christian brueckner, christian b, christian brückner or in short cb, 28 june and later.

I've yet to see proof of any of Brueckner's alleged past convictions and/or unlawful acts.  He's currently in prison for raping a senior citizen and/or drug trafficking, depending on which tabloid you care to believe, the former based on trumped-up (pardon the pun) evidence.

Of course I've seen images of bits of paper with text blacked-out brandished across social media by journalists featured in documentaries but sorry, that doesn't constitute proof in my view.  What I do see however, is a monster created by social and mainstream media with little or no official documentation to verify the accusations.  

Until such times as I see official documentation to verify the many rumours spread about Brueckner's past life and alleged misdemeanours, I cannot bring myself to believe one single word.  I can believe he was an errant petty criminal but not a depraved paedophile and sex offender as portrayed - not without proof by way of evidence from officialdom.

If any of his reported past life is to be believed, he must have met hundreds/thousands of people on his travels - why hasn't anyone come forward to speak for or against the man?  Ex-cons do not qualify!

Please don't anyone give me all that tosh about the press and public being gagged by higher authorities, that is unrealistic, I'd go so far as to say utter nonsense.

The man is currently on trial for a string of offences, not once have I seen any compelling evidence to justify the accusations against him.  Don't think for a moment I like or admire the man but I do believe in fair justice through the correct official channels - otherwise, what is the point.

It stinks!

so the rest of this trial is nearing its end, most likely of a part 1 in court.

by these words in the dpa articles in many german papers, the calendar can be made;

With the expert's report, the proceedings are entering the home straight. Another hearing is scheduled for next Wednesday, for example for decisions on motions. ‘From the chamber's point of view, however, we have had all the witnesses,’ said the judge. If there are no surprises, the hearing of evidence will be finalised. Pleadings would be possible in the second week of October.

so wednesday october 2, 2024 will be a full house of moaning, mocking and all surprises, what can become quite a full day in court.

7 and 8 october will be the dates for the pleading of prosecution and defence team, if they follow suit in the common ways, 7 october would be the prosecution, and 8 october for the defence as the last word, even the defendant never made one up to know, it would be going different if the defendant would take the stand, but his defence team is most likely wiser than that.

so 21 and 22 october could be used for one day of summonings of the trial and a verdict on the 22th.

the result can only be that one, and even both sides want to appeal, that asks quite a short term, at least in the 2005 rape case a time slot of 2 weeks was made known.

i cannot say i like this approach of long pauses between days in court for a trial. there seem not to have been anything going on that asked for that. also all 5 cases mixed up through each other and the mccann case.

the expert witness the psych was also strange to hear before a conviction, usually that is handled a bit different.

also that this witness could make use of material found in the raid on the old box factory and from a hard disk that was not very legally sound handed over in portugal. because it was not part of this trial it is strange because nothing about origins was established into resulting by an action of cb was in a legally sound way put out as produced by him too.

it is strange that when a prosecution can not use it, the expert witness kan, while in an expert witness before the profiler of the bka it was very restricted to only being allowed to make use earlier convictions and 2 cases, the 2005 rape case conviction and the 2004 rape case now in court.

i saw in the press alerts braunschweig gets a new high up guy,maybe that can bring some differences too.

i am also curious if the stories about illegal access and the use of material to listen into defendant and defence team will be followed up.

some sources use december for a verdict in this trial, i expect it will by then just a provisionairy date for a appeal court.

A comparatively old press release but very relevant to this day..

World News
Arrest warrant lifted for Maddie McCann suspect, but he will stay in prison for other conviction

FILE - Christian B. arrives at the start of his trial, at Braunschweig district court, in Brunswick, Germany, on Feb. 16, 2024. An arrest warrant against a man who is also a suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann has been lifted by a German court in an ongoing trial over several unrelated sexual offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. However, the 47-year-old German, who has been identified by media as Christian Bruckner, will remain jailed because he is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005. (Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP)

Updated 2:51 PM GMT+1, July 3, 2024

BERLIN (AP) — An arrest warrant for a man who is also a suspect in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann was lifted Wednesday by a German court in an ongoing trial over several unrelated sexual offenses he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

However, the 47-year-old German, who has been identified by media as Christian Bruckner, will remain jailed because he is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence in Germany for a rape he committed in Portugal in 2005.

The Braunschweig state court said it lifted the arrest warrant in the current case — in which Bruckner has been accused of three counts of rape and two of sexual abuse of children — because there is no urgent suspicion, German news agency dpa reported.

The suspect hasn’t been charged in the Madeleine McCann case, in which he is under investigation on suspicion of murder. He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

In the current trial, prosecutors had claimed that, at an unspecified time between 2000 and 2006, the suspect allegedly tied up and raped an elderly woman in her vacation apartment in Portugal. He allegedly beat the victim several times with a whip and recorded the incident on video.

During the same time period, he is alleged to have tied a German-speaking girl aged at least 14 to a wooden post in the living room of his residence in Praia da Luz, allegedly beating her with a whip and forcing her to perform oral sex.

However, Bruckner’s attorneys filed a motion during the trial to quash the arrest warrant because they no longer saw any reason for one after evidence in the alleged crimes had been taken in court. The court ruled that there was no “strong suspicion” with regard to all charges, dpa reported.

A verdict in the ongoing trial is expected in the fall.

