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| 'Madeleine is dead' claims ex-police chief in charge of case - |
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gwen
 Posted:
Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:57 pm |
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'Madeleine is dead' claims ex-police chief in charge of case
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:57 AM on 05th July 2008
The former detective in the Madeleine McCann case has claimed the four-year old is dead.
Goncalo Amaral, 48, said he was convinced Madeleine will not be found alive and said that British officers only chased leads Kate and Gerry McCann wanted following up.
Amaral quit the force and handed over his gun and badge to bosses on Monday evening after 28 years as a police officer. He is now preparing to publish an "explosive" book on the case.
The father-of-three was in charge of the Madeleine investigation for five months before he was kicked off the probe for publicly criticising his British counterparts.
'I am not saying that the English police were under the command of the McCanns, but they were influenced', he said.
'In a way, we were all influenced by the campaign that they organised, according to which the girl was alive and had to be found.'
Amaral was thought to be the source behind many of the stories in Portugal suggesting the McCanns were involved in their daughter's disappearance.
He was also photographed enjoying long boozy lunches while in charge of the country's biggest ever missing persons case.
On his final day as an officer he enjoyed a two-hour lunch in the seaside town of Portimao, newspaper 24 Horas reported.
He later marked his early retirement with a dinner with two police colleagues from Lisbon.
The disgraced former chief has finished writing a book, True Lies, which he plans to publish as soon as a judge lifts a secrecy order surrounding the case.
Amaral told 24 Horas the book "is ready" and said he plans to "carry on working in the area of criminal investigation, perhaps as a consultant."
He added: 'I am proud to have worked with the Judicial Police and to have worked with so many good people and excellent professionals.'
Amaral's book is said to contain "explosive elements" about the police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance.
The detective's lawyer Paulo Santos said previously: 'It's not going to be speculative, but rather factual, with accounts from someone who lived the case one hundred per cent.'
Amaral told colleagues he quit the force in order to recover his "freedom of speech".
His book, the first inside account of the investigation, is certain to be an instant best-seller.
Amaral was kicked off the case last October 2 after accusing British police of being too close to Gerry and Kate McCann.
He claimed British officers only chased up leads Madeleine's parents wanted following up.
He was also overheard in a cafe accusing Gerry and Kate McCann of accidentally killing their daughter.
He was replaced by current chief investigator Paulo Rebelo.
Strict Portuguese judicial secrecy laws mean the Maddie case files have never been made public.
But attorney general Fernando Jose Pinto Monteiro has said the secrecy will be lifted this month.
As well as being kicked off the Madeleine investigation, he was also removed from his post as head of the Judicial Police in the Algarve town of Portimao and transferred to nearby Faro.
Amaral, who lives in Portimao, is facing trial for allegedly covering up the torture of a woman who was later convicted of killing her daughter in 2004.
He will be tried for allegedly lying about the treatment of Leonor Cipriano following her daughter's disappearance from the village of Figueira near to where Madeleine went missing.
Leonor claims officers beat her into a false confession by punching and kicking her repeatedly, placing plastic plastic bags over her head and forcing her to kneel on glass ashtrays.
Leonor and her brother Joao were subsequently convicted of Joana's murder after a trial and jailed for 16 years.
Amaral is charged with negligence and perjury.
His close friend and former Judicial Police inspector Paulo Cristovao has become a media star in his native Portugal after taking early retirement from the force.
He writes regularly for Portuguese newspapers and magazines and has penned two novels including a fictional account of the Madeleine McCann investigation called The Star of Madeleine.
Fictional officers bring the 180-page novel to a close by staring out at the Atlantic Ocean after a massive land search for Madeleine.
Cristovao is also due to stand trial with Amaral and three other men in the Leonor Cipriano case.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1032170/Madeleine-dead-claims-ex-police-chief-charge-case.html
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 15244
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:20 pm |
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Thank you Qwen. I found this at 3 Arguidos:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sprat wrote:
for any who have missed it...
posted by Astro:-
Gonçalo Amaral in an interview to Expresso
“Since the day that I left I knew the process would be archived”
The former inspector reveals some secrets from the investigation into the Maddie case. He guarantees that the process contains evidence, not personal convictions, and he reveals that Paulo Rebelo, his successor, never contacted him to talk about the case. When asked about what he would say to Gerry and Kate McCann, today, he replied: “I’m worried about the girl, not the parents”.
Your name and your career will remain connected to the Maddie case forever?
I’m not worried about that. I have always worked in a team, with the preoccupation and the goal of reaching the discovery of the truth. No policeman likes to leave a case halfway through.
Was that what happened with this investigation? Is it left halfway through?
Not according to my will.
Have you agreed with the decision of the former director of the PJ, who removed you from the case?
