Libel trial day 14 - Statement of facts proved/not proved issued to lawyers.

[Mr Gray]

How can you award damages to people who damaged themselves by the neglect of their children ?

The judge...and everybody else ...understands...even if you don't

[Alice Purjorick]

I think astro and others will be avoiding the word libel like a plague seeing as some are claiming this trial will not decide libel. Libel is an English word so will not be found in the court judgement. What we have seen is " damage" and the EU court speaks of damage to reputation...not libel...so lets see if the McCanns are awarded damages for damage to reputation...then you and others can claim this trial is not about libel.

Don't think I said that old stick.
Portuguese word for libel = libelo
Portuguese word for damage = dano
I see the similarity.

[Mr Gray]

Don't think I said that old stick.
Portuguese word for libel = libelo
Portuguese word for damage = dano
I see the similarity.

try reading the post again

[stephen25000]

The judge...and everybody else ...understands...even if you don't

Don't be obtuse Dave.

The McCann's are responsible for leaving their children in a dangerous situation.

That has nothing to do with Amaral.

He made an hypothesis, which has not been disproved.

[Mr Gray]

Don't be obtuse Dave.

The McCann's are responsible for leaving their children in a dangerous a situation.

That has nothing to do with Amaral.

He made an hypothesis, which has not been disproved.

another one who doesn't understand the law

[Mr Gray]

Don't think I said that old stick.
Portuguese word for libel = libelo
Portuguese word for damage = dano
I see the similarity.

article 180 of the penal code is not "libelo"...does  that help

[stephen25000]

[ moderated ]

Meanwhile stop the myths have stopped claiming a McCann victory at the trial.


Do you concur ?    *&*%£

[Mr Gray]

Gonçalo Amaral’s interview on Agora Nós, RTP1, 23.01.2015



Anchor – Today, our guest is Gonçalo Amaral who was on the news again yesterday because of the lawsuit that the McCann couple filed against him. Good morning, Gonçalo.

Gonçalo Amaral – Good morning.

Anchor – I read in your book that you wrote this book to defend your honour. The first question that I have for you is: Were you in any way attacked by the McCanns before the publication of the book, or even during the investigation? Were you with them, did you question them?

Gonçalo Amaral – That is a very good question. There was indeed a series of attacks, not just directed at me but at the investigation. Those attacks came not only from the parents’ side, but also from their support staff and from journalists, English and even Portuguese. That honour was not only personal but also professional. The investigation was at stake, an investigation that was never defended here in Portugal, namely by someone at the top of the Polícia Judiciária – and it’s me who defends those initial months of the investigation, and that is what the book was published for. That is one of the issues that are raised by the Lisbon Appeals Court, at the time of the injunction, which supports me, and establishes that it was licit for me to write the book.

Anchor – If you don’t mind, let’s return to the start of this story, the McCann case was the most media exposed ever, as far as the alleged abduction of a child, Madeleine McCann, is concerned. This book, “Maddie, A Verdade da Mentira”, that was written by you, why was it so controversial? What does it contain?

Gonçalo Amaral – What it contains is the conclusions of the process, of a report that exists, in September of 2007, which says that at that moment of the investigation, suspicion falls upon the [McCann] couple in terms of an accidental death inside the apartment, neglect in watching over their children that had been abandoned, and the concealment of a corpse. That is in the process and with this decision, which is not a final decision, it is merely a reply to the facts that were at stake during the trial, it agrees that this was in the process.

Anchor – The process is not concluded yet, it is still ongoing –

Gonçalo Amaral – It is still in the lower court, now there will be legal arguments, then there will be a verdict –

Anchor – We are at the stage of replies to the proved facts, is that it?

Gonçalo Amaral – Proved and not proved.

Anchor – Did you question them? Did you meet them?

Gonçalo Amaral – I met them but the questioning was performed by others, by inspectors. A coordinator does not question directly, that was done by the inspectors. But I met them.

Anchor – You accompanied this process from the beginning…

Gonçalo Amaral – I accompanied the process, the investigation from the 3rd of May of 2007 until I left the investigation on the 2nd of October of 2007. I accompanied it, participating in the investigation.

