Gonçalo Amaral and Paulo Sargento debate the Maddie case

Today on the ‘Fátima’ programme, a morning talk show on SIC channel, former PJ coordinator Gonçalo Amaral and criminal psychologist Paulo Sargento were invited. They debated the problems and the doubts that are raised by the recent documentary from the McCanns, which will be was broadcasted this evening on the same channel. [a warning about Merche’s ‘blonde moments’]



Merche Romero – Madeleine McCann disappeared two years ago. The intense investigation to discover the little girl’s whereabouts ended without major results and the process was closed. Nevertheless, Maddie’s parents reaffirm that their daughter was abducted and they say that they continue to search for the abductor. Today, the 12th of May, the day that marks Maddie’s sixth birthday, SIC will broadcast, in the evening, a documentary that was made by a British television channel. We’ll be showing you parts of that documentary, in an exclusive.

Before that, I’d like to welcome, and also present our guests: Dr Paulo Sargento and Gonçalo Amaral. A very good morning to you.

Paulo Sargento/Gonçalo Amaral: Good morning.

Merche Romero: And I start with the first question for Gonçalo Amaral: Should the police continue… ahm… what do you expect from this documentary?

Gonçalo Amaral: This documentary is a document. A document that is based on lies, which will be used, if some day the process is reopened, it will be used as evidence against those who go around saying those lies, trying to understand why.

Merche Romero: Dr Paulo Sargento… ahm… the… the truth is that this has been prompting a lot of talk, hasn’t it? Ahh… the little girl’s parents’ attitude, namely during the interview with Oprah, did it surprise you?

Paulo Sargento: No, it didn’t surprise me. Let’s see, these things and definitely, that sometimes we, who comment on this case, we’re criticised over some abuses concerning the evaluations and the diagnoses and etc… What I mean is, I never diagnosed anyone, because when I make a diagnose it’s in my office with the adequate methodology, and with the person in front of me. Nevertheless, an evaluation of people’s behaviour can give us some… approaches, some theories about the manner in which they function.

Now, in this case, there is something that is very interesting, it’s that in this case everything had been very manipulated in terms of image communication techniques, by a gentleman who is in fact a mastermind in that aspect, which is mister Clarence Mitchell – to whom I take my hat off, under that point of view, not for the rest, because it’s a gentleman who has lied shamelessly and defamed some people, saying he’s going to sue people; it’s him who should have some lawsuits upon him.

Oprah’s interview, for me, is a very simple matter, it was a construction, the questions were previously arranged, where the couple was previously given access to the questions, for that they prepared and even trained to answer them, there were not even hesitations, there were no overlapping speeches, let’s say of words from both sides, as one would expect to happen in a natural interview – like us sometimes, when we are here and one of us has another opinion and suggests – and the questions had especially a grammatical style that we’ve come to recognise well, which is a style, a style that I have sometimes jokingly - although we shouldn’t joke too much about this - called ‘Mitchellian’, because it uses a type of fallacious arguments, that are already well known both on blogs and on television, and when they are used by him or by the couple. Alas, the person who imitates him very well in that style, it’s for example Gerry McCann.

That matter, of confusing oneself many times, which is a well known fallacy, since the times of the tribunes in the ancient Rome of Cesar Augustus, of confusing the negation of the consequent with the affirmation of the antecedent, it’s something very interesting, which they use systematically. From the point of view of image, I think that the only thing that we can take from that interview is that it was in fact something that was built to follow a different strategy, from the one that was foreseen at least two weeks earlier. Because if we recall two weeks earlier, the strategy was to focus on the location of the disappearance, with the face of the three-year-old child.

Merche Romero: And that is precisely what we are [interrupts Paulo Sargento’s train of thought], we’re moving on, we’re going to focus on the documentary, ah, that is going to be broadcast by SIC this evening. The first excerpt, let’s watch…

Excerpt of the McCanns’ documentary with Sean, Madeleine’s younger brother, and Kate painting the three children’s names.

