Portuguese News - Maddie Case 2022

Going to start translating articles, videos, whatever seems informative from the Portuguese media. Moderators feel free to modify the thread title, or anything you deem relevant. I'll save at least two more posts after this, blanc meanwhile, for clarity of translations & readability.

Video transcript


News Anchor: It is now 15 years since Madeleine McCann disappeared. The little girl, then just three years old, disappeared from the flat where she was sleeping in Praia da Luz in the Algarve. 15 years later the only suspect is a 44-year-old German man, arrested in Germany for raping a woman. A Portuguese prosecutor's indictment issued on 21st April prevented the crime from prescribing, but from now on Christian Brückner is the only investigative line the authorities can pursue.


(Voice over/ archive footage): 15 years later it is still not known what happened to Madeleine McCann. The little girl, then aged three, was on holiday in the Algarve when she disappeared from her flat in Praia da Luz, while her parents were having dinner a few hundred yards away. The Portuguese and British authorities followed hundreds of leads, first considering it to have been a kidnapping and then, months later, pursuing the investigative line of a homicide. The parents were constituted as arguidos and have since been cleared. The girl was searched for all over the world, but fifteen years later justice only has one suspect. It was in June 2020 when the name Christian Brückner emerged, a German, now 44, who lived near the area and was an identified paedophile but was not properly investigated at the time. On April 22, the Public Prosecutor's Office named Bruckner as an arguido.


Cut to Zoom interview with lawyer Miguel Matias

Miguel Matias: It was the public prosecutor's office that has named the individual as an arguido, precisely to interrupt the statute of limitations period. Because if they did nothing, if they did nothing, the statute of limitations would lapse after fifteen years. But there is also a nuance here, which is the following: In crimes against freedom or sexual self-determination of minors, the prescription does not occur until the moment the victim, the offended person, turns 23 years old.

(Voice over): The investigation now has another 8 and a half years to find out what happened to Maddie, but if co-perpetrators or other suspects are found they are unlikely to be held criminally responsible for the crime.

Miguel Matias: For him the case may prescribe, yes. For him, it could prescribe, because the guilt is not, in this specific case, the action of the Public Ministry with the investigation and conclusion with the accusation, in this specific case, it could be split between one in relation to the other.*

(Voice over): Bruckner never assumed the crime, and has now come to say that on the night of the disappearance he was with a woman. The parents mark the day on social media, where they say they are still waiting for answers. The investigation will continue, more than with the hope of finding Madeleine alive, to know what happened that night in Praia da Luz.

* In Portuguese doesn't make much sense either, it's like he's speaking a different language. Here's the excerpt: "Para ele o caso poderá prescrever, sim senhora. Para ele poderá prescrever, porque a culpa, não é neste caso concreto, a acção do Ministério Publico com a investigação e conclusão com a acusação, neste caso poderá ser cindivél de um em relação ao outro."

Jornal da Tarde, RTP 1, May 3, 2022  https://www.rtp.pt/play/p9673/e614707/jornal-da-tarde (at about 34 minutes in)

Can only Bruckner be an arguido in the investigation?
Why is the Portuguese media saying that only Christian Brueckner can be investigated?
What if a new suspect is found? What if co-authors of the crime come to light?
Can former arguidos become arguidos again?

Explanation: Christian Brueckner was constituted as an arguido by the Portuguese PGR for the crime of homicide, it was this crime that would prescribe today, May 3, 2022.
Why this specific date? Because this is the date the investigation believes Madeleine McCann to have been killed.

Hindsight, is a wonderful thing, but then, fifteen years ago no one thought it would take this long to solve the case, apparently this is the official date recorded as when Madeleine McCann was likely murdered.

The truth is no one really knows if she was murdered or not, nor even on what day, a number of possibilities could have taken place. The fact remains that this is the date of  Madeleine McCann homicide and in Portuguese law, this crime prescribes after 15 years since someone is suspected of committing that crime. So, constituting Christian Brueckner for this crime so close to the deadline, means the investigation will have about 8 years and half to investigate the German suspect.

