Christian Brückner, also suspected of murder in the ‘Maddie case‘, was acquitted by the regional court in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, of charges of several serious sexual crimes. The 47-year-old German remains in prison because he is serving a sentence for rape until September 2025. The sentence is not final and it is possible to appeal. The Court found Brückner not guilty of all five charges, the man was on trial for three counts of rape and two cases of child sexual abuse. After 38 days of hearings before the criminal chamber in Braunschweig, the three professional judges and two honorary judges acquitted the accused. Many observers of the trial expected this result after the Chamber revoked the arrest warrant against the convicted sex offender in July at the request of the defense.
The trial in Braunschweig has been the focus of international media attention because the defendant is suspected of murder in the case of the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine “Maddie” McCann in 2007. However, the ‘Maddie case’ is not officially subject of the ongoing proceedings. At the start of the trial in February, the man was accused of three rapes and two cases of child sexual abuse in Portugal. At the end of the hearing of the evidence, the Prosecutor’s Office essentially maintained its conviction and requested a total of 15 years’ imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention. In this case, Brückner could not have been released after serving his sentence. The prosecution found him guilty of two rapes and two cases of abuse. In the case of rape, the accusation could not be confirmed. The Prosecutor’s Office had already announced an appeal in the event of acquittal. The defense had asked for acquittal on Monday. Brückner’s lawyers argued that evidence was lacking and that the witnesses were not credible. The defendant was given the opportunity to make a final statement on the penultimate day of the trial, but declined to comment.
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