Mornin’ all

So Gordie wants this all out of the way before a snap election… Well it could go all wrong. My advice to Gordie would be to let this settle not stir up the hornet’s nest by getting the chief sacked. The PJ may take ages to replace the chief… Looks like the whole thing has pissed off the rank and file PJ… Does that mean they will be even more determined to spoil McCannLand’s party? Will this put the story on the Portuguese press front pages again?

And where is Cuddle Cat? Abducted? - didn’t see it in the latest pic of their holy fragrances…

Stevo,
Posted this on the last thread but thought it would be a good way to start the day.
I read on thisislondon that firemen who found 4 men dogging in parkland were disciplined by their bosses and had to pay a fine. I might have read it wrong but nothing would surprise me any more.
So early this morning as the sun was rising, I bade farewell to Madeleine and Mr Common Sense who has clearly departed from the human realm despite serving us well for hundreds of years.
I am hoping Mr Common Sense will embrace Madeleine and protect her.
Us that remain are well and truly stuffed.
Especially when I read this -
Quote
Who’s Afraid of the McCanns
Clarence Mitchell, a former spin-doctor from British Government, is a liar. Nothing new, because this is an essential characteristic for somebody who has this kind of job. The most recent lie was published today. Mr. Clarence Mitchell told the Mirror “Kate and Gerry have consistently said they are willing to co-operate with Portuguese authorities and will continue to do so, regardless of who is in charge of the hunt for Madeleine.”

The “debutant” - as Richard Branson called him - Portuguese lawyer Pinto de Abreu said exactly the opposite. So, one of them is a liar. I believe Mr. Pinto de Abreu told the truth, when he revealed that Kate McCann refused to answer several times, when questioned by Police. I don’t believe Mr. Clarence Mitchell, because his job has been – and still is – not to tell the truth, but to try to create the idea that truth is what better serves the interest of his bosses, whoever they are.

But the most interesting statement of Mr. Clarence Mitchell, the once powerful head of Media Monitoring Unit, was on GMTV: “What (the McCann) want now is whoever takes over to refocus the inquiry onto finding Madeleine.”

Meaning, what the McCann want is that Portuguese Police forgets the evidence collected by a British Police special team, working with the two most valuable and efficient sniffer dogs of all police forces in UK – Keela and Eddie – at Praia da Luz.

What the McCann want, according to Clarence Mitchell, is that Portuguese Police start to pretend that it is a strong possibility that Madeleine McCann is alive – a theory that goes against the results of the analysis of the samples collected by the British Police special team at Praia da Luz - analysis done at Forensic Science Service, in Birmingham.

But Clarence Mitchell is doing his job. That’s what is paid for, by the several British millionaires that are the financial supporters of the McCann. What I don’t understand is why the answer for the challenges and threats coming from the McCann has been the silence, coming from the Portuguese Prime-Minister, Mr. José Sócrates, from the Chairman of the Supreme Magistrates Council, Judge Noronha do Nascimento, from the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Service, Mr. Pinto Ribeiro and from the director of Policia Judiciária, Mr. Alípio Ribeiro (pictured above…)

Are they afraid of the McCann? Are they afraid of who is behind the McCann? I can’t believe they are. I can’t accept they are. But I can’t understand why they have been so silent, month after month of an amazing campaign of slur, slander, calumny, defamation and insult to all the institutions those persons represent: our Nation, our Judicial system, our Courts, our Public Prosecutor’s Office and our Police.

I never heard a word of Mr. Alípio Ribeiro defending one of his men, Criminal Coordinator Gonçalo Amaral. He never had the courage to come forward and say that he trusted the man who was in the spotlight, the nº 1 target of British tabloid’s journalists (*), people that behave like a pack of hyenas and have to lick each other for mutual reconnaissance, in order to avoid episodes of cannibalism.

When you are in command and you don’t take care of your men, you risk to lose the battle. Because your men don’t trust you. If you want to lead, you have to be the first to move forward and face the enemy. If you do that, your men will fight and die for you. But even if you stay in the comfort and cosiness of your command post, at the top of your ivory tower, while your men are struggling in the trenches, you can be sure they will do their job. They have a mission and a duty, and that’s more important than the man that, by accident, happens to be their commander. A man that never had his shoes in the mud, never smelled a rotten body, never heard the noise of bullets passing by.

But when those men finish their job, they will come for you. They will ask you where you have been, when they needed you. Why you left them alone. They will demand answers. Hope you have a good one. You will need it. You and all the others that have been in such a comfortable silence, until now, as if you have nothing to do with what is going on at Praia da Luz.

Paulo Reis

(*) Mr. Grant Hodgson, from the Mirror, is a man that considers himself a journalist – an obvious mistake. He calls me with regularity, like many other British journalists – and I wouldn’t mention their names, as most of them are good professionals. And we just talk, between journalists, about the last gossips, information, recente news and so on.

Some of them ask me for help in clarifying aspects of the Portuguese legal system, others want more details about news that were published in the Portuguese Press. A few of them proposed me money in exchange for information and other usual unethical procedures, quite common among British tabloid journalists. Brendan de Beer, who works for a English language publication in Algarve, once called me asking who where my sources in the Police…

Last time Mr. Hodgson called me, he asked my opinion about the picture of Madeleine, in Morocco. I reminded him of the many sightings in Malta and I told him that everybody should be careful with those sightings. I gave him an example: the president of Portuguese Detectives Union told, during a TV program, on September 11, that Polícia Judiciária had to investigate and send teams to 252 different places where aleged sightings of Madeleine have been reported, only in Portugal, between May 3 and September 11. “Amazing” - he said.

