By Paula Fernandez
Fifteen years after the disappearance of the British girl Madeleine McCannthe judicial advances shed a hope of unraveling the mystery after Portugal has formally constituted the German Christian Bruckner as a suspect “in extremis” (the figure of “arguido” in Portuguese law) to prevent the case from prescribing.
Maddie disappeared on May 3, 2007 of the apartment that his family had rented in Praia da Luz, in the Portuguese Algarve, where he slept with his brothers -two two-year-old twins- while his parents had dinner with a group of friends in the same tourist complex.
The case quickly became the most high profile disappearance of a minor to date and, after several lines of investigation, theories and suspects over fifteen years, the mystery may be closer to being solved than ever.
The Portuguese Justice has just constituted a German citizen, Christian Brueckner, as “arguido”, a Portuguese figure that is used to designate formal suspects on whom strong evidence falls, prior to the accusation.
Avoid prescribing
This decision was made just a few weeks after the 15th anniversary of the disappearance, the maximum term for a crime of homicide to prescribe in Portugal, which gives the authorities more time to continue investigating and collecting evidence.
“As there is a suspect, I think the Portuguese authorities wanted to be cautious and constitute him as ‘arguido,'” João Mira Godinho, one of the Portuguese journalists who followed the case more closely, explains to EFE.
Godinho, who has collaborated on a miniseries about Maddie’s disappearance that premieres on AMC next Tuesday, recalls that in this way the prescription is suspended (for seven and a half years) and if the investigation into Brueckner bears fruit, he may finally be charged. .
The 45-year-old suspect lived between 1995 and 2007 in the Algarve and was near the apartment complex the night Maddie disappeared, according to data from his mobile phone.
With a long criminal record for sexual abuse, physical assault, robbery and misdemeanors, he was on the radar of the authorities since he was extradited from Portugal to Germany in 2017 accused of another case of sexual abuse of minors in Greece.
Decade and a half of searching
Brueckner’s appearance casts hope on the chances of solving the case after years of clues, theories and suspects that came to nothing.
The case has been investigated in parallel by the Portuguese and British authorities, which ended up torpedoing the process, according to those who followed it closely.
“There should have been more cooperation and less competition, because it seemed that the Portuguese Police were on one side and the British on the other,” says Godinho, convinced that the “accusations” launched by the English press towards the Portuguese authorities made their work difficult.
Among the theories shuffled, there was speculation about the accidental death of the girl at the hands of her parents, Kate and Gerry McCannan idea defended tooth and nail by the Portuguese inspector who conducted the case, Gonçalo Amaral.
Amaral even published a book with his hypotheses and the conflict with Maddie’s parents ended up in court.
The most mediatic case
Maddie’s is the most mediatic disappearance of a minor known to date and brought dozens of journalists from all corners of the world to a quiet tourist complex in the Algarve.
“It dominated the media almost like the war in Ukraine today,” says Godinho.
The McCanns, who were received by Pope Benedict XVI less than a month after the disappearance, immediately hired a public relations team to manage the deal with the press.
The case has starred in countless movies, series, documentaries and books with different theories.
With the latest judicial advances, the truth may be closer than ever.
EFE.
Discussion about this post