Madeleine McCann's parents are to lodge a complaint with
Portuguese police claiming that former detective Goncalo Amaral
broke his country's strict judicial secrecy laws.
Gerry and Kate McCann's lawyer says they will formally accuse him
of passing on information about the police investigation into
Madeleine's disappearance before the case was closed - a criminal
offence in Portugal.
Isabel Duarte, the couple's Portuguese lawyer, says Mr Amaral
broke the law by sending a draft of his book to his publishers
several months before the judicial secrecy period in the case was
lifted in July 2008.
She said: "It seems that Goncalo Amaral passed information in the
case files before the secrecy was lifted."
Earlier, an emotional Kate McCann left court in Lisbon facing the
prospect of hearing allegations that she and her husband covered up
their daughter's death repeated in courtrooms across Europe for
years to come.
Speaking in a low voice, Mrs McCann told waiting reporters she
believed in the Portuguese justice system and that bringing the
libel action against former policeman Mr Amaral was the right thing
to do.
However, Mr Amaral has now declared that if he loses his bid to
overturn their injunction on his book, Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie,
he will appeal all the way through the country's courts and on to
the European Court of Human Rights - a process that could take
years.
The book, which was also made into a documentary on Portuguese
TV, claims that
Madeleine McCann died in the
holiday apartment from which she vanished in May 2007.
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Madeleine: missing since 2007 |
In it, Mr Amaral - the lead detective on the investigation into
the then-three-year-old's disappearance until being removed from the
post five months later - goes on to say that the McCanns covered up
the death.
Mr and Mrs McCann, who have always strongly denied the claims,
launched a defamation case - saying they feared that if people
believed their daughter was dead they would stop searching for her.
The past three days have seen a court in Lisbon debate whether an
injunction obtained by the McCanns suspending further publication of
the book and documentary should be allowed to stand.
Mr Amaral's lawyers have called a series of witnesses who have
backed up the claims he made in the book, saying they believed them
to be based on the facts of the investigation.
They have also tried to characterise the legal action as an
attack on the Portuguese constitution and freedom of speech, a
charge the McCanns deny.
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Mr
Amaral was taken off case |
The witnesses made many references to the hostile treatment of
Portuguese detectives in general and Mr Amaral in particular at the
hands of certain sections of the British media.
During the second day of the trial it was reported by the BBC
that Mr Amaral had said "F*** the McCanns" -
a claim he strongly denies,
saying it was a misinterpretation of his Portuguese.
Ms Duarte accused Mr Amaral of trying to put the couple on trial
in this week's hearings.
She said: "They are trying to judge in a civil court what they
could not judge in a criminal court."
Ms Duarte said the McCanns were not surprised by the witnesses
called by Mr Amaral.
"I am sorry my clients had to be submitted to this pain and this
distress," she said.
"This is awful, but we knew that Pandora's Box was open. We are
prepared to hear what they say."
A ruling in the current series of hearings, which will determine
whether the temporary injunction on Mr Amaral's book will stand,
will be made following further statements from two further witnesses
on February 10.
However, the McCanns must then go back to court to make the ban
permanent at a date yet to be confirmed.
They are also fighting a separate case claiming more than ?1m in
damages from Mr Amaral.
