What Does The Body Language of Goncalo Amaral reveal?

Goncalo Amaral

Making Barriers?

(Goncalo Amaral da Sousa)
Disgraced Former Portuguese Detective
Corrupt Convicted Criminal
................

A Brief Synopsis of The Man and His Former Career

What is there to be said about a man like this?
What words can you find and use to adequately portray the character of a person that has abused the power invested in him and abused the trust that has been placed in him?
Why did this man ever become a policeman, if it were not to uphold the law and to protect and defend the vulnerable?
Did he deliberately set out on this course, or did he become corrupt along the way?

There are questions, huge questions, over his colossal debts going back as far as 2002.
In a country like Portugal where there is so much distrust of those in power, where there remains a deep seated fear of the "right wing" police, what did this man give to his former profession?
Just a brief Google of his past reveals that virtually everything he has been involved in appears to have become tainted in controversy.

Amaral was passed over for promotion and was demoted from his position as police chief of Portimao, at the same time he was also sacked from the Madeleine McCann investigation after attacking the British police through a Portuguese newspaper and accusing them of doing the McCanns bidding, this was the official reason given for this most dramatic of ends to a police career. Obviously this wasn't the whole reason, there was undoubtedly a culmination of reasons why he was all but sacked from his job.

Do we believe that the reason was just because he decided to have a pop at the British police? Or was this the last straw and he was seen as a danger or a loose cannon who had to be removed before he brought down the whole house of cards?

If that particular house came tumbling down, then there was a danger that the in the rubble, other bigger fish in that dirty pond would be found and exposed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Click on Picture to Enlarge)

Joana and Leonor Cipriano

.........
Goncalo Amaral was also made an arguido (a suspect) in the case of torture of the mother of another child who disappeared in Portugal, yet astonishingly, he was not suspended from duty while investigations took place, he was allowed to carry on working. Madeleine disappeared just 7 miles from where the other child 'Joana Cipriano' went missing and Goncalo Amaral was allowed to head the Madeleine investigation, despite being under a criminal investigattion at the time and a suspect into the "confession" (now proved) gained under the torture of Joana's mother Leonor, into confessing to the murder of her own daughter.
In short, the almost 4 year old Madeleine McCann's life and safe return, was entrusted to this man called Goncalo Amaral da Sousa, a man under a serious criminal investigation.

Please note that Goncalo Amaral has since been found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice in the now proven torture of Leonor Cipriano, a torture which took place in a police station with five members of the PJ present.

There is now a campaign to have Leonor Cipriano's conviction overturned, at the very least her conviction always looked like a complete miscarriage of justice, however, since the criminal conviction of the police inspector in charge of the Joana Cipriano case, it now looks like she is being kept in prison, purely because to allow her out, to overturn her conviction, would cause Portugal too much embarrassment on the international stage and this the powers thatbe in Portugal can do without, especially in light of the appalling treatment that was meted out to the parents of missing, abducted Madeleine McCann, by the same man that was found guilty of concealing evidence of a torture in the Leonor Cipriano case - one Goncalo Amaral.

Madeleine McCann Abducted From Her bed in Praia da Luz May 3rd 2007

..................................
When the news of Madeleine's disappearance reached Goncalo Amaral, he admits he was out drinking with his pals in a bar and got the call that Madeleine was missing, feared abducted from her bed on the evening of Thursday May 3rd 2007 in Praia da Luz, the Algarve, Portugal. While drinking in that bar with his friends Amaral made the very first of what was later to become known as a catalogue of the most ghastly, incompetent and heartbreaking errors, that without a doubt contributed to Madeleine's continued disappearance.
When Goncalo Amaral received the first call to inform him that a major crime was beginning to unfold on his patch, 'he' who was the 'police chief coordinator' of the Portimao Policia Judiciaria (PJ), decided that this was not important enough to take him away from his drinking session with his pals.
Of course at first no-one knew if Madeleine had been abducted or had simply awoken and wandered off, but none the less a tiny little girl was missing on Amaral's patch, she was in a foreign land, even if she was lost, she of course would not be able to make herself understood, she was heartbreakingly vulnerable and needed adult help, her parents were vulnerable too, in a foreign land unable to speak the language, so unable to correctly convey their fears and what they thought had happened and because of the language barrier, many misunderstandings would arise, this is understandable enough, no-one expected the local GNR or PJ to understand and speak English and vice versa, this was yet another reason for Amaral to attend the scene and take control and quickly and efficiently, put in place official translators and anyone within the PJ who could speak English, yet, Goncalo Amaral da Sousa, Police chief coordinator of Portimao, comprehensively failed to give Madeleine and her parents that help, in fact he failed to give his own team that help.

