A person who has arguido status has not been formally accused of a crime, arrested or charged, so cannot be cleared.
Kate McCann thought that a certain section of the Portuguese population should speak out publicly against Amaral because to her it was obvious that intelligent well informed people would disagree with him.
She goes on to wonder why they didn't do what she thought they should do;
Was it because it wasn’t their problem? Were they scared to speak out? Perhaps Amaral had tapped into kind of national subconscious desire for this to all just go away. [Madeleine]
Perhaps it was because they didn't disagree with him? Or, more simply, they didn't believe her. Kate never even considered those possibilities.
It
is impossible to judge the (shelved) enquiry properly
without reading the files.
And it
ought to be impossible to conclude
other than to conclude (upon reading the files) that the decision to drop the McCanns' arguido status was justified through-and-through.
It's technically accurate to say the McCanns weren't "cleared" (because they were never charged) and to be "cleared" you, first, have to be charged and tried.
The question of whether they should have been made arguidos is likely to be the stumbling point of disagreement.
Even the prosecutors said the decision (to declare them arguidos) was justified (a rare point of disagreement with the prosecutors I, personally, have. On the whole, I think think the Prosecutors were very good.)
This board won't allow discussion of my reasons for disagreeing with the prosecutors that the decision to make kate and Gerry arguidos was justified.