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THE prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case boasted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting another girl months earlier, his trial will be told next week.
Christian Brueckner allegedly told a cellmate he kept a 13-year-old girl hostage for four days.
He was said to have boasted about tying her to a post and abusing her.
Prison cellmate Michael Tatschl, 49, will tell the court Brueckner said the girl was just 13 and had run away from a youth camp.
He claims Brueckner said he held her for four days at his farmhouse in Praia da Luz — the same Algarve resort where Madeleine went missing in May 2007.
Brueckner, 47, is on trial in Braunschweig, Germany, accused of three rapes and two counts of sexual abuse of children between 2000 and 2017 in and around the resort.
Tatschl, an Austrian, lived with him at the farmhouse and they spent eight months in jail together in Portugal for stealing diesel from lorries.
Both were released in December 2006 — just five months before Madeleine vanished.
A source said: “Tatschl will say Brueckner told him he talked the girl into getting into a car with him and kept her four days.
“He will tell the court Brueckner told him he tied the girl to a pole and sexually abused her.”
Prosecutors believe she is the teenager said by Helge Busching, 52, another ex-pal of Brueckner, to have been filmed being abused by the Madeleine prime suspect.
Convicted rapist Brueckner denies involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance and the latest charges.
The trial continues.