Bombshelling

No, on this day she hadn't lost a child. She just had a trial session postponed.

Mr Amaral stunned everyone on Monday.

We don’t think a single soul wasn’t surprised by the bombshell Mr Amaral dropped on this case when he decided to relieve his lawyer from his duties.

The only one who wasn’t was Mr Amaral. But for a moment we thought he too could have been.

You see, on Monday, caught completely off-guard, we ventured between ourselves the hypothesis of that morning Mr Amaral having been confronted with a deal behind his back made by his lawyer, Santos de Oliveira with Isabel Duarte and, stunned by surprise, had fired his representative there and then.

Time proved that hypothesis absolutely wrong as all assessments made when events are still happening usually are. Our sincere apologies about our thoughts to Santos de Oliveira.

On those first hours we came up with other another few possibilities but all were centered on the same thing and that was when did Mr Amaral make up his mind to dismiss his lawyer?

Only knowing that could we begin to try and understand the why.

We were told he handed the paper to the court on Monday. We were also told that all the lawyers, including Santos de Oliveira, were inside the judge’s chambers. That showed, apparently, that Santos de Oliveira was not aware, at least that morning, that he had been fired.

Later, we would be told by the very-unfriendly-to-GA-paper, the Expresso that it had been on Friday, 13JUN14, that Mr Amaral had texted Santos de Oliveira firing him.

This has been denied by both Hernani Carvalho (who says he confirmed this with Santos de Oliveira) and Paulo Sargento on Monday during the programme “Queridas Manhãs - Actualidade Criminal” on SIC.

(SIC, Monday, 16 June 2014 - video here)

This is what they said around noon, on Monday:

“Joao Paulo Rodrigues - What must have passed through Gonçalo Amaral’s mind to drop the defense he had, the defense that you [Hernani Carvalho] have just said, was absolutely sure that today ....?

Hernani Carvalho - ... the decision was announced yesterday, I had the opportunity to check with Dr. Santos de Oliveira, the decision was communicated to him yesterday at 10 pm but about what goes on in people's minds we have here Dr. Paulo Sargento

Joao Paulo Rodrigues - But we have to agree that it is strange ...

Hernani Carvalho - ... very, very strange.

Joao Paulo Rodrigues - When we are on the threshold of achieving something, and like you said the defense was convinced that this was going to happen, even because the lawyer spoke of several successes, of several victories, last night ...

Paulo Sargento - Yes, it is very difficult, because ... it is very difficult to understand because it was in fact yesterday [15JUN14]  at 10 pm, give or take, everybody tried to get in touch with Gonçalo Amaral and I was only able talk to him this morning. Well, we talked and I'm not going to talk about the content of the conversation, they are issues that have to do with his life. He, in time, will say what led him to decide this but I had the opportunity to say that it wasn’t the right moment to decide like that. We, when we decide on right on top, plus with the risk of dying on the beach [idiomatic expression “morrer na praia” – equivalent to the British “to fall at the last fence”], as a general rule we decide badly. And when we decide alone and don’t ask the opinion of those around us, in fact I think that in this case it was the least that could be done because there are a lot ... as the McCanns have people working with them, thankfully Gonçalo Amaral has had also people who, ultimately, are systematically helping him and who are  standing by him and who also work in this process, in this process... and there should have existed a prior conversation... because in this case there are, shall we say, many people connected to this case. The motives are his, so he will say in time, he has every right in the point of view of a citizen to decide by what he thinks. Now this is a major setback. I have to assume it publicly because after what was crucial which the sale of the books and the McCanns putatively be prevented from doing this process and that could eventually lead to it’s nullity, it’s something that cannot be understood. More so when Dr. Isabel Duarte said something like "in short, this situation, in short, came during a situation in which it was tried to negotiate out of court (as Hernani said) and it wasn’t achieved”... Kate's expression when she knew.....”

