Gonçalo Amaral at the launch of 'The Truth About The Lie'

Book solves Maddie case... The book will try to put an ending to the Madeleine case..., 25 April 2008

Book solves Maddie case... The book will try to put an ending to the Madeleine case... Correio da Manhã   Investigation: Explosive data reported by inspector Gonçalo Amaral   Rui Pando Gomes Friday April 25, 2008 Thanks to 'Li' for translation   The inspector of the Criminal Police, Gonçalo Amaral, who coordinated the team that investigated Maddie's disappearance has already a title for a book about the case: "Truth of the Lie", 'Verdade da Mentira'.   CM discovered that the book is almost finished and contains explosive elements about the investigation concerning the disappearance of the British girl in Praia da Luz, Algarve, the 3rd of May last year.   Apart from important data about what happened in that night in the Ocean Club, the "several manoeuvres of counter information" around the big media case of the last years will be revealed.   "It won't be something speculative but factual, with reports of someone who lived the case one hundred per cent," referred to CM Paulo Santo, the defence lawyer of the PJ's inspector who is in the process of retirement.   The lawyer of Gonçalo Amaral, hired to defend his image after the controversy regarding his removal from the coordination of Maddie's case, confirmed to CM that there is already a publisher interested in the book.   "The fact that the retirement process is not yet fulfilled and the secrecy of justice that is in place at this moment stipulate the publishing of the book," said the lawyer of Gonçalo Amaral. The book will try to put an end to Maddie's case.

Maddie book upsets McCanns, 25 April 2008

Maddie book upsets McCanns The Sun   By VINCE SOODIN Published: Today (25/04/2008)   A PORTUGUESE police chief's reported plan to publish a book about the Madeleine McCann inquiry was described by her parents' spokesman today as "outrageous".   Goncalo Amaral was the detective in charge of the investigation until he was removed in October after criticising the British police in a newspaper interview.   According to the Portuguese paper Correio da Manha, he has nearly finished writing his account of the case - and given it the working title Truth Of The Lie.   It is a factual account, said a spokesman for the detective, of a man who lived the investigation "100%". A publisher is already said to be interested.   Referring to the proposed book and its title, Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: "Kate and Gerry have never lied at any stage. They have been utterly open and continue to be so.   "For a book of this nature to be published with such a prejudicial title by Mr Amaral would be frankly quite outrageous."   The couple, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were made official suspects in their daughter’s disappearance after being interviewed by Portuguese police in September. They strenuously deny any involvement.   Mr Mitchell added: "It's reported that it will not be published until Kate and Gerry's arguido status is lifted. We are grateful to Mr Amaral for acknowledging that it will be lifted.   "Our lawyers will enjoy reading this book on its publication.   "We are also concerned to note that a serving police officer is proposing a book to cash in on Madeleine's disappearance.   "We also expect Mr Amaral to adhere fully to Portugal's secrecy laws, as we have done all along."

Kate and Gerry McCann attacked in tell-all book, 26 April 2008

Kate and Gerry McCann attacked in tell-all book Daily Mirror   By Stewart Maclean 26/04/2008   The police chief sacked from the Madeleine probe will hit out at Kate and Gerry McCann in a tell-all book, it was revealed yesterday.   Shamed detective Goncalo Amaral will level devastating criticism at the couple in an explosive account of his five months in charge of the case.   Details of the book emerged as Amaral, 48, prepares to leave the Portuguese force next month after 27 years.   He led the Madeleine probe after the four-year-old went missing last May and named Kate and Gerry as suspects but was taken off the case in October for blasting British officers.   Kate and Gerry, who have always denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance, yesterday told of their anger at Amaral's decision to cash in on their tragedy.   Spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "It's outrageous that Mr Amaral can express such an overtly prejudiced view when he is still formally a member of the Policia Judiciaria.   "This man was intimately involved in the decision to make Kate and Gerry arguidos and it is upsetting that he is now one of several police officers who seem to want to cash in on Madeleine's disappearance. Our lawyers will be reading his book in fine detail."   According to one Portuguese newspaper, Amaral wanted to write the book to regain his "freedom of speech".

'True Lies' of Maddie parents, 26 April 2008

'True Lies' of Maddie parents The Sun   By ANTONELLA LAZZERI Published: Today 26 April 2008   THE disgraced cop who led the search for Maddie McCann has written a money-spinning book – pointing the finger at her parents.   Goncalo Amaral, 48, who was booted off the case after five months, refuses to believe Gerry and Kate McCann had nothing to do with the tot’s disappearance.   He authorised their status as suspects, but was removed after allegedly enjoying boozy lunch breaks while leading the hunt in Portugal.   Amaral's book True Lies accuses Maddie's parents of dumping her body at sea after accidentally killing her. He says British police were too close to the couple and did not follow up leads he suggested.   His lawyer Paulo Santos said of the book: "It’s not speculative, but factual."   But the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "We are not surprised at this.   "It is sad that people feel the need to make money out of Madeleine."

Mystery also in film, 26 April 2008

Mystery also in film Correio da Manhã   Maddie Case: Inspector will reveal the whole puzzle   Rui Pando Gomes 26 April 2009 Thanks to 'jjp' for translation   What really happened on the night of May 3rd, in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann disappeared, will be one of the more "explosive" passages in the book that PJ Inspector Gonçalo Amaral is to write and wants, later, turned into a documentary.   The contents have already been examined by a publisher, who also proposed publication in English. According to CM's source close to Gonçalo Amaral, "There is no definite date for publication," but, apparently, it will only be after the lifting of the secrecy currently covering the investigation which is still ongoing at the Public Prosecution Service in Portimao.   It is the intention to reconstruct the celebrated case on film, as a documentary, and already there are producers interested. "It will clear up all the lies that have been created and call into question the institutions that investigated and are linked to the case," CM discovered from the same source, who has already got hold of passages from the future publication.   DETAILS   SECRECY   The publication of the controversial book should only happen after the lifting of the secrecy restrictions on the case. "The intention is to restore the truth of what happened that night and not to cause problems for the author," explained the 'CM' source close to Gonçalo Amaral.   REFORM   Despite being about to go into retirement, with 38 years of service - 26 in the police, 8 in military service and a 20% subsidy - Gonçalo Amaral is in danger of receiving disciplinary action for the publication of the book. Even in retirement, the inspector must comply with police disciplinary regulations.

Kate and Gerry McCann to write a book, 27 April 2008

Kate and Gerry McCann to write a book Sunday Mirror   By Lori Campbell April 27, 2008   Anguished Kate and Gerry McCann are to write a book about their year of hell since little Madeleine disappeared.   The couple are desperate to tell the truth of their ordeal and plan to publish a tell-all book with the help of a ghost-writer - with all proceeds going to the Find Madeleine Fund.   They have had "countless" approaches by publishers and writers who want to help put their story into words and answer all the unfounded allegations they have faced.   Next Saturday is the first anniversary of the day four-year-old Madeleine was snatched from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal.   As they prepare to mark the agonising milestone their official spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "It will be the family's story, the only official book. Kate and Gerry are both keen to put the truth of everything that has happened to them on record.   "It will be a detailed account of their experience, from the pain of the night Madeleine was kidnapped, to being named as official suspects in the investigation."   Kate and Gerry have been gagged by Portuguese secrecy laws which ban them from speaking out while they are still "arguidos" (official suspects). They have been forced to stay silent while detectives leak malicious stories about them to the Portuguese Press.   Disgraced police chief Goncalo Amaral, who led the investigation, has angered the McCanns with plans to publish his own story. They have vowed to hit back once suspect status is lifted.   Mr Mitchell added: "A number of books are being published in Portugal and the UK. Kate and Gerry want the public to know the real truth."   The couple have been boosted by an "inspirational" meeting" with US dad Ed Smart, reunited with his kidnapped daughter after nine months. The encounter is shown on Wednesday's ITV1 documentary Madeleine One Year On: Campaign for Change.

Gonçalo Amaral's book generates great expectations, 29 April 2008

Gonçalo Amaral's book generates great expectations Diário de Notícias   José Manuel Oliveira 29/04/2008 Thanks to 'Li' for translation   The book "Truth of the lie", that Gonçalo Amaral, ex-coordinator of the investigations in Madeleine's case is going to launch is already creating a huge expectation in Portugal and in England.   Gonaçalo Amaral always believed that Madeleine died in the flat in an accidental way although the hypothesis was denied initially. Who, how and why were his doubts. Madeleine's body was hidden and thrown to the sea and probably no longer exists, this was the way to destroy the evidences of what happened on that awful night, almost a year ago. In his book, Gonçalo Amaral will insist in that thesis, describing the situations that occurred, particularly with the girl's mother, arguida in this process, as well as the father and subjected to Term of Identity and Residence. It's known that the PJ investigators admitted to arrest Kate McCann after two long days of interrogations on the 6th and 7th September last year and present her to the criminal judge of Portimão's court.   For Gonçalo Amaral, Truth of the Lie will be a way, above all, of "defending his image" as a criminal investigator. "He was compelled to retire, situation that will occur within three months, leaving the PJ with his reputation tarnished. And, for the time being he will be unemployed", regretted to DN sources close to Gonçalo Amaral, in Algarve. His lawyer, Paulo Santos, that works with him in the preparation and publishing of the book, was Amaral's colleague during more than 30 years in the PJ, in Lisbon.

