Unfounded Disgrace!

‘Bungling’, ‘boozing’, ‘sardine-munching’, ‘disgraced’, ‘sacked’ cop.

These are just a few of the unfounded vicious terms, that have been used by British media and the general public, that support Gerry and Kate McCann to describe Dr. Goncalo Amaral, but what is the truth of these lies?

Early Life

Goncalo Amaral was born on the 2nd of October 1959, in the village of Torredeita near Viseu, Portugal. In 1973, at the age of 14, Amaral joined the Public Administration. In November 1981, he began to study the formation of agents of the Judicial Police, and took office in 1982 as an agent, at the age of 22.  Amaral took night-time studies in 1992 through to 1997 at the Faculty of Law of Lisbon University and graduated in Judicial and Criminal Sciences and attended a post graduate in Administrative Law.

He also studied electrical engineering at The Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL) and at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), part of the Universidade de Lisboa (University of Lisbon).

In 1997-1998, Amaral attended the course of sub-inspectors of the PJ, being ranked first among 100 students. In 2000-2001, he completed the course of coordinators for the PJ. He served in Lisbon, the Algarve and the Azores. Goncalo was involved in solving all sorts of violent and organized crimes including theft, robbery, murder and drug-trafficking.

Goncalo Amaral rose to the rank of Inspector Policia Judiciara (Judiciary Police Inspector) in the Portuguese Judicial Police force, which serves as the equivalent of a Detective Superintendent, here in Great Britain. Though highly successful and respected in his field, Amaral’s career, however, came to a premature end in 2008, after 27 years of loyal service, due to retirement at his own request. The request was made as a result of Dr. Amaral’s desire to publish his book Maddie – A Verdade da Mentira (Maddie – The Truth of the Lie), focusing on the mysterious disappearance of three-year-old British citizen Madeleine McCann. Amaral made this decision as a result of Portuguese secrecy laws that prevented him from speaking out, thus allowing him to exact his rights to freedom of expression.

The Murder of Joana Cipriano and the Involvement of Metodo 3

Before we continue further with the controversial case of Madeleine McCann, it is important to bring to relevance and focus the case of Joana Cipriano, who disappeared on 12^th September 2004.

Joana Cipriano

Coordinating the case of Joana Cipriano, was Goncalo Amaral and his team. During the investigation, the maternal uncle of Joana, João Cipriano, and her mother Leonor Cipriano, both confessed to the murder of eight-year-old Joana. Consequently, it was revealed that both Leonor and her brother João had been engaging in an incestuous relationship, which Joana unfortunately happened to have discovered by chance. João and Leonor both confessed in October 2004, and each received a sixteen-year prison term. The confession was also backed forensically with evidence of Joana’s blood, discovered in the freezer at their home.

Leonor and Joao Cipriano

The case of Joana Cipriano holds certain relevance in relation to that of Madeleine McCann’s, as Kate and Gerry’s private investigators, Metodo 3, were actively (as will be shown) seeking to discredit Goncalo Amaral. As we stated in our previous article Strange Behaviours!, It was reported that the final bill for Metodo 3’s work could have been anywhere between £300,000 and £750,000, but what were they doing for nearly two months before the McCanns announced that they had been hired?

Leonor Cipriano, with the aid of lawyer Marcos Aragão Correia, tried (unsuccessfully) to bring a case against five Portuguese officers, claiming that torture and abuse from the accused officers, brought about a forced confession. The trial of the PJ inspectors also revealed many attempts by Leonor Cipriano’s lawyer to discredit Gonçalo Amaral, both professionally and personally. Correia – who previously hit the headlines when he organised an underwater search for Madeleine’s body at the Arade Dam, in Portugal – admitted that Metodo 3 ordered him to do an ‘investigation’ into the accusation of torture, but he denied being paid to frame Gonçalo Amaral.

The five officers accused were eventually acquitted of the torture charges. However, Antonio Nunes Cardoso, one of the five officers acquitted of torture charges, was found guilty of having falsified documents and received a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence. Amaral, who wasn’t on duty at that time, was also convicted of falsifying documentation in the case and received an eighteen-month suspended sentence. That being said, Amaral merely stated what his officers had reported to him at that time.

Following the delivery of the verdict, Correia said:

‘Target was hit, Gonçalo Amaral was convicted’.

Further reading on the Joana Cipriano murder case and the torture trial:

Murdered by Her Mother – The Case of Joana Cipriano. (Laid Bare)

Joana Morais Blogspot

Gerry McCann’s Blogs

Enter the McCanns

So, let us now move to Amaral’s introduction to the Madeleine McCann case.