Sean: That is a lovely picture you’re making, mommy.
Kate: Thanks honey, do you know what it says?
Sean: No… (makes funny noises /onomatopoeias)
Kate: What names do you think that is, Sean?
Sean: Amelie…
Kate: Who’s your other sister?
Sean/Amelie: Maddie.
Kate: There you go…
Kate: I honestly believe they’re expecting her to come home, you know, one day soon. They very much… ‘When Madeleine comes back, we’re share our toys’, and you know, Amelie is wearing Madeleine’s shoes, she’ll say ‘This won’t fit Madeleine now, so we’ll have to take her and get a bigger pair of shoes when she gets home’, you know?

Merche Romero: Kate, the children’s mother, talks about the hope that she and her other children, Maddie’s siblings, foster concerning the little girl’s return. (turns to Gonçalo Amaral) Dr Paulo Sargento, from these images, right, what’s the picture that you draw of this family?

Gonçalo Amaral: I’m not Paulo Sargento…

Merche Romero: Ah, forgive me. Forgive me, Dr Gonçalo Amaral.

Gonçalo Amaral: No problem. I wouldn’t want to comment on these images a lot, it’s a mother in suffering, she’s lost a daughter, and she has the right to say whatever she wants, so there’s nothing here…

Merche Romero: But the fact that she’s feeding – now yes (turns towards Paulo Sargento) – the mother feeds the children’s hope in the girl’s return…

Paulo Sargento: Of course… I agree with Dr Gonçalo Amaral, in what he says, there is in fact a mother that suffers, there’s a family that suffers, no matter what happened. Well, this is a solid fact, it’s not possible, let’s say to think or it’s very hard to think that people aren’t suffering. No matter what happened, this is necessary to have as a solid fact. Now, there’s something that should be avoided as well. I understand that all the pacts among the adults, among the large groups, like the Tapas nine, among the couple, all pacts are possible.

Now, what I’ve been saying and I think should stir these people’s conscience, is to keep the twins out of the pacts. I mean, this issue of transmitting hope, that there is no certainty, quite to the contrary, if there is one it’s the possibility that the girl will never appear again, and to make the twins live, in fact, this nightmare is a complete irresponsibility, not to say it’s an exercise in bad parenting, a completely shameful one.

Gonçalo Amaral: Let me say just one thing.

Merche Romero: Say it, say it, say it.

Gonçalo Amaral: It’s that at the time of the events, only a few days later, we tried to speak with the twins, and what this couple told us, was that they didn’t express themselves well [communication skills], despite being two years old, that they couldn’t speak very well and so on, as a matter of fact it seems that two years later they’re doing better, they’re now four years old, so it’s normal. But at the time, they would know something or they might know. And that’s it, we didn’t force it, because these were two children.

Paulo Sargento: Of course.

more to follow



By Joana Morais

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2009/05/goncalo-amaral-and-paulo-sargento.html

I must say when I saw that picture painting scene, I did wonder if its the best thing to be reminding them of Madeleine all the time. Surely they must ask where she is, what do they tell them?

I don't think it is healthy to keep tellign the twins that Maddie 'will come home'. I am quite sure that a child psychologist would say this is very wrong. The twins should be allowed to see their parents greiving Maddie and also not to keep 'living in the Sahdow of their big sister'.

Paulo Sargento: Of course.

Gonçalo Amaral: Today we see them using the children, at the time they didn’t want to the police to speak with them, and now they allow them [the children] to be used in this way.

Paulo Sargento: By the way do you know…

Merche Romero – [Interrupts Paulo Sargento] Let us move to the second excerpt of this documentary.

Excerpt McCanns US Visit

Voice Over: The McCann are organizing a series of events which intention is to find new evidences, including a difficult trip back to the holiday village. An interview in a National TV in the US, and maybe even more importantly a visit to the biggest world specialists in the recuperation of missing children [NMEC].

Ernie Allen [CEO and President of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children – read as well NMEC exposed] : We truly believe that this is what Madeleine McCann looks like today.

Cut to the morphed British Maddie to an US stylized Maddie

Gerry McCann: She’s either out there or she’s not. And there’s nothing to say that she’s not there alive, s, is simple. She’s out there until proven otherwise.

