Amaral - hero or villain?

Discuss here.

Hero.

Forca!

Champion of justice and free speech.

Funny this is the second post I've just found from Rosie's Blog........................Has to make even the most ardent supporter think !!!

The Controversies of Goncalo Amaral Continue - The Case Of Hugo



Goncalo Amaral and His Wife and Lawyer Outside The Court After He Had Been Found Guilty of Concealing Evidence of Torture. behind Him Pierre Paulo Cristovao, another Controversial figure, who is awaiting to hear if the appeal against his acquittal for the torture of Leonor Cipriano is accepted or dismissed!


Hugo is a young man living in Olivais, Lisboa. In October/2005 he received a letter from an Ayamonte court, it was directly addressed to him and did not come through the police or another court! It was accusing him of an attempted homicide back in August/2003. He went to a PSP (Public Safety Police) precinct in Lisbon, where he was sent to the PJ (policia judiciaria), and having got there, they told him to go back home and not to worry about the case. One year later, because he did not attend the court in Spain, he got the visit of PJ inspectors with an arrest warrant. He was so scared, he attempted suicide while in custody/prison that night. The next morning he was presented to a judge who confirmed that he was accused of being co-author of an attempted homicide along with two other people, one of them a former colleague that although lived in the same neighbourhood he had not seen since he left school, this person had already presented himself to the police already implicating himself in the crime. Hugo proclaimed innocence immediately and was able to present a staggering 15 witnesses, as he had been in Mondim de Basto, (his wife's place of birth) at the time of the homicide and said he never had set foot in Spain.




He and his wife were unemployed and had two little children and very poor and totally unable to defend himself.


Dr Barra da Costa Martins former Chief Inspector of the PJ now University Professor of Criminology and Criminal Psychology heard about the case and found a lawyer for Hugo, working pro bono (Free). The Portuguese court did not care to clarify if there was a case of mistaken identity, they didn't even bother to interrogate the other arguido. The same happened with the Supreme Court, on appeal. Basically, the case came back to the Relation (first instance) Court who refused to hear expert witnesses opinions and forensic exams on some photo of grainy video "evidence" that the PJ presented. The court concluded it was it was Hugo by just looking at the video with the 'naked eye'. Hugo's defense lawyer Almado wanted to bring expert witnesses, who could give their expert opinions on facial recognition.


While this case was being investigated by the PJ, the PJ coordinator was one Goncalo Amaral (again) it was up to him to make the diligences and have the video examined to see if this person was Hugo, Goncalo Amaral FAILED to do this and just presented this sloppy "evidence" to the court and the court just accepted it. The "co-author" completely denied Hugo's involvement in the attempted murder and under cross-examination in court he said he named Hugo because he was being *PRESSED* to do so, by the investigating officer *Goncalo Amaral*. A New appeal was heard in Portugal with the same result, a European mandate was issued and Hugo arrested at his home. December 2007, in court in Ayamonte, the victim of the attempted homicide did not recognise Hugo at all, yet Hugo was extradited to Spain to stand trial for attempted murder.






•Hugo had 15 witnesses that put him in another place entirely.


•Hugo did NOT resemble he person on a very grainy video footage which was presented in court by Goncalo Amaral as proof of Hugo's involvement.


•Goncalo Amaral refused to get facial recognition expert to examine the footage of the video.


•Goncalo Amaral refused to allow the forensic examination of the video.


•Goncalo Amaral refused to believe 15 eye witnesses that placed Hugo in his wife's birth place at the time of the crime.


•Goncalo Amaral *PRESSED* (or tortured?) the alleged co-author of Hugo into identifying his accomplice as Hugo.


•His alleged "co-author" later testified in court under oath that he had been pressed into giving this statement.


•The victim of the crime did NOT recognise or identify Hugo as being his assailant.


Fortunately the story finally ended for Hugo in a court in Huelva, Spain, the defendant was acquitted and cleared of all suspicion, when the Spanish court kicked it out.


It appears that the court in Spain wanted the video footage of Hugo to have it forensically examined and for facial recognition experts to examine it, but the Portuguese coordinator one Goncalo Amaral FAILED to send the video in time and many suspected him of "concealing evidence" that could have cleared Hugo in a Portuguese court, but it has to be said that the Portuguese courts were lax in their duty to their citizen too. Goncalo Amaral has since been convicted of concealing evidence of torture in the case of Leonor Cipriano, he received an 18 month suspended prison sentence.




