Germany/Portugal - Christian Brueckner, 27 @ time of 1st crime (2004), charged with sexual assault crimes, Praia de Rocha, Portugal. #5

[Davieson]

it was already proven by a higher level that she wasnt biased etc. The fact is none of it really added up..and thats why they failed

Its now clarified that it was 3 professional and 2 lay judges, so hardly a 'rogue' judge ignoring the law for her own ends
As you say the Higher Court have already rejected claims of bias, so any appeal will have to on sustainable points of law.
I suspect there will not be any, but one can never predict the outcome of any legal procedure.

 

[Dotta]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1843647548025626950

 

[Mex]

If the law states "beyond all reasonable doubt", a court is obliged to follow that rule. Although i'm not happy about the outcome, i'm going to accept the decision of the court, that's for sure!

But i still do have a few questions. The first one is, why was the evidence that has been presented to the court sufficient enough for the court to open the trial on all these 5 charges at first? It doesn't seem to be consistent in some way to open the trial on the two rapes without a victim or a video. Just the testimonies of MS and Helge B? Hard to be believe. There must have been something more. Probably the evidence found in Neuwegersleben has been ruled out as inadmissible.

The second one is, that i do not understand the reasons for the aquittal in the playground incident case, where he was caught red handed. I guess, that we'll have to wait for the reasons for judgment to be written down.

That the Salema Beach incident and the rape of poor Hazel B. are going to be a 50/50 chance, was pretty clear to me right from the beginning, to be honest. Just a foreign accent, blue eyes and a similar MO to another rape case isn't sufficient for a "BARD". Even in a typical tourist area. Unfortuneatly, the known MO in the Hazel B. case is also common in the crimes of other perpetrators. It seems to me, that there isn't any photographic evidence of the crimes, he has been made responsible for, yet.

But in the end, at least a very important litmus test for the prosecution in the other well known case, linked to CB. If they really want to pin him down on that one, they will have to offer a lot more and also more valid evidence to the court. So hopefully, it wasn't all in vain! But without any video, pictures or forensics, just based on circumstancial evidence, we won't see any verdict against CB in the future, i guess.

But i'm convinced, that he is going to re-offend pretty soon, based on his behavior in the past, the assessment of his personality in the recent trial and the fact, that everbody knows about him right now. If he's going to walk free in the near future, nobody is going to give him a proper job, a home, a family or anything else that would be useful to re-enter society.

It's just a matter of time, until he will get into focus of the prosecution again. New game, new luck....

I respect that you will have no argument with the decision of the court, but I will be happy if the prosecution have grounds for appeal and do so.

The introduction of the two anonymous rapes on the charge sheet was always a mystery because of the lack of evidence; but knowing the indictment would not have been accepted without, I assumed all would be revealed at trial.
My assumption was a witness who wished to retain anonymity but it obviously wasn’t that. Agreed there must have been something more substantive and your thoughts on the matter fit the bill entirely. There was and then there wasn't because evidence was disallowed.

I agree with the 50/50 assessment you make particularly as any forensics collected from HB’s hotel room had been destroyed but I tend to disagree about rapes with the same MO.

Initially there was only one identified in Portuguese police files as matching the description of those in the video tapes and that was the rape of DM.
There may be more because the matching HB file was initially overlooked. Although rapists may use similar methods to terrorise or restrain, the evidence doesn’t support the sequence of events suffered by DM and HB being a common MO.

I’m back on the same page of the hymn sheets as you regarding the MM trial should there be one. And the reasoning behind the judges’ recent decision on the five trials are going to be of special interest given the number of people directly affected by the outcome.

My thoughts stray a little regarding CB's return to the world's stage. On release he will never be seen or heard of again. He will just vanish as if he had never been.

 

[Mex]

Its now clarified that it was 3 professional and 2 lay judges, so hardly a 'rogue' judge ignoring the law for her own ends
As you say the Higher Court have already rejected claims of bias, so any appeal will have to on sustainable points of law.
I suspect there will not be any, but one can never predict the outcome of any legal procedure.

Having read what the presiding judge had to say one wonders why there wasn't more attention given to a teenage witness in a sex abuse trial being inappropriately questioned in open court.

Snip
In a trial that was often gruelling in its details, one witness who had accused CB of masturbating in front of them when a child was asked to mimic the action in front of the court, and broke down while doing so.

