The former cellmate of a key suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has spoken out in court about an alleged confession.
The heartbreaking story of Madeleine McCann's disappearance has captured the hearts of people around the world, as the search for the missing UK child continues.
Back in 2007, a three-year-old Madeleine was enjoying a family vacation in Praia da Luz, Portugal.
On the evening of May 3, Madeleine disappeared from her bed in a vacation apartment while he parents - Kate and Gerry McCann - were dining with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant. Madeleine had been left in the apartment with her siblings.
She has never been found.
In recent years, the prime suspect has become convicted pedophile Christian Brueckner.
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BBC News reports that at the time of McCann's disappearance, Brueckner was living in the area out of a camper van. Experts say a phone attributed to Brueckner placed him within a 30-minute window of the McCann's vacation resort.
Brueckner’s former cellmate, Laurentiu Codin, told a court on Wednesday (September 25) that the German convict confessed to abducting a child in Portugal.
"He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there,” Codin told the court, per The Mirror. "He was in a region where there are hotels and rich people live. He said there was somewhere with an open window, he told me this. He was looking for money.
"He said he didn’t find any money but found a kid and took the child. He said that two hours later, there were police and dogs all over the place, so he then went away, out of the area."
“I am just saying what he told me. He told me that a person was with him, who he had had an argument with, allegedly it was his woman. He said he took the child in Portugal in his car, and in the time when the police and dogs were at the house, he drove away and he was gone.
“He asked me if the DNA from a child can be taken from bones under the ground.”
Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old American pensioner in Portugal.
Brueckner was named as the official suspect in Madeleine's disappearance in 2022 after a VW campervan he is believed to have been living in at the time was reportedly spotted near the Praia da Luz resort in Portugal where Madeleine was last seen.
In a letter sent from his prison cell and seen exclusively by the Daily Mail, Brueckner has described himself as "the most known bad person in the world".
In his five-page letter, the Daily Mail reported that Brueckner stated: "I'm the most-known bad person in the world and I did nothing - well almost nothing."
Referring directly to McCann's disappearance, Brueckner continued: "They had [sic] not even one proof that I was involved with the McCann case. And they still don't have it."
He claimed he is only being suspected because of his criminal history.
"They have no hairs or anything from Maddie what means [sic] that nobody can put anything like that into my stuff to find it," he wrote.
