The prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance made a phone call from the ‘same place’ she vanished from an hour before she went missing, reports claim.
Christian Brueckner, 43, was recently identified as a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007.
German prosecutors have repeatedly claimed they have ‘concrete evidence’ that the three-year-old was killed, and insisted last month they had shared this information with Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter.
Details of a call involving a mobile number allegedly used by Brueckner are set to be revealed on the German crime show Aktenzeichen XY… Ungelöst tonight.
It was suggested a telephone number reportedly called by Brueckner shortly before Madeleine’s disappearance has a ‘very large role’ in the ongoing investigation.
Host Rudi Cerne told Focus: ‘All I can say at the moment is that one thing we’re dealing with here is the number of the Portuguese prepaid card that received a call from the German suspect’s mobile.
Christian Brueckner (pictured), 43, was recently identified as a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007
German prosecutors have claimed they have ‘concrete evidence’ that the three-year-old (pictured) was killed, and insisted last month they had shared this information with Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann in a letter
‘Not even an hour before Maddie disappeared. The call also came from the same place where the little girl was last seen alive, in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.’
Mr Cerne said he is ‘excited’ about what Christian Hoppe, an investigator with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), will reveal when he appears on the show, adding: ‘I get the impression something important is happening now.’
He added the telephone number allegedly called by Brueckner shortly before Madeleine’s disappearance may have a ‘very large role’ in the ongoing investigation.
‘Apparently this telephone number, which was called from the suspect’s mobile phone shortly before Maddie’s disappearance, has a very large role in the investigation,’ Mr Cerne said.
‘I would imagine the BKA would need all the information about who owned this prepaid number, who called it, who was called from it. Every little clue, however small, counts – and is processed.’
Police previously said a phone linked to Brueckner had received a 30-minute call between 7.32pm and 8.02pm on the night Madeleine disappeared from the Ocean Club apartment complex.
Scotland Yard took the unusual step of releasing two mobile telephone numbers as part of an appeal to end the 13-year mystery on June 4.
it was claimed a Portuguese prepaid phone number received a call from the suspect ‘from the same place’ Madeleine was last seen alive (Pictured: Ocean Club in Praia Da Luz)
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters (pictured) recently told 60 Minutes a phone linked to the prime suspect had been used near the holiday apartment on the night the three-year-old vanished
The first number +315 912 730 680 is believed have been used by the prime suspect. He received a call from another Portuguese number + 351 916 510 683 while in the Praia de Luz area.
German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters recently told 60 Minutes a phone linked to the prime suspect had been used near the holiday apartment on the night the three-year-old vanished.
He said the phone ‘was connecting in the mast’ which belongs to the Ocean Club, where Madeleine was staying with her parents and twin siblings Sean and Amelie.
Wolters has claimed German authorities had ‘concrete evidence’ that the three-year-old was killed following her disappearance in May 2007.
‘We have concrete evidence that our suspect has killed Madeleine and this means she is dead,’ he said. ‘The parents have been told the German police have evidence that she is dead but we have not told them the details.’
Despite this, Mr Wolters confessed last month ‘the investigation may not lead to a charge for the murder of Madeleine McCann,’ as it ‘could be stopped if we fail to find the missing evidence.’
He told the Braunschweig Zeitung: ‘I am currently unable to predict the outcome of our investigation but we are still convinced of the guilt of the accused and hope for further promising investigative approaches.
‘Of course, it is always good to know where a suspect is to be able to access them if necessary. And, of course, detention always offers a certain guarantee that the detainee will not commit any further crimes.’
MailOnline reported in June how German prosecutors had written to Kate and Gerry McCann (pictured together in 2007) to tell them that she is dead
Wolters has claimed German authorities had ‘concrete evidence’ that the three-year-old was killed following her disappearance in May 2007
Christian Brueckner is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007
Brueckner is currently serving a 21-month sentence in Kiel, Germany for drugs offences, and it was reported earlier this month he could soon be out of prison on parole.
