Christian Brueckner’s adoptive mother has revealed that she has disowned the Madeleine McCann suspect and that she has ‘nothing to do with him anymore’.
Brigitte Brueckner and her late husband Fritz are said to have raised Christian as ‘one of their own’ after he was abandoned as a young boy.
But the widow says she has now cut ties with the 47-year-old, who is a convicted rapist and was named in 2020 as the prime suspect in Maddie’s 2007 disappearance.
The jailed paedophile is currently facing trial over three rapes and two sex assaults, all said to have been carried out on Portugal’s Algarve coast between 2000 and 2017.
‘I don’t have anything to do with him anymore,’ Mrs Brueckner said, according to The Sun. ‘As far as I’m concerned I have said goodbye. Auf Wiedersehen.’
Ms Brueckner (pictured in Bavaria in 2020) said she has ‘said goodbye’ to her adopted son
Brueckner (pictured in court last month) is currently on trial over three cases of aggravated rape and two cases of sexual abuse
Ms Brueckner is pictured feeding a cat in the park in Bergtheim, Bavaria, 2020
German police named him as Madeleine McCann’s alleged kidnapper and ‘no body’ killer
Mrs Brueckner has long maintained that she has had nothing to do with her adopted son’s actions and that she has not seen him for years.
Brueckner was born in the Bavarian city of Würzburg in 1976 and put into a foster home after being abandoned by his birth mother.
Mrs Brueckner and her husband took him and his brother into their family and reportedly raised him from a baby.
But the parents sent him to live in a reform home for teenagers after Mr Brueckner was seriously injured in a car crash and as the boy’s delinquent behaviour worsened.
Christian was moved to the Church-run home at age 15, and got his first conviction two years later for sexually abusing a child.
He was behind bars in a youth prison for two years before training as a mechanic and moving to the Algarve following his release.
He spent more than two decades moving between Portugal and Germany, doing odd jobs and funding his itinerant lifestyle through theft and other crimes.
When German police named him as Maddie’s alleged kidnapper and ‘no body’ killer in June 2020, his adoptive mother said her life had been ‘destroyed all over again’.
Brueckner was born in the Bavarian city of Würzburg in 1976 and put into a foster home (pictured aged 11)
‘Brigitte is dismayed, distraught… She is an old woman and is confused,’ a family friend told MailOnline at the time.
‘She says this is not her fault and she has nothing to do with it. She is on her own now, after the death of her husband Fritz.
‘She does not have any contact with anyone, any relatives, and she hasn’t seen Christian or her other two boys for years now.
‘She cannot bear to talk to anyone about all of this. But she maintains it was not obvious that Christian would do something like this.’
Christian is yet to be charged for the British girl’s disappearance, but is currently on trial in a separate case relating to attacks which happened just minutes from where she went missing in the holiday resort of Praia da Luz.
The victims include holiday rep Hazel Behan, another woman aged between 70 and 80, a girl of around 14, a 10-year-old girl who is said to have been assaulted on a beach close to where Madeleine disappeared, and another child.
Pictured: Christian Brueckner, who has been linked to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
He is already serving a seven year sentence for raping an elderly American woman on the Algarve in 2005 and was jailed in 2019 after evidence from two former friends emerged.
As he has made a series of appearances in court in Germany, a former worker from his children’s home reportedly spoke out to say: ‘It’s terrifying to see what he has become when you see the pictures of him at court with those frightening eyes.
‘I’m sure anyone he used to know would definitely be afraid if they saw him today. We never want him back here.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk