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wvgirl
 Posted:
Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:10 pm |
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Exclusive in English: Former 'Maddie Cop interview The Portu
Brendan de Beer
Dated: 2/8/2008, Appeared online: 31/7/2008
In an interview staged only a short walk from the regional PJ police headquarters in Faro over the weekend, Gonçalo Amaral, the former leading detective in the case involving the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, has an open and frank conversation with The Portugal News. Lambasted by the British media, and ignored by much of the Portuguese written press since the launch of his controversial book last week (which the Correia da Manhã newspaper has assisted in promoting), Gonçalo Amaral explains his reasoning behind certain methods of investigation, and stresses his actions to date have not been to accuse anyone, rather, he argues, his focus has been about the pursuit of truth.
The Portugal News: Did you leak information about the investigation to the media?
Gonçalo Amaral: I never had anything to do with leaks. We have to look at from where these leaks could have originated. A number of entities worked with us during the investigations and we cannot rule out the possibility that some of these leaks originated in Britain. As a matter of fact, when the FSS handed over their report to Portuguese police, we kept it under wraps, but a British daily was the first to appear with extracts of the FSS's findings.
TPN: But how does that explain that some sections of the Portuguese press have printed confidential information that later proved to be accurate?
GA: Perhaps they had good sources of information, but we cannot conclude that they were given information by police in the Algarve.
TPN: The report leaked last week says that Gerry and Kate were made arguidos on the "merest possibility" that they were involved in the disappearance of their child. Is that accurate?
GA: They were made arguidos on suspicion of two crimes: concealing a body and simulating an abduction and potentially the crime of abandonment. But saying they were made arguidos on the merest possibility that they were involved in the disappearance of their child is not true. The conclusions reached by the team investigating the crime, including colleagues in Britain, are the same as the five points I mention at the end of my book. Perhaps the conclusions reached in this latest report were made to facilitate the archiving of the case and findings were put across in a mild manner. Once you gain access to the case files, you will find that it was not due to a mere possibility.
TPN: What do we know about Madeleine's disappearance?
GA: She was here on holiday. There is obviously no doubt that Madeleine existed. There is also no doubt that she went missing. The scheme employed to visit the children does, to a large extent, not correspond with the truth, it was probably used to safeguard the view that the children were safe [in the apartments on their own as their parents dined at the Tapas restaurant].
TPN: How often were the children checked upon?
GA: One of the first lines of the investigation was to interview the party that was on holiday with the McCanns to establish this.
TPN: What did you find at the apartment?
GA: No signs of forced entry. There were no signs of glove marks on the window. We compiled a report of the evidence we collected, but we are not here to accuse anyone.
TPN: Do you think more could have been done before archiving or closing the case?
GA: In my opinion, a number of things are still lacking: We should have continued investigating the parents in order to either charge them or rule them out as suspects. If I represented this couple, I would have insisted that police investigations continue. Not everything we do is to incriminate a suspect. Often a phone will be tapped in order to obtain information that will clear a suspect.
We worked long hours discussing a number of potential explanations for Madeleine's disappearance; we did not insist solely that she had been abducted.
TPN: You say that politics prevented you from doing certain things during the investigation. What were those actions you would like to have taken?
GA: I found the intervention of the [then] British Ambassador strange, as besides the British Consul in Portimão already being involved in the case from the first morning of Madeleine's disappearance, all diplomatic channels had been opened and were functional. With the arrival of the Ambassador, my colleagues and I thought it was odd, and to a certain extent made us feel limited in our investigations.
TPN: Did you ever receive orders to investigate in a certain manner?
GA: No we did not receive any orders. I don't like talking about orders. But we felt limited.
TPN: Did the police offer a plea bargain to Kate McCann?
GA: No.
TPN: But did you not suggest she consider a plea bargain?
GA: We only explained the nature of certain crimes. Her lawyer was there, you can ask him.
TPN: Did Kate and Gerry McCann answer all the questions that you posed to them as fully as possible?
GA: Up until being declared an arguido, Kate, at the request of her lawyer, co-operated. When questions became of a nature that could incriminate her, she was made an arguido, her rights and duties were read out to her in English and thereafter she opted for the right to remain silent.
TPN: And Gerry McCann?
GA: He answered all questions, before and after being made an arguido.
TPN: When did the police first learn of the intention of the McCanns to leave Portugal?
GA: With the arrival of the sniffer dogs, I think back in August, the couple started showing a keenness to leave the country. As for these dogs, I have not seen or heard any scepticism in Britain, contrary to Portugal.
TPN: How can you explain the theory that Kate and Gerry used their hire car in the disappearance of their daughter when it was hired 25 days after she vanished?
GA: I don't know. I was not the one who hired the car.
A bodily fluid was detected in the trunk of the car which was similar to that of Madeleine McCann in 15 of the 19 indicators of her profile.
TPN: Has this evidence been investigated further?
GA: No.
TPN: Why not?
GA: You will have to ask my former colleagues that question.
TPN: What evidence was there that someone had been watching apartment 5A prior to Madeleine’s disappearance?
GA: We spoke to a number of people who came forward.
TPN: Anyone suspicious mentioned in these statements?
GA: No. Perhaps just a British musician we later tracked down.
But in a reconstruction, witness testimonies, such as that of Jane Tanner and others, including restaurant workers, could be clarified further.
TPN: At what stage did you become suspicious of the McCanns and why?
GA: There were a number of inconsistencies detected during the first interrogations.
TPN: Such as?
GA: We were initially told by the parents that when they checked on the children they would use the front door. But Kate later said they used the other door. Because had they used the front door, they would have detected someone had forced their way into the room [where Madeleine and the twins had been sleeping].
But during these initial rounds of questioning, my team and I believed these inconsistencies were due to the McCanns and their friends trying to cover the fact they had left their children unattended, along with their possible lack of trust in the Portuguese police. This had a lot of weight for me in the beginning, especially as the law in Britain is far tougher concerning the abandoning of children.
TPN: Did you look into sex offenders, and what was the outcome?
GA: It is very difficult that a paedophile pre-selected Madeleine. It had to be very well planned. But all known sexual predators were investigated.
TPN: Did you have any evidence that Robert Murat and the McCanns or their friends knew each other previous to Madeleine's disappearance?
GA: We tried to confirm this, but along with the assistance of the British police, we were unable to establish any connection. But we looked into all possibilities. Robert Murat purchased a last-minute ticket to come to Portugal a couple of days before Madeleine went missing, perhaps as it was cheaper to do so. But we had to investigate whether or not his visit coincided with Madeleine's disappearance a couple of days later and whether he had been contacted to come here.
TPN: How do you see the lawsuit that you might face over your book?
GA: My book is based on facts. It could be a good occasion to take all the case files to court and compare what I wrote with that which is contained in the files.
TPN: What next lies ahead for you?
GA: I have had a number of proposals, but in October I am intending on starting my practical training as a lawyer, as I already have a law degree, but never practised.
Brendan de Beer
Edition: 970
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| olympic
Posted:
Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:58 pm |
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thanks wvgirl!
what do some of you think....is this guy being candid?
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Joined: 18 Dec 2006
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| yankee-in-france
Posted:
Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:28 am |
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I followed this case but not that closely. I find it interesting that Jerry answered every question before and after he was made an arguido and that Kate opted to exercise her right to remain silent after having been made an arguido. She had every right to exercise it. I just wonder why Jerry didn't exercise that right. It may just be coincidence.
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YIF
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 6563
Location: France
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:48 pm |
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| olympic wrote: | thanks wvgirl!
what do some of you think....is this guy being candid? |
I would like to think he is on the up and up, and not another sleaze who is trying to make a buck. I read today that his book will be translated into english, and I would definitey like to read it.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Location: Almost Heaven
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| litchfield29
Posted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:32 am |
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| wvgirl wrote: |
I would like to think he is on the up and up, and not another sleaze who is trying to make a buck. I read today that his book will be translated into english, and I would definitey like to read it. |
I think he's a sleeze who saw a chance to make lots of $$$$$$$$$. He lost his job because he violated the laws as they apply to an open investigation. He isn't what I would call, honest or ethical.
