Madeleine McCann prime suspect Christian Brueckner has been accused of hatching a plot to kidnap a child and sell the youngster to a childless German couple, just a week before Maddie went missing in Portugal.
A former friend of Christian B’s made the allegation to Sky News in an interview earlier today (February 7). It’s claimed that he even tried to recruit a man to help him carry out the plan.
Brueckner is currently in a German jail serving a seven-year term for rape and drug trafficking. He is also due to go to trial next week on separate child kidnap and sexual assault charges. He has always denied taking Madeleine.
However, expat Ken Ralphs has now claimed to Sky News that Brueckner approached a mutual friend and asked him to help “steal a child from Praia da Luz from a rich family”.
Christian Brueckner ‘plotted to kidnap a child’ a week before disappearance of Madeleine McCann
Ralphs explained that the mutual friend was living in a teepee with his family in the Algarve at the time. He added that he and his wife would bring the family food. He also alleged that Brueckner took advantage of the man’s financial situation as he tried to convince him to participate in the alleged kidnap plot.
He was getting involved with Christian to steal a child from Praia da Luz from a rich family.
Ralphs said the trio were part of a nomadic community who lived off-grid in remote parts of Portugal.
He alleged: “We were sitting around the fire one night after a meal, we had a few beers and during the early hours of the morning my friend began to cry. I asked him what the matter was. Eventually, he confessed to me he was getting involved with Christian to steal a child from Praia da Luz from a rich family.
“Christian knew the guy was vulnerable and wanted to travel abroad, but he couldn’t leave because he couldn’t afford the air tickets,” he claimed.
He had ‘a buyer lined up’
Ralphs insisted he urged the friend not to get involved. He told the news outlet: “I said you can’t get involved in kidnapping a person for ransom. That’s ridiculous. Then he explained: ‘No, it’s not like that.’ Christian had a customer, a buyer lined up. A German couple who couldn’t have children,” he alleged.
Back in the UK when Madeleine was kidnapped, Ralphs claimed he drove straight to a police station in Cumbria as soon as he heard the news. He said he even gave the cops a “secret map” to the woods.
‘I have dozens of witnesses’
When Christian B was identified as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance in 2020, Ralphs said he contacted the police again. He did this after recognising him in the media.
He said: “They told me someone had made contact with my friend abroad and he had denied knowing me. But I have a dozen witnesses who will say that he’s lying.”
Madeleine went missing from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007. She was aged just three at the time.
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