Ex-detective faces McCann libel trial

Some background information from 2010............


Ex-detective faces McCann libel trial


Tuesday 12 January 2010 

A libel trial will start today of a former senior Portuguese detective who published a book alleging that Madeleine McCann died inside her parents' apartment.

Kate and Gerry McCann launched legal action against Goncalo Amaral after he publicly questioned their accounts of what happened to their daughter.
The couple, both 41, from Rothley, Leicestershire, flew to Lisbon yesterday ahead of the three-day trial at the main civil court in the Portuguese capital.
Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3 2007 while her parents dined with friends nearby.
Four months after her disappearance, Portuguese police made Mr and Mrs McCann "arguidos", or formal suspects, in the case.
But their arguido status was lifted when the investigation was shelved in July 2008.
Mr Amaral at first led the inquiry into Madeleine's disappearance for Portugal's CID, the Policia Judiciaria (PJ).
But he was taken off the case in October 2007 after criticising the British police in a newspaper interview.
In his book Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie, published in July 2008, Mr Amaral claimed that Madeleine died in her family's holiday flat on the night she disappeared and questioned the McCanns' account that she was abducted.
A Portuguese judge granted an injunction in September last year banning further sale or publication of the book.
The former policeman was also prohibited from repeating his claims about Madeleine or her parents.
The McCanns travelled to Lisbon for the opening of the libel trial in December but the hearing was adjourned until this week after Mr Amaral's lawyer failed to turn up for health reasons.
The ex-detective's legal team is expected to argue that the material in his book is contained in the official Portuguese police files for the case, many of which were made public in August 2008.
Reports in Portugal suggested Mr Amaral plans to call a number of senior figures involved in the Madeleine investigation as witnesses.
They could include Jose Cunha de Magalhaes e Meneses, the local public prosecutor in the case, and Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the PJ in the Algarve when the child vanished.
Mr Amaral's lawyers also sought evidence from a British policeman, Metropolitan Police Detective Sergeant Jose De Freitas, who was seconded to Leicestershire Police to help with the British end of the investigation.
But he is not expected to appear as a witness in the trial.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that the Metropolitan Police Service has received correspondence from the Portuguese authorities.
"This correspondence is currently being considered."
In a statement released through their Portuguese lawyers, the McCanns said their main motive for challenging Mr Amaral was to further the search for their daughter.
They also argued that Mr Amaral's book was "against the Portuguese constitution and against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights".
"All the court decisions we are trying to obtain are destined to prove Madeleine is alive and spread the information that her search is worthwhile," the couple said.
It is understood that Mr and Mrs McCann plan to attend all this week's hearings, but do not intend to return to Praia da Luz as they did in December.
The couple are also seeking 1.2 million euros (£1.08 million) in compensation for defamation in separate legal proceedings against Mr Amaral in Portugal.
They have said any damages awarded by the courts would go towards paying for private investigators to look for Madeleine.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/exdetective-faces-mccann-libel-trial-1865148.html

From Steel Magnolia:

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Kate McCanns deep hatred for Gonçalo Amaral
Kate wrote..'.As 2008 drew to a close, Gonçalo Amaral was still parading his unsavoury theories around Portugal and beyond.'

'By the autumn it had become clear that he was not going to go away. We were beginning to realize that the harm being done to our search for Madeleine, especially in Portugal, was outweighing our reluctance to be distracted from it.'

Kate claims they needed to put a stop to this serious damage. They had already spoken to their legal team on several occasions about taking action and knew that the only way of assessing their chances of success would be to seek advice from a Portuguese libel lawyer.

Kate does not mention in her book the chilling words from Profiler Lee Rainbow that her husband should be investigated as we may be looking at a homicide... I do have the feeling though if Gon
çalo Amaral had used this phrase Kate would be screaming it from the rooftops

Kate claims they had first spoken by phone to Isabel Duarte on Nov.28th ' She was very understanding and sounded nice'. By this point they felt as though they had been condemned by an entire country.

'Six weeks later, Gerry went to Lisbon to meet her.'

Although they were still resisting the temptation to sue, her parting shot left a lasting impression on Gerry. ‘Don’t forget! That man said you buried your daughter on the beach!’

'On Monday, 7 April 2009, we discovered that a pro-Amaral article had appeared in Público, one of the most respectable newspapers in Portugal. Since it had, in the main, steered clear of the Madeleine ‘story’ and was well regarded by the country’s opinion-formers, this was a worrying development.'

Worrying, Pro-Amaral ? steered clear of the Madeleine 'story' ????'this was a worrying development'...... I am sure that it was , Amaral is credible and the McCanns most definately are not.

'By coincidence, that weekend Gerry and a couple of our holiday friends had been in Praia da Luz, where significant events and sightings potentially related to Madeleine’s disappearance were being reconstructed, using actors, and filmed for a Channel 4 documentary we were working on (at last – a re-enactment people would see).'

Sightings ! when asked the McCanns could not remember a single sighting of importance .

'Amaral’s documentary was the last straw. On 20 April we took the decision with Isabel Duarte to sue him.''For his next trick, Amaral produced a ‘documentary’ based on his book, which was screened in Portugal on 13 April. A friend in Luz who phoned to tell us about it the next day was very upset, describing it as ‘awful’.'


Kate wrote ' I stayed at home with Sean and Amelie – there was no need for me to put myself through this. I desperately wanted to return to the village when the time was right, but we did not feel we could go there as a couple until we could do so safely and quietly, without our visit turniheckled’ in Praia da Luz. '

'I’ve always been considered quite a gentle person but these attacks stirred up terrible emotions in me'

(smashing and breaking furniture in apartment 5a ! not to mention her vulgar language).

'It was as if my whole body was trying to scream but a tightly screwed-on lid was preventing the scream from escaping. Instead I was just howling internally. My punch bag certainly came in handy at times.' (more violence)


http://steelmagnolia-mccannarchives.blogspot.com/2011/05/detective-set-to-publish-mccann-book-in.html