Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has allegedly bragged about how excited it made him to tie up, beat and rape an elderly woman..
Convicted paedophile and rapist Brueckner, 47 – who German investigators believe abducted Madeleine, then 3, from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007 – is currently being tried in Germany for a range of unrelated sex crimes.
In his current trial, Brueckner is accused of five offences in Algarve between 2000 and 2017, which include three rapes and two cases of exposing himself to children.
The Braunschweig regional court where his case is heard was told that Brueckner confessed to two rapes while jailed in 2019, boasting of ‘raping an old lady’, the Mirror reports.
Prosecutor Vanessa Beyse said that Brueckner told fellow prisoner Laurentio C. how ‘tying up and beating’ the elderly woman ‘really excited him’.
Brueckner added that he was careful ‘not to leave any traces’, German tabloid Bild reports.
Defendant Christian Brueckner arrives for a session of his trial at court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on September 5, 2024
Convicted paedophile and rapist Brueckner, 47 – who German investigators believe abducted Madeleine (pictured), then 3, from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007 – is currently being tried in Germany for a range of unrelated sex crimes
Hazel Behan, 40, (pictured) who has waived her anonymity, told the court about being raped in her Praia da Rocha apartment in 2004
The offences Brueckner is on trial for include the alleged rape of Irish tour rep Hazel Behan, now 40, in her Praia da Rocha apartment in 2004.
He has also been charged with the alleged rape of a teenage girl in his home in the same city and raping an elderly woman in her holiday apartment.
Brueckner is also accused of exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007 and to an 11-year-old girl in 2017.
Brueckner is still in prison for raping American pensioner Diana Menkes, 72, in the Algarve, but his sentence ends early next year.
The prosecutor said Brueckner’s descriptions of the attacks he allegedly talked about while in prison in 2019 resemble what happened to Menkes and Behan.
Brueckner reportedly also told Laurentiu C. – who prosecutors requested to speak in the trial as a new witness – that he stole cash from the handbag of a rape victim in Portugal.
While speaking to the court earlier this year, Behan reportedly said how her rapist took money out of her bag.
Behan, who waived her anonymity, previously told the court in Braunschweig that she had been raped in June 2004 by a masked man who later whipped her and filmed her in her apartment in Praia da Rocha.
The Irish former tour guide, who was reduced to tears as Brueckner’s defence team conducted a brutal cross-examination, revealed she was still suffered bleeding as result of the horrific sex attack.
The defence team asked whether her rapist had used lubricant when he attacked her, leaving members of the public gallery horrified.
Brueckner’s lawyers also claimed DNA evidence proved that she had had sex with her then boyfriend Jason Coates directly after the brutal rape.
Defendant Christian B (L) is seen next to his lawyer Friedrich Fuelscher (C) and Atilla Aykac as he arrives for a session of his trial at court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, on September 5, 2024
She said: ‘I had sex before the incident because we were a couple and I had sex afterwards because we were a couple and had a child but I did not have sex immediately afterwards.’
Behan contacted police after recognising a picture of Brueckner and an appeal for information and when asked why she was sure it was him gave her harrowing answer.
She said: ‘When you spend time in this situation and there is nothing else you can see on this human, it is the only thing which you can remember, they bored into my skull and I will never forget it.’
Behan, from Mullingar, Ireland, added that his eyes were completely illuminated against the black mask and skin-tight clothing he wore as he raped her.
She added: ‘They were just so blue… everything so dark that he had one, so they just worked like lights, they were so bright, and I just know them.’
Brueckner’s trial is due to end in October.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
