The Last Chance Saloon

1. Introduction

As expected, things are really stirring up after Mr Amaral’s court decision.

Literally for years now we have been saying the final decision on the Maddie case was held up by UK involvement to the point of exasperation of all of us.

Now on April 19 this decision has finally been seen to come out, everyone involved in the case is having the last opportunity to place their chips on the roulette table.

It’s now or never.

The tailors are pressuring the Emperor so he continues to walk around with no clothes whatsoever when it comes to Maddie, and he’s trying his best to get some real clothes back on.

The days we are living through now are a tug-o-war with an unknown victor. Chaos rules. And while it rules it would be unwise to draw any conclusion. All one can and should do is to try to understand how each play is being played.

We have noticed these:

- On April 23, Mr Amaral went on CMTV (transcript on Joana Morais).

- On April 24 and 25 the Sun, the Mail and the Mirror ran the story of how £50,000 had been raised to help Mr Amaral fight his suit against the McCanns. This issue has developed to having donors being doorstepped, directly and indirectly, by the Mail, as we will speak about further down the post;

- On April 26, Sir Bernard Hogan Howe said that Operation Grange would be closing in the next few months when it closes its last line of inquiry in the Maddie case;

- On April 28, the Star published the article “Maddie McCann 'snatched in botched break-in' Cops sure they know what happened to girl” which made us travel back in time to July 2014;

- On April 28, the Mirror published the article “Kate McCann wants new artist's impression as nobody would recognise teen Madeleine” and its title sums up what it’s about.


2. Mr Amaral on CMTV

In our opinion, it was basically a rerun of what had been aired in 2013. The videos used were the same ones.

But this time, Mr Amaral had one different and very important message to put out: his  book “A Verdade da Mentira” is to be published in English.

He did not clarify if it will be published by a Portuguese or an English publisher. He said he was talking to his publisher, which we are supposing is Guerra & Paz, but these could be talking to a British publisher. We don’t know. All we know is that Mr Amaral intends to have his words printed in English so that English speakers can read an officially translated version of his book.

Years ago we suggested to Mr Amaral that he get a Portuguese publisher to publish it in English and the internet would take care of the dissemination.

The book being available, no longer in its “black-market” version, will put enormous pressure on UK.

Mr Amaral’s book is easy to read, unlike the PJ Files, and unlike the multitude of the internet sites on the case, for us included, it puts all in one place.

People are curious about why this book caused such a fuss. They want to make up their own minds about it. They will look for it when it’s published.

The excuse of errors in translation will no longer serve any use as people will be able to read what has been approved by Mr Amaral.

The publicity given to the court decision was free publicity for the book. And a good opportunity. We are certain that when, not if, the book goes on sale online and in bookstores, it will be news in the UK.

It has guaranteed being sold to the many who have downloaded the online version and who have vowed they would buy the book when it finally came out. And it’s coming out.

The only way to stop the public from reading it would be for the McCanns to threaten to sue anyone who gave news, good or bad, about the book being published.

That, we would love to see. And would love even more to see if the media rolled on their backs if faced with that threat.

No one should set aside the possibility of the book being published in the UK.

Everyone knows that when the lion is weak even the hyena comes for a bite and even if the case is to be archived, the McCann lion is moribund. Anyone can see that for them to fight successfully the McCanns will have to contradict what has been extensively and well explained in the sentence of April 19. The proven facts in that sentence are absolutely damning for the McCanns.

Would any British court refuse to take it into account? We think not, it would be an insult to the Portuguese.

With that in mind, it’s perfectly possible that some British publisher, faced with possibility of profit but most importantly with the prospect of making history as the “bravest of the brave”, will publish the book in the UK.

But irrelevant of in what country the English version of the book will be published what needs to be pointed out is the resolution with which GA is determined to do so. For example, judging by his words, suing the McCanns comes in second to having the book published in English.

And this book is certainly no friend of archival.


3. The £50,000 support

This shows us quite clearly how things are confusing.

Chronologically we had the Sun, the Mail and the Mirror running the same topic and putting out, apparently, different messages

And chronologically we had the same people being called, “sick trolls”, then “British trolls” and ending up as “Brits”.

