Sol/Lusa: Madeleine caseJustice Minister considers it is "premature" to speak of the failure of the investigationThe Justice Minister, Alberto Costa, considered today it was "premature" to announce the failure of the investigation into the Madeleine case and defended that the development of the process should be awaited "without noise""We should await the development of the process without noise and we should not be premature in marking the outcome of the process", Alberto Costa said during the First Parliamentary Comission about the controversial statements that were made by the national director of the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) concerning the case of the English child that disppeared in the Algarve in May 2007.The national director of the PJ, Alipio Ribeiro, stated, during an interview, that there may have been precipitation in the constitution of Kate and Gerry McCann, the child's parents, into arguidos.When questioned by Nuno Melo, an MP from CDS/PP, about the truthfulness of Alipio Ribeiro's statements, the minister was peremptory: "I don't know, I don't want to know, and I cannot know whether they are false or true".In another phase of the audition, which had been requested by CDS/PP, Alberto Costa remembered that "as a member of government, he never publicly comments on statements from persons who depend from him".Earlier, the minister had guaranteed to the MP's in the Parliamentary Comission for Constitutional Matters that the comment from the PJ's top official had not affected "the superior course of the process" and that he has no indication that there may have been a "violation of the judicial secrecy".Aguiar Branco, an MP from PSD, criticised that the Minister of Justice and communist MP Antonio Filipe - who dismissed the initiative from CDS/PP as "noise" - had diminished the value of Alipio Ribeiro's statements."We are playing with fire. There is an ongoing dismissal of the statements that are made by judicial agents within this Commission", the former Justice Minister said, also referring to the parliamentary audition of the Public Prosecutor, Pinto Ribeiro, about his statements concerning phone tapping.Like Helena Pinto, from Bloco de Esquerda, Aguiar Branco considered that the minister only gave "procedural justifications"."This is not a technical issue. The problem is one of political management of the situation", Aguiar Branco said, questioning whether the minister considered that Alipio Ribeiro's words were "innocuous".The social-democrat MP insisted that this is "a problem of institutional trust", and that it was necessary to "draw political consequences from the statements".Nuno Melo also criticised the alleged attempt to dismiss Alipio Ribeiro's statements, mentioning that those "had consequences on the credibility of Justice" and "external and internal" repercussions on the image of criminal investigation and of the country itself.Translation by AstroRelated: Minister of Justice, Alberto Costa in the ParliamentA typical UK ArticleMaddie probe 'will be halted in Portugal'Last updated at 20:59pm on 13th February 2008Police are ready to halt the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance without solving the case, Portugal's justice minister admitted yesterday.Alberto Costa said officers are "approaching the conclusion of the process" - dropping the strongest hint yet that they might never discover what happened to the missing girl, who disappeared on May 3, days before her fourth birthday.He told the Portuguese parliament it is still "too early" to say if they would ever know the truth about Madeleine's disappearance, claiming 80 per cent of missing children cases in Britain go unsolved.Kate and Gerry McCann, both 39, launched a new poster campaign to find her hours before the minister's speech.Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell demanded that Portuguese police clear the couple, who are official suspects in the case, before calling a halt. Mr Costa was summoned before the Portuguese parliament after his head of police, admitted officers had rushed the decision to name the couple as suspects. Police are to fly to Britain to re-interview the friends who dined with the McCanns the night Madeleine vanished. Technorati Tags: Clarence Mitchell, Gerry McCann, Madeleine McCann, Mccann, Metodo3, Fraud, Scam, Spin, British Media, Newspapers, News, Lies, Alipio Ribeiro, PJ, Alberto Costa, xklamation, Joana Morais
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Sol/Lusa: Madeleine caseJustice Minister considers it is "premature" to speak of the failure of the investigationThe Justice Minister, Alberto Costa, considered today it was "premature" to announce the failure of the investigation into the Madeleine case and defended that the development of the process should be awaited "without noise""We should await the development of the process without noise and we should not be premature in marking the outcome of the process", Alberto Costa said during the First Parliamentary Comission about the controversial statements that were made by the national director of the Policia Judiciaria (PJ) concerning the case of the English child that disppeared in the Algarve in May 2007.The national director of the PJ, Alipio Ribeiro, stated, during an interview, that there may have been precipitation in the constitution of Kate and Gerry McCann, the child's parents, into arguidos.When questioned by Nuno Melo, an MP from CDS/PP, about the truthfulness of Alipio Ribeiro's statements, the minister was peremptory: "I don't know, I don't want to know, and I cannot know whether they are false or true".In another phase of the audition, which had been requested by CDS/PP, Alberto Costa remembered that "as a member of government, he never publicly comments on statements from persons who depend from him".Earlier, the minister had guaranteed to the MP's in the Parliamentary Comission for Constitutional Matters that the comment from the PJ's top official had not affected "the superior course of the process" and that he has no indication that there may have been a "violation of the judicial secrecy".Aguiar Branco, an MP from PSD, criticised that the Minister of Justice and communist MP Antonio Filipe - who dismissed the initiative from CDS/PP as "noise" - had diminished the value of Alipio Ribeiro's statements."We are playing with fire. There is an ongoing dismissal of the statements that are made by judicial agents within this Commission", the former Justice Minister said, also referring to the parliamentary audition of the Public Prosecutor, Pinto Ribeiro, about his statements concerning phone tapping.Like Helena Pinto, from Bloco de Esquerda, Aguiar Branco considered that the minister only gave "procedural justifications"."This is not a technical issue. The problem is one of political management of the situation", Aguiar Branco said, questioning whether the minister considered that Alipio Ribeiro's words were "innocuous".The social-democrat MP insisted that this is "a problem of institutional trust", and that it was necessary to "draw political consequences from the statements".Nuno Melo also criticised the alleged attempt to dismiss Alipio Ribeiro's statements, mentioning that those "had consequences on the credibility of Justice" and "external and internal" repercussions on the image of criminal investigation and of the country itself.Translation by AstroRelated: Minister of Justice, Alberto Costa in the ParliamentA typical UK ArticleMaddie probe 'will be halted in Portugal'Last updated at 20:59pm on 13th February 2008Police are ready to halt the investigation into Madeleine McCann's disappearance without solving the case, Portugal's justice minister admitted yesterday.Alberto Costa said officers are "approaching the conclusion of the process" - dropping the strongest hint yet that they might never discover what happened to the missing girl, who disappeared on May 3, days before her fourth birthday.He told the Portuguese parliament it is still "too early" to say if they would ever know the truth about Madeleine's disappearance, claiming 80 per cent of missing children cases in Britain go unsolved.Kate and Gerry McCann, both 39, launched a new poster campaign to find her hours before the minister's speech.Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell demanded that Portuguese police clear the couple, who are official suspects in the case, before calling a halt. Mr Costa was summoned before the Portuguese parliament after his head of police, admitted officers had rushed the decision to name the couple as suspects. Police are to fly to Britain to re-interview the friends who dined with the McCanns the night Madeleine vanished. Technorati Tags: Clarence Mitchell, Gerry McCann, Madeleine McCann, Mccann, Metodo3, Fraud, Scam, Spin, British Media, Newspapers, News, Lies, Alipio Ribeiro, PJ, Alberto Costa, xklamation, Joana Morais