Gonçalo Amaral - 'The Truth of the Lie': Documentary Transcript

TRANSCRIPT DR AMARALS DOCUMENTARY

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS FROM ASTRO

«The following programme is a documentary that is based on the book by Gonçalo Amaral, the former PJ inspector who investigated the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, in the Algarve. His version of the events is repudiated by Maddie’s parents, who continue to defend that this is an abduction case. The criminal process that was conducted by the Portuguese authorities ended with the archiving of the inquiry, a decision that was contested by Gonçalo Amaral. More than pointing out culprits, a task that belongs to justice, the broadcast of this documentary is destined to contribute for light to be shed on a case that remains an unsolved mystery, for almost two years, and that elements are given to help the public opinion to understand it.»

PART 01

A Verdade da Mentira - Maddie McCann (Parte 1 de 5)
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Gonçalo Amaral
Former Polícia Judiciária coordinator

00.33 - My name is Gonçalo Amaral. I’ve been an investigator with the Polícia Judiciária for 27 years. I coordinated the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, on the 3rd of May 2007.

00.48 - During the following 50 minutes, I will prove that the child was not abducted, and that she died in the holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.

00.58 - Discover the whole truth about what happened that day – a death that many people want to cover up.

VC Filmes presents

Maddie The Truth of the Lie

02.17 - On the 3rd of May 2007, a child that was sleeping with her siblings was abducted. This is the version of the crime that we got used to accepting as the only possible one. But is it the true one? Or does this version hide a crime that many want to conceal?

02.39 - There is a kind of need to stifle the case, to silence the case. I remember that several people were affected, English policemen are forbidden from speaking out, other witnesses like Martin Smith are somewhat afraid, and several persons… This is a case where some people are still afraid or they are even prevented from speaking.

03.01 – The Reconstitution

03.04 – What we are preparing has never been done before. We took the former PJ coordinator, Gonçalo Amaral, to the crime scene, to show what happened to Madeleine McCann. This reconstitution is going to allow us to understand who told the truth, and who didn’t. We are going to find out what happened on the night that Maddie disappeared forever. Strangely, the judicial investigation was never able to carry out the reconstitution of what happened.

03.33 – The reconstitution wasn’t carried out because there were some who defended that would be equal to considering the family to be suspects, as well as the risk of flight. Since the beginning, the Polícia Judiciária was pressured not to investigate this case like any other case. There was media exposure, a political and diplomatic climate that made the investigation much more difficult.

03.52 – Madeleine McCann was only days away from her 4th birthday when she disappeared. The last time that she was seen in public was at 5.30 p.m. on the 3rd of May 2007. Her mother, Kate McCann, picked her up at the crèche. The exit record shows the time.

04.14 – At the same time, the father, Gerald McCann, played tennis only a few hundreds of metres away. The tenniscourt timesheet and his statement to the police confirm that Gerald only left at 7 p.m. On the same afternoon, the family’s friends had tea at the Paraíso restaurant. The cctv camera images prove that the men left the restaurant at 6.13 p.m., and the women left 15 minutes later. One of them, David Payne, met up with Gerald McCann at the tennis court. According to Payne’s statement to the Polícia Judiciária, he asked him where Kate was, and then headed for the apartment that had been rented by the McCann family, where he arrived at around 6.30 p.m.

05.00 – In later questionings, the testimonies diverge. Gerald McCann says that David Payne stayed at the McCanns’ apartment for 30 minutes. His wife, Kate, guarantees it was only 30 seconds. At that time, Kate was bathing the twins and Madeleine.

05.21 - It was shortly after 8.40 p.m. that the English nine friends went for dinner at the Tapas bar. The restaurant is approximately 50 metres away, as the crow flies, from the apartments where 8 children remained alone. In apartment 5A, Madeleine McCann and the twins, Amelie and Sean, were sleeping.

05.44 - At around 10 p.m., Kate McCann, Maddie’s mother, raised the alarm. Maddie was not in the room. At around 10.40 p.m., the GNR in Lagos received a phone call, saying that a little girl had disappeared from the Ocean Club, in Praia da Luz.

