54 MESSAGES OF SUPPORT (SO FAR) FOR DR GONCALO AMARAL (UP TO 9am, 10th SEPT)

Impossible to follow that, so all I can do is send my best wishes to you and tell you how much I admire you for the stand you have taken over the Maddie case. Stay strong, you have a lot of support.

Received by The Madeleine Foundation over the weekend:


There is a saying about evil - "the only thing that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to remain silent".

You are a good man, Gonçalo, and you have said what you had to say. May you win this court case and be left in peace.

Força for the 13th. Wishing you all the very best, lime_harry in the Algarve

I hope we can get these messages to Goncalo - even with delays to the trial they offer some kind words at a difficult time.

You have enormous support Dr Amaral. Wishing you success in your upcoming court case, and may you go from strength to strength.

God bless you, and guide you, and keep you strong.

A Good man, who has been made to look like a bad person in this whole case thanks to the McCann's. If the parents looked after their own children properly then they would not have been suspects in the first place.

Keep fighting for your beliefs, so many people are behind you and willing you to win. You do not deserve the stress for just doing your job.

Take care Dr Amaral, we're all behind you.

:)

The timely (or in some ways untimely) publication of the Hillsborough Report yesterday (12th September) is evidence enough that there can be (and is) a cover up on controversial criminal cases at the highest level. Gonzalo Amaral has got himself caught up in a 'clear or smear' campaign because he was a police officer professionally trained and intent on carrying out his work. He was clearly frustrated in that task by all who sought to work with him from within the PJ who employed him, the British Police and the British Government.

The McCann v Amaral libel case, when it does eventually come to Court (if indeed it ever will), is about far more than one missing girl. It goes right to the core of politics and four hundred years of history between England and Portugal and the complications of two national jurisdictions endeavouring to investigate a childs disappearance interjected with bought help from private investigators and lawyers etc, not to mention get rich quick double glazing salesmen!

I support Gonzalo Amaral wholeheartedly in his defence of this libel action to be brought by the McCanns. He has suffered smears of his reputation from the breakdown of his marriage to Sofia and accusations that he, along with assistant Tamares Almeida, is a torturer arising in the Cipriani case (and other cases as I understand it) although there is no actual evidence, in spite of his criminal conviction, that that is justified. He was further denied a sense of justice when he lost his own libel case against Mrs Cipriani a month or so ago, but without reading the full legalities of that case, I suspect it was a technical knockout in boxing terms rather than one lawsuit won on merit.

We have also seen the reputation of individuals such as Robert Murat come into scrutiny, not to mention all with whom he has come into contact during recent years while living in Portugal. Equally, the McCanns have come under the same scrutiny and suspicion of guilt by virtue of their actions and methodology for dealing with their 'grief'.

Whether it is correct for a police officer or a hospital worker or a criminal profiler or a lawyer or whoever else chooses to write about the case (and the Internet enables us all to voice our opinion on the subject and read up on the witness statements etc) and get 'illicit enrichment' from those endeavours, as I believe Gerry McCann once put it, remains open to question.

I live in Indonesia, a country you might call more akin to a Banana Republic than Portugal, and I often wonder how things would have been dealt with here if Madeline went missing in Bali rather than Praia de la Luz.

Gonzalo Amaral is a man to be respected and has therefore a reputation to preserve both as a professional and as a man. He did not fail in his job of looking for Madeline between May and October 2007 and his knowledge of the case enabled him to write the book which he was able, thankfully, able to publish. I cannot buy the book here in Indonesia but I have read the relevant extracts online.

Gonzalo Amaral, by virtue of what he did (and does), is in a privileged position to know what could have happened to Madeline McCann on the night of Thursday 3rd May 2007 and nobody, not even the parents of the missing child and by the adoption of her legal status as a 'ward of court' which I believe unprecedented in a case of this kind, should ever prevent an individual from the right of free speech.

This is quite obviously a very big ordeal for Gonzalo Amaral to endure and he needs all the support he can help. We do not want it to be 23 years, like Hillsborough, before the justice in this case is seen to be done.

May justice prevail, may your arm be strong. Thank you for all you have done.