Prosecutors to appeal after Madeleine McCann suspect acquitted in separate rape trial

Christian Brückner found not guilty in Germany of three charges of aggravated rape and two of sexual abuse

www.theguardian.com

That is an instance of abuse directed at a witness which should never have happened in this day and age in a modern courtroom. It is exceedingly disturbing that such was demanded from a young girl.
My opinion

 

[Mex]

Snip
HB, who waived her right to anonymity in order to give evidence, was asked by the defence to be deliberately positioned in her seat so that she was forced to face the alleged perpetrator.
She faced excruciating questioning by the court over two days in May in which details of her own conduct were pored over.

Prosecutors to appeal after Madeleine McCann suspect acquitted in separate rape trial

Christian Brückner found not guilty in Germany of three charges of aggravated rape and two of sexual abuse

www.theguardian.com

Reading about the details of the conduct of the court case makes one wonder what century this is.

Why did the judge allow the seating arrangements in court to be adjusted for a witness at the defence motion. Positioning the witness in an intimidating position right in front of the accused flanked by his defence team.

Why was a poison pen letter of no substance allowed to be used to question the rape survivor. She was not on trial: but by pandering to defence whims and questions allowed by this court - it seems she was.
My opinion

 

[mrjitty]

How can they hope to over turn the like of this.The last sentence will immediately be seized upon by any defence should this or the MM case ever reach a court.imo

I am glad to read this

The main judge, Uta Engemann, delivered a lengthy statement explaining the decision to acquit that criticised German prosecutors for naming him in connection to the McCann case

The conduct of the Braunschweig office is baffling to me. If you have evidence, you charge someone. You don't accuse them of murder in the media, say you have the evidence to back it up, and then don't bring the case. it's a very dangerous precedent IMO.

 

[SuperdadV8]

I respect that you will have no argument with the decision of the court, but I will be happy if the prosecution have grounds for appeal and do so.

The introduction of the two anonymous rapes on the charge sheet was always a mystery because of the lack of evidence; but knowing the indictment would not have been accepted without, I assumed all would be revealed at trial.
My assumption was a witness who wished to retain anonymity but it obviously wasn’t that. Agreed there must have been something more substantive and your thoughts on the matter fit the bill entirely. There was and then there wasn't because evidence was disallowed.

I agree with the 50/50 assessment you make particularly as any forensics collected from HB’s hotel room had been destroyed but I tend to disagree about rapes with the same MO.

Initially there was only one identified in Portuguese police files as matching the description of those in the video tapes and that was the rape of DM.
There may be more because the matching HB file was initially overlooked. Although rapists may use similar methods to terrorise or restrain, the evidence doesn’t support the sequence of events suffered by DM and HB being a common MO.

I’m back on the same page of the hymn sheets as you regarding the MM trial should there be one. And the reasoning behind the judges’ recent decision on the five trials are going to be of special interest given the number of people directly affected by the outcome.

My thoughts stray a little regarding CB's return to the world's stage. On release he will never be seen or heard of again. He will just vanish as if he had never been.

I'm with you! And again, i'm not happy with the recent outcome, according to the trial!

But it's based on the principles of a constitutional state. Even if not satisfactory, it's still okay and way much better, than using pyres based on assumptions.

A jurisdiction has to bee totally free in it's decisions. The outcome tells nothing more, than that the prosecution has to do a proper investigation. A jurisdiction itself is not free of making failures, that can - and will be - checked by a higher instance!

Imho the only important fact is right now, that the prosecution has to do more, according to MM. And please don't get me wrong! I'm personally convinced, that CB commited most, even if not all of these crimes.

But that doesn't mean anything at all! Because being innocent until proven guilty is the highest value, a mordern society can give itself!

No need to give up in general! I'm really sorry for the victims, but as i said, this trial was nothing more than a litmus test! There is a lot of homework to do for the prosecution right now! It will not be done in vain, i guess!

 

[Davieson]

I'm with you! And again, i'm not happy with the recent outcome, according to the trial!

But it's based on the principles of a constitutional state. Even if not satisfactory, it's still okay and way much better, than using pyres based on assumptions.

A jurisdiction has to bee totally free in it's decisions. The outcome tells nothing more, than that the prosecution has to do a proper investigation. A jurisdiction itself is not free of making failures, that can - and will be - checked by a higher instance!

