A former friend of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has admitted to throwing up to 80 sex tapes in the bin.
The pal - known as Christian P - was asked to clear out the convicted rapist's home in Praia da Luz on the Algarve, Portugal.
He said he found "three stacks" of CDs which potentially contained "considerably damaging evidence" against Brueckner.
Fellow German Christian P has given evidence in the sex offender's current trial in Germany.
A former friend of Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner has admitted to throwing up to 80 sex tapes in the bin
Reuters
Brueckner is accused of three rapes and two sex assaults, which are not related to Maddie - however he remains a prime suspect behind the 2007 disappearance.
Christian P said he put "60 or 80" CDs in the bin while clearing Brueckner's house.
"I threw away a stack of CDs, at a guess 60 or 80 of them, stacked in three big piles," he told The Olive Press.
"I wrapped them up in a plastic bag and dumped them in a big bin just outside Praia da Luz."
The IT expert gave evidence Braunschweig last November.
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He told the court he was asked to help clear out the German prisoner's rented house in April 2006.
Brueckner was in prison in Portimao at the time after being arrested for fuel theft.
It is believed that he was worried that police would find evidence including stolen items and alleged CDs of his sex offences.
"Christian asked me to go to his home and clean up and move things to his friend Bernard’s house. When I got there his girlfriend Marina was already there preselecting things to take.
"She was putting things into bags and I was putting them in my van. Then I saw some CDs stacked on top of one bag and I allowed myself to take a peek at two or three of them.
German Investigators searched an allotment that belonged to Christian Brueckner in 2020
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"Each of them were carefully hand-written with labels in a CD pen. I don’t remember the exact details but nothing was labelled as paedophile content. It was mostly downloaded from the internet.
"I looked at one and some Brazilian (Portuguese) was being spoken. I didn’t look much longer."
He said he decided to put the CDs in a different bag to throw away.
Christian P claims he binned the items because the friend of Brueckner’s, Bernard Piro, had two young children at the time and he "didn’t want them to see the tapes".
"Not knowing how they would be stored and knowing there were youngsters at the house I decided to scrap them," he added.
"I didn’t break them or destroy them, I just put them in this big bin on the national main road (the N-125) between Praia da Luz and Sagres. I have no idea what happened to them."