The Truth of the Lie is always revealed by the face

by Helena Norte


“People speak without speaking. The face screams”, says Armindo Freitas-Magalhães, director of the Laboratory for Facial Expression of Emotions (FEELab) at Fernando Pessoa University. And it always screams the truth. Even when one tries to hide, simulate or distort.

Because the muscles draw on the face (the stage) the emotions that are generated in the brain (the dressing rooms) in a spontaneous and involuntary way, the psychologist explains. And he states: “Facial expressions never lie”.
Paul Ekman, a famous North American psychologist who inspired the television series “Lie to me”, has cartographed the expression of emotions on the human face, based on muscle movements of the face, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the eyelids, the eyebrows, the forehead and the neck. The result is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), a scientifically validated instrument – contrary to the polygraph – that has many uses, including criminal investigation.

The Paul Ekman Group cooperates with the FBI, the CIA, the Scotland Yard and other investigation agencies, just like in the television show, which is fictional and exaggerated in some aspects, but with scientific bases, asserts Freitas-Magalhães, who is also a member of the institution.

In Portugal, the study of facial expressions has never been applied in police investigations and the fact that police interrogation is not recorded on video renders its application more difficult. The FEELab’s director confirms the existence of “non official approaches”, when Madeleine McCann disappeared, and he even came to analyze the parents’ expressions during public statements.

He concluded that when they stated that they had never given their children sedatives, there was no congruence between the verbal language (words) and the non verbal (facial expressions). Which indicates that they lied. “The way one says something is more important than what is being said. Even blinking gives indications about what one is feeling”, the psychologist stresses.

Every expression, every movement has a meaning. More than that: they are universal. A Portuguese person’s face reveals emotions such as happiness, despise or surprise in the same way that a Chinese. In other words, they use the same facial markers. What differs are the rules of social exhibition, Freitas-Magalhães explains, citing Ekman’s studies in New Guinea, which demonstrated the universality of the facial expression of emotions.

Simulations are obviously possible, and some people handle them well, especially in situations where there is an emotional emptiness, but the produced expressions do not comply with the criteria of truthfulness and someone who has mastered the FACS is able to detect the lies. Always, the investigator guarantees. One of the ways to find the falsehood of an expression is to analyze the face’s symmetry: in case of a simulation, the left side’s movements do not match the right side’s movements.




in: Jornal de Notícias, 31.01.2011

Looking back on the Maddie case: Witness statement - Sílvia Batista

Polícia Judiciária - Criminal Investigation Department of Portimão

Witness statement of Sílvia Maria Correia Ramos Batista

Date: 2007/07/26
Time: 16h00
Location: CID Portimão
Statement taken by Paulo Ferreira, Inspector



Concerning the matter of the process, the witness said:

That she has given statements for several times within the process, and remembers the contents of what she stated before, therefore reproducing the contents of the previous statements into this statement.

The deponent offers another statement because with the passage of time, since Madeleine’s disappearance, she has remembered some details of the facts that she witnessed, which she considers of some interest to the investigation.

Like she said before, she was alerted to Madeleine’s disappearance between 10.30 and 11 p.m. She was at home and was informed about the event through a telephone call. She immediately went to the Ocean Club, where she arrived only minutes before the GNR officers. When she arrived at the resort, she went immediately to apartment 5A, where she met several persons both on the inside and on the outside of the apartment. She went into the apartment but left it right away without speaking to anyone, because she was informed that the GNR officers were at the main reception, so she went to meet them.

When she arrived near the GNR officers, she verified that Gerry, Madeleine’s father, was behind her, in the company of another individual whose identity she doesn’t remember. At that moment, Gerry placed both knees on the floor, hit the floor with both hands, too, placing himself like a praying Arab, and shouted out twice in rage, and it was not possible to understand what he said. Then Gerry got back on his feet and accompanied the deponent and the other individual who was in the GNR car, to apartment 5A.

Already on location, the deponent entered the apartment and asked those who were present both for the passports of all family members and photographs of the missing person. The deponent walked Gerry to the GNR car, so he could deliver the requested documents. She states that she carried out these diligences, and other diligences, at the request of the GNR Commander as they used the deponent’s knowledge of the English language to translate the questions that were asked from the missing person’s family members, and the answers that were given. She remembers that Gerry gave the GNR Commander several photographs of the missing person. These were postcard-type photographs, taking their size and shape into account. They were actually photographs of the size and shape of a postcard, and they seemed to be all similar to her.

