Madeleine McCann: German prisoner identified as suspect #30

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Indeed but to identify one specific child amongst them , in all likelihood is not what they look for, more the perpetrators and evidenced to bring them to trial .Now if we go back to the post from Dlk, does the double jeopardy apply to all the images on his CP .
The double jeopardy law only applies to a charge of "possession of CP" and only to files that they cannot prove were obtained by CB after the 2014 search of his flat.

If there were content on the files that implicate him in other crimes, regardless of when/if they can be dated, they can of course be used as evidence in those other charges.

Also, the box factory was searched on more than one occassion and further digital evidence was found at later dates as JC confirmed with Halle BKA, who were the force in charge of that particular investigation:


A spokesman for Halle stated... that ‘only little information has reached the public from here so far’, confirming that they had initially found 6 USB sticks and 2 SD cards full of pornographic material. He added that during subsequent searches, further data storage devices were found and swimwear in children’s sizes… predominantly in a large garage and in the Allegro. ‘As the seized data and objects are still the subject of investigations by another prosecutor no further information will be provided.’


Personally I don't think too many assumptions can be made just yet relating to what happened in 2017 regarding the "confession" as we've been told contradictary accounts of this. One is the bar confession by CB (allegedly to someone called DR) in 2017 following the televised 10yr MM appeal. Another is the confession from CB to HB at the festival in 2008 which was then later provided to SY. Similarly there are conflicting reports of why the box factory was raided. Some have suggested it was as a result of the investigations into Inga. Others said it was due to the rotting smell of his dog reported by passers by. Other reports suggest it was part of a wider investigation into CP.

As such, I'm not convinced we've been told the full story in terms of exactly how and when CB was put in the frame for MM's disappearance or what exactly they found in the box factory and when. HCW has not been forthcoming on either count so far, which suggests to me those are aspects of their evidence they don't want to elaborate on for the time being.
 
The double jeopardy law only applies to a charge of "possession of CP" and only to files that they cannot prove were obtained by CB after the 2014 search of his flat.

If there were content on the files that implicate him in other crimes, regardless of when/if they can be dated, they can of course be used as evidence in those other charges.

Also, the box factory was searched on more than one occassion and further digital evidence was found at later dates as JC confirmed with Halle BKA, who were the force in charge of that particular investigation:


A spokesman for Halle stated... that ‘only little information has reached the public from here so far’, confirming that they had initially found 6 USB sticks and 2 SD cards full of pornographic material. He added that during subsequent searches, further data storage devices were found and swimwear in children’s sizes… predominantly in a large garage and in the Allegro. ‘As the seized data and objects are still the subject of investigations by another prosecutor no further information will be provided.’


Personally I don't think too many assumptions can be made just yet relating to what happened in 2017 regarding the "confession" as we've been told contradictary accounts of this. One is the bar confession by CB (allegedly to someone called DR) in 2017 following the televised 10yr MM appeal. Another is the confession from CB to HB at the festival in 2008 which was then later provided to SY. Similarly there are conflicting reports of why the box factory was raided. Some have suggested it was as a result of the investigations into Inga. Others said it was due to the rotting smell of his dog reported by passers by. Other reports suggest it was part of a wider investigation into CP.

As such, I'm not convinced we've been told the full story in terms of exactly how and when CB was put in the frame for MM's disappearance or what exactly they found in the box factory and when. HCW has not been forthcoming on either count so far, which suggests to me those are aspects of their evidence they don't want to elaborate on for the time being.
Bolded bit, fair summary, but there are issues imo which prevent the BKA from going onto question CB or present his legal team with papers in regards Madeleines disappearance.
 
The double jeopardy law only applies to a charge of "possession of CP" and only to files that they cannot prove were obtained by CB after the 2014 search of his flat.

If there were content on the files that implicate him in other crimes, regardless of when/if they can be dated, they can of course be used as evidence in those other charges.

Also, the box factory was searched on more than one occassion and further digital evidence was found at later dates as JC confirmed with Halle BKA, who were the force in charge of that particular investigation:


A spokesman for Halle stated... that ‘only little information has reached the public from here so far’, confirming that they had initially found 6 USB sticks and 2 SD cards full of pornographic material. He added that during subsequent searches, further data storage devices were found and swimwear in children’s sizes… predominantly in a large garage and in the Allegro. ‘As the seized data and objects are still the subject of investigations by another prosecutor no further information will be provided.’