The case of Madeleine McCann stirred worldwide interest for several years, with reports of sightings of her stretching as far away as Australia, along with a slew of books and television documentaries about the case.

https://apnews.com/article/germany-maddie-mccann-suspect-trial-e346c197ba3624b9f0ba8cb9303143f3#

not really the witnesses in after that moment to change that really.

i read a lot elsewhere about this being a kind of local court, surprise it is not, but most people have no idea about the make up of germany, germnany is very much alike the usa, multiple states that there are called bundeslander that make together the german republic. but all these states have their own courts and partly even their own laws and customs.

this is not a local court, but actually the 'national court' of niedersachsen, it has multiple seats, and braunschweig is one of them.
each of the bundeslander or states brings their own people in fore justice. so there is not a thing you can really call anational court for the country of germany, there is a federal court.

also it is very often that happening on mainland europe that multiple courts are simply in the same building, they even can be held in the same court room. it is not the building or address that make up the hierarchy in the court, but the people working it.
there is not even really a need for a specific building, is easy to even hold court in other places. i had that a few times because i had cases with very fragile evidence, so the judge and all others working the court had to travel, i just had to walk into our conference room next to my office.

braunschweig as a city has multiple courthouses, for criminal law there are ambtsgericht, landesgericht,and an oberlandesgericht. easier to handle cases usually end up first in an ambtsgericht, more serious offences start in the landesgericht, and they can end up in the oberlandersgericht.
but for each european country the order can be very different, not only based on seriousness of crimes, but also financial damages, and often there are multiple layers when appeals are brought. some can be order about technicalities of law, others can redo the full case of larger parts of it.
but the level of a court can not only be decided on the name, often there can be just more judges to conclude a verdict too.
it would be strange to call a landesgericht a lower court, because it is not.

if you go by the sentiments of both parties in this trial an appeal is simply to expected. and one must lose the case of course.

they have the official message out now too, they even try to get the prosecution plea in this week, another message that it will be held in a smaller court room.

Proceedings before the 2nd Criminal Chamber in connection with five offences against sexual self-determination - file number 2 KLs 213 Js 52790/18 (15/22) - Possible conclusion of the taking of evidence on 2 October 2024 and subsequent plea by the public prosecutor

the trial is officially closed off now, this morning some last things have been dealt with.

next today the plea from the prosecution is going to happen. they have said to have a need for about 3.5 hours, monday the defence will have its plea and on tuesday the verdict is to be expected.

edited;

it seems there is a need for the also claimant to have a plea, that means at least from hazel behan, who was not also a witness in this trial but brought a civil claim in to it too.

the mirror has that the prosecution asked for a guilty verdict and 15 years of jailtime.

this is a part of what most of the news outlets that use dpa will cover;

Braunschweig.
In the trial against Christian B., also suspected in the Maddie case, for serious sexual offences, the public prosecutor's office has demanded 15 years in prison for the accused. Following the prison sentence, a placement in preventive detention would be necessary, senior public prosecutor Ute Lindemann told the Braunschweig Regional Court. Should such a sentence be passed, the accused could not be released after serving his sentence.

In a plea lasting several hours, Lindemann had previously explained why she considers the accused guilty of two rapes and two cases of sexual abuse.

At the start of the trial, the 47-year-old German was accused of three rapes and two cases of sexual abuse of children, which he allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. However, Lindemann said that the accused should be acquitted of one rape allegation. The criminal chamber had closed the hearing of evidence in the morning.
---

so one rape case is already of the table of the prosecution, without a sentence for one or more of the others the secure upholding, preventative detention is not really a good translation, because detention is usually reserved for a punishment, secure upholding is different from that.

i have not seen anything about a plea by hazel behan or any others who not only were witnesses but put a civil claim in this case too.

all news outlets have in germany and the uk have more or less the same. in the mirror only the case of the playground is not named, the other 4 are, all have that it would make it very difficult when cb is spoken not guilty for the madeleine investigation.

the mirror also have a few words about a plea on behalve of hazel behan.

betting on the outcome of a court is never a wise adventure. it looks like it monday the defence and at tuesday this case will end, of course with some form of an appeal to expect.

this bit is from a german paper, and illustrates the prosecution is still at full war;

The accused, who has several previous convictions for sexual offences, is ‘extremely dangerous’ and is highly likely to commit further offences in the future, the representative of the public prosecutor's office continued. B. was ‘a dangerous psychopathic sadist’.

there is a lot more from the bz, i will translate the majority of it through deepl;

Trial against Maddie suspect Christian B. - Public prosecutor's office launches a sweeping attack
Following the opinion of psychiatric expert Dr Christian Riedemann, it considers Christian B. to be a ‘highly dangerous, psychopathic sadist’. In her opinion, the accused is guilty on four counts - two counts of rape and two counts of child abuse. In addition to a prison sentence of 15 years, Lindemann demanded that he be placed in preventive detention. Christian B., who always appeared in control, did not show any emotion at the harsh sentence. His defence lawyers had stated at the beginning of the trial that their client was innocent of all charges.
Lindemann once described the accused as a ‘liar’. His defence lawyers, in particular Friedrich Fülscher, may see the trial as a stroke of luck to become ‘famous’ and allegedly do not shy away from attempts to manipulate witnesses. On the sidelines of the trial, Lindemann also criticised what she saw as ‘one-sided reporting by parts of the media’.

Reproach to the district court: judges make no effort when taking evidence
However, the lawyer's presentation made it clear above all how deep the rifts are between the public prosecutor's office and the district court in this trial, which is attracting worldwide attention. In an often aggressive, even reprimanding tone, Lindemann denied that the three professional judges led by presiding judge Uta Engemann had the professionalism to conduct these proceedings.
Not only did the chamber not have the foresight for an urgently needed ‘overall view’ of the five accusations with the numerous pieces of evidence that in their view incriminated the accused - they also made no effort. Instead, the judges were ‘ignorant and prejudiced’. The trio, who had been criticised in this way, did not let on how they felt about this. Christian B.'s three defence lawyers appeared concentrated, taking notes, while Lindemann raised her head at most during her energetic presentation and then turned to the audience.
Christian B. case: senior public prosecutor criticises the German investigators.



