Gonçalo Amaral: "I haven't lost my dignity"

30 DECEMBER 2010 | POSTED BY ASTRO LEAVE A COMMENT




The former inspector spends Christmas with his wife, his daughters and his parents-in-law. He tells ‘Nova Gente’ that he will not give up on finding out “the truth” about Maddie.


by Alexandra Ferreira

For a year, he was silent due to the injunction that had been filed against him by the McCann couple, for all copies of ‘Maddie – The Truth of the Lie’ to be taken off the shelves in bookshops. Nonetheless, he never gave up and appealed to the Appeals Court, which in October overturned the prohibition to sell the book and the video that was produced from a TVI documentary, because “it does not offend the McCanns’ fundamental rights”, further stating that Gonçalo Amaral’s freedom of expression is protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. At the time, the English couple also demanded compensation in the amount of 1.2 million euro, over statements that they consider to be libellous. For the former PJ coordinator and his wife, Sofia Leal, those were months of suffocation that forced them to make some changes, namely to perform cuts to their family budget, in the education of their daughters, who left the school where they were studying due to the financial difficulties that the couple faces.

“The exile that I was subject to is coming to an end, I have not lost my dignity or my integrity and I feel strong enough to intervene, in a more active way, in the search for truth and in the performance of justice”, Gonçalo clarifies, adding that this was a complicated year. “It wasn’t easy, actually nothing has been easy since I retired from the Judiciary Police and decided, at my own cost and risk, to affront instituted powers within the search for the truth”, he mentions. “The seizing of assets remains unsolved because it took place outside of the injunction. The losses, financial and others, have yet to be counted, there has been extensive damage, but we continue to believe in justice. We have been living with the support of family and friends, who have never abandoned us”, reveals the former police officer, who resides in a rented apartment in Portimão with his wife, his daughters and the cat, Bolachinha [Cookie].

Gonçalo Amaral and Sofia Leal defend a family Christmas and insist on keeping the tradition of the ‘Presépio do Menino ao Alto’ [Nativity of the Child on the Height] alive, which dates back to the Middle Ages. “In the Algarve, it’s he who brings the presents and it’s to the Child that children pray every day of the year. On the 8th of December, the day of ‘Nossa Senhora da Conceição’ [Our Lady of Conception], the ‘searinhas’ [little corn fields] or ‘cabeleiras’ [wigs] are sown. Those are wheat seeds, which are placed in small containers, under the bed, where it’s dark and warm. Nine days before Christmas, a chest of drawers is ‘dressed’ with the finest needlework that one owns and a stepped throne is built. Then, the ‘cabeleiras’ are placed, symbols of abundance, as well as the oranges and the pomegranates. Finally, Baby Jesus is placed on top of the throne. It’s a very emotional moment, where the family all comes together. While my father says the prayers, my mother and I finish arranging the throne, the girls place the fruits and in the end Gonçalo places Baby Jesus. On the Kings’ Day, we take the ‘cabeleiras’ into the field and sow them into the earth. That’s the Algarve’s mixture of the sacred and the profane. We also build the common Nativity, as it was created by St. Francis of Assisi, but with a very Portuguese touch: with clay figures that are placed on a base of cork and moss, with water streams, fountains, sheep and a little rock”, the wife of the former PJ coordinator explains.

The season has almost always the same taste to the Amaral family. “Christmas Eve supper and Christmas Day lunch are the most important meals in the year. Therefore, on the 1st of December, the women in the family gather to decide on the menu, the dinnerware, the linen, the details…”, she says, adding that they spend Christmas in Portimão with her parents, her sister, her brother-in-law and the neighbours.

In a conversation with ‘Nova Gente’, Gonçalo said that the McCanns continue to attack him: “What they are trying to do to me is not only to limit my civic and constitutional rights. They try my civil assassination, to destroy my life, not allowing the exercise of any licit activity, or for me to comply with the existing compromises and those of my family”, he explains, stressing that “while limiting my freedom of expression, they have destroyed the firm that I had created, they tried to forbid my access to the Lawyers’ Orders’ stay, and they have seized assets and income sources”, he says, justifying that everything was done “under the banner of searching for a mysteriously disappeared child, who is probably dead – as the Public Ministry says -, people and their relatives are being destroyed. One has to say that this is not catholic at all, coming from people who say they are so religious and pious. This is not how they will find the child!”

