Madeleine McCann suspect cleared of rape charges in separate German trial

Brückner’s existing seven-year jail term imposed by the court in Braunschweig in 2019 ends next September, according to prosecutors.

His latest trial began in February, and during the summer the court lifted an arrest warrant in connection with the case, which was seen by some observers as an early indication that Brückner could be acquitted.

His lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, said on Monday that acquittal was “the only correct outcome of the case” because two of the rape victims, a teenager and an elderly woman, had never been identified.

A key witness had earlier told the trial that he had broken into Brückner’s home in Portugal and found videos involving the rape of a girl and a woman aged 70 to 80. An Irish woman later told the court she had been raped when she was 20 by a masked man who broke into her flat in Portugal in 2004.

Prosecutors had told the court that one of the rape charges should be dropped but had sought to ensure he remain in preventive detention when his jail term ended next year.