IT'S JUST SICKENING


He has 3-hour boozy lunches, works only four hours a day and has openly accused Kate & Gerry of killing their daughter.. this is the cop leading the hunt for Madeleine.. It's just sickening
Grant Hodgson
30 September 2007
The Sunday Mirror
The search for Madeleine Day 150


Puffing on a cigarette and knocking back beers, the man leading the world's biggest missing child inquiry enjoys yet another long, boozy lunch.

Portuguese police chief Goncalo Amaral worked as little as four-and-a--half hours a day this week - despite a mountain of uninvestigated sightings of Madeleine McCann on his desk.

The Sunday Mirror has discovered that 252 possible tip-offs about the four-year-old have been reported to Amaral, any one of which might just lead to her being traced. But the vast majority have not even been checked.

Amaral, in charge of a squad of 30 detectives, has convinced himself she is dead, despite having no evidence for it.  (See: Wikileaks cable)

And since the return from Portugal of Kate and Gerry McCann and most of the media covering the case, many in his squad have had their feet up, their main role seemingly to provide drinking companions for their boss.

The McCanns, who cling to the hope of getting Madeleine back, will be appalled that the inquiry - supposedly still running at full-steam - has effectively stopped amid a welter of boozy lunch breaks.

A source close to the family said: "It is devastating for them to know leads are not being chased up. They always feared that once they left Portugal, the inquiry would peter out."

On Wednesday, when the world was praying that a little girl seen in Morocco may be Madeleine, Amaral and his team seemed utterly uninterested and left it to the British media to establish it was a false alarm.

He instead enjoyed a twohour 10 minute lunch washed down with wine. The next day was a similar tale - lunch lasted two-and-a-half hours. And on Friday he was gone for more than three.

Even more appallingly, while Kate and Gerry have been warned they face a year in jail for discussing the case, Amaral was overheard in a cafe brazenly accusing them of killing Madeleine.

In a conversation with a Portuguese racing driver, he was heard saying he was sure the little girl was dead even though there's no final proof that she is. He told ex-F1 star Pedro Lamy he believed the McCanns drugged Madeleine to keep her quiet and accidentally killed her.

Amaral said: "The police case is we are sure the parents kiled Madeleine. They are both doctors and know about drugs. We are confident in our case." One of the group outrageously chipped in how he believed the couple could have taken cocaine on the night Madeleine disappeared.

The conversation was a flagrant breach of the judicial secrecy rules which prevent Kate and Gerry from defending themselves against police leaks. Amaral, his beer belly spilling over his baggy jeans and a creased shirt unbuttoned to reveal a gold medallion, looked more like a holidaymaker than a detective in charge of a case which today enters its 150th day.

Only last week Antonio Cluny, president of Portugal's public prosecutors service, said the search for Madeleine's body was a huge priority for the police. Until it is found, he said, prosecutors had to consider the possibility that almost anything could have happened to the girl and they could not rely on the police theory that Kate and Gerry were responsible for her death. He said: "Without the little girl's body, everything is extremely complicated."

Amaral, who is himself under investigation for allegedly helping to cover up a police beating carried out to extract a confession from the mother of another missing girl, is the regional head of the Policia Judiciaria, or PJ for short.

The Carvi fish restaurant where he spends hundreds of pounds a week is a few minutes' walk from PJ headquarters in the seaside town of Portimao.

The Sunday Mirror watched as Amaral and colleagues tucked into a series of fish dishes, washed down with lager and white wine.

His longest session, which lasted three hours and 10 minutes, was on Friday afternoon. It meant he could not have carried out more than four-and-a-half hours of work all day. Amaral, 47, who has a young daughter, is No3 in the Madeleine inquiry, in charge of its day-to-day running. After one drinking spree this week, the moustachioed police chief got in his car and drove home.

The McCanns were questioned separately at the grim PJ building for up to 10 hours earlier this month when they became suspects in Madeleine's disappearance.

Kate was also told if she agreed to admit she had accidentally killed Madeleine she would receive a lighter sentence.

The couple, now at home in Rothley, Leics, vehemently deny having anything to do with their daughter's disappearance. The McCanns' official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said last night: "Kate and Gerry want to cooperate with the Portuguese police and would hope that they and their resources are being deployed as effectively as possible at all times."

And writing in his regular internet blog this week Gerry McCann told of the rollercoaster ride they experienced this week after the false alarm in Morocco. He added: "Despite the disappointment, it is encouraging that people are still being vigilant and have not stopped looking for Madeleine. This is so incredibly important to us both."

Although not, it seems, to Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral.

DIARY OF POLICE CHIEF AMARAL

1.15pm GO FOR LUNCH

4.23pm BACK TO WORK

WEDNESDAY: While the world hopes a young blonde girl seen in Morocco might be Madeleine, Amaral and his team have other priorities.

9.30am: Amaral arrives for work in his car wearing a beige jacket, jeans and a white shirt.

1.17pm: He casually strolls out of the police building and takes a leisurely stroll to the Carvi restaurant with his boss Guilhermino Encarnacao - dubbed Inspector Clueless - who is making a rare visit to the investigation.

Lunch: They share a bottle of wine white and two fish platters before heading back to the office at 3.27pm.

6.30pm: Amaral heads home.

THURSDAY: Amaral's boss has left town, meaning he can focus properly his lunch.

9.30am: He clocks on.

1.07pm: It's down tools time as he heads for lunch with a younger colleague.

1.15pm: They are joined by a Nancy Dell'Olio lookalike, who wears a figure-hugging black dress. The woman greets Amaral by patting him on the backside and ruffling his thinning hair.

1.20pm: The group move to Amaral's preferred secluded table. His first drink is a pinkcoloured fruit cordial but he's soon switching to a glass of Portuguese Sagres lager.

2.19pm: Amaral has a coughing fit which lasts more than three minutes. He splutters at the table, sipping water before picking up the bill for the £84 meal.

3.30pm: The woman leaves by herself and the men follow a few minutes' later.

6.13pm: Amaral emerges from the building with the colleague he went to lunch with. They return to the Carvi and sit watching the evening news on the TV.

6.48pm: The young man leaves after another beer. Amaral stays on, eating a couple of fish dishes.

9.55pm: After a few more beers, he heads back to his car and drives home.

FRIDAY: 9.54am: Amaral pitches up for work even later than normal.

1.08pm: After fewer than three hours at his desk, he's off to pick up his daughter from school and brings her back to the Carvi with him.

1.15pm: He orders the first of at least four beers. He and his colleague also order a bottle of white wine while the little girl has a soft drink.

2.14pm: He takes his daughter back to the car. She is driven off and he is joined by two more friends and his racing driver friend. Amaral then has at least three more beers and a glass of wine.

4.23pm: It's nearly time to go home and, after splitting the bill and saying goodbye to his friend, Amaral and two of his colleagues slowly walk back to their office.

5.55pm: After just an hour and 32 minutes back at his desk, Amaral emerges into the bright afternoon sunlight carrying a white plastic bag and blue folder. He walks the short distance from his office to the underground car park.

6.10pm: After getting into his navy blue Volvo he heads for home, and the 148th day of the Madeleine hunt ends as it began - in a hive of inactivity.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , , ,


’McCanns Are Lying’


September 24, 2007
Express
David Pilditch and Martin Evans

Portuguese police believe Gerry and Kate McCann are using friends to hide their role in killing Madeleine.The Daily Express can reveal that their seven holiday friends may now be named as suspects as police believe they are hiding the truth about Madeleine’s death.The dramatic move comes as it was reported that former chief suspect Robert Murat is to be told he will not face charges over the four-year-old’s disappearance. Ruling him out of the four-month investigation will leave Kate and Gerry McCann as the sole suspects.


Last night police sources said the decision could have a devastating impact on the McCanns’ defence. In an astonishing twist, British expat Murat could be used as a key prosecution witness against the McCanns. Almost the entire police case against Murat was built on evidence from the couple’s holiday friends.

Investigators believe the McCanns “cooked up a story” that Madeleine had been kidnapped to throw them off the trail and enlisted members of their party to provide them with an alibi. They also believe the group tried to turn the focus of the investigation towards Murat.

Yesterday it was revealed that police are questioning new witnesses who cast doubts over the evidence of members of the holiday group.The McCanns and their friends told how they took turns to check on their children every 30 minutes as they ate at a tapas restaurant on May 3, the night Madeleine vanished.

But one Portuguese newspaper reported that employees at the restaurant insisted that only Dr Russell O’Brien, 36, and hospital consultant Matthew Oldfield, 37, left the dinner table that evening. Another witness has come forward to refute the testimony of a third friend Jane Tanner, 36, who told police she saw a man carrying a child rushing from the Ocean Club complex at around 9.15pm on May 3.

Yesterday it was reported in Portugal that a new witness, an unnamed Irishman, told police he was in the same spot as Miss Tanner at the same time and saw no one. He is the second independent witness to dispute her story and police sources said they viewed Miss Tanner’s evidence as “unreliable” because of inconsistencies.

Officers are concerned that she apparently changed her version of the sighting.She originally claimed she saw the suspect rushing towards the Baptista supermarket in Praia da Luz. She told police the child was wrapped in a blanket.

A second independent witness reported seeing a similar man with a child in a blanket near the town’s church heading towards the beach. The route he took matches the alleged trail of death discovered by British sniffer dogs who detected the scent of a corpse. But Miss Tanner has now told detectives that the man was heading in a different direction – towards Murat’s home. Police regard her account as one of a series given by the McCanns and their friends to convince them that Madeleine had been kidnapped.

Officers believe former hospital anaesthetist Kate, 39, killed her daughter by accidentally giving her an overdose of sleeping pills. They are working on the theory that consultant cardiologist Gerry, also 39, helped to dispose of Madeleine’s body. Police are awaiting results of toxicology tests carried out on bodily fluids with an 88 per cent match to Madeleine’s DNA found in the boot of a hire car the couple rented 25 days after she went missing.

