Madeleine McCann suspect 'confessed to snatching a young girl in Portugal', says former cellmate

Christian Brueckner, who is suspected of snatching and killing Madeleine McCann, has allegedly confessed to abducting a young girl from a holiday apartment in Algarve, Portugal.

Convicted paedophile Brueckner is suspected of being involved in the three year old's disappearance in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007.

The 47-year-old is currently serving a prison sentence for raping a pensioner in Praia da Luz and standing trial for unrelated sex crimes in Algarve from 2000 to 2017.

Madeleine McCann was last seen in bed in a holiday apartment in Portugal on 3 May, 2007 (PA)

According to the Mirror, Brueckner’s former cellmate Laurentiu Codin has alleged he was told by the German that 'he had stolen' in Portugal.

"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," the former cellmate said.

"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."

Christian Brueckner is suspected of snatching and killing Madeleine McCann, three, in Praia da Luz in May 2007 (Carabinieri Milano via Getty Images)

Codin, 50, reportedly told the court that Brueckner confided in him when they were in the same prison together in 2020.

He said: “There was talk of a girl, I don’t know if what he said was true or not.

"He said that he had a bus and that he had taken her with it.

"He said he kept some of them, but not others, but he never said that he had killed them. We’re talking about girls, not boys.

"Not all at once, always one at a time. He told me about two.

"He said that he had taken someone, had sex with her but he didn’t kill her.”

When asked how old the victim was, Codin added: “I don’t want to get it wrong, but it was very young, tiny. I mean young.

"Each time when we were together he spoke about it because he was convinced that I was a paedophile.”