"As Dr Barra da Costa puts it, 'In Portugal, there are far too many Hugos and Joanas. In Portugal there has been a long time since we last had a Gordon Brown, honour to him, capable of publicly risking his capital as statesman, that of the party and of Her Majesty in favour of his own nationals'."




Hugo was wrongly charged and it has been alleged that Hugo was deliberately falsely charged in order to protect "drug traffickers"! Hugo and his family suffered tremendously as a direct result of Goncalo Amaral and his "shoddy and dubious" police work. Of course Goncalo Amaral was at that time in charge of the drug squad!




The result is that if the Portuguese court had the photographic expert findings along with the co-defendant stating again that Hugo had nothing to do with this, and the victims themselves had also not recognised Hugo.



How many times is Goncalo Amaral going to be allowed to get away with this kind of thing?


And now we have him attempting to become a lawyer and being trained by the ex lawyer of Leonor Cipriano, a lawyer that attends Amaral's private functions. A lawyer who was himself caught in possession of class A drugs trying to smuggle them into a prison and who mysteriously was allowed to get off of this charge!




Mysterious that a lawyer who knew he would be searched, attempted drug smuggling and mysterious that he got away with such a serious crime.


Mysterious too that at the time he was representing Leonor Cipriano. Now call me a cynic and tell me that I may have been watching too many movies, but could the story be that drugs were planted on the lawyer, the lawyer was then forced to a dreadful job representing Leonor Cipriano in court, in return for him being cleared of smuggling drugs?




Leonor Cipriano was needed to be found guilty of murdering her daughter to cover up what really happened to her and why? Her uncle being hooked on hard drugs and would do anything for money to buy drugs.




The connection again being made to drugs and who is involved again? Goncalo Amaral.




What is happening in Portugal? How many times is something like this going to happen and the real culprits of murder, drug trafficking and child abduction be protected? how far are the police involved in all of this?




Goncalo Amaral *MUST* be investigated and interrogated, he may know who took Madeleine McCann!

ETA to add the link.............http://justice4mccannfam.blogspot.com/

I think it's called digging up dirt in media circles. Shame he didn't have a gag on the press or a D notice.

Maybe his past is coming back to haunt him. Just shows what he is like, and he is not the only Officer like that in the Portugese Police Force. Check Amnesty Websites and archives to find what they are like.

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

He will get something on his left chest.... A PRISONER NUMBER.

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

For making a million euros off the back of a missing kid?

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

He certainly does - for corruption and incompetence.

Raffle wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

For making a million euros off the back of a missing kid?

Err no, I think it was 'the missing kid's' parents who made millions off the back of their child. And they are still trying to rake in the millions. When are they going to cough up themselves? Disgusting.

Chinagirl wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

He certainly does - for corruption and incompetence.

He certainly DOES deserve a medal, for seeking truth and justice and not letting two greedy manipulators stand in his way. GO AMARAL.

marigold wrote:

Raffle wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

For making a million euros off the back of a missing kid?

Err no, I think it was 'the missing kid's' parents who made millions off the back of their child. And they are still trying to rake in the millions. When are they going to cough up themselves? Disgusting.

Er...no, it was the detective who was sacked off this case who demonstrably profited from this case.
The McCanns fund does not go to them personally. They have every right to ask for money and if people are willing to give it then you or I don't actually have any say in that.
You are just claiming that there motivation is for personal gain and that they are lying even though you have no evidence of that.
Goncalo Amaral is no more looking for justice and truth in this case. He released a flawed book based on his own flawed investigation and it will cost him dearly.
If truth and justice was the cause why not disseminate all of his works online for nothing?

MaryB wrote:I think it's called digging up dirt in media circles. Shame he didn't have a gag on the press or a D notice.

Yep. Still, if this is the very best Lift Consulting can come up with there must be very slim pickings.

The 'fund' has been frittered away on crap PR and even crapper private dicks.

This year's accounts will make interesting reading alright.

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

Oh, that's a bit strong, don't you think - you really want him to hang?

