The German convicted rapist and main suspect in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann was on Tuesday cleared of all charges in an unrelated sex crimes trial.
The case has been closely watched because the acquittal means 47-year-old Christian Brueckner could be released from jail as early as next year, according to court officials.
State prosecutors said they would appeal the verdict handed down in the court in the central city of Brunswick.
Brueckner is currently behind bars, serving a sentence for raping a 72-year-old US tourist in 2005 in Praia da Luz -- the same Portuguese seaside resort where Madeleine went missing two years later.
Prosecutors in Brueckner's latest trial had called for him to be jailed for a further 15 years, describing him as a "dangerous psychopathic sadist".
However, the presiding judge Uta Engemann said Brueckner could "not be convicted of the acts he is accused of" because of insufficient evidence and ruled: "The defendant is acquitted."
Brueckner, a tall man with blond hair, blue eyes and sporting the same grey coat he has worn throughout the hearings, showed no visible reaction to the verdict.
He was revealed as a suspect in 2020 in a bombshell development in the "Maddie" investigation, one of the highest-profile missing persons cases in history.
German prosecutors have not charged him over Madeleine's disappearance, although they also say investigations are continuing and that they are certain that Madeleine is dead.
Two years ago, Brueckner was charged with five separate counts of rape and child sex abuse that prosecutors alleged he had committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.
The charges came about as a result of investigations into the "Maddie" case, according to prosecutors.
Lack of hard evidence
In one of the alleged cases, Brueckner was accused of entering the holiday apartment of a woman aged between 70 and 80, tying her up and beating and sexually assaulting her.
In another, prosecutors said he had entered a young Irish woman's apartment via her balcony while she was sleeping, threatening her with a knife and raping her several times.
He had also been accused of exposing himself to a 10-year-old German girl on a beach and to an 11-year-old Portuguese girl at a playground.
Notebooks seized from Brueckner detailing his sexual fantasies were also used as evidence. But, despite their disturbing content, they provided no direct link to the alleged crimes.
The presiding judge, Engemann, labelled some of the witness testimonies as "inconsistent" and "almost worthless".
She acknowledged that the verdict might be "unsatisfactory" for the victims but said the judges were bound by their oath to impartiality and not the expectations of prosecutors, the media or the public.
Christian Wolters, a spokesman for the prosecution, told AFP that "we consider the judgement to be wrong in substance and will therefore appeal so that the Federal Court of Justice will review the decision again for legal errors".
Missing without trace
In July, Brueckner's lawyers had first succeeded in having an arrest warrant against him cancelled as there was no longer deemed to be an "urgent suspicion" that he committed the five offences.
The move at the time was a technicality as Brueckner remained behind bars. But his lawyer, Friedrich Fuelscher, argued that the court's decision was a "clear sign that the defendant will be acquitted".
Brueckner's current rape sentence runs until September 2025, according to Wolters, although Fuelscher has said the defendant could be free as soon as the spring.
Three-year-old Madeleine went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal's Algarve region in May 2007 while her parents were dining at a nearby tapas bar.
Despite a huge international manhunt and global media attention, no trace of her has been found.
Investigations are continuing in the "Maddie" case and would proceed regardless of the outcome of the trial, Wolters told AFP earlier this week.
"At present, I am unable to say when we will be able to conclude these investigations and with what result," he said.
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