UPDATE ON GONC'S VENDETTA AGAINST MARCOS CORREIA - COURT DATE SET AND IT'S VERY BAD FOR GONC

You may have already seen this but I hadn't and something within peeked my interest

POLICE ACCUSED OF TORTURE OF MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL
The fact that prosecutors have taken the unprecedented measure of formally accusing police detectives of committing a number of crimes during an investigation, has created a stir in the legal system and could see a mother convicted for killing her daughter, freed.



A total of five police detectives from Portugal's elite Polícia Judiciária (PJ) detective unit were charged over the weekend for physically attacking and torturing Leonor Cipriano, the mother of nine year-old Joana, who disappeared from her Figueira home in Portimão, in 2004.

The case has also gained international significance when it emerged that one of the investi gators charged by prosecutors, is actively involved in the search for Madeleine McCann.

Mrs Cipriano, having been left with two black eyes, had in 2005 accused eight Portimão PJ members of torture and intimidation.

Mrs Cipriano covered the nation's front pages back then with pictures of her swollen black eyes, allegedly caused by members of the PJ in order to have her confess her daughter's murder and reveal her subsequent whereabouts.

According to Mrs Cipriano, she was forced to kneel on glass ashtrays during interrogations, with her head covered by a bag, before being brutally beaten in an attempt to force her to confess.

The officers, have since denied the accusations, claiming that she threw herself down a flight of stairs. No evidence exists to support either set of allegations, as the interrogations were, as reportedly described by the PJ, ‘informal interrogative sessions'.

One of the police officers accused of ‘torturing' Mrs Cipriano is Gonçlao Amaral, who is also one of the investigators involved with the search for Madeleine McCann.

Prior to the formal accusation by the prosecutor's office in Portimão, Mr Amaral had already made the headlines for the wrong reasons in Britain, when UK media gave extensive coverage to his "two-hour lunches" and consumption of alcoholic beverages during these luncheons.

Back in 2005, alleged police brutality victim Leonor Cipriano, along with her brother, João, were found guilty of gruesomely murdering eight-year old Joana Cipriano in September 2004.

The court, consisting of three judges and four jurors, found Leonor and João Cipriano guilty of murder, handing them prison terms of 20 and 19 years respectively.

These sentences have since been reduced to terms of 16 years each.

Since the verdict, a number of the country's leading lawyers and judges have spoken out against the decision. They claim that a conviction was almost impossible due to the fact that the child's body was never found, therefore lacking the crucial evidence that a murder had in fact taken place and that this alone, should have cast sufficient doubt for the court to absolve the two accused.

In comments to The Portugal News this week the Ciprianos' lawyer, João Grade, said he was confident that he would be able to clear his clients once their appeal was heard, as he believed their guilt had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

He also failed to rule out the possibility that Joana had been sold, especially after someone linked to the family made a €50,000 bank deposit in the days after her disappearance.

A letter written by João from jail to Leonor, which was intercepted by the authorities, also made reference to the exchange of cash and that "a grown-up Joana would one day probably return to Portugal".

However, the court, in reading out its verdict, said it felt there was adequate forensic evidence found at Joana's home, the crime scene, such as human blood found in the freezer and blood stains on the walls and floors (though laboratories were unable to prove the blood was that of Joana) to find the two accused guilty of murder

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He also failed to rule out the possibility that Joana had been sold, especially after someone linked to the family made a €50,000 bank deposit in the days after her disappearance.

A letter written by João from jail to Leonor, which was intercepted by the authorities, also made reference to the exchange of cash and that "a grown-up Joana would one day probably return to Portugal".


OMG! Thanks, Tony, I hadn't seen that before - reminds me of the GNR officer who mysteriously came into money....the money Morais claimed was an 'inheritance', and stopped all further discussion about it. Dead giveaway, that.

There is a slight mistake in that - the blood in the fridge. It wasn't actually tested to find out if it was human, never mind Joana's...

On a lighter note, it's good to see that, subconsciously, some of the forkers see Gonc the same way normal people do:



Freudian slip or what?

It's moments like that you treasure, isn't it? Can you imagine the outcry if one of us invented a name like

P J AMORAL



Good job it was a forker who did it