Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner 'could walk free from prison by Christmas' after his legal team launch bid to overturn arrest warrant keeping him in jail

The prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann trial could walk free from jail before Christmas after a dramatic new move from his legal team.

Brueckner is the man German investigators believe abducted Madeleine, then three years old, from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007. 

He is currently being tried in Braunschweig for a range of unrelatedchilling sex crimes, including three rapes and two cases of exposing himself to children

But his defence team has now urged the judge to overturn an arrest warrant for Christian Brueckner. 

If this happens, then this October they can start the process to apply for his release, meaning he would be set free well before Christmas.

Christian Brueckner (pictured), the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann trial, could walk free from jail before Christmas

Madeleine McCann (pictured) went missing in 2006 

Speaking to MailOnline, part of the defence team, Philipp Marqort said there are no grounds to justify the current arrest warrant keeping Brueckner behind bars.

'The prerequisite for an arrest warrant under Section 112 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure is an urgent suspicion of an offence.'

'The urgent suspicion of an offence requires two elements to be examined by the competent detention court: on the one hand, an objectively substantiated assessment of the probability of the accused committing the offence and, on the other hand, a prognosis of the probability of conviction. 

'But here both criteria are not met.'

Family handout of Madeleine McCann taken at 2.29pm on May 3 - the day she went missing from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portuga

Brueckner is the man German investigators believe abducted Madeleine, then three years old, from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007

Now that all of the main witnesses have been heard, as the case begins winding down, the defence says what has been presented so far has been weak, claiming there is no evidence demonstrating the necessary 'probability' that Brueckner committed the offence.

The effect is that the arrest warrant currently keeping him in a cell is invalid and must therefore be immediately revoked. 

'If the arrest warrant is gone, as soon as my client doesn't have an arrest warrant binding him, the prison then has to start preparations for release. It is the essential process for getting a client out early.'

Brueckner is currently serving a seven-year sentence for raping an American woman in Portugal in 2005.

But this ends early next year. And as Bruecknerhas already spent time in pre-trial detention, the defence argues that this time is now served.

This means that the only thing binding him now is the current arrest warrant, and if this is revoked, he could be out very soon indeed. He insists he had no involvement is Madeleine's disappearance.