Were the McCanns innocent in the eyes of the law?

[jassi]

However, it was legal according to the rules of the time.

[Brietta]

I though people were made aguido to give them certain legal rights.

Indeed ... and hasn't Kate McCann received some stick for choosing to exercise her arguido given rights.

[jassi]

So if it gives a person certain legal rights, there isn't really any thing to complain about if made an aguido.

[ferryman]

The prosecutors said;

"there is no doubt whatsoever concerning the legitimacy and legality of their constitution as arguidos"

They didn't say;

"there was neither evidence justifying them being made suspects"

Wrong again:

This legal type of crime is only fulfilled with intent, and this intent has to cover the creation of danger to the victim's life, as well as the absence of a capacity to defend herself, on the victim's behalf. In the case of the files and facing the elements that were collected it is evident that none of the arguidos Gerald or Kate acted with intent. The parents could not foresee that in the resort that they chose to spend a brief holiday, they could place the life of any of their children in danger, nor was that demanded from them: it was located in a peaceful area, where most of the residents are foreign citizens of the same nationality and without any known history of this type of criminality.

The Prosecutors were in no doubt Madeleine was abducted and did not hold Kate or Gerry remotely responsible for that.

And before the change in Portuguese law, introduced just after Kate and Gerry were made arguidos, there was not a requirement for a reason to be offered justifying the decision; after the change, there was.

Why did that part of the Prosecutors' archiving dispatch where the prosecutors mocked Amaral for mimicking the style of a Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes never make it into the files we read on line?

[Robittybob1]

So baso the McCanns could never be cleared, even if they had been found "not guilty" in court it still wouldn't prove their innocence.  In other words proving their innocence would be an actual impossibility, yet something the PT expected them to be able to do, through a reconstruction.  How bizarre is that?!

They will be found innocent if Madeleine is found alive or another confesses to the crime.  So it is not impossible but difficult.  Still bizarre that that onus is put onto a private individual to prove.

[slartibartfast]

Wrong again:

The Prosecutors were in no doubt Madeleine was abducted and did not hold Kate or Gerry remotely responsible for that.

And before the change in Portuguese law, introduced just after Kate and Gerry were made arguidos, there was not a requirement for a reason to be offered justifying the decision; after the change, there was.

Why did that part of the Prosecutors' archiving dispatch where the prosecutors mocked Amaral for mimicking the style of a Poirot or a Sherlock Holmes never make it into the files we read on line?

You seem to be having difficulty comprehending what is written, most of your points are about the abandonment issue. It doesn't mention abduction.

The Sherlock Holmes quote was about the complexity of the case not mocking the police.

[Robittybob1]

I'm pleased to see you agree with the SC judges. The archiving dispatch didn't clear them, as they and their lawyer mistakenly argued.

But do you agree with the expression: "The McCanns were not 'cleared' because they were never in need of being 'cleared', rather, the entire basis upon which they were made 'arguido' was found flawed, so the status was dropped"?

[ferryman]

You seem to be having difficulty comprehending what is written, most of your points are about the abandonment issue. It doesn't mention abduction.

The Sherlock Holmes quote was about the complexity of the case not mocking the police.

You need new reading-glasses:

The parents didn't even represent the realisation of the fact, they trusted that everything would go well, as it had gone on the previous evenings, thus not equating, nor was it demanded from them, the possibility of the occurrence of an abduction of any of the children that were in their respective apartments.

(Prosecutors, archiving dispatch)

And the prosecutors did, indeed, mock Amaral for mimicking the style of a Poirot or a Holmes.

Repent at your leisure

[Robittybob1]

The prosecutors said;

"there is no doubt whatsoever concerning the legitimacy and legality of their constitution as arguidos"

They didn't say;

"there was neither evidence justifying them being made suspects"

The forum has doubt about the legitimacy and legality of their constitution as arguidos.

[jassi]

The forum has doubt about the legitimacy and legality of their constitution as arguidos.

Come come now. One or two members,  not the forum in general.
The imposition of aguido status was legal within the rules of the time and was for the legal protection of the individual,

[slartibartfast]

You need new reading-glasses:

(Prosecutors, archiving dispatch)

And the prosecutors did, indeed, mock Amaral for mimicking the style of a Poirot or a Holmes.

Repent at your leisure

Your post didn't provide any cites to abduction and the one you just did talked about the possibility of abduction in their decision processes.

They did not mock Amaral, they just pointed out that not all cases can be solved in a fictional detective manner.

[Brietta]

Come come now. One or two members,  not the forum in general.
The imposition of aguido status was legal within the rules of the time and was for the legal protection of the individual,

Making them 'suspects' may have been legal by a margin of eight or nine days.  It was undoubtedly a personal disaster for the McCanns ... and may have had disastrous consequences for Madeleine's case.

Madeleine may well have been collateral damage in what appears to be recognised as a war of attrition against her parents.


Alipio Ribeiro, the Policia Judiciaria's national director, has said he believes the decision to make the McCanns "arguidos" last September was taken too quickly and without thorough enough assessment.

Ribeiro tells Portugal's Catholic Church-owned Radio Renascenca: "I think there perhaps should have been another assessment before the McCanns were made official suspects. I don't have any doubt about that ... there was a certain hastiness."

The admission is the first by the Policia Judiciaria that the case of the missing four-year-old has been mishandled and gives a substantial boost to the McCanns' hope that those investigating Madeleine's disappearance have now moved away from the theory that they accidentally killed her.

It also appears to back up criticisms voiced by the McCanns' lawyer in Portugal, Carlos Pinto de Abreu, who suggested in December that police had waged a smear campaign against the couple by rushing to make them suspects on September 8 – just days before a new law would have made it impossible without firm evidence.

Mr Pinto de Abreu said: "Before September 15 last year you could be made an arguido without any suspicions or evidence against you.

"Now, to constitute someone as an arguido, it is necessary to have evidence in the file. That's why the national public prosecutor said that if this inquiry was launched now, maybe they would not have been made arguidos."

Asked whether he thought police acted deliberately as they knew the new law was coming in, he added: "I don't know if that's true, but yes, it's possible."

He added: "Many people who may have vital information have possibly not come forward as they wrongly suspected the McCanns."
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/police-chief-we-were-too-quick-to-make-gerry-and-kate-arguidos-6669654.html

[Robittybob1]

Come come now. One or two members,  not the forum in general.
The imposition of aguido status was legal within the rules of the time and was for the legal protection of the individual,

I've heard some BS but that takes the cake.

[jassi]

I've heard some BS but that takes the cake.

No its absolutely true - check it out.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arguido

[ferryman]

Your post didn't provide any cites to abduction and the one you just did talked about the possibility of abduction in their decision processes.

They did not mock Amaral, they just pointed out that not all cases can be solved in a fictional detective manner.

Here is the part of the prosecutors' archiving process that never made into the files we read on line where the Prosecutors mocked Amaral:

"This is not, unfortunately, a police story, a crime fit for the investigative mind of a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercule Poirot, guided by the illusion that the forces of law and justice always restore order."

"No element of proof whatsoever was found which allows us to form any lucid, sensible, serious and honest conclusion about the circumstances (of Madeleine's disappearance).

"Including, and most dramatically, establishing whether she is alive or dead, which seems more probable." 
Mr Magalhaes defended the McCanns' decision to leave their children alone in the apartment on the night Madeleine vanished.[/u]

The word illusion emphatically and unreservedly mocks Amaral.