Perelli wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

Oh, that's a bit strong don't, you think - you really want him to hang?

I agree perelli and I am quite shocked. Its a bit strong even for a rabid 'pro McCann' like Ruby. I think the death penalty has been abolished in Portugal.

sans_souci wrote:

Perelli wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

Oh, that's a bit strong don't, you think - you really want him to hang?

I agree perelli and I am quite shocked. Its a bit strong even for a rabid 'pro McCann' like Ruby. I think the death penalty has been abolished in Portugal.

marigold wrote:

Chinagirl wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

He certainly does - for corruption and incompetence.

He certainly DOES deserve a medal, for seeking truth and justice and not letting two greedy manipulators stand in his way. GO AMARAL.

Oh, he's going to 'go' alright.

I'm just not sure it's quite where you would like him to. But it's a mystery to me why people insist on seeing him as a hero. He misunderstood the DNA results - crassly - he sems to think that the forum sleuths have something valuable to offer (their money, perhaps?) he has a strong personal dislike of people he has never met - the McCanns, for example - and he has used his involvement in the case to write a book, not to try and solve the mystery - he claims there is no mystery, it was all sussed in the first few weeks - but to solve his own financial problems.

Well, the McCanns scuppered that, if only temporarily, and I gave a hearty cheer when I heard.

No missing child should become a means for a cop in early retirement to clear his own debts.

Slartibartfast wrote:

marigold wrote:

Raffle wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Ruby wrote:Hero.

Forca!

He deserves a medal

For making a million euros off the back of a missing kid?

Err no, I think it was 'the missing kid's' parents who made millions off the back of their child. And they are still trying to rake in the millions. When are they going to cough up themselves? Disgusting.

Er...no, it was the detective who was sacked off this case who demonstrably profited from this case.
The McCanns fund does not go to them personally. They have every right to ask for money and if people are willing to give it then you or I don't actually have any say in that.
You are just claiming that there motivation is for personal gain and that they are lying even though you have no evidence of that.
Goncalo Amaral is no more looking for justice and truth in this case. He released a flawed book based on his own flawed investigation and it will cost him dearly.
If truth and justice was the cause why not disseminate all of his works online for nothing?

Um, because he wouldn't make any money.

Anyone know how the "Save Amaral The Saint" Fund is going?

It would actually be interesting to find out how that fund is going, I must admit I don't even know which of his court cases the fund is for, only one or all of them? I think he needed some 40,000 only for the libel case, but what about the torture case which is being heard only a few days after? Surely that will cost money as well, and then the appeal against his conviction once the court has paid off the jurors. That's a lot of money to collect... :scratch:

I don't see Amaral as a hero or a villain. I just see a bit of a Gene Hunt type copper who was caught up in a huge media circus surrounding a missing child. His career is being ripped apart and dissected to sate the appetite of the McCann supporters yet Police corruption has been going on for years all over the world, not just Portugal.

I don't slag off the McCanns and until I see some cast iron evidence that Amaral is an out and out b*****d then I won't be slagging him off either. He was wrong to write a book about the case and that's all I can muster up at the moment. Can't see the point in digging dirt.

Amaral is the victim of the biggest ongoing smear campaign. They are digging and trying to bury him under a ton of mud. That Hugo example was pure bogus. The spanish police asked the PJ to arrest and extradite a portuguese citizen. They complied and sent him to Spain. The man was eventually found not guilty. Somehow it became the PJ and Amaral's duty to clear the man before he was extradited and they are corrupt because they did not. That is not how the justice system works. It is not the PJs job to determine guilt or innocence when another country requests extradition.

He is a hero and I do hope he is successful in finding the source of all these bogus and twisted stories and suing the pants of them. I suspect the detectives hired by the McCanns have been doing more digging to discredit those who question the abduction theory than they have been looking for Madeleine.

My thoughts on Amaral are that I believe in his earlier years he was probably a good detective, promotion and contacts rose to his head, He became to believe that his opinion must be right.

In truth I am assuming not one person here can categorically state that mistakes were not made in the first few hours of Madeleine Mcann going missing, the crime scene was not sealed off etc etc and vital evidence was lost.
I believe Detective Amaral seeing a platform to go global decided in his own mind that the parents were responsible.
The dogs just confirmed in his own mind that he was correct.