Dr O’Brien, along with Mr Oldfield’s wife Rachael, 36, and another friend Dr Fiona Payne, 34, said they saw Murat near the McCanns’ apartment on May 3 and their claim appeared to shatter Murat’s alibi.Detectives interrogated the McCanns at police headquarters in Portimao 17 days ago over the discrepancies. The couple were told separately later that day they were being named as suspects or arguidos.

Last night another member of the McCanns’ holiday party was reported to have stepped into the mystery. The move came after it was revealed that police in Portugal were focusing their investigation on a “lost seven hours” on the day Madeleine disappeared. Now Dr Payne’s husband – medical researcher David, 41 – has claimed he saw Madeleine being put to bed when he visited the McCann flat at 7pm. Before his new testimony, police sources admitted they could not confirm the whereabouts of Kate and Madeleine after 1.29pm that day. Kate’s movements were said to be unaccounted for until she sat down to have dinner with Gerry and their friends at around 8.40pm.

But the McCanns believe Mr Payne’s testimony will be crucial in proving their innocence. That would leave just an hour and a half in which they were supposed to have killed their daughter and disposed of her body. But last night a source in Portugal said police were viewing alibis provided by the McCanns’ friends with suspicion. They are convinced that some or all of them may have known what happened to Madeleine and may have helped to cover up her death. The source said police had not ruled out the possibility of naming them all as suspects – and they could face being charged as accessories.

The source said: “It has long been considered a number of people may have been involved in this unfortunate case.”  In Portugal yesterday it was revealed that detectives have seized a British police manual from the McCanns. Officers believe the book could be used as a key piece of evidence in building a case against them.A Portuguese police source said: “It is certainly not the sort of reading material you would expect a couple to take on a relaxing family holiday".
Continue Reading... Labels: , , ,


Detective has only been on two child murder cases


Detective has only been on two child murder cases
by Kiran Randhawa
24 September 2007
The Evening Standard


The detective leading the Madeleine McCann inquiry has investigated only two child murders in his 26-year police career in Portugal.  Goncalo Amaral, head of the regional Policia Judiciaria, has already faced criticism for his handling of the inquiry.

In one of the two other cases, Mr Amaral, 47, was accused of concealing evidence that the mother of an eight-year-old girl who vanished in the Algarve town of Figueira three years ago, was tortured by police into confessing to the killing.  Leonor Cipriano confessed after almost 48 hours of interrogation, but retracted her statement. She is now serving 16 years in jail for the murder of her daughter, whose body was never found.

The second child murder case was that of a two-year-old girl kicked to death by her father. He is serving 18 years in jail after confessing.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , ,


Madeleine police tortured me


Madeleine police tortured me, says mother behind bars
23 September 2007
John Follain in Portimao
Sunday Times 

[Note: Article also appeared in The Australian on 24 September 2007] 

Leandro Silva and Leonor Cipriano

The senior detective leading the Madeleine McCann investigation is facing calls to step down after a woman jailed for the murder of her daughter claimed that his officers tortured her into confessing.

Leonor Cipriano, 36, told for the first time how she was forced to kneel on glass ashtrays with a bag over her head as police repeatedly hit her during almost 48 hours of non-stop questioning.

She is now serving a 16-year sentence for the murder of her eight-year-old daughter Joana, even though the body has never been found and she has since retracted her statement.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, who is jointly leading the Madeleine case, is to face a criminal hearing for allegedly concealing evidence that three of his colleagues tortured Cipriano. The hearing could be as early as next month.

Joana Cipriano disappeared from her home in Figuera, near Portimao on the Algarve, in September 2004, not far from where four-year-old Madeleine disappeared in Praia da Luz 143 days ago. Leonor Cipriano was arrested at 8am on October 14 and confessed after almost 48 hours of continuous questioning.

She retracted her statement a day later when she had access to a lawyer but was still charged and convicted of murdering her daughter.

Speaking from Odemira prison in west Portugal, she told a relative:
"The police put a bag on my head, but I didn't see what I was hit with. It was something like a baton. They made me kneel on two glass ashtrays and then they hit me. I couldn't see who hit me because of the bag. "It's not true I fell down the stairs -the police hit me. I said it (the confession) because they beat me."

A friend saw Cipriano shortly after the alleged attack. She said:
 "Her head was swollen, while she had huge bruises under the breasts, on the thighs and the legs."
Amaral is accused of concealing evidence supporting allegations that three of his colleagues tortured Cipriano. The four detectives and a fifth, who is accused of fabricating evidence, deny the allegations and say Cipriano was injured when she threw herself down a flight of stairs.

Roy Ramm, a former Scotland Yard commander, said:
"It is extraordinary that a man accused of an unresolved, serious complaint like this is still handling a high-profile inquiry. You would expect him at best to be in a desk job."
Carlos Garcia, vice-president of the trade union for Portuguese police, which is defending Amaral and his colleagues, said:
"They utterly reject the allegations."
Cipriano's boyfriend Leandro Silva, 41, a car mechanic, claims that he, too, was beaten when he was taken in for questioning in Faro in October 2004.
"One officer grabbed me from behind, spun me round, then hit me in the stomach with a closed fist," he said. "They also hit me from behind with a phone book. When they questioned me, a senior officer said, 'You ate Joana's body'. I couldn't believe it. Then he said, 'You cooked her and you ate her'. I thought they must be crazy - it was like something out of a horror movie."
Silva is considering making a formal complaint.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , ,


Madeleine inspector under fire


Madeleine inspector under fire
Citizen News Services
23 September 2007
Ottawa Citizen


The senior detective leading the Madeleine McCann investigation is facing calls to step down after a woman jailed for the murder of her daughter claimed that his officers tortured her into confessing. Leonor Cipriano, 36, told for the first time how she was forced to kneel on glass ashtrays with a bag over her head as police repeatedly hit her during almost 48 hours of non-stop questioning. She is now serving a 16-year sentence for the murder of her eight-year-old daughter Joana, even though the body has never been found and she has since retracted her statement. Chief Insp. Goncalo Amaral, who is jointly leading the Madeleine case, is to face a criminal hearing for allegedly concealing evidence that three of his colleagues tortured Ms. Cipriano.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , ,


My daughter's girl vanished just like Maddy


My daughter's girl vanished just like Maddy
The police beat her until she falsely confessed
Lucy Thornton and Ryan Parry
22 September 2007
Mirror


Exclusive

Jailed Leonor Cipriano was facing her mother in a prison waiting room... when she began weeping for Kate and Gerry McCann.

Leonor, 36, convicted of murdering her missing daughter Joana, had just been told the British couple were facing the same accusation over their own little girl Madeleine, four.

Distraught Leonor, who is serving a 16-year jail term, asked her mother:
"Why can't the police try and find my daughter and little Maddy instead of blaming their innocent mothers?  "This whole story reminds me of my Joana. I am sure they are both still alive somewhere.  "They need to find them - instead of blaming us."

While Leonor is behind bars, her other two children Reuben, five, and Lara, four, are being cared for by her adoptive mother, Maria de Lourdes David, 58.

Maria is convinced her daughter is innocent and claims she was beaten by police until she made a false confession.

She said:
"If Madeleine's mum was beaten as badly as Leonor was, she may have confessed to some- ' thing she hadn't done too.  "But, luckily for her, she is English and not poor like us, or they would have put her in prison wrongly I too. When all this started with Madeleine, it all came back to us and it hurt me as much as if it was Joana. I just want the little girl to show up. I want them both to come home."

Eight-year-old Joana disappeared just seven miles from the resort of Praia da Luz, from where Madeleine vanished in May.

Leonor insists that she was framed and her daughter was stolen in 2004 and possibly sold to a German couple.

She claims the police beat a confession out of her, which she retracted the next day.  Local papers: carried pictures of her battered face.

Maria added:
"They put a bag on her head and she thinks they were hitting her with something hard inside a kitchen roll to stop the bruises showing so much.  "Her face was swollen and she was badly hurt around her chest.  "Police said she threw herself down a staircase."

Several officers involved in the murder investigation are facing charges. Among them is detective Goncalo Amaral, who has also been involved in the McCann inquiry.

Maria said:
"I think there is a connection with Joana because in both cases they went missing with no trace. How can two children disappear and leave no clues? If they were killed, where are their bodies, where is the evidence? I am worried there is a man out there.  "I can't stop thinking about it. Leonor says the same as me about the missing girl. There is no trail. One disappeared off the streets and the other from her bedroom, but still no one saw anything.  "Leonor cries when we talk about Joana and this other little girl."

Joana vanished after walking to a local shop. Suspicion began to turn on Leonor - just as it has done with Kate and Gerry McCann.  Leonor's neighbours accused her of failing to show any emotion.  During a chat with a local resident, she was asked how she could be so calm and replied: "Don't you go thinking things about me."

The next day the local papers accused Leonor, through a police source, of selling her daughter to a German couple and she was taken into custody for her "own protection".

Later, her brother, Joao, 35, was said to have been plied with drink and confessed.

But only a tiny trace of blood was ever found in their tiny flat and no other forensics. The murder convictions were based on the confessions.

Maria said:
"He said all sorts of things because of the pressure. He confessed to killing her but later said he lied, insisting she was alive."

Joao was also jailed for 16 years. Talking about the McCanns, Maria added:
"I can't see the mum and dad killing that little girl. They are innocent - just as my Leonor is.  "Police definitely blame innocent mothers, they blame everyone if they haven't got the answers."

She urged the McCanns to have "lots and lots of strength. Everything will be sorted out.

