Amaral's Reply to the Expresso Interview

dianeh wrote:Sorry I am not sure where this originally came from and I nicked it from another forum. So I am not responsible for the content,and I do not agree with it. But I thought you might all be interested in it.

Mum21 wrote:

dianeh wrote:Sorry I am not sure where this originally came from and I nicked it from another forum. So I am not responsible for the content,and I do not agree with it. But I thought you might all be interested in it.

Morning Diane....er, did you forget something?
I can put it down to old age when I forget....what is your excuse?

“It is false, wrong, most of the replies are not true”

by: Hernâni Carvalho

Nobody is searching for Madeleine McCann anymore, but within the same week, an English newspaper revealed five minutes of the dogs’ work looking for Maddie, the McCanns spoke to ‘Expresso’ and Gonçalo Amaral spoke in an exclusive to ‘tvmais’. It doesn’t look like the same process anymore

The former PJ coordinator who directed the Maddie case, Gonçalo Amaral, is more accessible. He received ‘tvmais’ in his home in Portimão and he accepted to read the interview that the McCanns gave to ‘Expresso’ with us. He accepted to reply to the same questions, but he gave very different answers. “It is false, wrong, most of the replies are not true”, was what we heard him say most often. Concerning his relationship with the couple, he says they knew each other well. “They knew who I was and they knew what my functions were.” Gonçalo Amaral left a challenge for Maddie’s mother: “The lady should explain herself better. When she said that my personal behaviour was a disgrace, was she referring to me as a father?”.

Concerning the couple’s accusations, the former coordinator said very little. “I don’t know the McCanns’ concept of illicit enrichment. I wrote the book to defend my reputation, my dignity and that of all those who worked with me. I intend to continue to contribute to the discovery of the truth. Not everything one does in life is done for money. The statements from that couple seem to appear following an organized campaign of defamation that targeted me during and after the investigation. It will be interesting to discover who is actually responsible for that campaign.”

During the same week in which the McCanns spoke to ‘Expresso’, the PJ’s officer who was responsible for the Maddie case, Gonçalo Amaral, answered the same questions, in an exclusive for ‘tvmais’. The result could hardly be more different.

What impression did you get from the process? Were you shocked over its contents?
(The McCanns mentioned entire volumes of investigations about them.)
It is false. There were not those volumes about the McCanns that they mention in interviews.

Don’t you think that everything that was possible to do, was done? The investigation reached Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Morocco…
(The couple refers examples of what went wrong with the PJ in Morocco.)
It is false. The PJ never went to Morocco because of Maddie. The sightings were always treated by the local authorities.

If Madeleine had disappeared in England, would things have been different?
(Gerry says yes because the English police is more experienced in abductions.)
Why did the McCanns never want to present a formal complaint about the girl’s disappearance with the English authorities? They have the legal competence to receive the disappearance of any British subject! Maybe the couple would have to explain the circumstances under which the little girl disappeared… Why do the McCanns insist in hiring private detectives? And by the way, has the English police already found the girl that disappeared in England, on the same day as Maddie?

If you have an important clue concerning Madeleine’s whereabouts, will you transmit it to the Portuguese police?
(Gerry said that only when the couple feels that they cannot advance any further on their own.)
I don’t know whether they will do it. But in order not to feel alone, they should contact the English police…

Do you trust the Portuguese authorities, after having been considered suspects?
(Gerry explains that the couple was only investigated months after the disappearance and that once the suspicion is installed, they cannot prove their innocence.)
The McCanns never trusted the Portuguese police. That is the feeling that I have. And it seems that they don’t trust the English police, either.

Didn’t you find it strange that the dogs found traces of blood in your room and in your rental car…
(Gerry states that “No blood was found!”)
What is strange is the blood and the odour that were marked by the dogs in a car that was rented 23 days after the girl’s disappearance.

Forty apartments were investigated and the dogs only marked yours. Ten cars and they only reacted to yours.
(Gerry states that the dogs failed a test in the USA.)
The dogs only marked locations and items that were used by the McCanns, which is an indicium that cannot be simply erased and which must be clarified.

Were you surprised when you were made arguidos?
(Gerry says that the media spent weeks saying that the McCanns were suspects)
They knew it already. When they were summoned, Mrs Kate reacted aggressively and screamed at the inspector who notified them. There is a detailed report of that in the process, written by the person who notified them. The worries that were expressed by Mrs Kate at that moment are very curious.

Do you investigate information that point towards Madeleine’s death?
(We want to find her alive, Kate stated.)
The McCanns were the first who gave a signal that the little girl could be dead. They hired a South-African expert who finds dead missing people and it was Mrs Kate who gave us an email that mentioned that the little girl was dead.

Do you still believe that she’s alive?
(Kate: “There are great possibilities that she is alive, isn’t it? There is nothing in the process to indicate that something bad has happened to her…”)
Maddie is dead. The Public Ministry went further and objectively mentioned homicide.

But there are no indicia that she has been abducted, either.
(Kate refers that Jane Tunner [sic] and the Smith couple saw a man with a little girl.)
The only indicia with credibility result from the depositions that were given by the Smith family. They speak about a man carrying an inanimate child on the way to the beach area.

The PJ discredits Jane Tanner’s testimony. They say that when she saw said man with the child, you [Gerry] were chatting nearby and it was impossible that you hadn’t seen him as well…
(Gerry says he didn’t see because his back was turned while he was chatting with a friend.)
Jane Tanner’s testimony has evolved in an inverse manner to human mentality. Initially, she had seen only a person at a distance. As time went by, she started remembering details in such a manner that at the end, she even remembered the texture of the clothing that the man and the little girl were wearing. That was how she pointed at Murat. The only deposition that is credible is the Smiths’.