Personally I don't think too many assumptions can be made just yet relating to what happened in 2017 regarding the "confession" as we've been told contradictary accounts of this. One is the bar confession by CB (allegedly to someone called DR) in 2017 following the televised 10yr MM appeal. Another is the confession from CB to HB at the festival in 2008 which was then later provided to SY. Similarly there are conflicting reports of why the box factory was raided. Some have suggested it was as a result of the investigations into Inga. Others said it was due to the rotting smell of his dog reported by passers by. Other reports suggest it was part of a wider investigation into CP.

As such, I'm not convinced we've been told the full story in terms of exactly how and when CB was put in the frame for MM's disappearance or what exactly they found in the box factory and when. HCW has not been forthcoming on either count so far, which suggests to me those are aspects of their evidence they don't want to elaborate on for the time being.
The latest revelations about the Neuwegersleben raid have been made in 2016 in relation to the Inga G. case.

If there had been further investigations according to MM, it's very likely that the prosecutors didn't tell the media about.

Although Jon Clarke gave a small insight in his book, i assume that he didn't gather all the information that may be available.

Actually, it seems to be pretty quiet around the case IMO.
 
I wonder why CB went to Tomar on the evening of 3rd of May 2007. NF says she doesn’t know if he returned to Foral that night. She also wasn’t sure if he was there on the morning of the 4th. Between this and his fling, where exactly was he? Did he perhaps spend more time in northern Portugal that he/nobody can account for?
 
I wonder why CB went to Tomar on the evening of 3rd of May 2007. NF says she doesn’t know if he returned to Foral that night. She also wasn’t sure if he was there on the morning of the 4th. Between this and his fling, where exactly was he? Did he perhaps spend more time in northern Portugal that he/nobody can account for?
I often wondered if the BKA have any ideas & evidence based on his movements late on the 3rd & all day on the 4th. Jon Clarke makes a few unsettling points about CB perhaps going to Tomar. Jag has significance IMO. Was either parked in the area on 3rd, used in crime or used to travel somewhere next day (or a combo) - the more I read the less likely I think it’ll be that they’ll ever find the right spot to search for a body. Confession for better prison deal may be the only possibility of doing so.
 
I often wondered if the BKA have any ideas & evidence based on his movements late on the 3rd & all day on the 4th. Jon Clarke makes a few unsettling points about CB perhaps going to Tomar. Jag has significance IMO. Was either parked in the area on 3rd, used in crime or used to travel somewhere next day (or a combo) - the more I read the less likely I think it’ll be that they’ll ever find the right spot to search for a body. Confession for better prison deal may be the only possibility of doing so.
Only a possibility if the right person is convicted.

regarding Brueckner, has he every admitted or confessed to anything?
 
Where are you attempting to shift your goalposts to now?
Your original question was if he’s ever admitted to anything. He’s admitted to SA children. Most recently in his letter to a fan girl, outside of a court or trial.
Seeking clarification as to when he admitted this is not shifting the goalposts,though I accept I could have made my original question a bit more specific.
 
Seeking clarification as to when he admitted this is not shifting the goalposts,though I accept I could have made my original question a bit more specific.
If it’s clarification and specificity you’re looking for, then most recently (that we know of) he admitted he SA “kids” (plural, using his own word) on 17/9/2020 in his letter to the fan girl.
His solicitor has said he wouldn’t leave him alone around children. So CB clearly doesn’t deny it and going by Flash Fred’s own judgement, he still has it in him.
Just as well the courts were of the same opinion when they turned down his recent parole bid, eh?
 
Nearly all of CB's convictions have been in Germany and there is no "guilty" or "not guilty" plea in German court. The prosecution simply presents their evidence to the judge and the judge then asks questions of the various parties before deciding on whether to convict. Without seeing every question and response from the court records, it's hard to know exactly what he admitted, denied or refused to answer.

