BBC
21 July 2008
VIDEO
The former lead detective on the Madeleine McCann case Goncalo Amaral has defended making her parents official suspects. Mr Amaral was removed from his post in October 2007 after reportedly criticising his British counterparts.
Transcript:
Gonçalo Amaral:
In this case, it wasn't purely and simply a decision taken by police officers - Portuguese and British police - there were others involved; Public prosecutors, the National Directorate of the Portugese police - they all knew there was a necessity to put everything on the table, in light of the advances we had made, the combinations of leads we had. There were no persecutions, the police do not want to persecute anyone, just to investigate what happened in a given case.
Steve Kingstone:
According to the McCann's then spokeswoman, it was put to Kate McCann in her police interview blood had been found in the car and we now know that that evidence was not conclusive, there will be people who say that the police bluffed in that inteview.
GA:
I guarantee there was no bluff in those interviews, not at all, and when all the documents are made public, people will see I am telling the truth.
SK:
Do you think it's possible that Madeleine McCann is still alive?
GA:
The evidence that we had gathered by the time I left the case pointed to the girl being dead and having died inside the apartment. I don't know what happened next, I can't say, we'll have to wait for the case files to be made public.
SK:
You know what people are going to say, back in Britain, they will say that this was a total failure by the Portuguese police.
GA:
Let's wait and the people will see the Portuguese Police and the British Police did a good job because various British agencies were involved. We tried and we worked hard, so we can't be accused of incompetence, or failure.
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