Gonçalo Amaral on CdM: "Enough with the lies"
translated by Joana
Morais.
"Enough with the
lies": Gonçalo Amaral calls into question the statement of a
McCann friend and believes that the solution to the Maddie case "may
be in there"
Former inspector points
out flaws in the German police investigation and defends Judiciary
Police
The former inspector of
the Judiciary Police (PJ), Gonçalo Amaral, said this Saturday during
an interview with CMTV, that "nothing has been proven" so
far in the case of the disappearance of Maddie from Praia da Luz, in
May 2007, and believes that "Portugal is in a position to crack
the Maddie case".
Gonçalo Amaral recalled
that an investigation is confined to facts and, based on them,
conclusions are advanced or not. According to the former PJ, in the
September 2007 interim report on the case of the disappearance of the
English child, the hypothesis was that a corpse was concealed.
However, Gonçalo Amaral reminds that there was no accusation, in an
allusion to the most recent investigations by the German and English
police.
At a time when the German
police have new leads on the case, Gonçalo Amaral said that, so far,
"nothing has been proven".
In an analysis of the
already published picture of the German suspect Christian Brueckner,
the former inspector has no doubts: "it cannot be [him]".
Gonçalo Amaral explained that in question is the fact that the
German had short hair at the time of Maddie's disappearance however
the testimonies spoke of a long hair. "Do they want people to be
identified? So let's be serious", said the inspector, who
criticizes the release of a current photograph of the suspect instead
of a picture [of how he looked].
Amaral is convinced that
the German prosecutor did not read the process concerning the English
girl's case. "When the German prosecutor says the man came in
through the window, forget it, he didn't read the files", he
said.
The former PJ stressed
that German police officers "are not incompetent, they are
rigorous", but questions whether the new German suspect is a
tactic for the authorities to resolve the case in a "competent"
way.
As for the English
authorities, Amaral believes that they too "are looking for
paedophiles who fit in the abduction theory, without however proving
that there has been an abduction".
The cadaver dogs, brought
by the British authorities, detected blood in the house, but that
evidence was eventually depreciated. "The English laboratory
wrecked the results", said Gonçalo Amaral, who reproaches the
laboratory technician of expressing opinions about the results.
The former inspector
appealed to investigators on the case to read the process from start
to finish or otherwise face an investigation failure. "There are
things that are lacking in the process", he recalled, appealing
for the continuation of the investigation.
Amaral stressed again
that, currently, Christian Brueckner "is an almost perfect
suspect, [to be one] he just needs to be dead".
Gonçalo Amaral recalled
that Madeleine McCann's medical history was not made available to the
authorities, a document that could be essential for the
investigation.
"We have to
understand who the victim is. The Portuguese know everything about
the girl. But there is at least one thing they don't know: the
medical history. Neither the parents gave it, nor did the British
authorities allowed us to access it", said the former PJ, who
recalled the distinctive blemish the English girl had on her eye, an
image widely used in publicizing the case.
The above mentioned
document could, according to the former PJ, help to understand if the
child could have heart problems due to the effects of the medication
that was administered to her.
On the night of Maddie's
disappearance, Kate had inclusively checked several times whether the
twin brother and sister were breathing. "Why does a mother, a
doctor, spend the night checking if her children can breathe? Surely
there was a risk", points out Amaral, who accuses the mother of
not disclosing all the details in the immediate moment following the
beginning of the investigation.
"It's all a sham",
concludes Gonçalo Amaral, recalling the family and friends
statements about the alleged surveillance scheme of the children,
while they dined at the Ocean Club restaurant.
"Parents should have
been considered as suspects": Former inspector defends the
reconstitution
The former inspector "has
no doubt" that the presence of the [tracking] dogs, at the
request of Kate and Gerry McCann, worked to contaminate the evidence
inside the apartment. "You can't be altering evidence", he
recollected.
Gonçalo Amaral once
again defended the reconstruction of the case and reinforced the need
for the McCann couple and friends to return to Portugal in order to
detail the day of the girl's disappearance. "The parents should
have been considered as suspects and treated as such", he added.
According to the former
inspector, the Portuguese authorities did not, for example, have
access to photographs of the dinner on the day of the disappearance.
Importance of cell phones
and witnesses in the investigation
On the matter of the cell
phones and the association of the cell phone numbers during the
investigation at the time of the disappearance, Gonçalo Amaral has
doubts about the origin of those numbers recently associated with the
German suspect Christian Brueckner: "Is anyone sure that this
phone belongs to this man?” he questioned, underlining that "small
details like this, is what makes the evidence".
The former PJ believes
that if the German police knew that the phone number belonged to
Brueckner, "they wouldn't need to seek for more information."
Among the witnesses in
the process are several friends of the McCann couple who were on
holidays [with them] in Praia da Luz at the time of the
disappearance.
"Enough with the
lies", said Amaral, referring to the statement of the couple’s
friend, Jane Tanner, who alleged that she saw a man carrying a child
on the night of the child's disappearance. The inspector said that
Tanner lied in her statement about the time, place and direction in
which she saw the man and that she should, at the present time, make
a "sworn statement". "The solution may be in that",
alerted the former inspector.
Judiciary Police admitted
to the abduction of the child after “British ambassador's request”
The former Judiciary
Police (PJ) coordinator who investigated Maddie's disappearance,
Gonçalo Amaral, revealed yesterday on CMTV that the PJ initially
admitted the possibility of the abduction of the child following a
request by the British ambassador. "The parents should have been
treated as suspects from the start. But there were other pressures.
It is not for nothing that the then British ambassador went to the
site. The director of the Faro PJ [Guilhermino Encarnação]
announced that she was abducted after speaking with the ambassador",
revealed the former inspector, who considers that the German
prosecutor who announced that Christian Brueckner is the main suspect
in Maddie's abduction and death "has not yet read the process".