The Sun: “Sick Brit trolls pay £50k to Portuguese cop who accused Madeleine McCann's parents of lying about daughter’s abduction”.

The Mail: “British trolls paid £50,000 to help Portuguese policeman fight his libel suit against Madeleine McCann's parents”.

The Mirror: “Brits raise £50,000 for Portuguese cop who accused Madeleine McCann's parents of 'lying' after daughter's mystery abduction”.

It must be said that our much well known Antonella Lazzeri tones down inside her article the “sick trolls” of the title to a much more healthy and nationalistic “British trolls”, although saying that only Brits donated selflessly to the GoFund is incorrect as many other well meaning people from many other nationalities also did.

We also noted that Lazzeri doesn’t say Maddie was abducted but instead says that Maddie vanished from the Algarve. If even Lazzeri cannot bring herself to say the A word, then who else can?

By the way, we hope the reader has noticed that the A word has disappeared completely from the Maddie case vocabulary. Vanished, missing and disappeared are the words currently in use.

Everyone, and we mean really everyone, knows they are being ridiculous in associating Maddie with abduction.

The only really negative thing we read in these articles was Lazzeri calling (and the Mail quoting her) the PJGA (Projecto Justiça Gonçalo Amaral (Gonçalo Amaral Justice Project)) an “anti-McCann 'fan club'”, when it is, as we all know, a pro-Amaral 'fan club'.

A fan club that mobilised enough funds to kick that bit of anatomy that exists below the lower back of the mighty McCann legal machine. That is indeed one good and commendable fan club.

On the contrary, we read very positive words in the Mirror’s article:

“And Brits who support Amaral have raised up to £50,000 to support him in the long-running legal dispute.

One wrote on a Facebook page entitled Justice for Madeleine Mccann and Goncalo Amaral: "I donated too and I will keep donating - this man deserves to have his say".

"I also donated and every penny was worth it," another said.

Those supportive of Amaral have been labelled "trolls".

Another wrote: "So proud [to be] one of them 'trolls' who donated money to a good man who was simply doing his job."”

Supporters who have been labelled trolls.

What is not positive about the above?

But let’s stop for a minute and analyse the timing and content of these articles as we think people are really missing their point.

On first glance one would think it was the other side reacting to the sentence, but is it really that?

What are they all really saying? That GA has had enough financial support to take on the McCanns and which he will continue to have to face their appeal to the Supreme Justice Court.

Note that nowhere in these articles is it said that GA is lying.

Not even in Lazzeri’s masterpiece: “Goncalo Amaral, 57, was ordered to pay Kate, 47, and Gerry, 48, half a million euros after accusing them of lying about Maddie’s abduction” and “the McCanns, of Rothley, Leics, who deny his claims, planned to use the payout to help find Madeleine”.

Not Mr Amaral wrongly accusing them but simply accusing them. The McCanns are not denying his lies but simply denying his claims. And nowhere is it said his claims are lies. On the contrary, it says he won the legal battle to claim what he claims.

So the message is that the McCanns can bring it on as much they want as GA has the financial means to accompany the McCanns to the end of this legal battle.

And no supporting words to cheer them on, quite the contrary. It’s basically demystifying the libel threat that the couple has represented all these years. Completely emptying out their threat.

As we said above this issue has had, it seems, quite an interesting development. It seems that the Mail is doorstepping, directly or mandating others to do it for them, donors to the GoFund to ask them ask them why they donated.

To the best of our knowledge this has happened to 2 people so far but it seems the intention was to do this to hundreds.

If one really intends to sell the colour blue, then one seeks the weakest link within the sellers of red and then one does the best one can to discredit that colour and those selling it.

If one goes after hundreds of red colour salesmen, then one will know beforehand that what one will get is a bucketful of compliments and reasons to buy red instead of blue.

For someone who sells blue to attack one or 2 people selling red, means that someone really wants to sell the colour blue. But to go after hundreds of them is to really want to sell red even if one says one wants to sell blue.

We don’t know what the intentions of the Mail on this are. But let’s be naïve for a minute and allow the possibility of that paper wanting to do a complimentary piece on the so-labelled trolls, showing what good natured and well-intentioned people they are.

