Madeleine McCann case: Christian Brueckner reveals what he was doing 137 meters from the scene. "He was selling drugs"
The main suspect in the case claims that on that night he was on a beach in Praia da Luz selling marijuana and that the Portuguese Police even detained him up to three times.
Christian Brueckner, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann , has described in detail for the first time what he was doing in Praia da Luz on the night of May 3, 2007.
In his statements, he claims that he was about 137 meters from the place where the girl's family was staying and denies having had any involvement in her disappearance.
The German maintains that he had arrived from Spain with marijuana that he brought into Portugal and that he tried to leave the area when police checks were activated after Madeleine's disappearance was confirmed.
Brueckner claims that the Police arrested him three times
According to his version, the Portuguese agents stopped him as many as three times while they were searching for the girl . He says he was traveling in a van loaded with narcotics, but the police did not find the drugs and he was able to continue on his way.
Brueckner also explains that he kept silent for years because, he claims, he feared that the authorities would try to incriminate him for the disappearance. The public disclosure of this version comes after, in the past, he had refused to cooperate with British investigators.
The investigation into Madeleine began on May 3, 2007 , when the three-year-old girl disappeared from the apartment where she was staying with her parents at the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz. Her parents were having dinner at a nearby restaurant when the disappearance occurred.
He remains the prime suspect
German authorities publicly identified Brueckner as the main suspect in 2020 and maintain the theory that Madeleine died after being abducted. However, he has never been formally charged over the girl's disappearance, and he continues to deny any involvement in the case.
His connection to Praia da Luz dated back earlier: he lived for years in the Algarve and served a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old woman committed in the town in 2005, two years before Madeleine's disappearance. He was released in September 2025 and remains under investigation in the McCann case.
Brueckner is now preparing an autobiography in which he plans to defend his innocence and set out his own version of events . The investigation remains open nearly two decades later : the United Kingdom, Germany and Portugal are pursuing different lines of inquiry in search of evidence to clarify what happened that night.
