He said: “The fact is that I have been in prison for many years for something that I cannot have committed and that therefore, through the participation of the media, half the world considers me a cruel rapist.”
Refusing to discuss the McCann case, he complained of the difficulties of prison and said he spends 24 hours a day in his cell after being assaulted by another inmate.
Ulrich Oppold, who interviewed Brueckner, said: “I had the feeling that I was looking at a man who was not aware of any guilt”.
On Tuesday morning, German authorities sent a team to Portugal to look for new evidence to charge Brueckner in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance before he is released from prison.
A team of 30 officers from the BKA, Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, are leading fresh searches on the outskirts of Praia da Luz in southern Portugal, where the then 3-year-old went missing in 2007.
The operation will focus on 20 plots of land east of the Algarve resort, where Brueckner was living at the time, and will rely on ground-penetrating radar to scour the area.
Detectives arrived at Praia da Luz on Monday and began closing off dirt roads in the area and setting up forensic-style tents in preparation for the search to begin the following day.
The radar equipment can scan up to 4.5m below the surface, using high-frequency radio waves to detect any unusual features in the soil, allowing police to explore a wider area by avoiding unnecessary digging.
The fresh searches – the most extensive since 2008 – will cover a 40km strip of land around Brueckner’s former cottage, while digs will also take place at specific locations.
The focus will be on a wooded inland area east of his former home, known as Atalaia, which is roughly a 10-minute drive from where Madeleine went missing 18 years ago.
It will concentrate on groundworks along with wells, ruins and water tanks. Two wells will be emptied and searched on Tuesday, local media reported.
Authorities have not said what new evidence the latest search is based on. A source close to the investigation told The Sun it was based on a tip-off last year.
Portuguese police will also be on the ground, but Scotland Yard will not be involved in the searches, which are expected to continue until Friday.
In 2023, police carried out unsuccessful searches near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 50km from Praia da Luz, where Brueckner spent time between 2000 and 2017.
At the time of Madeleine’s disappearance, Brueckner was living in a run-down property on the outskirts of the coastal town. A mobile phone registered in his name was traced close to the McCanns’ accommodation on the night she went missing.
Brueckner, officially named by German prosecutors as the prime suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance five years ago, has never been charged over the case and denies any involvement.
In October last year, he was cleared at a German trial of two sexual assaults and three rapes committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. However, prosecutors are considering appealing against the verdict.
Philipp Marquort, one of his lawyers, previously said of his pending release from prison: “If I were him, I would leave Europe and look for a state which doesn’t extradite to Europe or Great Britain, maybe like Suriname”.
