True on the surface, but hidden underneath, is the veil of suspicion, and the McCanns were not found to be innocent but just that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them (in fact there was no evidence at all, but it sounds so much more sinister if that is described as "insufficient").
Especially in the light of all this:
It seems evident to us and because the files contain enough elements for such, that the crime of exposure or abandonment according to article 138 of the Penal Code can be eliminated from that range:
"1 - Whoever places another person's life in danger,
a) By exposing her in a location where she is subject to a situation from which she, on her own, cannot defend herself against; or
b) Abandoning her without defence, whenever the agent had the duty to guard her, to watch over her or to assist her;"
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 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.
Reinforcing what was said is also the fact that despite leaving their daughter alone with her siblings in the apartment during more or less dilated moments, it is certain that in any case they checked on them. Without any pretension or compensatory effect, we must also recognise that the parents already expiate a heavy penalty - the disappearance of Madeleine - due to their lack of caution in the surveillance and protection of their children.
Concerning the other indicated crimes, they are no more than that and despite our perception that, due to its high degree of probability, the occurrence of a homicide cannot be discarded, such cannot be more than a mere supposition, due to the lack of sustaining elements in the files.
The non involvement of the arguidos parents of Madeleine in any penally relevant action seems to result from the objective circumstances of them not being inside the apartment when she disappeared, from the normal behaviour that they adopted until said disappearance and afterwards, as can be amply concluded from the witness statements, from the telephone communications analysis and also from the forensics' conclusions, namely the Reports from the FSS and from the National Institute for Legal Medicine.
How much clearer could, or should, the prosecutors have had to make it that they consider, not so much that the McCanns were 'cleared'; more that they had/
have no case to answer, in terms of anything concerning Madeleine's disappearance.
That the appeal court judges should have interpreted the archiving dispatch through the prism of the report of convicted torturer (from another case) Tavares Almeidas raises an eye brow.
The much more relevant PJ report was the one written by Joao Carlos.