As can be read, Paulo Sargento, besides being very unhappy with Mr Amaral’s decision and confirming that it was around 22H00 on Sunday night that Mr Amaral informed others including his lawyer, of the decision, is vague about the reasons. They are of a personal nature. he said.

About the reasons, this is what was said during that same programme:

“Paulo Sargento - But I'm sure that there is no strategy. This has to do with the life of Gonçalo Amaral and he will know the explanations to give that....

Julia Pinheiro - It’s asked, it’s asked here on Facebook, and sorry to interrupt Paulo, it’s asked if he was frightened by someone?

Paulo Sargento - I don’t think so.

(…)

Paulo Sargento -  I think, I think ... here's one thing, when Gonçalo Amaral took this decision with the motives that assist him and the reasons he thinks he has to make this decision, there’s also has another thing, he must have the vision, and moreover he is a jurist, of what he can and cannot do. I, in the middle of this morning [16JUN14] midmorning called him again, to warn him of this problem, so… but he seemed confident in what he was doing. Anyway... Now, it’s not understandable, indeed personal reasons can all be understandable, but at this moment we are at a point in the process where no matter how stronger personal reasons may seem, they are not enough to make decisions that are often hasty and can lead one to die when one can survive. And therefore I think we should all be calm and also wait a while so that the Inspector Amaral has his say, moreover he has every right to make this demarche.”

Only Mr Amaral knows why he made the decision. As far as we know he has yet to come out and say something of the sort of  “I have relieved my lawyer in this process because…”

But he has, in our opinion left clues for an educated guess.

To try to understand his reasons, the timing of firing the lawyer is important. We saw it was late Sunday night but before 22H00.

This is important because he appears on a CMTV Special on Maddie on Sunday at 23H00. Slightly over one hour after he had fired his lawyer.

This programme went unnoticed. Probably because of some game of the 2014 Soccer World Cup when most of our husbands take over the TV set in our home.

And none of us knew then the most important thing about his appearance: Mr Amaral was one of the very few people who knew he wouldn't have legal representation for the session on Monday.

(CMTV, Sunday, 15 June 2014)

Let’s see what he said (the video of this programme is not yet available online, reason why no link is being provided):

“João Ferreira, CMTV News Anchor - Gonçalo Amaral, I’ll start with you. These investigations by the British police are for show? [idiomatic expression: “para inglês ver” – “for the English to see”]

Gonçalo Amaral  - No, these investigations British police have much to do with what is happening. Note that Monday [16JUN14]  is the continuation of the trial of the application of the indemnity and none of this happens by accident. So I'm subject of a process in which it’s necessary, as Moita Flores said the other day in the newspaper Correio da Manhã, not to find guilt but excuses and, and this is what the British police are doing. The British police, with the support of the Portuguese police, is at the moment worried with my trial. Don’t you have any doubts about that. Concerned and are in some form pressuring...

João Ferreira - Gonçalo Amaral doesn’t have any doubts about that…

Gonçalo Amaral  - Oh, I don’t have any doubt about that because coincidences only exist when we want them to happen and in fact this has been so: if we look, if we create a flowchart throughout these years since the trial began and when there are these investigation peaks, all these peaks to go to the ground, don’t you doubt there’s a eve of a hearing of the trial, and this one is important.

João Ferreira - Why?

Gonçalo Amaral  - This hearing on Monday is important ... it would be the closing arguments. It will begin with the testimony of the parties, the parties of the case, the couple who appealed the judge's decision not to hear them, I hope to also be heard, let's see if I have that right, if they give me the right to be heard also as the accusers are heard, but deep down this has all to do with this. It hasn’t as much to do with the declaration of death in legal terms in England but with the process that is taking place. And it has to do with something that is very important. It’s not known what happened to Maddie, not known what happened ... but more importantly in the middle of all this is to understand what the mystery is that is behind all this and is protecting this couple

João Ferreira - But don’t you find it excessive that the British police in an investigation that already has it’s expenses around 5 million euros to be doing all this, if I may infer from your words, associated, in quotes, to Maddie’s parents just to harm you?