"The Truth of the Lie": Release of Gonçalo Amaral's Book on the Maddie Case with Hot Revelations, 23 July 2008

"The Truth of the Lie": Release of Gonçalo Amaral's Book on the Maddie Case with Hot Revelations SIC     23 July 2008 Thanks to Joana Morais for translation   The book "The Truth of the Lie" , which promises controversial revelations on the Maddie case, is launched tomorrow. Today SIC reveals the first excerpts. The work has the signature of the man who directed great part of the investigations but ended up being removed. The lawyer of the couple McCann, Rogério Alves, said to the SIC that he does not comment on fiction. Gonçalo Amaral says that he wants "to put back the good name that was vilified in the public domain" without the Judicial Police allowing his own defence. In the first pages of the work, the author highlights since then the unusual treatment given to the McCann couple, who in the words of the inspector were treated with "tweezers". Much was spoken also about the attitudes of Gerry and Kate McCann and Gonçalo Amaral reports several situations in which he found the coldness of the couple strange facing the tension of the investigations. In one of the situations the inspector speaks about the mother of the child, Kate, who before the possibility of finding her daughter appears bothered with the speed reached by the car of the police. [This was after new information of a possible sighting of Madeleine was given to the police, the mother instead of being anxious looked annoyed with the entire situation] In another case it was the father who aroused the attention of the inspectors: in the middle of a negotiation, with a possible kidnapper, the doctor "was sucking casually one lollipop while reading banalities in sites of the Internet and talking about rugby and football with one of the English police officers". Gonçalo Amaral believes that "Madeleine died in the apartment 5A of the Ocean Clube, on the 3rd of May of 2007, but he does not discard the hypothesis of having been accidental". Contacted by SIC, Rogério Alves, he refused to comment on the book by Gonçalo Amaral. "While lawyer of the family McCann, I only comment on reality, I do not comment on fiction", said the lawyer.   Excerpts of the book "The Truth of the Lie";   P. 11 "This book appears out of the necessity that I felt of putting back my good name that was vilified in the public domain without the PJ has allowing me to stand up for myself". P. 19 "The mistake was that we treated the couple 'with tweezers'. They were treated with privileges. It is that, that is not normal". P. 26 "It seems that the Judiciary Police is a 'stepmother' [Portuguese expression, meaning the PJ as an institution was never good to its officers] with its servants, it never knew how to defend them". P. 38 "It was pertinent to know if Madeleine was the biological daughter of the couple McCann, the information requested does not arrive, but the English ambassador is already arriving. It is not normal this preoccupation of the English diplomacy". P. 48 "A hand print was found in the balcony window at the rear [of the apartment]. It was corresponding to one of the police elements". (protocol of proceedings is lacking) P. 54 Sightings: "Kate appears bored because of having been obliged to return and bothered with the speed reached by the police car. We found it strange that she didn't show signs of hope with the possibility of the girl being recovered". P. 67 "The PJ should have had persons to analyse all the news, being preoccupied by what the parents and friends would say to the public opinion. What did not happen". P. 68 "It is not usual that common citizens, to whom a daughter just had disappeared, nominate press advisers". P. 71 "The English service secret already had, after the facts, the couple and the group of friends under surveillance. If that was right such an information was never accessed by the Portuguese police". P. 81 "The medical registries (of Madeleine) requested with insistence were not given to us, due to great difficulties raised in England". P. 92 Attempt of extortion "Gerry McCann was sucking casually one lollipop while he was reading banalities in sites of the Internet and was talking about rugby and football with one of the English police officers". Sentence of the English police officers "Do not forget that he starts cutting people in half shortly afterwards of the breakfast". P. 165 "There were signs of death in the apartment. It was concluded that that cadaver odour could only came from Madeleine McCann". P. 168 "The toy had cadaver odour". P. 214 Conclusions "Madeleine died in the apartment 5 A on the 3rd of May of 2007 A simulation of kidnapping took place Kate and Gerry are suspected of corpse's occultation [hiding the cadaver] The death might have happened as a result of an accident There are signs of negligence in the safe keeping and security of the children".

"Madeleine died in the apartment", 23 July 2008

"Madeleine died in the apartment" Correio da Manhã    23 July 2008 Thanks to 'astro' for translation   Pre-publication   'CM' [Correio da Manhã] today starts the exclusive publication of excerpts from the book by Gonçalo Amaral, who believes that Madeleine McCann died inside the apartment at Praia da Luz. The episode of the holidays in 2005, in Mallorca – which raises suspicions about a friend of the couple – and the DNA results are the first parts. "Madeleine Beth McCann, aged two and a half, and her twin siblings, at that time only a few months old, go away on holidays in the company of the parents, on the island of Mallorca. Three other couples of doctors and their children go along with them. […] S.G. had attended the university in Dundee, between 1987 and 1992, where he met the future mother of Madeleine. K.G. only met Gerry McCann on his wedding with Kate Healy, around 1998, in Liverpool. After that event, the couple S.G. and K.G. become intimate friends with Madeleine's parents, meeting often, spending weekends together, keeping in touch over the phone. On the third or fourth night in Mallorca, after dinner, eating and drinking, while sitting around a table on the patio outside the house, K.G. watches a scene that makes her fear for her daughter's wellbeing, and that of the other children. She was sitting between Gerry McCann and David Payne, when she heard the latter ask whether she, maybe referring to Madeleine, would do 'this', then starting to suck on one of his fingers, which he pushed in and out of his mouth, insinuating a phallic object, while at the same time, with the fingers of his other hand, he traced circles around his nipple, in a provocative and sexual manner. At the moment when K.G. looked at Gerry McCann and David Payne with stupefaction, a nervous silence took place. Then everyone continued to chat as if nothing had happened. This episode left K.G. with serious doubts about David Payne's relationship with children. On another occasion, K.G. would once again see David Payne making the same gestures, this time while speaking about his own daughter. During that holiday period, it was the fathers who usually bathed the children, but from that moment on, K.G. never allowed David Payne to come close to her daughter. After those holidays in Mallorca, K.G. only met David and Fiona Payne on one occasion, and has not spoken to them since. […] What is written above was reported to the English police on the 16th of May 2007, only thirteen days after the disappearance of Madeleine, by the couple S.G. and K.G. It was information that was important and pertinent for the investigation. Yet, nothing was transmitted to the Portuguese police. […] I think that it was only after I left the investigation, maybe in late October 2007, that K.G.'s deposition was sent to the Portuguese police. It is legitimate to ask: for what reason did the English police, apparently, conceal that testimony for six months? When did they find out that David Payne, who had organised the trip to Mallorca, and who had been signalled with anomalous behaviour towards children, was the same who organized the trip to Portugal, that he was part of the holiday group in the village of Luz where Madeleine had been integrated, that he was the first family friend who could be seen at Kate McCann's side after the child's disappearance (as seen further ahead) and that on the date of the deposition he was still in Portugal, and could be confronted with these statements? […] In early September, a few days before the McCann couple was constituted as arguidos, Superintendent Stuart Prior travels to Portimão. He brings a first preliminary report [from the forensics lab in Birmingham], and comes to discuss the state of the investigation with us. During a meeting in our office, with the Portuguese and the English investigation teams, Stuart shows his disappointment with the results of the tests. This is where the saga of the FSS reports starts. We read the report and we do not agree with Stuart's disappointment. The blood residues that were collected from the floor, behind the sofa in apartment 5A, as well as the blood residues that were recovered from the boot of the car that was used by the McCanns, are the issue. We talk about blood residues because the CSI dog is trained to detect only that bodily fluid. The reports that were used to based the decision on, which were written by experts Mark Harrison and Martin Grime, are clear: the CSI dog was used to locate human blood. The Low Copy Number, the technique that is used to determine the DNA from those samples, does not determine from which bodily fluid the DNA comes from. In the first case, it can be read that an incomplete DNA result was obtained, because the sample contained little information, presenting low level DNA indications that come from more than one person. But all the DNA components that are confirmed, match the corresponding components from Madeleine’s DNA profile! Concerning the second case, after an explanation about the DNA components of Madeleine's profile, and concluding that it is represented by 19 alleles, it is concluded that 15 are present in the tested sample. This means that 4 alleles are missing to obtain a 100% conclusive match. According to the experts from that lab, those 15 were not enough to conclude, with a high degree of certainty, that we were looking at Madeleine's DNA profile, even more so because the Low Copy Number found 37 components in the sample. Those 37 components were apparently there because at least three individuals had contributed to that result. Although 15 components from Madeleine's DNA profile had been found, the result was considered to be complex. But this first preliminary report went further. In it, the scientist had the unusual care of explaining that in many of the profiles of the lab experts, elements from Madeleine's DNA profile are present. This means that a good part of the DNA profile of any person can be built by three donors. It is understandable. Two questions were immediately raised. The first one: what use was a DNA profile, in terms of criminal evidence, if it can be the combination of three or more donors. The other question was simple: why did the DNA profile from those three donors contribute for 15 components of Madeleine's DNA profile and not that of anyone else, like for example, the scientist who performed the test? But the surprises from the preliminary reports would go even further. […]" ........................................................................................... What the former policeman's book tells us Gonçalo Amaral decided to write the book in order to recover his own freedom of expression. Removed from the investigation by Alípio Ribeiro, the former coordinator of the PJ in Portimão believes that Madeleine McCann died in the apartment at the Ocean Club on the evening of the 3rd of May 2007. And he also believes that the parents simulated the abduction and concealed their daughter’s body, after a tragic accident inside the apartment.   Directors' war The national director of the PJ, Almeida Rodrigues, said yesterday that his predecessor, Alípio Ribeiro, "was not noticed for being a good investigator". He thus responded to the criticism that had been made by Alípio about the archiving of the Maddie case, which he considered to have happened "too soon".