Regarding the sexual assaults on children when he was 17 (which he has recently admitted), it would appear from the press reports that he must have admitted to what he'd done at the time as well since when the judge asked him what he thought about his actions he did not deny the crime.


Brueckner was 17 when he molested a six-year-old girl in a public playground in his home town of Wuerzburg, Bavaria.

He only stopped groping the terrified schoolgirl when she began to scream and cry and he then ran away, a youth court was told.

Later, the then-teenage Brueckner 'dropped his trousers' at a nine-year-old before fleeing the scene, according to German newspaper Bild.

Brueckner, who had quit secondary school to train as a car mechanic, was arrested later for the vile acts in 1994.

At his trial at Wuerzburg District Court, he was asked by the juvenile judge what he thought about his actions and he replied: 'I didn't think anything,' according to the newspaper.


 
Only a possibility if the right person is convicted.

regarding Brueckner, has he every admitted or confessed to anything?

Court documents from the suspect's conviction for fuel theft in the Algarve in 2006, a year before Madeleine vanished, reveal that he hid his paedophile past.
"Asked by a judge to list his previous crimes, he admitted to a conviction for sex abuse in Germany when he was a juvenile, but didn't reveal his victim was a young girl."

 
I still interpret FF's remarks though as if it's a given (as far as he's concerned, based on what his client has told him) that CB was both in Portugal and somewhere in the 'broader vicinity' of PdL on the day, since why would FF be testing out various to-and-from routes otherwise?
I can see why people might think that but looking back on it, I believe this story was another case of distortion and chinese whispers by the media. The article you originally posted with those FF "quotes" is basically a copy-and-paste job of the following Daily Mail article published on 13/10/20:


The Mail quote the source of their information as being the following Daily Mirror article published on 12/10/20, who claim their article is an "Exclusive":


Note that the Mirror article mentions nothing about FF using CB's phone records which is what the Daily Mail are trying to claim for their "headline". IMO, the Mail have invented this part of the story to make it sound like a different scoop. They offer no supporting evidence for this at all and I think they've just made an assumption about what FF was actually getting at during his PDL visit. How would FF even be able to obtain phone records with location data from 2007? The clue for how the Mail have probably come up with this "angle" is stated in the first bullet point:

"Lawyer for chief suspect Christian Brueckner insists phone records that police believe place him at the scene will actually help prove his innocence"

So what I think the Mail are assuming is similar to what you were asuming. That because FF was supposedly walking different routes around the complex, he was effectively conceding that CB was on the phone, in that PDL vicinity that night (i.e. which is what the police also claim because of the phone record).

Going back to the Mirror article though, despite them stating their story was an exclusive, it actually wasn't really. The original source for their information came from a Der Spiegel article that was published on 09/10/20, three days before the Mirror:


The translated version of this article was kindly posted here by Tekno previously (note: the post states the article is from 9th June but I believe that is an error or typo, the article was actually published on 9th October):


It's quite a long and interesting article but the section from where the Mirror got their story (and their "quotes" from FF) is as follows:

Praia da Luz, in September 2020. street lamps bathe the white houses and the remains of an ancient wall in a warm light. From the beach, past the church, you walk only a few hundred meters to the Luz Ocean Club, a spacious apartment complex with pretty arches.

The Kiel lawyer Friedrich Fülscher, who defends Christian B., has travelled here. He wants to get a picture of the crime scene and gain his own insights. He stops in front of a window with lowered shutters on the north side of the apartment complex. It belongs to the first floor apartment 5A. The time of day, the silence in the side street - it's like back then.

Between 21.10 and 22 o'clock Madeleine Beth McCann disappeared from this room on 3 May 2007. "If the witness statements are correct, there was a time window of one minute and 30 seconds in which the child could have been abducted at that time," says Fülscher. "The perpetrator had a maximum of three minutes."

Photos by the Portuguese investigators show a plain bedroom with a pine chest of drawers. In the middle of the room are two travel cribs for the twins of the McCann family, two years old at the time. Next to them: Madeleine's bed, the blue and white checked bedspread is neatly folded back.

