Goncalo Amaral--the case of Hugo

courtesy of Rosie

The Controversies of Goncalo Amaral Continue - The Case Of Hugo

Goncalo Amaral and His Wife and Lawyer Outside The Court After He Had Been Found Guilty of Concealing Evidence of Torture. behind Him Pierre Paulo Cristovao, another Controversial figure, who is awaiting to hear if the appeal against his acquittal for the torture of Leonor Cipriano is accepted or dismissed!


Hugo is a young man living in Olivais, Lisboa. In October/2005 he received a letter from an Ayamonte court, it was directly addressed to him and did not come through the police or another court! It was accusing him of an attempted homicide back in August/2003. He went to a PSP (Public Safety Police) precinct in Lisbon, where he was sent to the PJ (policia judiciaria), and having got there, they told him to go back home and not to worry about the case. One year later, because he did not attend the court in Spain, he got the visit of PJ inspectors with an arrest warrant. He was so scared, he attempted suicide while in custody/prison that night. The next morning he was presented to a judge who confirmed that he was accused of being co-author of an attempted homicide along with two other people, one of them a former colleague that although lived in the same neighbourhood he had not seen since he left school, this person had already presented himself to the police already implicating himself in the crime. Hugo proclaimed innocence immediately and was able to present a staggering 15 witnesses, as he had been in Mondim de Basto, (his wife's place of birth) at the time of the homicide and said he never had set foot in Spain.

He and his wife were unemployed and had two little children and very poor and totally unable to defend himself.

Dr Barra da Costa Martins former Chief Inspector of the PJ now University Professor of Criminology and Criminal Psychology heard about the case and found a lawyer for Hugo, working pro bono (Free). The Portuguese court did not care to clarify if there was a case of mistaken identity, they didn't even bother to interrogate the other arguido. The same happened with the Supreme Court, on appeal. Basically, the case came back to the Relation (first instance) Court who refused to hear expert witnesses opinions and forensic exams on some photo of grainy video "evidence" that the PJ presented. The court concluded it was it was Hugo by just looking at the video with the 'naked eye'. Hugo's defense lawyer Almado wanted to bring expert witnesses, who could give their expert opinions on facial recognition.

While this case was being investigated by the PJ, the PJ coordinator was one Goncalo Amaral (again) it was up to him to make the diligences and have the video examined to see if this person was Hugo, Goncalo Amaral FAILED to do this and just presented this sloppy "evidence" to the court and the court just accepted it. The "co-author" completely denied Hugo's involvement in the attempted murder and under cross-examination in court he said he named Hugo because he was being *PRESSED* to do so, by the investigating officer *Goncalo Amaral*. A New appeal was heard in Portugal with the same result, a European mandate was issued and Hugo arrested at his home. December 2007, in court in Ayamonte, the victim of the attempted homicide did not recognise Hugo at all, yet Hugo was extradited to Spain to stand trial for attempted murder.

• Hugo had 15 witnesses that put him in another place entirely.


• Hugo did NOT resemble he person on a very grainy video footage which was presented in court by Goncalo Amaral as proof of Hugo's involvement.


• Goncalo Amaral refused to get facial recognition expert to examine the footage of the video.


• Goncalo Amaral refused to allow the forensic examination of the video.


• Goncalo Amaral refused to believe 15 eye witnesses that placed Hugo in his wife's birth place at the time of the crime.


• Goncalo Amaral *PRESSED* (or tortured?) the alleged co-author of Hugo into identifying his accomplice as Hugo.


• His alleged "co-author" later testified in court under oath that he had been pressed into giving this statement.


• The victim of the crime did NOT recognise or identify Hugo as being his assailant.

Fortunately the story finally ended for Hugo in a court in Huelva, Spain, the defendant was acquitted and cleared of all suspicion, when the Spanish court kicked it out.

It appears that the court in Spain wanted the video footage of Hugo to have it forensically examined and for facial recognition experts to examine it, but the Portuguese coordinator one Goncalo Amaral FAILED to send the video in time and many suspected him of "concealing evidence" that could have cleared Hugo in a Portuguese court, but it has to be said that the Portuguese courts were lax in their duty to their citizen too. Goncalo Amaral has since been convicted of concealing evidence of torture in the case of Leonor Cipriano, he received an 18 month suspended prison sentence.

"As Dr Barra da Costa puts it, 'In Portugal, there are far too many Hugos and Joanas. In Portugal there has been a long time since we last had a Gordon Brown, honour to him, capable of publicly risking his capital as statesman, that of the party and of Her Majesty in favour of his own nationals'."

Hugo was wrongly charged and it has been alleged that Hugo was deliberately falsely charged in order to protect "drug traffickers"! Hugo and his family suffered tremendously as a direct result of Goncalo Amaral and his "shoddy and dubious" police work. Of course Goncalo Amaral was at that time in charge of the drug squad!

The result is that if the Portuguese court had the photographic expert findings along with the co-defendant stating again that Hugo had nothing to do with this, and the victims themselves had also not recognised Hugo.

How many times is Goncalo Amaral going to be allowed to get away with this kind of thing?

And now we have him attempting to become a lawyer and being trained by the ex lawyer of Leonor Cipriano, a lawyer that attends Amaral's private functions. A lawyer who was himself caught in possession of class A drugs trying to smuggle them into a prison and who mysteriously was allowed to get off of this charge!

Mysterious that a lawyer who knew he would be searched, attempted drug smuggling and mysterious that he got away with such a serious crime.

Mysterious too that at the time he was representing Leonor Cipriano. Now call me a cynic and tell me that I may have been watching too many movies, but could the story be that drugs were planted on the lawyer, the lawyer was then forced to a dreadful job representing Leonor Cipriano in court, in return for him being cleared of smuggling drugs?

Leonor Cipriano was needed to be found guilty of murdering her daughter to cover up what really happened to her and why? Her uncle being hooked on hard drugs and would do anything for money to buy drugs.

The connection again being made to drugs and who is involved again? Goncalo Amaral.

What is happening in Portugal? How many times is something like this going to happen and the real culprits of murder, drug trafficking and child abduction be protected? how far are the police involved in all of this?

Goncalo Amaral *MUST* be investigated and interrogated, he may know who took Madeleine McCann!