A German court on Tuesday cleared a man who is also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann of separate charges related to sexual offenses.
The Braunschweig state court acquitted the 47-year-old German national, identified by local media as Christian Brueckner, of two counts of rape and two counts of sexual abuse.
However, Brueckner will remain behind bars for another year as he is currently serving a seven-year sentence for rape in a different case, according to German news agency dpa.
Brueckner had been on trial since February for alleged offenses committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. Defense lawyers had argued for his acquittal due to what they claimed was a lack of evidence and unreliable witnesses, suggesting he might not have faced charges if he hadn’t been a suspect in the McCann case.
Prosecutors had demanded a 15-year prison sentence and preventive detention for Brueckner after he completed his current sentence.
“The evidence we had was not enough to convict the defendant,” presiding judge Uta Engemann said, according to dpa, adding that “we were dealing with unreliable witnesses, some of whom deliberately lied to the court.”
Engemann argued that witnesses had been influenced in their statements by media coverage of Brueckner, who she said had been “stylized as and child murderer.”
Prosecutors stated they would appeal the ruling.
“We believe that the decision is wrong, so we will appeal to the German supreme court so that the supreme court can check the verdict for mistakes,” prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said.
Brueckner’s lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, told reporters after the ruling that “it was foreseeable, at least from the point of view of the defense, that there can only be one outcome that corresponds to the factual and legal situation and that is the acquittal.”
Brueckner has not been charged in , in which he is under investigation on suspicion of murder. He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
He is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2019 by the Braunschweig court for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal in 2005.
The Braunschweig state court has jurisdiction because Brueckner had his last German residence in that city in Lower Saxony.