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Gonçalo Amaral received an apology from
Manuela Ferreira Leite
"They
tried to destroy me"
In 2009, the former "Maddie case"
inspector was chosen by PSD to be the
candidate for the Municipality of Olhão.
He was pushed from the race by the
McCann couple.
The story is over six years old, but it
remains fully alive in the memory of
Gonçalo Amaral, the former "Maddie case"
coordinator. After he retired, PSD
wanted to launch him into the life of
politics, indicating him "as candidate
for the presidency of the Municipality
of Olhão", in late 2008. When everything
already pointed at him as the strongest
candidate for victory, a contrary
announcement came from Manuela Ferreira
Leite [then president of the party].
Gonçalo Amaral was received by the then
PSD leader who apologised to him about
the decision.
"The McCannns allege that they devalued
the book and only the showing of the
documentary prompted them to react. It's
not true. The book came out and was
devalued by the couple, but before the
documentary, in January of 2009, the
newspapers published that I had been
chosen by PSD to run for the presidency
of the Olhão Municipality", the former
inspector says, stressing: "What
happened was that the couple always
tried to destroy me, to destroy my
credibility, and they were scared of the
possibility of me stopping being an
outsider, a police retiree, and becoming
the president of the Municipality of
Olhão. They were scared, they thought
that a mayor would be a more credible
figure than that of a police officer",
says Amaral, describing his version of
the events at that time. "The couple's
reaction was swift. In a flash trip,
Gerald McCann came to Lisbon, met with
his lawyer, Dr Rogério Alves, with a PSD
leader, who is said to be Dr José Luís
Arnaut, and the couple’s current lawyer,
Dr Isabel Duarte. They talked about me,
a Portuguese citizen with the right to
vote or to be elected in any democratic
election, and they even delivered a
report about me, done by their private
detectives that had been hired to look
for their daughter. After the meeting,
Dr Manuela Ferreira Leite announced that
I would not be a candidate, overriding
the will of the Olhão militants and the
will of the Algarve's people."
After this removal, Gonçalo Amaral asked
to be received by Ferreira Leite. “She
received me at the party's headquarters,
and only apologised, to me and to my
family”, he revealed in an interview to
Nova Gente, once more defending that
“the couple didn’t suffer any damages,
they were merely scared about the course
my life was taking, because they wanted
to discredit me”.
in: Nova Gente, paper edition,
22.05.2015 |