Gonçalo Amaral  - It doesn’t have only to do with... it has to do with everything. Note, it’s not only Maddie's parents, the parents of this child, who are at stake, it's also all those friends who are all doctors. It’s the mystery that is behind all this. Why this protection? Why isn't David Payne investigated, nor is the denunciation there is related to David Payne for paedophilia on the part of a couple, also doctors...

João Ferreira - One of the friends, one of the friends of the inner circle of those doctors who were with them in the Algarve, isn’t it so?

Gonçalo Amaral  - ...there is a mystery here that we need to understand. Then let me tell you, when the parents of this girl put this action against me, what they have been saying is that deep down there are there... this trial will serve to exonerate them. And all has been done to exonerate them. Note,  the reopening of the case, the de-archiving the case, the Portuguese Prosecutor, the Prosecutor of the Republic always said the process would only be reopened when there are new and credible facts. I ask why the case reopened, what are the new facts and which are credible?... Zero. And what happens at that moment [the reopening], there is a meeting in Lisbon, in which the British police was, in which was, as is said, the couple, and from which they come out and say they were exonerated with a reconstruction made by actors. All was done with the purpose of them being exonerated, the case is reopened and they are exonerated and there’s nothing which relates to them. We are not speaking here about the responsibility for the death or anything like that. I stay on the responsibility for the disappearance. And note that ...

João Ferreira - But is there something in concrete in the investigation that points to the responsibility of the parents in the disappearance?

Gonçalo Amaral  - Don’t you have any doubts, look, those children were under the guard of who? The parents, were they not? They were alone for 5, 6 or 7 nights by whose fault? Of the parents. That child who is said she had cried because of a burglary that didn’t happen, she cried two days before, was there an assault on that day too? By whose fault? The parents who were away more than 2 or 3 hours, so if those children disappeared they were negligently placed in that... in that situation, so the responsibility of the parents...

(The reporter interrupts with a question about the man who says he saw Gerry with a bottle at 1 am in front of his house on the nught of the 3rd. The programme continues, together with Tânia Laranjo, and goes on about this man, about the British police withholding statements and about the hypothesis of the body having been put inside a coffin, together with another corpse and cremated in Ferreira do Alentejo in late June/early July – the blog does not consider this issue of direct interest to this post so will speak about it when opportune.

We continue the present transcript at the point in which Mr Amaral is questioned if the fact the body may have been incinerated more than a month after Maddie’s disappearance, showed a weakness in the Portuguese investigation as in that time it was unable to find the body)

João Ferreira - Gonçalo, sorry, sorry to insist on this point because it is important, to have happened something like this, does it not reveal in a considerable weakness of the police, the Portuguese police that for a month could not find a body?

Gonçalo Amaral  - What weaknesses? The major weakness of the Portuguese police was to have allowed itself to be pressured by the British diplomacy, don’t forget that the normal thing is to...

João Ferreira -  Were you pressured in that sense?

Gonçalo Amaral  - I was pressured with the purpose to advance in the abduction thesis, don’t have any questions about that. The visit of the British ambassador and the meeting that happened in the PJ in Portimao with those responsible for the investigation is with the purpose that there’s an abduction. Soon after, the Faro Director came...

João Ferreira -  But was inspector Amaral, with experience he has, pressured directly by someone?

Gonçalo Amaral  - Say again?

João Ferreira -  Were you pressured directly by someone?

Gonçalo Amaral  - You know, pressures aren’t exactly with a gun in the hand, right? Pressures are ... there is, there is the ambassador there all the ambassador’s retinue, it’s the British ambassador to Portugal...

João Ferreira -  But where did you feel, what evidence did you have...

Gonçalo Amaral  - What evidence was there?

João Ferreira - …to say that, to feel pressured?

