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A WITNESS has told a court prime snatch suspect Christian Brueckner carried out chilling night raids at the resort Madeleine McCann vanished from.
Ex-pal Christian Post said Brueckner confessed to “taking stuff” whenever he found an open window in the village, adding that the paedophile kept a seedy lair just 700 yards away.
Dan Charity
PA
PAPost, a musician and IT expert, revealed how he was even called on to ditch bags of child pornography from the den when a panicked Brueckner begged him from behind bars.
On March 14, Post told Braunschweig regional court, Germany, how, as their relationship developed, Brueckner began to brag about “being active at night” in Praia da Luz.
Post told the court how bragging Brueckner’s description of the buildings he targeted with break-ins by climbing matched the location Maddie was taken from.
He said: “I knew Praia da Luz from doing music there. Christian said that he climbed up trees or scaled buildings, and he could name specific buildings he went after.
“I remember in the village and in the resort where Maddie was taken, where there were trees there and he did say that he was operating in that area but he didn’t go into detail.”
He told the court the lair was “very close” to where Maddie disappeared from – although he alleged that he only visited in the years before the 2007 abduction.
Madeleine disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal.
Madeleine vanished on May 3, 2007, after Kate and Gerry McCann left her and her siblings sleeping in their apartment while they dined at a nearby tapas bar.
Kate discovered that Madeleine was not in her bed when she returned to check on the kids at around 10pm that evening.
Gerry and Kate were named as “arguidos” – people being questioned under caution – by Portuguese police in September 2007.
Dozens of investigators and police services have been preoccupied with her disappearance for almost two decades – but the case continues.
Post told the court today that he had been suspicious of Brueckner from the moment he met him – saying that he dressed bizarrely smartly for a waiter and mechanic.
According to Post, as soon as Brueckner discovered he worked in IT, the rapist started begging for help forging passports.
He added that he thought Brueckner intended to sell passports on the black market.
The witness told the court that he had been shocked to find a pile of 100 passports at Brueckner’s hideaway – showing how prolific his raids into Praia were.
It was labelled by pornographic practises, types of sex – some involved dogs
Christian PostThe court heard Post first noticed the stolen travel documents in 2005 – suggesting Brueckner was active with his night break-ins at the McCann’s resort for years until the time Madeleine disappeared.
Post told the court how Brueckner begged him to take oranges filled with vodka to him in prison after he was jailed for stealing fuel.
At the same time, he was also asked to transport two bags to Brueckner’s pal – which he discovered was pornography.
Post said: “When I visited him in prison he asked me to bring him oranges filled with vodka so that he could have a fun evening in prison.
“And he had two dogs and asked me to take care of them.
“And he asked me to look in the house and to bring 2 or 3 bags for him to an acquaintance of him. At this time there was a girlfriend of his in the house.”
Post told the court how Brueckner was dating a young woman called Marina at the same time as an older woman, in her mid-50s.
Marina was at Brueckner’s bolt hole when he collected the stash of porn, the court heard.
Post added: “The bag was packed with some things but I wasn’t interested in looking side, but was clear was of them were these CDs which were labelled, which suggested to me that there things which involved young people.”
Post continued: “I only saw it quickly and I found it all too creepy so I threw these away. I didn’t watch them personally. I just saw the label then made a decision.
“It was labelled by pornographic practises, types of sex – some involved dogs.
“I then threw them away. I can’t remember the full details but there were some things like this, and I didn’t want to risk transporting something like this.”
The clear-out of potential evidence took place in 2006.
Key dates in Madeleine McCann's disappearance
MADELEINE McCann vanished on May 3, 2007 - and cops believe Brueckner could have been behind her disappearance.
Almost 17 years on, no one has been charged in connection. These are the key dates:
May 3, 2007 – Kate McCann finds Madeleine missing at 10pm
May 14, 2007 – Property developer Robert Murat is named an “arguido” or formal suspect
August 31, 2007 – The McCanns launch libel action against Tal e Qual – a newspaper that claimed the couple killed Madeleine
September 7, 2007 – Kate and Gerry McCann are made “arguidos”
September 9, 2007– Madeleine’s parents return to England with their two-year-old twins
October 2, 2007– Lead detective Goncalo Amaral is taken off the case after criticising British police in a newspaper interview
July 21, 2009 – Portuguese police lift the “arguido” status of both Robert Murat and the McCanns
May 12, 2011 – On Madeleine’s eighth birthday, Scotland Yard launches a review into the case
April 25, 2012 – Scotland Yard officers say they believe Madeleine McCann is still alive
July 4, 2013 – Two years into a review of the case, Scotland Yard launched its own investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance
October 24, 2013– Portuguese police reopen their case after new lines of inquiry are found
November 27, 2013 – Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe called for British and Portuguese police to work together
October 28, 2015 – Scotland Yard reduces the number of officers working on Madeleine’s disappearance
March 11, 2017 – The Home Office grants Operation Grange an extra £85,000 to continue from April until September
September 28, 2017 – British police are granted £154,000 to keep the probe going until March 2018
November 2017 – Cops moved the search to Bulgaria
May 2018 – Another round of funding, thought to be in the region of £150,000 is granted
September 2018 – An extra six months of funding is requested from the Home Office
November 2018 – More funding, thought to be in the region of £150,000 is granted
November 2018 – UK police re-examine a theory Madeleine left the apartment to look for her parents
June 2019 – Another round of funding, believed to be £300,000 of government cash is granted
June 2019 – Portuguese police are probing a “new clue and suspect” after talks with British officers
June 2020 – New prime suspect revealed as a German paedo Christian Brueckner
April 2022 – Brueckner formally made an “arguido”
May 2023 – Police search remote Algarve reservoir Brueckner called his “little paradise”
However, a disturbing photo of the inside of Brueckner’s lair was shown to courts by another key witness just days ago.
Manfred Seyferth, a key witness in Brueckner’s latest rape trial, said he watched footage of the convicted paedophile assaulting a young girl while she was tied to a pole.
During Seyferth’s testimony he described coming across a video camera in 2006 with footage of Brueckner abusing an “old woman… and a young girl.”
The chilling image shown in court allegedly shows the room in which Brueckner tied up the young woman – before brutally assaulting her.
Answering questions in court today he said: “I saw Brueckner directly in his face in one of the videos. And I could tell it was him from his voice in the other video.
“And then there was a second person, a girl in Brueckner’s home.
“She was tied to a post and Brueckner was dancing around her.
“He forced her to perform a sex act on him then when she was unwell he said ‘you are ruining my carpet’.”
On March 1, Seyferth also alleged that Brueckner worked in hotels near the resort where Madeleine McCann disappeared – and regularly robbed the holiday apartments.
It comes as police desperately search for another of Brueckner’s friends in the hope that he can act as a new witness in the Madeleine McCann case.
Ralph H is thought to have worked closely with Brueckner and served as an accomplice in a variety of the paedophile’s crimes.
He recently admitted to having acted as a lookout, and as a getaway driver – boasting “I know exactly the sort of crimes he got up to and what he did on the dark web.”
An image shown in court of Brueckner’s supposed lair
Lee Thompson - The Sun
Dan Chairty
AFP
English (US)