Does anyone know (SIL?) how the Portuguese press have reported this verdict. - especially the Expresso? There appears to have been a change in Editors since the following editorial comment was published regarding the author and his book. It would be interesting to know if there has been a change of opinion since then.
Expresso
(Translated by Astro)
The 'judicial secrecy' and the press' 'lies'
Henrique Monteiro, chief editor
28 July 2008
Who lied in the Maddie case? The answer lies in what is told by former inspector Gonçalo Amaral. All the fantastic and never proved theories that a certain press has spread are in his book. And they remain without any evidence to sustain 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 that he does, everyone is to blame except for him.
According to Gonçalo, the blame lies with the fact that the McCanns' apartment was not preserved, with the British police that did not fully cooperate, with the journalists that stood in the way, with Her Majesty's government that pressured, with the Portuguese government that let itself be pressured, with the prosecutors, with the PJ's directors, with the conspiracy of the powerful and – if he is allowed to continue unloading – it will hit the CIA, the Masonry, Opus Dei, the Trilateral, Bildberg and the Pope, the usual suspects of the conspiracy theories that circulate on the internet.
The same inspector must not be inhibited (not to mention being ashamed), because after the suspicions that befall him due to the conduction of the 'Joana case' (another missing girl, whose mother, who was condemned over her death, accuses the PJ of torturing her) and the disaster of the 'Maddie case', he pretends to be a national hero and the holder of the truth, against everything and against everyone, and he maintains an absurd theory that does not resist a minimally structured analysis.
Amaral probably didn't think about the fact that it does not become him to talk and to write in detail about a process which – despite having been widely abused – is still under judicial secrecy, either. Or that it does not become him to be a judge in his own cause.
But the most interesting about the former inspector's book is that we get to know where the famous 'lies' from the media that everyone talked about, came from. Finally, we can verify that the most unbelievable theories came out of that illuminated brain. And that certain newspapers, lacking a better option, published them without contradicting, without investigating, without logics and without evidence.
But Gonçalo continues to state his 'conviction' that Maddie died in the apartment. He must have inherited from medieval justice, this notion of 'conviction' without evidence; or from Alice, by Carrol, the idea that first the criminal's head is cut off and then the trial is done; or from 'The Foreigner', by Camus, the fixation in the importance of the criminal's "facies" or the fact whether one does or does not cry in front of death.
The lawful state bases itself on evidence, beyond doubt. The notion that innocence prevails over guilt – when there is no evidence to the contrary – is what separates civilization from barbarism.
Unfortunately, there are remains of barbarism among us. Until very recently, it headed the PJ in Portimão. I hope he was the last one.
