Christian Brueckner reportedly travelled for hours to confront the German prosecutor who has accused him of murdering the toddler after she disappeared while her family were on holiday in the touristic Algarve region in 2007.

“The prosecutor refused to meet me, but I told his representative I wanted his help to get my life back,” he told Sky News UK.

“I’m being hounded by the media, and it’s his fault. I want him to take responsibility.

“I was told there was nothing they could do to help. I had been convicted and released, and I wasn’t their responsibility.”

Madeleine disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment on May 3, 2007, days before her fourth birthday.

Despite an investigation spanning more than 18 years, no charges against a suspect have ever been laid.

German prosecutors first named Christian Brueckner a suspect in 2020, when he was already serving a sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman in part of Portugal’s Algarve region where McCann went missing.

Hans Christian Wolters, the lead German prosecutor, created headlines when he claimed he had “concrete” evidence Madeleine was dead, and that Brueckner had killed her.

Brueckner’s lawyer denies any connection with the McCann case.

Brueckner has convictions for child abuse and drug trafficking in addition to the rape of the woman, who has since died.

Police in Britain, Germany and Portugal, who have identified Brueckner as their main suspect, have long sought evidence to link him conclusively to the case.

He spent many years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz around the time of Madeleine’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.