Maddie died in the bedroom and the abduction was staged, 23 July 2008

Maddie died in the bedroom and the abduction was staged Jornal de Notícias    23 July 2008  Thanks to 'astro' for translation   On the day before the book "Maddie, The Truth About The Lie" is published, JN anticipates some of the revelations made by the author, Gonçalo Amaral. The former inspector from the Polícia Judiciária who was initially responsible for the investigation, believes that the English girl died in the bedroom and that the parents are not exempt of guilt.   "Madeleine McCann died inside apartment 5A at the Ocean Club, in Vila da Luz, on the 3rd of May 2007", Gonçalo Amaral writes, according to the results that were obtained by the team that investigated the case until October 2007. "A simulation of abduction took place" and the parents, Kate and Gerry, "are suspected of involvement in the concealing of their daughter’s cadaver", the former PJ inspector adds. The author points out that "the death may have been caused by a tragic accident" and that "indicia of neglect in the guard and safety of the children" were detected. The fact is that "there is a cadaver that has not been located, a realisation that was validated by the English dogs (…) and corroborated by the preliminary lab test results". In his conclusions, Gonçalo Amaral also stresses that "the abduction theory is defended by Maddie's parents since the first hour" and that within the group of friends that were spending holidays at the Ocean Club, only Kate and Gerry said that the little girl's bedroom window was open. "The set of depositions and witness statements show an elevated number of imprecisions, incongruences and contradictions (…), particularly the key deposition for the theory of abduction, from Jane Tanner (…) which becomes ambiguous to the point of disqualifying". This was the English citizen who said she saw a man carrying a little girl on the evening of the 3rd of May 2007. "To contribute to the discovery of the material truth"   "This book appears from the need that I felt to recover my reputation that was publicly smeared while the institution that I belonged to for 26 years, the Polícia Judiciária, did not give me permission to defend myself or did it institutionally. (…) Later on, I was removed from the investigation", Gonçalo Amaral starts by explaining. "This book also has a bigger purpose. That of contributing to the discovery of the material truth and the realisation of justice", he refers, pointing out that the contents "does not, under any circumstance, question the work" from his colleagues at the PJ "or compromise the ongoing investigation". In his opening note, Gonçalo Amaral indicates that "the reader will find data that he does not know, interpretations of the facts, and, naturally, pertinent questions", stressing that a criminal investigation "should not have to care about what is politically correct". "Couple treated with tweezers" The cover of the book, which is published by Guerra e Paz, resembles a process folder, with the inscription "Confidential" written in red and the simulation of a passport-style photo of Maddie, attached with a paper clip. The first lines are not situated on May 3, 2007, when the "Maddie case" began, but rather in February 2008, the date of the publication of an interview during which the former national director of the PJ considers that there was precipitation in constituting the English couples as arguidos. The author confesses that he had a "premonition" that the statement was designed to "prepare the public opinion for the inevitable, that is to say, the end of the investigation and the archiving of the inquiry". Gonçalo Amaral says that there were "disinformation campaigns with the purpose of discrediting the criminal investigation". "To me, the investigation was dead since the 2nd of October 2007", when he was removed from the PJ and "diligences were carried out to fulfill the calendar, a bit for the English to see". The author questions the relationship between the McCann couple and the English police, after they were made arguidos. "It was always strange for us to see how the couple was treated (…) and the amount of police information that they eventually were given access to". "The mistake was that we treated the couple 'with tweezers'", it can be read, due to the fact that Kate and Gerry were only made arguidos four months after the investigation started. Right on the morning of the 4th of May, before they received information about the McCanns that had been requested from the English police, the investigators were visited by the English ambassador. "This concern from the British diplomacy is not normal. Who are this couple? Who are the friends?", the author questions. It is also "not normal that common citizens whose daughter has just disappeared, nominate press advisors", faced with the media exposure that the case was starting to gain. Gerry's strange relaxation Throughout the 214 pages, Gonçalo Amaral remembers questions that remained unanswered – the twins' cots had no bed sheets on the night that Maddie disappeared, registers of mobile phone calls between Kate and Gerry were erased, Maddie's medical records that were requested from England were never sent, etc. – and some diligences that did not advance, in order to prevent the couple from being exposed to the public opinion's judgment – like the reconstruction of the facts of the evening of the 3rd of May and the request for phone tapping. In May, "we felt that Kate was available, without compromising herself, to indicate the location of her daughter’s body" and, "according to what she stated herself, the data had been given to her by persons with psychic or paranormal powers". She then mentioned a sewer that ends at Praia da Luz and the cliffs that are located east of the beach. In July, English dogs detected cadaver odour and traces of blood in the apartment and in the vehicle that had been rented by the couple. Mentioning the diverse sightings of the English girl that originated in several countries and revealed themselves baseless, Gonçalo Amaral narrates an episode that happened in June 2007. A man in the Netherlands demanded a ransom of two million euros, with an advance payment of 500 thousand euros. The contacts between Gerry and the man were made per email in an office at the PJ in Portimão. When the indication of the conditions and the location for the delivery of the money were awaited, "there was great tension in the room". "On the other hand, the relaxed stance" of Gerry "made a stark contrast with the anxiety of the policemen and intrigued all the investigators". Maddie’s father "sucked on a lollipop in a relaxed manner while he read banalities on internet sites and discussed rugby and football with one of the English policemen", the author reveals. Later on, the individual was detained and the lead revealed to be false.

How could he?, 24 July 2008

How could he? The Sun   By VERONICA LORRAINE Published: 24 Jul 2008   MADELEINE McCann's parents faced fresh heartache yesterday as the cop thrown off the investigation published an outrageous account of the case.   The book by shameless Goncalo Amaral came out just days after Kate and Gerry were officially cleared of any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.   Amaral — the officer who first named the McCanns as official suspects — was removed from the hunt for missing Maddie after blasting British police.   He is now facing perjury charges over an earlier case involving the disappearance of a girl.   But the ex-cop still churned out his 214-page book Maddie — A Verdade da Mentira, which translates as Maddie — The Truth of the Lie.   In it he makes farcical claims police suspected the McCanns as soon as Madeleine, then three, disappeared in Praia da Luz, Portugal.   He makes a serious allegation against one of the Tapas Seven, the nickname given to a group of the McCanns’ holiday pals.   And he slates the police's own forensics team.   The £10 book — with an initial print-run of 40,000 — is being published only in Portugal for fear of libelling the couple. In March doctors Kate and Gerry, both 40 and from Rothley, Leics, received £550,000 from Express Newspapers for printing false claims.   Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell told The Sun: "People should bear in mind Amaral is a discredited former police officer who was removed from the case. He is also entirely at odds with his own Attorney General who, on Monday, made it very clear there is absolutely no proof that any criminal offence was committed by Kate or Gerry.   "Amaral is also, quite disgustingly, seeking to make money out of Madeleine's situation and is seeking publicity — which we are not prepared to give him. The libel lawyers who are representing Kate and Gerry and their friends are assessing every word of this book very closely, and they will not hesitate from taking legal action against Amaral if any passage requires it."   A source close to the family said: "It is believed Kate and Gerry will sue at a time of their choosing. They won't be rushed into anything."   Though the case has been shelved, Portugal's top cop Almeida Rodrigues insisted yesterday: "We will continue to chase up every credible lead we receive. We will travel to the ends of the Earth if needs be."

Ex-Cops Madeleine Book Published, 24 July 2008

Ex-Cops Madeleine Book Published Sky News    Martin Brunt, Sky News crime correspondent  8:19am UK, Thursday July 24, 2008   A book called "Maddie - The Truth of the Lie" is going on sale in Portugal today, with claims from its author that someone who was there on the night Madeleine McCann vanished is hiding the truth.   Former police chief Goncalo Amaral, who wrote the 224-page book, insists Madeleine is dead and believes she died in the apartment where the family were staying.   He criticises the McCanns, their friends, Gordon Brown and the British police.   Mr Amaral was in charge when Kate and Gerry McCann were made arguidos, or official suspects, so readers may question his agenda.   He was later removed from the case after speaking out against UK officers and he then retired.   In the book, he accuses the McCanns of neglecting their children and questions why they needed a professional spokesperson. Why was their public image so important to them?   They and their friends, he writes, gave conflicting statements of who did what and when during their meal on the fateful night.   And he questions how one friend, Jane Tanner, could have noticed such detail of the suspect she says she saw carrying a child near the apartment.   Mr Amaral also attacks Gordon Brown for trying to influence the investigation to the benefit of the McCanns.   He says British police were slow to provide information asked for and took six months to pass on a potentially vital witness statement.   A request for Madeleine's medical records was ignored, he writes.   The book's publishers remind readers that Mr Amaral was a successful detective and top of his class of police cadets 27 years ago.   But they make no mention of the perjury charge he faces over another missing child investigation.   Maddie - The Truth of the Lie, priced at 13 euros, is being launched at one of Lisbon's top department stores, where Mr Amaral will be signing copies.

Detective's book claims Madeleine McCann died in apartment, 24 July 2008

Detective's book claims Madeleine McCann died in apartment Guardian    Haroon Siddique Thursday July 24, 2008 11am BST   A controversial book by the former head of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was published today.   In A Verdade Da Mentira, translated as The Truth of the Lie, Goncalo Amaral, details his belief that Madeleine, who went missing shortly before her fourth birthday, died in her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.   Amaral, a former senior detective, was in charge when Madeleine's parents were made formal suspects in September – a status which was only lifted on Monday.   He was removed from the case at the beginning of October after he said that British police were at the beck and call of Gerry and Kate McCann.   The McCanns' family spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, said yesterday that lawyers would be studying Amaral's book as a "matter of urgency".   "Mr Amaral will face immediate and swift legal action if he in any way implies, either directly or indirectly, that Kate and Gerry were involved in the disappearance or harming of their daughter," he said.   In the book, Amaral claims that a serious allegation was passed on to Leicestershire police, less than a fortnight after Madeleine disappeared. But he alleges that the UK force did not communicate the information to their Portuguese counterparts until after he was removed from the case.   "This raises a legitimate question: why did the British police apparently hide that witness statement for six months?" he writes.   Leicestershire police has declined to comment on the allegations.   Madeleine vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year, as her parents dined with friends nearby.   The investigation into her disappearance was shelved on Monday, after the Portuguese attorney general concluded that there was insufficient evidence to continue with the case.   The third formal suspect in the case, Algarve property consultant Robert Murat, 34, had his "arguido" status lifted along with the McCanns.   Amaral, who is now retired, is facing perjury charges, which he denies, in relation to another missing child case. Leonor Cipriano, the mother of the young girl, was convicted of her murder but accused the police of beating her into making a false confession.

