What do respected posters (and ex cops?) really think of Goncalao Amaral? And why will they not say all this openly, so that it can be discussed?

Sent: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:43 pm
by
W***y, I noticed your post on one of the threads about Goncalo Amaral yesterday, and I think that you and I are of one mind in feeling some concern about the way things are going.

I admire the fellow - I really do - but he is beginning to say some things that I do not believe are correct, and I fear it's going to seriously compromise his credibility. Even ShuBob was questioning him yesterday on the thread about the joint programme he did with Hernani Carvalho.

These are the major inconsistencies I have noticed in things he has said, and there are probably others:

(1) He was "not consulted" on the investigation after he was removed as head of it (appears in his book).
I have archived two pictures of him and Paulo Rebelo taken together after Rebelo became head of the investigation. In one of them, they are just walking across a street together. In the other, they appear to be talking cordially and animatedly at a table. Plus, there was the article from the Lusa press service saying that they were seen going into the PJ office in Faro the morning after Rebelo got back from the rogatory interviews, and the hatchet job that one of the British tabs tried to do on both of them for continuing to work together after Amaral was removed. I do not doubt, from what I hear of Paulo Rebelo (who far outranked Amaral in the PJ hierarchy anyway) that Rebelo would not have asked Amaral or anyone else how to conduct the investigation, so possibly it's a matter of semantics, but it seems clear to me that they were at least in touch.

(2) Amaral says that he believes Madeleine died by accident in the apartment, possibly whilst listening at the window to her father talking to Jez Wilkins and falling off the couch. That occurred about 9.00-9.15. Whilst cadaver scent can develop in less than the 2 hours often quoted, I have been told by a dog handler that it takes at least 90 minutes, and this was backed up by things I've seen on line. There wasn't enough time. I thought at first that perhaps the McCanns took Madeleine's body out of the apartment and then brought it back whilst removing the remainder of their things after the PJ forensic technicians finished. But I there is someone I met on another forum who works for the PJ and knows one of the forensic technicians who did most of the crime scene processing on 4 May, and she says that cannot have been the case; after the forensics people finished with the apartment, the McCanns were escorted back to remove the remainder of their belongings and then escorted to another apartment, and apt. 5A was left sealed off for several days.

(3) Amaral's book says that Gerry and Kate had both thrown themselves on the floor beside the bed and appeared to be sobbing ("without tears") when the GNR saw them at the apartment. In the documentary, he has them ON the bed, arses skyward. It was ridiculous enough already, and I don't doubt their little act was staged, but I am sure Amaral had input in the making of the entire documentary, so why contradict what you've already said? It just gives McCann defenders a sword, as Richard Nixon might have said.

(4) Amaral is appearing to get bolder, almost by the day, in saying that he thinks paedophilia had something to do with Madeleine's death. I almost never agree with that idiot vivida and have put her on my foe list, but the other day even she pointed out that Madeleine's death cannot have been both an accident and the result of paedophilic activity, and she's right. Even if someone had no intent to kill her, if they accidentally killed the child (suffocated her, perhaps) in the midst of another felony, that would be regarded as a homicide in every country in the world. It isn't clear just what was said in the Carvalho/Amaral interview, but some of the Portuguese viewers thought that Amaral was saying that as far back as mid-May 2007, there was "evidence" of paedophilic activity. Aside from the obvious question (You were in charge of the investigation at that point. If you had evidence, why didn't you make them arguidos?) I think he can only have been speaking of the statements from the doctors Gaspar, which I do not consider evidence of paedophilia. In the first instance, Dr. Arul Gaspar, the husband, says he observed Payne's weird gesture at table but does not express any concern about it.

(5) Amaral's statement, repeated during the interview with Carvalho yesterday, that Gordon Brown himself called the Leics constabulary to ask them if Amaral had been removed a full two hours before Amaral's boss (I presume they mean Guilhermino Encarnacao himself) heard it. I do not believe it, W***y. I just flat do not believe that the Prime Minister of the UK would call a local police station to ask a question like that, He'd have someone from the consulate in Faro call, or he'd have the UK ambassador check it out for him. If I didn't have doubts enough myself, I have three contacts (not 3A members) who know policemen who are currently on the force in Leicester or were in the not-too-distant past. All three of them tell me that, so far as their contacts know, that did not happen. Amaral would have had to have heard that from someone from Leics. As I said, I don't believe it's true, but even if it were, Brown would necessarily know who he called, and that the information had to have been given out initially by that person. Would Amaral give up another policeman like that, especially someone who had his best interests at heart enough to let him know what had happened?

(6) And the biggie, so far as I am concerned: Amaral has said that he was removed because he was getting close to solving the case. He wasn't. Simple as. Bringing Martin Smith back from Ireland would not have done it. You've been around law enforcement all your life, so I think you will probably agree with me: I don't think the prosecution could have risked having Smith make that "I'm 60-80% sure it was Gerry McCann, but I wasn't wearing my glasses and no one else in my family except my wife agrees with me" statement on the stand. If he had, the defence would have made mincemeat of him. I think that, at most, Smith and his children Peter and Aoife (who did not agree that it was Gerry) would have been put on the stand to describe the man they saw carrying the child and hope that the judges would see the similarities to Gerry in their descriptions.

In my opinion, Amaral dropped the ball. He should have set up a reconstruction during the first week, whilst he still had all the tapas 9 in Portugal. To his great credit, he now says he wishes he had done that, but the simple fact is that he had the best chance to solve this thing whilst Gerry, Kate, and all their friends were within his reach. Once the tapas 7 started returning to England, hope faded every day, because they were not made arguidos and there was absolutely no way to compel them to come back.

I don't want to post this on the board. Amaral is one of the few people willing to take a risk for Maddie, and I don't want to put him down in public. But I'm afraid that he is near the point where he may destroy his own effectiveness.