Even a rookie cop would have known to do this and would have made the urgent decision to suspect abduction, and put the recognised procedures for abduction quickly into place.

There is a recognised procedure for a child going missing in Europe:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Council of Europe recommends that its members should run a national missing persons' bureau. There are basically 4 levels of criteria that need to be met (1) The child is apparently under the age of 18-yrs-old; (2) There is reasonable belief that the child has been kidnapped or abducted; (3) There is reasonable belief that the child is in imminent danger of serious harm or death; (4) There is sufficient information available to enable the public to assist the police in locating the child.

If Amaral had attended the scene he should have quickly assessed it, immediately gathered all the Tapas friends and waiters and waitresses and spoken with witnesses and perhaps Jane Tanner's account would have been acted upon immediately.

All the criteria to reasonably suspect abduction would have been easily met and a full scale operation put into place.

Goncalo Amaral failed to do this and he failed in his duty of care towards one little girl, vulnerable and missing on his patch.

As a direct consequence of the police chief inspector co coordinator's actions (or more aptly named INactions), the much talked about "Golden Hours" were inexplicably and inexcusably lost in the case of the abduction of Madeleine McCann.

*Goncalo Amaral FAILED in his duty*

*He failed to act and those precious "Golden Hours" were lost*

*At the time of Madeleine's disappearance, Goncalo Amaral should NOT have been on duty, he should have been SUSPENDED from duty, pending the results of the criminal investigations, that eventually saw him convicted and given a suspended prison sentence*

In any other European country, Amaral's inability and questionable record would have raised questions immediately and I think I can say undoubtedly, that this man Amaral, who should NEVER have been put in charge of the Madeleine McCann case in the first place, would have been quickly removed and a more capable person installed to take control of the investigation.

Had this been done, then the outcome for Madeleine and her parents may have been entirely different.

Then to most logical thinking people's horror, Amaral was to begin making excuses to blame the parents for his own incompetence (Or blind eye turning) immediately. Amaral made much of saying the initial reasons he suspected Kate and Gerry McCann of being complicit was because of their "lack of emotion", they appeared cold, he said. Later he bizarrely declared that "he was told" that Gerry McCann was acting like a praying Arab, by falling on his knees begging the Portuguese police to look for his daughter! If we are to believe Amaral then this one statement is in direct contrast to what he wanted the public to believe of the parents! See the difficulty? See the contradiction by this man? If throwing yourself to your knees and crying and begging the police in a foreign country to look for your missing child is not an emotional and desperate act of a distraught and terrified father, what exactly is? Gerry was not being understood by the Portuguese police who could not speak English, so he did what he could to relate his and Kate's fear and beg them on his knees.

The unease about this man Goncalo Amaral began to set in with me at this point, but still my heart did not want to believe what my head was saying. I understood that perhaps the police in Portugal felt out of their depth and that they were catapulted into a situation that was beyond their capabilities, this being so and understood, why then did Goncalo Amaral decline the offer of help from Scotland Yard, who of course were better able and better equipped to deal with this escalating situation?

Apart from a couple of officers accepted by the Portuguese police probably for public relations reasons, all offers of help and for the more experienced British police to take over the investigation were refused.

Was this nationalistic pride getting in the way of a favourable outcome for Madeleine and her family? Or was it something more sinister?