06.04 – According to the testimony of the Ocean Club’s manager, when the GNR patrol arrived on location, the child’s father threw himself at the officers’ feet, like a praying Arab, completely out of control over his daughter’s disappearance. The same scene was repeated, according to the officers, in the couple’s bedroom.

06.23 – It was past midnight when the GNR warned the Polícia Judiciária. I was immediately informed and took the appropriate measures. Searches were carried out in the region, the Spanish authorities were warned, and the borders were controlled. The largest search operation ever to be carried out in Portugal was organised.

06.40 - During several days, hundreds of officers from the GNR, firemen, volunteers, and members of the Polícia Judiciária thoroughly search(ed) over 200 square kilometres. A gigantic search operation. No search in Portugal had ever included such means and so many people. Everything is checked, and checked again. The borders are watched, all sorts of vehicles are searched. The effort does not succeed. The child doesn’t appear.

Guilhermino Encarnação
Joint PJ Director

07.08 – Until we have evidence that in fact the worst may have happened to her, we continue to think that she may be – that she may be alive. As you know, under the Portuguese juridical order, it is not only abduction that gives a ransom. If someone takes a person for a sexual act, that is also an abduction. It is on that basis that we are hopeful.

07.30 – The child’s parents, Gerald McCann, aged 39, Kate Healy, 39; the couple David Payne, 41, Fiona Payne, 35, and her mother, Dianne Webster, 63; the couple Matthew Oldfield, 38, Rachel Mampilly, 37; and the couple Russell O’Brien, 37, Jane Tanner, 36, are questioned for the first time by the Polícia Judiciária.

07.57 – During the first week, we interviewed hundreds of persons. The family, the friends, the resort’s employees, and all the persons who had contact with the child. From this first batch of testimonies, we obtained an outline of what happened that night.

08.12 – It was on the back of one of Madeleine’s books that, on the night of the crime, family and friends wrote down the collective versions of that same night; the draft was used to match the depositions from the nine British friends about what happened. According to that version, which will later be confirmed during questioning, at 8.45 p.m. the McCanns enter the restaurant, and then the other couples arrive. Dinner evolves normally. Given the fact that the children are alone in the apartments, the families take turns in checking the children.

08.45 – At around 9.05 p.m., Matt checks the windows of the various apartments, and finds everything quiet and the windows closed. Between 9.05 and 9.10 p.m., Gerald McCann goes to the apartment, asserts that he entered through the front door, and enters the children’s bedroom. Everything seems well to him. At a later point in time, Gerald will say that he sensed that a stranger was inside the room.

09.10 – When he leaves, he meets English tv producer Jeremiah, who walks his child to fall asleep. He remains talking to him under the apartment’s living room window. At around 9.10 p.m., Jane Tanner goes to check her children, and to check the other apartments. On her way to 5D, she passes Gerald and Jeremiah. Jane will later tell the authorities that she saw a stranger carrying a child in his arms, on Agostinho da Silva Street.

09.39 - At 9.30, Russell and Matt check all the apartments. Matt looks through the door of the McCann children’s bedroom. From that standpoint, he can only see the twins. Russell remains to take care of his sick daughter. At 9.50 p.m., Russell returns to the Tapas.

09.58 - On the same night, on the other side of Aldeia da Luz, the Smith family – four adults and five children – have just paid for their dinner at the Dolphins restaurant. The credit card receipt was clocked at 9.27 p.m. on the 3rd of May 2007. The Smiths go out for a drink at Kelly’s bar. They don’t take long.

PART 02


A Verdade da Mentira - Maddie McCann (Parte 2 de 5)
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10.18 – It’s around 9.50 p.m. when they start walking towards the Estrela da Luz resort. When they cross 25 de Abril Street, arriving at Escola Primária Street, they have just walked 30 metres and they cross paths with a man who carries a child in his arms.

10.38 – It is just after 22 p.m. when Kate goes to her children’s bedroom using the shorter route, entering the apartment through the sliding window, and sees Madeleine is missing. She asserts that the bedroom’s window and shutters had been opened. She drops everything, leaves the twins, who continue sleeping, in a room with an open window, and heads for the Tapas bar, to raise the alarm.