Since that evening more than 13 years ago, the girl has disappeared. During the night the parents Kate and Gerry McCann informed the British television station BBC and other media. They started a Europe-wide search for their child. Celebrities such as David Beckham made a donation, the then Pope Benedict XVI received the parents in the Vatican and blessed a photo of their missing daughter. Later, the parents themselves became the target of the Portuguese investigators, one of so many twists and turns in this case.

And now, after 13 years, the solution? The murderer is a man from Germany, whom the investigators hadn't seen for a long time, even though he already had a criminal record and lived near the crime scene?

Shortly before Madeleine McCann disappeared, a prepaid cell phone with the Portuguese number 00351 912 730 680 was logged into the radio cell of the crime scene. It was, as was to turn out much later, the cell phone of Christian B. Who was he talking to for 30 minutes? An accomplice? Or someone who could give him an alibi? His lawyer does not want to comment on this. He says: "My client did not commit this crime."

From the window of the bedroom Fülscher goes around the corner to the place where several witnesses stood at that time.
In a dead-end street lies the back of the apartment, whose terrace door is said to have been open. A friend of the McCanns testified to having seen a man carrying a child away from the resort. Fülscher says: "This man was later identified and has nothing to do with the disappearance. The case is full of "inconsistencies and contradictions".


So, despite how the UK press have chosen to dress up this story, I don't believe there is any sort of admission/acceptance from FF here that CB was in PDL on the 3rd. The Mirror's claim that FF was "timing distances from various places in the resort to the flat" seems to have been embellished and grown legs from these two sentences in the original Spiegel article:

"From the window of the bedroom Fülscher goes around the corner to the place where several witnesses stood at that time."

"If the witness statements are correct, there was a time window of one minute and 30 seconds in which the child could have been abducted at that time"


What he is trying to promote IMO is Amaral's theory. I think that what FF is trying to say here is that it takes 90 seconds to get from MM's window to where Tannerman was seen walking, and the timings of the witness accounts he is referring to are that of Jane, Gerry and Jez.

He wants to claim that the possibility of there being an abduction (by any abductor, not CB specifically) was improbable on the basis of there not being enough time between Gerry leaving the apartment after his check and Jane then seeing the man carrying a child. He is obviously arguing a false premise though because his argument relies on Tannerman being the abductor, which is not necessarily the case. He tries to add further weight to his argument by saying Tannerman was later identified and ruled out. But in trying to further discredit the "abduction" possibility, he is also undermining his previous point about the timings, since if Tannerman is ruled out, the abduction window of 90 seconds he came up is completely irrelevant.

I think this interpretation and FF's defence strategy is effectively confirmed in The Sun article that came out shortly after on 14/10/20:

Speaking exclusively to The Sun Mr Fulscher said: ''It is no secret that the Portuguese have a different theory of what happened to the German BKA (federal police).

"The German prosecution could put an end to this theory when they finally put their cards on the table.

''This would be fair to the suspect and for the parents - both sides could judge for themselves how robust they consider the evidence to be.''

Speaking on news programme RTL, Mr Fulscher, said: ''At the moment I can only evaluate the Portuguese files.

"The German files have so far been withheld from me.

"On this basis, ie the Portuguese files, I have to state that there is a lot to be said for the argument that an accident took place in the apartment and after which Madeleine's body was hidden."

He added: "If you knew the Portuguese investigation file as I do, there was more than one perpetrator in Portugal at that time who had a corresponding [criminal] history.''



In that extract, FF offers up two contradictary possibilities. The first is basically Amaral's theory. The second is that there were other people with similar criminal histories to CB who might be responsible for the crime. In other words, until he sees what evidence the BKA have, he is exploiting exploring all possibilities for what 'might' have happened to MM and offering only possibilities of what CB himself 'might' have been doing on the 3rd. All part of the defence's strategy IMO, they aren't going to commit to any specific account for CB's movements until they see what the BKA can prove about that aspect first.
 

EXTRADITION proceedings are being launched to bring five new charges against Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner.

A German prosecutor confirmed this week that he is sending paperwork to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy, where he was last a free man, despite him actually being in a German jail.

Describing it as ‘a formality’, he told the Olive Press, that it would mean the German paedophile being charged with five new offences ‘within weeks’.

