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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8571451/Madeleine-McCann-investigators-resume-digging-German-allotment.html
Madeleine McCann kidnap suspect 'had a CELLAR' on allotment being dug up by police in Germany and 'lived off-grid on the plot in 2007' - the same year the girl vanished
Christian Brueckner lived off-grid at the German allotment being dug up by investigators in the same year that Madeleine McCann vanished, a neighbour has claimed.
The sex offender lived at the vegetable garden with a shed and cellar, failed to register with local authorities and talked about planning his return to southern Europe, the neighbour says.
Wolfgang Kossack, 73, who owns the plot next to Brueckner's former allotment, told MailOnline that the buildings on Brueckner's plot of land were demolished in 2008.
Up to 100 investigators are today searching the allotment garden for a second day after removing slabs of building materials on Tuesday, when they descended on the plot with excavators and a sniffer dog.
Last month a former friend of Brueckner reportedly claimed the kidnap suspect told him he had a cellar he wanted to line with metal sheets 'like Josef Fritzl's'.
Brueckner - who is currently in jail in northern Germany - is suspected of killing Madeleine after she vanished from her Praia da Luz holiday apartment in May 2007, the same year that Brueckner lived at the allotment.
Mr Kossack said he only realised the link to Brueckner this week when police started digging up the allotment, saying: 'I remembered his face from the pictures in the news. And I remember his van and his dogs. I had completely forgotten about him up until then.'
Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Kossack said: 'Christian Brueckner had the garden next to mine. He arrived in 2007 and left within a year. He told me that he living off the grid, that he had not registered with the authorities – no one knew he was there.
'He never did any gardening. He did not plant anything or try to grow anything. He just sat around drinking beer.
'At the time there was a building on the garden. It was a small wooden structure with only one room to keep tools and other things but it had a kitchen.
'The building was not really a house, you might call it a shed. But it had a cellar and underneath there would be foundations. This building was destroyed in 2008.'
The retired electrician said he remembered Brueckner took it over in 2007 because the allotments had only been handed out by the local authorities the year before.
Brueckner's plot of land was originally owned by someone else before it was passed onto the convicted rapist.
Mr Kossack, who has tended his own parcel of land since 2006, said Brueckner disappeared in 2008 and he never saw him again.
'Sometimes a young woman would be there with him,' he said. 'She seemed to be his girlfriend. 'He had two dogs – a big one and a small one – who were quite annoying. They would come into my garden to do their business.
'I remember he called the small dog, Frau Muller [a German nickname for a housewife].'
Before Brueckner left, he talked about his time outside of Germany. 'Brueckner said he preferred southern Europe because he liked the warm weather and said he would go back there,' his neighbour said.
'He did not say which country. He had a VW Transporter van and parked it next to the allotment and lived in the vehicle.
'The van was registered in Hannover but Brueckner had not paid the tax on the vehicle.
'I asked Bruecker what he did for a job. He said he was a car mechanic. I asked him why he didn't repair his own van because it was always leaking diesel onto the ground. He said he would get around to it sometime.'
He added: 'I feel so sorry for the parents of Madeleine McCann. I hope they can find out what happened to their daughter.'