Duarte Levy? Who Is He? And Is He Joking? Part 1

(Sorry this is long, I have answered Duarte Levy's report in detail, it will come in 2 parts)

The Joana case returns to court

Posted by Duarte Levy on February 12, 2008

Nothing in common with Maddie

So who is this Duarte Levy? A Freelance journalist, who it appears has a complete downer on anything or anyone that dares to question the Policia judiciaria. I maintain that using this somewhat biased report of Levy's that there are similarities between these two cases and how they were apparently investigated. I have entered these in RED

António Pragal Colaço, the lawyer defending the Lisbon-based Polícia Judiciária (PJ) inspectors who have been accused by the public prosecutor of having tortured Leonor Cipriano, told journalists that his clients will be tried “for a political reason”.

Perhaps Duarte Levy would care to elucidate what this "political reason" may be? Or is using the term "political reason" just some kind of get out clause when you can't actually explain why it is that a judge has actually decreed that these five former PJ officers have cases to answer?

Inspectors Leonel Marques, Pereira Cristóvão and Paulo Bom are accused of torture. The fourth, António Cardoso, is accused of falsifying documents for having allegedly lied in the report of what had happened to Joana’s mother.

Why would the prosecutor want to cause a problem for five members of the Portuguese police force? For what possible reason, political or otherwise? (Some of them still serving at the time) The prosecutor would have looked at the evidence and all the facts before him/her and made a decision based on those facts.

Joana’s mother has never accused Gonçalo Amaral - the only inspector from the Algarve PJ headquarters - of aggression, as several British media have claimed in an attempt to draw a parallel between the Cipriano and the Madeleine McCann cases. The inspector, who is still waiting to hear whether he will face trial or not, is being heard in court for not having reported the alleged attack. However, despite the fact that Gonçalo Amaral coordinated the investigation, his lawyer, Antonio Cabrita, considers that he does not have “the obligation to know everything”. As he pointed out, if this were the case, then the PJ’s national and assistant national directors would also have to be charged.

Following the preliminary session last Monday at the court in Faro, the judge, Ana Lucia Cruz, has ten days to decide which inspectors will face trial and for what charges.

I think that allegedly withholding evidence of alleged tortuous confession, is not really conducive to good policing and certainly not best practice. Obviously a judge thinks there is a case to answer, so does not agree with Antonio Cabrita. (Or Duarte Levy-apparently)

While Leonor Cipriano, sentenced to 16 years in prison for the murder of her daughter, claims to have been attacked and tortured by three Lisbon inspectors, the PJ has always affirmed that Joana’s mother wanted to commit suicide by throwing herself from the top of the stairs.

How would someone think that throwing them self down a flight of steps is likely to kill them? I assume that Leonor Cipriano was flanked by police officers? Possibly cuffed to them, so how would she have been able to throw herself down the stairs?

The lawyer of the three inspectors accused of torture made reference to a French physician’s report on Diana’s death in Paris in 1997, which confirmed that injuries to the princess’s eyes and face were caused as a result of her car accident. This thus reinforces the possibility that the bruises on Leonor Cipriano’s face could have resulted from her suicide attempt, as the inspectors have always claimed.

I cannot believe that Duarte Levy (whoever Duarte Levy is) has thought to even mention this comparison, it has absolutely nothing to do with the case of Leonor Cipriano. How does a car accident in Paris, compare with someone allegedly throwing them self down a flight of stairs in a Portuguese police station? It is hard to see how this would have any comparisons at all, they are both completely different, for a start I assume that Leonor Cipriano was not travelling at approximately 100mph when she allegedly fell down these stairs? I can't say and would never say from looking at a photograph (and neither can Duarte Levy) what Leonor's injuries were or how they could have been sustained but I do know that experts should have been consulted and hopefully her defence will have these expert witnesses when they go back to court. it is doubtful that a judge would allow the comparison of these two cases, however, I am sure there are plenty of recorded cases where people have actually fallen downstairs, which maybe a judge would see?
And there are two marks on Leonor's neck clearly visible in these photographs, that to me do not look conducive to have fallen down the stairs, they appear to resemble cigarette burn wounds. I wonder id anything about these two paricular wounds is in the official medical report? (If there is one.)