"They played about with us and with Joana but they are not going to get away with playing with the McCanns. Leonor did not lay a finger on Joana - never, ever.  "I want both little girls to turn up one day. If they did, what would the police say then?"


     
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , ,


Maddie case official walks out


More controversy as Maddie case official walks out
Nidha Narrandes
17 September 2007
The Star


The official police spokesperson in the Madeleine case has quit over the way the McCanns were treated, it emerged last night.  Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa resigned in disgust at the way fellow officers were briefing “friendly” Portuguese journalists behind his back.  His departure on Friday came at an awkward moment for the police team investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.

Another senior detective, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, is still working on the case despite facing trial himself.  He has been charged after another woman accused of killing her daughter allegedly had her confession beaten out of her by police.

Leanor Cipriano, who like the McCanns made emotional public appeals when her daughter Joana (8) went missing, was later photographed with her face black and blue after her police interviews.  She has since been convicted and is now serving 16 years for killing Joana, whose body has not been found.

Amaral strenuously denies covering up the alleged abuse said to have been carried out by three of his colleagues.

Yesterday it also emerged that the examining magistrate, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, has made an unprecedented appeal to be allowed to speak publicly about the Madeleine investigation.  Normally, judges and police are bound by Portugal’s strict “secrecy of justice” laws but Frias has requested authorisation from the Superior Magistrates’ Council to be allowed to brief the public.  But it is thought he will simply use the opportunity to defend the police action and explain why he is unable to make any more details public.

In recent weeks Sousa has been deeply frustrated because he – and the press – have been misled as part of a strategy to put pressure on the McCanns.  Two weeks ago he issued firm denials when journalists asked him to confirm that the results of DNA tests had come back from a British laboratory.  But two days later, Sousa was forced to admit on Portuguese TV that he had given out false information.

Sousa felt undermined by his superiors, who briefed Portuguese journalists personally on developments and then either told Sousa nothing or instructed him to deny them.  The tactic was understood to have been designed to unnerve the McCanns by letting them know the police were “on to them” in the hope the couple could be panicked into making a mistake.  Sousa has felt several times that his position was being undermined.

On August 15, Sousa told reporters that police were now “sure” Madeleine died the night she vanished.  When that appeared in newspapers the next day, Sousa was told by his superiors he had “misinterpreted” the information they gave him.  Yet now, a month later, it is clear that this death theory has long been the central plank of their investigation.

Meanwhile, a witness who could blow the police case apart was identified for the first time yesterday.

TV producer Jeremy Wilkins, on holiday in Praia da Luz with his partner and baby son, spoke to Gerry McCann during the hour when Madeleine went missing. The cardiologist was on his way back to the resort’s tapas restaurant after checking on his three children.

Wilkins said he found Gerry McCann calm and unflustered during a 15-minute conversation – which would be remarkable for a man supposedly involved in the death of his daughter.  Wilkins (36), from north west London, has repeatedly told police he is convinced of the McCanns’ innocence. – Daily Mail
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , ,


We blundered


Maddie case police: We blundered
Mark Townsend and Ned Temko
17 September 2007
The Press (Christchurch)


The McCann family releases new pictures and announces a fresh campaign as police admit that confusion and infighting wrecked the early days of the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Ned Temko in Praia da Luz and Mark Townsend report.

Portuguese police have admitted that confusion and disagreements in the early stages of the Madeleine McCann investigation mean that they could find it "very, very difficult" to prove their suspicion that her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were somehow involved in the girl's disappearance and death.

And The Mail on Sunday has learned that the senior Portuguese detective jointly in charge of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance is set to face a criminal hearing into an alleged cover-up involving another missing girl.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral has been accused of concealing evidence that the mother of eight-year-old Joana Cipriano, who disappeared in the Algarve three years ago, was tortured by police into confessing she had killed her daughter, whose body was never found. The senior officer, who heads the Policia Judiciaria in Portimao, the nearest town to Praia da Luz from where Madeleine vanished, could appear before the secret hearing as early as next month.

The McCanns have strongly and repeatedly denied any involvement, yesterday launching a fresh advertising campaign aimed at finding their daughter.

The sources said that potentially crucial evidence about what happened to Madeleine, aged four, on the night of May 3, had been lost by the time the first local police arrived, due to the presence of "the McCanns, their friends and others" in the holiday flat from which she disappeared.

In the days that followed, there was growing tension between the Algarve force, which took the lead in the investigation, and senior officers from Lisbon, who were particularly sceptical about the decision to focus on a British local resident, Robert Murat, as a suspect nearly two weeks after Madeleine's disappearance, following a tip-off from a British journalist.

The source -- in the most detailed explanation yet of the reasons behind the naming of the parents as "arguidos", or formal suspects -- also told The Observer that Portuguese investigators were now united in their conviction that the McCanns' accounts of what happened on May 3 "never rang true".

Revealing details of the investigation, which were passed in a 4000-page file to the judge last week, he singled out what he termed as contradictions in the "changing versions" of events offered by each parent and their friends in the days immediately after Madeleine went missing. Specifically, he said Gerry McCann had initially told police that he entered the flat in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz from a "locked front door", but later said he had entered through the open back terrace facing the restaurant where the McCanns and their friends had been having dinner.

Kate McCann, he added, at first said the back window was open and the blind raised, while other witnesses disagreed. He also described how a plastic barrier near their restaurant table would have "prevented any clear view of events inside the flat" and that contradictory accounts had raised doubts among the investigators about their claim to have checked on Madeleine and the McCanns' two-year-old twins during dinner.

Yet in an apparent acknowledgment that the police remain far from confident of being able to move on their suspicions concerning Madeleine's parents, the source also raised for the first time the possibility of prosecutors bringing lesser charges -- "notably, the abandonment or neglect of a child" -- against them.

The McCanns insist they checked on their daughter every 30 minutes during the evening of May 3. "It will be very, very difficult, until and unless a body is found -- and with DNA and other evidence so far inconclusive -- to bring a charge of homicide," the source said.

Madeleine's parents, however, insist that their daughter is still alive, and an £80,000 ($NZ225,000) advertising campaign to help find the four-year- old was announced yesterday by Gerry McCann's brother John, who urged the public to remember "lovely wee Madeleine". The campaign is set to launch in two weeks and will involve newspaper, television and billboard adverts in Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe.

John McCann, who is also a fund director, said: "The main objective of the Madeleine fund is to leave no stone unturned in the search for Madeleine.  "I hope the general public will continue to support us in this."

It has also emerged that the McCanns have appointed former government media officer Clarence Mitchell to oversee the campaign, after their spokesperson for the past three months, Justine McGuinness, stood down on Saturday night.

Mitchell was sent to Portugal by the Foreign Office as chief adviser to the McCanns shortly after Madeleine was reported missing, before then returning to the UK last June. He is expected to resign from his post as director of the Media Monitoring Unit in the Cabinet Office this week.

Part of his new brief will involve studying the Portuguese press, amid concern that a recent spate of negative newspaper reports has led the McCanns to believe there has been an orchestrated campaign of leaks to undermine them.

To counter perceptions of an anti-McCann campaign within elements of the Portuguese media, Olegario Sousa, the official police spokesman since the start of the investigation, was moved from the role last Friday.

One police source yesterday referred to "pure speculation in the Portuguese media" ahead of the judge's ruling. He dismissed a local newspaper report, which was picked up world-wide, that police were now increasingly convinced that Madeleine's body had been dumped into the sea.

Particularly upsetting for the family were reports alleging that extracts from Kate McCann's diary suggested she was sometimes impatient with her "hyperactive" children and felt insufficiently supported by her husband.

Yesterday, two of Kate McCann's closest friends stepped forward to defend her, insisting she could not have had anything to do with her daughter's disappearance.  Linda McQueen, 45, and Nicky Gill, 39, who have been known Kate since she was a child, described her as a devoted mother.

"To have these words said about her is just so unfair and hurtful," said Gill. Asked if she had ever doubted Kate's innocence, McQueen added: "Not at all, not a shadow of a doubt. They are the most loving, caring, family-oriented couple that you could ever meet. They are absolutely fabulous. Those three children are the world to them, as our children are to them as well."

Among the issues the judge will decide this week are whether the McCanns should remain as arguidos; what further interrogations, searches or seizure of potential evidence will be authorised; and what charges, if any, should be brought. --Observer
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , ,


End this witch hunt


End this witch hunt and find Madeleine
Tony Parsons
17 September 2007
Mirror


The real crime and the real tragedy is that nobody is looking for Madeleine McCann anymore.

That little girl is out there somewhere, either dead or alive, but all of the energy of those Keystone cretins, the Portuguese police, are being poured into attributing guilt to Kate and Gerry McCann.

We are little better. Back home, the search for Madeleine has been reduced to a grotesque who dunnit, adult entertainment of the blackest kind.

The big question is no longer "What happened to Madeleine McCann?" The question now is "Which side are you on?"

Are you still completely convinced of the McCanns' innocence? Or are you one of those sad, spiteful souls - and there are plenty of them - who is asking for a refund of the money you donated to the Find Madeleine fund?

I cannot recall a news story that so totally divides public opinion.

We were told all along that the McCanns were brilliant media manipulators, but I wonder if they truly understand the nature of the beast. The media - like the mob - can turn in a moment.

I would not have thought it possible, but with frightening speed Kate and Gerry McCann have gone from tragic victims to the worst thing in the world - suspected murderers of their own child.

I don't believe for one second that they did it. If they did, then they are the greatest actors who ever lived.

The bewilderment, the grief, the overwhelming sense that their world has collapsed - it was there at the start and it is there now.

Kate and Gerry McCann would need to be better than Streep and DeNiro to play the roles they played in front of the world's media.

They would also need to be criminal masterminds. To kill - accidentally or otherwise - little Madeleine, and then court the attention of all those cameras and reporters, and then dispose of the body under that glaring spotlight. They did not do it.