To do that the paper would have to contact people directly and the best way to do that is to look up the names of those who opted not to donate anonymously to the fund.

Anyone who decided to put their name and location knew the risks they ran and we believe are ready to stand behind their donations. Nowhere have they breached any law and did anything they should feel ashamed for, on the contrary, all feel proud to have donated the way they did.

In a decent world, the journo by searching online a name and a location would only run the risk of contacting the wrong John Smith in Leicester when wanting to find a Leicester John Smith.

And in that same decent world, if the right John Smith was the one contacted and he opted to not give his opinion about his donation his wish would be respected and no one else would ever know better about this encounter with the journo just doing his job and his privacy remain intact.

However, we do not live in a decent world and as we said we don’t know the Mail’s intentions.

We know that Brit tabloids will turn a Sunday into a Tuesday if they have to. If they are set on making a person look bad, even if Snow White comes to the door, she will be portrayed as the evil witch.

We would advise people to refrain from having any aggressive reaction in defense of the truth if approached by a Mail journo. We would suggest to rather greet politely and just recommend that the PJ Files, that are easily available online, should be read by anyone really wanting to form an opinion about the subject and if that would prove to be too great of a task, to wait for the publication in English of Mr Amaral’s book, stopping the conversation there with a smile.


4. Hogan Howe and the single line of inquiry

No sooner had Chief Superintendent Mick Duthie fanned the embers of the Scotland Yard investigation than his boss, Hogan Howe was seemingly putting a dampener on the sparks.

On April 18 in the Standard article “Madeleine McCann detective: we still hope to find her alive”, Duthie suggested that the investigation could continue beyond the next 6 months, as well as mentioning the murder word.

On April 26, Hogan Howe was interviewed on LBC radio, saying SY were on their last lead, which would probably lead to the conclusion of the inquiry. His voice was echoed on BBC’s online article “Madeleine McCann case: One line of inquiry remains”.

Duthie speaks of “pursuing “justifiable and reasonable” leads in the investigation into the missing three year-old” but what was plural, as in leads, becomes just 8 days later with Hogan Howe saying only one single lead.

Does Hogan Howe know something more than someone who is in “overall charge of the investigation Operation Grange” in Scotland Yard does? Is Operation Grange wasting precious human and financial resources pursuing useless leads when there’s only one that matters?

But was Hogan Howe really dampening things down?

Hogan Howe didn’t give any indication how long it would take to pursue this last line of inquiry or whether it could extend beyond the next 6 months.

The text of the radio interview, with thanks to Joana Morais, reveals a man who seems deeply uncomfortable with the information he is discussing.

The inarticulate and waffling style is reminiscent of the Tapas 7 rogatory interviews. He never once mentions Madeleine by name. “It’s a child who went missing” and “sadly, if she is dead, we need to give some comfort to the family.”

He’s vague about the number remaining in the team: “I think we’re down to one or two people, at one stage it was about thirty officers.”

It all sounds like a man distancing himself from what others around him are doing, not the man in overall control.

Martin Fricker of The Mirror takes up the story : “Madeleine McCann parents not surprised police probe could end in a few months”.

And how many months is exactly a few?

A close friend: “They’ve been waiting the end for some time.” (make of that what you will)

Hogan Howe: “Unless any new evidence emerges, that will spell the end of the probe” (wasn’t that the only condition – emergence of new evidence – for the Portuguese to reopen the case which they did?).

Fricker: “They are aware police want to pursue the one remaining line of inquiry but have been told not to discuss it publicly” and “Scotland Yard refused to say what the final line of inquiry was.”

The BBC was more successful in their journalism, as they were able to specify what the remaining line of inquiry was centred around. “A letter asking for assistance sent from the UK investigators to the Portuguese Prosecution Service in July 2015.”

This must be a rogatory letter.

The 5th rogatory letter was sent in 2014. This related to the 11 people interviewed by SY in Portugal in October 2014, which included Robert Murat, Silvia Baptista and the Hills. In an article written by Marisa Rodrigues, Jornal de Noticias on November 4 2014, translated by Joana Morais:

“New witnesses of the English investigation to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance are going to be questioned at the request of Scotland Yard. The fifth letter rogatory is already in the hands of the Judiciary Police…. Last time they were in Portugal, on 14th of October, the English police expressed their desire to make a new letter rogatory [the sixth]  requesting the re-analysis of the samples that had been collected in the apartment from where Madeleine disappeared, namely hair samples and the fabric belonging to a curtain.

