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Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old German suspect in the disappearance and murder of British girl
Madeleine McCann
, has been charged in Germany with
five new sexual crimes
allegedly committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal, the Brunswick prosecutor's office announced on Tuesday. .
The suspect, detained in Germany, was accused of three alleged counts of rape and two of
sexual abuse of minors
.
The accusation explains that the charges are directed against the same suspect of the disappearance of the girl, which occurred on May 3, 2007 in an apartment in Praia da Luz (Portugal), where she spent the holidays with her parents.
However, no further reference is made to that case,
although it does state that it is still subject to investigation
.
Of these five new accusations, three of them are of rape, while the other two are of serious sexual abuse.
In the first case, her victim was a 20-year-old Irish woman,
whom he brutally assaulted and raped
by breaking into her vacation apartment masked.
Another of his victims was a ten-year-old German girl, whom he surprised while playing and
forced to witness him masturbating
, but who finally managed to escape.
The other victims were girls or women between the ages of ten and 80, from hitherto unknown cases and some of them revealed through videos recorded by the suspect himself.
Brueckner, with a long history of crimes for sexual abuse and pederasty,
is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence
for the rape of a 72-year-old American tourist, also committed in Portugal.
Madeleine was three years old at the time of her disappearance and
her whereabouts remain unknown
, despite the investigations mobilized by her parents, both in Portugal and in the United Kingdom and before successive international instances.
The suspect lived regularly in Portugal from 1995 until at least that same year in 2007, although he often returned to that country afterwards.
He lived from odd jobs, also related to tourism, and committed crimes against property, robberies in hotels and apartments.
The night the young British woman disappeared
, she was near the complex where the McCanns spent their vacations
, according to data collected from her mobile phone.
The suspicions of his relationship with the disappearance of the little girl gained strength
after being extradited by the Portuguese authorities to Germany
, accused of another crime of sexual abuse of minors.
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