Gonçalo Amaral  - Look, mind you, until that moment, there were no certainties. We are talking about 24 hours after the disappearance, not that much or a little more so, around that, so Friday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday the ambassador was in Portimão. Until that moment we had not pointed towards that it was an abduction, if it was a homicide or what it was at stake. In fact the case was registered as an abduction. I have explained several times why and it even had 3 question marks in front of it, only like that could we proceed with the following process and use all the means that are necessary in a criminal investigation. And when ambassador goes there, goes with that purpose, with the purpose that there is an abduction and immediately after the meeting, the Faro Director, who is also the Portimão Director, responsible for the PJ in Faro, comes to give a statement to say there is an abduction and immediately after that is that the couple, there in Praia da Luz, comes out with the first statement also with the ambassador or someone from the embassy next to them ... You understand? So that is the pressure that happens...

Marcos Pinto - And you have also told me that once that there were people inside the PJ itself that advised you...

Gonçalo Amaral  - That is more in the final part.

João Ferreira -  …to follow another…

Gonçalo Amaral  - To wind down the process, until letting the process be archived as it was archived. So note that this was not a normal investigation, it was an investigation that from the beginning there was the issue of political correctness, and that is what is happening now. This, this farce of these searches, because they are a farce, they are a farce because they don’t have a solid bases, don’t have the probability of... There was a burglary? There was a robbery on a house? But where are the traces of the robbery? They took what? Nothing. Sophisticated thieves are frightened with a 3 yr old girl, they kill or she dies, and are frightened with that, they take her... they are so, look...

João Ferreira - We have to finish quickly, Gonçalo Amaral

Gonçalo Amaral  - …they are so ... they are so intelligent that they even remove the body from there, they don’t leave it there to blame the parents, because there was no trace of theft, and then go and place it near the house, which also by international standards the norm is when I don’t know a place, that I don’t know, I don’t have means of transportation for… the body that is under my guard appears close. So, somehow they could have left it to blame the parents, or those who had the guardianship, they could have left it inside the apartment. Because there were no traces!...

João Ferreira - Tell me something Gonçalo Amaral…

Gonçalo Amaral  - …do you understand? There were no traces of theft so no one knew if there was theft or not. But they put it outside which was let’s not raise suspicions about ... but then later, later they move it again. Wait there that I now take the body from here because it can be found… this doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t. 

João Ferreira - Gonçalo Amaral, we have to finish, let me just ask you a question, I ask you to answer as briefly as possible, at this moment can this case only be solved if there’s confession from someone?

Gonçalo Amaral  - At this moment for me, the case is only solved when it is known the mystery that leads to protection of not only this couple but of all those friends.”

It seems that Mr Amaral completely mistrusts the Portuguese Justice system and the current Portuguese investigation.

He says it’s all a farce and includes in it all that SY has done. He thinks it is all a whitewashing operation with the objective of exonerating the McCanns, and their friends from any and all blame.

Note that he includes the PJ in this whitewashing operation.

In terms of the Monday session of the trial, he seems to be upset about the uncertainty about being heard while he’s sure the McCanns would be able to have a voice there.

We know the McCanns were denied by the judge to speak in court due to the tardiness of their request. We think Mr Amaral’s similar request was also denied. We also know that the McCanns appealed against this decision and won and that is the reason why they expected to express themselves in court on Monday. We don’t know if Mr Amaral’s defense made the same appeal. We haven’t heard they did, and if they didn’t it would be explained why the McCanns were to speak and Mr Amaral not.

This could have been the reason for Mr Amaral having relieved his lawyer. Not wanting to have the McCanns speak in court while he watched silently. As we said, we don’t know. If we are then the fact that there are now 2 closing sessions - 08JUL for the plaintiffs and 10JUL for the defendants - may mean he got his way.

We don't think the reason would be him not wanting to be any longer part of the farce. We’re sure he understands that it will go on with him or without him. The closing session will happen and a sentence will be given. And if he has no right to speak in that last session, as apparently is the case, then his presence or that of his defense is not needed. His absence, in terms of court would be only a mere note on some minute and that of his representation would be taken as the abdication of the possibility to present the final arguments.