Joana’s death

Joana Isabel Cipriano Guerreiro was eight years old the day she disappeared. Her mother and her uncle were tried and sentenced for her death despite the fact that the body was never found.

Similarity......Joana was never found and so far Madeleine has never been found.

This has to give rise to people believe that in the absence of a body or any other firm evidence to the contrary, that it is a distinct possibility that these two girls can still be alive.

One month after Joana’s disappearance, the PJ’s national director decided to send three inspectors to Faro to find Joana. By this time her mother and uncle had already confessed to the crime, but had not revealed where her body was. Leonor and João Cipriano were again questioned, but revealed nothing further concerning the body’s whereabouts.

So a month after the event it was decided by the PJ's political master to send a team to find Joana? Why? Was there another controversy going on? It seems strange to me that two people who had no contact with each other, had simultaneously confessed to murdering Joana and then both did not reveal where Joana actually was. Having confessed to her murder, why did they not just tell the detectives what they had done with her and where she was? Considering what detectives have said they did with the body, I would have thought that each one of these people would be trying desperately to say who did what!

The enquiry revealed that João, Joana’s uncle, is a manipulator and is violent under the influence of alcohol. On the day his niece disappeared, he had spent the afternoon drinking. João and Leonor are part of a family that people in the neighbourhood describe as very strange, with an alleged history “of sexual relationships between the children (brothers and sisters) and their parents, domestic violence and possible consanguinity.”

I have no idea if he was violent manipulator "or not", but being violent under the influence of alcohol does not necessarily follow that he would rape and murder his niece, disposing of her body by chopping it up [and doing what with it exactly?] I think this behaviour would be termed as not only violent, but psychopathic. What are the medical and psychiatric reports on these two? What do they say? Have medical and psychiatric reports been done?

Another similarity...It was leaked that the McCann's had cut up Madeleine's body and thrown it in the sea.

Equally, is Duarte Levy and the PJ presenting evidence suggesting that because the neighbourhood gossip had it that there was incestuous relationships going on, that it was just accepted by the court as fact? Because people were strange they must be bonking each other? "An alleged history" of course suggests that there is no actual proof? Why not? if there are family members that the PJ are saying are born out of consanguinity, then DNA testing can prove this. So was there any DNA testing carried out of these family members, then this could be presented in court as fact, instead of "hearsay". If this has not been done by the PJ why not? It could prove to be a vital piece of evidence backing the PJ's accusations. Would not the PJ have asked the court to obtain these tests on other family members?

Another similarity...PJ has tried to say that a neighbour Mrs Fenn had heard Madeleine crying for 75 minutes, again this is something that cannot be proved. Mrs Fenn said she heard A CHILD, and was not certain it was Madeleine. So again neighbours loose testaments are somehow trying to be used as evidence.

According to the enquiry, João had had a sexual relationship with both his twin sister, Anabela, and with Leonor, whose mother had forced her into prostitution. At the time of the event, Leonor had three children living with her (including Joana) and a fourth one with whom she was no longer in contact.

To explain their crime, João and Leonor Cipriano stated that Joana had seen them having sex and threatened to report it to her stepfather. The PJ did not accept this explanation as their enquiry pointed to the fact that Joana loved her mother and would probably have kept quiet about the incident.

Another similarity, the PJ tried to question if Gerry was Madeleine's biological father and they leaked scurrilous reports that he was not Madeleine's real father.

Again if there were children born of these relationships as has been suggested, this should have been proved in court and not just presented as little more than gossip (hearsay)
Where is the proof that any child has been forced into prostitution? Where is the fourth child who was no longer a contact, did the PJ track her down and ask her about her life when she was with her mother? again this could prove to be vital evidence backing the PJ claims, so was she or was she not traced, spoken to and then appeared in court and depending upon her circumstances, to give her evidence? Why didn't the PJ accept this explanation? Was this part of Leonor's testament that she says has allegedly been obtained under torture?

