BERLIN (AP) – A German man who is also suspected in the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann won’t go on trial before next year on charges related to a string of other sexual offences he is alleged to have committed, a court said yesterday.
Prosecutors in the northern city of Braunschweig announced on Tuesday they charged the 45-year-old in several separate cases involving sexual offences allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
The suspect has not been charged in the McCann case, in which he remains 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 denied any involvement in her disappearance.
The suspect, identified by media as Christian Brueckner, is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for a rape he also committed in Portugal in 2005.
The Braunschweig state court said yesterday it received the over 100-page indictment.
The court will now have to decide whether to send the case to trial, a necessary step in the German legal process. Before it does so, the defence will have the opportunity to respond to the charges and raise possible objections to a trial.
The court said, due to its schedule with other cases, the opening of any trial shouldn’t be expected this year.