On 3^rd May, 2007, a report came in that a three-year-old British girl had disappeared from her apartment at the Ocean Club, in Praia de Luz, whilst holidaying with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann and siblings. On receiving the report, Amaral cancelled his plans for a holiday that he was due to take with his family – wife Sofia Leal and their children – to a destination in which he and his family were making preparations to move to (leaving Sofia the unenviable task of having to do this on her own) to aid in the search for missing Madeleine McCann and hopefully reuniting her with her family.

Coming up now to the tenth anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance, I do not feel that there is anything more to add in regard to the details of the investigation, that you should not already know by now, as this has arguably become one of the most famous missing child cases in history. So, I would like to move on and address the matter of Amaral being removed from the investigation.

From the very start of this infelicitous case, it swiftly became apparent that the McCanns were receiving an unprecedented level of support from the UK government and other officials sent via the Foreign Office, who seemed to be putting pressure on the Portuguese investigation. John Buck, the British ambassador to Portugal from 2004 to 2007, being concerned and curious by this level of support, sent a memo to London (leaked through a Belgian news report), for which he received affirmative confirmation, stating:

‘With the greatest respect, I would like to make you aware of the risks and implications to our relationship with the Portuguese authorities, if you consider the possible involvement of the couple. “Please confirm to me, in the light of these concerns, that we want to continue to be closely involved in the case as was requested in your previous message.’

Further reading: John Buck and the Madeleine McCann Case

An Unjust Removal

On 2^nd October, 2007, Amaral, after, criticizing his British counterparts in a phone call to a British journalist, was taken off the case and transferred to the nearby Algarve city of Faro. However, Amaral learnt, soon after, that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was privy to this information before Amaral himself was notified. Suspicious? Be it as you shall privately determine.

For those that have followed this case as closely as I have, it is easy to determine why Amaral was unceremoniously removed from the investigation. Bearing in mind, that by now the investigators were scrutinising very closely and leaning towards the possible involvement of the McCanns themselves in the disappearance of their daughter. At this stage, the investigators had found ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE of an abduction, but had found huge inconsistencies in the McCann’s (and friend’s) accounts of that night and had procured remarkable evidence retrieved from the highly-trained dog alerts, Eddie and Keela.

Eddie and Keela

Well documented, is the fact of the Mccanns, after being made arguidos (formal suspects), quickly returned to the UK, refusing all attempts by the Portuguese investigation to bring them all back for a reconstruction of that night’s events. Amaral soon realised that the case would be archived, something that he totally disagreed with because all avenues of investigation had not yet reached a conclusion. A sentiment that he still maintains to this day.

As already touched upon, after the expected archival, Amaral retired so as to enable himself the freedom of putting forward the truth – as he determined it to be throughout his investigation as coordinator and years of respected experience – into print. Although, many have suggested that the purpose of his book served nothing more than a way for him to make money from its release; yet another claim that is justly unfounded and easily disputed. It is blatantly obvious to all that are fair-minded and for anyone that understands the judiciary secrecy laws in Portugal, that nothing could be farther from the truth, contrary to reports from press, in the UK, who only ever deem it necessary to print favourable articles (through some undisclosed biased agenda) given to them by the McCann’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.

Clarence Mitchell

Unreliably ‘Libel’

In 2009 (a year following Maddie: The Truth of the Lie’s release), as everybody is well aware, the McCanns took Amaral to court in Portugal for damages, claiming their right to a ‘good name and reputation’. Often deliberately misquoted by UK mainstream media as a ‘libel’ case, this is a certain misrepresentation of the facts, in regard to the fact that the McCanns could not sue him for libel as they could not provide any evidence that he had lied, which was eventually proven in the conclusion, eight years later, that everything that Amaral had written in the book was a result of factual information discovered through thorough investigation.

One lie that was discovered, and was known since 2008, through the release of the official Portuguese police files was that the McCanns, although stated – contrary to the fact – many times by themselves and mainstream media, had never been cleared by the archiving of the investigation of involvement in their daughter’s disappearance.

Link to the official PJ Files: McCann PJ Files

Link to Archiving report: Gerry McCann’s Blogs

Sofia’s Support

Well known is the ongoing battle that Amaral has faced against, not only the McCanns, but also their public relations team, the British press and supporters of the McCanns in the general public. Having had his assets frozen and trying to live on a small percentage of his pension, as allowed by the courts, Amaral has endured every jibe, accusation, smear campaign and lawsuit with nothing less than dignity and grace.