In a meeting at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (INML), in Coimbra, which gathered detectives and forensic experts, Andy Redwood’s team also spoke about the possibility that some of the samples could be taken to England and analysed in a private lab. [our response – nooo, you must be kidding, after the FSS debacle] Until the end of the afternoon, yesterday, no request had been made in that sense to the Public Ministry of Portimão, whose role is to assess and decide on the letters rogatory.”

Is the letter of July 2015 the 6th rogatory referred to here?

That would mean a 9 month delay after the stated intention to apply for a further rogatory letter; which would not an unreasonable delay, considering Redwood retired in December 2014.

The curtain was referred to in the UK press at the time as a bedroom curtain, which it could NOT have been, as the bedroom curtains were never tested at the time. To be re-tested, a test must have already been carried out and the only curtains tested were the blue and white curtains from the LIVING room of apartment 5A. The curtains alerted to by Keela, the CSI/blood dog.

IF this is the subject of a 6th rogatory letter, IF the curtain/s has been re-tested and IF the re-testing leads to links with Madeleine, this would not necessarily be the end of the matter in terms of evidence, in our opinion. Keela alerts to blood, but not necessarily that of a dead person.  Although blood could be explained away, however, Eddie’s alerts in the same area point to an ominous scenario.

But it hardly points to a burglary gone wrong. How a burglar could kill a child, clean up, take away the cleaning materials and the child in the given timescale of approximately 40 minutes? We showed how ridiculous it would be in trying to pull that off in our “Third Option” post.

Let’s return to our decent world again. If Scotland Yard was really doing police work wouldn’t the fact that it has reduced lines of inquiry to a single one mean really good news?

Isn’t that the objective of any criminal investigation? To reduce the lines of inquiry to one single and decisive one? That one last and solid line of inquiry that supports the rightful accusation against the evil doers?

And isn’t this last line of inquiry related to what most damns the McCanns: forensics? All seems to point that way.

Before one gets one’s spirits high because of Hogan Howe, one should treat good news in the exact way as one does with the bad: with caution.

In this case, how does he know what the conclusion to the rogatory request will be? He doesn’t. So how come is he so certain that what it will say will mean closure of investigation? Can’t it come back with new evidence that will require new lines of inquiry to be pursued and causes the investigation to remain open?

He can only have said what he did if he knows, as we think he does, beforehand all the answers to the questions asked to Portugal. Or that he knows that its conclusions will be tailored to the decision to be taken. If truth, it will be condemning for the McCanns, if archival, nothing new on the Southern front.

That would mean a rigged game, but that, as we have been saying these years, comes as no surprise.

What happened in between Duthie and Hogan Howard speaking? The court sentence, that’s what happened. The long awaited sentence.

To simplify, Duthie, before the sentence says the show goes on until we hear something from the Portuguese court and Hogan Howe after the sentence, says ok the sentence is out, it’s time to think about closing the curtains on this show.

Whatever both have garnished their plates with is just that, garnish. If only Duthie had just waited 24 hours more…


5. The pillow-man

From what we have seen, the other side has up to now reacted twice as much as we could see.

The first was the April 28 article in the Star – the same one that said GA had won the right to accuse the McCanns – “Maddie McCann 'snatched in botched break-in' Cops sure they know what happened to girl”

This article’s initial title was “Three 'key' burglar suspects are questioned over Madeleine McCann” but was changed during the day.

It takes us back to July 2014, to the July arguidos, reason why we interrupted our Summer Break of that year to write the post “Outrageous”.

But now Jerry Lawton tells us who pointed the finger to 2 of the 3: “Criminal psychologist Heriberto Janosch González says he tipped off police about da Silva and Rodrigues in 2013.”

It will remain to be explained why “drug addict Paulo Ribeiro, 53” was dragged into this mess if Janosch didn’t do it.

Heriberto Janosh Gonzalez is the author of the “long-armed-snatcher” video:

The pillow abductor. Did the pillow wake up or was it sedated?

