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Above: Kate and Gerry McCann at Lisbon airport, December 2009.
Afternoon session of the proceedings, Wednesday January 13th 2010
2.30: Waiting outside the courtroom for the afternoon's proceedings to begin. Mr Amaral is here too, chatting on a mobile phone.
2.41: We're back in the courtroom, as are the legal teams, Mr Amaral and the McCanns. No sign of the judge yet though.
2.42: We're expecting to hear from three witnesses involved in the publishing of the book this afternoon.
2.57: Judge Maria Gabriela Cunha Rodrigues has arrived, so the afternoon's proceedings can begin.
3.00: JondiPaolo Jose Manuel Enes, a former forensic laboratory chief in the Portuguese police, is the next witness.
3.00: Mr Enes is giving evidence in person, rather than via video link as Mr Flores did this morning.
3.00: Mr Enes has an associateship in chemistry and a doctorate in anthropology, but has now retired from the police force.
3.04: Mr Enes was interviewed by a Portuguese journalist for a book about Madeleine's disappearance.
3.12: JondiPaolo Mr Enes says that the immense media interest in the Madeleine case was unhelpful for the investigators trying to solve it.
3.13: JondiPaolo Mr Enes compared the Madeleine McCann case to that of OJ Simpson, saying that allegations of contamination of evidence had compromised it.
3.15: JondiPaolo Mr Enes' phone has just gone off, drawing laughter from the court. The judge is smiling too as the clerk has to turn it off for him.
3.17: Mr Enes tells the court he has been called to give evidence in several other cases as an expert witness.
3.17: Mr Enes says his conclusions are often relied upon completely by the courts in which he gives evidence.
3.22: Mr Enes: I strongly respect the convictions and work of Mr Amaral.
3.22: Mr Amaral has suddenly got up and walked out of the courtroom, causing a murmur among the onlookers on the public benches.
3.37: JondiPaolo Mr Amaral has left the court building, stopping to give a few comments in Portuguese before climbing into a waiting car.
3.39: JondiPaolo Mr Amaral said he was pleased with Mr Flores' testimony earlier, adding that for the first time it had been explained why he wrote the book.
3.39: Mr Amaral added that he wrote the book to protect his honour and set the record straight.
3.40: The former policeman said what he described as a campaign against him in the British press is continuing.
3.40: JondiPaolo He added that he had only this morning been described as 'incompetent' in one British newspaper.
3.43: jondipaolo: Right. Back to the courtroom. Mr Enes is still giving evidence.
3.45: jondipaolo: Mr Enes says the Madeleine investigation was the victim of 'friendly fire' from the media that hampered its course.
Comment: Yes, one wonders whether the media had an interest in helping to solve the case, or just in denigrating the Portuguese police for some reason.
3.47: jondipaolo: Mr Enes says that just because people put forward their own theories, it does not prevent other lines of inquiry being investigated.
3.49: JondiPaolo Mr Enes: Some parts of the book were put too strongly - it's not the way I would have done it, but that's because I'm from another era...
3.49: JondiPaolo ...the course of justice should not be diverted by books or films, it should be deaf and blind to them.
3.52: Jondipaolo: Mr Enes has left the witness stand, and has been replaced by Mario Sena Lopes, former chief editor at the book's publisher, Guerra e Paz.
4.01: jondipaolo: Mr Lopes tells the court that Mr Amaral's book had been ready to publish in the last week of July 2008.
4.01: jondipaolo: The book was published very quickly to take most advantage of marketing opportunities, the court hears.
Comment: I am assuming a response from the McCann legal team about this just being a marketing exercise to make money, in which case the reply would refer to Gerry's having been asked in an interview for Vanity Fair if he thought publishing details of Madeleine's eye defect could have placed her at risk. Gerry's response was yes, but it was a 'good marketing ploy.'
"Although initially reluctant, the McCanns finally informed the media of Madeleine’s unique right eye—a risky revelation. Whoever had taken the child now held a universally recognizable little girl.
Gerry understood that. But, he says, the iris “is Madeleine’s only true distinctive feature. Certainly we thought it was possible that this could potentially hurt her or”—he grimaces—“her abductor might do something to her eye.… But in terms of marketing, it was a good ploy.”
4.05: Jondipaolo: The marketing plan for the book was much smaller than normal, because we are a small publisher, Mr Lopes tells the court.
4.46: jondipaolo: Sorry about the pause - we had a brief intermission during which Gerry McCann left the court.
4.50: jondipaolo: He explained that he was leaving the court case as he had unavoidable work commitments in the UK, but that Kate would stay on until the end.
4.50: jondipaolo: Despite the avalanche of testimony favouring Mr Amaral over the past two days, Mr McCann seemed to be quite upbeat.
Comment: The man's a nutter! Just my opinion, of course! His theory about the window as an escape route has been trashed and Amaral's witnesses agree that the book is based on the investigation, but Gerry is "quite upbeat."
4.50: jondipaolo: "I think it's important that things have been debated in a court of law," he told reporters.