What if they find, for ex., the co-authors of Christian Bruckner, for that crime of homicide occurring on that day of May 3, 2007? They cannot be constituted as arguidos for that specific crime of homicide committed on that specific date, unless any new relevant facts are brought to the investigation. The deadline to constitute co-authors or anyone else for the crime of homicide was today, May 3, 2022.

Other suspects can become arguidos, if for example, a guy, let's call him Jon, appears with video evidence to prove that he did indeed kill Madeleine McCann, this would be a new and relevant fact for the investigation. This would cause the the investigation to remain open, however let's say Jon presented nothing but a confession, stating that he had killed the girl on the 4th of May 2007, and his confession was presented a month from now. Would that be enough to keep the investigation going or to reopen? Perhaps not for the lack of evidence, and statute limitations would apply, the already mentioned 15 year deadline for homicide.

There are other crimes that do not prescribe, for example kidnapping, this crime doesn't have a time limit. Maybe, crimes of homicide against children, or regardless of the age of the victim, shouldn't have a time limit either.

Can the former arguidos be constituted as arguidos again? Yes, but again, only if there is new and relevant information. Can they be constituted for the crime of homicide, if that crime took place, per the investigation on the 3rd of May 2007? Apparently not, because the deadline was today.

Second opinion by a jurist

Once the statute of limitations has expired, only those who have been constituted as arguidos up to that date can be prosecuted. As there was only one arguido as of Tuesday, which was this German individual, and from then on the crime is time-barred, no one else can be constituted as an arguido. The former arguidos cannot be constituted as arguidos again, and even if it is found that there were other co-accused, these too can no longer be constituted as arguidos. In short, if charges are brought against this German man - who is the only person against whom charges can be brought - he will stand trial, otherwise the case will be dismissed without any trial and therefore without any conviction.

Sandra Felgueiras interview with herr Wolters, broadcast by CMTV on May 3, 2022

Excerpt with the interview only (still being processed on youtube)



Will record the full thing but the rest of the video is pretty much the usual, archive footage retelling the events of that night. Don't think there's anything "bombastic" unlike what is already being claimed in the English tabloids.

Madeleine McCann: Investigating the Prime Suspect, excerpt of the first episode, broadcast by AMC Crime, Portugal, May 3, 2022
Mobile segment 3



Produced by Drive https://www.drive-tv.co.uk/programme/137/madeleine-mccann-investigating-the-prime-suspect

Investigation Special SÁBADO. Traces of Madeleine McCann were found in Bruckner's caravan
by Sandra Felgueiras

We find out what the decisive evidence against Christian Bruckner are. The German Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters says that the recent constitution of the arguido by the Portuguese justice has only confirmed his thesis.

On the day that marks 15 years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, SÁBADO went to the prison where the main suspect of the murder of the English child, Christian Bruckner is serving 7 years in prison for the rape of the septuagenarian Diana Menkes in 2005 at Praia da Luz. Before, we spoke with the German prosecutor investigating the disappearance of Madeleine since 2017, Hans Christian Wolters.

SÁBADO discovered the existence of evidence that are decisive for the 44-year-old German to be the only suspect in this case, both in Portugal and in Germany. It concerns Madeleine's traces found in the caravan that Brukner(sic) used in 2007. Evidence that Hans Christian Wolters does not deny that it exists.

Madeleine McCann (also known by the abbreviation Maddie) disappeared on the fateful night of May 3rd, 2007, in one of the most mysterious disappearances ever. Madeleine's parents were eventually constituted as arguidos and subjected to long interrogations at the Portimão Judiciary Police. But in 2008, suspicions against the McCanns were dropped. And other suspects emerged. But none were pointed out with as much consistency as Christian Bruckner, a paedophile who fled to Portugal in 1994 to escape a sentence for paedophilia he was convicted of in Germany.

