CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses child sexual abuse.
Convicted rapist and prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case Christian Brueckner confessed to his cellmate about snatching a child from an apartment in Portugal, a court heard this week.
Cellmate Laurentiu Codin told the court that Brueckner confessed to him about abducting a child in Portugal and asked “if the DNA from a child can be taken from bones under the ground”.
47-year-old Brueckner — who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman in Portugal in 2005 — made headlines back in 2020 when German authorities announced they were investigating his possible connection to McCann‘s death.
At the time, prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told The Times that his “private opinion” was that he “relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her and then killed her.”
Two years later, he was also identified as a formal suspect by Portuguese prosecutors.
While he has never been formally charged with her abduction or murder, explosive claims regarding his alleged involvement have come to light in an unrelated German rape trial.
Codin alleges Brueckner begged him to burn down his lair to destroy any evidence when he got out of prison.
“He said he stole in Portugal,” he told the court.
“He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there.
“He was in a region where there are hotels and rich people live. He said there was somewhere with an open window, he told me this. He was looking for money.
“He said he didn’t find any money but found a kid and took the child.
“He said that two hours later, there were police and dogs all over the place, so he then went away, out of the area.”
Codin suggested that his former cellmate confided in him “in the hope that I was a paedophile too”.
“He asked me every time if I was a paedophile. Every time we spoke, he came back to that. Brueckner said at the time: ‘Tell me, you don’t have to watch out for me’,” he said.
He stopped short of naming McCann specifically in his testimony — which is related to other rape charges Brueckner is currently facing — but that doesn’t make his comments any less valuable for prosecutors.
Codin’s testimony now means that prosecutors have a second person who witnessed Brueckner’s alleged prison confessions.
The alleged confession came after a former associate of Brueckner Helge Busching made similar claims in a three-day-long interview with Scotland Yard back in 2017.
During the interview, Busching claimed that Brueckner “confessed” that he was Madeleine’s abductor and claimed “she didn’t cry when I took her.”
However, Busching’s testimony alone wouldn’t be particularly strong for prosecutors after his credibility was damaged in Brueckner’s current rape trial.
Brueckner is currently on trial for a number of sexual offences and rapes that are unrelated to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. He denies any involvement in the 2007 disappearance of the British child in Portugal.
The trial is ongoing so more details about the case are likely to emerge.
Help is available.
- If you require immediate assistance, please call 000.
- If you’d like to speak to someone about sexual violence, please call the 1800 Respect hotline on 1800 737 732 or chat online.
- Under 25? You can reach Kids Helpline at 1800 55 1800 or chat online.
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