The Good, The Bad and the Will it Ever End...

Sergio Leone's 'Western Spaghetti' classics have a new, much more lame, sequel - the 'Western Sardine' Trilogy... Warning: This vid is PG Rated - Parental Guidance recommended and TALAWFPRMC - Think And Let Authorities Work Freely, Re-open Madeleine's Case.

My way of marking the 1000 days Madeleine has been missing... and the show must go on...

Amaral:"McCanns Are Getting Desperate."

Google Trans from Original.

The former coordinator of the Judicial Police, Gonçalo Amaral, responsible for investigating the disappearance of Maddie says "McCanns are getting desperate." Amaral therefore responds to accusations that the couple today said he would bring a criminal action against the former leader of the Criminal Investigation Department of the PJ in Portimão for alleged breach of confidentiality of the reproduction of material research in the book "Maddie - The Truth of lie "before the decision to file. Isabel Duarte, a lawyer for McCanns, said Friday that the action of Kate and Gerry McCann will be on "next week" after extraction of the certificate of the trial to ban the book by former Inspector of Judicial Police (PJ), taking place at Justice Palace, in Lisbon. "The McCanns are ill advised by lawyers, things are going the worst possible in court, the very British press has begun to review its position on the Maddie case and now the tactic is that of despair, forging ahead another complaint against Gonçalo Amaral to see if the girl is found " joked the former coordinator surprised by the news of a new complaint. The couple's lawyer reminded it was established at its meeting on Wednesday that the book, which it is claimed the McCanns of involvement in daughter's disappearance on 3 May 2007 in Praia da Luz, Algarve, was completed on 24 July 2008 at the publishing War and Peace, also referred to this process as well as the TVI.

Moita Flores: "Gonçalo Amaral is being soiled"

Google Trans from original.

The former PJ inspector Moita Flores said today that the trial of Gonçalo Amaral's book "Maddie - The Truth Lies", which reproduces the argument of the McCanns involvement in daughter's death, "is an attack on freedom" .

Moita Flores, heard in video conferencing as a defense witness by Gonçalo Amaral, who noted the theory of the child's death appears in the police investigation and rejected the arguments of the McCanns that dissemination of the thesis affect the investigation into the whereabouts of the child.

Stressing that "the constitutional rights can not be attacked," the former member of the Judicial Police (PJ) considered "pathetic the idea to spread the notion" may affect the establishment of facts and expressed anger "as a citizen by trying to restrict freedom of expression. "

"This is absurd and Gonçalo Amaral is being soiled. Why not just write about a case that is closed? There are so many cases like this, as the Ballet Rose or the assassination of John Kennedy, and much has been written," said the Mayor of Santarém.

Moita Flores stressed that "nobody can be prevented from thinking, regardless of whether a court order to close a case."

He added that a decision to file "is a value-judgment that a prosecutor is on a particular case" and, referring to this decision to the accused Kate and Gerry McCann, produced in mid-2008, noted that "two other judges could have reached two different conclusions. "

Asked by Isabel Duarte, a lawyer for McCanns, in this trial, Moita Flores also denied that the book of Gonçalo Amaral, the prohibition of the sale was ordered temporarily to 09 September 2009, affecting "the good name and dignity" of the English family .

"The book is a thesis. The real truth is owned by nobody," said Moita Flores, the only witness heard in the morning session on the second trial, taking place in the Courthouse in Lisbon, where the McCann family claimed the main action to protect rights, freedoms and guarantees.

In the afternoon, will be heard three defense witnesses who did not seek another: the criminologist José Manuel Anes, former official of the War & Peace Mário Lopes Sena and Tania Raposo, responsible for publishing.

In addition to Gonçalo Amaral, are covered in this case the publisher "War & Peace, TVI, which showed documentary based on the book, and the producer Valentim de Carvalho, the marketing of video-based television show.

The book "Maddie - The Truth Lies" was published in 2008 and cast the suspicion that the parents have participated in the English hiding the corpse.

The British child Madeleine McCann the disappeared on 03 May 2007 of the bedroom of an apartment in a tourist resort in Praia da Luz in the Algarve, where he was vacationing with her parents and two brothers.

As coordinator of the Criminal Investigation Department of the PJ of Portimão, Gonçalo Amaral joined the team of researchers tried to find out what happened to Madeleine.

Kerry and Kate McCann, who always maintained the position that Maddie was abducted, were made defendants in September 2007 but were eventually acquitted in July 2008 for lack of evidence to support the hypothesis advanced by the investigation of accidental death of the girl.

The prosecutor dropped the case, which can always be reopened if new consistent data about the disappearance of the child is found.

The History of a Lie

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time. It’s probably my last post about this unfortunate case and I was hoping it would coincide with the end of it, but we haven’t heard the last of it yet, am afraid.

However, there is a general feeling in the air that we will see some closure to it soon. “Some” closure, because we may never really find out what really happened to Madeleine, but at least, some closure to the nonsense that surrounds it.

For now, the case is where it's supposed to be - in the hands of justice. Let's hope it serves its purpose and re-open the investigation as well.

As I promised on my last post in 2009, I will try to explain what I meant by “The Portuguese Republic is 99 years old. The Portuguese nation is nearly 900 years old”.

At first, History may not seem important to this case, or any other; but this is not your run-of-the-mill case.

Perhaps without noticing it, you have been learning more about Portuguese History you ever imagined or even wanted to.

Just think of the Carnation Revolution, invoked by G. Amaral and the freedom of expression supporters; or the exact opposite - the former dictatorship and their secret police, exhumed in 2007 by those who wanted to cast suspicion and discredit the PJ.

So History has been used, by both sides.

I do not whish to bore anyone with lengthy explanations about what happened 100 years ago; I just would like to help people understand how we come to this point, where so many people – not just the Portuguese anymore – wonder what is going on with the Portuguese judicial system (and in no smaller part, with the Portuguese State).

The reality is that we have to look back 100 years, to fully understand why the dictatorship and then the Carnation Revolution were necessary, and why everything else is what it is now.

This year, the Portuguese State is getting ready to celebrate 100 years of the Portuguese Republic. From a historical, economical, democratic and social perspective, most of it is really, really bad. Not Soviet Union bad, but close. I wonder what Russia will do when they come to the 100th Anniversary of the Soviet Revolution. At least they've reinstated the memory of the Czar and their original national flag...
But I digress.

To make a long story short, to pave the way for the republic, the nearly 800 year-old institution of the monarchy had to be removed, which the radicals did, by assassinating the King and the Crown Prince in 1908. Two years later, just when the investigation conclusions were finally about to be made public, an armed coup imposed the Republic, with Britain's blessing. And with it, came a new (dis)order, as History shows.

The files – several copies of them – all vanished within years. The last known copy was stolen from the home of the king, during his exile in Twickenham. Obviously, the case was dismissed and there were no convictions nor other responsible for the regicide, except two of the murderers, also killed at the scene of the crime.

That was the beginning of the now long tradition of "archiving" high-profile judicial cases.

The Carnation Revolution in 1974 didn’t change that, alas.

So, in this last 100 years, Portugal has lost its moral and traditional reference, and has been adrift.

It has taken on board oligarquies that use the power to protect their own. They all have an appetite for the control of information. But this could be said of many other countries…

In our defence, we could say that the Portuguese had their History re-written and decades of censorship dulled their spirit a bit; but, if anything good has come out of this Britain vs Portugal parody, it’s the many individuals who have shown the world that free speech, justice, truth and other principles, have no nationality.

My wish for this year of 2010 is that people finally wake up and remember where they come from - not 100 years ago, but much further back - and celebrate truth and justice.