Of the police officers that were flown to Portugal to help the investigation, did they allow themselves to be compromised by the investigating officer in charge- Goncalo Amaral? Was it a language barrier? Did they too fail to adhere to their basic training of keeping an open mind and then blindly follow Amaral down this dead end of an investigation, dead ended right from its very outset?

Perhaps questions need to be asked of the British police as well as the Portuguese police at this point? Or did the British police suggestions fall on deaf ears and be totally ignored?

On the "whim" of Goncalo Amaral, many people, both police and general public alike appear to have been totally ignored and their reports of what they have seen and eye witness accounts of a possible suspect seen hanging around outside apartment 5a, have also been totally ignored and in some cases "binned" and information totally lost to the investigation. The only information to have come in from the public and be logged, is information that would totally confuse the investigation, information from "others" that has come to light since Madeleine's abduction, which may have cast light on a possible abductor[s], has been ignored and inexplicably lost to the investigation.

..........................

The Portuguese attorney general shelved the investigation and stated there was nothing to implicate the parents in the disappearance of their own child. There was nothing of which to charge them with negligence and the AG also stated just as there was nothing to indicate that Madeleine McCann was still alive, there was certainly nothing to indicate that she had died. Goncalo Amaral seems to completely misquote his attorney general in his book, which he wrote and where he consistently points the finger of suspicion at Kate and Gerry McCann, this book and £1 million of Amaral assets, made solely from the name of Madeleine McCann, have been arrested and his book and other money making pursuits related to Madeleine injuncted, until the outcome of a court case brought by the Kate and Gerry McCann for libel and defamation of character is known. Amaral has made himself very rich since the disappearance of Madeleine and also drives around in a Jaguar motor car worth over £40.000 also bought out of the proceeds of his failed investigation into Madeleine's disappearance.

Public Inquiry

.................

Many would say that what is undeniably needed in this case to help clear up the mess and subterfuge which seems to have been created mainly by Goncalo Amaral, is an independent, full and open public inquiry into the handling of this investigation by Goncalo Amaral and then subsequently Paulo Rebelo, however, the chances of the Portuguese government ordering this, are nil.

The Portuguese government seem to be more focused on the harm this may do to
Portugal’s tourist industry which is worth over £2.8 billion to their economy, the majority of this revenue is coming from British tourists.

Looking back on the whole fiasco and total farce which was the investigation of Madeleine's disappearance, it is not an exaggeration to say that every mistake that could be made, was made and when you take into consideration that Goncalo Amaral was supposed to be an "experienced" detective with 30 years service under his belt, one has to ask the question; "how come a man of his experience, made all those errors"? Some so basic, a rookie first day policeman would not have made.

Recently Moita Flores a little respected "criminal psychologist" and an associate of Goncalo Amaral's, has claimed his stake to his piece of the fame to be gained by jumping on the high profile band wagon of Madeleine McCann's disappearance. His reasons given for backing his "friend" Goncalo Amaral's events and "libellous" publications etc are perhaps even more bizarre, Flores actually quotes Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, Galileo and Locard!

Someone perhaps needs to tell Moita Flores that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are actually fictional characters, Galileo was born in 1512 and Locard and Locards Principle of DNA transference, would completely destroy Amaral's own argument. Flores also quotes from the American TV programme 'CSI' as some kind of research tool to back his own theories up.

Quie incredible! Yet this is the kind of libel and defamation that Mr Mrs McCann have been fighting in the 2 and a half years since their daughter was abducted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Body Language

After that brief synopis of Goncalo Amaral and the investigation, we come to the man himself and his body language, which despite his claims that he cannot speak English (claims that are challenged), the body language is alarming, even to the untrained eye!

Look at this photograph of him, posing in front of a picture of the book he wrote and an image fo the child Madeleine McCann, whom he failed to find, in actual fact he failed to turn up one clue of any significance, he looks like he wants to be anywhere but standing there at that moment in time.

Look at this picture, look at what his stance is saying, what is it portraying?

