Madeleine McCann police in Germany ‘were warned that they could wreck the investigation
German police officers investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann were warned that they could ruin their investigation by relying on a ‘flaky’ witnessed who was nicknamed Helge Bulls***ter, it has been claimed.
Christian Brueckner, 45, was named last year by prosecutors as the key suspect in the disappearance and murder of the three-year-old in 2007.
The police’s case is largely centred around his former friend Helge Busching’s testimony that Brueckner chillingly told him when they were discussing Madeleine’s disappearance that ‘she didn’t scream’.
But Mr Busching is now ‘wobbling’ and is on the verge of withdrawing his evidence, according to sources close to the German investigation.
And sources have today claimed German officers were warned of Mr Busching’s ‘flakiness’, with one revealing he had even earned the nickname ‘Helge Bulls***ter’ amongst Portuguese officers, according to the Sun.
Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in May 2007
Christian Brueckner was named last year by prosecutors as the key suspect in the disappearance and murder of the three-year-old
The source said: ‘Helge B is someone the Portuguese officers have known about for a long, long time. But he was discounted as a credible witness ages ago.
‘He was always seen as a Walter Mitty character who would talk ‘bulls**t’ all the time hence the nickname.
‘They warned the Germans he was a bit of a fantasist and that he was ‘flakey’ and how he’d say what you wanted to hear. But, for some reason the German detectives latched on to him.
‘They’ve pinned pretty much their entire case on his evidence, despite being warned he wasn’t to be trusted. Now, with him looking to back out, their credibility has been totally shot to bits.’
Mr Busching gave Brueckner’s name to British police in 2017, around the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance.
Busching claims that Brueckner told him at a Spanish kite festival in 2008 that he was involved in Madeleine’s abduction from Praia da Luz a year earlier.
When asked in 2020 what he thought of Brueckner, Busching said: ‘One word. Guilty.’
Busching, who now lives on the French island of Corsica, added: ‘He is in the right place at the moment and hopefully he will stay there a long time’.
After German prosecutors announced they were investigating Brueckner in June, the Metropolitan Police revealed they had received a tip-off about him in 2017.
‘Following the ten-year anniversary, the Met received information about a German man who was known to have been in and around Praia da Luz,’ detective chief inspector Mark Cranwell said at the time.
But now it’s feared that Mr Busching is not a reliable witness, as it emerged Portuguese officers gave him the nickname ‘Helge Bulls***ter’.
A source told the Sun Mr Busching is ‘wobbling’ and is on the verge of withdrawing his evidence.
‘He was paid a huge sum to repeat his statement in a German newspaper and now he’s pulling the plug,’ a German source said.
‘It just goes to show you what type of people you are dealing with — and their credibility as witnesses.’
Convicted rapist and paedophile Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year jail sentence in Germany for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2005.
A police search team walk on the shore of the Arade dam near Silves, Portugal, in May 2023
A map shows the movements of Brueckner around the Algarve at the time Madeleine disappeared while on a family holiday
Madeleine was snatched just nine days before her fourth birthday while she was left sleeping alone with her younger twin siblings
Yesterday, it was claimed that Brueckner has written begging letters to his former friends asking them to talk about what a ‘good guy’ he is in court in a bid to clear his name.
Brueckner moaned in one letter to a friend that prosecutors were making him out to be a ‘monster’.
Brueckner, who prosecutors say is responsible for Madeleine’s 2007 kidnap and murder, begged two of his friends to support him in court if he has to stand trial on separate rape and child sex charges.
‘I know of two people who got the messages from Chris,’ Brueckner’s former friend who is still in touch with those who knew Brueckner in the Algarve told the Mirror.
‘It really freaked them out. They hadn’t heard from him in years and then these letters suddenly arrived in the post from Germany.’
The source added: ‘He was asking them to speak in his defence, about what a good guy he is. He said the German police and prosecutors have it in for him, that they are saying he is a monster.
‘It’s outrageous for Chris to ask for help because now we all know about his past. Back when we were hanging with him in the early 2000s it was all a secret. We didn’t know he was a paedophile. But now he doesn’t stand a chance of anybody speaking up for him in court.’
Brueckner is currently languishing in a German prison for the rape of a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal just 18 months before Madeleine was abducted.
His trial heard he planned the sex attack having broken into the victim’s house with a rope to tie her up. She was blindfolded and gagged before being raped and robbed.
Last year, he was named as the key suspect in the disappearance and murder of Madeleine, who vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007 – just a few days before her fourth birthday. But he has still not been charged regarding her abduction and he denies his involvement.
In June, Brueckner attacked the police investigation against him as groundless in a handwritten letter, seen by the MailOnline.
In the letter he attacked informant Mr Busching. The two men had been pals in Portugal in the early 2000s but as Brueckner explained in his latest missive he says they fell out after a drugs deal went wrong the year Madeleine went missing and never spoke again.
Madeleine vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast in May 2007 – where Brueckner was living at the time – and has never been seen since.
In May, parents Kate and Gerry McCann gathered with friends and family in Rothley, Leicestershire, to poignantly marked the 16th anniversary of her disappearance.
They hold onto a glimmer of hope that Madeleine could still be alive.
She would now be aged 20.