Police boss in Madeleine McCann case makes outlandish claims in book, 24 July 2008

Police boss in Madeleine McCann case makes outlandish claims in book Daily Mirror    By Lucy Thornton 24/07/2008   Furious McCanns could sue   The ex-police boss who led the Madeleine hunt is cashing in on the McCanns' heartache in a series of outlandish claims in his book.   Just days after Kate and Gerry were cleared, disgraced Goncalo Amaral, 48, began hounding them yesterday in his 214-page "Maddie; The Truth Of The Lie".   In it he makes five conclusions about the three-year-old's disappearance - without a shred of hard evidence. A source close to the McCanns, who had their arguidos status over her disappearance lifted on Monday after the case was shelved, said they were having the book translated and may sue Amaral.   Spokesman Clarence Mitchell said last night: "He is quite disgustingly seeking to make money out of Madeleine's situation and seeking publicity - which we are not prepared to give him. People should bear in mind he is a discredited former police officer who was removed for criticising Leicestershire police.   "He is entirely at odds with his own Attorney General who said there is absolutely no proof any criminal offence was committed by Kate or Gerry.   "Libel lawyers are assessing every word and will not hesitate from taking legal action if any passage requires it."   CHIEF INSPECTOR GONCALO AMARAL   Goncalo Amaral was sacked from the case in October for criticising British detectives and Madeleine's parents.   Chief Insp Amaral, 47, also took three-hour lunches and allegedly failed to investigate tip-offs to his team.   He faces a perjury trial over claims he helped cover up alleged torture of a mum whose daughter vanished near where Madeleine disappeared

McCann case detective's book to get English translation, 24 July 2008

McCann case detective's book to get English translation Belfast Telegraph    Thursday 24 July 2008   A controversial book by the former detective in charge of the Madeleine McCann investigation will be translated into English, it was reported today.   Goncalo Amaral maintains the young girl died in her family's holiday flat in the work, called A Verdade da Mentira (The Truth Of The Lie), which was published in Portugal today.   Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, are consulting their lawyers over the book, which contains allegations against them.   Mr Amaral, who was removed from the case in October after reportedly criticising British police, argues in his book that investigators made the "mistake" of treating the McCanns "with tweezers".   Detectives named the couple as "arguidos", or formal suspects, in the child's disappearance four months after she went missing.   But this week prosecutors announced they were shelving the case and lifting the McCanns' arguido status because there was no evidence they had committed any crime.   Mr Amaral's book also criticises British officers, claiming they held back a potentially important lead for six months and questioning their relationship with the McCanns.   An English translation of the book will be made but there is no firm date or distribution deal yet, the publishers Guerra e Paz told the Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias today.   McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said Mr Amaral would face "immediate and swift legal action" if he implied the couple were involved in the disappearance or harming of Madeleine.   He added that the McCanns' lawyers were studying the book "as a matter of some urgency".   Leicestershire Police did not want to comment on Mr Amaral's allegations.   Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby.   Despite a huge police investigation and massive coverage in the Portuguese and British media, she has not been found.

The parents have hidden the dead Maddie, 24 July 2008

The parents have hidden the dead Maddie The FAZ   Text: F.A.Z. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - one of Germany's most respected and widely read national newspapers) 24 July 2008 Thanks to 'sina' for translation   "Madeleine died on the night of the 3rd May 2007 in an apartment of Praia da Luz. Her parents are suspected of having hidden the corpse." These are the two main theses of the former Portuguese criminal inspector Goncalo Amaral, who was in Lisbon on Thursday presenting his book with the title "Maddie - The truth of the lie".   Amaral led the first five months of the investigation in the case of the English 4-year-old girl Madeleine McCann who mysteriously "disappeared" in the Algarve. He was eventually dismissed because he appeared to have criticised the British authorities for their one-sided conduct in support of the parents.   Investigation set for lack of evidence   Amaral's book came out three days after the notice, on Monday, that the Portuguese public prosecutor had shelved the investigation for lack of evidence. Neither the parents Gerry and Kate McCann, who were declared "suspects" last September, nor the anglo-portuguese Robert Murat, who also was under suspicion, could be charged with a crime, is noted in the further justification.   This decision was in May criticised as "hasty" by the former Portuguese police chief Alipio Ribeiro, who handed the case over because he allegedly got tired of the "media circus" around Madeleine.   On Tuesday then, a spokesman for the Criminal Police Lisbon said that of course, the authorities will continue to pusue all possible new evidence in the future.   Before ex-inspector Amaral re-opened the discussion with the publication of his book on Thursday, the magazine "Expresso" published a so far kept secret final report of the CID. It states that the Portuguese authorities had undertaken everything possible to resolve the disappearance of the child. Some specific research, however, has not been possible because, for example, friends of the McCanns have refused to take part in a reconstruction of the exact course of events on the evening of the 3rd May. Convinced: Madeleine is no longer alive   Amaral reiterated in his book that it was the conviction of the Portuguese police that Madeleine is no longer alive. According to his presentation, she allegedly died as a result of a "tragic accident", which was then covered up by her parents. In order to distract, "an abduction was staged".   The inspector who draws his conclusions from "circumstantial and factual evidence" and not "valued judgements", once more alerts to the strange ambiguities and unanswered questions in the case. He complains that British police had cooperated at the beginning, but no longer sufficiently did so, possibly because of political influence in the character of an international search campaign.   Amaral wonders why the parents as one of their first reactions after the "kidnapping" had employed consultants and also why the British ambassador visited the Portuguese Government at the next day. He complains that medical documentation requested from England, concerning Madeleine never arrived in Portugal.   He finally asked why the two younger siblings of the child that night slept without bed sheets.   A spokesman for the McCanns meanwhile, warned the author that he should expect a complaint should the two hundred-page book actually directly make an accusation of the parents being guilty.

McCanns to sue cop over book, 25 July 2008

McCanns to sue cop over book The Sun    By VERONICA LORRAINE Published: Today   DEVASTATED Kate and Gerry McCann are to launch a legal blitz in Portugal after the publication of a scandalous book about the disappearance of their daughter Maddie.   In The Truth Behind The Lie, ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral details ludicrous allegations about the couple and the pals they dined with when Maddie vanished in Portugal last year.   The McCanns plan to take action against Amaral, Portuguese newspapers which reprinted parts of the £10 book and bloggers who discussed it.   A source close to the family said last night: "The gloves are off. Amaral has over-stepped the mark and they feel they have been left with no choice. Enough is enough.   "The lawyers are looking at pretty much everything."   In the book, Amaral, 48, claims that cops suspected Kate and Gerry almost as soon as Maddie, now five, vanished in the Algarve.   He also makes a serious allegation against one of their "Tapas 7" dining pals.   Earlier this week, Kate and Gerry, both 40 of Rothley, Leics, were officially cleared of any involvement in the case.   Amaral, who was taken off the investigation last October, said last night: "This book is not revenge, it is not persecution. We can discuss the case in court if they want."

Fury over book on the McCanns by disgraced police detective, 25 July 2008

Fury over book on the McCanns by disgraced police detective Daily Mirror   By Lucy Thornton 25/07/2008   Shamed police boss Goncalo Amaral last night launched his book on the Madeleine McCann case by admitting parts of the inquiry failed - then refused to apologise.   The ex-detective, 48, who was booted off the case, also sent a message to parents Gerry and Kate after threats to sue over his Maddy: The Truth of the Lie.   He said: "We can argue the case in court if they want." He then claimed he understood their anguish over Madeleine.   Amaral, who was mobbed by people at the launch in Lisbon, Portugal, said they had failed in parts of the hunt but added: "There will be no apology. We were trying to find the truth. The McCanns' feelings are important. But a this story has to be told."   Asked what he would do if he could start the probe into four-year-old Madeleine's disappearance again, he said: "I would carry out operations that weren't carried out due to political reasons."

Madeleine McCann case: Portuguese police admit failings, 25 July 2008

Madeleine McCann case: Portuguese police admit failings Telegraph   The police detective who led the search for Madeleine McCann has admitted that there were some failings in the investigation but refused to accept responsibility for not solving the case.   By Fiona Govan in Lisbon Last Updated: 10:05AM BST 25 Jul 2008 Speaking at the launch of his book, Goncalo Amaral said: "Yes, there were failings, but there will be no apology - I was just doing my job." He recognised that the publication of the book would be upsetting for the McCanns but felt it was something he had to write. "Of course I am worried about their feelings, they lost their child and I have sympathy with all parents who have lost a child in such circumstances," he said at a department store in the capital Lisbon. "This is not about revenge or persecution of the McCanns and we can discuss the case in court if they want," he said referring to reports that the couple were planning legal action over allegations made in the 214 page tome.. His motivation to write the book was to record the "facts" of the investigation and for readers to make up their own mind, he said. Publishers revealed they were currently negotiating foreign rights for the book and they expected it to be translated into English. The former chief inspector, who was sacked from the case after publicly criticising the British police, also said his removal at such a critical time had jeopardised the case. "If I had stayed on I would have got further with the case," he claimed. Several hundred people queued up to collect copies of "Maddie The truth of the Lie" and many congratulated Mr Amaral for his courage to speak out.

