00:00Dangerous Madeleine McCann's suspect freed from German prison.
00:04No one has ever been charged in Madeleine McCann's 2007 disappearance.
00:09But in 2020, German authorities named Christian Bruckner as a prime suspect.
00:14News.com can reveal that Bruckner was released from Zende prison near Hannover in mid-September
00:19after serving a seven-year sentence for an unrelated crime.
00:23He was driven away by his lawyer, Friedrich Fulcher.
00:26His release came five years after being named a suspect in Madeleine McCann's case.
00:31He has denied involvement with the three-year-old's disappearance from her parents' vacation apartment
00:35in Portugal's Algarve region over 18 years ago.
00:39Despite investigating Bruckner for years,
00:42lead German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters admitted they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him.
00:47Hans Christian Wolters stated,
00:49He's not just our number one suspect. He's our only suspect.
00:53Adding,
00:53We have evidence against him, but in our view, it's not strong enough to make a guilty verdict likely.
01:00Christian Bruckner's passport has been cancelled.
01:03He's electronically tagged, must report his residence, and cannot leave Germany without permission.
01:08Prosecutors have branded Christian Bruckner dangerous and warned they expect him to commit further crimes.
01:13However, investigators worry he could still flee since passports aren't required within mainland Europe.
01:20His lawyer told Der Spiegel the monitoring was the public prosecutor's attempt to keep him in a kind of pre-trial detention.
01:27British police said Christian Bruckner declined interview requests regarding Madeleine McCann's disappearance.
01:31Madeleine McCann vanished while sleeping near her twin siblings as her parents, Kate and Jerry, dined 180 feet away at a Portuguese resort.
01:40Between 1995 and 2007, Bruckner lived in the area, reportedly burglarizing hotels and vacation apartments.
01:49The case remains one of history's biggest missing persons investigations.
01:54In 2020, German prosecutors declared Christian Bruckner their prime suspect, citing his phone data and presence in Algarve when Madeleine disappeared.
02:02They've conducted searches in Portugal, seized items from his properties, and pursued new leads.
02:08Madeleine McCann's parents continue campaigning to find their daughter, who would now be 22.
02:13They annually release a statement on her disappearance anniversary saying,
02:16We love her dearly and miss her beyond words.
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