The crimes – three rapes and two child sex assaults – are expected to come to court in the early autumn.

“It’s only a formality and I hope it’s not a problem,” said Hans Christian Wolters, the chief prosecutor, in Braunschweig, where the Madeleine McCann case is being handled.

“I hope it will only be some weeks or a month,” he added. “I hope this year we will charge and prosecute him for these crimes. In total, three rapes and two child sex offences.”

A prosecution against Brueckner, 45, in the case of abducted Madeleine, who vanished in Portugal, in May, 2007, will follow immediately after.

Wolters revealed he was now seeking to prosecute Brueckner for two rapes in addition to the sadistic attack on an Irish woman, Hazel Behan, in Portugal, in 2004.

Both attacks – one on a teenager and the other on an elderly lady – took place around the same time on the Algarve.

While the victims have not yet been revealed, the evidence comes from two videos Brueckner allegedly made of the attacks, witnessed by his former friends Manfred Seyferth and Helge Busching.

“We hope the evidence of Helge and Manfred will be enough, although the charges would be easier if we had those videos,” said Wolters this week.

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman, Diana Menkes, in Praia da Luz, in 2005.

The convicted rapist filmed the long ordeal, in which he beat his victim before assaulting her, as he allegedly did during the rape of Behan, who was 20 at the time.

As well as the evidence of his former friends, one of his hairs was found at the scene of the crime.

Brueckner – who has a number of convictions for child sex assaults going back to his teens – was living less than a mile from the holiday home, where Madeleine went missing in Praia da Luz, at the time.

German prosecutors hope to convict him in another case, in which a young German girl, 10, was sexually assaulted on nearby Zalema beach, less than a month before Maddie was abducted.

He is also accused of exposing himself to a group of children at a late night event, in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines, in 2017.

“We are extraditing him over the Joana.E case, as well as three children he sexually assaulted at a snail festival in Portugal in 2017,” continued Wolters.

He explained they needed to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy as he had last been arrested there in 2018, when he was accidentally freed from a German prison and fled there, via Holland among other countries.

He had been picked up by police in Milan in September 2018, after applying to the consulate there for a new passport.

At the time he was extradited to complete a prison sentence for drug smuggling, as well as face charges in the rape trial of Diana Menkes.

As the five charges this month are all new, the Germans need to put through another official application.

“We can’t charge him until we get the answer from Italy,” explained Wolters. “Italy was interested in extraditing him the last time, so we don’t expect it to be long.”

The move comes after a series of files of evidence in all five cases was officially sent to Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher, in Kiel, last month.

As is the legal process in Germany a suspect’s lawyer must be given up to three weeks to study the evidence, before he is officially charged.

Fulscher has now played the legal process card, which means the German prosecution must undertake the necessary step of officially extraditing him from Italy.

Fulscher has already attempted to pour cold water over the evidence in the Behan rape claiming on national German TV that the victim had wrongly placed a cross tattoo on one of his thighs

This is firmly denied by Behan’s lawyer, who has sent a legal letter demanding that Fulscher also desists from contacting his client directly, as he did by email in August 2020
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EXTRADITION proceedings are being launched to bring five new charges against Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner.

A German prosecutor confirmed this week that he is sending paperwork to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy, where he was last a free man, despite him actually being in a German jail.

Describing it as ‘a formality’, he told the Olive Press, that it would mean the German paedophile being charged with five new offences ‘within weeks’.

The crimes – three rapes and two child sex assaults – are expected to come to court in the early autumn.

“It’s only a formality and I hope it’s not a problem,” said Hans Christian Wolters, the chief prosecutor, in Braunschweig, where the Madeleine McCann case is being handled.

“I hope it will only be some weeks or a month,” he added. “I hope this year we will charge and prosecute him for these crimes. In total, three rapes and two child sex offences.”

A prosecution against Brueckner, 45, in the case of abducted Madeleine, who vanished in Portugal, in May, 2007, will follow immediately after.

Wolters revealed he was now seeking to prosecute Brueckner for two rapes in addition to the sadistic attack on an Irish woman, Hazel Behan, in Portugal, in 2004.