Emma Loach [the 36-year old director of the ITV/Channel4 documentaries of ‘Madeleine, One Year On’ 2008 and ‘Maddie was Here’ 2009]: Who is actually out there looking for Madeleine?


more to follow

Quote:
What these gentlemen say - let’s not forget that they are paid by the fund, there’s a contract and it’s a contract to find a child alive, for the kidnap, only the kidnap and nothing else but the kidnap. It would be good that people knew that those gentlemen, after I left [the coordination to the investigation], they tried to collaborate with the Police, they try to meddle in the investigation – which was denied by some colleagues which were in the investigation at the time, since the Portuguese Police and the English Police have competence to investigate alone, they do not need that kind of support. Thus, there is this situation, of people who are paid for this, they are paid to say this, and they are paid to say this lie.


So Edgar and Cowley turned up on the scene to meddle soon after Amaral had got the boot.

Emma Loach [the 36-year old director of the ITV/Channel4 documentaries of ‘Madeleine, One Year On’ 2008 and ‘Maddie was Here’ 2009]: Who is actually looking for Madeleine at the moment?

Gerry McCann: Hopefully lots of people, er… and the general population, but in terms of an investigative strategy, then there’s no law enforcement agency that is proactively doing anything. It’s pretty amazing really, ahm, when you think about it. It’s a very serious crime… and ahm...we’ve, we’ve got to do it.

Merche Romero: In this fragment of the documentary, we see the visit of Maddie’s parents to a specialist center for the recuperation of missing children, and we saw a portrait which shows how Maddie looks like now, with 6 years-old. But it as also raised my attention how Maddie’s father shows himself indignated because the police does not carry on the investigation to the disappearance. Gonçalo Amaral, the police should go on searching for Maddie?

Gonçalo Amaral: Yes, they should, they are not doing it only because the couple demanded the archival and they won’t allow that there’s any investigation in Portugal or in England, overlapping all the actions that have been added there [to the process]. And now they perform as victims, when in fact it is them who do not want a police investigation. They prefer to have private investigators, under contract, which are paid their ‘weight in gold’, to find the ‘abductor’.

So, they don’t trust in the Portuguese Police or in the English Police. We can not forget that the little girl is English, and that there is a competency of the British authorities to investigate.

Now they came, yet again, playing the victims, I mean, this shameless situation is long over due and its time to stop. I would give them an advice, to really stop for a while to think, given that they are drowning in the lies that they have been saying.

Merche Romero: Dr. Paulo Sargento, there’s a time when we watch Maddie’s dad arriving to the Ocean Club in the Algarve, and we hear people booing and telling him ‘Go Home!’ How is this reaction explained?

Paulo Sargento: I believe that was very well picked up under the scope of imagery, in the documentary. It was worked on, giving the impression that it was a tough trip, a hard came back. If we are really attentive, what in reality exists in the documentary it’s a jeer or two, it’s not exactly a monumental jeer as they wished it to be perceived, it’s one or two, made by one single person who most probably, and legitimately was angered. Probably, one of the workers, (video jumps) (…) now, it’s not because of this that one has - like the English media has being doing in an absolute shameful and indecorous behaviour- to present the people of Praia da Luz as a series of vandals and evildoers who do not wish the McCann’s return, and who are, so to say, despising and mistreating them, etc…

What we hear there, factually, is two jeers, probably by a citizen more desperate in his anguish of being unemployed, and which attributes, objectively or not, but legitimately I believe, to the McCann's actions his unemployment, which was in fact true, since their actions created an extreme negative publicity for that region, and a vandalized outdoor, which if we walk in the streets, we see two, three per day, and no one will for that go on about [whine]. Now it was exaggerated, one has to say it was exaggerated. There is a campaign of counter-marketing taking advantage of small insinuations to spread the idea that the people of Praia da Luz are against the McCann which is not true.

Merche Romero: Let’s move on to the third excerpt. Let’s watch it and in a while we comment on it.

