A rape charge against the main suspect in the Madeleine McCann investigation has been dropped after a German court said it did not have jurisdiction over the case.
Christian Brueckner was due to go on trial for an alleged rape in Portugal but a court in the city of Braunschweig threw out the case, his lawyer said, Bild newspaper reported. The rape allegation is not linked to Madeleine’s case.
German prosecutors last year said they had charged Brueckner with several sexual offences they believe he committed in Portugal between 28 December 2000, and 11 June 2017. The court did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brueckner first came up in the Madeleine investigation in 2020 and he was officially named as a suspect last year.
Three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the bed of her holiday apartment while her parents and family friends dined 180 feet away.
Her two-year-old twin siblings were also in the apartment she went missing from. Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have been searching for answers ever since.
The Metropolitan Police took over the investigation, Operation Grange, in 2011 but they hit dead ends. Brueckner’s emergence in the case was the first major breakthrough since 2007.
Full Story: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/madeleine-mccann-suspect-rape-allegations-dropped-b2323453.html
