The latest McCann suspect: Scotland Yard has revealed vital new information about a suspect wanted in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Portuguese detective who led original probe into Madeleine McCann's disappearance claims prime suspect Christian Brueckner is a 'scapegoat'

• Goncalo Amaral described 43-year-old German as an 'almost perfect suspect'  
  
• The former Portuguese police officer said Christian Brueckner is a 'scapegoat'
  
• In 2008 Amaral claimed Madeleine's parents had covered up their daughter's accidental death in their Algarve apartment
  
• By Nick Fagge and Gerard Couzens for MailOnline
  

Published:  00:15, 22 June 2020   |  Updated:  00:45, 22 June 2020

A disgraced former Portuguese police officer has branded the new Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner a 'scapegoat.'
 
Goncalo Amaral described the 43-year-old German as an 'almost perfect suspect.'

Amaral, who first claimed last April a German paedophile who was in prison would be accused over Maddie's disappearance, told a Portuguese TV interviewer on Sunday night: 'When I spoke last year I was talking about the situation that's happening now.

'It matters little who the paedophile is.'

He added: 'He's an almost perfect suspect. All that's lacking for him to become the perfect suspect is that he's dead.'

Asked if he believed Brueckner was the man responsible for Madeleine's disappearance, he added: 'To answer that question it has to be proven first that an abduction took place.'

The ex-cop, who claimed in a 2008 controversial book Madeleine's parents had covered up their daughter's accidental death in their Algarve apartment, went on to repeat his well-known criticism of the British youngster's parents and their Tapas Seven holiday friends.

He accused them of abandoning their children to eat out at night and lying to Portuguese police, and said Madeleine had been left crying for around an hour the night before she vanished on May 3 2007.

The McCanns began a lengthy legal battle against Amaral in 2008, suing him for defamation after the publication of his book The Truth of The Lie.

But during his half-hour-long interview with Portuguese broadcaster TVI on Sunday, he also accused the authorities of altering photos of the two-tone VW camper van Brueckner was using around the time Madeleine disappeared.

The former PJ chief, who was removed as head of the Madeleine McCann inquiry in 2008 after criticising British police officers, showed interviewer Jose Alberto Carvalho photos he said were taken in Portugal of the same vehicle.

One of the photos he produced showed a series of very distinctive Minion-style characters painted on the front and back of the camper van, which in the picture put out by police had no markings on it.


He said: 'It's the same vehicle flagged up in the police appeal.

'I think it's important to ask why the photo put out by the authorities of the van was altered. Would that vehicle have gone unnoticed in Praia da Luz with those markings on it? I don't think so.'

Suggesting the van could have looked very different in 2007 to the way it appeared in the photo put out by British police, he added: 'Is it that the German authorities reached the conclusion that the van wasn't like that when it was being driven in Praia da Luz in 2007? Who said that?


Pressed on what Portuguese police knew about Brueckner's past around the time Madeleine disappeared, he appeared to admit Algarve authorities were aware of his 1994 teenage sexual conviction for molesting a six-year -old girl by confessing: 'At the time all we knew was that this man was a paedophile.'

He also claimed German authorities wanted to re-examine all the DNA evidence taken from the McCanns' hire car and holiday apartment.

Rubbishing reports a saliva sample had been found on Madeleine's bedspread and could prove key to a conviction now Brueckner had been identified as a new suspect, he said it had been proven it belonged to a baby being fed mother's milk staying in the apartment before the McCanns arrived.

Asked why he thought the German authorities might have interest in coming up with new information which had no real value, Amaral claimed: 'Because it enables them to have jurisdiction over this case.

'I think the Portuguese police and the authorities can do anything here in laboratories that they can do in Germany. '

Amaral's interview was his first since Brueckner's name was made public - and the first time he has spoken about the case since last December when he appeared on Spanish TV.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8445467/Maddie-McCann-prime-suspect-Christian-Brueckner-scapegoat-says-Portuguese-detective.html
................

So, where is this leading?  Gonçalo Amaral was/is not a disgraced cop - why say so at the beginning of the article?  Perhaps to pre-condition the mind of the reader?

To convince the reader his word is not to be trusted?

Please, don't again pick me up on semantics, this is an internet forum - not a court of law. 