Bruckner lived between Portugal and Germany for 22 years and committed several crimes, but it wasn't until 2017 that German authorities linked him, for the first time, to the disappearance of Madeleine Mccann

Burckner (sic) was last extradited to Germany in 2017, after he was caught red-handed committing a crime that now qualifies as sexual abuse against four Portuguese children, all of them girls under the age of 14. That crime was sent for investigation in Germany after it was reported in a 2020 RTP news report (https://www.rtp.pt/play/p6596/e495504/sexta-as-9). The German authorities are about to charge him for this crime.

But Bruckner faces 6 other charges and is in serious danger of being sentenced to successive terms that in Germany could amount to life in prison.

in Revista Sábado, May 3, 2022
https://www.sabado.pt/portugal/detalhe/especial-investigacao-sabado-encontrados-vestigios-de-madeleine-mccann-na-caravana-de-bruckner

In Sábado magazine, there's a two page spread article of Sandra F. interview with Herr Wolters, translating a few more paragraphs that didn't appear in the first part of the interview above.



"(...) Sandra F. - In Portugal, in the scope of the investigation that I've been carrying out, I collected plenty information. Two years ago I interviewed two women who hired Nicole Felhinger as a babysitter and accuse her of being the moral author of a robbery of a case that had one hundred thousand euros, that was in the ground floor of the house where they lived in Albufeira. That robbery happened, with the same modus operandi of Madeleine disappearance just six months later. These women guarantee the person their neighbour saw entering their house and that would have been the assailant matches the description of Christian Brueckner who, at the time was presented to them as Nicole's boyfriend. They added that at the same moment the robbery was taking place, Brueckner called Nicole who was in the same car with them, and that the only thing she replied to him was "naturally" (natürlich), as if it was a coded word to tell him that he could go in the house. Are this not too many coincidences for Nicole Felhinger to not be questioned and held as a suspect in Madeleine's disappearance?

Wolters - For us, Nicole Felhinger is, and for now, a witness only.

Sandra F - A witness, who according to German journalists who have interviewed several friends of Nicole in 2007, used the mobile number that called Brueckner on the night of the disappearance...

Wolters - We checked everything. And we have also received the information that the number that called Brueckner could belong to Nicole Felhinger but, until now, we were unable to know to whom does that mobile number belongs.

Sandra F. - In Portugal the cell phone operators do not preserve the phone numbers of their subscribers forever. Are you sure that the number did not belong to Nicole Felhinger's or are you unable to find out after so many years?

Wolters - At the moment I have to say that I don't know. We don't know who used the phone number that called Brueckner that night.

Sandra F. - However knowing about the similitude and the temporal proximity of the robbery in Albufeira and of Madeleine's disappearance, don't you want to question these two women that I have already interviewed?

Wolters - They (the two women) are not important to us because those are two different cases.

Sandra F. - Yes, but we are talking about the same suspects and of the reconstitution of their lives in that year of 2007: Nicole and Brueckner. And there are too many coincidences. In fact the real goal of this duo was to make money and that is the reason why Nicole's husband divorced her by the end of 2007.

Wolters - We know they committed a robbery, Nicole and Brueckner, but that robbery prescribed.

Sandra F. - Do you then hypothesize that Madeleine was the target of a sale? And that that was the initial purpose of this crime?

Wolters - It is a possibility. (...)"

Especial Investigação Sábado on the Maddie Case (Full video, 1st part), broadcast on May 3, 2022



Transcript
Sandra F. (in Germany) - Good evening, on the day that marks 15 years since Madeleine McCann's disappearance, we are live from Germany, more specifically at the Oldenburg prison, where the main suspect for the homicide of Madeleine McCann is, Christian Brueckner. It is here that he is serving a 7 year jail sentence for the rape of the septuagenarian Diana Menkes in Praia da Luz in 2005. But before we arrived here, we interviewed the German prosecutor who is investigating Madeleine's disappearance and links it to Christian Brueckner since 2017. We confront him with decisive evidence that makes this suspect the only suspect, both on the German and the Portuguese investigations, in the form of traces (vestiges) belonging to Madeleine that were found in the interior of the camper van that Brueckner drove in 2007. In view of this evidence that we presented, Hans Christian Wolters, was unable of denying them.

