Christian Brueckner: Portuguese police reopen rape investigation after woman accuses Madeleine McCann suspect

Hazel Behan believes German convict gagged and raped her in apartment in 2004

Handout picture taken in 2018 shows German Christian Brueckner when he was arrested for drug trafficking in Italy (Italian Carabinieri)

Police in Portugal have reopened an investigation into the unsolved rape of an Irish woman who recently claimed her attacker may have been the Madeleine McCann kidnap suspect.

Hazel Behan was gagged and raped in an apartment in Praia da Rocha in 2004, and although the culprit was never found, the 37-year-old now suspects Christian Brueckner was responsible for the assault.

Brueckner, who is suspected of kidnapping Madeleine in May 2007, was convicted of a similar rape the year after Ms Behan was attacked.

Detectives in Portugal have started collecting archived case files to see if they can build a case against the German.

A source told Sky News: “Detectives are looking again for new evidence and the investigation is reopened.”

The re-opening of the case comes after DNA evidence from the 2004 attack was destroyed on the orders of a judge – a common practice in Portuguese cases where no suspect is identified.

Ms Behan, who waived her right to anonymity last month, was working as holiday rep in Praia da Rocha when she was attacked.

Two months after arriving in the popular tourist resort, in April 2004, a masked man climbed the balcony to her apartment and attacked her as she slept in the early hours.

He held a knife to her throat, tied her up and gagged her, then raped her repeatedly.

She told the Guardian that her ordeal bore similarities to Mr Brueckner’s 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in the same area, the details of which only emerged after he was named as the main suspect in the Madeleine case.

Ms Behan subsequently took her allegations to Scotland Yard detectives, who interviewed her and later told her they had contacted Portuguese police.

“My mind was blown when I read how he had attacked a woman in 2005, both the tactics and the methods he used, the tools he had with him, how well he had planned it out,” she told the Guardian last month.

“I puked, to be honest with you, as reading about it took me right back to my experience.”