Christian Brueckner's lawyer has claimed that the police investigation into Madeleine McCann is close to "crashing down", as authorities continue to search for the missing girl.
Friedrich Fulscher, Brueckner's lawyer, has spoken out on the ongoing case during a new investigation by the BBC.
Madeleine McCann went missing from a holiday apartment in the Algarve in Portugal in 2007, when she was just three years old.
Her parents Kate and Gerry McCann returned to the holiday apartment in Praia Da Luz on the evening of May 3 to find their daughter had disappeared.
German police believe 46-year-old Christian Brueckner was the man responsible for Madeleine's disappearance
PA / CARABINIERI
Months into the investigation, Portugese police named Kate and Gerry as "suspects" in the case, but the line of inquiry was dropped.
Portuguese officers have since met with Gerry McCann to say sorry about the way they handled her disappearance when she first went missing.
German authorities investigating the case believe that 46-year-old German national Christian Brueckner was the man responsible for Madeleine's disappearance.
Brueckner was made a formal suspect by prosecutors in 2022, and is currently serving a seven-year term in a German prison.
Fulscher spoke to a BBC investigative journalist as part of a new documentary, 'Prime Suspect: Who Took Madeleine McCann?'.
Fulscher spoke of how Brueckner found out he was the prime suspect in the McCann case, arguing "how is the person supposed to feel when he is in prison and learns from television that he is to be held responsible for one of the most famous crimes in the world?"
Speaking of the investigation, Fulscher criticised the "lack of substance" in the case and claimed that it is close to collapse.
He said: "This is rather a sign that the prosecution's investigations are built on very, very shaky foundations, so that the slightest breath of wind could possibly bring the entire construct crashing down, and this is an indication of how lacking in substance this investigation is."
Investigator Mark Williams-Thomas told GB News his own work shows that Christian Brueckner ‘is likely to have an alibi’
Christian Brueckner's lawyer says the police case is 'close to crashing down'
BBC
Williams-Thomas, who first exposed Jimmy Savile as a predatory paedophile, told GB News: “They've got no more evidence now than they had previously and in fact, in my Paramount investigation, we showed that the evidence they had was incredibly weak.
“We were able to put forward not only information that undermined the case that they feel they have, but also show that Christian B is likely to have an alibi.
“Let's be very clear. Christian B is a vile individual who's committed some horrific offences against children. That does not mean to say that he should be accused of the murder of Madeleine McCann, just simply because he got a nasty background.
“Hans Wolter is a prosecutor. He's very clearly saying that his belief is he [Christian B] killed Madeleine. Well, if he’s got that evidence then charge him.”
In a discussion with Mark Dolan, he added: “I believe that on that night, Madeleine woke up - we know she woke up on the two previous nights - and Gerry and Kate on the morning of her disappearance did say to her that if you wake up in the middle of night again, we're only at the tapas bar which is just across the walkway of the swimming pool.
“I believe she woke up and went looking for mum and dad and as she walked out of the apartment, she walked out down the steps on to a public footpath before having to walk back in again. And I believe at that point that she was abducted.”
German police have said they are planning to finish their five-year investigation into Brueckner in 2024.
Brueckner is currently serving his prison sentence for drug trafficking and the rape of a 72-year-old woman in 2005, in the same area where Madeleine went missing.
He has also been charged with a further three rapes, sexual assault and the sexual assault of a child, all alleged to have been committed on the Portuguese Algarve.
Watch Panorama - Prime Suspect: Who Took Madeleine McCann? on BBC iPlayer.