As a public prosecutor, she sees her task as objectively investigating the offence and bringing the guilty party to justice. ‘The investigations were conducted according to this guideline.’ Lindemann again attacked the chamber: It had shown ‘great mistrust’ of the investigating authorities from the outset. She had the impression that ‘sometimes the police were sitting in the dock’. She found the questioning of other witnesses by the judges ‘absurd’ at times.
The head of the special department for sexual offences at the public prosecutor's office repeatedly criticised the fact that the arrest warrant against Christian B. was revoked in July 2024 at the request of the defence, i.e. long before the hearing of evidence was completed. The chamber's reasons for its decision were also criticised. ‘The chamber is not seriously interested in my arguments,’ Lindemann sharply attacked. ‘I am therefore turning to the public to make it clear that there were good reasons for an indictment, why the cancellation of the arrest warrant was wrong and why the accused should be convicted.’
Christian B. wrote down rape fantasies - prosecutor reads from the texts for the first time
Christian B. is said to have penned several texts that were seized in the course of the investigations against him. In them, he is said to have described rape fantasies as a first-person narrator. The content has so far only been hinted at in public hearings. Lindemann now presented details for the first time - hard to bear, humiliating, perverse descriptions of merciless acts of sexual violence against young and old women.

As she read out the various passages of text, some women in the audience groaned in disbelief. According to Lindemann, what Christian B. is said to have described as his ‘core fantasy’, namely the humiliation of helpless victims and the creation of fear of death, can be found in reality in the offences charged. In this context, she referred to the findings of the BKA's team of case analysts advising the police, led by Germany's top profiler Harald Dern.

Is he a serial rapist? The case of Christian B. was set in motion by the witness Helge B.
The investigation into the previously convicted sex offender Christian B. got rolling in 2017 thanks to the main witness in the case, Helge B. He had met the accused again at a festival in Spain in 2008. During a conversation about the ‘Maddie’ case and her whereabouts, the accused allegedly said: ‘She didn't scream at all.’ A confession? On the tenth day of her disappearance, Helge B. contacted the British police, who are still looking for ‘Maddie’ today. The public prosecutor's office in Braunschweig considers Christian B. to be her kidnapper and murderer.

In his statement, Helge B. incriminated himself for having stolen a video camera and film cassette together with Manfred S. from the house in Portugal of Christian B., who was temporarily imprisoned for theft, in 2006. On the tapes, the whereabouts of which are unknown, the accused is said to have documented two, perhaps even three rapes committed by him. The witness Manfred S. also claims to have seen extracts.
The evidence in the case of one victim, presumably an Italian woman, was considered too thin by the public prosecutor's office and this case was not charged. In another case involving an unknown, 70 to 80-year-old woman, Lindemann considers the accused to have been convicted by the two witnesses. Their statements would have many characteristics that would rule out a lie. However, in the case of one victim, a presumed German woman at least 14 years old, Lindemann explained that the testimony of witness Manfred S., who claims not to have recognised any explicit sexual acts in the video, was not sufficient for a conviction.
Prosecutor certain: there was probably only one offender like this in the Portuguese Algarve
The prosecutor considers the evidence for the offence in the case of the rape of the Irish woman Hazel B. in June 2004 to be established. Especially with regard to the offence. The then 20-year-old was the victim of a masked man who broke into her home at night, tied her up, raped her several times and, above all, whipped her. BKA profiler Dern had pointed out that such a modus operandi of an ‘entry-level rapist’ is extremely rare.
According to the case analysts, the Hazel B. case has clear parallels to the accused's behaviour in the Diana M. case. Christian B. was sentenced by the regional court in 2019 for this offence in 2005. It was Helge B.'s reference to the rape videos that gave the investigators the idea that there might be a connection to the unsolved Diana M. case, which had long since been closed in Portugal. Elsewhere, Lindemann repeatedly criticised the work of the Portuguese police.

Christian B. had also raped 72-year-old Diana M., tied her up and whipped her. However, he is not said to have filmed the victim. Unlike the perpetrator in the Hazel B case. Lindemann was adamant: Christian B. was highly organised, structured and careful not to leave any traces - ‘typical of a serial offender’. Proof of the offence in the Diana M. case was provided by a single hair from B. at the crime scene.
Prosecutor considers Helge B. to be absolutely credible as a witness for the prosecution
Lindemann tried to dispel any doubts about the credibility of Helge B. in his summation. He is still in the BKA witness protection programme. He had only suffered personal disadvantages as a result of the investigations and the subsequent stalking by the media. He had received a rumoured 5000 euros for an interview about the case. However, because he is said to have said nothing different in the interview than in his statements to the police, this is not suitable to accuse him of having a personal interest in falsely incriminating Christian B., according to Lindemann. Should there be an indictment and a trial in the ‘Maddie’ case, Helge B. would be one of the public prosecutor's most important witnesses.
The public prosecutor also believes that the results of the hearing of evidence prove the guilt of the accused in two cases of child abuse: on a beach in 2007 and at a public festival in 2017. The prosecutor rejected the possibility that the children had only recognised Christian B. as their alleged perpetrator when he had long been under investigation in the Maddie case. The fact that they may have been persuaded by adults of the significance of the sexual acts was not decisive, but rather the fact that the perpetrator did something in front of them and wanted them to see it.
Should Christian B. be acquitted, public prosecutor's office announces appeal
In his plea, Lindemann already announced that he would go to Karlsruhe to appeal against a possible acquittal. Time would pass before the Federal Court of Justice could make a decision, possibly more than the remaining period of Christian B.'s imprisonment. He is currently serving the remainder of his seven-year sentence in the Diana M. case. Because the public prosecutor's office had obtained an arrest warrant against him during the ongoing proceedings (which was cancelled by the court), his prison term was interrupted. He is now expected to be released in September 2025 instead of spring 2025. Christian B. could try to evade a possible new trial in Germany after his release by ‘fleeing abroad’. She recalled that he had done this repeatedly in the past, Lindemann warned. She therefore also demanded that a new arrest warrant be issued and executed.

