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27 December 2009 | Posted by Joana
Morais |
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The
former coordinator of the Judiciary Police considers that “a police
officer is not obliged to obtain results”, but do the best that he can.
In addition, he is convinced that he will win the case which opposes him
to the English couple regarding the temporary injunction over his book,
“Do not underestimate me”, he warns.
O Crime – How do you answer to the
observation made by the couple, in an interview to our newspaper, that
none of the PJ investigators has done more than their job, unlike you,
who accused persons that the prosecutor and the judge have declared to
be innocents?
The couple is misinformed. The process never reached within the scope of
any judge, it stayed by the prosecutor. Then, the prosecutor did not
made a definite archival but a provisional one, leaving the case on
«double boiler», pending for the production of better evidence.
However, the final dispatch concludes
that, to the parents, could not be laid any responsibility in the
disappearance of their daughter…
Also not true. What the prosecutor said on the archiving dispatch was
that the non-involvement of the parents in any illegal action “seems to
result” - it does not say “results”[imperative], he said “appears to
result” – from a set of elements on which he issued an opinion. An
opinion that is valid for the process, but that does not establish an
absolute truth that limits the public discussion. We are no longer in
the Middle Ages.
Don’t you think that you had the
obligation to find little Maddie, as the couple arguments?
A police officer is not obliged to obtain results. He is obliged to do
the best that he can. That was what I did, my Portuguese and British
colleagues and me. With mistakes, I admit it. I already made the
self-criticism of the investigation on the book “The Truth of the Lie”.
If there had been no errors in the
investigation, would it have been possible to find the girl alive?
Maybe we could have found the girl. I cannot say anything else due to
the temporary injunction.
The McCanns are convinced that the
thesis of the alleged death of Madeleine undermines the efforts being
undertaken in order to find her alive...
The Public Ministry prosecutor who archived the investigation - and who
distributed the archival dispatch to the media around the world - wrote
in that dispatch that Madeleine’s death is the “most likely scenario”.
And he has not yet been sued.
The McCanns accuse you of pronouncing
over situations related to their family, something that they don’t do in
relation to yours…
I speak about a criminal case and not over situations related to their
family. And they don’t speak over situations related to my family
because they don’t need to. Perhaps there is someone who does that
professionally and without them knowing it. There are many who forget
that I have worked for 30 years in criminal investigation. At a certain
point I will request the adequate means of evidence, find the truth and
ask a repairment of the damages that I have suffered.
It is true that, until now, you have
not lost anything, not even the only two euros that remained deposited
in your bank accounts?
So far I have not lost anything, nor will I loose it. I will win the
case, of that you can be sure. What happened was that they froze my
income in order to prevent me of paying the court expenses and the
payment of fees to lawyers. Do you have any idea of how much does it
cost to support such a process? It costs a fortune. Indeed, much more
than my Jaguar...
Speaking of Jaguar, it is said that it
was bought with the returns made with the book “The Truth of the Lie”…
However, what is not said is that before of this second hand Jaguar, I
had another, a much older one.
In your book “The English Gag”, you
criticize in a very contending manner the judicial decision that ordered
the withdrawal from the market of the book “The Truth of the Lie”. Would
you care to explain?
I say that it is an illegal decision, an unjust decision, a case of
censorship. The court did not hear me before they decreed the
provisional injunction; it was decided solely on basis of the elements
submitted to them by the McCanns. The court did not know the motives of
what I said in the book and, therefore took my words as gratuitously
offensive and not as a fundamented opinion.
Do you believe that after the witnesses
hearing that you have requested, the decision will be reversed?
I do, yes. I presented witnesses and presented the criminal process for
the court to analyse. Such elements of proof will be, in my opinion,
sufficient for the lady judge to obtain an enlightenment that until then
she did not possess. I contacted with judges for almost 30 years. Among
judges, I have many friends. What they do is always fundamented in the
elements that they have at their disposal and, at this moment, madam
judge of the civil court of Lisbon has more elements than she had
previously. Therefore, I am convinced that she will decide in my favour.
The McCann couple felt offended with
your conclusions on the book ‘The Truth of the Lie”.
It is not because of the fact that a person feels offended, or alleges
to feel offended, that the censorship of a publication is legitimized.
If it was like so and if the majority of citizens had the economic
capacity of McCann, no newspaper would go to the newsstands. Half of the
pages would be blank. A news piece, just like an opinion, does not have
to be correct to be freely expressed and published. It has to be
substantiated; it has to be conceived without the intention of harming
anyone.
“The English Gag” also violently
criticizes politicians. Why?
Did any reputed politician in this country spoke out against what
happened to me? But when it’s they themselves or their friends, the
target of a judicial proceeding, even if it is for paedophilia or
corruption, they all immediately come out offending the judges, the
prosecutors and the Judiciary Police, saying they are politically
manipulated, that they are incompetent, etc..
Were you expecting politicians to
criticize the decision made by the Civil Court of Lisbon?
The least that I expected was for politicians to come out publicly to
say that the institutionalized pre-trial procedures must be rethought so
that never again it would be possible for a judge to decide to limit
freedom of expression of a citizen solely based on the elements that are
provided by the party that alleges to be offended. This is censorship
and there is no way to turn it around.
Depending on the outcome of this
process, will you stop here?
The future belongs to God. However, if I have the financial conditions,
there may still be surprises. I was almost 30 years in the Judiciary
Police. Do not underestimate me.
Weekly Newspaper 'O Crime', paper
edition, published 2009.12.23 |
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