Why another letter on July 15 2015 if the 3 have already been interviewed and not re-interviewed in December?

If it wasn’t for the fact the memory of a little girl is being insulted and the naming of the arguidos again after all this time, it would be funny.

By pointing the finger to a homeless and a drug-addict as responsible for the most highly visible case of a missing child in history is like trying to sell chocolate using cow-dung. Who needs friends like these who point to people like this?

This is the McCanns threatening to sue whoever publishes GA’s book in England all over again: much too obnoxious and ridiculous for it not be so on purpose.

Just another little push to help humanity loath the McCanns even more and whoever professes abduction.


6. Pushing the Third Option

This article from the Star has however proven to be useful as it shows how really desperate the other side is and without any minimally credible arguments to present in their defense. To pick up and echo  this piece of trash can only mean they have little or nothing to hold on to.

We’re talking about the articles from the Sun, “Revealed: Brit cops 'know who snatched Maddie' - and think they have questioned him already” and from the Mail “Madeleine McCann 'was kidnapped during a botched burglary by a gang of thieves who British police have already quizzed' but are blocked from questioning again”.

Both articles without Heriberto Janosh Gonzalez but with all the ridiculousness left intact.

The other side is really trying to enforce the Third Option or “Negligence” even knowing how preposterous it would be to even try it.

To confirm this intention, the Star today has come out with the article “Portuguese minister reveals: We didn’t charge Maddie’s parents out of compassion” in which is said:

“The revelations came from Rui Pereira, who was Portugal’s minister of internal affairs – the equivalent of the UK’s Home Secretary.

He told a Portuguese TV show it was an error not to make GP mum Kate, 48, and heart doctor dad Gerry, 47, suspects – or arguidos – for “abandonment””.

The fact the Star quotes from a “a Portuguese TV show” means that Jerry Lawton has read a transcript of the April 26 CMTV show so we can soon expect an article about the cremation of Maddie’s body as it was the subject of discussion in the same show.

Please note that we think it would have been much more important to have seen questioned by Mr Amaral and the other Portuguese commentators present, Rui Pereira, Tânia Laranjo and Manuel Rodrigues (not Moita Flores as appears in the Star article) the negligence scenario than the cremation of the body.

This negligence scenario is all that sustains the McCann version of events and against which there is solid evidence and the cremation of the body, which we think is also very important to find out what happened to it, as far as we know is based on 3 shadowy figures and a nameless body that are not part of the PJ Files.

It’s up to CMTV to know best what editorial line it should follow.

On seeing the Third Option being pushed one cannot stop another from being stupid nor from calling others stupid but one can warn them that there’s usually a very high price associated in doing either.

If this is the best the tailors have to publicly pressure the Emperor then they have indeed very little. However, one should never underestimate the capability they have privately to twist arms.  


7. Kate and Portugal

The other reaction was the April 28 the Mirror article “Kate McCann wants new artist's impression as nobody would recognise teen Madeleine”

Isn’t Kate saying explicitly in this article that looking for Maddie is absolutely useless as no one would be able to recognise her even if they looked straight into her face?

Note that on realising this damning fact to the search of her daughter, it’s said that the McCanns are only thinking about doing the new artist’s impression. Not set on doing it, just raising that possibility.

What is important in this message is that Kate continues to point her guns to Praia da Luz. Both explicitly – “Kate thinks Madeleine never left Portugal” and “Kate, 48, thinks Madeleine never left Portugal Kate, 48, thinks Madeleine never left Portugal” – and implicitly – “They think her hair, and skin if she has been in a hot country, would be darker”.

Kate insists that the solution to the case lies in Praia da Luz. We agree with her.


8. Conclusion

Things are really happening in Maddie’s Wild, Wild West. The Last Chance Saloon has opened its doors and its customers are now ordering the drinks, eyeballing each other, measuring each other up before walking out into the dusty street for a gunfight similar to the one at the OK Corral.

We know it will be soon. The sun is setting and there are no duels in the dark.

We know that duel in Tombstone went in favour of the Wyatt brothers. Then, they were the ones wearing the Marshall badges. Let’s hope this is repeated in 2016.