 |
| GRIEF:
Gerry and Kate McCann in Lisbon last week where they met
with lawyers |
THE wife of Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral has denied they are
locked in a personal battle with Kate and Gerry McCann and has
spoken of their pity for the distraught couple.
“Everyone thinks we are fighting the McCanns but this is not true,”
said 38-year-old Sofia Leal in an exclusive interview with the
Sunday Express.
“I tell people all the time that they are having to endure the
hardest pain in the world, which is losing a child.
“As a mother I cannot imagine what kind of pain that is. It is so
hard.
“Like Kate McCann, I am a Catholic. The image of pain in the
Catholic church is not Christ on the Cross but Mary holding her
child in her arms. It is the pain of the loss of a child and there
is no worse pain in the world. We are sorry for that.”
That pain was etched on the face of Kate McCann when she made a
fleeting visit to Lisbon last week to meet her lawyers and to appeal
for help in finding her daughter, snatched in May 2007 from a
holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.
| Goncalo
lived for his detective job’ |
Close to tears, Kate said: ‘‘She’s six now but we’ve just got to keep
going. It has been very harrowing and draining. But there is no choice,
she needs us to find her and bring her home.”
In
Portimao, 20 miles up the coast from Praia da Luz, Sofia spoke of the
anguish suffered by her husband, who coordinated the McCann
investigation.
The McCanns are suing him for £1million they believe he
has made with his book about the case, The Truth Of The Lie, and a
documentary.
They
are particularly angered over his claims that Madeleine is not alive.
Civil servant Sofia says her 49-year-old husband suffered post traumatic
stress after he was removed as head of the Madeleine investigation in
September 2007. He took early retirement the following month, even
though he lost two-thirds of his pension.
“It
was a bad time for Goncalo,” said Sofia. Even in his sleep he was going
over in his mind what had happened to him and how his career was brought
to a premature end.
“I
heard him talking in the night because of nightmares. Everything he
did, every action he took was going through his head.
“I
was worried because he is such a calm, tender man but luckily over the
past few months the nightmares have stopped.” Sofia, who works in the
Portimao mayor’s office and is responsible for three major projects,
including a new Algarve airport, speaks English fluently and is both
amused and angered by comments aimed at her husband from some people in
Britain. “We know how Goncalo is portrayed in Britain, the caricature of
a foreign detective missing the clues, but the reality is that you will
not find a better detective in Portugal.
“There were many times in the investigation when his bosses said, ‘You
have done enough’ but he kept working and working, chasing all the
leads.
“There are satellites which probably have close-up pictures of what was
happening on the ground that day. He tried to get the images but he
couldn’t. The US said the satellites were trained on Morocco at the time
and that was it. That is what annoys him because he says the inquiry was
not completed to his satisfaction.
“Goncalo loves me and our three girls very much but he lives for his
job. For him an investigation is like a mathematical equation.
“One
and one has to make two. Until the answer is found he will not give up.”
From the proceeds of the book her husband has bought a Jaguar car but
she insists he has not made a lot of money and that he will defend the
legal action.
“We
are now living on one-third of our budget for the month but that is OK
for us because he made the right decision,” she said.
“If
he was financially motivated, he would have stayed in his job for the
full pension but that is not his way.”
His
25-year-old daughter from his first marriage, also called Sofia, has
just passed a law degree. His wife has a daughter Rita, 11, from her
first marriage and she has a daughter, Agnes, with Goncalo who will
soon be six.
This
week there is a double birthday celebration, Sofia’s today and her
husband’s 50th on Friday.
“We
will see all our family and friends and enjoy ourselves,” she said. “We
are so lucky to have three beautiful girls in the family.
“Goncalo is very proud of them all. He is very good with them at home
but my only complaint is that he is not strict enough with them. He lets
them do what they want where I have to be a little stricter.
“He
never yells at them but he can also be a little overprotective. He is
always worrying about them having accidents in the playground or
wherever. I could not wish for a better father.”
The
couple met 10 years ago through a friend and married in June 2000. They
spent their honeymoon in the Azores, where her husband dreams of
spending his retirement. |