He is turned in only slightly towards the picture of Madeleine, his head is held stiffly at an angle, you can almost see it being pulled away from the image. His right shoulder is stiff and held higher than his left shoulder, his left shoulder is dipped making it look like he is trying to turn his body away from the image.

His facial expression is quite revealing, his eyebrows furrowed into the center and the look in his eyes cannot be covered up, the look is almost fear, fear of this little girl? Or fear of looking at her image? The right side of his mouth is downturned and it looks as if he is biting the inside this is a subconscious action, of nervousness and fear and anxiety. A person who is lying, would typically display these actions, these actions look like he is terrified of something about him being found out. Amaral looks tearful, sweaty and anxious, he is showing tension in the way he clutches the book, clutching it with both hands as if he fears someone will take it off of him at any second. The muscles in his face are taut and tense and his downturned lips are pursed and the look in his eyes are giving off messages of a deep seated anxiety, almost as if there is something in his past that he doesn't want revealed.

These signals are almost impossible to hide.

If you study Amaral when he is talking and you can do this on the various videos on youtube and the news etc, he always plays with his hands, he steeples his fingers and then points them towards the camera. This is a subconscious way of distracting people away from what he is actually saying. Even though Amaral has only spoken in Portuguese on camera, it is possible to see the pauses in his speech, his speech doesn't flow, he stops and pauses freequently as if to think about what he is saying, this accentuated hesitation is the sign of a liar, someone who is constantly trying to cover his tracks.

When asked a question he finds difficult to answer, Amaral will straight away go on the defensive, this is another sign of a liar.

For example, in a recent interview where he is attacking the McCanns he is asked a very difficult question, one which answered truthfully could have had serious consequences

Question: Speaking about the Jaguar, it says that has been bought with the profits of the book "The truth of lie"...

Answer: But, it doesn´t say that before this Jaguar bought in second hand, I had another one, much older.

Here Amaral is asked a direct question, one which he finds very difficult to answer, so he does not answer the question, he totally evades it. He starts by mentioning an older Jaguar e he had previously, which has absolutely no bearing on the question he has just been asked, in fact it is actually totally irrelevent and could have actually played very much against him, liars often do this and drop themselves right in it by using something of no relevance to the question asked. Amaral obviously just does not want to publicly admit that the vast amout of money he has made out of a child he failed, has purchased for him an imported luxury motor car, worth over £40.000 *before* Portuguese import taxes.

Of course what the interviewer should have done if he was being objective, was to press Amaral on this very question, as this is one of the basis of the McCanns legal action against him (that he is making an obscene amount of money out of their daughter). It is a particularly pertinant question that could have been answered by giving a straight answer, whether or not you are an Amaral follower or not, he has in fact bought a luxury motor car from the proceeds of a book about a little girl he failed to find. The interviewer could have also pressed him on this for a straight answer, the interviewer could have also pressed him on how he was able to afford the older Jaguar on a salary Amaral's own wife said was "a disgrace", before his book about Madeleine was written, as he is reported to be heavily in debt since 2002. The interview was not objective and allowed Amaral to wriggle off of the hook.

But none the less, the answer Amaral gave to this question, is very revealing in itself, it actually shows he is uncomfortable with making money out of this child, it says that he knows very well that he has failed her and her parents. In fact his answer to just this one question, ties in with what his whole body language is saying in the photograph above.

Amaral hesitates a lot in his speech, demonstrating that he is very guarded in what he is saying, the answer to the above question, just proves this. His natural timing in his speech is also revealing and his constant fidgeting and hand moving is a signal of anxiety, as if he is trying to cover something up, also look at him when he is questioned, he feigns thinking and often stares at something completely unrelated, so he does not have to look into the eyes of ther person he is talking to.

Amaral's body language is in complete contrast to the people who he has accused of murdering their own daughter, even though Kate and Gerry McCann are deeply distressed, there is an openess and honestly to their body language, they answer questions directly and they do not fidget, or strike strange poses with their hands and fingers and they do not look off into the distance, the difference between these people could not be more marked.

......................