Scroll down for the other part of this (if you want)

The investigation concluded that João had raped his niece in front of her passive mother, and that they both beaten the child, thus causing her death. This would explain why they hid the body: João preferred to admit that he had killed Joana rather than to say that he had raped her. Without the body there would be no possibility of proving rape.

This seems a very neat wrapping up of something that constitutes of nothing more than circumstantial evidence and hearsay. Very convenient that they could not find a body. The PJ are actually saying that Leonor Cipriano stood "passively" by and watched her brother rape her child and then just helped him murder her? Where are the psychiatric reports on Leonor Cipriano?

Again here is another similarity with he Madeleine McCann case, her parents and her parents friends were openly accused on national TV show by an ex PJ detective of being swingers and wasn't this offered as some kind of excuse as to why the tapas group declined to comment? (nothing to do with the fact that the PJ had them all under their secrecy laws, which of course has transpired that these laws were evoked at the behest of the PJ, because the case of Madeleine, need NEVER have been governed by Portugal's archaic secrecy laws. My point here was the case of Joana Cipriano governed by Portugal's secrecy laws?

João Cipriano admitted aggressing Joana, first to the inspectors and later to his lawyer, and that she “remained on the floor without moving”. However, while the mother pretended to search for her daughter with her boyfriend, he also admitted that he was the one who chopped up the body, hid it in a car that was to go to a scrap-yard, which was then taken to Spain where it was burned and compacted.

This is the account that João Cipriano gave to the inspectors and repeated the next day in the presence of his lawyer. But when they asked him whether he had abused his niece, he answered indignantly: “I didn’t harm her, I just killed her.”

Here we have a strange piece of evidence that seems to be at odds with what Claudia and Alsabella, (Portuguese posters from the daily Express HYS on Madeleine blogs) these posters both stated quite categorically that Joana's body had been found and that it had been cut up by João Cipriano and Leonor Cipriano and fed to the pigs! (strange how your lies catch you out isn't Claudia and Alsabella) So was the car conviniently taken to Spain with decomposing body parts in it and just compacted? And no one discovered it? No one noticed the unmistakable odour of cadaverine that must have been enveloping this whole area, let alone the car, yet someone has loaded this car complete with contents onto a trailer of some sort and then conveniently driven it out of Portugal's jurisdiction and into Spain and not one person noticed the odour that must have been acutely strong and permeating everywhere around this trailer and even into the cab of the driver. (Where on earth were Eddie and Keela when you want them!) Led to believe that Eddie and Keela can detect a minuscule spec of cadaverine odour a month after the event, yet the driver of this load did not detect the stench of decomposing body parts on his truck? Then completely out of Portugal's jurisdiction and then very conveniently this scrap metal was burned? Burned? Are the PJ sure? Or do they mean smelted? How convenient, again another explanation where the PJ do not have to produce hard and fast evidence because conveniently there is no hard an fast evidence, only circumstantial evidence and actually, is this even circumstantial, because to me it does not constitute as evidence at all and certainly not evidence you could convict two people of such a horrendous and grotesque crime as this on! there is also more of this kind of *supposed* evidence, it has been said that João Cipriano, did kill his niece because neighbours saw him carrying a bag up the road in which parts of Joana's body could have been in!

Equally it has been said that João Cipriano and Leonor, were simpletons and not particularly bright. well one or both of them could not have been that simple if they contrived this way of disposing of Joana!

Another similarity......Scurrilous suggestions about a missing blue tennis bag belonging to Gerry were leaked and this gave rise and still does tot his day, that he carried Madeleine's body parts away in it and threw them into the sea!

Forensic scientists found the sandals that her mother had said Joana was wearing at the time of her disappearance in the little girl’s home. They also found traces of her face and her hands on the walls, which confirmed her uncle’s statements. Traces of blood were found on the floor and in the refrigerator where João said he had kept the body before moving it to the car. Biological traces - possibly of sperm - were found in Joana’s bed and in a pair of the child’s underwear.

Another similarity......Goncalo Amaral has said that he thinks the McCann's kept Madeleine's body in a fridge or freezer, same as he said happened with Joana.

