The chief suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been ruled out of an investigation into a missing five-year-old German girl.
Inga Gehricke – dubbed Germany’s Madeleine McCann – vanished near a factory that Christian Brueckner, a convicted paedophile and rapist, was working on.
But in a blow to the Madeleine’s parents and investigators, Germany prosecutors have said that 44-year-old had nothing to do with Gehricke’s disappearance.
The German girl vanished in 2015 during a family picnic close to the derelict factory being renovated by Brueckner.
Despite five years of police appeals and a reward of 25,000 euros (£21,500) offered for information leading to her whereabouts, Inga has never been found – as is the case with Madeleine McCann.
Inga Gehricke (left) – dubbed Germany’s Madeleine McCann – vanished near a factory Christian Brueckner (right), a convicted paedophile and rapist, was working on
‘The public prosecutor’s office has thoroughly examined connections to the Inga case and determined there isn’t even an initial suspicion against my client,’ Brueckner’s lawyer told The Sun.
Investigators searched the factory and found 8,000 images of children buried in a plastic bag under Brueckner’s dead dog Charlie.
Lawyers representing the Gehricke family said that they stayed at a nearby house in May 2015, and the day before Inga disappeared, police records placed Brueckner at a nearby motorway service station where he had a parking-related accident.
Brueckner – who is currently imprisoned for a separate crime – is thought to have commuted between the factory on Neuwegersleben and to Braunschweig, around 35 miles away.
But despite the link, Thomas Kramer, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office in Stendal, told the newspaper: ‘The investigation of Christian B regarding Inga’s disappearance is currently closed.
‘Police investigations have been conducted but they have not produced any facts to suggest that Christian B. could have abducted, abused or killed Inga.
‘Therefore, even after this additional research, there was no initial suspicion against Chrisitan B., so that the preliminary proceedings were discontinued.’
Pictured: British girl Madeleine McCann, who went missing in 2007
Prosecutors in Madeleine’s case have said they have ‘concrete evidence’ she was dead, and have also linked Brueckner with a string of child kidnappings that date back several years.
But despite this, 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.
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.
Christian Brueckner is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007. Pictured: A timeline showing his movements up until 2020 where he remain in a Kiel prison
Brueckner was previously remanded at the prison in Kiel ahead of 2019’s trial for raping the elderly American woman. She was attacked just two years before Madeleine disappeared from the same Algarve resort.
In November, a court in Karslruhe rejected Brueckner’s appeal against the 2005 rape conviction and confirmed his seven-year sentence.
The move should make it easier for detectives in Braunschweig, around 15 minutes’ drive away, to question Brueckner about the Madeleine case, as well as two others.
Keeping prisoners is expensive and under Germany’s federal system the states are obliged to deal with their own prisoners rather than it being handled by a central judiciary.
Brueckner was seen in public for the first time in November since he was named as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance by German police being loaded into an ambulance
German media says Brueckner received at least two criminal convictions from a Hanover court, one for forging documents in 2010 and another for theft in 2013.
He split his time between Germany and Portugal from 2013 to 2015, prosecutors in Hanover have said.
Brueckner lived in the Algarve for much of the period from 1995 to 2007, and German prosecutors say he received a phone call from a Portuguese number around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance in May 2007.
He made a living doing odd jobs in the area where Madeleine disappeared, and was also known to have burgled hotel rooms and holiday flats.
Madeleine was just three years old when she disappeared while on holiday in Praia da Luz in Portugal’s Algarve region with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann (pictured together)
Weeks after an allotment search, authorities indicated they had been looking for digital storage devices, but Brueckner’s lawyer accused them of ‘desperation’.
Since taking the lead in the case earlier this year, German police have struggled to explain what evidence they have about Madeleine’s disappearance.
In November, a leaked memo revealed that Portuguese investigators were ‘shocked’ by the lack of concrete evidence after being briefed on the case against Brueckner.
Before that, there was confusion about whether German authorities had specific evidence that Madeleine was dead, as they initially implied they did.
In the UK, the case remains a missing persons inquiry, as there’s no ‘definitive evidence whether Madeleine is alive or dead’