The evidence, we remind readers, was provided in all previous sessions. The judge has enough information to make a decision. The final allegations are but a colourful summing up of the evidence that was presented earlier. Nothing more than that.

But what attracted our attention was Mr Amaral’s perception of the complete whitewashing he thinks is going on.

On Tuesday, 17JUN14, the day after the bombshell, RTP passed this video on TV

(RTP1, Tuesday, 17 June 2014 - video at Joana Morais)

(Transcript by JM/Textusa)

“Helena Figueiras [Voice Over] - Gonçalo Amaral says that he is not a victim of the Maddie case but acknowledges that he has been dealing with the consequences of a battle for the past seven years, a battle he was forced to fight by virtue of being a policeman.

Gonçalo Amaral - We are part of the collateral damages and in fact that’s all we are. Mere extras in a tragedy... a tragedy that affects that family, no question about it, but mainly the victim, that is the child who disappeared and who may be, as all points to, dead.

Helena Figueiras [Voice Over] - The setbacks due to the case were translated into family, affective and material losses, nevertheless Gonçalo Amaral guarantees that he would write the book again in which he responsibilizes the McCann couple for their daughter's disappearance.

Gonçalo Amaral - Maybe even do a second... a second volume but...

Helena Figueiras- Would you have more to say?

Gonçalo Amaral - ...Actually, that is already written, it is written but I don't believe I'll publish any further books about this case.

Helena Figueiras [Voice Over] - As to the investigation, he speaks of avenues of investigation that he would follow again, with only one difference, he would never have let down the guard in relation to Kate and Gerry.

Gonçalo Amaral - It was due to those diplomatic issues, the ambassador’s intervention and all else, who promptly wanted to push towards the abduction thesis. That limited the police action in the sense that they [McCanns] would have been treated as suspects from the start otherwise. What does that imply? That means, that they and those close to them would have been the target of direct, personal surveillance, and also of electronic surveillance. We were lead to consider other paths and only later did we return to that starting point. In some way we wanted to be considerate, we wanted to be somewhat friendly, diplomatic, when that isn’t part of a police investigation.

Helena Figueiras [Voice Over] - As to the Scotland Yard operation in Praia da Luz practically overlapping the trial in which the McCanns accuse him of defamation, he says that is no coincidence.

Gonçalo Amaral - The issue of paying or not paying the one million two hundred thousand euros, that's not what they are really waiting for. They are using the trial to suggest something like "see, we're not guilty". Which is actually what has been taking place. The whole of the Scotland Yard investigation is heading towards that goal. It's a farce. By being politically correct, or by defending something that in my view it's not only the McCanns. It's something more. It's that whole group and everything that went on within that group of doctors, a reflection of the English society itself.

Helena Figueiras [Voice Over] - After all that remains to be said…

Gonçalo Amaral - Those who held the custody of that child are responsible for her disappearance, at the very least for her disappearance, nothing more than that.”

He confirms the whitewashing. The enormous whitewashing where he, a central figure of this whole affair, sees himself as simply an extra.

Plus he goes as far as saying the 100K-plus pound SY spectacle put on Luz was not only linked but also timed with this last session before sentencing of the trial.

We have had the chance to provide our opinion about it as we had an anon ask us exactly that. But this post is not about our opinion about Mr Amaral’s opinion but about what we think Mr Amaral’s opinion is. And we may, we repeat, be completely wrong.

We will not provide at this point in time any opinion about what Mr Amaral has done by relieving his lawyer. We won’t state if it was a major setback, if a significant improvement or if completely irrelevant. We trust our readers to think and come up with their own opinion and we consider that we are in a position in which we should not provide one at this time.

But let us assure you that we remain as optimistic as we were before this about the outcome of the trial. Anything that goes against Mr Amaral will only reveal transparent nonsense.

But we fully understand Mr Amaral’s opinion.