mo
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Joined: 11 Jul 2008
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:54 am |
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| litchfield29 wrote: |
I think he's a sleeze who saw a chance to make lots of $$$$$$$$$. He lost his job because he violated the laws as they apply to an open investigation. He isn't what I would call, honest or ethical.
mo |
Thanks for your opinion and Welcome to RU
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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Location: Almost Heaven
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:47 pm |
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On the front line in the search for Maddie Guardian
Gonçalo Amaral's intriguing memoir of the Madeleine McCann case offers no solution but reveals a man obsessed by the investigation
Ned Temko
The Observer, Sunday August 3 2008
It is a shame that this revealing memoir from Gonçalo Amaral, the police chief who ran the Madeleine McCann investigation until he was unceremoniously fired last year, has not been published in English. It's also a fairly safe bet that it won't be. Within minutes of its appearance in Portuguese bookshops, the McCanns' spokesman let it be known their lawyers would be giving it a thorough read, with an eye to the kind of libel action that ended up costing the Express group £500,000 earlier this year. And that was before the Portuguese authorities finally cleared the couple last month of any suspicion.
But it's not just lawyers who have been reading it. The book is, the publisher reports, swiftly heading to the top of Portugal's bestseller list (although, given the size of the country's book market, this is likely to earn Amaral more fame than cash). Surely it won't be long before enterprising translators feed the juicier bits to an online conspiracy community that, in the 15 months since the cherubic three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz, has elevated Madeleine into something close to a new Elvis. Or in the phrase Amaral prefers to use, with no evident trace of irony, in the book's acknowledgements: 'cybernauts and bloggers who have been defending the cause of truth and justice.'
The least surprising, as well as the least convincing, section of the book is its conclusion, which basically echoes the case Amaral had failed to make before he was fired, and Madeleine's parents were cleared: that the little girl died in her family's holiday apartment, 'perhaps as a result of a tragic accident', on the night of 3 May 2007, that there followed a 'fake abduction', and that her parents 'are suspected of involvement in the hiding of the body of their daughter'. This reviewer - as well as any objective person - would surely by now have ruled out any of these possibilities. The book does nothing to change one's view that there is no plausible case against the McCanns. Helpfully for the McCanns' lawyers, particularly now that they and a third former arguido, Robert Murat, have been cleared, these assertions are all printed in bold type on the book's final page.
Much more riveting is Amaral's detailed account of the investigation he led from the night Madeleine went missing until last October when, after he allowed his anger over what he saw as British obstructionism to seep on to the front page of a Portuguese newspaper, he was dumped from the case. Nothing that Amaral says adds up to a solution to the mystery surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and there clearly isn't enough here even to build a coherent court case. Amaral is completely at odds with his own attorney general in his interpretation of events, as Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, has pointed out.
But Amaral's account does provide a glimpse of the sheer scale of the work he, his colleagues and visiting contingents from Britain brought to bear on the investigation: knocking on some 400 doors in and around Praia da Luz, interviewing hundreds of people, sifting through forensic evidence and posting timeline after timeline on the walls of their headquarters in the nearby city of Portimao.
Mistakes, clearly, were made, most glaringly the failure to secure, photograph and scour the McCanns' apartment and the surrounding area as a potential crime scene and avoid the possibility that potentially crucial evidence had been lost or contaminated. Yet even for those of us who happen to believe that Elvis is no more, the book offers a page-turning compendium of unexplained puzzles - as are so frequently found in wide-ranging, complex investigations.
As it happens, I was in the middle of Kate Summerscale's award-winning account of a Victorian murder case, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, when the review copy of A Verdade da Mentira arrived from Lisbon. Putting Summerscale down in favour of Amaral was a bit like switching from In Cold Blood to, well, Cybernauts Seeking Truth and Justice.
But Amaral does write, if not poetically, then fluently and, at times, grippingly. Moreover, his account contains inescapable echoes of Summerscale's eloquent insights into our abiding fascination with detectives and detection, particularly when a mystery remains unsolved. And doubly so when the mystery invites vicarious intrusion into the suddenly tragic private life of an ordinary, middle-class family.
