A Portuguese view of the "Maddie Case" just for balance.

[gilet]

http://expresso.sapo.pt/quem-se-responsabiliza-pelo-caso-maddie=f358353

7 July 2008

Who is responsible for the 'Maddie case'?

The so-called 'Maddie case' was a disaster. Personally, I was angered by the swiftness with which certain police, ex-police and journalist friends of the police hinted that the parents of the children were responsible for her death. Even without knowing whether in fact there was a death.

I wrote it, I said it on television and I maintain that if it were proved that the couple was guilty, I would completely lose confidence in the human condition.

Well, thankfully I did not lose that confidence, but I now distrust many of our investigation techniques.

What I am given to understand is that our police do not investigate: they make conjectures. The gall with which a former police officer said something like 'there is no proof of a crime, but also no proof of an abduction', shows how certain people in the PJ feel more like magistrates, even judges, than investigators. And lest one think that there is corporatism, I would say the same - without hesitation - of certain journalists, for whom the truth is what a police source says, even though common sense contradicts the logic of this alleged fact.

Our investigative police had the world's eyes on them. What they did was disastrous. They transformed into arguido - with the arrogance of those who know that arguido is a slippery term - Maddie's parents and, simultaneously, surreptitiously sent to the public signals they were giving about a conjecture as if it were proven: that the girl had died and that her parents had hidden the corpse.

Few newspapers (I am proud of the Express for being one of them) escape this logic. And these past 14 months, the same people who fed a myth, who accused without proof a couple whose daughter had disappeared and who gave our country a Third-World image, do not apologize.

Instead, they excuse themselves.

They excuse themselves with occult powers, with the British Government, with what ever comes to mind. It is petty, too little and without any largesse.

Some newspapers reach the point of seeming to hope that the couple is accused of "exposure to abandonment," as if anyone whispering this this hypothesis did not know that one can never prove fraud, ie the intent on the part of the couple to leave their daughter, a precondition for such an accusation.

Ultimately, a total disaster, the 'Maddie case', despite everyone knowing the risks in this investigation. And the worst thing is that nobody is accountable for this enormity.

Henrique Monteiro

[gilet]

http://expresso.sapo.pt/o-segredo-de-justica-e-as-mentiras-da-imprensa=f376928

 28 July 2008

"Judicial Secrecy" and the "lies" of the press

Who lied in 'Maddie case'? The answer lies in the account of the former inspector, Gonçalo Amaral. All the fanciful and unproven theories that certain media spread are in his book. And they remain without any evidence to support them.


Gonçalo Amaral must be a man who is full of himself. He was responsible for a calamitous investigation in the 'Maddie case', but according to the balance shhet that he himself creates, everybody is to blame except him.

According to Gonçalo, the blame lies with the fact that the McCanns' apartment was not preserved, with the British police who didn't fully cooperate, with the journalists who got in the way, with Her Majesty's government who put pressure on, with the Portuguese government who succumbed to that pressure, with the prosecutors, with the directors of the PJ, with the conspiracy of the powerful and – if he is allowed to continue let off steam – it will include the CIA, the Masons, Opus Dei, the Trilateral, Bildberg and the Pope, the usual suspects of conspiracy theories circulating on the internet.

The same inspector mustn't be inhibited (not to mention ashamed), because after the suspicions that fall on him over the conduct of the 'Joana case' (another missing girl, whose mother, was condemned over her death, accuses the PJ of having tortured her) and the disaster of the 'Maddie case', he pretends to be a national hero and the holder of the truth, against everything and everyone, and  maintains an absurd theory that doesn't stand up to even the most basic analysis.

Amaral also didn't think about the fact that it was not right to talk and to write in detail about a process which – despite having been widely abused – is still subject to judicial secrecy. Or that it it is not right to become a judge in his own cause.

But what is most interesting about the former inspector's book is that we learn where the famous 'lies' from the media that everyone talked about, came from. Finally, we can verify that the most muddled theories came out of that enlightened brain. And that certain newspapers, for want of anything better, published them without contradiction, without investigation, without logic and without evidence.

But Gonçalo continues to assert his 'conviction' that Maddie died in the apartment. He must have inherited from medieval justice, this idea of 'conviction' without evidence; or from Carrol's (sic) Alice, the idea that first you cut off the criminal's head and then you have the trial; or from 'The Foreigner', by Camus, the fixation on the importance of the criminal's "facies" (sic) or whether one does or does not cry in the face of death.

The rule of law is based on proof beyond doubt. The idea that innocence prevails over guilt – when there is no evidence to the contrary – separates civilization from barbarism.

Unfortunately, we have some remnants of barbarism among us. Until quite recently, he headed the PJ in Portimão. I hope he was the last.