Cut to segment with Wolters walking inside a building (1m in)

Sandra F. V.Over - Two years ago, this prosecutor from Brunswick (Braunschweig) surprised the world and the McCann themselves when he announced Christian Brueckner as Madeleine's murderer. But fifteen years after the disappearance of the English child, there are plenty more unanswered questions than clear answers. Even so, Hans Christian Wolters, grants us this exclusive interview and there are facts the he is unable to deny.

Sandra F. - Two years after you declared that you had a suspect of murdering Madeleine McCann, what is happening as to having no charges against him?¹

Wolters - The investigation is still going on, and uh.. I think we found some new facts, some new evidence, not forensic evidence but evidence.

Sandra F. - Is it true that you have found something belonging to Madeleine, in the caravan (camping van) of Christian Brueckner?

Wolters - To the details of the investigations, I cannot give you a comment.

Sandra F. - But you can't deny it, can you?

Wolters -  I don't want to deny it. (smirks)

Sandra F. - And today, two years after are you even more sure that he is the one that killed Madeleine?

Wolters -  We are sure that he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann.

Sandra F. - So you are sure about two things: You are sure that he kidnapped her and he killed her?

Wolters - We are sure that he killed Madeleine McCann.

Sandra F. - You are not sure that he was the one who got into the Ocean Club and kidnapped her?

Wolters - To the details I don't want to tell you anything at this moment.

Sandra F. V.Over (3m) - The prosecutor guarantees that he still doesn't know to whom belongs the mysterious number that called Christian Brueckner for thirty minutes in front of the Ocean Club, just before Madeleine disappeared, but there is a strong suspicion that the number belongs to Nicole Fehlinger, Brueckner's former girlfriend and a partner in other robberies in that same year of 2007.

Sandra F. -  It's very important to find out who called him during those thirty minutes. Do you know who called him?

Wolters - (emphatically) No. We are still searching for the person who called him by phone.

Sandra F. -  But I know that you received information about who called him.

Wolters - (makes a surprised face)

Sandra F. - You didn't?

Wolters - We have, we have information but I cannot say if they were helpful.

Sandra F. - In Portugal we have a lot of witnesses that uh.. remember that Christian Brueckner and Nicole Felhinger being partners at that time, and some of them have already told to German journalists that that number used to belong to Nicole Felhinger. So my question is, have you already interrogated Nicole Felhinger about this?

Wolters -  We checked everything. We heard about it, that the number could be the number of Nicole Felhinger but uh, we checked it and at the moment we don't think that this is real.

Sandra F. - Can you tell me if you interrogated a woman called Lena, that was meant to be with Christian Brueckner and be his alibi for that evening of the 3rd of May?

Wolters - I cannot speak about the witnesses.

Sandra F. - Can you tell me if he has any alibi for that for that evening?

Wolters - Christian B. has no alibi, no.

Sandra F. - What kind of relation do you have, or you don't have, with the McCanns concerning this case?

Wolters - There's no relation between the McCanns and me.

Sandra F. - They never made any questions?

Wolters -  We never spoke to them and I never wrote to them. There's no relation.

Sandra F. -  In Portugal, even after all that you've said, even knowing now that in Portugal the only suspect is Christian Brueckner, there are many people, even an inspector - Gonçalo Amaral - claiming that the McCanns are guilty. What comments can you make on this?

Wolters - Er, I think the fact that Christian B. is now a suspect in Portugal shows everyone that we are not on the wrong way. So, uh, I think that, um, the McCanns are not part of the suspects in the Portuguese investigation. So, ah, I think Mr. Amaral and other people are on the wrong way when they think that he (sic) were part of the, of the uh, of the murders.

Sandra F. V.Over (6m22s) - Hans Christian Wolters' smile, every time we ask him about the Portuguese investigation and especially about the inspector Gonçalo Amaral, says it all,  without saying a word. Everything would have been easier if in 2007 Christian Brueckner had been investigated, but the only truth is that he wasn't and he only became a possible suspect in 2017, that is ten years after Madeleine disappeared.

