A former associate of Christian Brueckner, the German man prosecutors say is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, said he is “100% sure” Brueckner was involved in the British toddler’s 2007 abduction from a Portuguese resort.
In his first television interview, Helge Busching told ITV News that Brueckner appeared to let slip details of the case during a conversation at a festival in Spain a year after McCann vanished.
“I told him I don’t understand how somebody can rob little children from a hotel,” Busching said. “And then he answered: ‘She was not screaming.’”
Busching said the remark convinced him Brueckner knew what happened to the 3-year-old. “This was him, I am 100% sure. He can say I am innocent. I know what he was doing, I saw it with my proper eyes. I know he’s a dangerous man,” Busching said.
Brueckner, a convicted pedophile, is serving time in Germany for an unrelated rape. He has denied any involvement in the McCann case and has not been charged over her disappearance. He is expected to be released from prison within days.
Busching, who admitted to a criminal past and said he once carried out petty thefts and drug deals with Brueckner in Portugal’s Algarve region, later became a witness for German authorities. He said he stumbled on disturbing videos in Brueckner’s home in 2006 that appeared to show him raping women and assaulting a teenage girl.
German prosecutors named Brueckner their prime suspect in 2020, and Busching’s testimony was used in a 2019 rape trial that resulted in conviction. A separate case in 2024 ended in acquittal after a court ruled the evidence was insufficient and some witnesses unreliable, including Busching. Prosecutors have appealed.
Busching said he fears Brueckner will pose a threat if released. “A big criminal man. To let him go as a free man, I don’t understand this. Now I know there will come out a really dangerous man,” he said.
Eighteen years after Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, her fate remains unknown.
Read more via ITV