Press Association National Newswire, 25 July 2008

Press Association National Newswire By Sam Marsden, PA Chief Reporter 25 July 2008 Kate and Gerry McCann's lawyers are still awaiting access to the Portuguese police files in the disappearance of the couple's daughter Madeleine, their spokesman said today. Their legal team in Portugal had expected to be granted official permission to look at the massive dossier of documents by the end of this week. But despite the leaking of a detailed 57-page summary of the file on Tuesday, the McCanns' lawyers have so far not heard from the authorities. Family spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "We are waiting for notification from the court. We are very hopeful it will be early next week." Meanwhile, it is understood the couple will definitely take legal action against the former detective in charge of the Madeleine case over his new book. Goncalo Amaral maintains the young girl died in her family's holiday flat in A Verdade da Mentira - The Truth Of The Lie - which was published in Portugal yesterday. The McCanns, both 40, from Rothley, Leicestershire, were formally cleared of involvement in Madeleine's disappearance on Monday, when prosecutors lifted their status as "arguidos", or formal suspects. They say they will continue to believe their daughter is alive until given firm evidence to the contrary, and their lawyers are now scrutinising Mr Amaral's book. Mr Mitchell said the McCanns' legal team would "take their time" to go through the text. He refused to comment on Portuguese newspaper reports that the book is to be published in English and that its film rights have already been sold. "We are not talking about Mr Amaral and his book. We are not giving him any oxygen of publicity," he said. "All I will say is I hope he and his publishers, and the newspapers reporting his libellous allegations, are very brave because action will be taken if required at a time of our choosing." Mr Amaral, who was removed from the case in October after reportedly criticising British police, argues in his book that investigators made the "mistake" of treating the McCanns "with tweezers". He also criticises British officers, claiming they held back a potentially important lead for six months and questioning their relationship with the McCanns. Leicestershire Police, which worked with Portuguese detectives on the inquiry, declined to comment on Mr Amaral's allegations. Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby. Despite a huge police investigation and massive coverage in the Portuguese and British media, she has not been found. On Monday Portuguese prosecutors announced they were shelving the case and lifting the arguido status of the McCanns and Algarve resident Robert Murat. Mr and Mrs McCann may give further interviews in the coming weeks, but they are said to be "worn down" by this week's emotionally draining developments.

A copper without shame: Maddie's top detective blames everyone but himself for the lack of answers, 25 July 2008

A copper without shame: Maddie's top detective blames everyone but himself for the lack of answers Daily Mail    By RICHARD PENDLEBURY  Last updated at 9:10 PM on 25th July 2008   El Corte Ingles is Lisbon's grandest department store. The name loosely translates as 'The English Style', though 'corte' can also mean a cut, as from a knife.   Perhaps the ambiguity amused super sleuth Goncalo Amaral, for this was the location he chose on Thursday evening to launch the 'confidencial' inside story of his most sensational case: the mystery of Madeleine McCann.   The portly detective sat before a table piled high with his newly published paperback memoir of the investigation, ready to be signed and sold at £10 apiece. Hundreds of local people had queued to see him.   As the officer in charge of the hunt for Madeleine from the night she vanished until he was fired from the case last October, Amaral, 48, presided over the shredding of the reputation of the Portuguese CID.   With a perjury charge still hanging over him, connected to an alleged assault in a separate missing-child case, he has just taken early retirement to publish his book.   'I want to clear my name,' he says in the blurb. To this end, 40,000 copies of Maddie: A Verdade Da Mentira (The Truth Of The Lie) are to be printed in Portuguese alone. An English translation is being arranged, and lucrative international rights are being neglotiated.   This week the unsolved case was finally shelved, and Kate and Gerry McCann were cleared of their arguido - official suspect - status.   Yet in Amaral's book, the couple face a fresh attack from the former police chief who long ago decided their guilt.   The couple's lawyers are on a war footing and they intend to sue. Having read the book with the help of a translator, it is not hard to see why.   It takes character to admit gross failure. Amaral has not done this in print. Instead, he petulantly dresses it up as a conspiracy against him while, without any hard evidence, placing blame on those who were hurt most.   We cannot go into the allegations he makes against the McCanns, as they have indicated they will take legal action if the charges are repeated. In any case, most of them are already known.   But what can be examined in detail is the long list of institutions which the embittered former head of the Portimao CID blames for his inability to crack the case.   Most of these are British. He says he was a victim of international politics. He claims the British media sided against him, and that their portrayal of Portugal as a 'Third World country' hampered the investigation.   He says the British police, the Diplomatic Service, the MI5 and even the NHS were blocking his path to the 'material truth'.   He even hints that Prime Minister Gordon Brown delayed signing last year's Lisbon Treaty until it was confirmed that 'this humble Portuguese employee' was removed from the McCann investigation.   But it is not just Britain he blames. The Portuguese government and even the Policia Judiciária, to which he had belonged for 26 years, 'betrayed' him.   During the investigation, his beloved wife left him. His dog was killed under suspicious circumstances, perhaps because of the case.   His martyrdom was 'unique', he writes. This was crushing to 'minha dignidade' - my dignity.   Some of the blame Amaral heaps on his junior colleagues is almost certainly justified.   On the night of May 3, 2007, Amaral - who had been brought up in Lisbon - was the head of the CID in the Algarve town of Portimao, a few minutes down the coastal highway from the resort village of Luz.   He says he was informed by phone of Madeleine's disappearance that evening, at midnight. The National Guard - a junior branch of the police services - had been on the scene.   But before specialised detectives arrived, he says, Apartment 5A of the Ocean Club complex had become the scene of a virtual 'arrial' - a party.   A host of National Guard personnel, dogs, resort staff, members of the McCann family and friends and other people had trampled through it, damaging potential evidence.   Even at this early stage, he began to see conspiracy theories: 'We had to wonder if that kind of contamination was unconscious or intentional.'   The next day Amaral seemed appalled that the police were visited first by the British Consul in Portimao and then no less a person than the British ambassador.   'It was not normal,' he exclaims. 'Who was this couple? Who were their friends? We did not need diplomats. We needed quick answers to the questions' - particularly from the English police whose tardiness he was already critcising.   He complained that, from the start, ' politics and diplomacy seemed to be shaping the initiative'.   In particular, he felt he was not being helped as much as he could by the British authorities.   He says he was told that British security services had bugged the McCanns and their friends.   'If that was the case, information [from the bugging] was never given to us.'   Amaral was suspicious of the motives of the British police officers who arrived in Luz on May 7. He ordered a 'shadow' on the senior British officer in Luz. 'I want to know what they are doing,' he told his subordinate. 'You will escort them day and night.'   Amaral writes how he had wanted Madeleine's UK medical records, but they 'were not given to us because of huge difficulties raised in England.   'They certainly would have been very important. Why were they not given to us? The British judicial system was not very co-operative in these matters, which was regrettable.'   More conspiracies and paranoia. Early on, Amaral fixed on alleged inconsistencies in the testimonies of the main individuals in the case and their 'bizarre' behaviour. Anything else was a distraction.   Amaral was clearly uncomfortable about the investigation's international profile, and perturbed that senior British politicians, such as Gordon Brown, had shown interest.   This is understandable, for he was a provincial policeman. Yet in his book, he interprets such political involvement as a sign of forces at work beyond his control.   But wasn't this simply the case of a man out of his depth and looking for excuses?   It seems extraordinary, for example, that it was not until July that specialist forensic sniffer dogs were brought in, and from the UK. By that stage, Amaral admits in his book, the case had reached a 'dead end'.   But while the dogs' findings - they are said to have detected spots of blood in the apartment from which Madeleine had disappeared and other matter in the boot of the McCanns' hire car - appeared to confirm his own well-advanced theories, the development also led to the final, fatal split with his British colleagues.   When a British police superintendent arrived and declared himself 'disappointed' at the inconclusive nature of results from the UK Forensic Science Service, Amaral could see only two possibilities.   One, that the British technician responsible was incompetent. The other that there was deliberate obfuscation.   He writes conspiratorially of the subsequent 'nervousness of British police... who wanted to know everything that was going on'.   As the British police urged caution, Amaral became ever more convinced of his theories. He rationalised that the UK police were reluctant to get drawn into a prosecution on foreign soil.   On September 7 last year, the McCanns were made official suspects. Soon afterwards, they left for the UK. Amaral was astounded by the alleged reaction of the British police who maintained their links with the couple.   He argues that after Kate and Gerry were made suspects, the British police should have severed their links with the couple.   'It happened with the Portuguese police. But this rupture did not occur between the couple and the British police.' The point is that the British force was still pursuing the possibility of a kidnap.   Tension between the two police forces had been growing for some time and in that month when the McCanns were declared suspects, it erupted.   When a tourist picture taken of a woman in Morocco with a blonde child on her back appeared in the UK Press, Amaral was furious.   'I asked a colleague to contact the English police to ask what was happening,' he writes. 'The answer could not have been more unreal and absurd . . . They had received the photo and showed it immediately [to the McCanns and the media] without consulting us, who were in charge of the criminal investigation.'   His frustration was perhaps understandable. The child was almost immediately shown not to be Madeleine. And Amaral's team was being overwhelmed by both well-meaning and malicious reports of sightings from all over the world.   In the following month, October, Amaral was removed as co-ordinator of the investigation. He claims it was not because of 'incompetence, but because of an inconvenient outburst'.   In a terse exchange, he had accused British detectives of chasing leads only that Gerry and Kate McCann wanted following up.   A journalist had phoned him to ask about an alleged sighting of Madeleine in Lisbon, information that had been e-mailed to British police.   Amaral - who had long since given up on the theory that the little girl had been kidnapped - writes that he gave an 'irrational answer' demanding that the British police should fall in line with the Portuguese.   He was sacked by fax and recalled to regional headquarters in Faro.   He says his dismissal was 'orchestrated by the British media'. The strategy was simple: 'Attack the investigation and portray Portugal as a Third World country with a judicial system that is completely obsolete.'   But he also writes, astonishingly, that higher powers were at work. 'The British Prime Minister had spoken to (the UK police) asking to confirm my resignation.   'We didn't know the reason for such an interest in such a humble Portuguese public employee.   'We didn't know what happened backstage of the Lisbon Treaty negotiations, before the signing of the Treaty.'   But he adds, darkly: 'For first time in Policia Judiciária history, an employee lost his job due to external influences.'   Reflecting on his dismissal, he lambasts the British police, who had failed to deliver background reports on the McCanns and their friends 'though we knew they had them'.   'They came to Portugal not as an act against our sovereignty, but in a display of international police co-operation.'   Yet such co-operation, he argues, requires a high degree of mutual trust. 'Soon we realised it would not be like that,' he writes, pointing out that when the McCanns finally returned home to Britain, so did the British police.   'We felt they were ordered to stay in Portugal only for the McCann couple rather than Madeleine. She vanished here. So what is the reason for the UK police to leave? It is a question no one can answer.'   But as far as Amaral was concerned, the answer was clear, apparently. It was a conspiracy against his investigation.   In his book, he writes that he believes Madeleine died in Apartment 5A on the night of May 3 last year. That is all we can report here of his beliefs.   His account begins with a reminder that Britain and Portugal enjoyed a centuries-old political alliance.   It ends with repeated and rather ludicrious allusions to a historic Portuguese notable who had defied the demands of an overweening British ally.   A local crime reporter, who knows the Portuguese police intimately, said that Amaral remains very well-respected among his former brethren, several of whom appeared in Lisbon to support him.   'He was a copper's copper. The only criticism or doubt I have heard about him is that he may not be an open-minded policeman.   'One policeman told me that when he thinks something has happened, he excludes all other lines of inquiry.   'And that can sometimes be a dangerous trait.'   Indeed. The McCann case was the most high profile of Amaral's career - the pressures were enormous - and the only one, it is said by supporters, that he failed to crack.   That hurt him deeply. But his hurt was nothing near that of the McCanns, who lost their child and have now, once again, been maligned in his book.