No. It’s an unfair and dangerous decision. I was not removed from the investigation due to incompetence. I left because of the direction that the investigation was taking. But the strategy was not decided by me only. It was everyone. It involved the English police and other Portuguese policemen. And what was being investigated, was the little girl’s death, even an accidental one.
After you left, was that course maintained?
I don’t know. I’m very naïf and I want to believe that my exit from Portimão had the purpose of advancing the investigation, because the person that took over is much more efficient.
Do you believe that Madeleine McCann died in the apartment on the evening of the 3rd of May?
Yes. That is what I and other persons believe in. And this is not because we idealized it that way.
Is there evidence to sustain that thesis?
I can’t enter any details of the process. I will only say this: I am certain that I, and the persons who worked with me, did a good job and I doubt that anyone else could do better. Some day, people will see the process, they may agree or not, but there is nothing in there that questions my professionalism.
Was the investigation’s direction, homicide, disturbing the political power?
This case was more political than a police case.
Did any politician pressure you?
I was not pressured, I was removed.
If there was a homicide, where is the body?
That was what we were going to establish next. On the day that I was removed, I was carrying out diligences for a fundamental witness to come to Portugal. It was necessary for the PJ to pay for the trip, to arrange for lodging, and that was being taken care of. But then the important witness never came to Portugal and was never heard.
But why? Why was an exception opened? The English police was used by the McCanns to send the PJ information that often was nothing but noise?
Yes. And the fact that the couple had a press advisor, is a figure that is not even foreseen in the penal process code. In some way, we were all influenced by the campaign that was built, which said that the child is alive and must be found. I don’t say that the English police was being ordered around by the McCanns, but it was influenced, like we all were. The PJ should have found a way to protect the investigators from everything else.
That is strange: you say that it was established with the English police that the direction that should be followed was the little girl’s death, that there were enough indices, but there seems to have been an inflexion.
Yes. And I was removed. I don’t know whether there is a direct connection. I know that colleagues from the investigation have requested the police’s directory for a syndication, to see whether the work was badly done. Whether mistakes were made.
Do you believe that you reached the truth?
I am convinced that we were on the right path and that we might end up knowing everything or not, but a great part. Now, that which we have collected and which we consider to be indices, may not be valued in the same manner.
One of the criticisms is that the results from the months when you were leading the investigation are lots of convictions and zero evidence. Do you agree?
I was the coordinator of the investigation from 3 May to 2 October. Five months. After me, there came other people that have been there nine months. I am not comparing, but we were professional and I’m not ashamed of anything. And when the process is public you will see if it is true that there is nothing. There are indications and they are in the files. We did hundreds of interviews and searches. Thousands of diligences and from that there are no results? The little girl went up in smoke?
Did the theory of the death of the child continue to be followed after your exit?
I don’t know. I can say that ever since that day I knew the process would be archived.
That being so, is there still a death to be resolved?
There is. And diligences to be completed.
Who made the decision to constitute the McCann’s arguidos?
Everyone. And the national director was informed of all the decisions.
Alípio Ribeiro agreed with the decision?
Exactly.
But then he ended up saying that the decision was hasty.
Hasty? Four months later? When there were concrete diligences that reinforced some of the indications? While we waited for results of various tests? And beyond that, in our law there exists the principal of no self-incrimination. A person can’t continue speaking forever as a witness and providing evidence (“indications”). There is certainly a stigma in the arguido status, but I don’t know what is worse. They were made arguidos, this was public, for simulating a crime and hiding a cadaver.
Do you think that you made any mistakes?
I made one. The error of the first hour. There are things about which I still can not speak. But we know that there are things which could have been done in another way. No one should be shocked if we begin, immediately, to wonder if the parents were involved.
After leaving the investigation, did you ever speak with your successor, Paulo Rebelo?
No. It is an interesting question to consider. If they removed me for the barbarity of speaking to the press, and not for incompetence, it would be normal to be consulted. But this never happened.
If, as all seems to indicate, the case is archived, the public is going to hold the Portuguese police responsible. How will you react?
Archival is not a declaration of innocence. A process can be archived and reopened. The archival of this case could be the declaration of some incapacity of the police, or it could have a different meaning.
What would you say to Madeleine’s parents?
I have nothing to say. My overriding preoccupation is with the little girl, not the parents.
Translation by Astro and Debk
Source: Expresso
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 3857
Location: Almost Heaven
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:21 pm |
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I would want to read this book.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 3857
Location: Almost Heaven
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| yankee-in-france
Posted:
Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:59 pm |
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-- me too, wvgirl. I have never felt that the McCanns were innocent in any of this. I think that it was accidental, and they panicked.
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YIF
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 7001
Location: France
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| SideTracked
Posted:
Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:42 pm |
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Those are my feelings, too.
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 1213
Location: Somewhere being sidetracked. . .
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