So they found the sandals that Joana's mother said the child was wearing? Does this mean she killed her? Or does it mean that she was so distraught about her daughters disappearance that she simply made a mistake? Again circumstantial evidence.
Again were is the evidence? They found traces of her face and hands on the wall? But I thought part of the PJ's defence was that these two accused, along with other family members cleaned the place so well, in fact too well with bleach, that no evidence could be obtained, so how could this confirm her uncle's statements? How was this evidence said to be found on the wall detected and was it categorically proved to be beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was evidence belonging to Joana Cipriano? What was this evidence? Skin? Hair? Bone? Snot? Bogies? Greasy Hand and finger prints? What? This is acutely very important, Joana's DNA would have been all over the walls of the house where she lived, so the quality and what this evidence actually constitutes as, becomes crucially important.

Another similarity.....Again blood traces that cannot be proved one way or the other as belonging to Madeleine or Joana.

Blood traces found on the floor and in the freezer, again said to have been "Said To Have Been" Joana's, where is the actual proof that they were Joana's? it is already a *KNOWN FACT* that this blood was never DNA tested and so was never able to be presented as Joana's in court, Miraculously, when Leonor's legal team requested to have this blood samples DNA tested to try and ascertain proof, they were told that these samples had been discarded, thrown away! This is not even circumstantial evidence it is totally UNSAFE.
The sperm evidence, again we have this it is Said to be, well "said to be" is not good enough in a court of law in a murder trial. Possibly sperm? Well was it or was it not sperm? again what was the forensic report? was there forensic reports done on this evidence? they should have been able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt if this was sperm and from this sperm they should have then been able to DNA match it to João Cipriano, so was this done or was it not done? If it was not done then it had no business being allowed in a court because again it is circumstantial. Where is this underwear and bed clothes now? Was it detained for future inspection if required? Again if it was then it should be tested, but what is the chances that it has been discarded?

yet another similarity....The bedclothes in the McCann apartment were simply allowed to be taken and laundered, so they cannot be produced or swept for evidence.

Thinking that João had already confessed, Leonor admitted the facts during her interrogation, and then turned to a photograph of Joana that was stuck on the wall, asking her for forgiveness.

If she thought that João Cipriano had already confessed, why didn't she tell the PJ where Joana's body could be located and what they had done with it? How could she possibly know that João Cipriano had said that he did not hurt Joana, only killed her?

She allegedly then became uncontrollable and shouted that she wanted to kill herself. It appears that the inspector was still busy writing the interrogation report when he heard shouting. According to this inspector, his colleagues told him that Leonor had attempted suicide by throwing herself down the stairs. She was examined by a doctor and then remanded in custody.

Where is this doctor's reports and what did they say about her injuries? what kind of injuries were sustained and have experts on such injuries been consulted and testified their findings in court, to actually say that these injuries could have been sustained by falling down the stairs and did the defending council produce their own medical expert to give opinions on these injuries?

The following day the police received an anonymous phone call informing them that people inside the prison were trying to convince Leonor to say that she had been attacked by the inspectors: the prison director sent a letter with photographs of Leonor to the national director of the PJ and to the press, accusing the inspectors of aggression.

Why would someone make such a phone call to say this? And why would the prison director try and make Leonor say she had been attacked by the inspectors?
How do we know this phone call took place? Anonymous? how convenient, then we do not know if this is a staff member or a prisoner? Then this evidence should not have been allowed in court.

A letter sent by another prisoner contradicts this version: she affirms that, while in prison, Joana’s mother had said that she had fallen down the stairs but that after a meeting with the prison director, she changed her version and said instead that she had been tortured and that she hoped to receive damages.

So a convicted child killer in a hostile environment towards child killers, just relates this to another prisoner that she fell down the stairs and was not attacked by the inspectors and this prisoner decides to write to whom? Goncalo Amaral? The court? Who?

Despite several confrontations with the inspectors, Leonor Cipriano was unable to make any positive identification. The public prosecutor nonetheless decided to proceed with the lawsuit, even though he admitted that he, himself, could not guarantee that the inspectors being charged had anything to do with the alleged assault or whether any such assault had even actually taken place.