[Chinagirl]

It is reassuring to realise that not everyone in Portugal views this sad case with the same blinkered vision as those who have posted here and elsewhere over the last six years.

[C.Edwards]

Again, more lazy cut and pasting.  You could find sympathisers and aggressors in every corner of the world. This is hardly a "balanced" article as you've just gone to find someone who holds the same view as you who happens to live in Portugal. The vast majority of Portuguese seem to hold a rather less rosy view of the whole McCann affair as far as I can tell.

[Eleanor]

The worst thing to me is that we were totally unaware at the time that anyone in Portugal disagreed with Amaral because all we were being fed by Portuguese Posters were the leaks and the lies.  And I actually believed that these people were unbiased and honest.
Fortunately, with the aid of a couple of actually honest Portuguese Poster we have learned to search The Portuguese Press ourselves, and to get at least half decent translations.

[Angelo222]

Brilliant articles Gilet, I applaud you for bringing them to our attention as I for one am not in the habit of reading newspapers.   It is enlightening to see that some of the Portuguese Press at least have got the measure of Amaral.

[stephen25000]

Brilliant articles Gilet, I applaud you for bringing them to our attention as I for one am not in the habit of reading newspapers.   It is enlightening to see that some of the Portuguese Press at least have got the measure of Amaral.

Why not give references to other articles on the Mccann case from the Portuguese press or elsewhere ?

[Chinagirl]

Another Portuguese person who was less than impressed at the poor standard of the investigation of this case:

ANTONIO MARINHO PINTO, who was  "Bastonario" (some kind of elected president) of the Lawyers Association in Portugal at one point, who said in an interview:  "I’m convinced the McCann case will feature in Portuguese judicial history as a bad example. What a criminal investigation should not be."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Last_Hope/

[faithlilly]

Another Portuguese person who was less than impressed at the poor standard of the investigation of this case:

ANTONIO MARINHO PINTO, who was  "Bastonario" (some kind of elected president) of the Lawyers Association in Portugal at one point, who said in an interview:  "I’m convinced the McCann case will feature in Portuguese judicial history as a bad example. What a criminal investigation should not be."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Last_Hope/

Ah the same Pinto who, for first time in Portuguese legal history,became an assistant against the 5 PJ inspectors in the Cipriano torture trial in order that he couldn't be question regarding the provenance of the photographs of a bruised Cipriano. The Pinto that also writes for the newspaper mentioned above.

[Chinagirl]

Another Portuguese person who was less than impressed at the poor standard of the investigation of this case:

ANTONIO MARINHO PINTO, who was  "Bastonario" (some kind of elected president) of the Lawyers Association in Portugal at one point, who said in an interview:  "I’m convinced the McCann case will feature in Portuguese judicial history as a bad example. What a criminal investigation should not be."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Last_Hope/

Ah the same Pinto who, for first time in Portuguese legal history,became an assistant against the 5 PJ inspectors in the Cipriano torture trial in order that he couldn't be question regarding the provenance of the photographs of a bruised Cipriano. The Pinto that also writes for the newspaper mentioned above.

Yes - that Pinto.  It is also possible that he made himself assistant in the Cipriano torture trial because he was appalled at the behaviour of the accused and hoped to see them brought to justice - which did eventually happen - also, I believe, somewhat unusual in Portuguese legal history.....

[faithlilly]

@ chinagirl

Or is it possible that Pinto didn't want to be questioned on his role in the disclosure of the photographs of the results of the alleged assault on Cipriano, before he became president of the bar, the very photographs that a photographic expert at the trial believed to have been manipulated ?

[Chinagirl]

@ chinagirl

Or is it possible that Pinto didn't want to be questioned on his role in the disclosure of the photographs of the results of the alleged assault on Cipriano, before he became president of the bar, the very photographs that a photographic expert at the trial believed to have been manipulated ?

They were not manipulated.

[gilet]

Another Portuguese person who was less than impressed at the poor standard of the investigation of this case:

ANTONIO MARINHO PINTO, who was  "Bastonario" (some kind of elected president) of the Lawyers Association in Portugal at one point, who said in an interview:  "I’m convinced the McCann case will feature in Portuguese judicial history as a bad example. What a criminal investigation should not be."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Last_Hope/

Ah the same Pinto who, for first time in Portuguese legal history,became an assistant against the 5 PJ inspectors in the Cipriano torture trial in order that he couldn't be question regarding the provenance of the photographs of a bruised Cipriano. The Pinto that also writes for the newspaper mentioned above.

Do you have any evidence for your potentially libellous claim as to Pinto's motives or is that just a made up allegation?