Imho the only important fact is right now, that the prosecution has to do more, according to MM. And please don't get me wrong! I'm personally convinced, that CB commited most, even if not all of these crimes.

But that doesn't mean anything at all! Because being innocent until proven guilty is the highest value, a mordern society can give itself!

No need to give up in general! I'm really sorry for the victims, but as i said, this trial was nothing more than a litmus test! There is a lot of homework to do for the prosecution right now! It will not be done in vain, i guess!

Just how many more years should they spend on this?
They've been peering into his murky activities since 2017 and the best they've done is a poorly presented prosecution with little evidence to support their claims.
They might as well give up and try and solve some other, more current crime.They might have more success.

 

[SuperdadV8]

I'm with you! And again, i'm not happy with the recent outcome, according to the trial!

But it's based on the principles of a constitutional state. Even if not satisfactory, it's still okay and way much better, than using pyres based on assumptions.

A jurisdiction has to bee totally free in it's decisions. The outcome tells nothing more, than that the prosecution has to do a proper investigation. A jurisdiction itself is not free of making failures, that can - and will be - checked by a higher instance!

Imho the only important fact is right now, that the prosecution has to do more, according to MM. And please don't get me wrong! I'm personally convinced, that CB commited most, even if not all of these crimes.

But that doesn't mean anything at all! Because being innocent until proven guilty is the highest value, a mordern society can give itself!

No need to give up in general! I'm really sorry for the victims, but as i said, this trial was nothing more than a litmus test! There is a lot of homework to do for the prosecution right now! It will not be done in vain, i guess!

I would also assume, FF's major argument that CB won't be able to get a fair trial an germany, seems to be debunked since this particular day!

 

[Davieson]

I would also assume, FF's major argument that CB won't be able to get a fair trial an germany, seems to be debunked since this particular day!

Was it a major argument or just one of many ?

 

[Mex]

Just how many more years should they spend on this?
They've been peering into his murky activities since 2017 and the best they've done is a poorly presented prosecution with little evidence to support their claims.
They might as well give up and try and solve some other, more current crime.They might have more success.

I would say for as long as it takes and for as long as investigators think it is worthwhile; which they obviously do. Even although they don't get to pick and choose which cases will be followed and which not.

In the sphere of things processes taken against CB have been pretty speedy.
He only became a person of interest in 2017.
In between trials for other criminal offences CB was charged with the aggravated rape of DM for which he he was convicted in 2019.

So far so good.

Investigation continued and in 2022 he was indicted for five counts of sexual criminality. Which prompted the procedural jurisdiction challenge. So over the period of 2022/24 there was standstill.

So it really isn't as bad as you fear it is.

 

[Mex]

I would also assume, FF's major argument that CB won't be able to get a fair trial an germany, seems to be debunked since this particular day!

Never for a moment did I think that CB wouldn't get a fair trial in Germany. Now I sadly agree that FF was right all along

 

[SuperdadV8]

Never for a moment did I think that CB wouldn't get a fair trial in Germany. Now I sadly agree that FF was right all along

He got the fairest trial, anyone could get! Just keep on being patient! A good whiskey needs at least 10 years as well!

 

[peanutJelly]

It was a planned visit to DM's villa. He brought his rape and torture kit with him; he wore a fetish fancy dress and eye covering for his intended victim.
He was probably an opportunist as well as being a criminal who thought things through from start to finish.
My opinion

I’ve always believed these crimes where he filmed then at the end revealed his face were to join some perverted online community to share/view vile content as an initiation

 

[peanutJelly]

I'm with you! And again, i'm not happy with the recent outcome, according to the trial!

But it's based on the principles of a constitutional state. Even if not satisfactory, it's still okay and way much better, than using pyres based on assumptions.

A jurisdiction has to bee totally free in it's decisions. The outcome tells nothing more, than that the prosecution has to do a proper investigation. A jurisdiction itself is not free of making failures, that can - and will be - checked by a higher instance!

Imho the only important fact is right now, that the prosecution has to do more, according to MM. And please don't get me wrong! I'm personally convinced, that CB commited most, even if not all of these crimes.

But that doesn't mean anything at all! Because being innocent until proven guilty is the highest value, a mordern society can give itself!

No need to give up in general! I'm really sorry for the victims, but as i said, this trial was nothing more than a litmus test! There is a lot of homework to do for the prosecution right now! It will not be done in vain, i guess!