I do not much care what the Portuguese spoon-feed their tame hacks in the local rags - that man and woman are innocent, and it is an obscenity that the world is playing Cluedo with their lives and the fate of their little girl.

No smoke without fire, right? But there is no smoke.

A lot of the innuendo and propaganda that the Portuguese cops have slipped to their flunkies in the Portuguese press turns out to have absolutely no basis in the real world. We were informed that the woman who lives above the apartment where the McCanns were staying often heard Madeleine crying and "sounds of violence."

Now the real woman - Pamela Fenn, 81 - says that these claims are "absolute rubbish."

Reports of hair in the hire car, blood on the curtains, the 'smell of death' in the apartment - none of these lurid titbits prove that Madeleine McCann is dead, and still less that her parents murdered her.

Forensic experts in this country say that all the evidence stacked up against the McCanns would never lead to a conviction in a British court. We are told Kate McCann "struggled to control" three children under the age of five.

Well, who the hell wouldn't? Most of us struggle with just one.

That doesn't make her any less of the calm, loving mother that she has always appeared to be.

But chuck enough dirt and it will stick. The Portuguese cops seem stupendously stupid - but they are smart enough to understand that.

It is right that the McCanns should be potential suspects. But it should all have been done months ago - not when the Portuguese cops have become a sick joke because of their blundering incompetence.

Those swaggering plods in their dark glasses clearly wanted the media circus to go away from their sleepy, sunny doorstep, and they have been granted their wish.

As the months have dragged on, they must have felt like lumbering yokels, despised by their north European neighbours. They are not the type who would enjoy that feeling.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, the fat, sweaty cop who is co-leader of the investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, faces investigation himself for the torture of Leonor Cipriano, the mother of an eight-year-old girl who disappeared in the Algarve in 2004.

Official mug shots show the mother with her eyes battered so badly that she is unable to open them. She allegedly confessed to the crime and is now serving a 16-year-jail sentence.

The missing child has never been found.

That is Portuguese policing in action, and I would suggest that the smear campaign that has been unleashed on the McCanns is just as bad as being given a kicking in a police cell.

The Portuguese plods are not desperate to solve this crime - such a task was way beyond them.

They just want a convenient confession, true or false.

They just want the case of Madeleine McCann to go away so they can salvage what is left of their fragile macho pride and return to their siesta.

And somewhere a tiny child is still out there, whether she is dead or alive, separated from all she ever knew and loved.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , ,


Portuguese police in turmoil


Portuguese police in turmoil
17 September 2007
Daily Mail


THE official police spokesman in the Madeleine case has quit over the way the McCanns were treated, it emerged last night.  Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa resigned in disgust at the way fellow officers were briefing 'friendly' Portuguese journalists behind his back.

Mr Sousa will be familiar to anyone who has followed the case as the sole officer who gave press conferences, his good looks and decent grasp of English making him a natural choice for televised events.  His departure on Friday came at a particularly awkward moment for the police team investigating Madeleine's disappearance.

Another senior detective, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, is still working on the case despite facing trial himself.  He has been charged after another woman accused of killing her daughter allegedly had her confession beaten out of her by police.

Leanor Cipriano, who like the McCanns made emotional public appeals when her daughter Joana, eight, went missing, was later photographed with her face black and blue after her police interviews.  She has since been convicted and is now serving 16 years for killing Joana whose body has never been found.

Mr Amaral strenuously denies covering up the alleged abuse said to have been carried out by three of his colleagues.

Yesterday it also emerged that the examining magistrate, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, has made an unprecedented appeal to be allowed to speak publicly about the Madeleine investigation.

Normally, judges and police are bound by Portugal's strict 'secrecy of justice' laws but Mr Frias has requested authorisation from the Superior Magistrates' Council to be allowed to brief the public.  But it is thought he will simply use the opportunity to defend the police action and explain why he is unable to make any more details public.

Chief inspector Sousa, chose to walk away from the investigation in protest at the way it was being handled.  In recent weeks he has been deeply frustrated because he - and the Press - have been misled as part of a strategy to put pressure on the McCanns.

Two weeks ago he issued firm denials when journalists asked him to confirm that the results of DNA tests had come back from a British laboratory. But two days later, after the story had been established beyond doubt from other sources, Mr Sousa was forced to admit on Portuguese television that he had given out false information. Widely regarded as an honourable man, Mr Sousa found the experience deeply humiliating.

He was appointed official spokesman a week after Madeleine disappeared, when the Policia Judiciaria was being bombarded with questions from more than 200 journalists who descended on the resort of Praia da Luz. But he was undermined by his superiors, who briefed Portuguese journalists personally on developments in the case and then either told Mr Sousa nothing or instructed him to deny them. The tactic was understood to have been designed to unnerve the McCanns by letting them know the police were 'on to them' in the hope the couple could be panicked into making a mistake.

Mr Sousa, who is based in Lisbon, has not been answering his telephone since standing down. He has felt several times that his position was being undermined.

On August 15, Mr Sousa told reporters that police were now 'sure' Madeleine died the night she vanished. When that appeared in newspapers the next day, Mr Sousa was told by his superiors he had 'misinterpreted' the information they gave him.  Yet now, a month later, it is clear that this death theory has long been the central plank of their investigation.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , , , ,


Senior police under suspicion


Senior police under suspicion - Maddie cops face torture investigation
The Madeleine Mystery
David Rose
17 September 2007
Daily Telegraph


The senior detective jointly in charge of the investigation into the Madeleine McCann disappearance is to face a criminal hearing into an alleged cover-up involving another missing girl.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral has been accused of concealing evidence that the mother of eight-year-old Joana Cipriano, who disappeared in the Algarve three years ago, was tortured by police into confessing she had killed her daughter.

The senior officer, who heads the Policia Judiciaria in Portimao, the nearest Portuguese town to Praia da Luz from where Madeleine vanished, could appear before the secret hearing as early as next month.

The revelation casts further doubt on the Portuguese police, who have faced increasing criticism about their handling of the McCann case.

In a separate development, Britain's Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that fragments of hair found in the McCann's hire car, said to belong to Madeleine, cannot be matched to the missing four-year-old.  Sources close to the scientists investigating the case say they have concluded the hair could belong to any number of people.  This undermines earlier claims that DNA evidence proved the McCanns used the car to move their daughter's body.

The leaking of these original claims fuelled fears Portuguese police were conducting a smear campaign against Kate and Gerry McCann as they faced increasing pressure for results.

Insp Amaral has been accused of concealing evidence into allegations that three of his colleagues tortured the mother of missing Joana Cipriano in order to secure a confession.

Leonor Cipriano did confess, after almost 48 hours of continuous interrogation but later retracted her statement. She was convicted of murdering her daughter and is now serving a 16-year jail term.

The four detectives, plus a fifth accused of fabricating evidence, deny the allegations and say injuries Cipriano sustained them when she threw herself down police station stairs.

Insp Amaral is not the only accused officer linked to the McCann investigation. Another is recently retired chief inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao, who has been writing a daily column on the Madeleine inquiry for a Portuguese newspaper that has been reporting sensational stories, leaked by sources close to the police.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , ,


Cop torture claim


Maddie detective accused of child-kill confession cover-up 
Cop torture claim
David Rose and Charles Miranda with Mail on Sunday
17 September 2007
Herald-Sun


The top cop in the Madeleine McCann case has been accused of covering up evidence that police tortured the mother of another missing girl into confessing to murder.

Leonor Cipriano later recanted her confession, but is serving 16 years' jail for the murder of her daughter, who vanished in Portugal's Algarve region three years ago.  The body of Joana Cipriano, 8, has never been found.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, who heads the Policia Judiciaria in Portimao -- the nearest town to Praia da Luz, from where Madeleine vanished -- could appear before a secret criminal hearing as early as next month.  He is accused of concealing evidence over allegations that three of his colleagues tortured Cipriano, over 48 hours' continuous interrogation, to secure a confession. 

All four -- and a fifth accused of fabricating evidence -- deny the allegations.  They say Cipriano was injured when she tried to kill herself by throwing herself down police station stairs.

Portugal's police have faced increasing criticism of their handling of the McCann case.

The Mail on Sunday claims fragments of hair found in the McCanns' hire car -- said to be Madeleine's -- cannot be matched to the missing four-year-old.  Sources close to the forensic scientists investigating the case say they have concluded the hair could belong to any number of people.  This undermines earlier claims that DNA evidence proved the McCanns used the car to move Madeleine's body.

The Cipriano case has been adopted by the public prosecutor. Next month's hearing, which may be the first of several, aims to gather further evidence to help him decide whether to proceed to trial.  Cipriano was unable to pick out any assailants from among the accused officers.

Sources say the prosecutor is now investigating the allegation that police paid outside thugs to beat her up.

One of the police officers accused of involvement in torture in the Cipriano case is recently retired chief inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao.

He has been writing a daily column on the Madeleine case for a Portuguese newspaper that has been reporting sensational stories leaked by sources close to the police inquiry, some of which have later proved untrue.  He makes it clear he considers the McCanns are probably responsible for Madeleine's death or disappearance.  Like Chief Insp Amaral, he denies all wrongdoing in the Cipriano case.

In Britain, Gerry and Kate McCann are putting $200,000 of their own money into a Europe-wide advertising campaign, featuring Madeleine's face on billboards, TV and newspapers, to try to solve her May 3 disappearance.

It comes as Portuguese police planned to stage a full reconstruction of Madeleine's disappearance.

And British police will quiz Mrs McCann themselves early next week.

Two days ago, Portuguese police declined a BBC offer to film a reconstruction for its successful Crimewatch show. This prompted the McCanns to launch their own campaign.