Former Portugal President believes that, if the suspicions in Amaral's book are true, the McCanns process should be re-opened, 26 July 2008

Former Portugal President believes that, if the suspicions in Amaral's book are true, the McCanns process should be re-opened TVI    26 June 2008 Thanks to Joana Morais for translation   Jorge Sampaio, the former President of the Republic of Portugal believes that if the suspicions presented in Amaral's book are true they should have been used to reopen the process and not to write a book. With the process archived and the controversy in the bookshops, the Maddie Case keeps on causing several reactions. The most recent comes from the former President of the Republic. Jorge Sampaio does not confirm if he has already read or intends to read the book of Gonçalo Amaral, but he confessed that he is surprised with another one of the protagonists of this case. The national former director of the Judiciary Police considered the archiving of the case to be hasty, but before, still at the commands of the Judiciary he used the same word, haste, to classify one of the high moments of the investigations. Jorge Sampaio joins now the chorus of criticism of Alípio Ribeiro. SIC News: Jornal da Noite 25-07-2008

Comparisons between the PJ's report and Gonçalo Amaral's book, 29 July 2008

Comparisons between the PJ's report and Gonçalo Amaral's book PortugalDiário (links appear in 3 parts, as below)   29 July 2008 Thanks to 'astro' for translation   Part I Maddie: find the differences between the PJ's report and the book The text by Gonçalo Amaral reports on various details from the investigation which are not contained in the report from the Polícia Judiciária. But the latter is only a summary of the process The report from the Polícia Judiciária that led to the archiving of the process on the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and the book by Gonçalo Amaral: "Maddie: The truth of the lie" have differences, but they also coincide. 'PortugalDiário' offers you information about some of the items in both documents. Time of the facts: PJ's report: The alert about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the moment when Kate McCann announces that Maddie was abducted, occurred, according to the data that was collected by the PJ, between 10.00 and 10.10 p.m. on the evening of the 3rd of May. But the same report refers that "the facts", according to witness statements, took place between 9.05 and 10.00 p.m. Book: In the book from the former inspector of the Polícia Judiciária, who coordinated the investigation during six months, it is referred that: "The discussion within the investigation team, including the English colleagues, was objective and allowed for an important conclusion: the alarm about the disappearance could not have been given at 10 p.m. It happened before that time". According to Amaral, for the investigation, the time of the facts is located "between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m., based on the testimonies given by employees of the "Tapas" restaurant. The window PJ's report: The report from the Polícia Judiciária refers that "only" fingerprints from Madeleine's mother were detected on the bedroom window through which, allegedly, the minor disappeared. The document indicates that "dactylar residues" were detected on the window frame. Book: In the book by the former PJ [agent], the issue of the window and the depositions concerning it, appears as central. According to the book, "on the window, there were no signs of forcing or of gloves, and it had been cleaned the day before, by the employee that had cleaned the apartment. The only fingerprints that were found on it belong to Kate Healy. The sense and the position of the fingers that were imprinted on the window indicate a movement of opening it to the left". Book: For Gonçalo Amaral, the contradictions within the group of friends, concerning this point, always reveal that someone is lying: "As someone would end up saying, one part of the solution of this investigation resides on that window. The truth about the window will always deny someone from the group". PJ's report: It should be noted that the doubts about the window are shared with the Polícia Judiciária. The report mentions that the reconstitution of the facts would allow to "clarify extremely important details, among other things": "The situation concerning the window of the bedroom where Madeleine slept, with the twins, which was open, according to Kate. It became necessary to clarify whether there was a draft, because the movement of curtains and pressure under the bedroom door are mentioned, which would eventually be visible through a reconstitution". Part II Maddie and the Smith family During the investigation into the Maddie case, thousands of information about sightings of the child on diverse points of the world appeared. Several leads concerning suspicious individuals that were seen in the resort’s surroundings before and on the day of the disappearance were also followed. But only two reports about the evening of the facts reached the police: they both state that a man carrying a child was seen on that evening. PJ's report: One of those reports is by Jane Tanner and has been widely reported. The other one, less media-exposed, comes from the Smith family. In the PJ's report it is said: "The testimony from Mr Smith reporting the sighting of an individual carrying a child, on one of the streets that access the beach, appeared. It was said that the child could be Madeleine McCann, although it was never peremptorily stated. Some time later, this witness alleged that by the way [the manner in which he held one of the twins], the individual that carried the child could be Gerald McCann, and this was concluded when he saw him walk down the stairs from an airplane. But it was established that at the time that was mentioned, Gerald was sitting at the table, in the Tapas restaurant". The document does not refer the source of that information, whether it came from the group of friends, or from the employees at the "Tapas". Book: According to Gonçalo Amaral, this family came to Portugal, on the 26th of May, in a secret operation, that brought the patriarch and two of his adult children into the PJ in Portimão. They all confirmed that they saw a man carrying a child and the exact spot where they met, at around 10 p.m. The patriarch said it was not Murat, because he knew him, and failed to identify anyone in particular. A situation that changes once the McCanns arrive in England. Book: "In late September, we find out about that recognition from the Smith family" (…) "We made a decision, to start a logistics operation in order to bring the family witnesses to Portugal again". (…) "But the Smiths did not come. The Portuguese police, after I leave, changes its mind and opts to request their inquiry through the use of an international cooperation mechanism". It should be noted that Amaral makes no reference to what had been established by the PJ, that is, that at that time, Maddie's father was at the "Tapas" restaurant. Forensics reports PJ's report: Concerning the analyses that were sent to England, with residues that were detected by the dogs, in the apartment and in the rented vehicle, the PJ's report states that the "final results did not corroborate the canine markings, that is, cellular material was collected that failed to be identified as belonging to someone specific, and it was not even possible to establish the quality of that material", namely "whether it could be blood or any other type of bodily fluid". PJ's report: Nevertheless, the report recognizes that "in a first scientific approach, the possibility of a compatibility between Madeleine's DNA profile and some of the residues that were collected (among which those that existed in the Renault Scenic vehicle that was rented by the McCanns, were in great quantity), was apparent". Book: The PJ's report does not say anything else about the tests. Gonçalo Amaral questions the results from the analyses, but in the end recognises that they are not evidence, but merely indicia: "The [female] dog signalled the presence of human blood in places where the [male] dog marked cadaver odour (…) Those bodily fluids, according to the FSS [English lab], contained components from Madeleine’s DNA profile". "At that moment, those results do not constitute material evidence, but mere indicia, which should be added to the indicia that had already been established". Book: Less clear would be the analyses on the hair that was found in the car boot. The tests that were performed on those did not arrive at the same time as the rest. Until the date when Amaral left, there were no results. The hair samples were requested from the lab, but it "didn't want to let go" of the samples. Part III What is not in the PJ's report The book by Gonçalo Amaral reports on several details from the investigation which are not included in the final report from the Polícia Judiciária. This fact indicates that they were not deemed relevant for the decision on whether or not to archive the process. But the PJ's report is only a summary of the whole process, where presumably the facts that are reported by the former coordinator of the investigation can be found, and probably others. The facts that are described by Gonçalo Amaral that are not present in the report are: Phone records, calls made and received, from the mobile phones that belong to Kate and Gerry on the evening of the disappearance were reportedly erased. The information concerning the McCanns that was requested from the English authorities on the day of the disappearance, never arrived. According to the PJ, the information concerning the debit and credit cards belonging to the couple was never supplied, either. PJ's report: loose ends The PJ's report concludes that the reconstitution of the facts would be "important", but could not be carried out due to the refusal from some of the elements of the group. Therefore, the following remains to be clarified: "The physical, real and effective, proximity between Jane Tanner, Gerald McCann and Jeremy Wilkins, at the moment when the former passed them, and which coincided with the sighting of the supposed suspect, carrying a child. It results, from our understanding, as unusual that neither Gerald McCann nor Jeremy Wilkins saw her, or the alleged abductor, despite the small dimensions of the space". "The establishing of a timeline and of the effective checking of the minors that were left alone inside the apartments, given the fact that, believing that said checking was as tight as the witnesses and the arguidos describe it, it would be, to say the least, very difficult that the conditions were reunited for the introduction of an abductor in the residence and the posterior exit of said individual, with the child, namely through a window with little space. It is added that the supposed abductor could only pass that window holding the minor in a different position (vertical) from the one that was visualised by witness Jane Tanner (horizontal)". "What happened during the time lapse between 5.30 p.m. and the time at which the disappearance is reported by Kate Healy (at around 10 p.m.)". 'PortugalDiário' reminds you that the process concerning the disappearance of Maddie was archived and that Robert Murat, Kate and Gerry McCann stopped being arguidos from the 21st of July onwards. Maddie's parents have also made it known that they will sue the former PJ employee Gonçalo Amaral following the publication of the book "Maddie: Truth of the Lie".