"disgraced".

Geeze.

The latest article headlining the DM today and explaining how a man who was best friends with CB knew he'd done it after watching the Netflix documentary has been co-written by......

Jon Clarke.

Textusa is working through Amaral's interview and will publish a transcription of relevant bits when they can.

Meanwhile they have screenshot'ed Amaral's photos of the camper van, showing the front and back drawings which have been edited out of all the recent press reports, which I have copied below.

Only one reason I can think of for that. They don't want to jog peoples memories with something they might actually remember as it might scupper the 'patsy plan'.



http://textusa.blogspot.com/2020/06/amarals-pictures-of-bcs-van-tvi-june-21.html

And in the Telegraph
Since Clarke is involved we can judge the likely veracity against his known propensity to lie and exaggerate and invent quotes.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/21/interviewchristian-bruckner-best-friend-sure-took-madeleine/

Interview: Christian Brückner was my best friend - I'm sure he took Madeleine McCann
The Austrian was friends with Brückner from early 2000, when they lived and committed crimes together in Portugal
By
Jamie Johnson
 PRAIA DA LUZ and 
Jon Clarke
21 June 2020 • 9:30pm

sallypelt wrote:Maddie: "Saliva sample discovered is from baby with breast milk"
Former Judicial Police Inspector Gonçalo Amaral gave an interview this Sunday at the 8 am newspaper, where he insisted that the German suspect in Maddie McCann's disappearance is a scapegoat and claimed that the child's parents were negligent "and that they continue to lie "to the authorities.

https://tvi24.iol.pt/videos/maddie-amostra-de-saliva-descoberta-e-de-bebe-com-leite-materno/5eefc9ec0cf2c4d7ff3f8837?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ed-tvi24

Precisely. An obvious scapegoat.

https://twitter.com/McCannCaseTweet/status/1274992748181909504?fbclid=IwAR3bDGeDOL7MgKGFg4SB_icjTpzE5zYh1HkzGMFHMAayx4dC5gHsSb5MSDA

Interview with GA with subtitles...

Clearly the gutter press think being locked up has turned our brains to mush ! 

How much longer can this feeding frenzy continue ?

Gonçalo Amaral ages well doesn't he?

He looks very distinguished and conducts himself with dignity and professionalism.

Which reminds me - I must get back to transcribing that recent very short video showing a somewhat debauched looking Clarence Mitchell where he says he has been helping the McCanns for thirteen years - or words to that effect.

Textusa has now posted the full transcript of SF’s interview with Rogério
 Alves here, as GA apparently refers to it in his interview:
 
http://textusa.blogspot.com/2020/06/rogerio-alves-sexta-as-9-june-19-2007.html
 
Two little snips:
 
RA    ……it is increasingly clear that it was an abduction, eventually followed by murder, we hope not - but since that fact it’s been looking for an abductor, a sexual predator, taking out the time which has been wasted with fantasies ... with that famous fantasy in Portugal of that thesis that sought to justify the unjustifiable on the grounds ...

SF: Gonçalo Amaral's thesis.

RA: Exactly. So, in addition to this fantasy, let's say it was a legend that also involved a fable, as I usually say, that even dogs were involved in the noise, the truth is that one should have looked for someone with the characteristics of an abductor and a sex offender who had somehow been in the territory ...
 
…………….
 
….. SF: So you are also convinced that she is dead?

RA: Ok, but let's see, these are two separate things that must also be analysed differently. Sometimes, the German prosecutor's statements, with all due respect, seem like a kind of electrocardiogram, (imperceptible) up and down in a somewhat unpredictable way. In the first place, there seems to be a contrast very difficult to understand between being sure that the author, or at least being very close to the certainty that the author was that one, having a deep conviction that Madeleine is dead and not having enough to accuse. And this seems to me a difficult thing to compatibilize, that is ...

SF: But that's what he assumes ...

RA: That's what he assumes! But for me it seems difficult to compatibilize…

SF: Doesn't it convince you?

RA: No, it doesn't convince me, that is, one thing is reality, another thing is the transmission of reality, another thing is the apprehension of reality ...
 
………………………….
 
RA has to be seen to be towing the party line.

