Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brückner acquitted over rape of Irish woman
· IrishCentralMadeleine McCann suspect Christian Brückner has been cleared of a series of sexual abuse charges, including the rape of an Irish woman in Portugal, by a German court.
Brückner stood emotionless as the verdicts were read out today, Tuesday, October 8, with the convicted sex criminal having been found not guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of indecent exposure.
Brückner, who was revealed as a suspect in 2020 in the McCann investigation, remains in prison thanks to a seven-year sentence from 2019.
He was convicted of raping a 72-year-old US tourist in 2005 in Praia da Luz, which is the seaside resort where Madeleine went missing in 2007.
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Prosecutors in Brückner's trial had called for him to be jailed for a further 15 years. In court, he was described as a "dangerous psychopathic sadist."
However, the presiding judge Uta Engemann said Brückner could "not be convicted of the acts he is accused of" because of the evidence presented.
Judge Ute Engemann handed down the verdict at Braunschweig Regional Court on Tuesday.
Engemann said: "On this case I announce a full acquittal."
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The judge added that a key witness from the case, Helge B, had been "inconsistent" with his accounts in court and that they had not matched the statements he had given police.
They also added that one of Brückner's alleged victims, Irish holiday rep Hazel Behan, had contradicted herself in court when it came to her accounts of the attack.
Behan came forward about the alleged assault after she recognized Brückner when he was initially linked to the Madeleine case.
She claimed that he had tied her up and raped her three times while wearing a mask back in 2004, after he climbed onto her balcony in the Algarve.
The judge added: "The media had reported already about Madeleine McCann and this influenced the witnesses.
"In that case it was not possible to convict the defendant for objective reasons."
The defendant has denied all the charges against him.
*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.