11.04 – This is where part of Kate McCann’s behaviour on that night becomes incomprehensible. Instead of stopping right here, and shouting out to the people who were at the restaurant, where her husband was, what she does is climb down these stairs, and walk a distance that is certainly twice as much as the distance from here to the restaurant, which is located approximately 50 metres from here, as the crow flies.

11.33 – When she arrived there, she cried out “We let her down”, which is a medical term that is often used in medicine, “she’s gone”, and then everyone came running and everyone used the entrance on this side of the apartment again.

11.48 – There were many contradictions. The most evident one was that someone was inside that room, when Gerald went in.

11.57 – If he didn’t enter, he just peeked through the door, that also has to be taken into account with what the abductor may have thought, if there was an abductor at all. An abductor cannot be certain that a father wouldn’t enter the room, because he would be discovered. Therefore, standing behind the door was practically impossible, physically that is not possible.

12.15 – He didn’t fit behind the door, and the wardrobes were blocked by the cots.

12.20 – But given the drama that the family was living, and the climate of commotion, we preferred not to make them suspects.

12.25 – First Contradiction: The Distance

12.28 – The first contradiction is related to the distance. Everyone involved, except for Kate, stated that when they went to check on the children, they used the apartments’ front doors. That meant walking over 100 metres more than they would walk if they entered through the sliding windows. Only the McCanns confirmed that they hadn’t locked that window, justifying that they could see the window from the Tapas.

12.59 – It is incomprehensible that they would walk over 100 metres more to check on the children, when there was a shorter route. Maddie’s father said that, when he went to check on his children, he was in a hurry to use the toilet. Still, he took the longer route.

13. 14 – Let’s check the map. The yellow line is the route that is walked until the sliding window. The red line is the route that all of the parents state they took – approximately twice as long.

13.29 – This preoccupation from the nine English people only shows that they were afraid of being accused for leaving their children in a dangerous situation.

13.38 – In fact, these contradictions could be justified merely with the need of the English families to demonstrate that the children were fully safe. According to a Portuguese lawyer, who is experienced in working with several English clients, the behaviour may be justified by the fear of being accused of abandoning the children to danger, a crime that is severely punished by UK laws.

Artur Rego
Laywer

14.01 – Having been left by their parents, exposed to situations of risk and danger that they, in their young age, wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from, and to confront and to resolve on their own, is considered to be a serious risk and serious and neglectful behaviour from the parents.

14.19 – Second Contradiction: The Sightings

14.29 – The second relevant contradiction is given by Jane Tanner’s deposition, who states she saw the abductor. One cannot understand how Jane Tanner passes Gerald and Jeremiah, and sees a man carrying a child, with both of them failing to see her and the abductor.

14.48 – The only possible explanation for them not seeing her is given by her husband’s deposition, who says that she saw the abductor when she was returning from the apartment, and not when she was going there. It was possible for her to see Jeremiah and Gerald without any of them seeing her, but only if she was coming from the back of the apartment, using the sliding window. In any case, the detailed identification that she gives of a possible abductor is impossible. See with your own eyes.

15.17 – Jane Tanner asserts that she clearly saw, at this distance and with this lack of light, five aspects:

First: she saw a dark-haired man, aged 35 to 40, slender, with dark hair falling down his neck.

Second: that man wore linen trousers colored between beige and golden.

Third: he wore a duffy jacket, but not as thick.

Fourth: he wore black classical shoes.

Fifth: the man walked in a hurry, with a child laying on his outstretched arms, a position that is more likely for a statue than for a person who walks carrying a child.

15.52 – Jane’s statements were the basis for the abduction theory. But for us, and later on, for the English police, they had doubtful value. How was it possible to see so much as such a distance, and under that light? How was it possible for Gerald and Jeremiah not to see Jane, or the abductor?

16.10 - This sighting has another problem: Jane saw the alleged abductor crossing Agostinho da Silva Street, and less than 30 minutes later, the Smith family also sees a man carrying a child, on Escola Primária Street, on the other side of the village, and walking into the opposite direction of the man that Jane had seen.

16.36 – We have two sightings of potential abductors. The problem is that the Smiths’ sighting doesn’t confirm Jane Tanner’s vision, in its time and its direction. The man that is seen by the Smiths is on the other side of the village. He is heading for the beach area, carrying the child against his chest and not on outstretched arms. But given his physical look, they could be referring to the same person. In a while, we’ll see to whom, and who is lying.

