• Investigation The lawyer of the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann sees his accusation "overestimated"

  • Disappearance German police are convinced that Madeleine McCann was murdered in Portugal

This Tuesday marks the 15th anniversary of the disappearance of the Englishwoman Madeleine McCann, three decades of uncertainty and torture for her parents, who have even had to endure the shadow of suspicion and the same amount of police investigation.

The keys to what is probably

the most high-profile unsolved disappearance case in the world

could be in Germany.

Here he is serving a seven-year sentence for drug offenses and rape of an elderly

Christian Brueckner

, aged 45.

The German Prosecutor's Office considers this national suspect of the disappearance and death of Madeleine, but the evidence collected so far is not enough to indict him.

Last week, just a few days before the Madeleine case prescribed in Portugal after the 15 years established by law in that country,

the Portimão Prosecutor's Office stepped forward and charged her.

Brueckner received the news in the Oldenburg prison, once the Braunschweig Prosecutor's Office, in charge of investigating the McCann case as it was the last domicile of the suspect, informed his lawyer of the request for judicial assistance issued by the Portuguese Public Ministry .

It was pure formality.

"The objective of this imputation is to avoid prescription

. It is a legal strategy that does not change anything," says Friedrich Fülscher, Brueckner's defender.

The reaction of the Braunschweig prosecutor, Hans Christian Wolters, was similar.

The Portuguese report "is for us completely irrelevant. For us, it doesn't matter at all," he said.

And it doesn't matter because

the German Public Prosecutor's Office assumes that Madeleine is dead

.

"We assume the murder and this crime does not prescribe in Germany. Involuntary manslaughter does, but after 20 years. There is still more than enough time for the investigation to progress," says Wolters, who announces developments in the case this month.

Lawyer Fülscher assures that he cannot predict whether charges will be filed because he does not have access to the file and therefore to the investigation.

His client has spoken, but to swear his innocence and denounce the conditions of his prison in Oldenburg, where, by the way, he is serving the sentence of the former nurse

Niels Högel

, responsible for the murder of 97 patients.

"I have not kidnapped anyone and of course I have not killed anyone," Brueckner writes in a letter published by the English newspaper

Daily Mail

.

Madeleine McCann disappeared from her bed in a hotel in Praia da Luz, in southern Portugal on May 3, 2007. She was 3 years old at the time.

The search for her has been incessant, millionaire rewards offered for clues that will lead to her whereabouts, and notorious appeals from personalities in favor of the girl, from the Pope, to the footballer

David Beckham

, passing by lax writer

Joanne K. Rowling

.

All useless.

The Braunschweig public prosecutor's office and the Federal Criminal Police Office have long been investigating Brueckner on suspicion of kidnapping and murder, but these were secret investigations.

His name appeared by surprise at the beginning of June 2020

in the program "Aktenzeichen XY ... unresolved".

The stir was tremendous.

Brueckner's movements over the last 15 years, his criminal history and the testimony of people close to him seemed to fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

Brueckner is an acquaintance of Justice.

His first conviction was in 1992, at age 16.

He was charged with aggravated robbery, for which the German criminal code provides for prison sentences of between 3 months and 10 years.

Being a minor, he was released on parole

.

In 1994, he returned to sit in the dock for abusing a 6-year-old girl in a park and trying to do it with a 9-year-old boy. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison.

He fulfilled half but did not make a clean slate.

His record is a trail of bodily injury, drunk or unlicensed driving, sexual harassment, child abuse, drugs, distribution of child pornography, and rape.

From 1995 to 2007, the German police lost sight of him

.

Those were the years that Brueckner lived in Portugal, specifically between Lagos and Praia da Luz, in the Algarve.

He survived by alternating odd jobs in the hospitality industry with robberies in hotel complexes and drug dealing.

Brueckner entered the police siege in relation to the Madeleine case with the dissemination two years ago of the images of a Jaguar car and a VW.

Word quickly spread, thousands of clues were received, statements from acquaintances of Brueckner who suspect his actions and even indications that

he could be involved in the disappearance of several children in Germany

.

It's been 15 years of searching, 15 years without certainty.

There is no evidence of his death, at least none public, but his survival is considered highly unlikely after all these years.

In the UK, Madeleine is still listed as a missing person and her parents are clinging to hope.

"We are pleased that a German man has been declared accused in connection with the disappearance of our beloved daughter. This shows that the Portuguese, German and British investigations are making progress.

We have not lost hope that Madeleine is still alive

and that we Let's meet her," Kate and Gerry McCann write on their "Find Madeleine" website.

On May 12, Madeleine McCann

would be 19 years old.

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