Later on, that family stated that the man they saw was Gerry…
(Gerry says that he was at the restaurant at that time.)
The time at which the alarm of the disappearance was raised was never confirmed. The time that was reported by the Smiths always places Mr Gerry away from the dinner table. I know that the Smiths exist since the 16th of May, 2007. The McCanns probably do, as well. Why did they never wish to mention them in public. Whoever took the little girl on that evening did in fact cross ways with the Smiths.

Was it a coincidence that you were made arguidos on one day and returned home the next day?
(“The PJ knew about our return.”)
It was no coincidence. We knew about the couple’s departure since the day that the dogs started working.

Were you afraid of being arrested?
(Obviously… It was scary)
False. They always knew that the crimes that were at issue, according to the Portuguese law, would not give origin to a detention unless caught in flagrant. “Concealment of a cadaver and simulation of a crime”.

Being in England, you would not be extradited anymore.
(Gerry: “It was better not to be in Portugal at that point in time.”)
Theoretically, extradition is an instrument of international judiciary cooperation…

Why?
(Kate: “Because of the hostile environment.”)
They were made arguidos in order to have more rights. They used them well.

Why did Kate refuse to answer questions during your interrogation, that Gerry accepted to clarify the next day?
(Kate says she was advised by the lawyer not to reply, Gerry says he was advised as well but preferred to disobey.)
Wrong. The questioning was not the same. There were questions that were asked from Kate, to which only she could answer. Those questions remain unanswered until this day.

Why didn’t you authorize the police to see the messages that you sent and received on your mobile phone on the eve of Maddie’s disappearance.
(Gerry: “Nobody asked to see my messages.”)
False. The couple signed an authorization and a document was made with the reading of their telephones’ registry. When we read those registries, we detected calls that had been erased and other curiosities that were noted in the process files…

The chief inspector in the case, Tavares de Almeida, writes a report where he says that your friends lied to save you, that Maddie died in the living room, and that you hid the body.
(Gerry: “Ask the police why they saw us as suspects.”)
Wrong, just read the process.

The majority of crimes where the victims are children are committed by the parents.
(Gerry: “Not in the case of abducted children.”)
And even in abduction cases, very often, they are related to the parents.


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The “Sun” newspaper reduced three hours into five minutes

The dogs that are trained to detect cadaver and human blood odour were proposed to carry out searches in Praia da Luz by the English policemen themselves. Expert Mark Harrison suggested the use of British dogs that are experts in detecting cadavers, in a report that he sent to the English police. The searches that Keela and Eddie carried out in Praia da Luz were taped on video. Tvmais has already accessed the three hours of images. British newspaper “Sun” reduced them into five minutes, changed the recording order and omitted parts of the dog handler’s explanations. Eddie and Keela are sniffer dogs of the springer spaniel breed, especially trained to detect cadaver and human blood odour. In the video, Eddie (that detects cadaver odour) can be seen in a garage where ten cars are parked. The dog runs towards the Renault Mégane [sic] that the McCanns rented twenty three days after their daughter’s disappearance. Keela (trained to find blood traces) marked the boot of the same vehicle. In the same video, the dogs can be seen marking the McCanns’ apartment after searching in forty apartments. Tvmais knows that these dogs have passed all the tests that they were subject to by the FBI, and that they never gave a single “false positive result”. According to expert Martin Grime, the dogs have not failed in over two hundred searches that they have carried out until this day. Faced with the same tests, the FBI dogs did not complete one third of the tests. Keela and Eddie are protected by an insurance of 7.5 million euros each. English expert Martin Grime recently signed a millionaire contract with the FBI to work for American police. He has not left for the US yet, because the searches for cadavers in an English shelter are ongoing and the dogs are on location, fulfilling their mission to 100 percent.

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Truth or consequence?

When Gonçalo Amaral published “Maddie, the Truth about the Lie”, the McCanns’ spokesman announced that the couple would sue the former PJ investigation coordinator. Clarence Mitchell knew that he was bluffing. Any process against Gonçalo Amaral will allow him to reveal issues that were devalued within the Maddie process, during a trial. The devaluation prevented the process from reaching a court room. It would not be now that the couple would want some questions to get there. Furthermore, the McCanns continue to state that they have not read the book…

Once again, Mitchell bluffed.

Abduction, disappearance or death?

The FindMadeleine Fund was created on the presumption that the little girl disappeared because she was abducted. The fund started to receive money from members of the public who wanted to contribute to the ongoing search for the little girl. Several detectives were hired for that, despite the fact that the McCann couple never presented a complaint about the disappearance of Madeleine to the English authorities.

And they should, just like other British subjects did in the past. In order to search for Madeleine, among others, the detectives from agency Metodo 3 were hired, who promised to deliver the little girl on Christmas 2007. And Oakley International, which states that it employs former members of the FBI and from the British secret services. What is known from this agency’s work is the discovery that Mr Joaquim Agostinho, from Altura, in Monte Gordo, resembled the photofits? Tvmais has discovered that Oakley has presented 30.000 (?) euros during the fiscal year of 2007. Which seems to indicate that spies are on sale. But no. Just the two invoices that were written by these two agencies almost sank the FindMadeleine fund.

Some multimillionaires that used to contribute to pay for the detectives (Brian Kennedy, for example) stopped doing so. The fund that was founded to search for a missing girl, will presumably end as soon as someone proves that the little girl is dead. At least that is what the British law foresees. Until then, the search for the girl continues. The McCanns received a compensation of over 500.000 euros from the British newspapers. With a little more money that the FindMadeleine fund may still hold, the search will continue. Maybe at more modest prices.

in: tvmais, September 15, 2008

Related: McCanns in Expresso- Interview