Madeleine McCann star witness speaks for the first time

The man who notified authorities of Madeleine McCann’s prime suspect, Christian Brueckner, has claimed the girl’s suspected killer said she “didn’t scream” when she was abducted, in his first-ever public interview.

Key witness Helge Busching explained how he learned of Brueckner’s dark past, how his former acquaintance seemed to blame himself for Madeleine’s disappearance – and how Scotland Yard ignored his tip.

Helge said he learned of Brueckner’s true nature well before McCann’s disappearance, after he stole some videotapes and guns from Brueckner’s house.

Recalling when he witnessed the clips, which allegedly showed Brueckner sexually assaulting an elderly American woman and a teenage girl in Portugal, Helge said:

“You could see someone beating the woman. She was tied up, lying on the bed, wearing painted ski goggles… must have been 70 or 80 years old. She yelled: You damn son of a bitch!… then I saw it was Brueckner.

‘[The teenage victim] said, “This is bordering on rape!” And he just said, “Shut up.” That’s when I knew what kind of guy Brueckner was.’

Helge then left Portugal, but told the German outlet Image how in 2008 at a music festival in Spain he again crossed paths with Brueckner, who has since been convicted of sexual offenses.

‘He asked me, ‘are you not going to Portugal anymore to do business there?’

“I said, ‘No, since the girl disappeared there, there have been too many police checks for me and I don’t need that at all.'”

‘[The topic of Madeleine’s disappearance] came up and I said, “Anyway, I don’t understand how the little one could have disappeared without a trace.”

“Christian had two or three beers and he said, ‘She wasn’t yelling.'”

‘I thought: he knows that. He has something to do with it. But he also checked that I understood that and then left at night.

‘At 3 or 4 am he left a packed festival in his mobile home. I looked for him the next morning, but his neighbors said he had left.’

Staff at the Barragem do Arade reservoir, in the Algave, Portugal, as searches continue as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The area is about 50 km from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine went missing in 2007. Image date: Thursday, May 25, 2023

Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old from Rothley, Leicestershire, went missing on May 3, 2007 from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.

Helge further claimed that he approached German authorities after finding the videotapes, but that a police officer told him to leave them behind and keep quiet.

“I spoke to a police officer I know in Germany. He said, “Helge, keep your hands off it.” A lawyer told me the same thing. I wasn’t sure what could happen to me – I would have blamed myself!’

He added that in 2008 he tried to inform Scotland Yard about Brueckner through the special hotline for Madeleine McCann tips, but never heard back.

“I called Scotland Yard in 2008. At the Maddie hotline. I said I knew someone who might have something to do with it and gave them the name. But nothing happened there. Nothing! I was never called back.

“In 2017 I had just served a prison sentence in Greece. When I heard about the 10th anniversary of the disappearance, I remembered. Apparently the phone call didn’t help at all. So I contacted Scotland Yard again.

“Then they listened to me.”

Madeleine was staying with her family in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal when she disappeared in May 2007.

The case, which has gone unsolved for the past 16 years, remains a mystery as no body has ever been found.

Last month, investigators combed a reservoir in the Algarve for the videotapes, a camcorder and the gun discarded by Helge and his accomplice Manfred Seyferth after they stole the materials from Brueckner’s house.

An area of ​​about 160 square feet was flattened and cleared of grass and shrubs with several holes dug in the ground to a depth of about two feet.

Other holes had also been dug in the water’s edge close to the waterline and the path close to the edge of the reservoir had been cleared.

It is thought that the soil removed was taken by German officials for further examination at a laboratory in Wiesbaden, which is home to the country’s investigative force, the BKA.

Germans Seyferth and Busching lived in the Algarve at the same time as Brueckner and the two were involved in petty theft with him before falling out.

Footage from the video camera allegedly showed Brueckner torturing and raping an American woman, with footage of a girl about 15 years old also subjected to the same gruesome ordeal.

In 2019, Brueckner was convicted by a German court of raping an elderly American woman at her home in Praia da Luz, close to where Madeleine disappeared, and given a seven-year prison sentence.

He denies any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.