The McCanns' village of Rothley, in Leicestershire, has been inundated with up to a thousand letters a day from all over the world, many containing money.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , ,


Let me speak out


Let me speak out,  demands judge
Martin Evans and David Pilditch
17 September 2007
The Daily Express


He may be set to press charges on Madeleine

The judge examining evidence against Kate and Gerry McCann has asked for consent to speak out.

Judge Pedro Daniel Dos Anjos Frias has applied to override Portugal's strict secrecy laws and discuss the investigation for the first time.

The sensational development has led to speculation that the McCanns are about to be charged with killing their daughter Madeleine and hiding her body.

The application has been made to the Superior Magistrates Council in Portimao on the Algarve.

Last night there was a suggestion that the judge may be intent on scotching unfounded rumours about the case. One theory was that he may even be about to declare the case against the couple unfounded.

But a legal source in Portugal said last night it was more likely that he would be updating the public and the media on the progress of the investigation.

The judge is working his way through 10 files of evidence in an effort to ascertain whether to charge the couple with any offence.

The move comes as Portugal's ancient secrecy laws undergo a radical overhaul.

The secrecy of justice legislation is to be radically shaken up from today with changes that mean Kate and Gerry McCann, who have been declared official suspects - or arguidos - in the case, may be allowed to see crucial evidence against them.

The Portuguese law was changed on Saturday but comes into force today, the first working day after the weekend. The couple will now have the right to see investigators' files, which run to 4,000 pages.

The documents contain details about the forensic evidence against them and are also believed to have information gleaned from telephone taps and intercepted emails.

It means that for the first time since their daughter went missing on May 3 from the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz, the couple will be able to comment publicly on what actually happened.

However, the public prosecutor maintains the right to impose a ban on the release of information if he believes it could jeopardise the case.

The four-month investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine has been awash with speculation and accusations of police incompetence.

While they are legally prevented from talking on the record about the case, police sources have offered daily briefings to Portuguese journalists.

Some of the more outlandish claims include allegations that the couple are swingers and that they faked Madeleine's birth certificate to hide the fact Gerry is not her real father.

Carlos Pinto de Abreu, the McCanns' family lawyer and a prime mover behind the new legislation, hailed the legal changes as "an important step towards a more open system that will benefit all parties".

Meanwhile, it has emerged that the senior detective in the investigation is to face a criminal hearing into an alleged cover-up in the case of another missing girl.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral, head of Portugal's Judicial Police in the Algarve district of Portimao, has been formally accused of concealing evidence over the alleged torture of Leonor Cipriano by three colleagues.

It is alleged she was brutally beaten after her nine year-old daughter Joana disappeared in 2004. Joana vanished in the village of Figueira, just seven miles from Praia da Luz where Madeleine vanished.

Mrs Cipriano was allegedly tortured by police into confessing she had killed her daughter, whose body was never found. Amaral could appear before the secret hearing next month.

He has been made an arguido or suspect - the same status as Kate and Gerry McCann.

Mrs Cipriano and Joana's uncle Joao were convicted of killing her and jailed for more than 16 years.

Little Joana's stepfather Leandro Silva said: "I am worried Kate will be framed for a crime she did not commit, the way it happened to my wife."

But changes in the legal system mean the McCanns can be remanded in prison only if an investigating judge believes they planned to kill Madeleine.

The McCanns will be allowed to remain on bail in the UK even if they are charged with Madeleine's manslaughter, according to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

The latest legal amendments spare the couple the nightmare prospect of months behind bars in Portugal pending trial.

Under the modified Portuguese Penal Code, an investigating judge can
only remand suspects in prison for crimes punishable by five or more
years' jail.

Murder sentences in Portugal start at eight years but defendants convicted of manslaughter can only be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , ,


Detective accused in case of missing girl


Detective accused in case of missing girl
Caroline Gammell

17 September 2007
The Daily Telegraph


The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is not the first high-profile case of a missing girl that the Portuguese police have had to investigate - and not the first time they have been criticised over their handling of the situation.

Three years ago, nine-year-old Joana Cipriano vanished from Figueira, seven miles from Praia da Luz, in the Algarve. She has never been found.

In echoes of the Madeleine case, the investigation got off to a false start when the Republican National Guard failed to seal the house where Joana was last seen.

It was only five days later - after relatives had cleaned the house with bleach - that the Policia Judiciaria took over. Joana's mother, Leonore, became a suspect and was eventually convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Cipriano lodged a formal complaint, claiming she had been beaten during interrogation by five officers.

Among those allegedly involved were senior detective Goncalo Amaral, who is also investigating Madeleine's disappearance.

The five officers were charged in June this year with a series of offences including "scenes of aggression'', omission of evidence and falsification of documents.

Mr Amaral, who is in his late 40s, denied the allegations but his connection to the Cipriano case was criticised in the press and greeted with considerable "concern'' by Madeleine's parents.

Meanwhile, the man who became the face of the Portuguese police investigation into the missing British girl is no longer working on the case, it has emerged.

According to the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias, Chief Insp Olegario Sousa left after complaining that he was given so little information he was unable to do his job as spokesman.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , ,


Maddie police torture trial


Maddie police torture trial
David Rose
16 September 2007
The Mail on Sunday


The senior Portuguese detective jointly in charge of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann is set to face a criminal hearing into an alleged cover-up involving another missing girl.

Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral has been accused of concealing evidence that the mother of eight-year-old Joana Cipriano, who disappeared in the Algarve three years ago, was tortured by police into confessing she had killed her daughter, whose body was never found.

The senior officer, who heads the Policia Judiciaria in Portimao, the nearest town to Praia da Luz from where Madeleine vanished, could appear before the secret hearing as early as next month, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

The revelation casts further doubt on the conduct of the Portuguese police, who have faced increasing criticism about their handling of the McCann case.

In a separate development, this newspaper has discovered that fragments of hair found in the McCanns' hire car, said to belong to Madeleine, cannot be matched to the missing four-year-old.

Sources close to the forensic scientists investigating the case say they have concluded the hair could belong to any number of people. This undermines earlier claims that DNA evidence proved the McCanns used the car to move their daughter's body.

The leaking of these original claims fuelled fears that Portuguese police were conducting a smear campaign against Kate and Gerry McCann as they faced increasing pressure for results.

Against this background comes the revelation that Chief Inspector Amaral has been accused of concealing evidence into allegations that three of his colleagues tortured the mother of missing Joana Cipriano in order to secure a confession.

Leonor did confess, after almost 48 hours' continuous interrogation, but later retracted her statement. But she was charged and convicted of murdering her daughter and is now serving a 16-year jail term.

The four detectives, plus a fifth accused of fabricating evidence, deny the allegations and say that injuries Cipriano sustained came when she tried to commit suicide by throwing herself down police station stairs.

The case has been adopted by the public prosecutor, and next month's hearing, which may be the first of several, aims to gather further evidence to help him decide whether to proceed to trial.

Amaral is not the only accused officer linked to the McCann investigation. Another is the recently retired Chief Inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao, who has been writing a daily column on the Madeleine inquiry for a Portuguese newspaper that has been reporting sensational stories, leaked by sources close to the police inquiry, some of which have later been proven to be untrue.

Cristovao makes clear in his column that he considers the McCanns are probably responsible for Madeleine's death or disappearance.

In the Cipriano case, Cristovao is alleged to have been one of those involved in the torture, but not the cover-up. Leonor was unable to pick out her assailants from among the accused officers on an identity parade.

Sources say the prosecutor is now investigating the allegation that police paid outside thugs to beat up Leonor.

Like Amaral, Cristovao denies all wrongdoing.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , ,


A clash of cultures


Police leaks, gossip and a clash of cultures engulf the McCanns
Christina Lamb in Praia da Luz
16 September 2007
The Sunday Times
Portuguese hostility towards the McCanns grows with every twist, reports Christina Lamb in Praia da Luz


The two men in dark suits coming out of the Portimao restaurant adjusted their ties and jackets after what had clearly been a satisfying Friday lunch.

Guilhermino Encarnacao and his deputy Goncalo Amaral are the two Portuguese detectives heading the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann more than four months ago.

But their relaxed appearance belies the weight of international scrutiny their investigation is under -and the role their team has played in contributing to a propaganda war, with Gerry and Kate McCann in their sights. Officially, Encarnacao was quick to condemn the press coverage. "There's been far too much speculation in the press," he said.

However, Jose Manuel Oliveira, who has covered the case since the beginning for the respected daily Diario de Noticias, said: "Who is responsible for all the information and counterinformation? It's the police themselves."

Under Portuguese secrecy laws, police are forbidden from revealing details of an investigation. Yet, as they struggle to cope with the whirlwind generated by "Caso Maddie", they have used a series of daily leaks to Portuguese journalists about supposed forensic evidence, diary extracts and tapped phone calls to insinuate that the couple were involved in the disappearance of their own daughter. Yesterday the police spokesman Olegario de Sousa quit in dismay at such activity.

Some have suspected from the start that Madeleine died accidentally, possibly after being sedated by Kate, and that the couple somehow hid the body despite not having a car at that time.

Last week The Sunday Times spoke to a detective from the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), the local police, who was called to the apartment on the night Madeleine disappeared. "What we found did not seem to be the scene of a kidnapping," he said.

"There were no signs of forced entry, the shutters had not been forced from outside and the apartment had clearly not been broken into." This, he said, was why they did not seal it off. However, the McCanns have always said the french windows to the apartment were left unlocked.

"The thing we found really weird was the twins not waking up," he continued. "We couldn't believe it, there were maybe 20 people coming in and out of the apartment, there was crying and lights going on and off. We kept looking at them. They must have been sedated."

Police suspicions were heightened by discrepancies in interviews with friends with whom the McCanns were dining on the evening of Madeleine's disappearance.