Tell-all book is launched amid a blaze of publicity, 31 July 2008

Tell-all book is launched amid a blaze of publicity Portugal Resident      31 July 2008   THE FORMER police chief who headed the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has stood by controversial and potentially libellous statements in his tell-all exposé Maddie: The Truth of the Lie, Maddie, a Verdade da Mentira, launched in Lisbon on Thursday, July 24 and two days later in Portimão. During the book launch and signing session at Lisbon department store El Corte Inglés, Gonçalo Amaral, when asked by a British journalist what he thought of the McCanns' intention to sue him, replied ambiguously: "A good person (i.e. an innocent person) does not reply to provocations". He made it quite clear that he did not fear any eventual legal court case against his book, saying "we can go to court and argue this case out". The former PJ inspector was also asked if he had written the book "only to earn money out of the McCann case." Amaral said he had already been contacted by British papers and offered "a lot of money" for excerpts of the book and first-hand accounts of the case but said that he had, through his publisher, refused the offer. Gonçalo Amaral did tell journalists that there were "other things and facts related to the Maddie case" and "not everything I know is in the book." In the book, he criticises the British police as well as the friends of the McCanns who were with them in the Algarve. He claims the British police were slow to provide information asked for and took months to pass on a potentially vital witness statements. The former police inspector said that his only objective during the time he led the case was to discover the truth of the facts and that the book merely reflects the work carried out and developed by his team. Algarve launch Amaral presented his book to the people of the Algarve on Saturday in the auditorium of Portimão Museum. There were no new revelations but the mood was lightened by Portimão Câmara president, Manuel da Luz, who took the opportunity to comment about page 69 of the book where the author mentions the "annoying sound of the water fountain" facing the Câmara building, interrupting meetings held during the investigation. He joked: "I must say something to my department of engineers!" Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: "They will not hesitate in taking legal action against Amaral if any passage requires it." Amaral has said: "This book is not revenge, it is not persecution. We can discuss the case in court if they want." Meanwhile, the war of words between the Portuguese and British press has heightened with British paper The Sun describing Gonçalo Amaral as "fanciful" and "shameless" while Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã has described Kate McCann as manipulating the British media. The Portuguese daily alleges that to avoid criticism by the British press the McCanns offered photographic sessions of themselves with the twins, according to information gathered from Kate McCann's diary.

On the front line in the search for Maddie, 03 August 2008

On the front line in the search for Maddie Guardian      Gonçalo Amaral's intriguing memoir of the Madeleine McCann case offers no solution but reveals a man obsessed by the investigation   Ned Temko The Observer, Sunday August 3 2008   It is a shame that this revealing memoir from Gonçalo Amaral, the police chief who ran the Madeleine McCann investigation until he was unceremoniously fired last year, has not been published in English. It's also a fairly safe bet that it won't be. Within minutes of its appearance in Portuguese bookshops, the McCanns' spokesman let it be known their lawyers would be giving it a thorough read, with an eye to the kind of libel action that ended up costing the Express group £500,000 earlier this year. And that was before the Portuguese authorities finally cleared the couple last month of any suspicion.   But it's not just lawyers who have been reading it. The book is, the publisher reports, swiftly heading to the top of Portugal's bestseller list (although, given the size of the country's book market, this is likely to earn Amaral more fame than cash). Surely it won't be long before enterprising translators feed the juicier bits to an online conspiracy community that, in the 15 months since the cherubic three-year-old went missing from Praia da Luz, has elevated Madeleine into something close to a new Elvis. Or in the phrase Amaral prefers to use, with no evident trace of irony, in the book's acknowledgements: 'cybernauts and bloggers who have been defending the cause of truth and justice.'   The least surprising, as well as the least convincing, section of the book is its conclusion, which basically echoes the case Amaral had failed to make before he was fired, and Madeleine's parents were cleared: that the little girl died in her family's holiday apartment, 'perhaps as a result of a tragic accident', on the night of 3 May 2007, that there followed a 'fake abduction', and that her parents 'are suspected of involvement in the hiding of the body of their daughter'. This reviewer - as well as any objective person - would surely by now have ruled out any of these possibilities. The book does nothing to change one's view that there is no plausible case against the McCanns. Helpfully for the McCanns' lawyers, particularly now that they and a third former arguido, Robert Murat, have been cleared, these assertions are all printed in bold type on the book's final page.   Much more riveting is Amaral's detailed account of the investigation he led from the night Madeleine went missing until last October when, after he allowed his anger over what he saw as British obstructionism to seep on to the front page of a Portuguese newspaper, he was dumped from the case. Nothing that Amaral says adds up to a solution to the mystery surrounding Madeleine's disappearance and there clearly isn't enough here even to build a coherent court case. Amaral is completely at odds with his own attorney general in his interpretation of events, as Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, has pointed out.   But Amaral's account does provide a glimpse of the sheer scale of the work he, his colleagues and visiting contingents from Britain brought to bear on the investigation: knocking on some 400 doors in and around Praia da Luz, interviewing hundreds of people, sifting through forensic evidence and posting timeline after timeline on the walls of their headquarters in the nearby city of Portimao.   Mistakes, clearly, were made, most glaringly the failure to secure, photograph and scour the McCanns' apartment and the surrounding area as a potential crime scene and avoid the possibility that potentially crucial evidence had been lost or contaminated. Yet even for those of us who happen to believe that Elvis is no more, the book offers a page-turning compendium of unexplained puzzles - as are so frequently found in wide-ranging, complex investigations.   As it happens, I was in the middle of Kate Summerscale's award-winning account of a Victorian murder case, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, when the review copy of A Verdade da Mentira arrived from Lisbon. Putting Summerscale down in favour of Amaral was a bit like switching from In Cold Blood to, well, Cybernauts Seeking Truth and Justice.   But Amaral does write, if not poetically, then fluently and, at times, grippingly. Moreover, his account contains inescapable echoes of Summerscale's eloquent insights into our abiding fascination with detectives and detection, particularly when a mystery remains unsolved. And doubly so when the mystery invites vicarious intrusion into the suddenly tragic private life of an ordinary, middle-class family.

English lawyers refuse to defend Gonçalo Amaral, 04 August 2008

English lawyers refuse to defend Gonçalo Amaral SOL      Madeleine McCann case   by Margarida Davim 04 August 2008 Thanks to 'astro' for translation   Gonçalo Amaral wants to sue the English newspapers and the McCanns over defamation, but he cannot find lawyers that are willing to represent him in the British courts. The editor that published the book 'The Truth of the Lie' also guarantees that "the English editors are afraid" of putting the book on sale in the United Kingdom After having been accused in the pages of the English newspapers of being "drunk" and "incompetent", Gonçalo Amaral wants to sue the journalists and the parents of Madeleine McCann over defamation. But taking the case to the British courts is revealing itself to be an impossible mission. "I have been trying for months to find a lawyer in England to represent me", the former inspector from the Polícia Judiciária told SOL, guaranteeing that he is trying to find "other ways" to sue the McCanns and the English tabloids. "I'm holding a meeting this Monday with my Portuguese lawyers, to try to solve the problem", said Amaral, who does not set aside the possibility of addressing the European instances. "Everyone is entitled to a lawyer. And if England is a democratic country, it is not possible to understand how something like this happens", he criticises. English editors "afraid" of publishing book In only two weeks, the book "The Truth of the Lie", by Gonçalo Amaral, has sold out six editions, in a total of almost 100 thousand copies, in Portugal. But Mário Serra Lopes, from the editor Guerra e Paz, explains that, despite the interest that the case generated in the United Kingdom, no English editor has bought the rights over the work about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann yet. "The English editors are afraid", says the editor, who asserts that he has contacted several British editors, who "despite being interested in publishing, fear the McCanns' influence and the consequences that it may have after the publication". "The Observer itself, which today [Monday] publishes a review of the book, recognises that it probably will never be edited in England", he comments. In order to illustrate the attempt to silence Gonçalo Amaral's version, Mário Serra Lopes offers the example of an interview that was given by the former inspector to The Mail on Sunday, last week, which ended up not being published in the United Kingdom, but only in the 'Portugal News' – the newspaper of the English community in Portugal. "No English newspaper has published an interview with Gonçalo Amaral yet, despite the fact that he has shown his availability and that he accepts to answer every question", he stresses. Nevertheless, Serra Lopes does not give up on advancing with an English translation of the book and even ponders "to publish in the United States or in Canada first". Meanwhile, the editor Guerra e Paz has sold the publishing rights of "The Truth of the Lie" for the Spanish market and is already negotiating with editors from other countries.

Maddie: Outrage at book, 28 August 2008

Maddie: Outrage at book Daily Star (no online link, appears in paper edition only)   Cop accuses McCanns   By Jerry Lawton 28 August 2008   Madeleine McCann's parents faced fresh heartache last night as a best-seller on the case hit Britain. Kate and Gerry are already planning to sue retired Portuguese cop Goncalo Amaral, 48, over allegations in his book. They have launched a bid to stop it being published in the UK. But the first copies have arrived here via Portuguese booksellers. Chunks of the 221 pages have been translated into English and posted onto the internet. The book, seen by the Daily Star, includes photos from police files. One shows Kate and Gerry, both 40, and their holiday pals giving information about Madeleine at the scene just hours after she vanished. The police chief criticises the McCanns, their friends, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Leicestershire Police. Last night the McCanns' spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "This account has gross inaccuracies and is grossly defamatory. "The conclusions are entirely false. They suggest Kate and Gerry were involved in the death, accidental or otherwise, of Madeleine and covered it up." He added: "Mr Amaral and his publishers should not mistake a lack of action yet for any lack of long-term action. "He is presented as a world-class Madeleine expert but what does he know? "Do you know how many times he interviewed Kate and Gerry when he was on the case - not once!" Madeleine, now five, vanished from the family holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, a year ago last May.

