Christian Brueckner: Madeleine McCann suspect's trial suspended after lay judge dismissed
One of the lay judges on the Christian Brueckner cases was removed, ITV News' Correspondent Emma Murphy reports from Germany
The case into Madeleine McCann abduction suspect Christian Brueckner was adjourned on Friday morning after only nine minutes.
Brueckner, 47, was due to stand trial at the Braunschweig state court in Germany over five sexual offences he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. They are unrelated to McCann’s disappearance.
Judge Christina Engelmann adjourned the case until next Friday after Brueckner's defence team claimed that one of the lay judges had made violent posts on social media about Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro.
Referring to Bolsonaro, the lay judge allegedly tweeted “kill the bastard now” and "kill the devil". The posts did not involve Brueckner's case.
The defense team claimed said the remark meant the lay judge was unfit to sit on the case.
In Germany, a trial is heard by five lay judges, not a jury
Dressed in a suit while handcuffed, it is the first time Brueckner has been seen in public since being linked to the McCann case.
Bruckner is on trial for five separate attacks carried out between 2000 and 2017.
Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal's Algarve region, in 2007, in what is considered one of the highest-profile missing persons cases in the world.
Brückner was identified as a suspect by German investigators in June 2020, in what they have classed as a murder inquiry.
However no formal charges have ever been brought against Brueckner in the McCann case, and the full details of the German investigation have never been released.
Brueckner is already serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for the rape of an elderly tourist in the Algarve who was attacked in her holiday apartment.
It was during the investigation into the other attacks in the Algarve that German prosecutors began to investigate Brueckner for McCann’s abduction.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, named him as the prime suspect and believes McCann is no longer alive.
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