These concerns led the police in late July to review the whole case and bring in the British cadaver dogs, focusing on the McCanns for the first time as possible suspects rather than victims. The police also began tapping the phones of the McCanns and their friends and told journalists they had suspicions about their conversations referring to the night of May 3.

Bodily fluid and hair reportedly matched to Madeleine were found in the family's hire car and traces of blood were allegedly discovered on the walls of the apartment.

But there is a lack of precision in the data yield by the forensics and there has been no plausible explanation of how the parents, who did not have the car at the time of the disappearance, could have hidden a body in the time available before dinner.

At the same time, Encarnacao and Amaral, the men from Portugal's crime squad, the Policia Judiciaria (PJ), are under pressure to justify their decision to treat the McCanns as suspects. They have already been criticised for being slow to seal off the apartment, and for the delays in searching for DNA before those carried out on the McCanns' apartment and car last month.

On top of this, Amaral is facing criminal charges for an alleged cover-up in a previous case of a disappearance of a nine-year-old girl called Joana on the same stretch of coast three years ago. No body was found and Joana's mother Leonor Cipriano was convicted of murder after what she claimed was a forced confession obtained by torture.

One person unsurprised by the direction the McCann case has taken is Cipriano's lawyer, Joao Grade. Photographs of Cipriano after questioning show her with two black eyes and heavy bruising -the police say she tried to commit suicide; she says she was tortured.

Not only have five detectives including Amaral been charged by the public prosecutor over the case but Grade has filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights for the case to be reopened.

"It's like in the movies, if they have nothing else, they must have a confession - and it's normal for the PJ to try to get one however they can," said Grade.

"The difference is that with Joana's mother Leonor there was no BBC, no money, she was illiterate with only two or three years' schooling, she had six children by different fathers, so if she 'fell down the stairs' in the police station and ended up in hospital, having confessed, no one was going to ask any questions. Kate is very different."

In Portugal, however, the police suspicions fall on ready ears. England and Portugal are the world's oldest allies but there are some things the two cultures find hard to understand in each other.

This is a country where people eat late and take their children with them. "We can't imagine that anyone would put their children to bed so early, particularly when on holiday, nor that they would just leave them behind," said Maria de Carmo, a shop assistant in Portimao.

A leading Portuguese television journalist went further. "If the McCanns were Portuguese parents they would have been charged with abandono -negligence of their children."

The family-loving Portuguese find it hard to understand that working parents who see little of their children at home would come on holiday then send their children to the Ocean Club creche every day.

Some Portuguese criticise Kate McCann for maintaining her perfect grooming throughout the ordeal and have suggested that she has not behaved as a bereft mother. It is said the police started psychologically profiling the couple, egged on by their wives' comments.

"The way that the parents are dealing with this situation has left all of us, me and my colleagues, perplexed," Maria Jose Goncalves, a child psychiatrist, told the newspaper Publico.

Maria do Sameiro Oliveira, a psychologist who does criminal profiling for the police, said she found it strange "how they function so much as a unit, always holding hands rigidly" and pointed out that normally in cases of child disappearances, "the mother and father start to diverge, one wants to continue the search, the other not". She added: "They show little evidence of suffering. They are very formal."

One of the questions asked by the police was why Kate washed Madeleine's favourite toy, Cuddle Cat, with its precious smell of her lost child.

But under a cool examination, many of these doubts fall apart. One of the leaked reports last week was of extracts from Kate McCann's diary in which she had allegedly admitted she struggled to manage Madeleine's "hyperactivity", and complained that her husband was little help.

But Jose Manuel Oliveira, to whom it was leaked, was told by police the next day that it was untrue. This did not stop the British newspapers, some of whose correspondents rarely venture out of Hugo Beaty internet cafe in Luz, picking it up and running with it a day later without checking with Oliveira.

The absurdity of this disinformation campaign is epitomised by the picturesque church outside which new yellow flowers had been placed yesterday for Madeleine and to which the McCanns had a key.

For the past week television cameras have been stationed outside, waiting for rumoured digging for a body after the cadaver dogs scented death inside. "Of course they scented death," said the GNR detective. "The church is used for funerals."

"The papers are reporting that our catacombs will be dug up and the church doesn't even have catacombs," said Father Haynes Hubbard, the Anglican priest who took over the parish the Sunday after Madeleine's disappearance and got to know the couple well.

He describes the accusations as "ludicrous", particularly over their lack of grief. "I've seen them cry and I know they cry. The fact that they don't cry for the cameras means nothing."

A father of three young children, and wearing a yellow Find Maddy
wristband, he says:

"I don't recognise the people the press are speculating about. "What I know is a man the same age as me and a woman who spent the past four months asking the world to bring back their little girl, who go home and weep, who tell their children Sean and Amelie to pray for Maddy and whose days are unbearably empty, who came as family of five and left as four."
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , , ,


Lies, Beatings, Secret Trials: The dark side of Portugal's Life on Mars police


16 September 2007
The Mail on Sunday
David Rose

ACCORDING to his friends, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral of the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria, co-leader of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the Mark Warner Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, is a dedicated and capable detective, determined to do whatever it takes to find her - or those responsible for murdering her.

As a foreign reporter in Portugal, it is difficult to form a view. Thanks to the country's stringent judicial secrecy laws, Amaral is officially forbidden from talking to the media.

I confronted the sweaty, corpulent figure in an illfitting jacket twice last Friday: the first time at 10am, as he sat slurping coffee and cakes at the Kalahary cafe in Portimao with his colleague, Chief Inspector Guillermino Encarnacao; the second just before 3pm, when the two men made their way from a restaurant to a waiting black Mercedes, in which they were driven 400 yards to meet officials at the courthouse.

The reaction was the same both times: 'No speak! No speak!' was all Amaral would say, making a swatting motion as though batting away an insect.

But Amaral's official silence is not the only difference between him and his counterparts in Britain. In the UK, it is unlikely he would be leading the McCann inquiry at all.

Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry may never be charged with anything, despite their present status as arguidos, or official suspects, and by the end of last week, apparently well-placed sources were admitting that any case against them is circumstantial and weak.

Amaral, however, is in a similar position. He, too, is an arguido, facing possible trial on a serious criminal charge arising from a murder case brought to court in 2004, the last occasion a little girl vanished in the Algarve.

The Mail on Sunday can today reveal new details of this case, the subject of a draconian judicial order that has stopped most sources who know about the case from talking to the Portuguese Press. According to the order, documents about the case have been restricted to a handful of officials, while the next stage of the process - a hearing at which Amaral and four fellow officers may be asked formal questions - will be conducted in secret. It is believed that this is set for next month.

Three of Amaral's senior PJ colleagues have been made suspects for the torture of the missing girl's mother, Leonor Cipriano, who has been convicted of killing her daughter Joana, aged eight, and jailed for 16 years.

As for Amaral, the claim against him is 'omisado de denuncia' - that he tried to hide the evidence of the alleged torture or, in other words, attempted a cover-up. He is said to deny it strenuously.

In internet blogs and newspaper columns, Amaral's supporters have claimed that the Cipriano case is built on lies - a vicious smear against a decent detective trying to do his job. It has, they say, 'no connection' to the Madeleine McCann inquiry.

Experienced lawyers in Portimao, the town 12 miles from Praia da Luz where Amaral is PJ chief, disagree.

The case against the detectives began as a complaint lodged by Cipriano's lawyer, they pointed out, but has now been adopted by the public prosecutor.

'In order to bring formal charges, the public prosecutor has to believe there is a strong case,' said Oliveira Trindad, who has practised law in the area for more than ten years. 'That means that after assessing all the evidence, he thinks that if the case to trial, a conviction is more likely than not.' That decision is likely to be made well before the McCann case is closed.

There are, to be sure, many differences between Leonor Cipriano and Kate McCann. But there are also similarities, starting with the fact that although the bodies of their daughters have not been found, Amaral and his PJ colleagues have long been convinced that both girls are dead.

No one would suggest that in the course of the marathon interrogations that preceded their departure from Portugal last weekend, Kate or Gerry McCann were the victims of physical violence. But at times it seemed they were also being subjected to torment, albeit of a different, psychological kind. It, too, say Portimao's criminal defence lawyers, may have been inspired by PJ officers desperate to achieve the end they sought with Cipriano - a confession.

It isn't hard to locate the source of some of the McCanns' current difficulties: Hugo Beaty's bar. There, amid the burnt orange concrete of the Estrela apartment complex, a fiveminute walk from the Ocean Club, most of the seats along the shady terrace and more inside will be taken all day by reporters with laptops,

authors of a daily verbal torrent that has come to seem unstoppable.

After Kate and Gerry's abrupt return to Leicestershire last Sunday, almost nothing happened in the McCann case last week.

The only verified fact is that after considering a ten-volume PJ dossier about Madeleine's disappearance on May 3, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias, a junior judge in Portimao, decided to grant certain requests made by the prosecutor, Joao Cunha de Magalhaes.

Every news outlet covering the story - a waterfront that now extends across the whole of Europe to the major American TV networks and even, unbelievably, a paper in war-torn Somalia - has stated that these requests were for warrants to seize items including Kate McCann's private diary, Gerry's computer and (though this seems slightly less certain) Madeleine's beloved cuddle cat.

There is, however, nothing approaching official confirmation of these claims. Like everything else about the case, the details of the prosecutor's approach to the judge are covered, supposedly, by the judicial secrecy laws, under which the penalty - in theory - for making unauthorised disclosures is two years in prison.

Thus it is that like almost everything-else being broadcast and published beyond Portugal's borders about the hunt for Madeleine, the claim that the police want to read Kate's diary has reached its audience via Hugo Beaty's bar.

