I still interpret FF's remarks though as if it's a given (as far as he's concerned, based on what his client has told him) that CB was both in Portugal and somewhere in the 'broader vicinity' of PdL on the day, since why would FF be testing out various to-and-from routes otherwise?
I can see why people might think that but looking back on it, I believe this story was another case of distortion and chinese whispers by the media. The article you originally posted with those FF "quotes" is basically a copy-and-paste job of the following Daily Mail article published on 13/10/20:
Christian Brueckner had only 90 seconds to kidnap Madeleine McCann from her holiday apartment in Portugal, his lawyer says, and phone records will help prove he could not have done it in time.
www.dailymail.co.uk
The Mail quote the source of their information as being the following Daily Mirror article published on 12/10/20, who claim their article is an "Exclusive":
EXCLUSIVE Friedrich Fuelscher said he has examined the areas around the flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Madeleine McCann went missing and he now has proof Christian Brueckner is innocent
www.mirror.co.uk
Note that the Mirror article mentions nothing about FF using CB's phone records which is what the Daily Mail are trying to claim for their "headline". IMO, the Mail have invented this part of the story to make it sound like a different scoop. They offer no supporting evidence for this at all and I think they've just made an assumption about what FF was actually getting at during his PDL visit. How would FF even be able to obtain phone records with location data from 2007? The clue for how the Mail have probably come up with this "angle" is stated in the first bullet point:
"Lawyer for chief suspect Christian Brueckner insists phone records that police believe place him at the scene will actually help prove his innocence"
So what I think the Mail are assuming is similar to what you were asuming. That because FF was supposedly walking different routes around the complex, he was effectively conceding that CB
was on the phone, in that PDL vicinity that night (i.e. which is what the police also claim because of the phone record).
Going back to the Mirror article though, despite them stating their story was an exclusive, it actually wasn't really. The original source for their information came from a Der Spiegel article that was published on 09/10/20, three days before the Mirror:
Ein Deutscher soll die kleine Madeleine McCann in Portugal entführt und ermordet haben. Ein Gericht stufte ihn als "Bewährungsversager" ein. Wer ist der Mann?
www.spiegel.de
The translated version of this article was kindly posted here by Tekno previously (note: the post states the article is from 9th June but I believe that is an error or typo, the article was actually published on 9th October):
It's also the way Germans would order 3 pints of beer. How To Order A Beer Like A True German Right! Or try to show off about a third victory, in any possible way.....
www.websleuths.com
It's quite a long and interesting article but the section from where the Mirror got their story (and their "quotes" from FF) is as follows:
Praia da Luz, in September 2020. street lamps bathe the white houses and the remains of an ancient wall in a warm light. From the beach, past the church, you walk only a few hundred meters to the Luz Ocean Club, a spacious apartment complex with pretty arches.
The Kiel lawyer Friedrich Fülscher, who defends Christian B., has travelled here. He wants to get a picture of the crime scene and gain his own insights. He stops in front of a window with lowered shutters on the north side of the apartment complex. It belongs to the first floor apartment 5A. The time of day, the silence in the side street - it's like back then.
Between 21.10 and 22 o'clock Madeleine Beth McCann disappeared from this room on 3 May 2007. "If the witness statements are correct, there was a time window of one minute and 30 seconds in which the child could have been abducted at that time," says Fülscher. "The perpetrator had a maximum of three minutes."
Photos by the Portuguese investigators show a plain bedroom with a pine chest of drawers. In the middle of the room are two travel cribs for the twins of the McCann family, two years old at the time. Next to them: Madeleine's bed, the blue and white checked bedspread is neatly folded back.
Since that evening more than 13 years ago, the girl has disappeared. During the night the parents Kate and Gerry McCann informed the British television station BBC and other media. They started a Europe-wide search for their child. Celebrities such as David Beckham made a donation, the then Pope Benedict XVI received the parents in the Vatican and blessed a photo of their missing daughter. Later, the parents themselves became the target of the Portuguese investigators, one of so many twists and turns in this case.
And now, after 13 years, the solution? The murderer is a man from Germany, whom the investigators hadn't seen for a long time, even though he already had a criminal record and lived near the crime scene?
Shortly before Madeleine McCann disappeared, a prepaid cell phone with the Portuguese number 00351 912 730 680 was logged into the radio cell of the crime scene. It was, as was to turn out much later, the cell phone of Christian B. Who was he talking to for 30 minutes? An accomplice? Or someone who could give him an alibi? His lawyer does not want to comment on this. He says: "My client did not commit this crime."
From the window of the bedroom Fülscher goes around the corner to the place where several witnesses stood at that time. In a dead-end street lies the back of the apartment, whose terrace door is said to have been open. A friend of the McCanns testified to having seen a man carrying a child away from the resort. Fülscher says: "This man was later identified and has nothing to do with the disappearance. The case is full of "inconsistencies and contradictions".
So, despite how the UK press have chosen to dress up this story, I don't believe there is any sort of admission/acceptance from FF here that CB
was in PDL on the 3rd. The Mirror's claim that FF was "timing distances from various places in the resort to the flat" seems to have been embellished and grown legs from these two sentences in the original Spiegel article:
"From the window of the bedroom Fülscher goes around the corner to the place where several witnesses stood at that time."
"If the witness statements are correct, there was a time window of one minute and 30 seconds in which the child could have been abducted at that time"
What he is trying to promote IMO is Amaral's theory. I think that what FF is trying to say here is that it takes 90 seconds to get from MM's window to where Tannerman was seen walking, and the timings of the witness accounts he is referring to are that of Jane, Gerry and Jez.
He wants to claim that the possibility of there being an abduction (by any abductor, not CB specifically) was improbable on the basis of there not being enough time between Gerry leaving the apartment after his check and Jane then seeing the man carrying a child. He is obviously arguing a false premise though because his argument relies on Tannerman being the abductor, which is not necessarily the case. He tries to add further weight to his argument by saying Tannerman was later identified and ruled out. But in trying to further discredit the "abduction" possibility, he is also undermining his previous point about the timings, since if Tannerman is ruled out, the abduction window of 90 seconds he came up is completely irrelevant.
I think this interpretation and FF's defence strategy is effectively confirmed in The Sun article that came out shortly after on 14/10/20:
Speaking exclusively to The Sun Mr Fulscher said: ''It is no secret that the Portuguese have a different theory of what happened to the German BKA (federal police).
"The German prosecution could put an end to this theory when they finally put their cards on the table.
''This would be fair to the suspect and for the parents - both sides could judge for themselves how robust they consider the evidence to be.''
Speaking on news programme RTL, Mr Fulscher, said: ''At the moment I can only evaluate the Portuguese files.
"The German files have so far been withheld from me.
"On this basis, ie the Portuguese files, I have to state that there is a lot to be said for the argument that an accident took place in the apartment and after which Madeleine's body was hidden."
He added: "If you knew the Portuguese investigation file as I do, there was more than one perpetrator in Portugal at that time who had a corresponding [criminal] history.''
THE lawyer for Madeleine McCann suspect Christian B has called on prosecutors to ”show their cards” to be ”fair” to them and his client. Friedrich Fulscher ha…
www.thesun.co.uk
In that extract, FF offers up two contradictary possibilities. The first is basically Amaral's theory. The second is that there were other people with similar criminal histories to CB who might be responsible for the crime. In other words, until he sees what evidence the BKA have, he is
exploiting exploring all possibilities for what 'might' have happened to MM and offering only possibilities of what CB himself 'might' have been doing on the 3rd. All part of the defence's strategy IMO, they aren't going to commit to any specific account for CB's movements until they see what the BKA can prove about that aspect first.