In 2007 he witnessed like no one else did, first hand, the pressure of the British (diplomatically and all British agencies that UK got involved in the PJ investigation and the British lack of selective collaboration in withholding evidence) as well as the submission of the Portuguese.

He witnessed his work, and that of his colleagues, being discarded by his own superiors and being vilified by the British with them doing absolutely nothing.

And then he saw what must have raised a million red flags to him: the burglary thesis.

We first heard it, last year with the 3 Burglar episode. That was in 2013. But Mr Amaral heard it in 2007. Guess from who? From SY.

This is what Mr Amaral said on CMTV of 07JUN14:

(CMTV, Sunday, 07 June 2014 - video at Joana Morais)

(Transcript by Joana Morais)(video at JM)

“Marcos Pinto, CMTV News Anchor - How do you view the 'movie' of the searches this week?

Gonçalo Amaral - That's exactly what it is, it is a movie. There are English journalists who speak of a farce, of something that is being staged for the media, and perhaps there's nothing more than that. What is risky and very serious it's this attempt to produce a new thesis - the thesis that was divulged recently - of someone who commits a theft, gets scared by a 3-year-old child, murders the child for that reason and then whisks the body away, that to me sounds rather preposterous. But it's nothing new. If you'll recall the investigation at the time - if you remember I was working in that investigation for the first 6 months, not seven, or three or four years like the Scotland Yard - there was a similar thesis. It was actually put forward by a colleague, from the British police, namely from the Scotland Yard. He was the only Scotland Yard officer present in that task group, which included officers from the PJ and English police, and him, from the Scotland Yard. He put forward that hypothesis, which was discussed and completely set aside because it didn't add up. Now they even tried to sex up that thesis, by spicing it up with drug dealers who besides trafficking drugs had the idea, one day, of burglarizing a house... No one has proven that house [McCann's apartment] was broken into, that there was a burglary, there were no traces of a break-in...”

We had always been intrigued as to why Mr Amaral wanted the presence, which was denied by the British authorities, of SY Officer De Freitas during the book trial.

Now we think we know.

We think Mr Amaral may have wanted De Freitas to say the word “death” linked to Maddie in court. To say that in 2007 SY thought Maddie had been killed during a bungled burglary. That in 2007 SY thought that Maddie was dead. That is what we think Mr Amaral wanted De Freitas to say in court.

Then, we remind readers, the issue was whether if Maddie was dead or not. The whole issue was about the fact that Mr Amaral said Maddie was dead harmed or not the search for Maddie. THEN, remember, no one could say Maddie was dead without looking over their shoulders to see if Carter-Ruck were breathing down their neck. Then the issue was not about whether Maddie had been killed in a burglary or died by other reasons. This alone shows how much has changed from the book trial to now.

So it is natural for Mr Amaral on seeing before his eyes the unfolding and the materialisation of a bogus thesis put forward in 2007 by SY, added to his own experience on how submissive Portugal was in 2007/2008 to sincerely believe that a humongous whitewashing is indeed in progress. One that includes the PJ.

As we have said, this is not the time to discuss whether we agree or not. What is important now is to set differences aside and provide our support to him the best way we can, and that is to tell our readers that it’s our firm conviction that the trial will go Mr Amaral’s way. He has our unwavering support.

We continue to think good-sense and realism will prevail, so our optimism remains as untouched as ever.

But the De Freitas episode shows us two very important things.

The first is that SY was directly involved in the investigation in 2007, so it didn’t exactly pick up new files in 2011 with the opening of the review (it would be absolutely strange for a country like UK to leave such a high-profile case in the hands of a local police, the Leicestershire Constabulary).

The second is that this burglary story is a second attempt by SY. We still think it will be stupid to pursue it. No, not stupid, but very, very stupid. But we must recognise that they have spent a lot of money on a legless thesis so it might just well be that someone, really, really stupid, is pushing it to stump along as lame as it may be.