I believe that Goncalo Amaral is lying, I believe he is covering up something hugely significant in the Madeleine McCann investigation. He is agitated, defensive and worried about being caught out and he feels very guilty about what he has done and what he continues to do and this comes across in his tense unnatural posture when he is faced with a picture of Madeleine. Even if you do not understand the language, if you have listened the recent phone call tapes, where he is threatening someone, you will note the same agitation and high pitched voice, as he gets more and more stressed, so his voice becomes higher pitched. http://www.zshare.net/download/68611337747aaed2/

(The second voice is the voice of Goncalo Amaral). (For non Portuguese speakers, you can find a summary of this conversation in English on this blog)

Goncalo Amaral also appears to freequently forget what he has said about a certain subject, he repeats things which are inconsistent and appears either very vague when asked a question he finds uncomfortable, or can relate things in minutest detail, yet when asked about what he has said at a later date, he becomes extremely vague and cannot remember, missing out vital details. A striking example of this was a "theory" of his, when pushed on a question about how and where the McCanns, foreigners in a strange country they had not visited before could have successfully hidden a body several times, he suddenly blurted out that they hid it by burying it on the beach, returning later to dig it up and move it somewhere else. This he said was a main theory, yet could provide no detail about how the McCanns could have carried this out in view of the world's media.

This was a complete fabrication and a complete deception, yet he has presented this as a serious theory.

Look at him when he is asked a question and he is about to lie about the answer a question which he finds difficult to answer, he covers his mouth with his steepled fingers and also clamps his mouth by pressing his lips together and pursing them, before he answers. This is very evident on the video he made which he calls a reconstruction. The body language on that film was a complete revelation.

As a former police detective, he has been trained in how to spot someone lying, I believe this is actually turning out to be his downfall in the Madeleine case, because he knows others are looking at him for signs of him telling lies. He has a tendency to generalise and uses words like "always" quiet a lot. This is Amaral trying to control the conversation and control is language, he also tries very hard to control his body language and during this he will hold his body rigidly, he often smiles, but his smile harldy ever reaches his eyes. I have studide a great many videos where he is talking and I have been utterly amazed at the number of times he stands in front of the camera squarely, yet his eys are never looking straight forward, they are nearly always without exception looking down and to his left, he also oftens leaks signals, being someone who has no doubt read the body language of people he has interviewed, he knows the signs and he desperately tries to cover them up in himself, but he should know that he cannot cover these signs up, they are learned from an early age and the more he tries to cover them up, the more evident they become and the more shifty he actually appears, he also accentuates with exaggerated movements of his hands.

When he is asked difficult questions he over emphasises the points which would normally tell us he is telling the truth and over uses techniques, he freequently digresses away from the real topic, when he is really under pressure he uses techniques to distract people, he often at this point introduces other points of interest, points he knows can easily distract others, so he is manipulating people and controlling the interview/conversation.
He freequently starts off an answer with "let me answer the question" this is an old politcal trick, it ususally means they are going to do anything and say anything, rather than truthfully answer the question they have just been asked, he also uses a technique of changing the question so the interviewer thinks they are getting a reply when they are not, he is giving a completely different answer.

Goncalo Amaral also tries to confuse people, this is another sign of a liar, he will often give overly complicated answers to a very simple question, he often talks about laws and acts etc, he knows fully well that the majority of people will not understand or be the least bit interested in his replies and most people will not question him, because they are embarrassed that they have not understood his answer and do not want to appear silly. This technique is used by liars quiet a lot. Amaral pauses a lot before answering a question and by contrast to using long technical replies he will sometimes give short clipped answers, such as his response when recently during an interview he asked a serious question about, whether he thought the McCanns would accuse of delaying a court case, because his legal counsel had successfullyhad it postponed, because Amaral's solicitor was said to have been quarantined after being in contact with swine flu. Amaral said; "I'm not responsible for swine flu at least that the McCanns can't pin on me".

