The main suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal's region of the Algarve in 2007 was released on Wednesday from a prison in Germany.
Christian Brückner, 48, was serving a seven-year sentence in an unrelated case after he was found guilty of rape in the Algarve's Praia da Luz, the same seaside resort town where McCann went missing.
In June 2020, German prosecutors said Brückner was being investigated on suspicion of murder in connection with McCann’s disappearance. Police have since carried out more searches in Portugal.
But the suspect, who has denied any involvement in her disappearance, has not been charged in the case.
Brückner also remains a suspect in an investigation into McCann’s disappearance, being conducted by the UK's Metropolitan Police, who say he refused their request for an interview.
His lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, has said charges would have been filed against his client long ago if there had been sufficient evidence.
The McCann case received worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia as well as books and television documentaries about her disappearance.
Nearly two decades later, investigators in the UK, Portugal and Germany are still piecing together what happened on the night she disappeared.
Three-year-old Madeleine vanished from an apartment in Praia da Luz in 2007 while on holiday with her British family.
She was in the same room as her brother and sister — 2-year-old twins — while their parents, Kate and Gerry, had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
The suspect was tried last year over several unrelated sexual offences he was alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017 and was acquitted in October.
The presiding judge said the evidence was insufficient for a conviction, that the court heard from unreliable witnesses and that media reports on the defendant had influenced some.
He still faces a 27 October court date in Oldenburg in northwestern Germany in a case in which he is accused of insulting a prison employee. A district court in the city sentenced him to six weeks in prison for that offence, but the defence has appealed.
According to domestic press reports, he will remain under a travel ban after German authorities seized his passport and released him with an electronic bracelet.