The inspectors’ lawyer and Carlos Anjos, president of the Association of Criminal Investigation Staff consider the public prosecutor’s decision to be politically motivated.

Perhaps Leonor Cipriano in prison is terrified of identifying her torturers? Perhaps at the time she did not look at them? Perhaps she was so busy defending herself that she was covering her head and eyes?

Why would the Portuguese Public Prosecutor's decision be politically motivated? For what reason exactly?

This has now gone before a judge in court and they have said that there is a case for these five former members of the Policia judiciaria to answer, is this person making a decision for political reasons too? What reasons?

I think this is all looking extremely bad for Goncalo Amaral, it is already been said that if this case of alleged torture made it to the Portuguese courts, that it would be very bad for the inspectors involved because the chances of being convicted of this would be extremely high. If there was no case to answer then the judge would not have ordered a trial.

If the law means anything at all in Portugal, it is hard not to see that the convictions of Leonor Cipriano and her brother are completely unsafe and that an immediate retrial should be ordered and then it is hard to envisage anything other than they would win their case and be released immediately from prison.

If this does not happen, then the case of Leonor is already registered with the European Courts for Human Rights.

Hazzarding a guess, I would say that Portugal really does NOT want this case heard in Europe, it would cause major embarrassment for Portugal because from what I have seen and read there is absolutely no evidence on which to have convicted these two, this coming hot on the tail of the shelving of the Madeleine McCann investigation and the removing of the arguido status from her parents on the grounds of a complete lack of evidence.

None of this looks particulalry healthy for Amaral, perhaps the next book he writes should be centred on why he himself thinks all these mistakes and cock ups in both of these investigations, are always the fault of others and someone else and are never down to him. He was the man in charge!

Has he never heard that him being the person in charge the buck actually stops with him?


In my opinion Duarte Levy is not a very good journalist. He has forgotten to include in his somewhat biased report that at the trials of Leonor and her brother, one of the three judges insisted on going down on record as saying that they thought Leonore Cipriano to be innocent, so the decision to convict Leonor and her brother was NOT a unanimous decison.
Also, If Duarte Levy cannot see any similarities between the case of Joana and Madeleine then he must not be looking at the same two cases as I? One very big similarity is that Joana went missing just under 7 miles away from where Madeleine disappeared from and according to child abduction experts, the chances of these two cases being connected and actually quite high!

Rosie,

Perhaps Leonor Cipriano in prison is terrified of identifying her torturers? Perhaps at the time she did not look at them? Perhaps she was so busy defending herself that she was covering her head and eyes?

To be honest if the story of her sad past is true in the report I posted last night then im not surprised if she was terrified and trying to protect herself from them. It seems shes possibly been accustomed to being in the position where shes the victim. Sad really isn't it. But i think that sometimes when a person as been so badly treated..they aint capable of standing up for themselves so when they are faced with more abuse they just comply and do as they are told..its easier... and some people come to realsie that there is nothing you can do except take the blows aimed at you. So leonor could have actually been a victim to her own fear and vulnerability as well as to the sickness of the b####ds that may have done this to her.
And sadly sometimes when a person has been treated in this way(as she might or might have been)others will target them as they become easy targets for more abuse. Leonor was reported to have suffered a really bad childhood being prostituted by her family and having suffered beatings etc.Whether this is true we might not ever know because the story of this case as been somewhat twisted about so much. I think the only person I would believe would be Leonor.When and if she ever gets the opportunity to tell her side of all this.

It highlights another of my posts last night where I wondered if her daughter Joana was also targeted by people in the know that she was already in a vulnerably position. You see if the abductors knew this family were so urrrm..vulnerable???not sure of the right word to use there....but the family would be an easy target ....the child could have been abducted and then past off as killed by her mum and uncle because people would believe the story given that the family seemed to have a history of abuse???Am I making sense?...not sure.

heres another quote from your post i found a bit urrmmm contradictory.Not by you but by those who said it.

Here we have a strange piece of evidence that seems to be at odds with what Claudia and Alsabella, (Portuguese posters from the daily Express HYS on Madeleine blogs) these posters both stated quite categorically that Joana's body had been found and that it had been cut up by João Cipriano and Leonor Cipriano and fed to the pigs!

