The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case allegedly told his ex-cellmate he snatched a tot from her Algarve holiday home.
A former cellmate of Christian Brueckner, the man accused of the disappearance and assumed death of three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann in Praia da Luz back in May 2007, shared the details in court today.
Laurentiu Codin revealed in court: “He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there. He was in a region where there are hotels and rich people live. He said there was somewhere with an open window, he told me this. He was looking for money.”
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Codin added: “He said he didn’t find any money but found a kid and took the child. He said that two hours later, there were police and dogs all over the place, so he then went away, out of the area.”
(Image: Phil Harris)
Unloading yet more jaw-dropping details, Codin continued: “I am just saying what he told me. He told me that a person was with him, who he had had an argument with, allegedly it was his woman.
“He said he took the child in Portugal in his car, and in the time when the police and dogs were at the house, he drove away and he was gone,” reports the Mirror.
Codin also threw in a macabre detail: “He asked me if the DNA from a child can be taken from bones under the ground.”
The ex-prisoner also claimed Brueckner confessed to more vile acts, stating he ‘abducted and raped young girls’.
(Image: Phil Harris)
Brueckner, 47, is said to have made a chilling confession back in 2020 about abducting and assaulting young girls on a bus he owned.
Codin revealed: “There was talk of a girl, I don’t know if what he said was true or not. He said that he had a bus and that he had taken her with it.
“He said he kept some of them, but not others, but he never said that he had killed them. We’re talking about girls, not boys.
(Image: PA)
“Not all at once, always one at a time. He told me about two. He said that he had taken someone, had sex with her but he didn’t kill her.”
When quizzed on how old the victim was, Codin responded: “I don’t want to get it wrong, but it was very young, tiny.
“I mean young. Each time when we were together he spoke about it because he was convinced that I was a paedophile.”
(Image: Phil Harris)
The accused is currently doing time for raping an American OAP in Praia da Luz and faces the dock in Germany over separate vile sex offences alleged to have happened in the Algarve from 2000 to 2017, including the supposed attack on Irish holiday rep Hazel Behan in her flat in Praia da Rocha in 2004.
Brueckner is facing accusations of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in his Praia da Luz residence and raping an elderly woman in her holiday flat. He’s also charged with a child sex offence for allegedly exposing himself to a German girl on a Salema beach in April 2007.
His final charge involves an alleged indecent exposure incident involving an 11-year-old in 2017. He refutes these latest charges, as well as any connection to the McCann case.
If you or somebody you know has been affected by this story, contact Victim Support for free, confidential advice on 08 08 16 89 111 or visit their website, Home – Victim Support.