Madeleine McCann: major breakthrough in case as suspect 'confessed' to taking child in Portugal

There has been a breakthrough in the Madeleine McCann case after a man has claimed that his former cellmate took the young British girl back in 2007.

The German authorities prime suspect Christian Brueckner is currently on trial for rape and sex offences unconnected to the disappearance of the young girl, and his former cellmate Laurentiu Codin recently testified, claiming that Brueckner had told him that he had abducted a young girl in Portugal. The pair were in the same prison together in 2020.

Speaking at the Braunschweig Regional Court, he said: "He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there. He was in an area of hotels where rich people live. And when he went to the hotel area, there was an open window somewhere, he told me. And he would have entered this window for money and gold. However, he not not find any money, but came across a child and took it with him.

"About two hours later, the area was full of police and dogs and he had left from there. He left the area. He then said that there was another person with him who he had argued with and that they had split up. And he said he took the child with him in Portugal and drove away, while the place was full of police and dogs.

"He drove off in the car and he was gone. He asked me whether DNA can be taken from a child. He asked me if the DNA from a child can be taken from bones under the ground."

He added that Brueckner had set fire to a car, and asked Codin to burn down his house when he was released from prison.

The German FBI recovered several hard drives and data storage from the property - but their contents have not been revealed to the public.

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This isn't the first person to have claimed that Brueckner told about Madeleine, as one of his former friends, Roofer Helge Busching, also revealed that he had called the police’s Madeleine hotline back in 2017 after Brueckner told him that "she didn’t cry when I took her".

Back in 2023, he told German newspaper Bild: "I called Scotland Yard back in 2008, at the Maddie hotline. I said I knew someone who might have something to do with it and gave them the name. But nothing happened there. Nothing! I was never called back."

Brueckner lived in Portugal from 1995 to 2007, and is currently serving a seven-year sentence after raping a 72-year-old American woman in 2005. He is on trial for several crimes including exposing himself to a child and three rape counts between 2000 to 2017.