McCann suspect lawyers seek acquittal in trial over unrelated sexual offences

Lawyers for a man who is under investigation over the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann have called for him to be acquitted in his trial on charges of unrelated sexual offences.

Prosecutors last week urged the Braunschweig state court to convict the 47-year-old German national, who has been identified by local media as Christian Brueckner, of two counts of rape and two of sexual abuse.

They argued that he should be given a 15-year-prison sentence and kept in preventive detention once he has served his term, though they said he should be acquitted of a third rape charge.

However, the defendant’s defence team said on Monday that an acquittal would be the right outcome.

Lawyer Friedrich Fulscher told the court that “there was never a sufficient suspicion” against his client, the dpa news agency reported.

Brueckner has been on trial since February over offences he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

Defence lawyers pointed to what they labelled a lack of evidence and witnesses who were not credible, and Mr Fulscher suggested Brueckner might not have been charged if he had not also been a suspect in the McCann case.

The suspect has not been charged in the McCann case, in which he is under investigation on suspicion of murder.

He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in May 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

The defendant is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.

In July, the court lifted an arrest warrant in the cases at stake in the current trial, citing a lack of “urgent suspicion” against the defendant.

But he has remained behind bars because of the sentence he is currently serving.