Excerpt of Dave Edgar - one of the retired cops working as a private detective for the McCanns and Kate McCann in a meeting

Dave Edgar: We’re here to discuss the pending reconstruction that we’re running.

Kate McCann: So, basically it looks like we have five sightings really. Two of a man with a child, and three… just a suspicious individual really.

Dave Edgar: Yeah.

Kate McCann: And three, the three, with the suspic…suspicis…of the suspicious, they kind’a tie in together.

Dave Edgar: They all tie in together, yeah.

Unknown woman’s voice: Similar times, similar places…

Dave Edgar: Yeah. These three is exact the same location. I don’t know what the, the Portuguese authorities have done to actually have this people removed from the inquiry… So, we’ve got to presume they haven’t done it. And, and go with that. So, it’s just important we actually, we’re accurate, hum, what we actually, what we know and make sure that’s what we’re going with. No speculation or…it’s just got be the facts that we know and not…try to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know.

Kate McCann: I mean, I’d like to go back but…not for this, to be honest, it’s kind of just bellow the surface, and I, just you know…I’d be scared, I think, you know, to sort of open up again , really, yeah…

Cut to Kate McCann in Rothley: I think its actually going through…the scenario of that night, as well, you know?...ahm.. I mean, you know, even what I can remember of the night, you know, seeing Gerry…ahm...that distraught, really...sobbin’ and on the floor…I mean, I, I, I suppose I’m concerned that will surface again.

Merche Romero: In these images we saw two private investigators hired by the McCann to search for Maddie. They are paid from the fund Find Madeleine. These two men criticize the lack of the investigation of some evidences by the Portuguese authorities. Gonçalo Amaral, were there evidences left to be investigated?

Gonçalo Amaral: No, there were no evidences left to investigate. We investigated wrongly, in that case yes wrongly - there the FBI was right – we should have immediately considered the parents as suspects, and start there, however we went to the limit relatively to the kidnap. Up to the moment where we saw that the abduction was materially impossible. And then we went back to Praia da Luz and we focused in the apartment, where the traces and indicia of the death of the child were detected.

What these gentlemen say - let’s not forget that they are paid by the fund, there’s a contract and it’s a contract to find a child alive, for the kidnap, only the kidnap and nothing else but the kidnap. It would be good that people knew that those gentlemen, after I left [the coordination to the investigation], they tried to collaborate with the Police, they try to meddle in the investigation – which was denied by some colleagues which were in the investigation at the time, since the Portuguese Police and the English Police have competence to investigate alone, they do not need that kind of support. Thus, there is this situation, of people who are paid for this, they are paid to say this, and they are paid to say this lie.

The process has seventeen volumes, look at them and find what is missing relatively to this; this sightings, this tales of the new abductors, the persons who are seen, who are seen a month or two before… I remember that I was in Amsterdam, last week, when I was contacted with the information that a ‘new abductor’ was going to appear. I said ‘ look it has to be an individual with a Mediterranean type of look, very ugly, very dark..’ - fact is that we start to know the couple, the type of witness that they have, and it’s always like that.

Shame is that in the sightings that they say that are there [in the 100.000 pounds translated process], the McCanns and the detectives don’t say that the man who is in the garden, at 8am, who is seen by a student whose grandmother lived in that apartment, is a match to David Payne in terms of physical correspondence and to what he was wearing – and it’s a shame they don’t say that. Because as to the others, the gardener that was there, the man who lived in the car, all of that was investigated- and they were British as well – as matter of fact they were poorly dressed [clothes who made them suspicious?], but some were British. There was a singer, in the beach, who played the guitar...

So, saying that we didn’t do anything is a complete lie.

And I hope that, for Alípio Ribeiro not to be named as the only one who did not defended us, that this new direction of the Judiciary Police, when this documentary comes out has the courage to defend those who worked, those who served the Judiciary Police, because if they don’t do it, they will be seen in a very harsh way by those who work for that institution and give everything to it.

more to follow

I must admit, when I heard the 'shouting and jeering' when Gerry arrived at the Ocean Club, I thought it was just the reporters shouting at him to get a good photo, I know I've seen them do this to get people to turn round to face them.