to silence cop who claims they covered up daughter’s death
Goncalo Amaral had worked on the investigation to find Maddie after she disappeared in May 2007
MADELEINE McCann’s parents have lost their new court appeal to silence the ex-cop who claims they covered up their daughter’s death, Portuguese media reports.
Portuguese Supreme Court judges met to resolve the couple’s fight against a lower court’s decision last April to reverse their 2015 libel win against Goncalo Amaral.
The hearing took place in private in Lisbon this morning.
The decision is a major milestone in Gerry and Kate McCann’s eight-year fight over a book written by Amaral, who led the initial hunt when then-three-year-old Madeleine vanished from their Algarve holiday apartment in May 2007.
Amaral was ordered to pay Kate and Gerry £430,000 plus interest in damages after losing round one of their libel battle in April 2015 over his hurtful book ‘The Truth of the Lie.’
Appeal judges reversed the initial ruling by a court in Lisbon in April last year, siding with the former police chief and overturning a ban on his book.
The decision sparked a fresh appeal by the McCanns to the country’s highest law court.
The couple could now face a huge legal bill, which had been frozen until the outcome of the final appeal.
The McCanns’ Portuguese lawyer Isabel Duarte lodged the couple’s new appeal last May after vowing to fight the U-turn by judges over Amaral’s book.
Criticising the ruling in favour of the ex-police chief, which a friend of the McCanns said had left them “seething,” she said: “This decision was an appreciation of the law and not the facts.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/275015...ughters-death/