17.00 – Third Contradiction – The Window

17.04 – The third contradiction in the testimonies is revealed to us by the window. If at 9.20 p.m. Jane sees the abductor with the child, and Kate, upon noticing that Madeleine has disappeared, notices that the window to the children’s bedroom had been fully opened, why did Russell and Matt, who checked the apartments after 9.20, fail to see the open window? This is completely impossible.

17.29 - The window is proof of the truthfulness of the testimonies. If the little girl was abducted by the man that Jane says she saw at 9.20 p.m., then the window was open from that moment on.

17.44 – Matthew says that he was inside the apartment and didn’t see the open window. This leads us to conclude that the window was only opened after the pseudo-abduction.

17.53 - The Leads and Murat

18.10 – Over 350 leads were followed.

18.18 – The Polícia Judiciária says that the next few hours may bring new developments.

18.24 – Robert Murat is made an arguido after a long interrogation at the Polícia Judiciária in Portimão.

Olegário de Sousa
Chief PJ Inspector

18.31 – A male individual, aged 33 and a resident in the area of the events has been made an arguido. He was questioned as such, and no evidence has been collected that could justify his detention and further judicial questioning.

19.11 – The journalist suspected him, but we didn’t follow what the journalist said. We followed the analysis of the facts. The facts were analysed, what actually had happened, and we followed a testimony, a testimony that had to be weakened in order to advance the abduction theory. Jane Tanner’s testimony. Because otherwise, the abduction theory died right there. The major foundation for the abduction was what that witness had seen: a man carrying a child, walking into the direction of Robert Murat’s house.

PART 03


A Verdade da Mentira - Maddie McCann (Parte 3 de 5)
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19.45 – Maybe people don’t know, but the search at Robert Murat’s house takes place on a Monday morning, and on Sunday evening, we’re in a meeting with the Public Ministry, with the prosecutor, with the judge, me and Dr Luís Neves, we’re at the court house while diligences are being carried out in Praia da Luz. Diligences to confirm the suspicion against Robert Murat. And Mrs Jane Tanner is placed inside a police surveillance vehicle, several people walk by, policemen, people that Mrs Jane Tanner had never seen before, and Mr Robert Murat among them, and she says that from the way he walks, he is the person that was carrying the child.

20.27 – In fact, Jane Tanner’s memory progressively improves as time goes by. The first e-fit that she helps to draw is a vague sketch. She later makes a positive identification of Robert Murat as the man that she saw that night. Several months later, she participates in a new e-fit, now miraculously remembering every facial trace of a man that is very different from the Murat that she recognised earlier on.

20.55 - Another document that weighed in at incriminating Robert Murat was a psychological profile by English experts, which in very general traces stated that his voluntary attitude during the days that followed the crime, helping the investigators and the family, could be the mask of a criminal.

Eduardo Moss
Psychologist

21.12 – These are either theoretical pre-suppositions, or banalities. It’s obvious that they start with statistical analyses, we could call them epidemiological, out of a population, numerous types of behaviours which could prompt the suspicion, a greater or smaller suspicion, on an individual. And nothing more.

21.38 - The Global Media Phenomenon

Cristiano Ronaldo
Football Player

21.42 – We’re all very sad about what happened to Madeleine McCann. Please, if someone has any kind of information, let us know.

Luís Filipe Scolari
Trainer

21.51 – Pray a special prayer, pray at least one Hail Mary all over the country, for Our Lady of Fátima to enlighten our authorities so they can find that little girl.

22.45 – Time went by. The abduction leads led into a blind alley. The family itself started considering the possibility that Maddie was dead.

22.52 - Stalemate in the Investigation

22.54 – The first signs of death come from the family. Exterior signs. We had already considered it but it’s the family that hires a former officer from the South African military, who uses a miraculous machine to find the child’s body on location.

23.16 – South African Daniel Krugel points at a location where Madeleine McCann’s body is supposed to lie. A vast area where nothing was found.