Anchor – And what happened yesterday? What was the accusation –

Gonçalo Amaral – There was no accusation yesterday. Not yesterday, the day before yesterday. What was done is – there is a decision from the magistrate, the judge, saying what is proved and what is not proved. That decision says that it is not proved that I caused the couple any damages, social or psychological or moral damages. So what was being questioned, it’s not the book that causes such damages; they were already destroyed before the book. That is important. It’s important because in this kind of process, what is at stake, contrary to what the couple said, that what was at stake was the investigation, whether they are guilty or not, none of that was being discussed there. What was at stake there was whether or not that book and that documentary could be made, if they were licit or not, if they caused the couple any damages, and whether or not it was possible to establish a causal nexus between the book and the damages. And the indications that are given lead me, and my lawyer, and people who have already read the document, to believe that there may be – there may be – a favourable verdict.

Anchor – There is a contradiction between the news that came out –

Gonçalo Amaral – There is no contradiction. There is complete manipulation of the media.

Anchor – Can you clarify that?

Gonçalo Amaral - Lusa agency, since all of this began, has been taking sides – I wouldn’t say as much as they have taken the side of the couple, but they have taken the side of the couple’s lawyer. So there have been completely false news about me. I remember an article that was published in 2009 or 2010, which mentioned I was going to be tried over torture in a certain case, that I had been accused of torture. I was in Spain at that time and I called, it was already 7 or 8 p.m. and I said “Excuse me, but this is not true. I am being accused of omitting a denunciation and making a false statement, not of torture”. And the reply that I got from the Lusa journalist was that it’s them that make the news, that it was not for me to meddle with their work and that is how it’s been –

Anchor – Even though they were talking about your life.

Gonçalo Amaral – That’s another thing that happened throughout all of these years, not only the five years of this process, but since 2007 they have been rummaging… I don’t know what else there may be.

Anchor – The fact is that concerning the McCann couple, the McCann couple was never formally tried. They were never accused. So in your book we have a contradiction with the law.

Gonçalo Amaral – What is the contradiction? I don’t accuse them. I am nobody, I’m not a magistrate, I’m not the case magistrate to write up an accusation –

Anchor – But you had knowledge, you were part of the investigation –

Gonçalo Amaral – I was a technician, I’m a technician, and like anyone else, I have the right to an opinion. And as a technician, based not only on my professionalism, but also on my knowledge as a technician, I have the right to have a technical opinion. And that book contains a technical opinion, based on facts that are in the process and that the judge says are in the process. Essentially, as is said, they are in the process. Therefore, saying that they were not accused… The process was – when I left there was already a movement to have the case archived. From the moment that they are made arguidos, everything moves to shelve the case. Interest was lost; the interest was to archive the case. And they succeeded in shelving the case. It was in the couple’s interest to have the case archived, and two things happen: The couple does nothing, and they could have done something when there was a shelving, to continue into the instruction [phase] to keep the process going, for the truth to be found. You see, the conclusions that we reached were the conclusions of an investigation. And an investigation, like someone said, is always a zigzagging of the moment. And we might even have reached the end of the investigation –

Anchor – In this case, this investigation was very traumatising, very disorganised…

Gonçalo Amaral – Disorganised, in what way?

Anchor - Because nothing was concluded, so many years later the child’s whereabouts haven’t been found.

Gonçalo Amaral – Because of interferences that took place, without interferences we would have gone further. Have no doubts about that. That is why the process was archived. When the shelving took place, the couple and another person were arguidos. Any one of them could have requested the opening of the instruction and continued the process. None of them did it, the couple because they didn’t want to, they didn’t want to do it, and the other person because he received compensation from the British courts, so he didn’t do it, he was very satisfied, and now it seems that he is an arguido again. This is what happens –

Anchor - We have to ask one last question. The truth is that the McCann couple – and this is a question and not a statement – demanded compensation worth 1.2 million euro from you because of the publication of the book “A Verdade da Mentira”. This book was very controversial because it was also a success. Many people read it –

Anchor – Many copies were sold.

Anchor – Exactly. Many people read it and created their own opinion. Do you think that in some way that opinion drew people away from the possibility of believing in that child’s parents?