Gonçalo Amaral says that he will wait to read the book that the McCanns are writing. “It’s being said that the book is an aid to find their daughter. As it will only be published towards the end of April, we can conclude that until then, their daughter won’t be found.”


UNGAGGED

The Appeals Court agreed with Gonçalo Amaral, and that was a “beautiful moment” that was used to plan the future. “The books remain illegally with their keeper, the McCanns’ lawyer, and I doubt that they still exist. Now, it is up to Guerra e Paz to ensure that the Appeals Court’s decision concerning the book ‘Maddie – The Truth of the Lie’ is fulfilled.” All in all, “over 120 000 copies have been sold”, and the book was translated for France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.



in: Nova Gente, 20.12.2010 (paper edition only)

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2010/12/i-havent-lost-my-dignity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+JoanaMorais+(Joana+Morais)&utm_content=Twitter

Gonçalo Amaral says that he will wait to read the book that the McCanns are writing. “It’s being said that the book is an aid to find their daughter. As it will only be published towards the end of April, we can conclude that until then, their daughter won’t be found.”

Quote of the year

It made me sad reading that the daughters have had to leave their schools because of what the McCanns are doing to their father. At least they have the strength to still smile. Jehovah God sees everything and will not desert the Amarals. He hates injustice so I know he will bless this family.

What will happen in April when the McCanns book is released? Another fanfare from them? They announced the release of their book as a knee-jerk reaction to the overturning of the ban on Mr Amarals' book imo. Fancy announcing it four months in advance when all the time their little girl remains missing and has to wait another four months. This book is not to find Madeleine.

They are crazy IMO

Get 'em Gonçalo wrote:30 DECEMBER 2010 | POSTED BY ASTRO LEAVE A COMMENT




The former inspector spends Christmas with his wife, his daughters and his parents-in-law. He tells ‘Nova Gente’ that he will not give up on finding out “the truth” about Maddie.

What a lovely holiday photo from a family that has sacrificed so much. Fond wishes to them all.

Thank you for bringing this news to us Get' em.

A very dignified statement, no threats or rage, unlike everything that comes out of the McCanns mouths. He has a quality the McCanns could only dream of having.

Get 'em Gonçalo wrote:Gonçalo Amaral says that he will wait to read the book that the McCanns are writing. “It’s being said that the book is an aid to find their daughter. As it will only be published towards the end of April, we can conclude that until then, their daughter won’t be found.”

Quote of the year

I will second that. Bless Amaral and his family.

Where are his books, if they have not yet been returned?

Amaral daughters , no matter what school they attend, will learn with this case and the dignity of their parents lots of values that no school would be able to teach them in the short term.
Values; a word unknown in Rothley Towers..

littlepixie wrote:It made me sad reading that the daughters have had to leave their schools because of what the McCanns are doing to their father. At least they have the strength to still smile. Jehovah God sees everything and will not desert the Amarals. He hates injustice so I know he will bless this family.
What will happen in April when the McCanns book is released? Another fanfare from them? They announced the release of their book as a knee-jerk reaction to the overturning of the ban on Mr Amarals' book imo. Fancy announcing it four months in advance when all the time their little girl remains missing and has to wait another four months. This book is not to find Madeleine.
They are crazy IMO

What wil happen in April will be that many of us will go through the book word by word, phrase by phrease, sentence by sentence.
AND SO WILL THE PRESS !! The press moguls want their money back.

And it may not be libel to comment on what they have said.
I very much doubt whether the book will be published at all. If it is, the lawyers will have stripped out anything remotely concerned with the events, and we may be left with 'woe is me/ woeRus, isn't life awful rubbish.

They are caught between the rock and the hard place now. They dare not publish a book because it will be taken apart immediately, scutinised by thousands of people looking for discrepancies. They will condemn themselves with their own words and they must know it. But how else will they pay back that 'sizeable advance' to the publishers? And pay for 8000 Amaral books if they have indeed been destroyed?

I would not like to be looking at such a dilemma in the New Year.

Do we know anything about the costs in the failed case against Mr Amaral ?
Quantum, time allowed under Portuguese law to make the payment, and so on ?
Or have they 'appealed' against that finding simply to delay the inevitable, which would be a good tactic, especially if going to ECHR might take years.

Shibboleth wrote:They are caught between the rock and the hard place now. They dare not publish a book because it will be taken apart immediately, scutinised by thousands of people looking for discrepancies. They will condemn themselves with their own words and they must know it. But how else will they pay back that 'sizeable advance' to the publishers? And pay for 8000 Amaral books if they have indeed been destroyed?