It's sort of funny to see Rogério Alves trying to make PJ's case against the McCanns back in September 2007 seem ridiculous and improbable.

I never liked his arrogant attitude. He was their lawyer, of course, and it's expected that he would be speaking in their favour.

(...) the truth is that one should have looked for someone with the characteristics of an abductor and a sex offender who had somehow been in the territory ...

They did that, right from the outset! Remember Wojciech Krokowski, the man who was suspected of having kidnapped Madeleine, all on the basis of Nuno Lourenço's tale? Well, it turns out he had nothing to do with Madeleine's "abduction", nor was there any indication that he was a pedophile.

Was the MMRG's 2018 letter thrown into the garbage bin or is it still in Faro District County headquarters, gathering dust?

"Gonçalo Amaral's thesis"

What an utter disappointment you turned out to be, Sandra.

RA   .....it is increasingly clear that it was an abduction.......

'Increasingly clear.....'

Do show us some evidence for this statement then RA.

Please.

Has SF been got at?

It did appear so after the Netflix soapumentary, and now, when she has the opportunity to redeem herself, she doesn't even bother with any pertinent questions.

pauloalexandre wrote:"Gonçalo Amaral's thesis"

What an utter disappointment you turned out to be, Sandra.

Quite.  She's gone from "ask the dogs, Sandra", to "Goncalo Amaral's thesis".  I wonder if she's been bought off like many others, or being threatened with the sack if she doesn't go along with the McCann's "abduction" nonsense.

Doug D, sorry our posts clashed at the same time.

Surprise! Surprise! Rogério Alves features very prominently in the Netflix Madeleine McCann mockumentary.

As for Sandra Felgueiras, I'd rather listen to the thesis of a Portuguese former chief of police, who was initially working on the case, than the distorted opinion of a journalist.

Journalists generally seem to have a very overrated opinion of their own importance - delusions of grandeur springs to mind.

I don't think it's likely that she was threatened, but who knows...

What bothers me is the claim that she made about Amaral supposedly having lied to her about the results of the FSS, yet she went on to ask the McCanns hard questions and advocating Mr. Amaral's freedom of expression.

Verdi wrote:Surprise!  Surprise!  Rogério Alves features very prominently in the Netflix Madeleine McCann mockumentary.

Just like Brian Kennedy, Rogério Alves knew, in his first encounter with the McCanns, that they were "completely innocent" in their daughter's disappearance. 

But yeah, a lot of these people who were featured in the Netflix production are now giving their take on this latest distraction development.

In the first episode of the documentary series The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which arrived on Netflix this morning, Portuguese reporter Sandra Felgueiras recalls having an epiphany. It was 2007, a three-year-old girl had just gone missing during a family holiday to the Algarve, and Felgueiras had been sent to cover the case. She watched Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, make their first public statement to the press. As Gerry spoke, voice breaking, of his “anguish and despair”, his wife stared at the ground, clutching her daughter’s pink cuddly toy. “This is not news,” Felgueiras remembers thinking. “This not a story. This is their life.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/madeleine-mccann-netflix-documentary-true-crime-making-a-murderer-serial-a8824666.html
.....................

I doubt very much Sandra Felgueiras has been threatened. She's just doing what journalists do best - making money and career advancement.

pauloalexandre wrote:

Verdi wrote:Surprise!  Surprise!  Rogério Alves features very prominently in the Netflix Madeleine McCann mockumentary.

Just like Brian Kennedy, Rogério Alves knew, in his first encounter with the McCanns, that they were "completely innocent" in their daughter's disappearance. 

But yeah, a lot of these people who were featured in the Netflix production are now giving their take on this latest distraction development.

Also as Clarence Mitchell recently stated looking like he's being sleeping on the streets for the past 10 years, that "he was assured that the McCanns were innocent".  But how did he know that, how did the people who told him so know that??  But he was quick enough to take the money his part played in redeeming the McCanns and forgetting that Madeleine ever existed.

Is Clarence Mitchel doing an "Alastair Campbell".  Two peas in a pod, taking money for old rope, telling lie upon lie, then looking like hell when they've filled their bank accounts and sucking up to the "mental health" charities, AC has sucked up to Prince William, I'm waiting to see who CM sucks up to.  Please forgive us Lord as we did not know what we were doing".  Yeah right, both of you sold your souls to the devil and you expect us to feel sorry for you.  Go hang yourselves.  Madeleine and all those brave soldiers who died in a fruitless war deserve better than you two snivelling, money grabbing wimps.

