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 in the UK. Sources close to Scotland Yard indicate that authorities are reviewing evidence and will seek extradition from Germany if the case is strong enough to bring charges for the abduction and murder of the three-year-old.
A Scotland Yard insider told The Telegraph, “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. Clearly, there are numerous hurdles but our priority at the moment is to amass the strongest evidence we can against that prime suspect.”
The 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 him as the prime suspect in June 2020, but no charges have been laid in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance despite extensive searches and Bruckner facing trial in Germany on unrelated sex offences in Portugal.
Attempts to extradite Bruckner could be hampered by German law and Brexit. London-based journalist Nick Pisa reported on Sunrise that the German constitution forbids extradition of a German national to a non-EU country. A German prosecutor told Pisa, “If it was another European country like Spain, France, Italy, 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 remains unclear what evidence British authorities hold against Bruckner. The German prosecutor noted that UK police have not shared any evidence, while German authorities have shared everything. Pisa described the news as a “significant development” but questioned whether extradition would actually occur, noting the German prosecutor’s view that it might be “a lot of hot air.”
