The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann travelled hours to confront the prosecutor who accused him of her murder.
Christian Brückner arrived at the prosecutor’s office in the German town of Braunschweig but was denied a meeting with Hans Christian Wolters, Sky News has reported.
He later revealed in an interview: ‘The prosecutor refused to meet me, but I told his representative I wanted his help to get my life back.
‘I’m being hounded by the media, and it’s his fault. I want him to take responsibility.
‘I was told there was nothing they could do to help. I had been convicted and released, and I wasn’t their responsibility.’
Brückner was released from jail earlier this month after serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of an elderly woman at her home in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Previously, in a TV interview in 2022, Wolters accused him of murdering Madeleine, which he denies.
Brückner’s lawyer Friedrich Fulscher told Sky that the public accusation had made his client’s rehabilitation ‘impossible’.
A number of searches have been carried out by German, Portuguese and British authorities since Madeleine’s disappearance, with the latest taking place near the Portuguese municipality of Lagos in June.
After his release earlier this month, Brückner was driven out of the prison in Sehnde, Lower Saxony, in a black Audi, accompanied by his lawyer and a police escort.
Photographs show Brückner wearing an ankle bracelet on his right leg outside a McDonald’s.
The paedophile’s first meal as a free man was a burger, chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce and a hot drink, which he ate while smoking.
His lawyers have declined to say where he will live, but officials are monitoring his location. Brückner was also asked to surrender his passport and is banned from travelling abroad.
What is Christian’s connection to Madeleine McCann?
Madeleine was just three when she vanished from her family’s holiday rental home in the seaside village of Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, on May 3, 2007.
German prosecutors believe Brückner is responsible – he has denied wrongdoing, and not enough evidence has been obtained to file charges.
Brückner lived in Portugal off-and-on from 1995 to 2007, including working at the Praia da Luz resort as a pool maintenance assistant.
British police call Brückner a suspect in their investigation, which they continue to treat as a missing-person case.
The Metropolitan Police filed a request to interview Brückner following his release, but he declined to speak with investigators.
German police named Brückner as a suspect in 2020, some seven years after receiving a tip-off about him during a German TV programme.
Brückner was acquitted in his trial on charges unrelated to the McCann case in 2024, having been accused of five sexual offences.
The sex offender will be back in court in October for a hearing in which he is accused of insulting prison staff.
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