I would not like to be looking at such a dilemma in the New Year.

Would they also have to pay for any personal damages and inconveniences to himself & family I wonder ?

Get 'em Gonçalo wrote:Gonçalo Amaral says that he will wait to read the book that the McCanns are writing. “It’s being said that the book is an aid to find their daughter. As it will only be published towards the end of April, we can conclude that until then, their daughter won’t be found.”

Quote of the year

My opinion is that the investigation was floored from start to finish,, from every corner to every straight. I know it goes against things here but it's my opinion.

BoSelecta wrote:

Get 'em Gonçalo wrote:Gonçalo Amaral says that he will wait to read the book that the McCanns are writing. “It’s being said that the book is an aid to find their daughter. As it will only be published towards the end of April, we can conclude that until then, their daughter won’t be found.”

Quote of the year

My opinion is that the investigation was floored from start to finish,, from every corner to every straight. I know it goes against things here but it's my opinion.

It would be interesting to hear your views on why the investigation was floored from start to finish. What do you think happened to Madeleine?

The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained.
Pictures of the Portuguese Scene Of Crime Officers not wearing gloves seem flawed to me.

As for Madeleine, i believe she was abducted but not from the bedroom. I think she walked out looking for her parents.

I find that photograph very moving.

Goncalo Amaral was just doing his job when bully Brown had him removed.

I guess Gordon continues to have a vested interest in keeping GA's book off of the shelves and seeing that the McCann's get their side of the story into print.

Why is JK Rowling (the book deal facilitator) such a dedicated supporter of the McCann's? She is a very close friend of Sarah Brown: did Rowling initially step in to the Maddie affair to help Brown and the Labour Government?

JK Rowling should take a look at the sweet family in the Amaral Christmas photograph - does she realise how her 'help' is being used to hurt and punish Mr Amarals family?

Goncalo Amaral you are a hero and a gentleman!

Or maybe JKR is such a big fan because her husband was at Glasgow University with Doctor Gerry.

BoSelecta wrote:The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained.
Pictures of the Portuguese Scene Of Crime Officers not wearing gloves seem flawed to me.

As for Madeleine, i believe she was abducted but not from the bedroom. I think she walked out looking for her parents.

If that were the case, even more astonishing that her mother Kate confessed she never left the apartment to look for her.
Do you think Madeleine's parents should have been prosecuted for neglect, leaving toddlers alone night after night where they were vulnerable to all sorts of dangers?

BoSelecta wrote:The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained.
Pictures of the Portuguese Scene Of Crime Officers not wearing gloves seem flawed to me.

As for Madeleine, i believe she was abducted but not from the bedroom. I think she walked out looking for her parents.

What are your opinions on the findings of the highly trained British sniffer dogs?

BoSelecta wrote:The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out
Pictures of the Portuguese Scene Of Crime Officers not wearing gloves seem flawed to me.

As for Madeleine, i believe she was abducted but not from the bedroom. I think she walked out looking for her parents.

Where are her fingerprints on any door or window from where she is supposed to have vacated the premises? Come to that, where were any of Maeleine's fingerprints ever found? Where were any of Maeleine's hairs ever found? Where was any of Madeleine's DNA ever found on anything, apart from allegedly being found on a Rothley pillowcase after McCann's circuitous journey back to the UK?

We can certainly rule out Madeleine having left the apartment alone, BoSelecta.

Which previous resident of 5A has deliberately withheld the fact that a cadaver had lain there at some point in history?

There are a lot of myths floating around as to the horrors of not wearing gloves, so do not be too concerned about contamination.

One has to say that one entirely agrees with you about this part of your post, The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out. You are quite right, because it is utterly unbelievable that a group with so may doctors could possibly have been so thoroughly and undeniably stupid and idiotic. One would not be at all surprised to see them prosecuted for this one day.

Judge Mental wrote:

BoSelecta wrote:The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out
Pictures of the Portuguese Scene Of Crime Officers not wearing gloves seem flawed to me.

As for Madeleine, i believe she was abducted but not from the bedroom. I think she walked out looking for her parents.

Where are her fingerprints on any door or window from where she is supposed to have vacated the premises? Come to that, where were any of Maeleine's fingerprints ever found? Where were any of Maeleine's hairs ever found? Where was any of Madeleine's DNA ever found on anything, apart from allegedly being found on a Rothley pillowcase after McCann's circuitous journey back to the UK?