In response to an interview conducted with Kate McCann by the Express newspaper, accusing Amaral of being a disgrace, Sofia Leal, wife of Goncalo, wrote an open letter to Kate, in which she said:

Dear madam,

You will forgive my boldness, but after I read your comment (in an interview to Expresso newspaper) concerning Gonçalo Amaral, my husband and the father of my daughters, I cannot avoid sending you these words of gratefulness. For many years, I have been trying to make myself heard in this sentiment that unites us both: “…as a professional and as a person his behaviour has been a disgrace.” Look at it closely:

1. a) Professionally

– As a Coordinator of Criminal Investigation for the Polícia Judiciária, my husband has always refused to sit around from 9 to 5 in the comfortable chair in his office, as his hierarchical status implies. Instead, he spent the day (and very often, the night) with the investigators on the terrain, coordinating searches, surveillances, apprehensions and other diligences ‘in loco’. A disgrace!

But if it was only the fact that he was subject to the weather, it wouldn’t be serious, as our climate is not too bad, as you know. The problem is that this dedication to the cause has earned him a non promotion in his career. Indeed, I will explain this to you, even because this case happened when the searches for your daughter were under way. My husband applied to the category of Superior Coordinator, and in between drug apprehensions, sequestrations and homicides, he somehow managed to produce a thesis about drug trafficking by sea, which he defended in Lisbon, in front of a Jury that congratulated him. Full of hope, Gonçalo Amaral returns to the Algarve and awaits the result. To his surprise, he was passed over by other colleagues (real coordinators, truth be told), because he had not been able to score points in the “professional formation” parameter. That’s right, Mrs Kate, my husband spent his life working, involved in complex investigations, he was the man who apprehended the highest volumes of drugs in Portugal, but given the fact that he had no time to go to Lisbon to parade himself up and down the corridors of the PJ’s Institute, he was not promoted. A disgrace, madam, a disgrace!

– As you probably know, even because you seem like a very well informed person to me, my husband’s salary was less than 1.5 times the lowest salary in your country. But as a wife, as a mother and as a Portuguese citizen, I can’t complain, because Gonçalo Amaral’s salary was equal to 4.5 times the lowest salary in Portugal. But pay attention to the following, which is an example of what I’m going to explain next: At some point, an individual shoots a member of the PSP [urban police] and flees into neighbouring Spain. A PJ team follows him, including my husband. They stayed there for over two weeks. Now at that time, the international expense coverage was around 100 euros. As you can easily imagine, it’s not possible to sleep and eat in Spain with this amount of money, much less shortly before Christmas and taking into account that the value will only be paid at around Easter time (if one’s lucky). But Gonçalo Amaral never refused, not even for one day, to search for the escaped murderer, relaying the expenses onto our family accounts. And this is just one example among many. At some point in time, I suggested that we should create a fund or something similar to deal with these extraordinary expenses, but he never listened to me. You see, we also have mortgages to pay around here… A disgrace, Mrs Kate, a disgrace!

1. b) As a person, his behaviour has also been a disgrace, because to begin with we could never distinguish that he even had a personal life, due to the manner in which he dealt with the profession that he embraced. But if my good friend Mrs Kate allows me, I can offer you some examples:

– 5 years ago, a child named Joana “disappeared”. Her mother, just like you, Mrs Kate, tried to project the case into the media, but she didn’t make it any further than SIC…

Eight days later, came the confessions and the evidence: during an incestuous act between mother and uncle, the child was beaten, then dismembered and her body dumped who knows where. Mother and uncle went to jail, in a process that was coordinated by Gonçalo Amaral and which earned them almost 20 years in jail, each. But let us go a bit back in time. The child died on the 12th of September. On Christmas eve, our family was reunited for prayer, when my husband asked me to prepare a bag with some food and warm clothes, because he had not carried out his Christmas act of penance. Can you, Mrs Kate, imagine where Gonçalo Amaral went on that Christmas night under heavy rain and thunder? He went to the Olhão Prison, where João Cipriano, Joana’s uncle, a confessed murderer and a clinically diagnosed psychopath, is detained. According to my husband, to simply offer an alimony to some beggar was not a sacrifice to him. The fact that he embraced and shared his Christmas meal with João Cipriano was the sacrifice that he offered to God, in memory of Joana. Is this not a disgrace? You should also know that every year, on the 12th of September, my husband has a mass celebrated in memory of Joana Isabel Cipriano Guerreiro. He says that nobody will ever remember the poor little girl again. Right, but they remember to unjustly accuse him of actions and crimes that he never committed. Isn’t this a disgrace, Mrs Kate?

