Brueckner refused to cooperate with rehabilitation programmes and labelled him as being ’99 percent on a scale of dangerousness’.
As a result, as part of his release Brueckner has been ordered to wear an ankle tag for five years, report once a month to a probation office and surrender his passport although he has an ID card that will allow him to travel freely around Europe.
Hours after he was driven out of Sehnde prison by Mr Fulscher he was pictured tucking into chicken nuggets, a cheeseburger and sipping coffee while smoking a cigarette at a McDonalds on the motorway towards Bremen.
Late Friday it emerged he was living in a hostel in Neumunster south of Kiel in area ‘mainly where migrants live, who don’t read German media and have no idea who he is’, according to source close to Brueckner.
The news was initially reported by the local paper which said it was revealing the fact because of ‘over riding public interest and protection of the public’.
A spokesman for the city council, Stephan Beitz, also confirmed the report and said it had accommodated him as part of its ’emergency response’ but refused to say where exactly.
German media questioned why he had gone to Neumunster as he appeared to have no connections to the city and he had been released from a jail more than 200 miles away.
The local paper Kiel Nachrichten echoed fears he may reoffend and added: ‘The city is presumably concerned that protests or even riots will erupt if the location of the man with his criminal past becomes known.’
The Daily Mail can also reveal he is being watched by German BKA officers – the equivalent of the FBI – and has travelled on a train and ‘gone shopping in Lidl without anyone recognising him’.
It has also emerged British detectives were covertly flown to Portugal to interview a couple who had previously housed the sex offender just months before Madeleine was kidnapped from the Algarve flat.
Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, leave after attending a church service in Praia Da Luz, in the days after she went missing
Grandmother, Elke Piro, 69, who alongside her husband Bernhard, 72, were acquainted with Brueckner for years, said she was certain the toddler was hurt by the German suspect.
She also spoke to The Sun of her sadness at not being able to provide police with any new information, adding: ‘It’s frustrating because I got to know Christian over many years and believe he did something bad to Maddie.
‘My hope now is the police can find a way to bring him to trial in the UK. That would be wonderful. I will be happy to co-operate and testify in court if needed.’
She thinks the paedophile likely targeted the McCann’s holiday apartment for money before coming across Madeleine sleeping.
‘I think he found her and took her and did something terrible after he panicked,’ she added.
Speaking of her deep turmoil after discovering his chilling criminal history, she said that she wished they had never met Brueckner.
Mr Piro’s sons Flavio and Pablo were also previously questioned about the sex offender, but were no on this occasion.
It comes as Met boss Sir Mark Rowley recently suggested if new evidence came to light Brueckner could possibly be extradited.
Operation Grange has seemingly taken a lead role in the nearly two-decade search while their German peers are at a halt, however, the force have not confirmed if their detectives had been in discussions with the Piros.
However, a source told The Sun detectives had travelled to convene with the Portuguese Judicial Police. Later, they spoke to the Piros at a Faro police station, as witnesses not suspects.
They had previously been interviewed by both Portuguese and German detectives, having first met Brueckner in 1995, and had stayed in touch with him until 2018.
Elke described Brueckner as a ‘classic sociopath’ and a ‘terrible alcoholic’, adding how he would switch between being ‘kind and gentle or crazy and raging about sex’.
She said she never felt threatened by the sex offender, who stayed with them following his fuel theft in 2006, and again in 2016 for a month while he was on the run from German police.
But she was completely unaware of the heinous crimes he committed.
‘But I always felt there was something strange about him that made me feel uncomfortable. I’d never let him stay in the house,’ she added.
‘We allowed him to live in his camper van. The longest he stayed with us was four months.’
However, his last plea to be housed by them in 2018 was refuted.
Regarding the likelihood of Brueckner’s extradition, Sir Mark Rowley said: ‘One of the reasons we are involved is that murder is in many situations extra-territorial and potentially a murder of a British subject can in certain circumstances be charged in the UK.
‘There’s lots of maybes, so at the moment we are taking stock with the Germans and Portuguese.’
Of the German inquiry, he added: ‘They’ve got to the point where the prosecutor doesn’t feel they’re able to prosecute.
Police officers searching countryside close to Praia da Luz, Portugal on Thursday June 5, 2025
‘Brueckner remains a suspect for us. The Germans have done everything they possibly can do within their law.’
The sex offender has maintained he was not involved in Madeleine’s disappearance and no charges relating to the toddler have been lodged against him.
Brueckner’s release is a blow to the German and British authorities who have been frantically trying to gather enough evidence to charge him since he was named as the likely suspect in June 2020.
He was known to be working in Praia da Luz when Madeleine vanished and mobile phone data puts him near the hotel complex the night she vanished, with investigators keen to identify a mystery caller he spoke to just minutes before.
Several witnesses have also come forward to name him as the suspect but crucially he has never been charged and in letters to the Daily Mail, Brueckner also insisted he had ‘nothing to do with it’ and he was being made a ‘scapegoat’.
Mr Wolters said: ‘Brueckner is not only our number one suspect he is our only suspect – there is no one else.
‘We have evidence against him but it’s just not strong enough to bring a case also that’s why we haven’t charged him yet – we hope we can at some stage.’
Bruecker is due in court next month in relation to behaviour issues at Oldenburg prison where he was serving the initial part of his sentence.