Hmmmmmm how can they find her body when it was fed to pigs??

Not really sure about the treatment of joana by her family and don't wish to comment on her being treated that way by her stepdad, except to say if indeed it was true(and without joana or a body to confirm this we cannot know) then he will get his time when he as to stand before the best judge there is(our lord)

Im not sure how much of this report is true or how much of its false but the whole thing stinks of a cover up....giving the reports of Leonor being tortured/ beaten etc by cops.....also the FACT that documents were actually falsified(one of the reason they are going to court) then im inclined to believe the whole case seems to be based on he said she said.And without joana or her little body we will never know.

Both joana and madeleine seem to have conveniently disappeared off the face of the earth. Both sets of parents also seem to be reading the same murder books as they have both been accused of killing them, cutting them, putting them in fridges, and then disposing of them either by means of cremating them, or dumping them at sea.

Im baffled as to why the same conclusion as been draw to these cases.After all we aint dealing with a killer here who leaves a calling card by murdering his victims in the same way....we dealing with two separate families from different parts of the world.Both having their children abducted and also being accused of the same sorts of things.Conveniently by the same cop??

Hmmmmm

We have nothing to say what kind of life Leonor had led or that of her children, but it does not sound to be a very good one, but this is still no reason to assume because they led these kind of lives that they would treat their child in such a horrendous fashion and then not only murder her, but murder her in a grotesque way.

It should also be said that Leonor's actual husband has professed her innocence.

You are correct in your explanation about abuse and how the victims of abuse behave and this explains why someone like Leonor would may crumble and confess to something she did not do. If the same kind of logic was applied to get a strong woman like Kate McCann in order to try and get her to confess to something she did not do, her reaction must have come as a bit of a shock!

Leonor could very well have been a victim of her own fear and vulnerability, you are absolutely correct and yes it is sad, it is dreadfully sad and it is not hard to envisage why this would make a person like Leonor compliant.

Again we have this problem of childhood prostitution coming up, apparently Portugal does have a problem with street child and childhood prostitution.
I cant help thinking or worrying that there may be children falling foul to abduction, who are simply not being reported as missing.

If a very poor family has a child that has not come home and the whole family circumstances are suspect and in view of what has happened in the past to Leonor Cipriano and now to the parents of Madeleine McCann, would they report their child as missing? Or would they simply be terrified to do so for fear of ending up being accused of being complicit in their disappearance or even death? This is an extremely worrying scenario and I have read that Portugal is not at all helpful in helping agencies who want to try and find missing children.

These kind of families could be seen as easy targets, I can understand what you are trying to say, although I would stop short of saying the PJ are involved.

I mentioned these posters Claudia and Alsabella from the DX HYS days, because they used to go ballistic if you mentioned Joana and Leonor Cipriano, which I found to be strange. They did indeed say that Joana's body had been found and that her mother and uncle had cut her body up and fed it to the pigs. They said this because I had quite rightly commented that Madeleine had disappeared just under 7 miles from where Joana disappeared and like Joana, Madeleine's body had never been found and that experts in child abductions had said there was a high chance that these two could be connected.
So these two, Claudia and Alsabella said that Joana's body had been found and that it had been cut up and fed to the pigs.

It was obvious that this was an absolute lie because records quite openly recorded that Joana had never been found and if her mother and uncle had done this to her, then there could and probably would still be proof of that where the pigs were kept.

I just find it amazing how badly people will tell lies just to try and prove themselves right. It is just like a big game to these people and the children like little Joana and Madeleine cease to be children, they become part of some kind of macabre game these antis like to play.

Jaeo Cipriano was not Joana's step father, he was her uncle, he is Leonor's brother.

If one policeman is in court to answer charges about falsifying official documents, it just sews the seeds of doubt and it makes me wonder how many other documents may have been falsified.

From what I have read and have only read what others have read on here, this case to me looks like it has been based on the flimsiest of evidence, which under scrutiny, does not stand up to questioning at all. It is said that if you have enough circumstantial evidence that this could convict, but the quality if that evidence has to be excellent and to me, this just does not seem to be the case concerning Leonor Cipriano.