But much more important than these two important things that the De Freitas episode has brought to the case, are the three really very important things that this lawyer episode has brought to it:

First, Mr Amaral has spoken the C-word. Cremation. The possibility that Maddie was cremated. Said by Gonçalo Amaral on live TV and reported the next day in Correio da Manhã, a paper with major circulation in Portugal and then echoed in the Mirror.

Cremation.

The CdM report does put it completely out of context. In the programme Mr Amaral speaks of this, the possibility of cremation - which was reported to him by a RAI reporter - when comparing its credibility with what had apparently sparked the SY Circus in PdL which was the Portuguese man speaking English, with a British accent, on a mobile while holding Maddie seen by an unknown British tourist.

But Sunday was not the first time Mr Amaral spoke about the possibility of Maddie's body no longer existing. On his 07JUN14 CMTV appearance:

"Marcos Pinto, CMTV News Anchor - Then there is a statement from Gerry and Kate in the middle of this week to thank the authorities for their support and efforts to continue to bring Madeleine home ... this is the expression...

Gonçalo Amaral - Yes, there are also other expressions, Mr. Gerald McCann said a few years ago, 2, 3 years, I no longer remember, that if she is dead then find the body, show the body, so he will know why he says show the body, isn’t it? Because there are other elements that point to the fact that no body exists, isn’t it? Therefore these elements should also be taken into account, who is in the investigation should consider how a body would disappear, how it would be possible for this body to disappear under those circumstances.”

As always, when something becomes known it cannot be unknown. People read the word cremated and the word cremated made sense. And there is a crematorium in Ferreira do Alentejo. And the cadaver dog signalled the boot of the rented car. And it wasn’t a crazy old bat and her tea-addicted friends who were saying it on a blog but Gonçalo Amaral himself.

Before you ask, we don’t think the 2-in-1 coffin scenario to have been the likely and will one day explain why. For now what matters is that the cremation word has been outed. It is out there and cannot ever be return to its forced hypocritical enclosure.

The second important thing is that Mr Amaral has finally gone explicitly outside the McCann couple. He speaks of the group being protected. In fact, he implies that others than the McCanns are really the ones really being protected. “Those friends” of a group where “all were doctors” – which we know very well is not the case. And we say there were many other “friends”  besides those of that particular group .

The third and most important is what Mr Amaral has decided to no longer keep quiet: the cover-up. Solve the mystery of the protection and you have solved “Maddie’s mystery”, says Mr Amaral quite explicitly.

When Mr Amaral says it’s a farce, it’s irrelevant in terms of it being one or not – everyone does considers it is – but when Mr Amaral says it’s a farce to PROTECT, then, yes, it becomes very, very important.

And look at who he puts in the “protection” melting pot: SY, PJ (all the way up to its directorate) and whoever is able to control the Portuguese courts.

We would say that it is just a little more than the whole of the OC staff and a cast of PdL residents. A tiny little bit more.

The size of the cover-up in Mr Amaral’s version is measured by the circus in PdL, by the tying of hands in the PJ and by the courts in Lisbon. That’s a pretty big cover-up by all standards.

And it does answer that question that has popped up once in a while “why do you speak of a cover-up if Mr Amaral has never mentioned such?” Well, he now has. Very clearly and very explicitly.

By the way, to all those who say that some of the OC staff would have spoken out by now, we will be patiently waiting for the voices of some of all those SY Officers who were on their hands and knees looking for absolutely nothing knowing they were looking for absolutely nothing to come out denouncing why they were on their hands and knees looking for absolutely nothing knowing they were looking for absolutely nothing. Or does anyone believe that all those SY Officers really believed they were really looking for Maddie’s body in those specific rock hard grounds and in those sewers after 7 winters and their rains?

They were told to do their job and to keep quiet about what they were doing. The OC Staff was doing its job and told to keep quiet about what had happened in that apartment and about what was happening in  the resort.

When this happened, one message between us was “I did not see this one coming”. We didn’t. Now that it has come, we welcome it. Let the bombshelling continue.