CONVICTED paedophile Christian Brueckner has admitted he was just 150 yards from Madeleine McCann’s holiday apartment on the night she vanished.

Brueckner, 49, also revealed police stopped him in his van “full of” drugs three times that evening while he was making a “quick getaway” from Praia da Luz.

Christian Brueckner, 49, has admitted he was just 150 yards from Madeleine McCann’s holiday apartment when she went missing

Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007

But he said they didn’t search the vehicle and simply waved him through.

The prime suspect in the British toddler’s disappearance, a convicted rapist and paedophile, revealed his whereabouts on the night Maddie disappeared in a bombshell interview.

He told the Mail on Sunday: “I was on the beach, not far from Maddie’s hotel, selling drugs.

“I’d been in Spain and smuggled the weed into Portugal.”

He said: “I was even stopped by police three times on the street [in Praia da Luz] while they were looking for Maddie.

“Luckily, they didn’t find the drugs. My van was full of them.”

Brueckner denies any involvement in Maddie’s disappearance.

As police scoured the Portuguese town for any sign of the missing child on May 3, 2007, he said he was keen to skip town as fast as he could.

Convicted Brueckner is the prime suspect in Maddie’s disappearance

A source close to the family said: ‘If what he [Brueckner] says is true, it obviously begs the question of what might have been if the Portuguese police had not let him slip through their fingers’

He said: “I was making a quick getaway; there were flashing blue lights and checkpoints everywhere.

“I just thought, ‘Get me out of here’.”

The German national claimed he hadn’t spoken out about where he was that night before “because the police want to frame me for the Maddie thing”.

Maddie’s parents Gerry and Kate McCann were having dinner with friends 100 yards away when their daughter disappeared.

A source close to the family told the Mail: “If what he [Brueckner] says is true, it obviously begs the question of what might have been if the Portuguese police had not let him slip through their fingers.”

Cops were criticised at the time of the toddler’s disappearance for lacking urgency in the search for Maddie.

Brueckner was named by German prosecutors as the top suspect in the case in 2020.

Prosecutors said they had “concrete evidence” against him, but not enough for a conviction.

A phone registered in his name was tracked near the McCanns’ accommodation that night.

Met detectives are trying to bring Brueckner to Britain to face trial for Maddie’s abduction and murder.

He has twice been convicted of rape.

Brueckner has also been found guilty of sexual abuse of children, theft, drug trafficking and assault.

He is separately being investigated for an alleged sex attack on a nine-year-old girl that took place in 2015.

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/40435381/madeleine-mccann-suspect-christian-brueckner-near-villa/