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Kate McCann tells libel hearing she wants to defend herself in court against ‘smears’ made against her by Portuguese police

HOMEPAGE NEWS REPORTS INDEX T.O.T.L. COURT DOCUMENTS

NEWS OCT 2013

Original Source: Mail: Tuesday 08 October 2013

By Gerard Couzens
PUBLISHED:17:12, 8 October 2013| UPDATED:17:36, 8 October 2013

 
  • Kate McCann has requested permission to defend herself in libel case

  •  Gerry McCann has also expressed a wish to speak during trial

  •  Family is suing Goncaro Amaral over book The Truth of the Lie

  •  Police chief claimed the McCanns hid Madeleine's body after she died in an accident then faked her abduction

Kate McCann attended the opening day of the trial but has since stayed away, leaving it to friends and family to represent her, until Mr Armal began his defense

The tormented mother of Madeleine McCann has said she wants to defend herself in open court for the first time against Portuguese police 'smears' over her daughter's disappearance. 

 

Kate McCann has asked a judge for permission to address a libel trial brought after a controversial book suggested the McCanns may have hidden their daughter's body and staged an abduction. 

 

The author of The Truth Of The Lie is ex-police chief Goncalo Amaral, 56, who was tasked with investigating Madeleine's May 2007 disappearance.

 

Kate's husband Gerry and Mr Amaral have already applied to speak in the Portuguese court. 

 

Her application, revealed at the libel trial today as former police colleagues of Mr Amaral spoke in his defence, paves the way for an emotional finale to the case. 

 

It comes just days ahead of a new appeal by the McCanns for information on their missing daughter on BBC's Crimewatch which will feature a reconstruction of events in Praia da Luz on May 3 2007. 

 

It is thought Gerry and Kate, 45, will appeal directly to a kidnapper during the programme. 

 

Madeleine's mother flew to Portugal for the start of the libel trial last month - but had left it to friends and relatives to testify before Mr Amaral's side launched its defence.

Judge Maria Emilia Melo e Castro, referring to Kate by her maiden name as she revealed her change of heart, said: 'On October 2 Kate Healy made an application to make a statement to this court.

Hearing: Gerry McCann has also expressed a wish to testify against police chief Goncaro Amaral

'The court will decide on this application once evidence has been heard by both sides as only then will it be able to judge on the need for and the pertinence of this application.' 

 

If given the go-ahead, the McCanns and Mr Amaral are expected to speak on the same day on or after November 27 when the last hearing in the trial at Lisbon's Palace of Justice is scheduled. 

 

Former colleagues of Mr Amaral's turned up the heat on the McCanns today by insisting nothing he wrote in his July 2008 book was new. 

The book was published just three days after the McCanns had their status as suspects over Madeleine's disappearance officially lifted. 

Around 120,000 copies were sold before it was withdrawn when the McCanns won an injunction against the ex-police chief.

Proceedings: Mr McCann in the court building, where the case against Mr Amaral is being heard

Anger: Mr McCann claims the allegations made it harder to search for his daughter, who vanished in 2007

Portuguese TV station TVI, also being sued by the McCanns along with Mr Amaral's book publishers, broadcast a controversial documentary based on the book in April 2009. 

 

Former family liaison officer Ricardo Paiva told the court: 'What is in the book is based on our investigation and contains the professional and personal opinions of Goncalo Amaral as a police officer. 

'Everything that is there can be found in the case files.' 

 

Contradicting earlier claims by the McCanns' family and friends that Mr Amaral's book had hindered their search for their daughter by turning the Portuguese public against them, he added: 'The flow of information continued to come in regularly.

 

'Neither this book or any other book affected the flow of information.' 

 

Luis Neves, head of a national police unit tasked with investigating organised crime, including kidnappings, said Mr Amaral's conclusion Madeleine was dead was an idea accepted early on by her parents. 

 

He insisted Kate was the driving force behind a failed July 2007 search for Madeleine by controversial ex-south African detective Danie Krugel, who claimed to have invented a machine which could locate a body if provided with a DNA sample. 

 

Neves said the reservations he felt over Mr Krugel were shared by colleagues about sniffer dogs supplied by British police which went on to smell the 'scent of death' in the McCanns' holiday apartment and place a huge question mark over the hypothesis Madeleine was kidnapped. 

 

The performance of the dogs was later called into question after they also reacted to remains at Haut de la Garenne orphanage in Jersey, which were later found to be animal bones.

Battle: Mr McCann and his family are still looking for Madeleine, who was aged three when she disappeared

Mr Neves told the court: 'The McCanns convinced us we should bring in the south African man with his equipment. 

 

'We didn't want to place any obstacles in the way and so the investigating officers eventually allowed it. 

 

'It was during this part of the investigation our British colleagues said there was a team made up of dogs and their handlers that could help us to find out where the child could be buried. 

 

'It was from then on that the Algarve police division decided to allow the dogs to come and the idea of Madeleine's death began to form and things took another direction.

 

'I know the suggestion of the dogs was not accepted lightly.  

 

'We had no experience of it in Portugal and the cost was another factor.' 

 

Retired police officer Francisco Moita Flores, now a TV commentator, described the Madeleine McCann investigation as one of the 'most complex and well-investigated cases' he had had ever seen and called Mr Amaral 'competent.' 

 

He insisted the Tapas Nine - the McCanns and the friends dining with them at a tapas bar near their apartment the night Madeleine disappeared - should have had their phones tapped because of 'inconsistencies' in their statements. 

 

Attacking the ongoing Home Office-funded Met Police investigation into Madeleine's disappearance, called Operation Grange, he told the court: 'There's a prophetic and dogmatic vision behind it.

 

'These detectives are only putting forward the hypothesis of abduction.' 

 

Judge Maria Emilio Melo e Castro stopped lawyers on both sides asking Mr Amaral's former police colleagues what they thought about his conclusions on Madeleine and her parents in his book because they were 'opinions' and not 'facts.'

Victim: Madeleine's disappearance sparked a worldwide police search, but she has not yet been found

Couple: Gerry and Kate McCann say they were extremely distressed by Mr Amaral's book, published in 2008

She waved the book in her hand as she demanded to know from Ricardo Paiva: 'The back cover says it contains exclusive revelations.

'What's new in the book that's not in the police files?'

Told by Mr Paiva, 'Nothing', she replied: 'Ok, so then I have to conclude this is misleading advertising.' 

 

Another defence witness, Mr Amaral's ex-number two Vitor Tavares de Almeida, was bizarrely dismissed after being asked just one question.  

 

The police chief, still a serving officer despite being convicted in January of torturing a crime suspect and receiving a two and a half suspended jail sentence, has previously claimed he believes the McCanns concealed Madeleine's body. 

 

He was overheard on a video link muttering: 'What am I doing here?' before being sent away after admitting he had only read the final two pages of Mr Amaral's book. 

Mr Amaral denies defamation. The case continues.

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