------

the daily mail seems to have their own piece, i will try to upload that tomorrow, but it was multiple hours of talking, so there is a lot to study from this, there could be remarks in it that never reached the public before. it are always quite nasty words to read, but that is the world of crime, no sweet talking there.

but it is nice to have the weekend to look at it and see what is not already known, monday it will be up to the defence, i do not really expect a nicer plea from there.

this the plain text from the daily mail from yesterday;

A chief prosecutor made a stirring final plea in a German court today, slamming the prime suspect in the case of Madeleine McCann as a 'sadistic psychopath' and demanding he receive 15 years for horrific sex offences.
Convicted paedophile and rapist Christian Brueckner, 47, is the man who German investigators believe abducted three-year-old Madeleine from her parents' holiday apartment in the Algarve, Portugal in 2007.
Brueckner is currently on trial in Braunschweig, northern Germany, for a string of non-related sex offences in Portugal, including three cases of rape, and two cases of allegedly pleasuring himself in front of children.
Chief public prosecutor Ute Lindemann, who has headed the investigation, has already officially tried to have the current judge, Ute Insa Engemann, removed from the case, claiming that she is biased in favour of the defence.

But today chief prosecutor Lindemann had to make a lengthy plea to the very same judge, arguing she should convict Brueckner of these grotesque sex offences in Portugal.
'The defence lawyer said in an interview it is all about winning for him. But the prosecution is not about winning. My job is to make sure to find out what happens and then to hold those involved to account.'
In court prosecutor Lindemann did not hold back when it came to criticism of the presiding judge, Ute Insa Engemann saying: 'It is my conviction that the chamber will not seriously interest itself in my opinion because it has already expressed that it is set on an acquittal for the accused.'
And she said she had been so shocked by the judge's interrogation of one police witness 'you sometimes had the impression that the police officer was sitting on the bench for the accused'.
In one case, that of prosecution witness, Manfred Seifert, Lindemann even said the judge had put him under so much pressure and displayed such 'aggression' that by the end of his five hours he no longer knew what he was saying and could not properly string together a sentence.

The most chilling moment during the hearing was when Lindemann revealed explicit and gruesome quotes from twisted rape fantasies Brueckner is alleged to have written, some of which had been found in his email inbox.
The details are so graphic that in the last hearing, the forensic psychiatrist Dr Christian Riedeman said they could not even be read out in court, but today Lindemann referred to two of them in detail.
One story involved the kidnapping of a 25 year old mother and her young daughter who were driven in a van to an abandoned farm, where they were placed in two rooms.
Both of the victims were beaten. In one room, the mother was tied by her legs to steel bars and had to watch on camera while her daughter was raped, orally, vaginally and anally, from the other room by a man in black, wearing a mask with slits for the eyes and mouth.

Throughout the story Lindemann would interject, arguing there is a direct link between the details of this sadistic rape fantasy and the brutal rape of Irish national Hazel Behan in Portugal.
Behan was also raped by a man wearing a black mask, with slits for the eyes and nose. She was also tied up by the legs to the metal legs of the breakfast bar, before being anally raped both there and in her bedroom and the living room.
Lindemann said this was all about 'core fantasies, the rituals of tormenting and humiliating and getting a kick out of the suffering of the victims'.
Lindemann made specific reference to how in one of his alleged rape fantasy stories, Brueckner had written that he had said to his child rape victim 'Are you afraid? Good. Because I am going to really hurt you and make you scream really loud' before explicitly detailing exactly how he was going to rape them.
This was then linked to how Behan, who, after being tied up to the breakfast bar, was then asked by her rapist 'You're afraid aren't you?'
When Behan then said no, she was brutally raped and then asked, 'Now are you afraid?'
'Here it is about the excitement through fear, and humiliating the female victims,' Lindemann said.
Another story the prosecution says was found to be linked to Brueckner, written for children aged six and upwards, is a disturbing tale '…in which he comes across as an exceptionally brutal rapist of children.'
Here he described where he rapes girls vaginally, anally, orally, uses whips and ties them up.
Here Lindemann referred to how in all the rapes he was being charged with, Brueckner is supposed to have raped the woman in a variety of ways, also tying them up to humiliate and scare then, and using whips to hurt them.
At the last court hearing last Friday, the 32nd hearing in this case, the prosecution case was arguably strengthened by the verdict of the in-court forensic psychiatrist Dr Christian Riedemann, who gave a damning assessment of the accused.
In July the prosecution had suffered a devastating blow when the current judge ruled that the evidence against Brueckner in relation to these sex charges was 'insufficient', which was widely interpreted as a strong indication that he could be acquitted.
And were Brueckner acquitted, German authorities would have to be able to prove that he poses a danger to society for them to be able to impose 'preventive detention' and keep him behind bars.

Supporting the prosecution in court last Friday, forensic psychiatrist Dr Christian Riedemann, 54, who is also the chief physician and director of the Bad Rehburg correctional facility, made it clear that he considered the accused to be extremely dangerous.
'He belongs in the absolute top league of dangerousness,' he said.
He determined that Brueckner had a 'sexual preference disorder' which also had 'sadistic and paedophilic elements'.
Specifically he said that Brueckner seemed to gain a sense of satisfaction from tormenting, subjugating and humiliating others.
And he added that there was 'a 30 to 50 percent probability' that Brueckner could commit further crimes within two years if he were free.
Dr Riedemann had sought to interview Brueckner, but the accused had refused.
'I would like to ask him a lot of questions. He has refused to be assessed. I therefore have to speculate about a lot of things' said Riedemann.
Dr Riedemann had to use prison files as a basis for his assessment.
Here Brueckner was described as displaying a range of bad behaviour towards the prison guards and constantly trying to cause trouble.
And he was also slammed as 'arrogant', 'manipulative', 'passive aggressive', 'cynical' and 'inaccessible'.
Riedemann also described how he had used a model in which the defendant was compared to 1,078 other criminals, and said here '98 to 99 percent of the prognosis was more favourable'.
He added that Brueckner was unable to accept any responsibility for his criminal acts, and had an 'inflated' self of his own importance.
Born in 1976 in the southern German town of Wurzburg, Christian Brueckner was allegedly mistreated by his foster parents, who are supposed to have beaten him and even locked him for days without water in a darkened cellar.
He has a long criminal history, and has already been convicted over a dozen times.
His crimes have included theft, driving offences, forging documents and a range of sex offences against both children and adults.

