MADELEINE McCann suspect Christian B's hopes of an early release have been dashed by a European court, it has been reported.
German investigators believe the 43-year-old killed the British toddler after abducting her from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in May 2007.
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He is serving a prison sentence in Germany for drug trafficking and is appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same Portuguese resort, for which he was sentenced to seven years in jail.
The case, at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg, hinges on a legal point relating to his extradition to Germany from Portugal and later Italy.
There was confusion this morning when Reuters reported the sex offender could be freed within days because the European arrest warrant issued cited the drugs conviction but not the rape charge.
However, this preliminary opinion by Advocate General Michal Bobek is not binding and the rest of the court sided with German prosecutors, Press Association reports.
According to court documents, Christian B was extradited from Portugal for sexually abusing a minor in June 2017, then travelled to the Netherlands and Italy whilst still on probation after his release.
He was extradited to Germany from Italy in October 2018 on a warrant for drug trafficking before being tried and convicted of rape and extortion in December last year.
His legal challenge centres on whether the German authorities needed Portugal's consent to bring rape proceedings because of the 2017 extradition
Italy had agreed Brueckner could be tried for rape and extortion in Germany.
German prosecutor Julia Meyer told PA: "The advocate general shares our opinion.
"We are pleased and wait for the decision of the court the next few weeks."
It comes ahead of a final decision by ECJ judges at a later date.
The widow raped by Christian B feared he would kill her during a horrific 15-minute ordeal in Portugal in 2005.
The American woman was beaten with a razor-sharp sword after the fiend broke into her villa.
Christian B was convicted and sentenced for her rape in December 2019 – 14 years after the brutal attack which devastated her so much she fled to the US.
A seven-year jail term for the rape in Praia da Luz is due to kick in at the end of him serving time for drugs trafficking, in January next year.
But, his lawyers had argued that it was a breach of international law to put him on trial for the rape.
His lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher appeared before a panel of judges at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in July demanding he be freed on a technicality.
Fulscher argued it was "unconstitutional" that Christian had been tried for the rape because it breached international law.
He is already due for parole from Kiel prison after being given time off for good behaviour from a 21-month sentence imposed by a German court in 2018.
The convicted rapist applied for early release from his 21-month drugs trafficking sentence in June and was eligible after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Portuguese police had failed to crack the rape case at the time, but Christian B was arrested 12 years later when two pals reported him after finding disturbing films in his home.
They said the video clips showed him raping and torturing his elderly victim.
DNA sample taken from a hair at the scene helped convict him and he was jailed for seven years last December.
'FEARED DEATH'
He also bound, gagged and tortured her during the sex attack and she told police: “I feared I was going to die.”
The battered and bruised victim was so traumatised she gave up her Portuguese retirement home and fled to the US.
Christian B escaped justice for 12 years before he was nailed by DNA evidence taken from a hair at the scene.
The woman spent two days with investigators recounting her ordeal in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in September 2005 — two years before Madeleine vanished from the Ocean Club complex in the same Algarve resort.
A female FBI agent interviewed the widow about the attack on behalf of Portuguese police.
'IT CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE'
Official documents tell how she failed to notice balaclava-clad fiend slipping into her home because she was gripped by TV news about Hurricane Katrina.
She told the agent: “I went to the study. I was grabbed by a very strong and tall man by the neck in the dark and pulled up the five stone stairs into the bedroom.
“I was briefly able to recognise a masked figure.
“Dark eyes looked out of slits and he had held a long, curved knife, which looked like a sabre.
“He gagged me, tied my arms behind my back and then, as I later found out, put bedclothes and other material on the windows so no one could look inside.
“I remember thinking, ‘I hope he won’t kill me.
“It lasted about 15 minutes and I got the feeling he enjoyed it.
"He led me to the bathroom and ordered me, ‘No call police’. It changed my whole life and led to me moving back to the United States.”
Christian B fled the house and a short time later the woman, who had suffered cuts and bruises all over her body, raised the alarm with a neighbour.
She later discovered her attacker had also stolen her Apple iBook laptop, worth about £1,400.
The woman and her husband had moved to Portugal on their retirement because they had grown to love the area so much on holiday, but he had died a few years later.
The widow stayed on but struggled to cope following the attack.
She was unable to sleep unless she had the light on and put up heavy blinds on the house, which was on a path to a beach, so no one could see in.
Within a few months she sold up and moved back to Pasadena, California, because she didn’t feel safe.
Christian B is currently serving a sentence for drug offences in a German jail, having appealed against the rape conviction.
He was only 18 when he moved to the Portugal with his then-girlfriend in 1995.
He had reportedly left his homeland to flee a prison sentence at the time.
Christian B spent 12 years living in the Algarve, and was based in a ramshackle farmhouse in hills overlooking Praia and just a short drive from the Ocean Club.
His reported total of 17 previous convictions also includes theft and forging documents.
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