The complaint

(Pic from here)

1. Introduction

On Saturday, Feb 18, we were surprised by Correio da Manhã, informing us all that the McCann legal team was requesting, or had requested the annulment of the ruling (acórdão) of the Supreme Justice Court because it considered it frivolous (leviano) “because it was not possible for the Public Prosecutor to obtain sufficient evidence of crimes by the appellants”.

We, like everyone else, were caught by surprise. The surprise being that we, like everyone else, thought the Supreme Justice Court ruling of Jan 31 2017, had put an end, once and for all, to all legal business of the McCann v Amaral trial as we said in our post “Square One”.

We even said that “this is the first time hearing of a Supreme Justice Court being contested”, that’s how surprised we were.

Counter-Attack

1. Facts

Daily Mail Alternative Fact: “These allegations were aired during the 2015 libel case in Portugal and it is important to point out that the blood traces were never identified as human”

FACT: It was considered proven by the 3 Portuguese courts, 1st Instance, Appeal and Supreme Justice that: “6. The dogs Eddie and Keela, from the British police, have detected human blood and cadaver scent in the apartment 5A of the Ocean Club.”

Daily Mail Alternative Fact: “As for the Irish couple Amaral cites, the man [Martin Smith] who was in his 70s admitted he was not wearing his glasses at the time”.

FACT: Martin Smith never of himself not wearing glasses. He twice makes a reference to glasses, when he states that the man he sees carrying the little girl is not wearing a pair and then of when he had seen Murat previously and he remembers that Robert Murat was not wearing glasses when he saw him that time.

Game changer

1. Introduction

Over 2 years ago, back in January 2015 we said in our post “To haste or not to haste” that “the McCann ship as of Wednesday is beyond repair. It took a fatal blow to its hull” and concluded that post with “the McCann ship is beyond repair. Impossible to recover. Impossible to whitewash”.

All this because on that Wednesday January 21 2015, the 1st Instance Court let us all know what it considered were the proven and the not proven facts of the case.

McCanns NOT cleared

The sentence of the Supreme Justice Court of the McCann v Amaral Lisbon Trial has today been published on Projecto Justiça Gonçalo Amaral (PGJA) here.

We are waiting for the translation of the document that is being done there, which we here would like to immediately show our gratitude for.

Square One

 1. Introduction

Those who read us know that we’re rarely, if ever, optimistic. That doesn’t make us pessimistic. We like to have as a motto for our attitude to preclude the worst, hope for the best and prepare for the likely.

In the case of the Lisbon trial, the likely was the best. So we were prepared for it.