“Madeleine: McCanns deny "censorship or undue benefit" in the prohibition of Gonçalo Amaral’s book

I must have missed something
23 December 2009 | Posted by astro


From Lusa, the central Portuguese news agency, yesterday:

“Madeleine: McCanns deny "censorship or undue benefit" in the prohibition of Gonçalo Amaral’s book

Lisboa, 22 Dec (Lusa) – Today, Kate and Gerry McCann rejected that the injunction that prohibited the sale of the book “Maddie – The Truth of the Lie”, by former PJ inspector Gonçalo Amaral, is “censorship or undue benefit”.

In a press release to Lusa agency, the parents of little English girl Madeleine McCann, who went missing in the Algarve in 2007, defend that the injunction, that starts being tried from the 12th to the 14th of January, at Lisbon Civil Court’s 7th Section, is “merely the result of the free pondering of the democratic rules and fundamental rights”, which, they stress, the couple and the book’s author are subject to.

“The decision to grant the injunction that apprehended the book already has two judicial stamps and can and should be publicised, because it is of interest to all citizens who, in the name of freedom of expression, are at stake of being publicly accused for life, after having been declared innocent by the courts”, Kate and Gerry McCann refer.”

'Declared innocent by the courts'?

I definitely must have missed something.

The last bit that I heard, from any Portuguese judicial authority, concerning the couple’s innocence, was this:

“We believe that the main damage was caused to the McCann arguidos, who lost the possibility to prove what they have protested since they were constituted arguidos: their innocence towards the fateful event; the investigation was also disturbed, because said facts remain unclarified.”

That was the Public Prosecutor’s opinion about the missed reconstitution. In the famous archiving dispatch, which certain people fervently invoke to proclaim the McCann couple’s 'innocence', Dr. Magalhães e Menezes not only states that Madeleine’s parents’ and their friends’ statements concerning the checks on the children were not conforming to the truth of facts – he writes that by boycotting the reconstitution, they failed to prove their innocence and disturbed the investigation.

That is precisely why the archiving dispatch does not declare them innocent of any crime. It merely states that the process is archived, and arguido status lifted, because “there are no indications of the practise of any crime”.

It is worthwhile to mention that the Public Prosecutor actually had another option.

He could have proclaimed their innocence.

Portuguese law foresees two types of archiving: a) an archiving because “enough evidence” was collected to prove that either there was no crime, or that the arguidos did not commit it under any circumstance; or b) an archiving because it was not possible to obtain “enough evidence” to prove the crime or to accuse anyone.

I don’t think further comments are needed – because frankly, I have not lost my confidence in people’s ability to think by themselves and to draw their own conclusions.

In the mean time, if anyone finds out which “courts” have declared the McCann couple "innocent", please be so kind as to share the information, because I hate to miss important things like that.

Merry Christmas.

This is the sort of rubbish the McCann team are now reduced to putting out; lies, lies and yet more lies. And the beauty of it is that McCann put out a direct statement claiming that they had not caused Amaral any financial problems at all because he was already in debt. Talk about an own goal. Christmas at the McCanns without tidings of comfort and joy. Whatever next?

T4two wrote:This is the sort of rubbish the McCann team are now reduced to putting out; lies, lies and yet more lies. And the beauty of it is that McCann put out a direct statement claiming that they had not caused Amaral any financial problems at all because he was already in debt. Talk about an own goal. Christmas at the McCanns without tidings of comfort and joy. Whatever next?

Hopefully the pair will be facing Amaral and his witnesses across a courtroom T4two, if they have the bottle.

I find it indecent that Sr Amaral's finances are under the spotlight yet the PJ were never allowed access to the McCanns financial records. And they paid at least 2 mortgage payments from the fund. Despicable!

malena stool wrote:

T4two wrote:This is the sort of rubbish the McCann team are now reduced to putting out; lies, lies and yet more lies. And the beauty of it is that McCann put out a direct statement claiming that they had not caused Amaral any financial problems at all because he was already in debt. Talk about an own goal. Christmas at the McCanns without tidings of comfort and joy. Whatever next?

Hopefully the pair will be facing Amaral and his witnesses across a courtroom T4two, if they have the bottle.

As a Nulab Prime Minister once said, "I'm not in the habit of making predictions and I'm not about to start now." But just for a change and because I know it will annoy certain people who wouldn't accept that the McCanns had done any wrong even if they'd filmed them doing it, I'm going to venture the opinion that the McCanns do not have the bottle, as you so succinctly put it. At the end of the day avoiding a confrontation with Amaral and his witnesses across a courtroom will be the only option they have left.

And they engineered it all by themselves T4two, how poetic ........