Jessica Parker and Christina Verk
BBC News
Report from Lower Saxony
Watch: Christian Bruckner was asked about the McCann incident.
The chief suspect in the loss of Madeleine McCann, who is currently serving the sentence for a rape conviction, will be released from German prisons later than originally planned, his lawyers said.
Christian Bruckner, 48, was convicted in 2005 of raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal and was scheduled to be released in September, but this was pushed back early next year.
He has never been charged in McCann’s case and denied any involvement in her loss in 2007.
When he left the court in Lower Saxony, Germany, he was asked by BBC News if he had invited the 3-year-old to kill him. He declined to comment.
The loss of Madeleine during a family holiday in Praia Dalz, Portugal, is one of the most widely reported cases of children and remains unresolved.
Brückner’s lawyer told the BBC that the delayed release date was due to an unpaid fine of 1,446 euros. He doesn’t think Brückner can pay.
“He’s probably going to be released around February,” Philip Marcourt said.
Prosecutors involved in the McCann case against Brückner told the BBC that “alternative custody” for unpaid fines will be jailed until early January.
Prison officials also understood that Bruckner’s release would be at a later date.
It is understood that Bruckner will be released in September if the fine is paid.
Bruckner was in Lethe’s courtroom to face accusations of shaming female prison staff at Saende Prison during a March 2024 meeting.
Therefore, the judge sentenced him to one month of probation – if he violated the terms of probation on future release, he could serve in prison in another month.
Reuters
Time in prison could give German prosecutors more time to pursue appeals in another case where Bruckner wiped out three rapes and two child sexual abuse.
BBC News is said to have no current plans yet to claim Madeleine’s loss of bruckner.
A convicted child sex offender, Bruckner is a German citizen with a history of gender, counterfeiting, drugs and theft.
A castaway man, he lived in the Algarve region of Portugal for years.
“Laughter stock”
A meeting at Saende Prison last March was about re-socializing Bruckner, who was then trapped in solitary cells but no longer like that.
He was accused of calling the female officer “witfigure” or laughing stock.
Witnesses at the meeting say that Bruckner was “hostile” and “aggressive.”
The court heard that Bruckner had claimed at the time that he was “tortured” and treated in a “inhuman” manner.
On Thursday, his lawyer argued that it was a matter of freedom of speech and that the phrase “witzfigur” could also be “positive.”
Bruckner later wrote an apology letter and said he must have stood up on the wrong side of the bed, the court heard.
However, the officials involved said they did not believe the apology was sincere.