He first abused a child in 1993, then in 1994, aged just 17, he was sentenced to two years in youth custody for both this crime and another act of abuse.
But instead of serving the sentence, Brueckner fled to Portugal when he continued a life of crime.
He was arrested in Portugal in 1999 and extradited to Germany.
He is currently serving the end of his sentence for the rape of US national Diana Menkes in Portugal in 2005, and has spent these seven years in solitary confinement.
It is possible a verdict will be given next week as the defense is set to give its final plea Monday.

Madeleine McCann suspect faces 15-year prison term in unrelated trial


Christian Brückner (left) has been on trial in Braunschweig since February

Maia Davies
BBC News

Published
2 October 2024

German prosecutors have said the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance should face 15 years in prison for sex crimes unrelated to the missing girl.

Christian Brückner, 47, has been on trial since February charged with three counts of rape and two counts of sexual abuse.

The allegations date back to between 2000 and 2017 and are not related to McCann’s case, for which Brückner denies involvement and has never been charged.

On Wednesday, chief prosecutor Ute Lindemann described Brückner as a "dangerous, psychopathic sadist" and said he should be placed in preventive detention after serving his sentence.

The statute of limitations was found to have expired on one of the rape allegations, meaning it was not included in the prosecution's sentencing demands.

However, Lindemann called for a sentence of 13 years in total for the remaining two counts of rape, and two years in total for the two counts of sexual abuse.

She said there was a "high degree of certainty" that Brückner would reoffend.

Brückner's lawyers have previously said the case is based on "very shaky foundations".

They have also questioned whether their client can get a fair trial after being publicly linked, by prosecutors, to the disappearance of Madeleine. He was named as the main suspect in the McCann case in 2020.

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared during a family holiday in Praia da Luz, Algarve, Portugal, in 2007.

It became one of the most high-profile missing person cases, but her whereabouts are still unknown.

Warning: You may find some of the details of the case distressing

Brückner's trial is being heard by judges - not a jury - in Braunschweig, in the north-western state of Lower Saxony, because that was where Brückner was last officially registered.

The charges are for five alleged separate offences:

The rape of a woman aged 70 to 80 in her holiday apartment in Portugal between 2000 and 2006

The rape of a girl of at least 14 at a house where he lived in Praia de Luz between 2000 and 2006

The rape of an Irish woman whose holiday flat he is alleged to have broken into from her balcony in Praia da Rocha in 2004. In all three rape cases, Brückner is accused of whipping the victim and filming the assaults

Sexual abuse of a 10-year-old German girl on a beach in Salema in 2007

Forcing an 11-year-old girl to watch a sex act at a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines during a festival in 2017

A key witness told the court that he had seen videos of Brückner raping an elderly woman and a young girl.

In July, Brückner’s defence team won a bid to cancel an arrest warrant against him.

However, this was a technicality, since he is already serving a seven-year jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Praia da Luz in 2005.

The prosecution criticised the move, while Brückner’s lawyer Friedrich Fülscher said it was a clear sign he would be acquitted.

This trial may determine whether Brückner remains behind bars when his current sentence ends.
Who is Christian Brückner?

Brückner was born in Bavaria, Germany, in December 1976.

It is reported that he spent time in care while growing up.

He has previously been convicted for drug, theft and child sex offences.

Prosecutors have said he lived “more or less permanently” in the Algarve between 1995 and 2007.

In the immediate wake of Madeleine McCann's disappearance, he was not closely investigated.

But he was named as a suspect by German investigators in June 2020 in what they have classed as a murder inquiry.

Portuguese authorities subsequently named him as a formal suspect, or an arguido, in 2022.

No charges have ever been brought against him and full details of the German investigation have never been released.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgmk2g1zpzo

Still very shaky.

The only thing that can set the record straight once and for all is a full transcript of the court proceedings, in English and translated by a professional.

Press and media coverage amounts to little or nothing without, they all put their own slant on the press agency's release, depending on the audience they are preaching to.

The BBC report appears accurate in terms of what's known in the public domain but alas, not in the courtroom.

Heavy words have been used over the months and years to describe Brueckner's character, or the Brueckner they want you to see. We can all think one way or another but when it comes down to criminal proceedings only the police and the court matter - the judicial system, not a journalist nor an armchair detective.

It's still difficult to believe a court of law in the civilized world, would condemn a man or woman to long term imprisonment on hearsay and the words of known felons - with a grudge it would seem.

Where is the evidence ....

For the love of good, please keep the name Madeleine McCann out of this. Christian Brueckner is not on trial for any crime relating to the child's disappearance!

He is said to be the latest 'prime suspect' in the case of Madeleine McCann and again, this week, it has been suggested by the tabloid press this shocking heartbreaking news is fresh agony to the McCann family, another devastating set-back - Brueckner could be out of prison early next year, dashing their hopes, a result that would be catastrophic for the ongoing investigation into Madeleine's disappearance.

'a result that would be catastrophic for the ongoing investigation into Madeleine's disappearance' - eh?