Every day there starts the same way shortly after it opens at 9am, with an informal briefing to the foreign Press by a locally resident British woman who normally makes a meagre living acting as an occasional interpreter - for the Policia Judiciaria.

Every morning, the woman - who asked me not to publish her name - goes through the Portuguese tabloids and translates their ever-more febrile articles. Every afternoon, the foreigners - almost none of whom can speak more than the most basic Portuguese, nor claim a single, genuine source inside the police investigation - recycle the tales for consumers abroad.

By the end of last week, some of the assertions made by the Portuguese had become part of a settled consensus. For example, it was reported from Berlin to Baltimore that the police had already made a photocopy of Kate's diary - which, if true, would mean they had broken the law - and merely wanted to obtain the judge's approval to use it as evidence.

The reason they are so keen on it, it was alleged, is that it suggests she found her children 'hyperactive' and difficult to handle, while railing at her husband's allegedly dilatory, hands-off approach.

The claims about the diary's contents were first published on Thursday by Jose Manuel Ribeiro, crime correspondent for the Lisbon daily Diario de Noticias. By chance I ran into him that same afternoon, outside the apartment where Madeleine disappeared. I congratulated him on his scoop, but he shook his head, disconsolate. Already, he complained, it was turning to dust.

Ribeiro said he had been given the story by an impeccable inside source, but already officials in Lisbon were denying it, and the source himself could no longer assure him it was true. 'Why is bad information getting out to the public?' he asked. 'Because we're being given it.'

Somehow, however, the denials that had made Ribeiro so angry did not get through to the foreigners. If the questionable leak had been planted for a purpose - to increase the presgoes sure on the hapless McCanns - it may well have succeeded. And, in the foreign public's mind, the germinating notion that Kate might have killed her daughter because she could not handle her had been nurtured by a further dollop of manure.

A similar, apparently sanctioned but inaccurate leak had already gone around the world to still more devastating effect. Early on Monday evening, TV channels began to report that British forensic scientists had made a '100 per cent' DNA match to Madeleine from 'biological material' - said to be hair and 'bodily fluids' - recovered from the Renault Scenic that the McCanns did not hire until 25 days after she vanished, suggesting that they had hidden her body on May 3 and moved it weeks after her death.

With no time for reporters to make checks before their deadlines, the story spread like foot and mouth to almost every British front page the next morning. It was only in the ensuing days that it began, spectacularly, to unravel.

The match was not 100 per cent after all, it transpired, but 80 per cent or less - a level that, according to Professor Alec Jeffries, DNA matching's inventor, might mean that the material had not come from Madeleine at all, but another member-of her family. Even if it had, other experts said, it would prove very little.

Among readers who followed the forensic details, the case against the McCanns had been seen to suffer damage. But others were left with a clear impression - that the PJ now believed they had real evidence that the McCanns must have been responsible for Madeleine's (still unconfirmed) death.

As for those who still harboured doubts, more rococo 'revelations' were being published widely by the end of the week, such as the claim that having bundled Madeleine's body into the car, the McCanns drove it to the marina in nearby Lagos. There they are said to have hired a boat, swore its owner into their conspiracy, then sailed into the Atlantic, into which they tipped their child, weighted down with rocks.

Could such stories really be part of a conscious PJ strategy? Some lawyers around the Portimao courthouse believe that they could.

'Portuguese journalists aren't just making this stuff up,' said Oliveira Trindad. 'They are getting it from the police, of course, and the justice officers, the people working for the prosecutors. It's obvious that some information is coming from the PJ.' Some of it, he added, appears to be accurate - so making it that much easier for the same sources to seed disinformation.

Another Portimao lawyer, who asked not to be named, claimed the PJ was fighting a 'propaganda war' with the McCanns. 'It is the fault of the British Press,' he said. 'They were the ones who started saying, "You're no good, you're no good." If you say a lie like that many times, so many people believe it. You cannot blame the PJ for wanting to hit back.'

But there might be another reason. 'Some people think journalists pay their PJ sources,' the second lawyer said, citing a case where an officer from Lisbon is facing criminal charges after being caught redhanded copying secret documents about a fraud case, allegedly for private profit. 'But they also have an interest in the case and its coverage.'

With the forensic evidence apparently confused and contradictory, 'it seems the main goal of the PJ now is to get a confession. It's like in the films, "Aha, we have a confession, let's take them to court." It's normal to want a confession when they don't have much else.' Intense interrogation of the McCanns has so far failed. But perhaps, the lawyer implied, using the media might be another way of applying the third degree.

'I want to believe that the Portuguese police do everything the right way,' said Joao Grade, the lawyer for Leonor Cipriano. 'But sometimes, if they really think someone is guilty, as they did with Leonor, they may find other ways to get what they want. It's only human.

'When they believe someone has killed a child, it's normal that they will apply pressure. In the McCann case, it seems that the police have what they consider half-proofs. But it's not airtight, it doesn't interlock, so maybe they need more.'

As he spoke, I found myself recalling British miscarriages of justice: cases such as the Birmingham Six, wrongly convicted of IRA pub bombings that killed 21, where the police, under tremendous pressure to 'get a result', built dishonest but convincing prosecutions based around confessions. Could the same thing be happening to the McCanns? The pressure on the police is certainly intense. The loss of a child evokes horror everywhere. On the Algarve, however, the need to solve the case - and, perhaps, not to leave the fear that Madeleine was killed or abducted by an unknown paedophile - has other roots as well.

'The Algarve is a family destination, and situations like this are not agreeable to anyone,' said Elderico Viegas, the regional tourism authority president. 'Our reputation for safety is one of our most important values - especially with the British, who make up our biggest market.'

And Algarve tourism, worth about £2.8billion a year and growing rapidly, is, Viegas said, the single biggest component of the entire Portuguese economy.

The police had, he added, mishandled the media, giving rise to damaging speculation. 'But for me, the details are not important. What's important is the economy. I was born and brought up here and I can't remember the last time a tourist was murdered.' So far, he added, visitor numbers this year are up.

Central to many British miscarriages of justice was a shared, deeply ingrained belief among police and prosecutors that their suspects 'had' to be guilty. With the Birmingham Six, it was founded on botched forensic tests that 'told' investigators that the men had been handling the explosive nitroglycerine - false positives that arose because they had been playing with cards coated in the harmless chemical nitrocellulose.

In Praia da Luz, there are signs of a similar mindset at work, derived from equally tendentious 'evidence'. For example, said a local source who knows several of the PJ inquiry team, from an early stage detectives laid great weight on Kate McCann's apparent composure when she appeared in public.

One of the strangest aspects of Portuguese coverage of the case has been frequent recourse to media psychologists, who have made all manner of deductions about her personality and state of mind by 'analysing' her TV image, claiming that the absence of tears and presence of carefully applied make-up indicates a 'cold', 'manipulative' or even 'psychopathic' personality.

In other words, someone capable of reacting instantly to the death of her daughter, whether deliberate or accidental, by deciding that she had to hide the body and conceal what had happened, and able to persuade her husband and perhaps other ' accomplices' to go along with her plot.

Disturbingly, said the local source, such analysis has not been confined to the media. 'Pretty early on, they had forensic psychologists in, studying hours of video footage, drawing extremely unfavourable conclusions about Kate's personality,' she said. 'You could say she's been damned by her stiff upper lip.'

Yesterday there were reported claims that Kate McCann had ' confessed' to killing Madeleine to a local Catholic priest. But the Rev Hubbard Haynes, the Anglican vicar who lives in Praia da Luz and got closer to the McCanns than anyone during their months in Portugal, refuted them with controlled fury.

A young, passionate Canadian, who took up his post a week after Madeleine's disappearance, he said: 'When I mention Maddie, Gerry and Kate in my own prayers, I find myself weeping. I have gone out into the fields and looked in the hedgerows, begging God for some sign that will help us find her, and I have wept because He has not given it to us yet.

'All I can say is that my tears are as nothing to the tears I have seen shed by Kate and Gerry. They may not have cried for the cameras, but to say they do not weep in private is facile and offensive. The man and woman I have known for the past four months are a couple whose lives have become unbearably empty because their little girl was missing.

'I do not recognise those people in recent media reports, and I find the idea that they had anything to do with her disappearance just inconceivable. There is great evil in this world, and someone has taken this child.'

Other aspects of the emerging mindset against the McCanns seemed equally questionable. Several Portuguese lawyers and journalists, along with a uniformed police officer from the National Republican Guard I spoke to outside the Ocean Club apartment, told me solemnly not only that the McCanns and their friends were 'swingers' who had taken their holiday together to indulge in group sex (an assertion made repeatedly by the Portuguese Press), but that 'everyone knows' that its tolerance of orgies is the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort's main selling point.

One afternoon I decided to test this proposition, approaching two holiday reps there, dressed in their red Mark Warner sweatshirts. 'Er, is this a good place for swingers, then?' I asked.

They looked at me in total bafflement. 'Swingers?' one replied. 'Look around you, sir. Most of our guests are retired, or families with children.'

Another assertion published several times last week is that, on the night that Madeleine disappeared, the McCanns phoned Sky TV before contacting the police - another claim echoed by the uniformed cop.

Outside the Portimao courthouse, I asked Sky's reporter Ashish Joshi if he thought this might be true. He rolled his eyes wearily. 'It's just nonsense,' he said. 'The first anyone at Sky knew about Maddy was when the story appeared on the Press Association wire. I was asked about this just yesterday by a Portuguese reporter. I told him it was crap. And this morning, his paper printed it.'

I passed this on to the Republican Guard officer, but he was unmoved. His unit, he said, had handled the case in its early stages, and from the start he and his colleagues had been convinced there was something fishy about the McCanns. 'My partner was there on the night of May 3,' he said, 'and I can tell you, that apartment was full of people, Kate was screaming - and yet her twins didn't wake up. How do you explain that? They must have been drugged. Nobody on the force believed their story about a kidnap for a moment. That little girl is dead, for sure. Soon you will see the truth.'