23.12 - The Turnaround in the Investigation

23.29 – The investigation uses two very special dogs that are used by the English and North American police, that have successfully solved over 200 cases. These include the murder of Attracta Harron, an Irishwoman who went missing. The police and the forensic scientists were unsuccessful in finding out what happened to her. The investigators then brought in Eddie, one of the two dogs that were in Portugal, that identified a carbonised piece in the suspect’s car. That piece contained DNA from the missing woman. The dogs that were brought in to help the investigation are great investigators. Eddie is a dog that specialises in finding dead victims and marking locations where dead people have been. Keela is able to detect human blood in such tiny amounts that they elude the investigators.

24.26 – In these police images, we can see Eddie and Keela inspecting the houses where the nine British tourists stayed, and Robert Murat’s house. The dogs only reacted (alerted) in the apartment where the McCanns stayed. Eddie marked (alerted to) cadaver odour in the wardrobe of the McCanns’ bedroom.

24.50 – That was how it was. The dog that marks (alerts to) human cadaver odour marked cadaver odour in this corner, the doors were open when the test was made, and after walking around the parents’ bedroom, he placed his nose in here and marked this area. So according to the expert, a cadaver was here, either on the shelf or on the floor.

25.20 – Eddie also detected the odour of death behind the sofa in the apartment’s living room. Keela is brought in, and she points out a small amount of blood behind that same sofa.

25.49 – At the time when the area behind the sofa was cleaned, there is a body being transported to this location, or it was kept here for a while. That is the indication that exists, there was no blood here, contrary to what was found behind the sofa, and there is the marking that a cadaver was here [indicating the wardrobe shelves].

Martin Grime
Dog Handler

26.34 – The dogs’ investigation continues. They inspect several vehicles, and they only alert to the car that was hired by the McCanns 23 days after Madeleine’s disappearance. Eddie alerts that the car key and the boot had been in contact with a dead body.

27.01 – Keela discovers organic traces for analysis in the boot.

27.23 – The dogs’ reaction is revealing. These dogs have never failed in over 200 cases. The dogs marked two spots in the house: The wardrobe in the parents’ bedroom, and behind the living room sofa.

27.40 – They also signalled the car, that had been rented by the McCanns 23 days after the facts, as well as Kate’s clothes and Madeleine’s soft toy.

27.58 – How was it possible to find a soft toy with cadaver smell in a bed that was not marked by the dogs, and with no indications of Madeleine having slept in it? The dogs’ work could hardly be more revealing.

28.31 – Two weeks ago, there was a radical change in the investigation, tiny traces of blood were found in the apartment. When you heard that the police had found blood in the apartment, how did you react?

29.23 – This is the turnaround in the investigation. The abduction theory becomes less likely than the child’s death. The parents, friends and relatives become suspects.

29.33 – The hypothesis that little Madeleine is dead has somehow gained some consistency.

29.40 – The collected samples are sent to an expert lab in the UK, the Forensic Science Service, in Birmingham. The analyses’ results start being targeted by speculation. The Times is the first newspaper to announce that some of the preliminary results of the analyses on some of the collected material didn’t match Maddie’s DNA, prompting a denial from the lab.

PART 04


A Verdade da Mentira - Maddie McCann (Parte 4 de 5)
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30.20 – Journalist Duarte Levy was one of the authors of this article. He asserts that there were other preliminary reports that identified Madeleine’s blood in the samples, and that were put aside.

Duarte Levy
Journalist

30.32 – For the ‘Times’, we – I say ‘we’ because I worked with Paulo Reis and David Brown – the first article that we wrote was about the blood traces that had been found on the apartment’s wall, and we published that the blood was not Madeleine’s. It was an article that raised some problems, in terms of the FSS’s organisation, but that didn’t prevent us from accessing other preliminary and final reports. At a given time, we had access to a report that was signed by more than ten FSS professionals, which stated the existence of a correspondence of 17 out of 19 alleles in the case of Madeleine McCann. To us, there was more than enough data to state that this was Madeleine’s blood.

31.23 – In order to understand the analyses that were made, we went to the Forensics Institute in Coimbra, where presently similar analyses are carried out, using the Low Copy Number method. When the samples were collected at the Ocean Club apartment, and from the car that had been rented by the McCanns, they were sent to the lab, where the samples were then prepared. Later on, the DNA quantity that existed in the collected material was evaluated. Because the quantity was very small, the Low Copy Number method was used.