Notice what we talked about earlier, he evaded the question and avoided answering it, although giving a response which sound like an answer when it was in fact not an answer to the question. He also went straight on the defensive and actually attacked the McCanns in the reply he gave. People who constantly lie do this. Also in another accusation (you can read about this in the phone call tape summary) one of Amaral's victims, actually makes reference to his voice, she said he uses this flat monotone "smooth talking" voice when he is on TV or talking in interviews, she has actually accused him of fooling people with this voice. This is exactly what accomplished liars do when they are in the spotlight, but when they are unguarded like on the phone call tapes, they often fly into defensive rages. In this picture above you can see Amaral is actually avoiding eye contact with the image of Madeleine, he is turning his head and shoulders away away, Amaral does this a lot in his TV interviews, usually he does this just prior to telling a lie.

Never is this more striking than in the scene in this video where he just emerges from the court doors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6uD5ahcTvw&feature=player_embedded

His whole demeanor is one of a liar, the look on his face as he comes out of the building, looks like a smirk, this is a dead give away, Amaral is nervous, twitchy, edgy, his movements are jerky and he cannot llok straight ahead of him, he is constantly looking towards his left and to the ground. He is asked questions and he pauses before he answers each one of them, he is thinking about what he is saying, he is scared of being caught out in a lie and he is terrified he is going to trip himself up. He cannot make eye contact, he is unable to stay still, he oks like he just wants to get away as fast as possible, this is in striking contrast to Kate and Gerry McCann apart from when they were filmed coming through customs after arriving at the airport, when they in fact emerged from the court, they stood their ground, they were still and natural and relaxed and open and willing to answer questions put to them and they were not distracted, did not go on the defensive, despite the noise from a heckler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvBhetTOnyw&feature=player_embedded

The rate that Amaral has a tendency say as little as possible about subjects he is uneasy with, such as surprise questions, the time he elaborates is when he is in a planned interview situation, where the questions are obviously stacked for him, so he has researched the answers already.
Asked a difficult question to which he has not prepared the answer, he tries to change the subject and will often repeat the interviewer's or the journalists own words back at them, with a denial. Look at his facial expressions, he grimaces a lot, blinks and swallows more, he also shrugs a great deal.

In a great many of his interviews he feels threatened, this is why he is always holding his book, or a wad of papers, or he continually holds his right arm up and across his chest, he is actually placing a barrier between him and the journalists, he perceives the journalists as an attack, he is doing the same when he constanly waves his hand around in the air, he is creating barriers and diverting attention away from his lies.

Amaral also tries to distance himself from events he will deliberately use less statements that begin with I, he also flatly denies any wrongdoing, everything in his life that goes wrong, is always the fault of someone else.

Recently he accused the McCanns of causing his famliy harm, this is patently untrue, the McCanns have been quiet about him, for almost two years, they remained quiet and Amaral took this to mean they were weak and they would not fight back, and Amaral became bolder and bolder in his statements (another sure sign of a liar), he wrote a book, then planned another, he gave paid TV interviews and all the while he did what liars do, he made himself and his own family out to be the victims of the McCanns, when really if he had not told lies about them, had not written this book and then travelled about Europe giving paid interviews about them, then they would have probably remained quiet.

When we know that Amaral would be well versed with how liars are caught out because of his job, he over compensates for knowing and will deliberately appear way too relaxed. Take his arrival to court recently, it is absolutely understandable that he would have nerves, even if he is a former a policeman, after all a lot is at stake should he lose this case, yet he arrived looking way too relaxed, a couple of the journalists even picked up on it. He put so much effort into looking relaxed.

Amaral also used to sport a mustache and wear dark glasses, this is another trait of someone who is hiding behind a barrier.

All these things are meaningless alone and any one individual can ahave a few of these traits naturally and this does not mean they are liars, however what is revealing is when you get a a person who is demonstraing a whole cluster of these behaviours, in virtually everything they say and do in certain situations.

I believe I have recognised Goncalo Amaral for what he is and that is a liar and if I am honest, the picture above where he is looking at Madeleine, along with everything else he demonstrates, I find particularly disturbing.