Another update - short and sweet like a donkey's gallop..

Furthermore, we do not have a family spokesperson nor are we actively paying any lawyers.

What, are they working pro-bono?

Hi, everybody,
I'm new here and haven't commented before. But I'm a long time lurker and have followed the McCann case from the very beginning. 
By training I am a criminal pyschologist, although these days I mostly work with old and special need clients.  I live in  Hannover, Germany, the capital of the state Niedersachsen. It's near Braunschweig where the police investigators and the prosecutors are located who try to find out if the German suspect Christian   Brückner had anything to do with the Maddie McCann case.
Let me get this out of the way first:  I have always believed that Maddie hasn't been abducted but that she died in the appartment of the McCann's. As a dog keeper for more than 25 years I have a very hard time to believe that not just one sniffer dog but both of them could be wrong on multiple occasions. I believe in Eddie and Keela because dogs are impartial! 
Also, the McCanns have told many  blatant lies more than once, and there has never been a conclusive hint that a break-in actually happened.
OK, that's where I stand! However, I have to admit that Christian Brückner is one of the most plausible suspects - other than the McCanns themselves - I have come across in all those years. He shouldn't be dismissed lightly. As Goncalo Amaral himself acknowledged when he said that Brückner is almost too perfect: Christian  Brückner ticks a lot of boxes: He is an extremely distasteful character who lived in the area at the time of Maddie's vanishing. He had a hide-out property where he could have gone with an abducted kid,! He was specialized in quick and dirty burgladies of tourist appartments, and he has committed crimes which clearly hint at some  sort of sexual  deviancy! As Amaral said -  almost too perfect! But here's the rub: Christian Brückner isn't a made up person!   He really  exists and committed all those crimes!  Frankly, I cannot blame the German investigators at all for going after Brückner! And IMO it's ludicrous to believe that the German investigators have been bought or corrupted by the English establishment because the McCanns have to be protected no matter what. The  investigators in Braunschweig are not working for the German government but for the state of Niedersachsen That's a very big difference!  I have a very hard time to believe that the police investigators and the state prosecutor of Niedersachsen have been forced or bribed  by someone to go after Brückner! This would leave a paper trail of epic proportions and many people who would be "in the know"!. I believe that the investigators are sincerely convinced that Brückner may have been involved somehow in Maddie's disappearance. They probably think that they  have the chance of a lifetime to crack one of the most famous cases of the 21st century! 
I respect very much the work and the input of many long term forum members. And I still think   it's very likely that the McCanns and their circle of friends have been involved in  some sort of cover-up.  But we should wait how the Christian-Brückner thing will develop before we accuse the German investigators  of having been bribed and coerced by murky shadow men.   
The most important thing is to find out what exactly happened to Maddie all those years ago. Defending long cherished pet theories is never a good idea. 
Sorry for barging in like this! I would be very surprised if the McCanns wouldn't have anything to do with Maddie's vanishing. 
And yes  - I firmly believe that Maddie is dead.  That the German investigators felt free to state the obvious, is a hint that they haven't been caught up in the illusions spun by the McCanns over all these years!

Verdi wrote:

Netflix’s The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann: Has our growing obsession with true crime gone too far?

With the young girl's disappearance having been turned into a Netflix documentary, Alexandra Pollard looks at whether documentarians should be turning private grief into public property

Friday 15 March 2019 13:15

In the first episode of the documentary series The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, which arrived on Netflix this morning, Portuguese reporter Sandra Felgueiras recalls having an epiphany. It was 2007, a three-year-old girl had just gone missing during a family holiday to the Algarve, and Felgueiras had been sent to cover the case. She watched Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate, make their first public statement to the press. As Gerry spoke, voice breaking, of his “anguish and despair”, his wife stared at the ground, clutching her daughter’s pink cuddly toy. “This is not news,” Felgueiras remembers thinking. “This not a story. This is their life.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/madeleine-mccann-netflix-documentary-true-crime-making-a-murderer-serial-a8824666.html
.....................