31.55 – The samples were increased, and then the DNA markers were signalled. This method has the advantage of working with very small amounts of DNA, but the results don’t always allow for a clear comparison between the victim’s DNA and the collected one. By artificially increasing the DNA quantity for analysis, we also amplify a set of data that can be confused with the markers.

32.24 – The final report that the FSS delivers to the investigation is not conclusive. It establishes that the collected samples may be from Madeleine McCann, but there is no certainty. The most significant is the material that was collected from the car that had been rented 23 days after the child’s disappearance. The preliminary reports mention a correspondence of 15 alleles out of 19, but the problem is that the analyses demonstrate that the material didn’t come from one sole donor, but from at least three.

32.58 – Professor Corte-Real, who met with the FSS experts, and saw the British scientists’ reports and work notes, explains this issue.

Dr Francisco Corte-Real
Vice President, National Forensics Institute

33.09 – When those 15 alleles are included in a mix, where beyond those 15 we can have another 30 or 40 alleles, that means that it includes biological material from several persons. And there it can be much more difficult, much more inconclusive, because we may have a mixture from several persons, including hypothetically, if that happens, we may have several persons from the same family, and that may even give us the idea, in a way, that a certain missing person may be included, and that is not conclusive.

33.46 – Despite the conclusions of the FSS reports, the investigative team’s conviction is not based exclusively on scientific evidence. A normal procedure within criminal investigations, which is explained to us by a reputed forensics medicine expert.

Dr João Pinto da Costa
Forensics Medicine Expert

34.02 – Criminal investigation is not only one aspect. The whole way of being, in terms of the suspect’s attitudes and behaviour, are fundamental, as fundamental as the biological analysis of blood, urine or any other situation. There are other elements that allow for corroboration.

34.29 – The McCanns are summoned for deposition at the Polícia Judiciária in Portimão. During that interrogation, they are made arguidos. Kate McCann refuses to answer all of the questions, and Gerald McCann repeatedly denies the investigators’ conclusions, defending his innocence, and his wife’s.

Carlos Pinto de Abreu
McCanns’ Laywer

34.47 – Today, Kate and Gerry McCann were made arguidos.

34.52 – Their behaviour was a distant behaviour. For example, when they, especially Gerald McCann, when they are shown the dogs’ movie, he didn’t even want to look at the television, saying that it had no value, and that it didn’t show proof of his daughter’s death, and that to him, his daughter was alive.

35.12 – When the McCanns leave the Polícia Judiciária, the Portuguese public opinion starts to turn against them. The Portuguese and British investigators are now convinced that the little girl was the victim of an accident. She died in the apartment and someone made the body disappear.

35.30 – That was assumed by the entire investigation team, which consisted of Portuguese and English people. In September 2007, that is the major conclusion drawn from the investigation. I remind you, concerning that issue of inconclusive tests, that there is an ongoing case in the USA, involving a mother and a missing three-year-old, where there is also cadaver odour in the car boot, and an incomplete DNA profile of the child, and the mother has been arrested for trial, or has already been tried.

36.24 – The investigation’s change of direction prompts the McCanns’ return to the UK. The family, that had always refused to abandon Portugal without clarifying their daughter’s disappearance, decides to return home. The images of the McCann family’s return go around the world. When he sees this image of Gerald McCann carrying one of the twins, Irishman Martin Smith says he recognises in the stance and the manner of holding the child, the man whom he crossed on the night that Madeleine disappeared. He goes to the local police, and gives a statement.

36.59 – It was exactly the same manner and appearance of the man that he saw on the night that Maddie disappeared.

37.04 – The McCann family’s representative, a former spokesman for English prime minister Gordon Brown, pushes all suspicions aside.

Clarence Mitchell
McCann family’s Spokesman

37.42 – Kate McCann’s diary, which was accessed by the investigation, is clear about the importance of such political support. Gordon Brown phones the couple several times, as the diary shows on the 23rd of May.

37.57 - The Disarmed Investigation

38.01 – The McCann case has always worried both countries’ political authorities, even leading Prime Minister Gordon Brown to speak about it with his counterpart, José Sócrates, during the Lisbon summit.