Is this yet another case of say it often enough and it will be believed?

Where is the evidence ....

they do not publish full court transcripts in germany, they do usually publish the full verdicts online, i did a read up shortly after the first making a perp by the prosecution in the madeleine case, but it was pretty quickly taken down from view. but that been only the reports of the full verdicts of all his cases.
i still try from tme to time to see if they are back up again, but no luck so far.

but even with a full transcript of the court , you do not get everything, all parties get a full prosecution file and that is not open to public view.

the judges can only decide based on what ends up in court, but that includes these files, and there can be stuff handed in from the defence team too, that only will be handled in chambers.

so it still comes to pick and choose by all parties and what the media takes from that i am afraid.

from what is getting out, you cannot leave out the idea that it still is all happening because they still have not the evidence to bring charges and bring a case about the madeleine case on.

it still is not that clear which of the rape cases are taken of as not proven at all. what makes it so unsure is that rape is not really the correct term for these actions. and when it is about children under 14 , the threshold to call it as rape is pretty low in german law. the best translation is maybe sexual actions without consent of the other party, and no longer the classic meaning of rape in what actually takes place. so even if it in the classical sense of rape in most other countries would not be called rape anymore, it will be handled as equal under modernised german laws.
the german law fixates much more about that without consent, than what technically does happen. children under 14 are under the age to give consent so by that is reached much earlier in the same meaning.

Oh lordy, it's gaining traction by the minute - or has the department of AI just woken up to the alarm..

Why do they take and select the most sinister images of Brueckner for their tabloid reports - as if we didn't know.

It would be nothing short of a catastrophe if folk were condemned, worse still imprisoned, because of how they look.




Ribbit! Ribbit!

the official convo/memo is out;

Proceedings before the 2nd Criminal Chamber in connection with five offences against sexual self-determination - case no. 2 KLs 213 Js 52790/18 (15/22) - verdict expected to be delivered on 8 or 21 October 2024

In the proceedings of the 2nd Criminal Chamber in case no. 2 KLs 213 Js 52790/18, both the public prosecutor's office and the joint plaintiff pleaded on 2 October 2024. The defence plea is now to follow on 7 October 2024.


The 2nd Criminal Chamber has announced that the verdict will be announced on Tuesday, 8 October 2024, or Monday, 21 October 2024

so it can take with bad luck a bit longer to get to the outcome of this round in court.

other sources, but i have no idea how trustworthy they are, speak of a total sentencing of 15 years, 13 for the two rapes, hazel b and the old lady, and 2 years for the two cases with children, acquittal for the young lady at the pole case. at least that are the wishes of the prosecution.

there is little love lost between prosecution and the court. after what i get with looking into the german news outlets for news about this case i can see how that not only stems from this trial. one of the prosecution officers in this case vanessa b. has last week lost a earlier conviction in another case for parents who been accused and convicted for horrible abuse of their daughter and stepdaughter, over 10 years of jail time asked, already kept a long time in pre arrest, and at least for the mother also asked for secure upholding, that case ended in spoken free of any misdeeds, all rested on the fantasy of the daughter and even bad policing was listed. if i find the time it may deserve its own write up.

and in this trial this landesgericht first said simply no to accepting this 5 cases at all, they needed a overturning by the oberlandesgericht a higher court to start it off. the overturning of the arrest warrant in this case did not make that better at all. and trying to get the judges of, twice did maybe not much in the relations.

even in the last plea there is mostly mocking about procedures.

and the german prosecution in braunschweig also has a lot of critics about hiding a rape case by a young asylum seeker on a even younger girl, in or around a swimming pool there in the area.

so the prosecution itself is not a happy one at the moment, they will have a new boss so who knows what effect that will have on all this going on.

the quality of the witnesses as listed by the prosecution will be getting more attention on monday in the plea of the defence team.

at least this would not go down in history at all as a typical case of german punctuality, correctness and playing fair and by the rules at all.

If, that's a very big if, Brueckner is sentenced for any one of these trumped-up (that name again) charges, it can only be thought of as a gross miscarriage of justice!

The only person to appear before the court as a victim was Hazel Behan and her testimony was far from convincing, if reports are to be taken seriously.  Even her other half was said to have disbelieved her story - hardly surprising really.  

Some people would sell their soul for a palm of silver.

A profilers view of Brueckner - 'Well he looks like the sort of person who could rob, abduct or murder anyone between the age of 0 and 110 years.  Don't say anything but a friend of a friend of a friend told me down the pub blah blah blah'

Where is the evidence?  Buried in a disused factory under a dead dog or scrapped in an old camper van or drowned in a reservoir somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland?

Pull the other one!

there is indeed no material evidence at all.

in itself is does not even matter that much in how far the words of a victim witness are fully true, because the words itself in this form spoken cannot be used to prove anything, the substance is missing, all that was promised in the media through this witness never became evidence for the court. like the unended story was it a scar,or a something in the cloth the supposed offender was wearing. that could be things that could be evidence from words.

and that is missing in most of the stories, if not all. the story with cb as middle point is not shining through it all. it are all nasty stories but that does not guide you to cb as the offender, and these stories keep the same if you but another guy in the docks.

i simply did not get anything that would fit only cb in that role of offender.

the videos are a big problem, besides the two scrooges no one spoke about having seen them. even when you go to the statements of christian p. the one from thailand, he put in this trial he hauled away a large collection of footage, all he did noticed what dirty hand written titles on boxes, in itself that would not cover with the actual content at all. he did not look at any footage.

so you cannot even take from that cb had a large collection of so called dirty movies in that little finca near praia da luz, most people would easily rule it being that.

i do not, because we had once arrested a thief, he stole only the carton casings, at his home we found a complete wall full with well known movie titels on the back, inside only videos of his family, but most even just football games on it.
so by that you cannot call out a video by its cover at all.