We can certainly rule out Madeleine having left the apartment alone, BoSelecta.

Which previous resident of 5A has deliberately withheld the fact that a cadaver had lain there at some point in history?

There are a lot of myths floating around as to the horrors of not wearing gloves, so do not be too concerned about contamination.

One has to say that one entirely agrees with you about this part of your post, The whole thing was messed up in my opinion. including Police Officers, therefore no reliable DNA or Forensics could ever be obtained. No safeguards regarding the crime scene, allowing all and sundry to walk in and out. You are quite right, because it is utterly unbelievable that a group with so may doctors could possibly have been so thoroughly and undeniably stupid and idiotic. One would not be at all surprised to see them prosecuted for this one day.

Yes indeed m'lud I am gobsmacked that they overlooked the need secure the "crime scene", the tapas group I mean.
I am a lowly not educated at university type of person but just my commonsense would have told me to keep folk from trashing, sorry contaminating the alleged crime scene.

Perhaps they wanted it trashed.
'One good thing to come out of all of this is that there is so much in the press, nobody knows what is true and what isn't' - Gerry McCann

'Cross contamination' is the only thing a lawyer can argue when presented with his client's DNA having been found at a scene.
So - get your cross contamination in first. Make sure everything was as confused as it possibly could be, scatter a few red herrings, move things, wash things, get lots of people in to muck it all up, and you might, just might, get away with it
It has worked so far.

PeterMac wrote:Perhaps they wanted it trashed.

'One good thing to come out of all of this is that there is so much in the press, nobody knows what is true and what isn't' - Gerry McCann

I think the actual quote was this:

“In fact, one of the slight positives in all of this is that there is so much rumour about what did and didn't happen, it's actually very difficult, if you're reading the newspapers, watching TV, to know what is true and what's not”.

It was uttered on 24 August 2007 in a Scottish TV interview.

Exactly two weeks later, Dr Gerald McCann was taken in for questioning by the Portuguese police.

(The quote is among the '50 Facts' in the Madeleine McCann Research Group's recent leaflet)

PeterMac wrote:Perhaps they wanted it trashed.
'One good thing to come out of all of this is that there is so much in the press, nobody knows what is true and what isn't' - Gerry McCann

'Cross contamination' is the only thing a lawyer can argue when presented with his client's DNA having been found at a scene.
So - get your cross contamination in first. Make sure everything was as confused as it possibly could be, scatter a few red herrings, move things, wash things, get lots of people in to muck it all up, and you might, just might, get away with it
It has worked so far.

In all your years have you ever come across a scene where the most lowly or ordinary members of the public would not have seen fit to protect the area where they are alleging a crime has been committed? People have been known to return to an empty space where they have left their car, and not even allow themselves to stand on the tarmac from where the car had been taken from, lest their be any evidence of whomever had stolen the car. Yet amongst the Tapas 9, we have seven fully qualified doctors, of whom not one had managed to shout out to the others, that they should stay well outside the apartment until the scenes of crime officers had carried out their work. It is utterly preposterous for the nine winers and diners to try and fool us into thinking that they did not consider this immediately.

Despite all the comings and goings and sobbings and fisting of walls, very few hairs, fingerprints or skin cells were ever found in an apartment where it has been alleged, a family of two adults and three robust little children were residing for almost a week. Judging by the state of the apartment in the police photographs, one would suggest there are few signs of either McCann having a cleaning disease or a sense of looking after somebody else's property, therefore one finds it most mysterious that the police did not find the childrens fingerprints on walls and windows and doors. It is not only unlikely, but nigh on impossible to have such an immaculate apartment. unless the children were wrapped in swaddling and left in their cots.

Now, were there two cots or three? One has only noted two in the photographs. And one of those could have been dangerous for any child to have slept in, because it was not assembled properly, and would have folded into itself, had a child been placed in it

Hi everyone been following this case for a few years by reading loads of maddie sites, interested in all views but find it hard to believe in quotes from rogatory info and other files when there is so much speculation flying around regarding their accuracy. Can people be so sure that what we are reading is 100% truth? Can anyone say hand on heart that we can trust with certainty that all we are reading is true and there is no motive for sites misleading people? If we believe all that we read on pro and anti sites how are we to know who is really genuine or who has something to gain by misleading. Can I ask people here which info they read they rely on and why?