38.15 – The British press repeatedly attacked the Portuguese investigation. Following a reply from Gonçalo Amaral to a former British detective, in an interview to Diário de Notícias, the Polícia Judiciária’s national director dismissed the investigation’s coordinator, with the Justice Minister’s support.

Alípio Ribeiro
PJ’s National Director

38.34 – I’m not going to comment on that matter.

38.36 – But you confirm that he was replaced in the case?

38.37 – Yes. Substituted as the leader.

38.39 – Why?

38.40 – I can’t comment on that now.

38.41 – Was it because of the statements that were published today?

Alberto Costa
Justice Minister

38.44 – It’s an act that belongs to the national director of the Polícia Judiciária, that I approve.

38.48 – Did you influence this dismissal?

38.50 – I don’t want to say anything further about this matter.

38.53 – Gonçalo Amaral is sent back to the headquarters in Faro, and forced to abandon the McCann case investigation.

38.59 – Before I left, someone came to me, I’m not saying who, with a speech about investigations that don’t end, investigations that don’t end in the way that we desire, that do not succeed, and that if this investigation was archived, or if the investigation was dropped, nobody would question it much, or raise any problems about it.

39.26 – Paulo Rebelo is nominated to direct the investigation. He hurries to visit Aldeia da Luz, and to observe the locations where Madeleine McCann disappeared from, showing his intention to carry out the process until its end. A set of rogatory letters are sent to the UK for the interrogation of the witnesses in the process. There is an attempt to schedule a reconstruction. Some witnesses are never questioned again in Portugal, like the Smith family, who said they saw Gerald McCann carrying a child in his arms, towards the sea, at around 10 p.m. on the 3rd of May 2007.

PART 05


A Verdade da Mentira - Maddie McCann (Parte 5 de 5)
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40.04 – The witness who lived near the McCanns’ second home, in Aldeia da Luz, who says she witnessed an uncommon fact about the McCanns’ hire car, where the dogs detected cadaver odour and remains that may belong to Maddie, was not heard, either. This neighbour has signed a document authorising the broadcast of her deposition that identifies her, but fearing threats and pressures, she doesn’t show her face.

40.30 – This is an interesting matter, when I left the Criminal Investigation Department in Portimão, in October 2007, nothing was known about this vehicle, about this issue of the open car boot. We knew that inside the vehicle cadaver odour and bodily fluids had been found, where Madeleine McCann’s DNA profile was extracted from, with 15 alleles. Months later, there is a jurist, who lives nearby, who came to report that after the McCanns arrived at this villa, they saw the car boot open from then on.

41.09 – I drive down this street every day to turn my car around at that end, and every time that I passed the house, and I looked at the car, and the car always had an open boot door, day or night. I often passed at night, and always verified it. It was a fact, I reported it, and that was it.

41.33 – It’s important to report the following: that lady, that jurist, was never heard at the Polícia Judiciária because her deposition was not considered to be relevant, which is strange. While she was not heard, while a rogatory letter was sent to England, relatives of Gerald and Kate McCann came out to say that they had transported, inside this car boot, food from the supermarket, namely a meat package that leaked blood.

42.09 – The great question is how the family heard about the witness, despite the fact that she was not heard by the PJ, and tried to reply to the observed facts.

42.18 – Only a few months later, the investigation is closed. Gonçalo Amaral resigns from the police, writes a book about the case and accepts to return to 5A at the Ocean Club, to demonstrate his conviction that Madeleine McCann died inside this apartment on the 3rd of May 2007.

42.37 – The family’s spokesman accuses him of being an opportunist, who is merely interested in making money.

43.11 – Contrary to what Mr Clarence Mitchell says, I used my knowledge in the investigation, and thus can state with all certainty that Madeleine was not abducted. Just verify the location of the facts, like we are going to, right away.

43.25 - Final Evidence

43.28 – With the help from one of the major experts from the Scientific Police, who worked for the Polícia Judiciária, Alexandre Simas, Gonçalo Amaral intends to prove, first, that it was impossible for the child to be abducted, starting by demonstrating that the indications prove that the apartment’s window and door were not forced.

43.47 - How does one open a door like this, without the key?