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id79.html
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Location: Almost Heaven
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:50 pm |
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Carole Malone opinion piece, 03 August 2008
Opinion piece News of the World (no online link, appears in paper edition only)
Carole Malone
03 August 2008
GONCALO Amaral, the Portuguese detective whose bungling contributed much to messing up the hunt for Madeleine McCann, has written a book about her disappearance.
Suggestion.
Shouldn't he be doing a diet book instead?
http://www.mccannfiles.com/id79.html
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:30 am |
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An interview in three parts with Gonçalo Amaral IOL PortugalDiário (Links provided beside each part of interview)
03/04 August 2008
Maddie: the questions that were missing Link
IOL PortugalDiário spoke with the former PJ inspector, Gonçalo Amaral and asked some questions
This Monday, the Maddie process will no longer be subject to the judicial secrecy, and can be consulted by who requested to do so. IOL PortugalDiário asks the former inspector Gonçalo Amaral some questions. The goal is to try to shed some light on aspects of the investigation, which was questioned early on.
In your book, you write that you believe that Maddie died in the apartment, on the 3rd of May. When did you form the conviction that the child was dead?
It was with the dogs' work. That was when we were most convinced.
But when did you sum "two plus two"?
That is part of the investigation work and the logics of the investigator. He joins things throughout time. There was atypical behaviour from the witnesses right away, which then transforms into indicia.
Then one realises that people are lying. How can anyone who has the obligation to cooperate with the police, not do so?! All the person wants is to receive information and all that the person says is a lie?!
Then it was necessary to understand why they lied. Were they afraid of the police? Of its reaction? Of the exposure and abandonment of the children? But when we asked, they said no, and insisted that the little girl had been abducted. This immediately caused strangeness and suspicion.
According to your book, the body was preserved and you have already stated that you suspect it was frozen. If it were so, were could it have been hidden?
Any investigator knows that when there is a group of people that is on holidays, foreigners or not, it is necessary to discover what means they had available to, for example, move the body. But the McCanns and their friends, at that point in time, only knew the route between the beach and the resort. To us, taking into account how little they knew the area, it would be normal that if they did anything, they would move towards the beach. Later on there is the Irish family, which guarantees that they saw a man walking towards the beach, carrying a child. It was something that matched our suspicions.
Does that mean that from your point of view, the body may have remained on the beach?
Yes. But how long was it there for? It is unknown. It is true that the area was searched by the dogs. But some people say that the smell of salted water may lead the dogs not to indicate where the body was. There is also the possibility that the body was taken to another location on that very same night. It is materially possible. The body may have been moved three or more times.
In your book, you also mention political and diplomatic pressures. Was the PJ ever contacted by the British government?
There was an intervention from the British government, even though it was somewhat clumsy. Mainly from the present Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. He spoke with Kate and with the English authorities that were involved in the investigation. And he also spoke with José Sócrates [Portuguese Prime Minister]. As far as I know, he never spoke directly with the PJ.
But where did the alleged power of the couple, which you have been suggesting, come from?
On the first night, a dossier about the family was requested, which the English authorities never sent. It was said that they were connected to commissions that emitted opinion reports on nuclear issues, but none of that was ever confirmed officially. Connections to political parties were also mentioned.
Did the British police send information about the McCanns and their friends?
No. They never sent the information that we requested. In fact, they did send only once, financial information. They stated that the couple had a mortgage and that there was no knowledge of any credit or debit cards. How didn't they have any? The registration of the rental car mentions the card numbers. Concerning the other members of the group, the information was also only that.
*
Maddie: the leads that remained unexplored Link
The former inspector speaks about what could have been done in the investigation and says that making Murat an arguido was not a mistake
The PJ's report dismisses the Smiths' testimony, due to the hour at which they say they saw the person with the child…
It cannot be that way, because nobody knows for sure at what time the things happened. The reconstruction was not made, therefore it is impossible to know for certain. The employees do not state that Gerry McCann was in the restaurant. They only say that people were sitting down and getting up from the table. Their testimony [Smith] is very credible. The way how the person walked, the clumsy manner in which the child was held. It is nothing that sounds invented. Is it evidence? Certainly not. It is information that has to be worked further.