Gonçalo Amaral – No, it didn’t, quite the opposite. The book, which was successful in a way that nobody expected – the contract with the editor was even made based on sales targets, 10 thousand books sold would mean a certain percentage and so on – therefore a very normal contract, nobody was thinking about bestsellers or anything like that. What the book brought was more publicity for the case. And people were not drawn away. There are many people who still defend the couple’s thesis. There are other people – those diverging opinions already existed before the book. They already existed practically before the book. What motivates the couple to file the lawsuit of 1.2 million euro may be the money. They have a firm, a firm where they are members of the board, called Madeleine Fund, which is to look for their daughter, but they are members of the board, it’s a firm, it’s not a social association, or social solidarity, it’s a firm, it’s registered in England as a firm. And what they always wanted was to destabilise me. When they went to Oprah’s programme in the United States, they said it, they wrote on their website that they hope that now nobody believes in that person anymore, for this and that –

Anchor – But Gonçalo, they had to defend themselves with the weapons at hand, if they think they are innocent…

Gonçalo Amaral – Indeed they do. I will give you one example. We speak about the book and we speak about the documentary. We forget another detail. In 2009, in January of 2009, I lived in the Algarve and was indicated to run for mayor of Olhão on behalf of the Social Democratic Party [PSD]. And that alerted that family, that situation of destabilising me, and Mr Gerald McCann came to Lisbon, there’s news from that time, he met with a top political official from PSD who has a French surname, with Dr Rogério Alves and with Dr Isabel Duarte – this is what is said, it’s what was published – and what happened then was that PSD gave me up as a candidate. This puts rights at stake, the rights of a citizen, the rights of a Portuguese citizen, and someone comes from the outside to do it. It’s the right to be elected. And this is when they start thinking about the lawsuit. It’s not about what is in the book, what is in the documentary, because what the book and the documentary contain is what is in the process. They contain technical opinions. And it’s the fear of that issue – when they come over here and put the right to be elected at stake, with the acquiescence of people inside PSD, that this happened.

Anchor – Thank you very much, Gonçalo. Our time is short but this is a subject that we would like to discuss in more depth. We will continue to follow this because the process is still in its early stages.

Gonçalo Amaral – There is no motive to get too excited, but it’s a good indication of what may be the decision.

Anchor – Thank you for joining us today.



video: http://www.rtp.pt/play/p1629/e180119/agora-nos/405316 - interview starts at 22:43

So GA believes..there may be....there may be...a favourable verdict...

Doesn't sound too sure...does he mean he'll just have to pay half a million and not the whole lot..

[DCI]

So GA believes..there may be....there may be...a favourable verdict...

Doesn't sound too sure...does he mean he'll just have to pay half a million and not the whole lot..

Made a very quick recovery hasn't he. Too ill to go to court on Wednesday.

[stephen25000]

So GA believes..there may be....there may be...a favourable verdict...

Doesn't sound too sure...does he mean he'll just have to pay half a million and not the whole lot..

You do have vivid dreams don't you about getting money from Amaral and let's not forget the other defendants.

I wonder if the mccanns have the same dreams ? 

[Alfred R Jones]

How you so conveniently leave out the rest of the quote, as it doesn't serve your purposes.

Now Montclair, when the judge says something is proven and then adds a couple of qualifying statements does that means that something is not proven after all?  Either the book is proven to have done damage or it hasn't, there can really be no grey area in between, so which is it according to the judge?

[Alice Purjorick]

try reading the post again

I was bored the first time.
I come on here for fun.

[Mr Gray]

I was bored the first time.
I come on here for fun.

how sad...poor you... I must remember not to be too harsh

[Carana]

28. Does the documentary only contain facts that are also in the inquiry files?

(Both articles) It is proved that the facts in the book and in the documentary, concerning the investigation, are mostly facts that took place in the investigation and are documented as such.

The judge does note that some of the facts in the book are not complete, and some facts that are in the book are not in the case files, including Jane Tanner's "informal" recognition of Robert Murat.

I hope the judge isn't trying to find that informal recognition, or we will be here another 10 years.

Erm, indeed.


I can understand that the facts that accurately reflect the files are off limits, but there is a lot that is hearsay. There is also the issue of his cherry-picking and presenting his interpretation as an expert when he was clearly out of his depth. I doubt, however, that the judge will delve into his garbled understanding of the forensics, for example.

He could have written a book defending his honour in a completely different way, explaining the difficulties, but without making allegations of criminal acts and insisting that the child is dead without the slightest proof and it would still have been a lucrative best-seller.

