The negativity towards the McCann’s seems to be deep rooted, but people have to realise that it does not alter the fact that Mr Ribeiro said what he said -fact. He did not say it under duress. He did not say it in a different language, he said it because he knows it is true and quite simply, what he said is accurate and true. As head of the PJ, he would know the value of his words to the McCann's; the McCann's legal team and to the McCann's supporters. If there was not a problem there was actually no need for him to say anything at all about the McCann's arguido status, he could have answered the investigation is ongoing, but he did not, he *chose* to say that the McCann's were given their arguido status too hastily, to quickly, too whatever word you want to use for too fast, it doesn't matter, they were made arguidos too quickly."
Act in haste, repent at leisure"
This is what the man is actually thinking, you do not come out with comments like those if you do not think it. The very fact that he chose those words indicates, that he knows the PJ have very ,very little or most likely absolutely no evidence against McCann's, if they did have all this DNA and other evidence he would not be making that statement, why would he? No need to. The PJ have no evidence, they have no DNA evidence and now it is clear they have no case.
What we saw in this man Alipio Ribeiro was a man trying to distance himself from what is about to emerge, this is the start of the PJ doing what they know they have to do to free the McCann's from suspect status.Why else would he say that he has *no* control over who is made arguido and he cannot order that arguido status to be lifted? What he is saying here is that, I had nothing to do with the McCann's being made arguidos and I had nothing to do with their arguido status remaining, or being recently extended. This puts the decision to make them arguidos firmly on the shoulders of the man already kicked off of this case, Police Chief Goncalo Amaral. It puts the decision to keep them arguidos on the shoulders of the incumbent Paulo Rebelo and it takes the blame off of himself, Alipio Ribeiro. This is him trying to keep his job.
Something has happened behind the scenes to bring this about, why else would Alipio Ribeiro head of Portugal's police suddenly give an interview on this case? He has said precious little about it so far, so why now? I think possibly one of two things may have happened, or quite possibly both. The Portuguese government has lost patience and asked just what is going on in this case, it is embarrassing Portugal in the eyes of the world. The PJ blamed the British government for stalling on these rogatory letters and the British government do not even have them and then it emergese that they have not even left the Portuguese Attorney General's office, so on a diplomatic level, I think questions are now being asked about this investigation.
Perhaps the Portuguese government requested a full account on the state of this investigation. Whatever it is, these rogatory letters and the failure of the Portuguese Attorney General's department to undertake the drafting and delivery of these letters has probably set off a chain of events.
I think this is one cock up too many for Portugal and one leak too many by the PJ.
They have overplayed their hand and now its time for their cards to be put on the table. The Portuguese government know this, Alipio Ribeiro knows this and now the PJ know it and the Portuguese public had to be prepared for what is coming and this is the start of it.
This is not going to be pretty. Questions are now going to be asked as the world's eyes are once again trained on Portugal, this time even the PJ will be unable to hide behind their secrecy laws. The world now knows the McCann's were made arguidos too quickly/hastily/rapidly and the spotlight will once again fall on the man whose incompetence reduced this investigation to a farce and whose incompetence saw the failure to implement the basic measures in a search for any missing child, it falls onto the man whose ego got in the way of his job (once again) and now looks set to take the blame for all the PJ failings, even those that happened after he was dismissed from this case and that man is going to be made a scapegoat, that man is no other than Goncalo Amaral.
All roads lead to Goncalo Amaral it appears.
Had this man waited just a few more days, then it is extremely doubtful that the McCann's would have been made arguida and arguido, something already admitted by the Portuguese Attorney General himself. Goncalo Amaral decided in his own infinite wisdom and based on no evidence, other than a couple of dogs sniffing around, that the McCann's were guilty and so set off this disgraceful chain of events and made the suffering of the loss of their daughter infinitely worse than it need have been.
The evidence that Goncalo Amaral allegedly and aggressively waved in the face of Gerry McCann in that police station back in September, where he said we have evidence you harmed your little daughter, turns out to be nothing but the dubious report of two sniffer dogs, no wonder when Gerry McCann broke down and cried and pleaded to be shown this evidence, Goncalo Amaral declined. At the centre of this storm is one little girl, Madeleine, and the heartbreaking realisation that since early on in this investigation, police had given up searching for her, she has been very badly let down, if she was let down once by her parents, she has been let down repeatedly by the PJ and also by all those that saw it as some kind of warped sense of duty to jump on the blame bandwagon and start crazily pointing the finger at her parents, accusing them of the most dreadful and heinous crimes.
It is now time for this bandwagon to stop rolling and for people to disembark and some common sense and decency to be urgently injected into this failed investigation, for Madeleine's sake, this should happen now *not* later.