When you were removed from the case, they were planning to return to Portugal. But they desisted from the diligence…
The family should have come to Portugal and they didn't. It was not done on purpose, but a person cannot be left waiting to be heard over five months. That allowed for, according to what I have heard, the Irish family to be contacted and the target of coercion. Several people went there and they were not from the police. He even had to get himself a lawyer to try to get things into order. Before the police arrived to hear them, several persons had tried to speak to them. And they were not the only ones.
In the book "Maddie Truth of the Lie" you mention a Polish lead and you say that it is a loose end…
Nobody cares about that. We should have gone there or made a rogatory letter. They (Polish police) misunderstood the goal. They went looking for the child and we asked for an intervention to control them first. The issue was the photographs. The man never let go of the camera. We wanted to know what photographs were on the camera and if maybe there was one of Maddie.
Despite your theory that the girl died on that evening, wouldn't there be a possibility that this couple "dispatched" the child within a few hours?
That is already speculation. We inspected the apartment where they were staying. Blood was even found inside the apartment and it was not Maddie's. We cannot forget that when we intervene, they are not in Portugal anymore.
Could you have gone further with this couple?
We could. And if they were here in Portugal we could have done even more. But then the route of the investigation takes us elsewhere.
Was it a mistake to make Murat an arguido?
No, it was not. A mistake would have been if we had not acted in the manner that we did and he would always remain a suspect without being able to defend himself. Now he has even received compensation. Have you noticed that nobody has requested the instruction of the process? He could have done that.
Did the Joana case contribute to your removal?
It cannot have contributed. The national director knows that the issue are two social psychopaths – considered by the IML [national institute for forensic medicine] – that lie. The issue is my word and the word of a psychopath.
May the noise of the case have had some influence?
When the first news came out I called for the attention of the director in Faro. What I said at that time was: maybe it's best for the process to leave Portimão, or for me to step aside from the investigation.
Did you consider the possibility of leaving the Maddie case?
I did. And the feedback that I got was that I had full support.
Don't you regret that you did not go to the location [on the night of the events]?
There are several ways to coordinate. And one of them is over the phone. No, I have no regrets.
Don't you think that the result might have been different?
It is possible. At least there would have been someone, and I have a good memory, who would remember how they were dressed that evening.
*
Maddie: the questions from readers Link
IOL PortugalDiário allowed its readers to ask questions from the former PJ inspector Gonçalo Amaral. Among several that were received, here are the ones that were chosen by the editor
Could the tests have been made at another laboratory, like for example the FBI's? (question from Michael Williams)
That is another group decision. And it is decided in order to somehow compromise the other side. There was already that "bad posture", let's put it that way, from the English tabloids. The idea was for them to be compromised with the results. But yes, it could have been done at another lab, it didn't even need to go to the United States, there are some very good ones in Europe.
Were the diligences the same in the cases of Joana and Maddie? (question from Luís Nogueiro)
The first diligences were the same.
How do you comment on the statements from the former President Jorge Sampaio? (question from Fernando Moura das Neves)
I think it is a concern. Deep down, he is not against the publication of the book. Maybe what he meant is that it was not necessary to go this far.
Was anything done about the church where the McCanns spent so much time and to which they had the key? (identified reader)
There were never any motives to question the Catholic church. There is no indice that points towards the child being there, at least up to the moment when she was transported in the car. Even because there are no freezers there, or cold spots that would allow for the body to be kept at that location.
Was no cadaver odour or other indicia ever found on the father's clothes? (identified reader)
No. We don't know what he was wearing on the night of the disappearance. If it was him who was seen carrying the child, those clothes may even not exist anymore. He went to London and he might have washed it. As a matter of fact, we never knew what anyone of the group was wearing on the evening of the facts.
IOL PortugalDiário remembers that the process of the disappearance of Maddie was archived and that Kate and Gerry McCann and Robert Murat, stopped being arguidos on the 21st of July. Maddie's parents have made it known that they intend to sue Gonçalo Amaral, following the publication of the book "Maddie: Truth of the Lie".
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