British police are intensifying efforts to charge the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, with detectives pushing to extradite German national Christian Bruckner to face trial on British soil.
According to sources close to Scotland Yard, authorities are reviewing evidence and will seek to extradite Bruckner from Germany if the case is strong enough to bring charges for the abduction and murder of the three-year-old.
“Next year marks 20 years since Madeleine McCann went missing. If the evidence is strong enough to extradite the prime suspect and try him here, that is what we would seek to do,” a Scotland Yard insider told The Telegraph.
“Clearly, there are numerous hurdles but our priority at the moment is to amass the strongest evidence we can against that prime suspect.”
The major development comes nearly 19 years after Madeleine vanished from Praia de Luz in Portugal in 2007.
Bruckner, a convicted paedophile and rapist, lived in the area at the time.
German authorities, working with British police, announced he was the prime suspect in June 2020 — almost six years ago.
Despite extensive searches in Portugal and Bruckner facing trial in Germany on unrelated sex offences that took place in Portugal, no charges have been laid in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance. He was acquitted of those unrelated charges.
Attempts by British authorities to get Bruckner extradited to the UK could be hampered by German law and Brexit, London-based journalist Nick Pisa reported on Sunrise.
“Brexit could be a real major hurdle because the German constitution forbids the extradition of a German national to a non-EU country, article 16 forbids that,” Pisa said on Wednesday.
“The German prosecutor said to me ‘Look, you know if it was another European country (like) Spain, France, Italy wherever, then it would make things a lot easier, but there are a lot of diplomatic hoops to jump through to try to get Bruckner back to the UK if at all’.”
It’s unclear exactly what kind of evidence British authorities have against Bruckner.
Pisa said the news was a “significant development” but whether Bruckner is actually extradited was another matter.
“I did speak to German authorities this morning about this case and ... they said this looks to me like ‘a lot of hot air’,” Pisa said.
“The German prosecutor in charge of investigating the case he said obviously we will look at any arrest warrant issued by the UK police and we will look at extraditing him but the key thing he said to me is evidence.
“He said, ‘They have not shared any evidence that they have, we have shared everything with them’.
“So, what is this new piece of evidence, does it exist at all?”
