Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner brazenly gave his lawyer a ‘fist bump’ as he appeared in court today.
The convicted paedophile is on trial accused of carrying out sickening attacks on women and children in Portugal. He was named in 2020 as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance from her parents’ Algarve holiday apartment.
Brueckner ‘fist bumped’ lawyer Philipp Marquort as he entered the courtroom in Braunschweig this morning. Wearing a grey linen jacket and purple shirt, the 47-year-old shook hands with other members of his legal team.
The man who tipped off police about Brueckner’s alleged involvement in Madeleine’s May 2007 disappearance is giving evidence today. Helge Busching claimed the German told him “she didn’t scream” when they discussed the case in a Spanish bar in 2008.
He tipped off Scotland Yard in 2017, sparking the ongoing international police probe into Brueckner. It led to German police sensationally naming him in 2020 as the man responsible for Madeleine's “abduction and murder”.
Busching gave evidence in Brueckner’s trial on unrelated sex crime charges last month. He told judges how he found a video camera in Brueckner’s house showing him raping and sexually assaulting two women.
Busching, who was pals with the paedophile in Praia da Luz in the early 2000s, branded him “really dangerous”. He is continuing his evidence today and is being cross-examined by the paedophile’s lawyers. It emerged last month that Busching, who was pals with Brueckner in Praia da Luz in the mid-2000s, is dying from cancer.
The drifter would be the main witness if the German is ever charged with abducting and killing Madeleine. His grim cancer diagnosis, revealed in Braunschweig regional court, could spell disaster for Madeleine prosecutors. It is unlikely they could take their long-running investigation to trial without their star witness.
Brueckner is alleged to have carried out sickening attacks on women and children in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. One of the alleged crimes happened weeks before Madeleine vanished from her parents’ holiday apartment in Praia da Luz. Brueckner’s trial is due to last until October.
Busching and German drifter Manfred Seyferth previously helped convict him of the rape of a pensioner in Praia da Luz in 2005. Brueckner was jailed for that crime in 2019 and is serving a seven-year prison term in Germany.