(this segment ends)

Sandra F. (in Germany) (6m55s) -  Let us now recall that fateful night of May 3, 2007, in Praia da Luz and all the significant moments that have happened since then until this day. Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry were constituted as arguidos but in 2008 the case was archived and they were definitely cleared.² In the meantime, new suspects have appeared, but none with the consistency of Christian Brueckner, a paedophile who fled from Germany to Portugal in 1994, precisely evading an indictment for paedophilia and who, at no moment, was ever regarded or deemed as a suspect in the Madeleine case. Only in 2017 did the German authorities start looking at him as the possible murderer of the English child.  

(new segment of the report with archive footage concerning the night of May 3, 2007)

Male journalist V.O. (7m46s) -  Praia da Luz, May 3, 2007. Madeleine McCann, who was then 3 years old, was on holidays with her parents and her siblings at Ocean Club resort, in the Algarve. For Kate and Gerry, the trip they took in the company of nine (sic, it was seven) friends was the perfect opportunity to achieve the ideal balance in the family. Against all odds,their stay in Portugal turned into a tragedy and the biggest nightmare of their lives. At the end of the afternoon (sic) ³, after an intense day of games and a boat trip, Kate McCann goes to the crèche to collect Madeleine McCann and her siblings and takes them back to apartment 5A. At that time, the three couples of friends are drinking on the esplanade of the Paraíso restaurant at the beach of Luz. The British group's quiet afternoon ending is captured by the restaurant surveillance cameras. The plan for that evening comes to fruition at the Tapas Bar restaurant located inside the Ocean Club resort. Gerry and Kate are the first to arrive to the restaurant and are joined by their friends apart from their children: a few moths old baby and seven children are left alone sleeping in their bedrooms, at about 50 meters distance, as it had been the case since the beginning of the holidays in the Algarve by the end of April. At 20h45 the group of friends is all reunited at an oval table, Gerry and Kate, David and Fiona Payne, Russell O'Brien and Jane Tanner, Matthew and Rachel Oldfield and Fiona's mother Dianne Webster.


ongoing



Especial Investigação Sábado, broadcast by CMTV, May 3, 2022
https://www.sabado.pt/portugal/detalhe/especial-investigacao-sabado-encontrados-vestigios-de-madeleine-mccann-na-caravana-de-bruckner

Notes:
1.The English transcript of Sandra Felgueiras interview with Hans Wolters has the English grammar slightly corrected, it is not verbatim for better readability.
2. They ceased to be arguidos, i.e. formal suspects like Robert Murat, they were never cleared or exonerated in a court of law, reference STJ ruling https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/Supreme_Court_31_01_2017.htm & https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2017/02/waging-war-on-all-fronts.html & https://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2017/03/on-mccanns-request-for-annulment-of.html
3. Crèche records for the McCann children https://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/CRECHE.htm

PJ does not believe that Bruckner is the sole suspect in the Maddie case
by Sandra Felgueiras

Watch the second part of the SÁBADO Investigation on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann on CMTV this Friday, May 6.

The Portuguese authorities do not believe that Christian Bruckner acted alone in the Madeleine McCann case. In the second part of the exclusive interview given by the German Prosecutor to SÁBADO Investigation, we will find out all the answers that Hans Christian Wolters gives to this and other questions, such as, for example, whether the English child was kidnapped to be sold, in a crime that went wrong and ended in murder. To be seen today, Friday, on CMTV, at 21h.

In the first part of this investigation, led by Sandra Felgueiras, in Germany, we have already revealed that the German Prosecutor "does not want to deny" that traces of Madeleine were found inside the camper van that Bruckner was driving in May 2007.

Investigation by SÁBADO has concluded that there are too many coincidences between Madeleine's disappearance and a robbery which occurred six months later a few kilometres from Praia da Luz, more specifically in Praia da Galé in Albufeira.

