Investigators spent several hours quizzing a couple who housed the sex offender just three months before Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal, in May 2007.

Brueckner will be freed on Wednesday after serving a seven-year sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine vanished.

Brueckner will walk out of Sehnde prison near Hannover after completing six years of a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-American woman in 2005

Madeleine’s case remains one of the most high-profile unsolved disappearances of recent decades – but 18 years on, investigators appear no closer to bringing a culprit to justice

Christian Brueckner , 48, had been serving a seven-year term at Sehnde prison for an unrelated offence before being released at 9:15am local time this morning.

Authorities say they no longer have legal justification to hold Christian Brückner in jail after serving rape sentence

Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner's lawyer has sensationally admitted he understands 'concerns' over his client's sickening child sex and rape convictions.

Investigators spent several hours quizzing a couple who housed the sex offender just three months before Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal, in May…

Elke Piro, 69, who alongside her husband, was acquainted with the sex offender for years, told police about Arade Dam where the paedophile would disappear 'for a week at a time'…

Brueckner was released after serving six years of a seven-year sentence at Sehnde prison for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman at her home in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2005.