Alexandre Simas
Expert (Former Polícia Judiciária)

43.51 – This type of apartment door, normally there are only three possibilities: to extract the lock’s cannon, which didn’t happen, or it would have been reported; a false key, a copy or one that was used without permission; or using a malleable material, as long as it’s not locked, it’s introduced, and it makes the lock go back inside. But when it goes in, even if it did, it would hit this screw. If it hits the screw, no matter how much I force it, it doesn’t jump to open the lock for me.

44.33 – If the door wasn’t opened without a key, the window doesn’t bear any traces of having been forced, either.

44.40 – These windows have a very good characteristic to check if they were forced or not. Being made of lacquered aluminium, any screwdriver, any instrument that is used to make the lock jump, immediately leaves a mark. What we can see here, there is no break-in, the mark that is there belongs to the lock itself as it rotates, sometimes one does this with the lock in place, and it hits there. So, to open this window, all we have to do is this. To close it, it’s impossible, because either one has a magnet on his fingers to pull the window…

45.18 – Another important fact is revealed by the fingerprints that are left on the bedroom window, which the McCanns insist they left closed, and is supposedly found open when the mother notices her daughter is missing. The only fingerprints that are found belong to Kate McCann, and reveal that they were made by opening the window.

45.42 – These three indications mean that there was no abduction, and that is proved. No abductor entered apartment 5A, through the door or through the window.

45.54 – Finally, it was impossible for anyone to leave with the child through the window on his own, without supporting himself on the bed, and leaving traces of abrasion on the window.

46.03 – If I carry a child in my arms, a package, in this case, the window is already open, I have to walk through here, and then I have to place my feet here, I can’t…

46.15 – We tried to prove this difficulty, taking a child through the window, keeping everything the way it was found: the beds, without a trace of being stepped on, and no signs of abrasion on the window sill. It seems to be practically impossible for one single abductor, like the one that Jane Tanner saw, carrying the child on the street.

46.37 – Let’s review: First, the front door and the window were not forced. Second, the window was opened by the mother. Third, it’s impossible for a lone abductor to carry out the child without leaving traces on the beds and on the window.

46.53 – Adding this to the traces that were detected by the dogs, and the sighting that was made by the Smiths, we have a completely different probable scenario. Madeleine McCann died in apartment 5A, and her body was concealed.

47.12 – What do these leads tell us? What means that which the dogs detected, and what can be established about what happened on the 3rd of May 2007?

47.24 – It is behind the sofa, in front of the middle section of the window, that cadaver odour and human blood with Madeleine McCann’s profile is traced. It’s the only place inside the apartment where the findings coincide: human cadaver odour and blood. So, within a policeman’s logic, this is where death may have taken place.

47.49 – What happened to Maddie? There is an hypothesis that can explain all known clues. The child woke up at night, heard her father talking below the living room window, climbed on the sofa, fell and hit her head. The fall, and the possible use of Calpol on the children, by the parents, to keep them asleep while they dined, may have provoked Madeleine’s death.

48.40 – The habit of using Calpol on the children was confirmed by Kate’s father. Later, a man, whom the Smiths identified as Gerald McCann, carried the child towards the beach.

48.55 – What I know tells me that Madeleine McCann died in apartment 5A on the 3rd of May 2007. I am certain that this truth will be established some day. The investigation was brutally interrupted, and a political and hurried archiving took place. There are some people who hide the truth, but sooner or later the varnish will crack and the revelations will appear. Only then will there be justice for Madeleine McCann.

49.25 – The mystery persists. The former inspector believes that some day, the truth will be known. For the time being, all we know is that on the 3rd of May 2007, Madeleine McCann disappeared in Praia da Luz. She was three years old, and she was a happy child.

by astro

https://www.gerrymccannsblogs.co.uk/AMARAL_DOC_13_04_09.htm#doc

Time Gonçalo Amaral's 'The Truth of the Lie' documentary got another airing - lest they forget..

The original official assigned to oversee the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance, Gonçalo Amaral, has been sadly brushed aside in favour of alternative theorizing. Considering what he has been made to suffer at the hand of team McCann and their support network, it's a disgrace to see him and his former colleagues thrown to the wolves so readily.

As the Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann all started right there, people should acquaint themselves with the basics, or refresh the memory if a bit rusty.

I present again this thread.