Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner's hopes of early prison release could be dashed after mystery woman's plea to German cops
The convicted rapist, 48, owed €1,446 (£1,246) for a fine from a previous set of convictions, keeping him behind bars until at least the end of January 2026.
He was fined in 2016 for drunkenness in traffic and forgery of documents, and in 2017 for assault.
Prosecutors have been desperate to keep him behind bars, fearing he will immediately flee Germany and prevent them from further investigating Madeleine's 207 disappearance.
But after an anonymous woman paid these outstanding fines, he was set to be released from prison on September 17.
The woman, identified as a former cop with Germany's FBI who claims to have been involved in wiretapping his cell, is now asking for her money bank, throwing Brueckner's early release into disarray.
The former police officer said she made a mistake, which officials are reportedly taking seriously.
Local media has reported that she claims to have been unaware of his former convictions, including forgery charges.
She reportedly told officials: 'I therefore wish to contest my declaration of intent to repay the payment and invalidate the legal transaction accordingly.'
Brueckner's lawyer, Dr. Friedrich Fülscher, previously told Bild that they believed upon his release the convicted paedophile plans to live on the island of Sylt in northern Germany, where he previously received a 21 month sentence for drug dealing.
Brueckner, who has been under investigation by German police in connection with Madeleine's disappearance since 2020, has vehemently denied the allegations.
Last October, he was also cleared of a series of unrelated sex attacks that took place in the Algarve between 2000 and 2017.
Brueckner's lawyer Philipp Marquort previously told MailOnline that he believed the sexual offender 'will leave Germany' when released, but that he would likely remain in jail until early 2026.
He added: 'I haven't had a chance to speak with him yet about the searches and I am not going to comment on what has been happening in Portugal.
'What I will say is that I don't think he will be coming out in September as he doesn't have any money to pay the fines because it went on his legal fees, so I can't see him leaving prison until early next year.
'He will probably see the news on the TV in his cell and he will talk about it when he calls me next time but I still do think when he is freed he will leave Germany.'
It comes just weeks after two buried guns were discovered during an intensive three-day search operation near Brueckner's former ramshackle cottage home close to where Madeleine vanished.
Last month, German authorities launched fresh searches through Atalaia - a stretch of scrubland littered with rubbish and graffiti-covered buildings linked by a network of dusty tracks known in Portuguese as the Fisherman's Trail.
Connecting Praia da Luz with the nearby town of Lagos, the track is a popular hiking route for tourists, but for four days last week it was cordoned off for members of the BKA - Germany's equivalent of the FBI - to conduct searches.
The search marked the first in Portugal for more than two years, following a near-week-long operation involving Portugese, German and police officers at a remote dam a 40-minute drive from Praia da Luz.
In a newly unearthed letter seen in June, German paedophile Brueckner boasted that police don't have evidence to pin allegations against him in relation to the toddler's case, gloating how the dropping of the probe 'will hit the world like a bomb'.
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