I doubt very much Sandra Felgueiras has been threatened.  She's just doing what journalists do best - making money and career advancement.

Let's face it though - she was a very good journalist early on, and to my knowledge, she was one of the few journalists who questioned the McCanns about their version of events.

Doug D wrote:Textusa has now posted the full transcript of SF’s interview with Rogério
 Alves here, as GA apparently refers to it in his interview:
 
http://textusa.blogspot.com/2020/06/rogerio-alves-sexta-as-9-june-19-2007.html
 
Two little snips:
 
RA    ……it is increasingly clear that it was an abduction, eventually followed by murder, we hope not - but since that fact it’s been looking for an abductor, a sexual predator, taking out the time which has been wasted with fantasies ... with that famous fantasy in Portugal of that thesis that sought to justify the unjustifiable on the grounds ...

SF: Gonçalo Amaral's thesis.

RA: Exactly. So, in addition to this fantasy, let's say it was a legend that also involved a fable, as I usually say, that even dogs were involved in the noise, the truth is that one should have looked for someone with the characteristics of an abductor and a sex offender who had somehow been in the territory ...
 
…………….
 
….. SF: So you are also convinced that she is dead?

RA: Ok, but let's see, these are two separate things that must also be analysed differently. Sometimes, the German prosecutor's statements, with all due respect, seem like a kind of electrocardiogram, (imperceptible) up and down in a somewhat unpredictable way. In the first place, there seems to be a contrast very difficult to understand between being sure that the author, or at least being very close to the certainty that the author was that one, having a deep conviction that Madeleine is dead and not having enough to accuse. And this seems to me a difficult thing to compatibilize, that is ...

SF: But that's what he assumes ...

RA: That's what he assumes! But for me it seems difficult to compatibilize…

SF: Doesn't it convince you?

RA: No, it doesn't convince me, that is, one thing is reality, another thing is the transmission of reality, another thing is the apprehension of reality ...
 
………………………….
 
RA has to be seen to be towing the party line.

As far as I'm aware, the German police have never stated they suspect CB of abducting or murdering MM. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I have studied their statements very carefully and I haven't seen anything that unambiguous.

I can see how people would think that's the case it but I don't believe it's supported by the facts.

Last night's post linking to textusa's translation of the interview with Herr Wolter was perhaps the clearest statement yet. Wolter is asked repeatedly about the suspect (CB) and the crime. About the suspect, he says no, it wasn't his profile that led to suspicion (of what crime he doesn't say). He says their suspicions are based on the other evidence they have (which he refuses to divulge). About the crime, he states that they are investigating a homicide but at no stage does he say that CB is suspected of this crime. And finally, when asked what 'other' crimes CB might be suspected of committing, Wolter repeats that they are investing only 'a homicide', not that CB is suspected of homicide.

Like the Met's response to Tony Bennett's FOI request asking for clarity over the remit of Grange when it turned from a review to an investigation, Wolter's responses are non-specific and equivocal.

As Verdi has said repeatedly, all this obfuscation is consistent with a cover-up. I say it is equally consistent with the police acknowledging that death occurred in 5a and the involvement of others (CB?) in concealment/disposal of the body.

" Nor are we actively paying any lawyers " 

So is Brian Kennedy still  forking out for them following his appearance in the Netfix ( deliberate misspelling ) mockumentary ?

The  investigators and state attorney Wolter may be cautious and somewhat circumspect as far as their statements are concerned - but we can conclude from what has been published in  the German media lately, that  they try to solve the McCann case as well as a few other unsolved cases. According to some German language sources,  Brückner  simply must be responsible for all of them!
There have been hints at convincing clues in their possession for a while now, and it's a bit of a nuisance that  we cannot learn at the moment what exactly they are talking about. It's quite possible that this will blow over eventually. But right now the investigators honestly seem to believe that they are on the right trail.

Batman wrote:

Doug D wrote:Textusa has now posted the full transcript of SF’s interview with Rogério
 Alves here, as GA apparently refers to it in his interview:
 
http://textusa.blogspot.com/2020/06/rogerio-alves-sexta-as-9-june-19-2007.html
 
Two little snips:
 
RA    ……it is increasingly clear that it was an abduction, eventually followed by murder, we hope not - but since that fact it’s been looking for an abductor, a sexual predator, taking out the time which has been wasted with fantasies ... with that famous fantasy in Portugal of that thesis that sought to justify the unjustifiable on the grounds ...

