Prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner is responsible for Madeleine McCann's disappearance and death. Photo / Handout
Prosecutors believe Christian Brueckner is responsible for Madeleine McCann's disappearance and death. Photo / Handout
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has released extraordinary prison letters, launching a campaign to persuade authorities and the world he had nothing to do with her going missing.
Less than two weeks ago, and after nine years of little to no police activity, authorities suddenly rushed to a reservoir Christian Bruecker frequented at the time McCann disappeared more than 16 years ago.
Now for the first time, Brueckner’s prison letters, written in English, have been revealed.
The German paedophile, who is in jail for rape, penned a series of letters and drawings in which he appears to play the victim and attempt to clear his name.
“You can never imagine how it is when the whole world believes you are a child murderer, and you are not,” he wrote in letters revealed by the Mail Online.
One of Brueckner’s letters was sent just days before police searched the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 50 kilometres from where McCann disappeared.
In his latest letter, he addresses the claim from investigators that they have “concrete evidence” McCann is dead and that Brueckner had something to do with it.
German investigators claim to have found "evidence" of missing Madeleine McCann in the van of prime suspect Christian Brueckner. Photo / Metropolitan Police / NZME
“I got told a long time ago that the prosecutor’s office was closing the Maddie case because there is not even the smallest evidence. There will never be a trial.
“The prosecutors are not saying anything to the public because they must give the files to my lawyers – and they contain many (sic) material which confirms my innocence.”
Brueckner also said police and prosecutors are “attempting to create a monster” to “divert and let people think that I am the right one”.
In one of the letters he reportedly sketched a long, dark corridor of a prison wing. In another, he drew a flower with petals falling off with the words “guilty” and “not guilty”, a reference to the game children play when they pick petals from flowers.
Brueckner also took a dig at authorities, attempting to paint the picture that he was stitched up by investigators who used his background to manufacture the idea that he was responsible for McCann’s disappearance and possible death.
“They will never understand that the idea they had was brilliant – I said already that Hollywood couldn’t do it better – but they choosed (sic) the wrong leading actor – me.
“I’m almost sure that some other persons in my situation, under all the pressure, the insults and the threatenings (sic), would have capitulated a long time ago.
“They would have asked where they can sign the death judgment. But not me. I’m tough as old boots.”
The suspect also delved into the psychological toll the case is having on him, describing the “torture” he is going through and calling it “the best evidence I can have”.
He then signed off: “I’m writing this without self-pity and my self-confidence and self-control was never at a higher level. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Chin up! Better days are coming.”
In other letters, he complains about being treated worse than Nazi war criminal Joseph Goebbels.
He claimed his human rights have been stripped, and that he has to “ask for the weekly jam and margarine” other inmates receive automatically and said he has been in isolation longer than war criminals were held while waiting for their death sentences.
A police team searching the Arade dam near Silves, Portugal, last week in the continuing hunt for clues to the disappearance of 3-year-old Madeleine McCann in 2007. Photo / AP, Joao Matos
McCann ‘shrine’ found years ago at reservoir site
A British couple have retold how they allegedly spotted a bizarre “shrine” to Madeleine McCann at the reservoir searched by police last week.
Retired couple Ralf and Ann told the Daily Mail just months after McCann went missing that they discovered a memorial and photo of her at the site.
They took photographs of the shrine and alerted police to their findings around Christmas in 2007, believing it was of significance. They never heard back from Portuguese authorities.
The couple said the makeshift shrine contained boulders in the shape of an arrow that pointed towards a picnic site at the reservoir.
Madeleine McCann was last seen alive at a holiday resort in Praia da Luz. The dam searched by police last week is about 50 kilometres away.
They claimed the memorial, which contained flowers and a photo of McCann, was weighed down by a rock.
Recalling what they came across in 2007, Ralf said: “Our daughter ran on ahead of us and all of a sudden she just shouted to us, ‘Quick, come and look, someone must have died here.’
“When we got down, we noticed a row of stones stretching out into the water and on the last one there was a bouquet of fresh white lilies. We went out and had a look, and on the stone where the flowers were, there was a photograph of Madeleine.
“There was no note or anything and it was all very strange.”