people do very odd things, that look bad, without doing things against the law.

after what i have read up on this week, and the former presentations of the hcw adventures abroad, i think the prosecution in braunschweig are of the easy falling for a good story kind at best.

and they can simply use the process by indications what is fully in line with the german law routes, in this case it meant getting as much boys and girls in the stand telling bad stories about cb, most not even in relation to any of these cases at all. none of all who knew cb best could name a direct example that related to any of these cases at all. the meaning of confessions was not related to any of these 5 cases at all. and the ones used to get some lines in the news about connections to the case of madeleine are way off the meaning of confessions as can be. not even one unique segment or word, that not could be found in the media, where ever you would be in the world.

i still cannot believe how these cases got through a prosecution office. if i had tried that 20 years ago, they still would be laughing about it. only after reading up in another case of the same offices, i start to think the new guy will have to do a lot of work there. herculean tasks comes to mind.

Ask Sandra Felgueiras, it is she who has propagated many of the rumours circulating mainstream press and media and social media.

Why remains to be seen.

Don't bother trying to make any sense of Artificial Intelligence - it tells lies!

All the years spent trying to make sense of it all and along comes AI to throw a spanner in the proverbial.

Searching for some information about German criminal law courts, this was at the foot of the page.

Generative AI is experimental. For legal advice, consult a professional.
Anon

Seriously, what hope is there when you try to get to the truth only to be bamboozled with gibberish.

That's Artificial Intelligence for you.

What did this poor bloke ever do to deserve being randomly connected to Brueckner or the case of missing Madeleine McCann?

Such a goggle search could create grave problems for the innocent. It's surprising some 'researcher' out there hasn't concocted a connection between the two and kicked off yet another myth of mistaken identity.

I guess there's still time ....

while it is waiting today for the plea of the defence team, there is other news. reme3mber day one on february 16 this spring, when the lay judge/magistrate/schöffen was taken of the seat in the trial of cb.

there is a conviction, preliminary it seems, this bit is from the bz news online;

In the meantime, the scandalous former juror, who would have had a major say in the question of guilt in the Christian B. case, has had to answer as a defendant herself before the responsible district court in Goslar. The spokesperson for the public prosecutor's office, Andreas Buik, told our editorial team: ‘The former juror was found guilty of four counts of public incitement to commit criminal offences to the detriment of the then President of Brazil, Bolsonaro.’

Ex-jurywoman in the Christian B. case sentenced to a fine of 2,500 euros - albeit with a suspended sentence and probation
The defendant was credited with the fact that the calls to ‘x’ dated back to August 2019. ‘In view of the lapse of time, a fine was not imposed and instead a warning with a suspended sentence was issued. The reserved penalty is 50 daily rates of 50 euros each. The probation period is one year. This decision is final.’

so behave for a year and all is done, only not likely she will be able to get a seat in court in front of all other parties again.

a lot of german sources have a kind of write up over the trial, most not with enthusiastic uproar of a already 'that will be a conviction', much more the opposite, bad witnesses, untrustworthy witnesses.

the braunscweiger zeitung even has is worked out with a second interview with rob hyde, who delivered most material behind all information that been reworked in the english news oultlet.

most is behind paywalls.

but there are bits that are of interest, like this bit from der spiegel;

about the bka profiler;

>Further confusion is later added by expert witness Harald Dern, day 28 of the trial, who heads the Operative Case Analysis at the Federal Criminal Police Office, a procedure in which investigators examine the defining processes and context of a case and create a profile of the perpetrator. Dern sees similarities between the rape of the 72-year-old American woman, for which Christian B. was convicted in 2019, and the rape of the Irish woman Hazel B., for example in the course of the offences and the use of violence, which was more of a focus than sexual gratification. In Dern's opinion, Christian B. could well be the rapist of Hazel B.

However, when questioned by the court and the defence lawyers about the differences in the modus operandi, the expert falters. In the end, the court will have to judge why an offender chooses two victims of such different ages; why he speaks English in one case and Portuguese in the other; why he only uses gloves and condoms with Hazel B. and films the crime, but not in 2005, and why the sadistic details differ significantly. <

do not forget the hazel b. case was in 2005, the diana m. case was in 2005, so we cannot put that into advancements by experience, in that case many points been the other way round, more protection. it is very unclear if cb actually was able to speak portuguese or the reach of his spoken english. in writing cb proved he was very able to make use of the english language, he was already in solitary upholding in jail and going by the noise not at great understanding of the workers there, so help and assistance in that is not really expected.

again there is word from portugal that there have been at least 3 other cases that could fit the mo of the video description as given by helge b. only the bka asked only for unsolved cases, the hazel b. case was not fitting the mo asked for in the letter of the bka in the eyes of the portuguese police. only these 3 other cases are solved in portugal.

also the mo is less rare as many like to think, but it is a shame the original questions of the bka never seem to have shown up in this court, so we cannot make our own opinion about how equal or different the cases are.

going by snippets the case of the young lady was brought on the original list of charges, but now the prosecution asked for a acquittal for that case, because only helge b ended up as single witness about it, manfred s. seems made known in court a different story as we know of him in his media presentations, and could not reflect about anything that could be explained as sexual abuse at all in what he supposedly saw on a supposedly once upon a time in 2006 was taken from a little finca.
i do not get why all news outlets had so much trouble explaining that bit before.

a lot have bits about the witnesses that are seen as scumbags, what they simply are. helge b we still can read up about, manfred told he joined cb in stealing and grabbing stuff, but no one was ever in the understanding that was ever mister angle dust of course. manfred needs just a question and puts even helge b under the bus.