Comment: Well, they haven't really been debated yet, since only one side has been put forward so far.
4.50: jondipaolo: "From our point of view, what happened here in the past few days is to be expected."
4.58: jondipaolo: "I think it's particularly disappointing that the police officers who considered us responsible for Madeleine's disappearance...
4.59: jondipaolo: "...are the same officers that we are depending on to carry on the search for Madeleine."
Comment: Well, slap my thigh, knock me down and call me Jeffrey! Didn't Gerry say, just this morning, in his rant on Sky News, that no one else was looking for Madeleine?
And if he wants those officers to be searching, why not ask for the investigation to be re-opened?
4.59: jondipaolo: "The search for Madeleine is ongoing. We don't have any leads and we need to keep searching."
Comment: All that money spent, other people's money from donations, and they've got no leads? Have they ruled out the very ill paedophile, Raymond Hewlett and the VictoriaBeckham Looky-Likey?
5.01: jondipaolo: Mr McCann added that mistakes were made during the investigation that now cannot be righted - but that was not the point of the court case.
Comment: What mistakes and how can they be righted? You can go back and finally take part in a reconstruction? Kate can answer the 48 questions she refused to answer?
5.04: jondipaolo: "We made a mistake by leaving Madeleine alone in the apartment, and we have to live with that. We can't change it," Mr McCann said.
Comment: Finally, an admission that this was a mistake. However, the real victim here is Madeleine, not Kate and Gerry McCann.
5.04: jondipaolo: He also rejected the testimony yesterday that Kate had had a dream about Madeleine lying buried somewhere, saying "that never happened"..
Comment: So, Snr Paiva was lying?
5.07: jondipaolo: "I hope that everyone remembers that there is a little girl missing that still has to be found," Mr McCann continued.
Comment: Play to the emotions of the audience, Gerry!
5.07: jondipaolo: "That's why we carry on. We have other children who miss Madeleine dearly."
Comment: Now, early on in this case, just after Madeleine vanished into thin air, Kate was asked how the twins were coping. She said they were OK because they had never spent much time with Madeleine. So, how come, after nearly three years, those same twins, who hardly spent any time with Madeleine, are missing her dearly?
5.09: jondipaolo: He added that although the testimony had favoured Mr Amaral's version of events, it still had not produced any evidence Madeleine was dead.
Comment: The present court process is about whether Snr Amaral's book is libelous and that hinges on whether it is based on the police investigation. If there were evidence that Madeleine was dead, then: a) you wouldn't be facingSnr Amaral in court, and b) the chances are that someone would be languishing in prison. This is not about producing evidence, but about proving that the theory put forward byGonçalo Amaral is not simply his personal belief, but a record of an investigation.
5.10: jondipaolo: Mr McCann also rejected the charge that the trial was a bid to restrict freedom of speech, as has been claimed by Mr Amaral's supporters.
Comment: I really don't know what to say about someone who hires Carter Ruck, libel lawyers, threatens bloggers and others, and claims the above!
5.41: jondipaolo: That's the last update from court for today. Back tomorrow morning.
3 comments:
Excellent articles Anna,both.
Don't worry about the other thing, it's good to see then being utilised.
Thank you, Himself. Praise indeed.
Thank you for the use of your image. I'm not very good with this artistic stuff. So, I stand back in admiration.
To me, one of the most suspicious elements of what occurred on May 3, 2007 has always been this:
Consider: you are on holiday as a family, with several other families who are simply your friends. Firstly, they must all have been extremely close and trusting friends, for what group of adults would all dine out, and would agree to the sort of "rota" checks to be taken in turns? No way, each couple would insist on checking their own children only, and would probably not feel comfortable with other members of the group checking upon their children. We all know and trust our friends up to a reasonable point, but where your children's safety is involved, how well do any of us really trust our group of friends? So this seems an unlikely scenario, somehow.
But my big point is, imagine one night you are all dining out, and one of the kids suddenly goes missing. Surely each mother and father would rush back to their apartment and stay with their own children? Furthermore, if you were the parent of the missing child, and if you suggested to the other adults that the whole group must form a sort of "pact" surrounding the disappearance, and that they must allow you, and only you, to comment on events, ..would not the other parents think you were crazy, or that you had something to hide? Indeed, their sudden suspicion that they maybe did not know that couple as well as they thought, coupled with their fear for the safety of their own children, would not allow such a "pact" to exist for long.
This seems to indicate strongly to me, that the Tapas group ALREADY had a strong motive to form a "pact", before Madeleine disappeared. The implications of the sudden news of her disappearance were immediately obvious to everyone in that group. The events of 3 May might have been unplanned, but they all immediately realised that unless they stuck together and kept quiet, then they would all find themselves implicated in...something. The question is, what?
Thank you for translating the "Truth of the Lie" book. Reading it has filled in some important blanks in my mind. I now feel reasonably sure that the Tapas group were/are more than just a group of friends, and that their "holiday" in PDL was not just intended as a simple holiday, from the start.
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