On Tuesday, January 31, the Supreme Court of Portugal ruled that Kate and Gerry McCann cannot sue former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral for libel.
The decision marks a resolution in the couple’s fight against a lower court’s decision last April to reverse their 2015 libel win against the former detective.
The ruling comes after an eight-year fight over Amaral’s 2008 book, Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie.
Amaral, who led the initial investigation when then-three-year-old Madeleine vanished from a holiday home in Portugal’s Algarve region in May 2007, alleged in his book that the toddler’s parents were involved in highly-publicised disappearance.
Amaral claimed that Madeleine had died in the holiday accommodation and the couple had faked her abduction to cover up the tragedy.
Madeleine was just three-years-old when she disappeared while holidaying with her family in Portugal.
The Portuguese Supreme Court’s latest ruling has found that Amaral’s “exercise of his freedom of expression was not considered abusive,” adding that Amaral’s comments were “within admissible limits in a democratic and open society, which excludes the illegality of possible damage to the honour of the McCanns.”
In his defence, Amaral argued that the claims made in his controversial book stemmed from first-hand experience within the police investigation.
According to The Mirror, well-placed sources close to the long-running case have revealed that the McCanns will now face a hefty legal bill.
Amaral’s explosive book claimed that Madeleine’s parents were involved in her disappearance.
The couple will also be required to pay Amaral damages in excess of $AUD 700,000 plus interest, as well as covering his legal costs.
In June 2016, it was reported that former British broadcaster and politician Sir Clement Freud had been linked to the case of missing Maddie McCann after he was exposed to have been a paedophile.
Freud, who died more than seven years ago, was found to have sexually abused girls as young as 10 for decades. He abused a girl for years whom he’d brought up as a daughter, and while he was an MP he violently raped a teen.
Freud in 2006.
Detectives investigating Maddie’s disappearance learned that Freud owned a villa in Praia da Luc, Portugal, the same resort from which the toddler disappear.
Freud became friends with the McCann family in the weeks following her disappearance, even having them over at his house twice.
At the time, Freud’s family said that he wasn’t in Portugal at the time of her disappearance.
British police continue to investigate the disappearance of Maddie McCann.