His lawyers have reportedly filed a request for him to be released after serving two-thirds of his sentence, but prosecutors fear he may flee the country after his release.
In 2011, Brueckner was sentenced to 21 months in jail for his part in a drugs trafficking ring that supplied marijuana to VIP clients.
The serial sex offender is also facing a separate sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman on a waterfront villa less than a mile from where Madeleine went missing in Portugal in 2007.
Although he was convicted in December 2019, he appealed against his seven-year sentence and so it cannot be imposed until his appeal avenues are exhausted.
Brueckner moved from Germany to Praia da Luz in 1995 after serving part of a two-year sentence for molesting a six-year-old girl in Wurzburg. At the time of Madeleine’s vanishing he was living in the area about a 10-minute drive away.
Following his identification as a suspect in the case, he has further been linked to the disappearances of six-year-old boy René Hasse in the Algarve, 1996, and five-year-old girl Igna Gehnricke in Germany, 2015.
What do we know about Maddie murder suspect Christian Brueckner and his criminal past?
Sex criminal Christian Brueckner
1976: Christian Brueckner is born in Würzburg under a different name, believed to be Fischer. He was adopted by the Brueckner family and took their surname.
1992: Christian Brueckner is arrested on suspicion of burglary in his hometown of Wurzburg, Bavaria.
1994: He is given a two-year sentence for ‘abusing a child’ and ‘performing sex acts in front of a child’.
1995: Brueckner arrives in Portugal as an 18-year-old backpacker and begins working in catering in the seaside resorts of Lagos and Praia da Luz.
But friends say he became involved with a criminal syndicate trafficking drugs into the Algarve.
September 2005: He dons a mask and breaks into an apartment where a 72-year-old American tourist.
The victim was bound, gagged, blindfolded and whipped with a metal cane before being raped for 15 minutes. She said afterwards that he had clearly enjoyed ‘torturing’ her before the rape.
April 2007: He moves out of a farmhouse and into a campervan linked to the crime. The farmhouse is cleaned and a bag of wigs is found.
May 3, 2007: Madeleine McCann is snatched at around 10pm from her bed as her parents eat tapas with friends yards away.
Brueckner’s mobile phone places him in the area that night. He returns to his native Germany shortly after that.
October 2011: He is sentenced to 21 months for ‘dealing narcotics’ in Niebüll, in northern Germany.
2014: He moves to Braunschweig where he starts running a town-centre kiosk. He then goes back to Portugal with a girlfriend.
2016: He is back in Germany. He is given 15 months in prison for ‘sexual abuse of a child in the act of creating and possessing child pornographic material’.
May 3, 2017: Brueckner is said to be in a bar with a friend when a ten-year anniversary appeal following Madeleine’s disappearance is shown on German television. He is said to have told him in a bar that he ‘knew all about’ what happened to her. He then showed his friend a video of him raping a woman.
MailOnline understands the friend went to police shortly afterwards.
June 2017: He heads back to Portugal and extradited again to Germany. The reason was a sentencing of the Braunschweig district court to 15 months’ imprisonment for the sexual abuse of a child.
August 2018: After his release from prison he lives on the streets. But he was jailed again for drug offences.
First Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters addresses the media on the Madeleine McCann case in Braunschweig
September 2018: Brueckner is arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany and put on trial for raping an American in 2007 after a DNA match was found at the crime scene.
July 2019: He is jailed for 21 months for drug dealing in the northern German resort of Sylt.
August 2019: Brueckner is charged with the rape of the American tourist in Praia da Luz in 2005.
December 2019: He is convicted of rape of extortion of the tourist based on DNA evidence. He is given a seven year sentence, but this has not been imposed pending an appeal.
June 3, 2020: Scotland Yard and the German police reveal that that they have identified a suspect in the Maddie McCann case
June 4, 2020: Prosecutors in Braunschweig, where he lives, say they believe Madeleine McCann has been murdered, says spokesman Hans Christian Wolters. He is named in the German press as the prime suspect.