Madeleine McCann chief suspect Christian Brueckner had an ACCOMPLICE, Portuguese TV show is set to reveal
- Madeleine McCann chief suspect Christian Brueckner had an accomplice in her 2007 kidnap and murder, Portuguese TV is set to claim on Friday
- Reports suggest German detectives are looking for the man, who is also a drifter
- Man is thought to have lived near a remote reservoir that police once searched
- But local reports say police only spent two hours there and didn’t search water
Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner had an accomplice in the kidnap and murder of the British youngster in the Algarve in 2007, Portugal’s top investigative TV show will claim.
Reports have suggested investigators are looking for a German drifter who lived near to Praia da Luz at the time the three-year-old vanished from the McCann’s holiday apartment.
And now Portugal’s Sexta As 9 show will reveal on Friday night that detectives do believe Brueckner had help snatching the youngster from her bed, sparking a global manhunt.
Christian Brueckner (left), the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann (right), had an accomplice, a Portuguese TV show is set to claim
The man is thought to have lived near the Barragem da Bravura reservoir (pictured) which was once searched by police, though local reports suggest they never went in the water
Presenter Sandra Felgueiras says: ‘German detectives have confirmed the suspicion that Christian Brueckner had an accomplice.’
The journalist shows pictures of Brueckner’s former girlfriend Nicole Fehlinger to a witness who lived in the Algarve at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
She also speaks to Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fuelcher who claims that his client has been made a scapegoat by German prosecutors who have the flimsiest evidence.
And the lawman claims the German authorities’ main witness Helge Brusching is a convicted criminal and therefore unreliable.
However, prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters tells Ms Felgueiras that he has substantive evidence that Madeleine McCann is dead.
Separately, reports have suggested that detectives want to talk to a German drifter who is believed to have been a former friend of Brueckner at the time of Madeleine’s disappearance.
The drifter lived in a camper van near a remote reservoir nine miles from Praia da Luz., called Barragem de Bravura.
The man – who is wanted by German prosecutors – is thought to be a German drifter who lived in the Algarve with Brueckner (pictured, a camper van that Brueckner used)
Madeleine went missing from a holiday apartment where she was staying in Pria da Luz in Potugal in 2007 (file image) and has not been seen since
The area was searched in the days after Madeleine’s disappearance.
But local news reports said police spent only two hours there and the lake was not searched by police divers.
A note handed found in Praia da Luz claimed that Madeleine’s body had been dumped at the Barragem da Bravura reservoir.
The message was written in Portuguese and was handed to police a year after she disappeared.
Christian Brueckner, who is currently in jail on drugs offences, lived in ramshackle cottage just 15-mintues-drive from the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz from where Madeleine McCann went missing in May 2007.
Mobile phone evidence places Brueckner in the tourist village on the night the youngster disappeared.
He has been linked to a series of 25 break-ins throughout the resort and has been convicted for the rape of an elderly American tourist in the resort, although the sentence has still to be confirmed.
Bruecker has been convicted of a string of sex crimes, including the sexual assault of children.