The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case is to face trial in Germany accused of five sex offences.
One of the attacks is said to have happened near Portugal’s Praia da Luz just days before Maddie, then three, disappeared in 2007.
Two, say prosecutors, involve children but are not said to be linked to Maddie’s disappearance
Justice officials have confirmed that German-born Christian Brueckner, 46, will stand trial from 16th February 2024 at Braunschweig district court, Lower Saxony.
Court spokesperson, Judge Benedikt Eicke said in a statement on 30th November obtained by Newsflash: “The court currently has 29 appointments scheduled.”
The charges, says the court, involve three counts of rape and two sexual offenses against children.
All are believed to have been committed in Portugal between 28th December, 2000 and 11th June, 2017.
Brueckner, was officially charged in October 2022.
He is accused of exposing himself to a ten-year-old German girl in Faro, Portugal, on 7th April 2007, only weeks before Maddie was abducted from her family’s hotel room.
Head prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said: “He grabbed the child’s wrist and began to perform masturbatory movements on his naked penis.
“While grinning, he asked the girl to look at her naked genitals and the masturbation movements she was performing, to become sexually aroused.
“After the accused ejaculated, he let go of the girl and fled.”
In a second child sex charge, Brueckner is accused of exposing himself to an 11-year-old Portuguese girl in Bartolomeu de Messines, Portugal on 11th June 2017.
Wolters said: “The accused then pulled down his trousers and underwear while constantly making eye contact with the child and made masturbatory movements on his naked penis to sexually arouse himself until the frightened girl ran to her father for help.”
Brueckner is also said to have raped and beaten a woman aged between 70 and 80, after breaking into her apartment in 2006.
In another case, he is said to have sexually assaulted an unknown teenage girl in Praia da Luz, close to where Maddie disappeared from.
Court officials said he hit her with a whip before forcing her to perform oral sex on him.
He is also charged with brutally raping and assaulting 20-year-old Irish national Hazel Behan, 40, after breaking into her apartment as she slept on 16th June 2004.
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year-long jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old US tourist in the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal in 2005.
He isn’t due to be freed until 2025.
Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz while her parents ate out with friends nearby.
Despite a massive search no trace of Maddie has even been found.
Police in Germany claim to have ‘concrete evidence’ that Brueckner killed the girl, but have not produced it and he is yet to face any formal charges.
He has denied any connection with Madeleine’s disappearance.