Both attacks – one on a teenager and the other on an elderly lady – took place around the same time on the Algarve.

While the victims have not yet been revealed, the evidence comes from two videos Brueckner allegedly made of the attacks, witnessed by his former friends Manfred Seyferth and Helge Busching.

“We hope the evidence of Helge and Manfred will be enough, although the charges would be easier if we had those videos,” said Wolters this week.

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman, Diana Menkes, in Praia da Luz, in 2005.

The convicted rapist filmed the long ordeal, in which he beat his victim before assaulting her, as he allegedly did during the rape of Behan, who was 20 at the time.

As well as the evidence of his former friends, one of his hairs was found at the scene of the crime.

Brueckner – who has a number of convictions for child sex assaults going back to his teens – was living less than a mile from the holiday home, where Madeleine went missing in Praia da Luz, at the time.

German prosecutors hope to convict him in another case, in which a young German girl, 10, was sexually assaulted on nearby Zalema beach, less than a month before Maddie was abducted.

He is also accused of exposing himself to a group of children at a late night event, in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines, in 2017.

“We are extraditing him over the Joana.E case, as well as three children he sexually assaulted at a snail festival in Portugal in 2017,” continued Wolters.

He explained they needed to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy as he had last been arrested there in 2018, when he was accidentally freed from a German prison and fled there, via Holland among other countries.

He had been picked up by police in Milan in September 2018, after applying to the consulate there for a new passport.

At the time he was extradited to complete a prison sentence for drug smuggling, as well as face charges in the rape trial of Diana Menkes.

As the five charges this month are all new, the Germans need to put through another official application.

“We can’t charge him until we get the answer from Italy,” explained Wolters. “Italy was interested in extraditing him the last time, so we don’t expect it to be long.”

The move comes after a series of files of evidence in all five cases was officially sent to Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher, in Kiel, last month.

As is the legal process in Germany a suspect’s lawyer must be given up to three weeks to study the evidence, before he is officially charged.

Fulscher has now played the legal process card, which means the German prosecution must undertake the necessary step of officially extraditing him from Italy.

Fulscher has already attempted to pour cold water over the evidence in the Behan rape claiming on national German TV that the victim had wrongly placed a cross tattoo on one of his thighs

This is firmly denied by Behan’s lawyer, who has sent a legal letter demanding that Fulscher also desists from contacting his client directly, as he did by email in August 2020
.
Charges for the two rapes seen on video were touted a couple of months ago and HCW stated that they had not identified the victims:


Christian Brueckner is also under investigation for two further rapes carried out in Portugal close to where she vanished.

Hans-Christian Wolters, from the Brunswick prosecutor’s office in Germany, revealed that Bruekner faces investigation over the cases.

Wolters, from the Brunswick prosecutor’s office in Germany, said: ’We haven’t spoken in depth about the other two cases, but I confirm we are looking into them.

‘These are two further rape cases and are in addition to the sexual assault on a little girl at the beach and the case of Hazel Behan.

‘These two rape cases are from evidence provided at Brueckner’s trial in 2019 from two witnesses who said they found footage on a video camera of him attacking these two women.

We have not been able to identify either of the victims.

The victims have never been identified but Mr Wolters said:’The additional rape cases are from the testimony of the witnesses at his trial who described what they had seen on a video they found at Mr Brueckner’s house.’




Getting a conviction for these rapes based purely on the testimony of MS and HB seems a tall order without the actual video evidence or an account from the victims. I'm still wondering if the reason they are pushing ahead with these charges is because CB has documented the rapes in writing and it tallies with what MS and HB described seeing on video. If that's the case, it could be that there is also a written account about Hazel B and MM in his books too. Which might then explain why the Prosecutors want to proceed with these other charges together first. If the court agrees, based on the supporting evidence that the written accounts are genuine confessions, that then strengthens their evidence for the MM charge. JMO.
 
Good news at all, because FF's objections against the announced intentions of the prosecutors to charge CB, doesn't seem to be sufficient enough.

And i do not believe that the two rape charges are just based on Manfred S. and Helge B. either. There should be more.

So, may the games begin!
 
