australian article by Mark Saunokonoko who supports amaral discussion

[carlymichelle]

How the discrediting of former top cop helps shut down damning Madeleine McCann theories
Mark Saunokonoko
By Mark Saunokonoko


Crusading hero to many and vindictive villain to others, the figure of Goncalo Amaral is almost as much a part of the Madeleine McCann story as her parents, Kate and Gerry.

Amaral was the original supervising detective in the Maddie McCann case, an unsolved mystery which has captivated the world since Portuguese police were called at 10.41pm on May 3, 2007.

That first phone call, made some 41 minutes after Kate McCann claimed to have discovered Maddie was missing, sparked a 15-month police investigation that came under the most extraordinary media and political pressures.

Five months into the investigation, and following the naming of Kate and Gerry as suspects in the disappearance of their four-year-old daughter, Amaral found himself removed from the case.



Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared in Portugal ten years ago, during an interview with the BBC's Fiona Bruce at Prestwold Hall on April 28, 2017. Source: AFP

However, Amaral sensationally reappeared just days after the Portuguese police investigation was eventually shelved in July 2008, with an explosive book that was hugely damaging to the McCanns.

His 22-chapter account, titled Truth of the Lie, concluded Maddie had probably died in some kind of accident inside holiday apartment 5A, that an abduction was staged and her tiny body had been disposed of by Kate and Gerry.

The McCanns launched an expensive and protracted legal battle, using money from the millions of dollars donated to the Find Madeleine Fund, to have Amaral's personal account of the investigation banned.

Initially the McCanns succeeded, before a 2016 court tossed that decision out and ruled that the injunction had violated Amaral's freedom of expression.

Throughout the investigation, and continuing to the present day, Amaral, now aged 57, has been continuously and methodically mauled by the British tabloids and to a lesser extent various UK broadsheets.

Amaral's supporters believe the ongoing assassination of his character and policing methods helps shape the perception that his theories must be wild and fanciful.


A man named Clarence Mitchell, a former British government media mastermind, has been the key strategist in the McCann's meticulous public relations campaign for each of the 10 years since Maddie vanished.

Over the past week, as the milestone tenth anniversary of Madeleine's approached, maneuverings to discredit Amaral were once again evident in the pages of the powerful and wide-reaching UK red tops.

Two high profile stories which ran this week in The Sun and The Mirror both painted Amaral as, there's no other way to say it, a kind of crackpot.

The first attributed quotes to Amaral about Maddie being secretly placed inside a coffin with a dead body which was later cremated; the second pushed Amaral's supposed belief that British spy agency MI5 had helped hide Maddie's body.

Amaral, in both instances, was selectively edited and his comments were twisted out of context.

The former cop has previously spoken about the cremated coffin and related police information about three figures seen entering a church in Praia da Luz carrying a bag.
Madeleine Beth McCann: still missing since May 3, 2007. Source: AFP

Madeleine Beth McCann: still missing since May 3, 2007. Source: AFP

In a 2016 interview on CMTV, he confirmed the McCanns were given keys to the local church, close to where the family was staying. Inside there was a coffin of an adult woman that was later incinerated.

During the TV appearance Amaral explained that all possible angles of a missing persons case should be explored by detectives.

"No one is saying that the parents did that [put Madeleine's body in the coffin]," he said.

The startling claim that spooks from MI5 helped hide Madeleine's body is another disturbing manipulation of the truth.

The facts are in the days following Maddie's disappearance the UK government made the remarkably unusual step of becoming closely involved in another sovereign nation's police investigation.

British police were sent to Portugal to assist, while the British ambassador to Portugal and other officials also arrived in Praia Da Luz within 48 hours of Madeleine being reported missing.
Goncalo Amaral with his book, Truth of the Lie. Source: AFP

Goncalo Amaral with his book, Truth of the Lie. Source: AFP

A former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and ex Foreign Office civil servant, Craig Murray, publicly questioned "the exceptional treatment from British authorities" for the McCanns.

"British diplomatic staff were under direct instruction to support the McCanns far beyond the usual and to put pressure on the Portuguese authorities over the case," Murray wrote in an April, 2016 blog post.

