On Thursday, Portuguese prosecutors finally named an official suspect in the mysterious disappearance of a young British girl, almost 15 years ago. Madeleine McCann disappeared when she was on vacation with her family in Portugal. The family’s vacation villa was in the Algarve region of Portugal. Madeleine was only three years old, when she disappeared on May 3, 2007.
The Public Ministry district of Faro, which is the largest city in the Algarve region in Portugal, said that they had taken action as per a request by German authorities. They said that were also in coordination with English investigators. Although the Portuguese authorities said that they had an official suspect in the disappearance case, the name of the suspect was not released.
The prosecutors’ statement said that the investigators in a nearby town called Portimao were leading the investigation. They were getting help from the Judiciary Police for the probe.
Although the suspect is not named by the Portuguese, in mid 2020, German authorities had said that a German citizen Christian Brueckner was a suspect in the case, according to a report in AP. The 45-year old suspect is currently in a German prison as he was convicted for drug offenses.
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The outlet reported that he was also facing a pending 7-year sentence for raping an American in Portugal. The rape of the 72-year old woman took place in Pria da Luz, the place from where Madeleine McCann disappeared. Christian Brueckner denied his involvement in the disappearance of the three-year old girl.
In June 2020, Hans Christian Wolters, from the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor’s Office told BBC News that they were assuming that “the girl is dead.” He said that the suspect they were talking about “was a sexual predator who has already been convicted of crimes against little girls.” He said that the suspect was “already serving a long sentence.”
(Photo/Credit: Instagram madeleine.beth.mccann)