– There is a last episode that I will report to you, one that I still find hard to talk about. Last year, in May, we started to move our family to Portimão. My husband was supposed to enjoy a holiday period starting on the day after your daughter’s disappearance. “For obvious reasons” that didn’t happen. I started on a new job, looked for a house, moved house, and tried to integrate our daughters in new schools and new routines. All of this I did alone, without any help from my husband, who for obvious reasons, was looking for your daughter, Mrs Kate. In October, on his birthday, a week after our daughters started school, Gonçalo Amaral was dismissed and returned to Faro. This was supposed to be the time of the family’s reunion and it turned out to be another separation. Isn’t this a disgrace? Our daughters never managed to understand, and we never managed to explain to them what obvious reasons were those that rewarded in this manner a father who left his own daughters to go looking for a child that he had never met and whose parents had neglected her. It was a pity that my dear friend Mrs Kate was not around anymore at that date, because you could have been very helpful to me in explaining these “obvious reasons” that led to their father’s dismissal, to our daughters.

Finally, I can only report to you that intimately, Gonçalo Amaral is precisely what the latinos are famed for: shameless, as my pudency does not allow me to write any further.

I ask you, my good friend, to forgive these confidences from a wife and mother, but I’m certain that you will understand. I finish this letter asking you to send your mother my most sincere praises. She sounded so sincere to me, when during an interview she referred that she felt like slapping the face of the person who left her grandchildren alone. She spoke so openly that she sounded like a genuine Portuguese grandmother…

My dear friend Mrs Kate, without wishing to bother you any further, I would like to request one last favour from you: now that you have started to tell some truths, please continue, and let the world hear the truth that it has been waiting for.

Best regards,

Sofia Leal

Wife and Mother of the Daughters of Gonçalo Amaral.

Quote from Sofia Leal interview:

Did Goncalo Amaral once threaten you with death and insulted [you] as it says in the letter?

Never, as I said, the content of the document is completely false. Goncalo is a very (sometimes too) peaceful person. [Anyone] who lives with us and knows our relationship knows the affection and respect with which he has always treated me. And this is indeed the pillar of our relationship – Sofia Leal.

Link to further reading: Gerry McCann’s Blogs

Amaral’s Mayoral Cadidacy

A lot of these facts that I have shared with you in this article are well known and documented, but what is not well known is that Goncalo Amaral’s Mayoral candidacy was ruled out due to his involvement with the Madeleine McCann case.

According to the National PSD’s decision, it was stated that Goncalo Amaral would not be the party’s candidate, and any possibility to support him from a list of independents would also have been ruled out.

It was Mendes Bota himself who said that:

‘Dr Amaral was an excellent candidate and that, for the first time, the PSD would win the elections,

A Social-Democrat activist in Olhao stated after the announcement that the ex-coordinator of the PJ would not be the PSD candidate for Mayor of the town, adding:

‘it’s an unbelievable decision. I want to know why. It’s the least they can do.’

In spite of the justification put forward by the party’s national leader, there are those who suggest other explanations, notably the right of the British to vote in the local elections:

‘They (the English) have the right to vote in the locals, and they were not going to vote for the PSD anywhere if Goncalo Amaral was our candidate in Olhao.’ – An activist stated.

Gerry McCann’s recent meeting, during his visit to Portugal, with a member of the PSD’s national committee and the party’s national leader’s frequent visits to London, is not going to calm things down, even raising questions in the media.

According to a local party official, it is effectively ‘external factors,’ which dictated the dropping of the candidacy for Amaral, ‘who has an enviable CV,’ but the orders from Lisbon are quite specific: Goncalo Amaral will not be the PSD’s candidate in any town in the country.

Further reading regarding his Mayoral run: Gerry McCann’s Blogs

The McCann’s ‘Experts’

Mark Williams Thomas: Self-proclaimed ‘multi award winning investigative reporter and former police detective’. In reality, Mr. Thomas never rose above the rank of constable within the police force.

Thomas served as a constable (not a detective) and family liaison officer with Surrey police from 1989 to 2000, where he led many investigations. Following this, he had a career change, becoming the marketing manager and a director of GumFighters in 2001 and 2002.

The company were used by councils to remove gum off the streets.

In 2005, he launched WT Associates, which is an independent child protection consultancy firm.

In a recent TV interview on This Morning, Thomas put forward ‘his’ theory that Madeleine knew that her parents were dining at the tapas bar and wandered out of the apartment to go and look for them. Not only did this raise eyebrows and many questions amongst the general public, but also professional criminal profilers that too have followed this case closely and put forward their own theories on what the evidence suggests.

What is not clear with Thomas’ theory, is that if Madeleine had wandered off, then who opened the window and the shutter in her bedroom? Kate McCann stated that she knew instantly that Madeleine had been abducted due to the window and the shutter being open, which can only be done from the inside. So one has to ask, does Mr. Thomas believe that Madeleine opened them herself before wandering off?

