Case on hold.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Madeleine-McCann-Parents-Gerry-And-Kate-In-Portugal-To-Fight-Goncalo-Amaral-Over-His-Book/Article/200912215497848?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15497848_Madeleine_McCann_Parents_Gerry_And_Kate_In_Portugal_To_Fight_Goncalo_Amaral_Over_His_Book

McCanns To Wait For Court Fight With Ex-Cop
11:28am UK, Friday December 11, 2009

Martin Brunt, crime correspondent, Portugal

Gerry and Kate McCann's court battle with an ex-police chief who believes their missing daughter Madeleine is dead has been put on hold.

The couple were due to ask a Portuguese judge for a permanent ban on sales of a book by Goncalo Amaral in which he challenges their version of Madeleine's disappearance.

But the court hearing in Lisbon has been postponed for one month because Mr Amaral's lawyer has swine flu.

Earlier, Mr McCann, 41, told Sky News: "We're here to make sure that freedom of speech doesn't allow the truth to be distorted.

"We believe the book has damaged the search for Madeleine.

"If people read it and believe she is dead then they will not keep looking for her and may not come forward with information they may have."



How Madeleine might look now

The couple are expected to ask the judge for around a million pounds in damages which they will use to pay for their own continuing hunt for their daughter.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished without trace from the family's rented holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve coast in May, 2007.

She had been left with her twin siblings in bed while her parents dined nearby with friends.

The McCanns are sure she was abducted and believe she is still alive.

Mr Amaral was a senior officer in the investigation but was removed from it before it was abandoned after 15 months.



Madeleine vanished in 2007

In his book, The Truth Of The Lie,Mr Amaral asserts that Madeleine died in the apartment and her death was covered up.

The McCanns won a temporary injunction in September when thousands of unsold copies of the book were handed over to their lawyers.

Mr Amaral will fight their action, claiming he has the right of freedom of speech.

He is also planning to launch a second book in which he will claim he has been gagged by the McCanns.

Yes that's true. Cabrita (António) is in quarentene because he may have gotten swine flu. What an appropriate flu he got!

And the book, yes it will be launched today at 18:30. I've seen many foreign reporters interested in attending, don't know if Martin is going to be there, just forgot to ask him. But watch twiter and/or Sky, he told me that the station wants him now to twit...

Antonio Cabrita has swine flu? Liar!

Amaral and Cabrita are liars, this was planned so he can launch his book, once again using the name of Madeleine to make money.

I hope this book gets injuncted too!

By the way he talks about the "English Gag" when it is his own country who have stopped him living off of immoral earnings, by pimping off of Madeleine McCann!

I agree with you Maria, and I quote: "What an appropriate flu he got". Very suspicious this excuse. I agree with you Rosiepops.

And now the foreign media will turn the attention to him and his new book.

While the McCanns travel down to the last place they saw their little girl and possibly will be screamed at in the street.

What a disgrace.

Actually, this media attention on a potentially libellous book is a good thing, not a bad thing. Amaral thinks that all this attention will increase book sales, but bringing the international media brings with it increased scrutiny, and I doubt that the international media will be supportive of the book, or him. Rather they will highlight the lies and libel that it contains. In fact, the international media has the potential to ruin Amaral's reputation (such as it is) completely. The international media is about as supportive of a crooked/disgraced copper (possibly crooked, certainly disgraced) as it is of a convicted paedophile.

This whole situation reflects poorly upon Portugal, and it is a shame. But I think once Amaral loses his various court cases, that Portugal will have regained some, if not all, of its reputation.

It's lucky most people with a bit of common sense realize there's good and bad people, good and bad cops in any country around the world.
But I must admit GA is doing a good job of trying to discredit the reputation of the country he pretends to love. Pretends, as he is imo incapable of loving anybody else as himself.

Indeed Dianeh the press, or for that matter the good cops who work hard to solve crimes, doesn't like lying, libeling ex-cops who try to make money on the back of a missing little girl.
If he broke the law, he should pay the consequensed to that.