Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has been found not guilty of unrelated sexual offences while on trial in Germany.
The 47-year-old German national had been on trial at the Braunschweig state court since February over offences he was alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
During the trial, his lawyer Friedrich Fülscher had pointed to what he labelled a lack of evidence and witnesses who weren’t credible, suggesting that his client might not have been charged if he hadn’t also been a suspect in the McCann case.
The British toddler disappeared in May 2007 while on holiday in Portugal, when the then-three-year-old was left in an apartment with her younger siblings as their parents went out to dinner with friends.
Brueckner has not been charged in the McCann case, but German authorities began investigating him in June 2020 for her kidnap and murder.
He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time the toddler went missing, but has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.
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