"I have direct information that more than one of those diplomatic staff found the McCanns less than convincing and their stories inconsistent.

"Embassy staff were perturbed to be ordered that British authorities were to be present at every contact between the McCanns and Portuguese police."

There were criticisms that the Policia Judiciaria were leaking rumours and unsubstantiated facts of the case to Portuguese journalists, while starving the hungry British press corp.

Ian Woods, a Sky News reporter on the ground in Praia Da Luz, explained how that dynamic divided the British and Portuguese journalists, creating an 'us' and 'them' agenda.

"For the first few weeks or months the British media were largely pro-McCann and the Portuguese media seemed largely anti-McCann," Woods wrote in a 2009 study examining media coverage of the case.

As the days ticked over into weeks, and with no sign of Maddie's return, the British press began to attack the way the investigation was handled.

On reflection, Amaral has admitted the Portuguese investigation, inevitably, made mistakes.

One of his biggest regrets, he said, was not immediately putting surveillance traces on Kate and Gerry's phones.

Amaral also lamented the failure of police to immediately obtain the clothes Maddie had worn at the resort crèche on the day she disappeared.

The McCanns have not ruled out trying to again ban The Truth of the Lie by taking the legal fight with Amaral all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, rumours have circulated that Amaral is planning a second book.

Ten years on, Madeleine Beth McCann remains missing.

Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/world/2017/05/03/14/02/how-discrediting-former-top-cop-helps-shut-down-damning-madeleine-mccann-theories#xcWeOU4DlImqr42L.99


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[Mr Gray]

No one is discrediting amaral he has done it all by himself

[Alfie]

No one is discrediting amaral he has done it all by himself

Quite.  Why is he even talking about coffins and churches in 2017 a propos this case?  Mentalist.

[Eleanor]

Hardly awesome.

[slartibartfast]

Quite.  Why is he even talking about coffins and churches in 2017 a propos this case?  Mentalist.

No one has yet explained why the coffin theory is so ridiculous?

[Eleanor]

No one has yet explained why the coffin theory is so ridiculous?

Oh, for heaven's sake.

[slartibartfast]

Oh, for heaven's sake.

That is not an explanation.

[Robittybob1]

No one has yet explained why the coffin theory is so ridiculous?

The three that entered the church, were these including Kate and Gerry were they?  When in the story of events that night does Kate get the chance to go down to the church?  What time did she get the key?  Did they know there was a cadaver in there?
Hello - a source of cadaver odour then becomes evident if they did go down there and touched the coffin.

[Brietta]

No one has yet explained why the coffin theory is so ridiculous?

Quite a few people have and I must say most sceptics prefer to clear their throats in embarrassment and change the subject when it is mentioned.
Congratulations on your chutzpah 

[ferryman]

Quite a few people have and I must say most sceptics prefer to clear their throats in embarrassment and change the subject when it is mentioned.
Congratulations on your chutzpah 

Chutzpah!

I had to google that.

Supreme self-confidence.

Hmmmm!

[Eleanor]

Quite a few people have and I must say most sceptics prefer to clear their throats in embarrassment and change the subject when it is mentioned.
Congratulations on your chutzpah 

You just can't help some people.

[Eleanor]

Chutzpah/i]!

I had to google that.

Supreme self-confidence.

Hmmmm!

Usually derived from ignorance.

[slartibartfast]

Usually derived from ignorance.

But sometimes derived from working in the industry.

[ferryman]

Quite.  Why is he even talking about coffins and churches in 2017 a propos this case?  Mentalist.

Well ....

I would like to think that a lightbulb might have gone off about how crass and implausible the content of his book and film is.

Probably supremely optimistic, given that he has replaced it with something still more outlandish, far-fetched and (frankly) offensive.

But he is (perhaps) slightly on the defensive?

Dunno.

[slartibartfast]

Quite a few people have and I must say most sceptics prefer to clear their throats in embarrassment and change the subject when it is mentioned.
Congratulations on your chutzpah 

I am commenting on the ease of hiding something in a coffin prior to cremation, which some seem to find hard to understand.