Once the Mcanns left portugal he took that to be a running away scenario and took it as a "carte blanche" they were guilty.

After his subsequent dismissal he wanted the so called "truth" to come out though it was just his own opinions and angered at his removal from the case and IMO the other turmoil going on his private life he lashed out "as every human being" does when offended or brought down a peg.

I will add that some of his writings are quite meaningful and makes the old grey matter think twice, but how much of his "thoughts" are real or fabricated in his own mind as truth ? that is my opinion .

We must never forget that even though the files have been published, how much of the behind the scenes evidence have we no party too?

How many of us have had a disagreement with someone we are close to and been adamant we are correct only at a later date to take some of the blame as there was anger or hurt involved at the time?

For me the jury is out on Amaral, as no one knows the absolute truth we cannot dismiss either sides reasonings.

I believe in giving the benefit of the doubt, an easy way out some may shout but I would rather stand with one foot in each pool than condemn an innocent party,and I speak of both sides here.

Maybe I am of this opinion due to my O/H's proffession, I have been caught out in the past completely believing in someone's innocence, only later to hear that person admit the very crime that my O/H has been defending them against for a good while.

So that is my opinion of Amaral .

I cannot dismiss but at the same time cannot accept.

I would say that writing a book on an unsolved crime where the investigation wasn't water tight and could never be classed as his finest moment was morally wrong.

Other than that he's just one in a long line of ex-policemen who have worked on investigations of international interest. nothing special. not a celebrity. not a hero. Just an ex-policeman who had a crime that wasn't solved hanging over his head.

and a not too glorified past record.

Avery wrote:Amaral is the victim of the biggest ongoing smear campaign. They are digging and trying to bury him under a ton of mud. That Hugo example was pure bogus. The spanish police asked the PJ to arrest and extradite a portuguese citizen. They complied and sent him to Spain. The man was eventually found not guilty. Somehow it became the PJ and Amaral's duty to clear the man before he was extradited and they are corrupt because they did not. That is not how the justice system works. It is not the PJs job to determine guilt or innocence when another country requests extradition.

He is a hero and I do hope he is successful in finding the source of all these bogus and twisted stories and suing the pants of them. I suspect the detectives hired by the McCanns have been doing more digging to discredit those who question the abduction theory than they have been looking for Madeleine.

You are wrong. Hugo was a victim of wrongful arrest and mistaken identity. All of which Amaral could have sorted out if he had wanted to. Let's not forget that Amaral was head of the drug squad at the time and it has been alleged that the reason why Hugo was framed was because it kept some well known drug dealers from being implicated.
Conveniently. If it were not for the intervention of Dr Barra Da Costa, then Hugo may have been convicted of a serious crime he did not commit. Hey but what's new? This is beginning to look like a regular thing.
I find it astonishing how so many people are ready to make excuses for Amaral, when it is obvious to any right minded person the man is a liar at best and at worse he is corrupt.
The victim of the attempted murder did not identify Hugo, the alleged partner in crime admitted only naming Hugo because he was "lent" on and pressured by Amaral to say so and Hugo could produce 15 eye witnesses to place him at the town where his wife was born.
Hugo was so scared he would be convicted of this crime that he attempted to take his own life in prison, if he had succeeded he would have left a wife and children. All because of Amaral!
If the McCanns were only involved in a mere fraction of anything like this, then they would be hung, drawn and quartered by some people.

Amaral is snowy white in comparison to the Mccanns. He is a man of honesty and integrity who doesn't hide like a coward behind PR experts as the Mccanns do. They aren't fit to lick his boots.

Marigold, Amaral is in deep shit and none of it is the McCanns doing and that is fact he has no honesty or integrity just his ego which is barely holding him up!!

Honoria wrote:Marigold, Amaral is in deep shit and none of it is the McCanns doing and that is fact he has no honesty or integrity just his ego which is barely holding him up!!

What a ridiculous post, Amaral comes over as a decent, honest and humble man. Your description of Amaral is more applicable to Gerry McCann.

I dont see amaral as hero or villain,what has he done that is so heroic? Neither do I view him as decent,honest or humble.