[Montclair]

Interesting read for a Sunday morning from the Sunday Express:

EXCLUSIVE: ‘McCanns will lose £1m libel trial’ Judge’s initial findings go against couple

The former Portuguese detective locked in a libel battle with Kate and Gerry McCann is confident of winning the case after a judge accepted some of his arguments.

Published: 00:01, Sun, January 25, 2015By JAMES MURRAY
   
   
   
   
   
578
   
goncalo amarai, madeleine mccann, gerry and kate mccann, abduction, truth of the lie, maddie maddy, libel trialGETTY
Kate and Gerry McCann claim policeman left them ‘destroyed’
Goncalo Amaral claimed in his book, The Truth Of The Lie, that evidence suggested Madeleine, then three, died in apartment 5a of the Ocean Club in the Algarve’s Praia da Luz in 2007.

The book became a best seller and Amaral also worked on a television documentary detailing its claims.

However, Kate and Gerry McCann sued the detective for libel, claiming the book was a “slander”.

Last week in Lisbon Judge Maria Emilia Melo e Castro set out in some detail what she had found to be proven and not proven, although she has not given her final verdict.

She did not find that because of statements in the book, documentary and a newspaper interview Kate and Gerry had been “completely destroyed” from a “moral, ethical and family point of view beyond the pain that their daughter’s absence causes them”. And she said it was not proven that they would suffer “permanent anguish, insomnia, lack of appetite and an indefinable fear”.

The judge said this psychological state existed before the publication of the book but added that it was normal for the couple to be affected by the book and they would also have “felt badly” over allegations by Mr Amaral that they hid their daughter’s body.

However, it was not possible to determine what most people think after reading Mr Amaral’s theories, she said, and she found it was not proven that the attention of the media and of people in general diminished when Amaral’s book was published.

The judge thought it was proven that some facts in the documentary and book came from police files used by the investigation team, although others did not.

goncalo amarai, madeleine mccann, gerry and kate mccann, abduction, truth of the lie, maddie maddy, libel trialEPA
Madeleine has been missing since 2007
[My son] Sean asked me in October last year, ‘Mr Amaral said you hid Madeleine, didn’t he?’ I just said, ‘He did, and he has said a lot of silly things'
At the libel trial in Lisbon last July Kate, from Rothley, Leicestershire, spent 55 minutes detailing the distress the book and follow-up documentary had caused them, revealing that details of claims had even reached their nine-year-old children, Sean and Amelie.

Kate said: “Sean asked me in October last year, ‘Mr Amaral said you hid Madeleine, didn’t he?’ I just said, ‘He did, and he has said a lot of silly things’.

“I believe that after the book things got worse and were compounded because we were in a more desperate situation and felt defeated.”

Closing her evidence, Kate said: “I do believe in freedom of speech, but I don’t believe freedom of speech means the freedom to slander.”

Heart doctor Gerry McCann told the hearing: “The book is an affront to me, my wife, my family and the people who believe in us.

“The ­documentary is even worse. It starts off that Madeleine is dead, that there is no ­abduction and essentially claims myself, my wife and our friends are liars and would be so cold and ruthless as to hide our ­daughter’s body rather than try to help her should something have happened.

goncalo amarai, madeleine mccann, gerry and kate mccann, abduction, truth of the lie, maddie maddy, libel trialGETTY
Amaral says Madeleine died in family’s holiday flat
“When the file was closed it was made clear there was no evidence that Madeleine was dead and no evidence Kate and I were responsible for hiding her body.”

The McCanns’ lawyer, Isabel Duarte, could not be contacted by the Sunday Express for her assessment of the judge’s findings to date.

She is hoping to win £1million in damages from Mr Amaral and has always been confident of victory.

Mr Amaral, now retired and living in Lisbon after the break-up of his marriage, went on Portuguese television on Friday morning.

In a long interview he was asked why he wrote the book, and said: “The investigation was at stake, an investigation that was never defended here in Portugal, namely by someone at the top of the Policia Judiciaria and it’s me who defends those initial months of the investigation.”

Mr Amaral said the indications given so far led him to believe that the verdict, which is expected this spring, may be “favourable” to him.

Scotland Yard officers continue to investigate Madeleine’s disappearance but have so far failed to make a breakthrough.