Agree Super, they now know there is much more to do re MM, of which they know they need to show firmer proof, especially with international eyes

 

[Mex]

HCW outlines why an appeal will be made against the verdict arrived at in the cases against CB.
At the end of the interview (9:33/10:46appx) a supplementary question was asked regarding the bias and aggressiveness of the judge towards witnesses and why neither he nor the other prosecutors couldn't have intervened to do something about it.
Apparently they did all they could do by asking for a judge to be replaced as soon as they noticed the judges had made their minds up. That was all they could do.

The fact that the judge was aggressive towards the witnesses

• "it was not normal
• but it was legal"

It was a shock to the chief prosecutor who had never seen or heard of the like in a German court in 20years as a prosecutor. It was also a shock to everyone who took part in the trial.

So based on that it looks very much as if the appeal will put a lot of focus on the conduct of the trial judge.

 

[Denis R Tandib]

HCW outlines why an appeal will be made against the verdict arrived at in the cases against CB.
At the end of the interview (9:33/10:46appx) a supplementary question was asked regarding the bias and aggressiveness of the judge towards witnesses and why neither he nor the other prosecutors couldn't have intervened to do something about it.
Apparently they did all they could do by asking for a judge to be replaced as soon as they noticed the judges had made their minds up. That was all they could do.

The fact that the judge was aggressive towards the witnesses

• "it was not normal
• but it was legal"

It was a shock to the chief prosecutor who had never seen or heard of the like in a German court in 20years as a prosecutor. It was also a shock to everyone who took part in the trial.

So based on that it looks very much as if the appeal will put a lot of focus on the conduct of the trial judge.

HCW unsure if they have enough evidence to charge CB for MM. The prosecutor that cried wolf.

 

[Mex]

HCW unsure if they have enough evidence to charge CB for MM. The prosecutor that cried wolf.

Thank you for that. Very interesting. However we are not quite at any stage regarding what happened to MM and which fiend bears the responsibility of her disappearance.

Prosecutors are still very much at the stage of making a case to take what we now know was a unique debacle of a trial to a higher court.
Starting at 0:24 on the video, the prosecutor states the opinion that they think they have enough evidence to prove that CB is guilty in all five cases.

So if allowed there will be an appeal, which I am sure will result in a retrial based on the prejudice of the judges from start of the trial to finish.

 

[UK Girl]

HCW outlines why an appeal will be made against the verdict arrived at in the cases against CB.
At the end of the interview (9:33/10:46appx) a supplementary question was asked regarding the bias and aggressiveness of the judge towards witnesses and why neither he nor the other prosecutors couldn't have intervened to do something about it.
Apparently they did all they could do by asking for a judge to be replaced as soon as they noticed the judges had made their minds up. That was all they could do.

The fact that the judge was aggressive towards the witnesses

• "it was not normal
• but it was legal"

It was a shock to the chief prosecutor who had never seen or heard of the like in a German court in 20years as a prosecutor. It was also a shock to everyone who took part in the trial.

So based on that it looks very much as if the appeal will put a lot of focus on the conduct of the trial judge.

if the witnesses kept lieing or changing their stories I am confused why anyone thinks it is weird they were questioned more. What confuses me even more is when these witnesses committed perjury or admitted they had in previous trials that the BKA chose to ignore this. As the Judge said months ago the BKA were only interested in a conviction. Not the evidence. Shocking way to work tbh

 

[Mex]

if the witnesses kept lieing or changing their stories I am confused why anyone thinks it is weird they were questioned more. What confuses me even more is when these witnesses committed perjury or admitted they had in previous trials that the BKA chose to ignore this. As the Judge said months ago the BKA were only interested in a conviction. Not the evidence. Shocking way to work tbh

With respect I think you are missing the seriousness of what happened in the Braunschweig court.

The problem with this trial cannot be deflected to the BKA when the obvious problem lies with the judges. This issue is made clear from 02:23 in the video when the chief prosecutor says,
“The judges made their decision at the beginning of the trial and not at the end”.
They accepted the defence assertion that adverse publicity made it impossible for CB to have a fair trial. While failing to recognise that their prejudgement negated fairness from start to finish of the trial.

But the proof of the pudding lies with the Supreme Court who will decide if the much maligned witnesses and victims of this trial will get a new one in which slurs and aggression don't emanate from the chamber.