A man who is considered the prime suspect for edisappearance of little British Madeleine McCann almost 17 years ago in Portugalwill be tried in February at Germany for five other sexual assaultsas it became known today.

The Braunschweig city court set the trial for February 16.

Under German law, the court spokesman is barred from releasing the name of the suspect, who faces three counts of rape and two counts of child sexual abuse, offenses committed in Portugal between December 12, 2000 and June 11, 2017.

Christian Bruckner, a convicted pedophile and drug trafficker, is serving a prison sentence in Germany for raping a woman in Portugal’s Algarve. In the same area where little Madeline disappeared in 2007, from the hotel room where she was spending her vacation with her parents, Bruckner was officially named as the main suspect in the McCann case in April 2022.

German police reported in 2020 that Madeleine was presumed dead. Bruckner is being investigated for the abduction and murder of the little girl.