Thomas believes that there is no evidence against Kate and Gerry McCann.

Mark Williams Thomas

Graham Hill: Dr Hill is a visiting research fellow at the school of law at the University of Leeds. He is a former senior police officer with extensive experience in Major and Specialist Crime Investigation. He is the founder and first head of Behaviour Analysis at the UK Child Exploitation Online Protection centre (CEOP).

His knowledge and expertise concerning the behavioural aspects of child sexual abusers has been developed over the course of his policing career and the specialist roles he has held together with his academic research.

His research interests include the behaviour of male and female child sexual abusers, interviewing the perpetrators of sexual crime and male non-familial child abduction/murder. He is an advocate of Evidence Based Policing and his work focuses on how research can inform and enhance child protection investigative practice.

Appearing on American TV series Crime Time, Hill stated that he was sent to Portugal, a few days after Madeleine was reported missing, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. So again, we have another ‘official’ sent out to aid the parents. Interestingly, when asked why Kate and Gerry were not made suspects earlier, Mr. Hill completely avoided mentioning the truth of the matter that the investigation turned their attention towards the parents after the dogs were brought in. I have put a link below for you to watch the interview for yourselves.

Link to: Crime Time interview with Graham Hill

Hill believes that there is no evidence against Kate and Gerry Mccann.

Graham Hill

Dave Edgar: Retired detective Dave investigated and solved some of Britain’s most sickening murderers. Dave had accepted demotion to join the Cheshire police force in 1986 after he left the RUC. He quickly moved up the ranks, becoming a detective inspector for the second time in his career. As a result, Dave found himself at the heart of these high-profile investigations.

As shown in our Strange Behaviours! article, Edgar was hired by Kate and Gerry to investigate the disappearance of Madeleine. Having been paid by two suspects in the disappearance of their own daughter, one could argue that he would hardly put forward evidence against them. Edgar, in a recent Daily Mirror article, is quoted as saying:

‘Someone is protecting Madeleine McCann’s kidnappers’ claims cop who spent years hunting her’.

Considering that there is absolutely no evidence that a kidnapping or an abduction occurred, and being well documented in the official Portuguese police files and having now made the bold claim that Madeleine was indeed kidnapped, will Mr. Edgar be bringing forward that evidence? As, to-date, none exists.

Link to: Mirror article.

Edgar  believes that there is no evidence against Kate and Gerry Mccann.

Dave Edgar

All three of these ‘experts’ are completely ignoring evidence brought to the investigation via Martin Grime and his highly-trained dogs Eddie and Keela. This raises many questions. All act as if these dogs have never taken part in the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Many have also asked why our mainstream media and talk shows are only reporting and inviting pro-McCann articles and interviews, when we also have professional criminal profilers who have an opposing theory based on the evidence provided. It seems that these voices are the ones that they would prefer to remain silent.

The abduction and ‘wandering off’ theories seem to be accepted more readily as the only ones that matter, and obviously sit as opposite to that of the Portuguese investigation’s findings and Amaral’s hypothesis.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from what we have read and from what we have seen with our own eyes and heard for ourselves, until the McCanns chose to holiday in Portugal in May 2007, Amaral had lived a peaceful, unblemished happy life and career doing a job that he loved. He is very much loved and respected not only by his colleagues and family, but also by all those that know him and to those that have never met him. Proven by the outpouring of support from public who have generously given their own money to aid in his legal battles with the McCanns, which he has kindly received with the upmost gratitude.

For the third and final time, Goncalo Amaral won their legal battle against him and we would like to wish him well and all the peace and happiness for the future.

So, let me finish by leaving you with some words from the man himself…

‘The wave of solidarity that was generated to support me has been very moving and makes me feel extremely humble. I am so very grateful to each and every one of you, who have supported me and continue to do so; none of this would have been possible without you.

Winston Churchill said: “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.”

Truth is also simple. It is truth that guides me, and it will continue to do so, in its simplicity and greatness.

Thank you very much.

Gonçalo de Sousa Amaral

All information contained within this article is truthful to the best of my knowledge. I would like to thank those that I have sourced certain information from and who, like myself, only wish to uncover the truth behind this sad case:

Thank You

Ben Thompson – Justice for Madeleine

Jill Haven – Complete Mystery of Madeleine McCann

Pamalam – Gerry McCann’s Blogs

Joana Morais – Joana Morais Blogspot

Cherry Beresfield and Carrieanne Clifford – HiDeHo Controversy of Madeleine McCann

Beatriz Belchior

Winnover

And lastly again to my anonymous friend. You know who you are. Thank you for your constant support.