THE legal fight to convict Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner will reach a high-stakes climax early next year, The Olive Press can reveal.
Germany’s highest court has officially scheduled the appeal hearing over the paedophile’s shock acquittal on five horrific sex offences.
However, in a blow to those hoping for swift justice, the critical proceedings will not take place until January 11, 2027.
Official court correspondence obtained by The Olive Press confirms that the 6th Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (case reference 6 StR 173/25) will convene at 11am to hear the legal challenges lodged by state prosecutors and victims’ legal teams (Nebenklägerinnen).
Highlighting the historic scale of the case, the hearing has been moved entirely out of the Federal Court’s standard chambers.
Presiding Judge Dr Louisa Bartel confirmed that due to massive expected international interest, the court has taken the extraordinary step of borrowing the grand Plenary Hall of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig under special administrative assistance.
Should the judges require a separate session to pronounce their final verdict, the historic hall has been reserved for January 14.
Brueckner, 49, was acquitted by a Braunschweig regional court in October 2024 of three counts of aggravated rape and two counts of child sexual abuse allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
German prosecutors immediately filed an appeal on points of law, aiming to overturn the verdict. They even claimed the original judge who held the case in Braunschweig was ‘biased’.
The fresh legal battle comes as investigators continue to hit legal brick walls despite making him the prime suspect in the case of snatched toddler, Madeleine McCann, 3, on the Algarve in 2007.
Extradition experts have warned that any hopes of putting Brueckner on trial in the UK remain complicated.
Because he is a German citizen, post-Brexit trade and extradition rules mean Germany must routinely refuse to surrender a national to British jurisdiction.
If so it means a domestic prosecution in Germany – or in Portugal – would be the only viable paths.
That said, sources in Germany, told The Olive Press, earlier this year that police in the UK had been working with their counterparts in Germany, to work on a trial in London.
Despite extensive Portuguese reservoir searches and ongoing police probes, no direct criminal charges have yet been brought against Brueckner specifically regarding Madeleine’s disappearance.
Police however have unearthed an extensive dossier of sadistic child abduction stories that Brueckner wrote.
Brueckner has also confided in friends of his involvement in the snatch.
The German paedophile was living in the area at the time of Maddie’s abduction and his mobile phone was used for a 30-minute call just outside her hotel an hour before.
For nearly 20 years, The Olive Press has continually beaten global media outlets to break the biggest developments on the Algarve’s most infamous cold case.
Brueckner lived for many years between Portugal and Spain, where he had many business dealings, the majority of them illegal.
He spent at least two years in prison in Portugal for various offenses and the sex offender has been convicted back in Germany well over a dozen times.
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