|
The Portuguese ex – inspector who investigated the Madeleine case,
Goncalo
Amaral, is convinced that London pressurised Portugal in
order to remove him from his post in 2007 and to avoid accusations
against the girl’s parents,
Kate and Gerry McCann.
In statements made to EFE, Amaral underlined that the conversations “at
Ambassador level” between the US and the UK held days before he was
forced to abandon the investigation and which were revealed by WikiLeaks
“do not leave doubts” about the “interferences”.
Amaral led the
investigation
into the disappearance of Madeleine on 3rd May
2007, when she was about to reach her
fourth birthday and was removed in
October of the same year.
In 2008, when the case was closed, he published a
book,
which was
banned
by legal action from the
McCanns, in which he suggested that the couple was implicated in a
presumed accidental death and the concealment of the girl’s body.
Portugal has a “weak government which is servile and submissive faced
with the English “friends” and the archiving of the investigation into
the mysterious disappearance of
Madeleine McCanns
constitutes a shame
for our country and for the Portuguese justice system”, Amaral laments.
This is how the ex – inspector comments on the report elaborated by the
then American Ambassador in Lisbon, Al Hoffman, with details about a
meeting with his British counterpart, Alexander Wykeham, in September
2007, two weeks after the McCanns were declared official
suspects
in the case.
In this cable, Hoffman tells how the British Ambassador informed him
that his country’s police has investigated the evidence existing against
Madeleine’s parents, which contradicts the version previously known that
attributed doubts about the couple’s innocence only to the Portuguese
officers.
Amaral remembers that he was removed from duty in October 2007 and that
it was on those dates that the Portuguese Prime Minister,
Jose Socrates
and the British PM,
Gordon Brown
“mentioned the Maddie case” during a European
meetings.
“In joking terms, or perhaps not, there are those who say that the UK
signed the Lisbon Treaty at the cost of my head”, the now retired ex
officer comments ironically, referring to the difficult re-negotiation
of this historic European document during the Portuguese presidency of
the EU.
In his opinion the information released by WikiLeaks is not a novelty,
although it does reflect “that the news at the time were false, created
within the headquarters of the “McCann couple support staff”.
They had the aim, he adds, of creating a “climate of mistrust between
the Portuguese and British politicians” and to discredit the Portuguese
officers.
Amaral is confident that the case will end up by being cleared up
totally, but considers that it is necessary to re-initiate the police
investigation and revise the case process.
"Madeleine McCann deserves justice to be done. Her probable death and
mysterious disappearance can not only depend on political will", he
insisted.
Amaral and the girl’s parents maintain a legal battle despite the fact
that the Madeleine case was officially closed more then two years ago
without the naming of guilty parties and due to lack of evidence.
The lawyers for the British couple have appealed the lifting of the
banning of sales of the ex – policeman’s book “Maddie:
The Truth
of the Lie” and want him to sued for damages and harm to the
parents, who have always declared themselves to be innocent.
But for the moment a Portuguese appeal court has agreed with the ex -
policeman, in a statement made last October and the circulation of the
book is again legal.
According to the McCanns, the book has caused great harm to their
ongoing efforts to find the girl.
With respect to the millions in damages that the parents of Madeleine
could obtain, Amaral says that the legal confrontation with the British
couple has already left him and his family “in ruins, surviving at the
cost of family and friends”.
However, despite the problems that the case has brought him, the ex –
inspector, who decided to retire upon being removed from the
investigation, confirms that he continues to analyse all the evidence
and information about the case “in search of the truth”. |
