Madeleine McCann police in Germany will interview witnesses who knew paedophile Christian Brueckner in a new bid to find ‘missing piece of the jigsaw’
- Witnesses who knew Christian Brueckner will be quizzed by police in Germany
- It’s hoped the new interviews will unlock the ‘missing piece of the jigsaw’
- Summit expected to be held between German, British and Portuguese police
Police in Germany investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are set to interview witnesses who knew suspect Christian Brueckner.
German and Portuguese investigators will carry out a series of interviews in a new push to find the ‘missing piece of the jigsaw’, the Mirror reports.
It is hoped that interviews with a number of people in the Algarve who knew main suspect Christian Brueckener, 43, could help snare the paedophile.
Experts see the new interviews as a step forward in the investigation and are hopeful they will lead to Brueckner himself being questioned and possibly charged.
German and Portuguese investigators are set to carry out a series of interviews with witnesses who knew Christian Brueckner in a new push to find the ‘missing piece of the jigsaw’ in the Madeleine McCann (pictured) investigation
A source told the Mirror: ‘There is a real sense of new year, new hunt for clues. It’s very much in everyone’s minds to get the case cracked.
‘There’s a missing piece of the jigsaw still out there somewhere.’
On top of the new interviews, a second top-level summit between German, British and Portuguese police is also expected to be held this year.
A secret summit was already held by the three police services last summer to ‘fine-tune’ Brueckner’s profile after he emerged as a suspect.
It is hoped that interviews with a number of people in the Algarve who knew main suspect Christian Brueckener, 43, could help snare the paedophile (pictured)
However, Brueckner has not been questioned by any police service about Madeleine’s disappearance in 2007.
Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on Portugal’s Algarve, on May 3, 2007.
Brueckner was told last November that he will remain behind bars until 2026, after losing a bid to overturn a rape conviction.
He was last year found guilty of the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese resort and sentenced to seven years in a Hanover jail, at a court in Brunswick, Lower Saxony.
A secret summit was already held by the three police services last summer to ‘fine-tune’ Brueckner’s profile after he emerged as a suspect. Pictured: A general view of the hotel building where Madeleine McCann disappeared from in 2007
The 43-year-old German national – referred to as Christian B in Germany due to the country’s strict privacy laws – was identified as a suspect in the Madeleine investigation last June.
Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on Portugal’s Algarve, on May 3, 2007.
In December, Scotland Yard confirmed it has no plans to end its missing person investigation, despite the belief of German prosecutors that Madeleine was murdered.