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. 

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.

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.

DOJ admits there are potential ‘limitations’ to open investigation into whistleblower’s bombshell Hunter Biden probe politicization claims

• Republicans are worried that the DOJ is stonewalling watchdog Horowitz from conducting an investigation of the whistleblower claims
• IRS Whistleblower Gary Shapley stated publicly that he’s brought his concerns to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz 

By Morgan Phillips, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 16:26 EDT, 22 August 2023

Former head of US Coast Guard Commandant Karl L. Schultz ‘covered up investigation Fouled Anchor that revealed decades of sexual assaults at academy’

• CNN reports Commandant Karl K. Schultz covered up Operation Fouled Anchor 
• He stepped down in 2022 and was replaced by Linda Fagan 

By Jen Smith, Chief Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 16:06 EDT, 8 August 2023 | Updated: 16:13 EDT, 8 August 2023

Chelsea could face a points deduction as Premier League launch investigation into MILLIONS paid to secret offshore companies in the Roman Abramovich era, after new owners reported the issues

• Chelsea could face heavy fines or points deductions if found in breach of rules
• Todd Boehly alerted the Premier League to discrepancies in their accounts
• Chelsea received a £8.6m fine by UEFA last month for the same irregularities 

By Mike Keegan For Mailonline

Updated: 14:22 EDT, 8 August 2023

Braemar shares to be suspended as investigation forces shipbroker to delay publication of annual results

• Ongoing probe into transaction of around $3m (£2.4million) dating back to 2013
• Board ‘not comfortable’ with how it ‘has been historically represented’
• Shares in Braemar will be suspended from next Monday, 3 July

By Camilla Canocchi for Thisismoney.co.uk

Updated: 08:57 EDT, 26 June 2023

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Republicans kick off probe that could lead to IMPEACHMENT of Homeland Security secretary Mayorkas, saying he ‘blatantly lied’ to Congress 58 times

• Rep. Mark Green said Mayorkas demonstrated a ‘failure to understand what’s going on at the border’ and had ‘either violated or subverted’ at least 10 laws
• Asked specifically what the legal basis for the accusation was, Green said Mayorkas had lied to Congress and failed to do his job of securing the border

By Morgan Phillips, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:11 EDT, 14 June 2023 | Updated: 14:38 EDT, 14 June 2023

Multiple Republicans in the House of Representatives are demanding the FBI release Nashville shooter Audrey Hale‘s manifesto, while a councilmember says she’s been told it’s a ‘blueprint on total destruction.’ 

It comes a week after a poll where two thirds of US voters said they want Nashville police to release the manifesto — a sign of growing frustration with the investigation into the deadly attack. 

Hale, who is transgender, fired 152 rounds from two assault rifles and a handgun, murdering Hallie Scruggs, William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus, all 9, and headmistress Dr. Katherine Koonce, 60, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and chef Mike Hill, 61 on March 27. 

Metro Nashville Councilmember Courtney Johnston said that, regardless of when, the manifesto will not be released in its entirety, noting what is expected to be a shocking read.

‘What I was told is, her manifesto was a blueprint on total destruction, and it was so, so detailed at the level of what she had planned,’ Johnston said. 

‘That document in the wrong person’s hands would be astronomically dangerous,’ she told the New York Post. 

Officers retrieved a ‘manifesto’, hand-drawn maps, a suicide note, 20 journals, laptops, phones and several writings, from Hale’s home and the Honda Fit she left in the school parking lot. 

Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, was disappointed by the news.

He believes it ‘could maybe tell us a little bit about what’s going on inside of her head. I think that would answer a lot of questions.’ 

Johnston, however, says after speaking with investigators, she doesn’t think it would be good for the rest of America to deal with the toll reading it has taken on them.

‘I personally don’t want to know the depths to which her psychosis reached … When I’m told by an MNPD high-ranking official that it keeps him up at night, I’m going to defer to that person in that agency that I don’t need to read that.’ 

The materials taken from Hale have been shared with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit in Quantico, Virginia, and detail Hale’s ‘planning over a period of months to commit mass murder’ at the school, police said in a statement. 

‘The documents that we have, and I have viewed those, you know, one is specifically a plan and the other is some journal-type rantings,’ said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch. 

They feature none of the ‘ideological expressions’ found in other mass killers’ screeds, he said, such as the 35,000-word essay about the collapse of industrial society by ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski in 1995. 

Burchett’s fellow Tennessee Republican House member Andy Ogles said there should be an investigation if the full manifesto is not released.

Americans by wide margins want to see the screed, which many believe will reveal an agenda of violent trans extremism, and equal numbers are concerned that Hale’s attack will inspire more copycat strikes on Christian schools, pollsters found.

The Rasmussen Reports survey heaps pressure on Nashville cops to release Hale’s writings, even as officials backtrack on claims she left behind a manifesto, and say her texts are just ‘journal-type rantings.’

Walter Hudson, a Minnesota state representative, became the latest Republican politician to seek the documents’ release, saying they may explain Hale’s killing spree at The Covenant School on the morning of March 27.

‘We should absolutely know what motivated someone to shoot and kill six people, including three nine-year-old children,’ Hudson tweeted this week.

Caitlyn Jenner, Vernon Jones, former Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka and other conservatives have urged the Metro Nashville Police Department and the FBI to release the writings.

‘Why is the FBI keeping the transgender Nashville mass-murderer’s manifesto hidden?’ Gorka posted on Monday.

Hale was shot and killed by police at the school within minutes of the start of the attack. 

Officers have since retrieved a ‘manifesto’, hand-drawn maps, a suicide note, 20 journals, laptops, phones, and several writings, from her home and the Honda Fit she left in the school parking lot.

They have been shared with the FBI’s behavioral analysis unit in Quantico, Virginia, and detail Hale’s ‘planning over a period of months to commit mass murder’ at the school, police said in a statement.

A police spokeswoman on Tuesday told DailyMail.com the manifesto was still being studied in an ‘active investigation’ and that she did not ‘have a date, if, when, or how we’d release it at this point.’

Experts in manifestos have also told DailyMail.com that Hale’s writings more likely relate to her emotional difficulties than the blueprint for violent transgender extremism that some have been expecting. 

The Rasmussen Reports survey of nearly 1,000 Americans, carried out between March 30 and April 3 after Hale’s attack, found that respondents blame the nation’s spate of mass shootings on a range of reasons.

Some 42 percent say killers are driven by mental health problems, while 29 percent attribute attacks to the widespread availability of firearms. Other causes include social media (11 percent), school problems (7 percent), and family issues (6 percent).