SF: Gonçalo Amaral's thesis.

RA: Exactly. So, in addition to this fantasy, let's say it was a legend that also involved a fable, as I usually say, that even dogs were involved in the noise, the truth is that one should have looked for someone with the characteristics of an abductor and a sex offender who had somehow been in the territory ...
 
…………….
 
….. SF: So you are also convinced that she is dead?

RA: Ok, but let's see, these are two separate things that must also be analysed differently. Sometimes, the German prosecutor's statements, with all due respect, seem like a kind of electrocardiogram, (imperceptible) up and down in a somewhat unpredictable way. In the first place, there seems to be a contrast very difficult to understand between being sure that the author, or at least being very close to the certainty that the author was that one, having a deep conviction that Madeleine is dead and not having enough to accuse. And this seems to me a difficult thing to compatibilize, that is ...

SF: But that's what he assumes ...

RA: That's what he assumes! But for me it seems difficult to compatibilize…

SF: Doesn't it convince you?

RA: No, it doesn't convince me, that is, one thing is reality, another thing is the transmission of reality, another thing is the apprehension of reality ...
 
………………………….
 
RA has to be seen to be towing the party line.

As far as I'm aware, the German police have never stated they suspect CB of abducting or murdering MM. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I have studied their statements very carefully and I haven't seen anything that unambiguous.

I can see how people would think that's the case it but I don't believe it's supported by the facts.

Last night's post linking to textusa's translation of the interview with Herr Wolter was perhaps the clearest statement yet. Wolter is asked repeatedly about the suspect (CB) and the crime. About the suspect, he says no, it wasn't his profile that led to suspicion (of what crime he doesn't say). He says their suspicions are based on the other evidence they have (which he refuses to divulge). About the crime, he states that they are investigating a homicide but at no stage does he say that CB is suspected of this crime. And finally, when asked what 'other' crimes CB might be suspected of committing, Wolter repeats that they are investing only 'a homicide', not that CB is suspected of homicide.

Like the Met's response to Tony Bennett's FOI request asking for clarity over the remit of Grange when it turned from a review to an investigation, Wolter's responses are non-specific and equivocal.

As Verdi has said repeatedly, all this obfuscation is consistent with a cover-up. I say it is equally consistent with the police acknowledging that death occurred in 5a and the involvement of others (CB?) in concealment/disposal of the body.

As Gonçalo Amaral said yesterday, it doesn't matter if it's boogeyman nº 1 or boogeyman nº 100 - there's no evidence that Madeleine McCann was abducted.

If Christian Brueckner is involved, then the police forces in question ought to produce credible evidence of such involvement.

Batman:

'As far as I'm aware, the German police have never stated they suspect CB of abducting or murdering MM. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I have studied their statements very carefully and I haven't seen anything that unambiguous.

I can see how people would think that's the case it but I don't believe it's supported by the facts.'

Mainline @ #28

'In the documentary Case Files XY Unsolved on German TV tonight, Christian Hoppe, director of the National Crime Agency, said German police believed they had almost enough evidence to charge him with Madeleine’s abduction and murder.'

Pretty unambiguous to me.

OK, splitting hairs, he may not technically be 'the German police' and it is not therefore a 'police statement' but a direct quote from the director of the National Crime Agency is good enough for me and this was just the first article I looked at.

The Germans are very much convinced that Christian Brückner abducted and murdered Maddie and also may have been bebind a few other unsolved cases. And they hint at having substantial evidence in their possession which they haven't revealed, yet. We have to wait and see if they are mistaken or not!
I have a very hard time to believe that Maddie was abducted by a burglar and then killed - but let's wait and see if the Germans have substantial evidence or not!

The documentary "Aktenzeichen XY" is a  a long standing tv format with a very good reputation. The searches for incriminating hints are often initiated by the official investigators themselves. But the fact that the German investigators felt the need to involve the TV audience might bei an indication that they still don't have the smoking gun!  They strongly believe that Brückner did it, but they don't have enough evidence
for charging him.