"Maddie: The Truth of The Lie" confirmed in Italian and Dutch, 01 September 2008

"Maddie: The Truth of The Lie" confirmed in Italian and Dutch SOSMaddie blog (French language site)   Duarte Levy 01.09.2008    According to a manager at the Portuguese publisher, "Guerra e Paz," the book by Gonçalo Amaral, former head of the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance, is going to be published in Italian and in Dutch.   "Maddie: The Truth of The Lie," is a description of the events and witness statements in the Madeleine McCann case.   "This is not my personal conviction, it is about all the work of a team of Portuguese police officers and English police officers and duly monitored by the Public Ministry," states the former coordinator of the PJ's Department of Criminal Investigation (DIC) about his book.   A best seller in Portugal, "Maddie: The Truth of the Lie," is presented in Spain this week. A French version is confirmed while the English translation is only waiting for a release date to be announced, in spite of the veritable, "embargo," imposed by the McCanns.   In Spain with Esquilo   During the first two weeks of September, the Spanish edition of "Maddie: The Truth of The Lie", published by Esquilo Publishing and Multimedia, will be presented in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and in Galicia. The publisher has already made a blog available on the internet with information about the book:   http://maddie-laverdaddelamentira.blogspot.com/

Maddie Case: The former head of the investigation accuses Maddie's parents of hiding her body and simulating an abduction, 10 September 2008

Gonçalo Amaral, during the press conference given for the launch of his book in Spain Maddie Case: The former head of the investigation accuses Maddie's parents of hiding her body and simulating an abduction LaVanguardia.es   Amaral presents his book "Maddie: The Truth of the Lie" and maintains that the girl was killed by a "tragic accident" on the same day of her disappearance   10/09/2008  Updated at 14:12 pm   Madrid. (EFE) .- The former Portuguese inspector, who led the investigation into the disappearance of British child Madeleine McCann in the Algarve, Gonçalo Amaral, has argued that the McCann couple simulated abduction of the girl and hid her body.   At a press conference in which he presented his book "Maddie: The Truth of the Lie," Amaral explained that the conclusion of the investigation which he coordinated during the five months following the disappearance of the girl, on 3 May 2007, is that Madeleine died from a "tragic accident" that day.   "The girl is dead, where she is buried I do not know," said the former Portuguese chief inspector, and highlighted the testimony of an Irish family that on the night of the disappearance passed by a man who was carrying a girl in his arms and that later, when they saw his picture on television, identified him as Gerry McCann.   The former policeman criticised the archival of the "Maddie case" last July, when Kate and Gerry McCann were acquitted of their status as suspects by the Portuguese District Attorney's Office, but has warned that the discovery of "new evidence" could motivate the reopening of the investigation.   "There are many signs of her death," Amaral asserted, who has stressed that the Police dogs detected the smell of human blood and body "with a genetic profile consistent with that of Madeleine" behind a sofa in the apartment that the parents had rented in the Portuguese town of Praia da Luz.   Amaral also stressed that the McCann couple had acknowledged supplying a drug to their children, which they said was paracetamol, but this was identified as a sedative in the course of the investigations.   The night of the disappearance of her daughter, Kate McCann "put her hand in front of the noses of her other children, still asleep, to see if they were breathing," said the former policeman, who considered that "it is not normal that a mother should act like this after losing a daughter."   Amaral described the McCanns as "parents who have felt pain and anguish" and he has taken the view that it is "very difficult" for the couple - who have always maintained the hypothesis of an abduction - to "reverse" this, and adds: "Millions have been involved in looking for the child alive, how are you going to say that she is dead?".   The former inspector from the Judicial Police (Portuguese police investigation) has affirmed that he does not fear a lawsuit from the McCanns and, indeed, he considers that a lawsuit would be "an interesting way to reopen the case".   In addition, Amaral pointed to political and diplomatic pressures that -in his judgment - led to his removal from command of the investigation in October 2007 and has ruled that "the British government intervened in some way".   The former policeman assured that the intention of his book, which is recognised as "controversial", is to restore his "good name" and to contribute to the discovery of the true facts. Invitation card to the launch in Barcelona

A window becomes the key evidence against the McCanns, 13 September 2008

A window becomes the key evidence against the McCanns el semanal digital   Carmelo Lopez-Arias 13 September 2008   The police officer who coordinated the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine, and who was removed from the case a year ago, has put into writing his reasons for suspecting the parents.   Gonçalo Amaral, director of the Criminal Investigation Department of Portimao, was responsible for coordinating investigations into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann on the night of May 3, 2007. On Oct. 2, a month after Kate and Gerry McCann were declared arguidos, he was removed from the investigation, and after retiring last July has put into writing the details of his work. The book was a bestseller in Portugal and arrives in Spain - as reported in The Weekly Digital - promising the same success.   It is above all a vindication of himself and his colleagues before the silence of those in charge of the Portuguese Judicial Police. He considers that they were the subject of an international campaign of defamation, encouraged by some of the British press, which aimed to present Portugal as a Third World country whose police and judiciary would be seriously brought into question. The status of arguido (a suspect but not formally charged) has been considered unbecoming of "modern Justice", although Amaral defends it: with it a witness acquires the right not to incriminate themselves.   He also explains that if his departure was due to foreign pressure: it could even have been imposed by the United Kingdom as a condition for giving the go-ahead to the Lisbon Treaty, which in July last year achieved, under the Portuguese presidency, an end to the deadlock of governments of the European Union following the failure of the European constitution. It satisfied, therefore, an episode of political rivalry between two EU states, which ended up in frustration after what it describes as an initial fruitful collaboration between its police. Everything changed when the investigation took the turn that made it famous, transforming the McCanns from victims into suspects.   What happened that night?   Maddie. The truth of the lie is a comprehensive summary of the "Madeleine case". Amaral explains the steps that were taken and how there was something strange in the behaviour and statements of Kate and Gerry.   He admits that the police made errors: first, in the care of the crime scene during the first hours of the investigation, in the absence of clear protocols for such cases, and secondly, the same consideration toward the parents, to the extent that tests which in other circumstances would have been practiced (such as verifying the hypothesis of sedation of the twin siblings of Maddie, Sean and Amelie) were let pass at the outset because they could not think about pointing the finger at the parents of the child.   The indications that Amaral accumulates against the parents are known, and some police sensed it from the beginning, like the contradictions in the testimonies of those who had dinner with the McCanns on the day of the misfortune, and the same in that of Kate Healy.   Indeed, there are the findings of the dog Eddie (specialist in the detection of cadaver odour) and Keela (specialist in detecting traces of blood): their detections were clearly positive in the family apartment (and clearly negative in the apartments of the circle next to the family) and in the vehicle rented by the McCanns three weeks after the disappearance.   In the end, the Birmingham laboratory that conducted tests on the evidence found by the detection dog could not be conclusive with regard to identification, and this eventually led to the removal of the couple's arguido status and, in practice, closed the case.   Another tremendous indication is the testimony of an Irish family, the Smiths, that, according to Amaral's accusation, were never adequately investigated: it would undoubtedly place Gerry, on the night in question, carrying the body of a child in the direction of the beach... just in the opposite direction to that which has been affirmed - but in respect of a stranger who has been identified as Robert Murat - in the inconsistent testimony of Jane Tanner, a friend of the McCanns and diner in the Tapas.   The key test   With the final report from Birmingham confirming nothing, and without the testimony of the Smiths being incorporated into the case documents, the one principal indication seems to be against Kate - according to the story of Amaral - in that she says that when she entered (the apartment) the window was open and the curtains were moving.   This is absolutely impossible according to the collation of evidence, says the Portuguese police, and therefore would indicate that she is lying or some of her friends are, without any possibility of error, given the location of the window and the journeys that the group who undertook checks claim to have done.   Amaral does not hesitate to affirm that the McCanns had committed the acts for which they were made arguidos: concealment of a corpse and simulation of a crime. The Portuguese investigator suggests that the girl died that night because of a "tragic accident": perhaps Maddie fell to the ground, in a bad position, from the sofa.   Her father would have moved it away from the wall in order to avoid a fall from the window into the street, and it was on that wall that the dogs indicated cadaver odour and traces of blood. The concealment would have been pursued to avoid possible consequences in the custody of Sean and Amelie for negligence in the care of children.   And he also points to another reason why the parents now need to keep going forward: there is a fund of two million pounds linked to the search for Madeleine, and if it was discovered that the parents knew from the beginning that she was not abducted, they could be accused of the serious crime of "calculated hoax or abuse of trust".   The weak part of the thesis   Amaral says that the facts are incontrovertible and are part of the investigation. But DNA tests have not been definitive, the testimony of Smith was not subjected to a thorough review, and the contradictions in the testimonies would allow many explanations, not just for guilt or complicity.   Hence, in the Madeleine case, there is always the question of whether the McCanns are accomplished and calculating actors (there is evidence that neither are as cold as they are described, and Amaral contributes the same), or are parents for whom, to the greatest misfortune that could happen, has been added the blow of being criminalised.   Additionally, Amaral says clearly that the accidental death of the girl, the discovery of the corpse by her parents and the plan for her concealment had to happen, at most, between 21.00 and 22.30. That is to say, the hypotheses does not consider that this could happen between 17.30 (the last time that independent witnesses saw Maddie alive) and 21.00 (the hour at which those already known as the Tapas nine were dining), because at that time it would be meaningless to move the sofa from the window, being that the children were accompanied at that time, nor would there be the the need to conceal the death because there would not be negligence in their care.   But yes, testmonies have been collected about David Payne, a friend of the McCanns and one of the diners that night, that reveal suspicions of "deviant behavior in his relationships with children" since 2005. And Payne was in the apartment of the McCanns after 17.30... only that Kate says he was there for 30 seconds and Gerry that it was 30 minutes.   The thesis of Amaral therefore obliges us to think about the parents who are not only accused of harming their daughter, but that are capable of discovering their dead daughter and in little more than one hour hide the corpse and continue their supper in apparent normality, and later stage the abduction. And, in all this, some, or all, of their friends perhaps becoming accomplices.   Is it credible? Is it psychologically possible? That is the assessment of everyone who reads about this startling case, which is intermingled with legitimate police investigations, unfortunate leaks and sensationalism.   And where - in this case Amaral is right - there is only one victim in any of the scenarios: a girl who was going to turn four years and whose fate should not have become a leading player in thousands and thousands of pages of events around the world.