I think it’s possible that the BKA have identified the 15-year-old girl who is the rape survivor. MS and HB might have given an accurate description of the person, that may have helped the BKA to narrow it down and ultimately trace her. JMO.
 
I think it’s possible that the BKA have identified the 15-year-old girl who is the rape survivor. MS and HB might have given an accurate description of the person, that may have helped the BKA to narrow it down and ultimately trace her. JMO.
Anything is possible. Lets wait and see what actually happens.
 

EXTRADITION proceedings are being launched to bring five new charges against Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner.

A German prosecutor confirmed this week that he is sending paperwork to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy, where he was last a free man, despite him actually being in a German jail.

Describing it as ‘a formality’, he told the Olive Press, that it would mean the German paedophile being charged with five new offences ‘within weeks’.

The crimes – three rapes and two child sex assaults – are expected to come to court in the early autumn.

“It’s only a formality and I hope it’s not a problem,” said Hans Christian Wolters, the chief prosecutor, in Braunschweig, where the Madeleine McCann case is being handled.

“I hope it will only be some weeks or a month,” he added. “I hope this year we will charge and prosecute him for these crimes. In total, three rapes and two child sex offences.”

A prosecution against Brueckner, 45, in the case of abducted Madeleine, who vanished in Portugal, in May, 2007, will follow immediately after.

Wolters revealed he was now seeking to prosecute Brueckner for two rapes in addition to the sadistic attack on an Irish woman, Hazel Behan, in Portugal, in 2004.

Both attacks – one on a teenager and the other on an elderly lady – took place around the same time on the Algarve.

While the victims have not yet been revealed, the evidence comes from two videos Brueckner allegedly made of the attacks, witnessed by his former friends Manfred Seyferth and Helge Busching.

“We hope the evidence of Helge and Manfred will be enough, although the charges would be easier if we had those videos,” said Wolters this week.

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman, Diana Menkes, in Praia da Luz, in 2005.

The convicted rapist filmed the long ordeal, in which he beat his victim before assaulting her, as he allegedly did during the rape of Behan, who was 20 at the time.

As well as the evidence of his former friends, one of his hairs was found at the scene of the crime.

Brueckner – who has a number of convictions for child sex assaults going back to his teens – was living less than a mile from the holiday home, where Madeleine went missing in Praia da Luz, at the time.

German prosecutors hope to convict him in another case, in which a young German girl, 10, was sexually assaulted on nearby Zalema beach, less than a month before Maddie was abducted.

He is also accused of exposing himself to a group of children at a late night event, in Sao Bartolomeu de Messines, in 2017.

“We are extraditing him over the Joana.E case, as well as three children he sexually assaulted at a snail festival in Portugal in 2017,” continued Wolters.

He explained they needed to officially extradite Brueckner from Italy as he had last been arrested there in 2018, when he was accidentally freed from a German prison and fled there, via Holland among other countries.

He had been picked up by police in Milan in September 2018, after applying to the consulate there for a new passport.

At the time he was extradited to complete a prison sentence for drug smuggling, as well as face charges in the rape trial of Diana Menkes.

As the five charges this month are all new, the Germans need to put through another official application.

“We can’t charge him until we get the answer from Italy,” explained Wolters. “Italy was interested in extraditing him the last time, so we don’t expect it to be long.”

The move comes after a series of files of evidence in all five cases was officially sent to Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher, in Kiel, last month.

As is the legal process in Germany a suspect’s lawyer must be given up to three weeks to study the evidence, before he is officially charged.

Fulscher has now played the legal process card, which means the German prosecution must undertake the necessary step of officially extraditing him from Italy.

Fulscher has already attempted to pour cold water over the evidence in the Behan rape claiming on national German TV that the victim had wrongly placed a cross tattoo on one of his thighs

This is firmly denied by Behan’s lawyer, who has sent a legal letter demanding that Fulscher also desists from contacting his client directly, as he did by email in August 2020
.

So this seems all very detailed with real detailed quotes, even as to which crimes will be charged - but I can't find any MSM confirmation of this story?

I can't for the life of me understand how Olive Press has all these juicy details from HCW and there isn't even a german media story on it?

So I am wondering is this really a new story or a rehash of what was being talked about weeks ago?
 
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