Correio da Manhã, 21.10.2013:"Gonçalo Amaral reveals that key deposition was devalued at the time of disappearance". Posted byAstro

Key witness identified Maddie's father
21 October 2013 | Posted by astro Leave a Comment

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2013/10/key-witness-identified-maddies-father.html




Gonçalo Amaral reveals that key deposition was devalued at the time of disappearance

by Sara G. Carrilho

"The testimony of one of the members of the Smith family that identified Gerry McCann as being the man he saw on the night that Maddie disappeared, carrying a child in his arms as he walked towards the beach was devalued after I left the case. It is a lie that the e-fit that the British police now made public is based on the Smith family's witness statement."

The statements are from Gonçalo Amaral, the former PJ coordinator who investigated the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, to Correio da Manhã. They appear following the publication of e-fits by the Scotland Yard that point one of the drawings out as being that of the main suspect over the presumed abduction of the English child, on the 3rd of May of 2007 - which they say was based on the testimony of an Irish family that was on holiday in Praia da Luz when Maddie disappeared.

"The Smith family told us what they saw that night. A man, a foreigner, of athletic build, a sunburned face, like those of tourists, who was hiding his face in order not to be seen, carrying a blonde child in his arms", Gonçalo Amaral said. "A short time later, when the McCann family 'fled' to the United Kingdom, and were welcomed by the television at the airport, a member of the Smith family called us, very upset. Gerry [Maddie's father], who was leaving the plane, was the man that Mr Smith had seen carrying a child that night", the former coordinator explained.

For Gonçalo Amaral, "there was a positive identification, which was set aside". "The McCann hired detectives who made a portrait, a man that resembled Gerry, in order to devalue the deposition", he concluded.



in: Correio da Manhã, 21.10.2013

"It is a lie that the e-fit that the British police now made public is based on the Smith family's witness statement."

But they were produced by Kennedys detectives?

And Kennedy paid a visit to the Smith family. Would that visit have occurred before or after the e-fits? Why was he tampering with witnesses?

Good ole Amaral, he will NOT go away!

Oh my.

I wonder if they were in the 15 boxes of evidence seized when M3s offices got raided after their drugs bust.

Could Kennedy be the first to be arrested.

jinvta wrote:And Kennedy paid a visit to the Smith family. Would that visit have occurred before or after the e-fits? Why was he tampering with witnesses?

More to the point.....why was he allowed to tamper with witnesses?

I am probably being thick here ... but I don't really understand this.
Is GA saying that the e-fit was given to PJ to derail the investigation, after there had been a "positive" sighting of GM? It was made to look like GM on purpose?
This is confusing as GM wouldn't have wanted to be spotted carrying a child as he allegedly had no child with him, yet (if I am reading this right), his foot soldiers are fabricating e-fits to look like him.
Surely Smith would have approved the e-fit, unless what he approved wasn't what was given to the PJ.
I do understand that GA saw the testimony of Smith as important to the investigation.
I will have to watch the crimewatch video again as the way I saw it Redwood said that the e-fit was based on the Irish eye witness who said initially that he had seen this man carrying a child. Not once did Redwood say, iirc, that the e-fit was from any other source, suggesting that it was an official PJ document.
Smith then said that he was certain it was GM that he had seen as he carried the child in the same way when he stepped off the plane.
Crimewatch discounted Tanner's bundleman and moved the sighting to 10pm.

Can someone please explain to me what this all means?

The Smith e-fits are very confusing to me as well. It was Martin Smith who thought the man looked llike Gerry, but it is not clear whether or not he did one of the e-fits. I suppose the e-fits could have been done by Martin's wife and son, or some other adults in the group. And who knows if the Kennedy visit affected their memories?

I understand this to mean that Amaral is saying that the Smiths' sighting wasn't taken any further once he'd left the investigating team and that the 'e' fit is not something produced with the help of the Smith family (because members of the Smith family have stated that they believe the man they saw to be GMcC, therefore no 'e' fit was necessary) but that the drawings were done by the McC's private investigators (i.e. they created an 'e' fit which looks like GMcC, but isn't intended to match GMcC, but is intended to match the description the Smith family provided as well as draw attention away from the idea that it was GMcC).

I think....

This is the stuff they used the fund for, instead of searching for Madeleine - they had to use it to "defend themselves" supposedly, which I think is covered not only by hiring lawyers but also by hiring people to create and publicize photo fits of an abductor that didn't exist as a person anyone saw - the ones Clarence was constantly waving -

The only sighting that did not get explained was the one by Smith. I wonder if police would have cell phone records that would show where Smith and Gerry both were at that time, I suppose the cell towers aren't that far apart so they could be within a few miles and still have it ping off the same tower so maybe that would be no help. But it would be nice to have. Supposedly SY has a bunch of cell phone records.

widowan wrote:This is the stuff they used the fund for, instead of searching for Madeleine - they had to use it to "defend themselves" supposedly, which I think is covered not only by hiring lawyers...

At the very beginning, Gerry announced the "search" fund was needed because of the need for lawyers in such a missing child's case and that was going to run into a lot of money.

That was the start of my doubts in the case. It was a day or two after revelations the children were abandoned in the apartment - I assumed that was the need for the lawyers to deal with child neglect charges.

As the case continued to unfold, the need for lawyers became ever more clear.

I guess keeping their jobs and reputation - and their remaining children - would also be an act of financial and personal survival, of a sort. They can't look for Maddie while in jail and if the entire population is busy judging them for their child neglect, that might impede their efforts to find their daughter in some way. that's arguable, but spending a fortune on lawyers sure as heck helped THEM legally - that is not arguable.

They chose to use the Fund to self promote and self protect and not for the purpose for which most donors probably intended and that is what made people angry and still does.