Gonçalo Amaral, the former Judiciary Police coordinator who led the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, is denouncing the child’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, as well as their lawyer, Isabel Duarte, over a possible crime "against public authority", due to their lack of compliance in returning the seized copies of “Maddie: The Truth of the Lie”.
In a formal letter to the DIAP, the Public Ministry’s department for penal investigation and action, in Lisbon, Gonçalo Amaral recalls that the McCanns, through their lawyer Isabel Duarte, were named as legal keepers of 7500 copies of the book, with “the legal obligation to preserve them and to return them intact” in case the injunction that was filed by them was not confirmed by a higher judiciary instance.
After said injunction was overturned by the Appeals Court, Kate and Gerry McCann and Isabel Duarte still refused to return the seized copies of “Maddie: The Truth of the Lie”. In his denunciation, Gonçalo Amaral states his suspicion that “the copies of his book ‘Maddie: The Truth of the Lie’ have been destroyed”, based on the fact that said destruction was initially requested by the couple in their application for an injunction against the book – a request that was denied by the judge who granted the injunction in the first place.
The former PJ coordinator states that Isabel Duarte, the lawyer who represents the McCanns in their civil actions against Gonçalo Amaral, "knows that she should have returned" the copies that were placed under her guardianship, but has failed to do so, he suspects, "because they do not exist anymore".
Gonçalo Amaral further mentions that on the 23rd of May, Kate McCann prepares to launch the Portuguese version of her own account of the “tragic events that took place on the 3rd of May of 2007, in Praia da Luz”, within “the use of her freedom of expression”.
Nevertheless, according to the former PJ coordinator, Kate McCann’s freedom of expression “is based on lies and on offending the Portuguese justice, the Polícia Judiciária, those who have searched for her daughter, the Portuguese people in general and the people of the Algarve in particular”, by “launching lies about the safety, the tourism in the Algarve, and the action of the Police institution, suggesting that the Police in the Algarve covers up sexual abuse of English children, which is completely false”.
Gonçalo Amaral further recognizes that it is not up to him to denounce these actions, but rather a job for those who are in charge of those areas, who “shall respond according to what their consciences dictate”.
Rather, his denunciation focuses on “crimes against freedom of expression and of qualified disobedience” if the destruction or loss of the 7500 seized copies of “Maddie: The Truth of the Lie” by its legal guardians is confirmed.
The crime of loss or destruction of assets under public power, as described under article 355 of the Portuguese Penal Code, if confirmed, is punishable with a prison sentence of up to 5 years.
