A senior British police detective who investigated the Madeleine McCann case in Portugal has issued a five-word warning about the release from prison of prime suspect Christian Brueckner. Graham Hill looked into Brueckner for an ITV documentary and cautioned against releasing him.
Earlier today, the 48-year-old walked free today after serving a seven-year jail sentence for the 2005 rape of a pensioner in the Algarve. Mr Hill urged against this, ultimately to no avail, raising the alarm over the danger Brueckner presents to women and children. He told The Times: “We should be very worried. He is a man that has multiple deviant sexual behaviours. He is a sexual risk to adult women, children of both genders. He is a very dangerous man.
“We have got an offender here who is interested in the whole spectrum, he is an exhibitionist, he likes watching, we know that he is a sexual sadist, we know he’s tortured people.”
Mr Hill spent three days in Portugal after Madeleine went missing in 2007 and wrote a critical review of the inquiry led by the country’s police.
This prompted the Home Office to fund Scotland Yard’s Operation Grange investigation to find the missing girl, who would now be 22-years-old.
Brueckner has always denied any links to the disappearance of Madeleine and has never been charged, but the nvestigator called him “a very rare animal” and pointed to the connections between him and Madeleine.
He said: “If Christian Brueckner was living in London he would be a very rare animal. You have got him living in Praia da Luz a four-minute drive away from where Madeleine McCann went missing.
“There is evidence to suggest that a phone linked to him received a call at the time just before Madeleine went missing.
“So when you start overlaying the geography, when you start overlaying what we know, he would be on any suspect list you generated.”
Brueckner was released from Sehnde prison near Hannover at 9.15am on Wednesday.
He is understood to have been fitted with an ankle tag so police always know where he is, and sources said he’s had his passport taken away over fears he could disappear.