Why the need for such bizarre allegations? The answer, I believe, is that there is a massive hole at the heart of the emerging PJ theory. When Madeleine disappeared the McCanns did not have a car. The Ocean Club is in the middle of a busy resort, and the notion that somehow the McCanns found a way to conceal her without transport, and then went to dinner with their friends as if nothing were amiss is beyond credibility.

One Portuguese journalist suggested to me yesterday that they might have hidden her on a scrubby headland a few minutes' walk away. But as I found when I attempted to go for a run there, at night it is inhabited by feral dogs, whose barking would have made the digging of some putative shallow grave impossible.

The PJ enjoys a high reputation in Portugal. 'They are ranked among the top five police forces in the world,' attorney Trindad said, albeit admitting he did not know the source of this curious international ranking.

Most PJ officers are graduates, and would-be entrants face severe competition, with a battery of psychometric, physical and academic tests before they can even be considered for the PJ training school.

The force's Press office likes to compare the PJ to the American FBI: 'We are an elite,' spokeswoman Ana Mouro said.

But beneath the veneer, as the case of Leonor Cipriano suggests, the reality can look less impressive. 'She is nothing like Kate McCann,' her lawyer Joao Grade said.

'She is very poor, with maybe only three years of schooling, and her children have several fathers. She did not get to meet the Pope and she did not have the support of Sky and the BBC.

'But I tell you this: if Kate had been treated like Leonor, she would have done what Leonor did - ended by saying, "OK, OK, I'm guilty, and this is how I did it." '

The special judicial order - imposed on top of the usual Portuguese secrecy - means not only that Grade is prevented from disclosing virtually anything about the Cipriano case, but that pre-trial hearings of the charges against the detectives, due as soon as next month, will be held in camera.

The Mail on Sunday has established crucial alleged details from other legal sources in Portimao. After Joana disappeared in September 2004, Leonor was arrested by the PJ in Portimao on October 14 at 8am. Held there and in the city of Faro without access to a lawyer, she was interrogated without sleep for 22 hours. Then, after a two-hour respite, she was interrogated again until 7am on October 16.

By this time, as photos published by the Portuguese media make clear, her face was a mass of bruises. According to Grade: 'Not just her face but her whole body was black and blue.' The police said she 'tried to commit suicide' by throwing herself down stairs.

If the alleged torture was to force a confession, it succeeded - only for Leonor to withdraw it when she finally saw her lawyer the next day.

The supporters of the accused police have claimed that the officers must be innocent because Cipriano could not pick out her alleged attackers in an identity parade. However, according to the sources in Portimao, this is because they are not alleged to have beaten her themselves, but to have brought in paid thugs.

In any event, she was convicted and sentenced to 21 years. Last June, this was reduced on appeal to 16 - though one of the five appeal court judges issued a dissenting opinion, stating that he was convinced she had been assaulted in custody and was innocent. If the criminal case against the PJ officers does lead to convictions, Grade said, she will appeal again. He has also lodged a case in the European Court of Human Rights.

Strangely enough, Chief Inspector Goncalo Amaral is not the only link between the Cipriano and McCann cases. Another of the senior officers who is now an arguido is the recently retired Chief Inspector Paulo Pereira Cristovao. He is one of the McCanns' principal scourges - not as a detective, but in his new capacity as a columnist for Diario de Noticias, among the most active of Portuguese newspapers in its pursuit of stories about Madeleine derived from leaks.

'There is another link between the Cipriano and McCann cases,' a Portimao lawyer claimed last night. 'You know, it's like if Manchester United lose a big game: next week the pressure they have to win is very big. The PJ are beginning to worry that now they might lose the Cipriano case. If that happens, they have to win with the McCanns.'

Of course, there is yet another connection. If Leonor Cipriano did not kill Joana, the chances of discovering the truth - or indeed her body - are now remote. And as the McCanns have stated repeatedly, if they are innocent, the enormous effort being poured into trying to blame them is effort diverted from the search for a missing four-year-old girl, and the person or persons who abducted her.

That is a thought so grim that it almost makes one wish that the mindset so evident around Praia da Luz had a real foundation. My fear is that it has as much solidity as the sandcastles on the beach.

ï David Rose has been investigating miscarriages of justice for 25 years and has written several books on the subject. The most recent, Violation, about a serial murder case in America, was published by Harper Press in 2007.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Mixed messages on missing Madeleine


Mixed messages on missing Madeleine
14 September 2007 06:17 PM
Press Association National Newswire
Sam Marsden and Vicky Shaw


Mixed messages are coming from the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance, eight days after her parents were named as suspects.

One senior officer said yesterday there was 'nothing concrete'' against Kate and Gerry McCann, but reports continued to suggest police believe they disposed of her body using their hire car.

The McCanns, who insist they are entirely innocent, met their lawyers Kingsley Napley in London yesterday.

There has been huge media interest in the story, with journalists from around the world camped outside the family's home in Rothley, Leicestershire, since they returned from Portugal on Sunday.

From today, the family will be without a campaign manager after the current incumbent, Justine McGuinness, reaches the end of her contract.

Ms McGuinness, a former Lib-Dem parliamentary candidate, is understood to be attending her party's autumn conference in Brighton, which starts today.

It is not known when she will be replaced, but in the meantime a private PR firm is handling media inquiries about the McCanns.

Detectives may be depending on Kate and Gerry McCann making a confession in order to prove their suspicions are correct, a Portuguese newspaper reported yesterday.

A 'high-ranking'' officer in the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) - Portugal's CID - said the evidence was not even strong enough to prove whether Madeleine is dead.

An Australian woman wrongly convicted of murdering her baby after telling police it had been snatched by a dingo spoke out in support of the McCanns.

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, whose conviction was later overturned, claimed the couple could suffer a similar miscarriage of justice to her own.

'What that couple are going through sounds like a mirror image to what happened to me,'' she was quoted in The Guardian today as saying.

'Lie and tell us you did it, and you can go free, tell us the truth and you can't, the police will be saying.

'I don't believe for one minute those parents are responsible for any wrongdoing.''

The Daily Mail quoted Kate McCann's father Brian Healy denouncing claims that she had killed Madeleine as 'disgraceful'' lies. He said:
'There is no way in a month of Sundays that Kate could hurt her little girl. 'It is disgraceful to say she would, it is lies and I think something is going on to smear her. 'Kate is totally innocent and it hurts me so much to hear these claims.''
It is now 135 days since the young girl vanished from her bed in her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.

The unnamed PJ officer told the 24 Horas newspaper:
'We have nothing concrete. 'There are a lot of indications, but without more elements it's impossible to determine what happened in those four vital hours in the case (between 6pm and 10pm on the night Madeleine vanished).
'Even if the blood and traces gathered in the car or in the apartment were confirmed to correspond 100% to the little girl's DNA, that wouldn't prove anything. 'Those elements could only confirm - and that doesn't even happen - that the little girl was in the apartment (which is obvious) and in the car.

'In either of the cases nothing would prove homicide, just that the body of the little girl had been transferred in the vehicle. 'We don't know if Madeleine is dead, and if she is, how it all happened. 'Was she strangled? Could she have been beaten? They are questions only the parents could clarify in an eventual confession.''

On Tuesday the Policia Judiciaria - Portugal's CID - formally passed their 4,000-page dossier of evidence against the McCanns to Algarve-based public prosecutor Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses. He immediately ordered that the 10 lever-arch files should go before a criminal instructional judge, understood to be Pedro Daniel dos Anjos Frias.

The judge now has until Thursday to consider a number of requests made by the prosecutor, among them that he approve the seizure of Mrs McCann's personal diary, sources said.

It is understood that the judge met Goncalo Amaral, co-ordinator of the PJ in the Algarve town of Portimao, and Guilhermino da Encarnacao, the chief investigating officer in the case, for three hours at the courthouse in Portimao yesterday.

Portuguese newspapers claimed yesterday that police are investigating whether the McCanns had any 'accomplices'' in allegedly disposing of Madeleine's body and concocting a false story. Detectives have admitted the young girl's body may 'no longer exist', according to the Diario de Noticias.

One 'credible'' theory of investigators is that her body was thrown out to sea in a bag weighted with stones, from a yacht belonging to an English sailor, the paper claimed, without specifying its source. The boat is based at the marina in the town of Lagos, just a short drive from Praia da Luz, it reported. Portuguese police could not be reached for comment, but in the past they have refused to confirm or deny press reports.

Intense attention has focused on what police found in the hire car rented by Madeleine's parents 25 days after she went missing.

Senior sources linked to the investigation said police had discovered 'bodily fluids'' - not blood - with an 88% match to Madeleine's genetic profile in the boot. Toxicological tests on the liquid show that 'Madeleine had consumed a significant quantity of sleeping tablets and may have overdosed', the French newspaper France Soir reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources in Portugal.

Mr McCann hit out yesterday at the 'ludicrous accusations'' that he and his wife were involved in their daughter Madeleine's death. He said he and Kate knew they were innocent but were frightened and had been 'backed into a corner'.

A friend said yesterday that Madeleine's parents were under intense pressure but were 'not cracking up'. The friend, a colleague of Mr McCann at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital, added:
'It's very tough. I am concerned that the press attention is intensifying. 'It's a lot of stress but they are coping very well.''

Madeleine's aunt Philomena McCann said her family would be willing to sell their homes to pay Mr and Mrs McCann's legal fees.

Cash from the fund set up to find the missing child will not be used to pay for the couple's legal representation, the McCanns announced this week.
Continue Reading... Labels: , , , ,


 
Return to top of page Copyright © 2010 | Flash News Converted into Blogger Template by HackTutors