And what did this “journalist” wrote, next day? He wrote this piece of fake, misleading and manipulated information: “The Sunday Mirror has discovered that 252 possible tip-offs about the four-year-old have been reported to Amaral, any one of which might just lead to her being traced. But the vast majority have not even been checked.”

Posted by Paulo Reis at 10:23:00 PM
Paulo for President.

Read that the new head of the investigation will be appointed on monday and that he or she will most likely come from PJ in Lisbon and not PJ in the Algarve.

(7) I thought Luis Neves had already been appointed. Or has something else happened?

I think that this investigation has to now be taken back to grass roots and proper procedures put in place, question ALL THE TAPAS 9 again, all the staff on duty, find the maid and the priest,
search again Murats house and question his mother,
re question sergie malinka and murats girlfriend and her ex husband.
ignore all this dna rubbish, dirty nappies, rotton meat, syringes and sedation it is all sensationlism, ll
get rid of the other dodgy cops in the PJ,
focus on finding an adbucted little girl
Maddie will be found alive and well and one of the above mentioned knows where she is

I can see a repeating pattern here. Just like first time round (before they were fingered as suspects) the holy couple praised the PJ. Next they started complaining (post-fingered as suspects phase). Now they welcome fresh face (as long as he stays off the murder angle).

Problem here is: How long before Comical Clarrie starts complaining about the new chap/woman PJ chief? And what options has the new person got? They will have to be straight - do a thorough job, follow the murder inquiry leads - otherwise the rank and file PJ will go against them and leak stuff big-time. I reckon the Portuguese press may well start a war with the UK press. Could be tricky for those at the political top in Portugal to be seen to side with the UK press rubbishing everything that is Portuguese and the Gordie Brown election machine…

Great fun, I say…

This morning’s print edition of PUBLICO newspaper in Portugal (serious paper - doesn’t usual cover the Madeleine story there is an article on the cooperation of the PJ and British police.

It states that Amaral’s outburst came as a surprise to everyone since most other portuguese and british entities involved in the investigation are happy with the cooperation between the PJ and the British police. Not only in known areas of the investigation (like searching and analysing the DNA samples etc), but throughout the process. As an example the article mentions that before Gerry and Kate McCann were made “arguidos” there was an open exchange between british and portuguese detectives about this possibility (in light of the evidence they had available to them). One british officer is quoted as saying that “they’d charged people with less evidence”. The article suggests that also here (in making the McCanns formal suspects) there was complete consensus between portuguese and british detectives.

No one quoted in the article is able to explain Amaral’s outburst, but some say that he may have cracked as a result of constant personal attacks directed at him by the British press, and that he possibly expected someone from the british forces to make a statement about the case. He seems to have expected from the british officers involved in the investigation a response to the batallion of wanna-be detectives and retired cops that everyday populate british media to speculate about an investigation that they seem to know little or nothing about).

The PJ is also reported to be saying that whoever is appointed on Monday will not change the course of the investigation significantly. Not least because the file has now been passed on to the MP (public prosecution) and the remit of the investigators seems to already be well defined and working around the theory that MAdeleine died in the appartment.

Mods and Admin,
Post number 5 was not very clear.
The quote was from Paulo Reis - Gazetta Digital.
The thisislondon info was just a short sentence.
Anyway you could make this a bit clearer.
Thanks a lot.

Can someone explain why would or could there be any particular shift in the investigation as a result of a change of detective?

The file with DNA evidence + witness statements + all other information has been passed on to the judge at the public prosecution office, and as I understood at the time, the judge was now directing the investigation. I thought that the PJ were simply following directives from the judge?

To me that suggests that the lines of enquiry are established and instructed the detectives to “find the body”. This will allow prosecution to charge the McCanns for murder as opposed to negligent behaviour or obstructing the course of justice.

Maybe I missed something?

So Amaral has been transfered will be interesting to see how this whole charade unfolds from here … has anyone thought about what will be the oppinion towards the new chief in charge if after he has read all the evidence he also comes up with the feeling that the Mccanns are not telling the whole truth,that something is amiss about that fatefull night will he be classed as an incompetant uncaring drunk aswell… IMO unless you are fully backing the Mccanns and dont ask them anything too inasive about the night in question then according to thier pr you are “ludicrous”..

Chloe in Spain,

Whereabouts in Spain are you, out of interest?

Rgds
mk (in Spain)

I’m fed up with all this bitching about Gerry and his job.

So what if he plays cards for a living?

Brenda - if the new chief does not start saying that Madeleine was abducted, and keeps insisting that there’s something odd about the McCanns, then the McCanns will keep attacking the incompetence of the PJ as an institution and discrediting the investigation. Simple as that.

Toni - do you really think that whoever will take the lead of the investigation is going to ignore the work done by the british and portuguese police, and will just saythat it was an abduction (without having any evidence that an abduction actually took place)?

Let’s be rational for a moment here: there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest abduction. There is evidence (compiled and analyse by british forces) to suggest that Madeleine died in the flat. Surely you don’t believe egg-headed men running away with children do you?

19 sherlock

I agree with you… What we are witnessing id Comical Clarrie’s preferred spin. he wants to create the illusion that the whole problem was down to a single PJ chief. My point about how long before Comical C turns against the new chief is a real problem. If, as I suspect the new person will come up with the same reasoning as the last one, Comical C will have to spin again and rubbish the PJ again. The pattern repeats itself. There is a danger thogh that the comic will get too many backs up in Portugal - who wants their police force to be publicly rubbished every day?

And Gordon Brown may choose to dump this hot potato at any time… As I wrote a few days ago, when he agreed to help in early May he was Chancellor not PM and he would never have thought this would drag on (with them as suspects) into his election timetable. In early May I reckon Gordie didn’t then know exactly when teflon tone would throw in the towel…

So this has all come about at a bad time for Nu Lab’s election plans…