others have bits about how the bka left the prosecution standing in their underwear, as the dutch would call that, by the search on the old box factory without the warrant, and grabbing digital material from another country, without any permissions or even making note of that.
the strange result because it seems the material was still be used by throwing in parts they could save by asking microsoft for material in let call it their clouds on old email accounts cb must have said used. only by this olympic gymnastics level work it could as it seems used in court and even by the psych cb himself never wanted to talk too, so only a tentative diagnosis could be used to testify about.

not only during this plea the prosecution ladies did not hold back in the use of explicit wording, they dit that in their opening statements too, and most about the hazel b. case and the writings of cb, what in itself maybe nasty, but that part itself is not a criminal offence.

going by snippets again, it seems there was not even spend much energy during this trial to prove these written pieces and stories are made by cb himself.

again we would be naive to see the existence of such very nasty stories as a rare find, it is not. in the late seventies many been around in print and not even in the productions on the highest shelves or behind a curtain in dutch convenient stores. not the children stuff, that was already under the till or behind a curtain sold by then. i found a lot of printed stories that had same content under many beds, in side cupboards, or in attics. many by then illegal to produce and print or sell, but writing them or thinking it never was forbidden by any law at all, ans the last still are not criminal offences.
the writers of such stories are usually not criminal at all, most do work from home, and as many women as men write the stuff.

i am actually glad most of these stories are never gone beyond thoughts of people, they are quite horrible. and there is a lot of more harder to get stuff that has its own circles of people who enjoy them and they often have circles to share and exchange the stuff too. most of that is not criminal at all too.

the daily mail printed most of the words of the prosecution about the charges in hazel b. her case in at least their online news outlet. it is not unique to hear these words in court, but most reporters still prefer to use a more decent description from them.
i favour that approach. because the real spoken words often are given their own attention, instead of the trial that is going on.

i had not expected that all the parts would be handled in an open public court too, as there were 3 cases with legal minors at the time the supposedly happened and both others a still young woman and an elderly lady in vulnerable positions, meant in court, a closed court could have be very acceptable. the playground case still had legal minors as witnesses.

rob hyde noticed in his interview by bz, that he found it remarkable that the bka makes no use of taping or video witnesses during giving police statements, and that all was done very conservatively in reflection to the uk approach in that.

i remember i heard coworkers of him reflect the same long ago about the portuguese police, and when we ended up with the rogatory interviews of witnesses as done in the uk system, that did not worked very flawlessly eiter!
still there is a easy explanation, there is a large difference for what is said during an investigation stage under the police in most continental law systems, the court is seen as a separate institution, with its own rules and regulations on that, the differences found in statements to the police and that as given in a court of law can be used against each other, but telling porkies to the police in a statement is a much lesser burden as doing the same in a court of law.

most continental law systems also work from a law that witnesses are mandatory in telling the truth in all their statements, so in most cases they are not even under oath. some court systems ask that all are under oath or promise, but in germany that is not often an overall approach. they sometimes do , and very often not.

the mirror is the first it seems;

Madeliene McCann suspect Christian Brueckner should never have been charged with vile sex crimes in Portugal, his lawyer argued today.

Brueckner, 47, is on trial in Germany accused of raping women and exposing himself to children in the Algarve. The charges are unconnected to the Madeleine case, which the German paedophile denies any involvement in. Prosecutors called last week for Brueckner to be jailed for 15 years for the alleged crimes in Portugal.

But Judge Ute Engemann ruled in July that the evidence against him was “insufficient” - a strong indication that he will be acquitted. Prosecutors have relied on the evidence of Helge Busching, who claims to have seen videos of Brueckner raping two women. Busching also tipped off police about the German paedophile’s alleged involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.

He claimed Brueckner told him “she didn’t scream” when they discussed the infamous case in a Spanish bar. The pair were pals in Praia da Luz in the mid-2000s. In his closing speech today, Brueckner’s lawyer Friedrich Fuelscher slammed star witness Busching. He branded him a liar, describing Busching as “a person who lies and tries to make himself look important”.

Mr Fuelscher told Braunschweig regional court: “There is no evidence at all which supports what he said.” Brueckner sat motionless by his lawyer’s side this morning, dressed in the same grey blazer he has worn throughout the eight-month trial. Mr Fuelscher told judges: “This trial should never have taken place.

“If it was any other person, then on the basis of the evidence it would never have come to trial. The day has long passed whereby we lock away people based on them and not their crime.” He accused prosecutors of “trying to influence the opinion of the public”.

Mr Fuelscher pointed out that two of Brueckner’s alleged rape victims had never been traced. “You have to ask, how likely is it that people who have suffered like that would not have reported it?” he said. “And yet the German authorities and police put a lot of effort into researching this, and found nothing.”

The German is suspected of abducting and killing three-year-old Madeleine in Praia da Luz in May 2007. He is currently serving a seven-year prison term for raping an American pensioner in the Portuguese resort. If Brueckner is cleared he will be freed next year - which is a nightmare scenario for Madeleine investigators.

Detectives appear no closer to proving he was behind her disappearance - despite claiming they have proof she is dead. A not guilty verdict would increase the pressure on them to charge Brueckner over Madeleine’s disappearance. Prosecutors are expected to appeal to a higher court in Germany if he is cleared of the charges. A verdict could come as soon as tomorrow.

Brueckner is accused of carrying out sickening crimes in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017. They include the alleged rape of Irish tour rep Hazel Behan, who was attacked in her Praia da Rocha apartment in 2004. Brueckner is also accused of raping a teenage woman in his Praia da Luz home and raping an elderly woman in her holiday apartment.

He faces a child sex charge for allegedly exposing himself to a German girl on a beach in Salema in April 2007. His final charge relates to an alleged indecent exposure in front of an 11-year-old in 2017.

there will be more i think, it started directly around 9 o'clock this morning, there can even be a pause for lunches too, but it would be nice to get as much as possible to see difference between this and the plea of the prosecution.