Madeleine McCann suspect ‘boasted’ about kidnapping girl before she disappeared

Christian Brueckner has been on trial for separate charges (Picture: AFP)

The primary suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann allegedly told his cellmate he kidnapped a young girl just she went missing.

Christian Brueckner, 49, allegedly said he ‘kept a 13-year-old girl hostage for four days’, where he ‘tied her to a post and abused her’.

In an ongoing court case, Brueckner’s prison cellmate is expected to testify about the incident involving the 13-year-old girl, who had run away from a youth camp in Portugal.

He allegedly held the girl for days at his farmhouse nearby Praia da Luz – the same area where Maddie disappeared in 2007.

Brueckner is on trial in Braunschweig charged with five offences, including three of rape, said to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

A source told The Sun: ‘Tatschl will say Brueckner told him he talked the girl into getting into a car with him and kept her four days.

Little Maddie went missing while on holiday with her family in Portugal (Picture: PA)

Brueckner is currently on trial in Germany (Picture: DPA)

‘He will tell the court Brueckner told him he tied the girl to a pole and sexually abused her.’

The attack Brueckner is accused of took place close to where Madeleine vanished.

During one, Brueckner is said to have climbed over the balcony of Irish tour guide Hazel Behan’s Algarve apartment dressed in all black with only slits for his eyes and carrying and knife and whip.

The other two rape attacks, allegedly committed against an elderly woman in her 70s and a girl of 14, were also outlined.

Last summer, a man who claimed to have alerted police to Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner spoke out.

Helge Busching said that, while the pair were drinking beers, Brueckner said ‘she didn’t scream’ in relation to Madeleine and her kidnapping.

Maddie vanished without a trace in 2007 (Picture: PA)

The two men had the interaction at a music festival in 2008, and Mr Busching also claimed that he tried to inform Scotland Yard about Brueckner in 2008 – via a dedicated hotline for Madeleine McCann tips – but never heard back.

He told Bild: ‘I called Scotland Yard back in 2008. At the Maddie hotline. I said I knew someone who might have something to do with it and gave them the name. But nothing happened there. Nothing! I was never called back.’

Maddie was just three-years-old when she vanished from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in 2007.

Brueckner has never been charged in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance and denies being involved.

He was formally identified as an official suspect in the McCann case in April 2022.

German police said in June 2020 that Madeleine was assumed dead.

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