I am intrigued to learn that there is another child, a sibling of Joana, that is not in contact with he family and wonder if this is an older sibling? I wonder where she is and if she has been traced? I say this because how do we know that Joana is not quite simply living with this fourth child?

I agree, it is totally bizarre that two very different families with very different backgrounds could have children disappear with 7 miles of each other and lengthening the odds even more, one family is just visiting the area on holiday, yet there is all these amazing similarities in these two cases and even more coincidental, the same detective is in charge of both cases?

hi rosie i dont know enough to coment on this but i will add i have seen the photos and looking at them i find it very hard to believe she fell down any stairs......................how many people have now come forward to say the portuguese have alledged tried to torture them beat them etc...........can they all be liars?

If the same kind of logic was applied to get a strong woman like Kate McCann in order to try and get her to confess to something she did not do, her reaction must have come as a bit of a shock!

But I think the same kind of logic has been applied to Kate! Remember the reference made by Phil, I believe, that PJ 'offered' a deal if she confessed she would only get two years in prison? Do you remember that Kate was said to have answered 'How dare you?' This was denied later, but the funny thing is how on earth could Phil know that manslaughter first time offender could get EXACTLY a two year sentence here in Portugal?

And I seem to recall hearing Kate say in one of her interviews that 'nobody would make me confess something I didn't do'

i also read the article and i agree with kate 100 percent why should she confess to any crime she did not take any part in.

in my opion only i really feel an outside agencey should re investigate everyone who claim that they have been forced into a false confession by goncs and his team,as for more than one person to say htey had been forced or have been threatened now claim.

Is it my imagination or is something very wrong here..................It makes me feel that people are being put into prison under false statments and evidance.Why is this happenning?

Check this out ...

http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/report2003/Prt-summary-eng

2003 is not a long time ago...

Marilyn,


Hmmmm now why doesn't that report surprise me???

There were reports of police ill-treatment of people at the time of arrest and in police stations. The alleged victims included children, women and people belonging to ethnic minorities.

Seems they pick on the more vulnerable and weaker of the human race.Wonder what they do if they were faced with someone bigger than them??Cowards they are.Shameless cowards.

Sad fact that some people needing their help have ended up jumping from the frying pan into the chip pan so to speak.Makes my skin crawl to think people must be getting some sort of deluded pleasure from giving a battering to those who have probably already been given enough of them.

Do they train them to behave this way or is it something they inherit when they get their pathetic badges.

IMO, Leonore turned to Joanna's photo to beg forgiveness because she knew that when she confessed, she was leaving her live daughter to her fate. She knew they would never find her, and that she had let her down.

What a heartbreaking decision to make? To stop the torture, because you cannot take it anymore, you must sacrifice your child. No wonder she had to ask Joanna's forgiveness. Whatever fate had befallen Joanna, nothing was going to be done to change it.

There are comments about this article on another thread as well. I have made a few comments that are relevant on the other thread.

This person Duarte Levy keeps popping up, so thought I would run a thread, then anyone that has something they want to discuss about him, can put it here.
I agree with what you said about Leonor turning to Joana's photograph too! I just hope Karma is around when they go for trial! :Nitenite:

Why was there a Joana's picture on the wall of an interrogation room? If it isn't to put pressure on the persons being interrogated, what other reason? I call this pshycological torture.

It really is heartbreaking and maybe it was a godsend that the spotlight was on Kate and Gerry because who knows what would have happened?

These poor wee souls.. :( :( :(
The real criminal always seem to be getting away with this – truly disgusting in my opinion.. :evil:

Yes, Mandz, that spotlight was vital. A spotlight that was extra-bright because they were citizens of a sophisticated, democratic country, where people still get plenty of uncensored news and who aren't afraid to make a fuss. The UK public and its authorities would never have tolerated the kind of treatment being meted out to the McCanns that was suffered by (among others) Leonor Cipriano. There would have been an international incident of major proportions. Bye bye to our 'oldest ally'!