The interview given by Hans Christian Wolters to Investigação SÁBADO was quoted by the international press.

in Revista Sábado, May 5, 2022 https://www.sabado.pt/portugal/detalhe/pj-nao-acredita-que-bruckner-e-o-unico-culpado-do-caso-maddie

Investigation SÁBADO. Alibi of sole suspect in Madeleine McCann's disappearance is not confirmed

By Sandra Felgueiras & Diogo Barreto

The Portuguese authorities do not believe that Bruckner acted alone. A robbery which occurred six months later a few kilometres from Praia da Luz shares several points in common with the disappearance of the child.

Christian Bruckner is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the British child who mysteriously disappeared on May 6, 2007, in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve. But the Portuguese authorities doubt he acted alone and his alibi has no strong foundation. The SÁBADO investigation was in Germany on the 15th anniversary of the disappearance of the English child.

SÁBADO Investigation has been given access to the alleged alibi Christian Bruckner provided in order to prove he was not responsible for Madeleine McCann's disappearance, but which does not clear him. The alibi is a German woman called Anna Lena Einhart who was arrested for possession of a prohibited weapon at Faro airport six days after Madeleine went missing.




Bruckner's lawyer has been trying - for two years - to convince several journalists that Bruckner was with her at the time of her disappearance, but the criminal court file, to which we have had exclusive access, only shows that Bruckner acted as translator for Anna Lena during her judicial interrogation on May 9 2007.

Yet Bruckner guarantees that on the night of 3 May 2007, the night of the disappearance of the English child, he was having sex in the camper van with a German woman near Faro. The SÁBADO investigation followed her trail, but never located her. We did find a file linking the two on 9 May, six days after the disappearance. She tried to board the plane with pepper spray at Faro airport on her way to Germany. The translator during the judicial interrogation was Christian Bruckner, as is well documented in the file that SÁBADO had access to, and he gave a German address.


Jutta Rabe, an investigative journalist was never convinced by Bruckner's arguments. "I wrote to him and he wrote me long letters and he claims that he was a drug dealer at that time and I said: 'Then you must have witnesses, you can tell places where you were and where you were on those days, 2 May, 3 May, 4 May' and he said he was travelling between Spain and Portugal and I told him: 'Then give me names. Were you with a friend, give me names. Were you with any friends?' And he said yes. And I said I would check everything he told me, but he never gave me any details."


To SÁBADO, the German prosecutor in charge of the case, Hans Christian Wolters assumes that "everything points to the fact that there may have been a premeditated kidnapping aimed at selling Madeleine". A premeditated crime that went wrong and that due to the excessive media coverage led to several changes of plans and even to the murder of the English child, the prosecutor believes.

Unlike the German authorities, the PJ does not believe that Bruckner acted alone. And points to the hypothesis that he had Nicole Felhinger as the moral author who provided him with all the information to execute the crime perfectly. This suspicion that he did not act alone is related to a robbery he carried out six months after McCann's disappearance. That crime was carried out with Nicole Fellinger. The modus operandi for the burglary was very similar to the one used to break into the McCanns' house. The aim was to steal a suitcase containing 100,000 euros that only the babysitter knew where it was, while the couple were away from home. The babysitter, Nicole Fehlinger, was Bruckner's girlfriend.

SÁBADO Investigation also had access to a document which says Bruckner's phone places him at the time of the murder in front of the apartment from where Madeleine disappeared.

Following Madeleine's disappearance in May and the robbery of the Albufeira house in November, Bruckner became a wealthy man after leaving prison without any money. He showed up with a new camper van at a festival in Spain and even bought a property in Germany for 36,000 euros. It was on this land that German police found his dog buried with 7 USB sticks containing 13 videos of child pornography.

in Revista Sábado, May 6, 2022 https://www.sabado.pt/portugal/detalhe/investigacao-sabado-alibi-do-unico-suspeito-no-desaparecimento-de-maddeleine-mccann-nao-se-confirma

xklamation, Thank you so much for your translations, I really appreciate your work and look foreword to your posts.

crusader wrote:xklamation, Thank you so much for your translations, I really appreciate your work and look foreword to your posts.

Thank you for your words :)