She also realised that from the very first moment on, both Gerry and the rest of the group members insisted in stating that Madeleine had been abducted, all of them using the word “abducted” [original in English] instead of missing, and they all showed great interest in informing the press about the situation.

The deponent further recalls that she entered the room where Madeleine had been sleeping. She now remembers that the door was closed. The inside of the room was dark. The shutters were down, and light entered only through its holes. The windows were closed and the curtains slightly open. Gerry, who accompanied the deponent during this visit, with the GNR officers also present, said that it had been him who had closed the window because the babies were still sleeping inside, which the deponent could verify as true. Gerry mentioned that when he noticed that Madeleine was missing, he had found the window and shutters open, and the curtains fluttering.

The deponent recalls that the cots that were used by the babies were placed in the middle of the room and aligned, and therefore she found it strange that someone could have taken Madeleine from the bed where she was sleeping up to the window, because there was no space to get through. The deponent opened the bedroom’s wardrobe to check if eventually Madeleine was hiding inside. Then they all left the room, and someone closed its door again. The deponent remained in the living room for a while, with the GNR officers, Gerry and the other group members that were there in a frenzy, going in and out and speaking on their mobile phones. She noticed that none of the group members, including the child’s mother and father, were busy looking for her. The mother was sitting on the master bedroom’s bed, the father accompanied the deponent and the GNR officers and the other group members walked in and out and spoke on the phone, apparently concerned about informing the press about the event.

She thought that the child’s mother was downbeat with the situation, the father showed his concern and also asked both for the press to be alerted and for dogs to be brought in for the search. Concerning the others, she can only recall that Fiona and her husband, Payne, were hysterical about the situation. At a given moment, right after the PJ’s elements arrived, the child’s parents removed the twins from the cots where they still slept, and took them into the apartment on the first floor. At Kate’s request, the deponent removed the soft toys and a blanket from the cots, and also took them to the first floor. The babies’ cots were left only with the mattresses.

The deponent also wishes to mention that at around 3 a.m. Madeleine’s parents asked for the presence of a priest on location. They didn’t explain the reason why they wanted a priest, but the deponent found the fact strange as there were no indications that the little girl was dead, and that’s the circumstance under which usually the presence of a priest is requested.

At a given moment, the deponent translated the deposition from one of the ladies that belonged to the group of English people, namely one that she indicates as being a brunette. This lady told the GNR officers, and the deponent translated, that she had seen a man crossing the road, possibly carrying a child. The deponent found that situation strange because she was convinced that when she saw this man, the lady was positioned in a spot that has no viewing angle to the location where she had seen the man. She doesn’t know exactly where the lady was positioned when she saw the man passing by, but she knows that she indicated that she saw him passing on the street that lies in front of the window to the bedroom where Madeleine was, walking into the direction of the street that leads to the Baptista supermarket.

When questioned about the clothes that the English group members wore that night, she mentions that she only remembers that Fiona wore a green blouse, Gerry wore a dark coloured shirt, and Fiona’s husband wore light-coloured trousers, she thinks cream-coloured.

And she stated nothing further.




in: Processo 201/07.0GALGS, Volume VIII, pages 1975-1977

Kate and Gerry McCann hunt for caller who tried to grab agent's phone records

By James Murray


Kate and Gerry McCann are furious after discovering attempts have been made to find out about phone calls they made to their spokesman, Clarence Mitchell.

Scotland Yard is trying to establish who tried to get information from Mr Mitchell’s mobile phone provider, while the McCanns are checking their phone records to see if they were also targeted.

The news comes just as the pair have signed a deal for a reputed £200,000 with The Sun, the sister paper of the News of the World, to serialise a book on the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine in Portugal in 2007.

There is no suggestion anyone from Rupert Murdoch’s News International has tried to use phone-hacking against Mr Mitchell. He said the first incident was in 2008, when a mystery caller claiming to be a court witness contacted Vodafone on February 29, seeking details of his phone.

Mr Mitchell said: “The operator lists it, saying ‘a gentleman called wishing to check the phone’ as he gets calls each night from the number wanting information and is a ‘witness on the CID trial for McCanns’. It certainly wasn’t me that made that call. There was no such thing as a CID trial for the McCanns.

“That appears to be a blatant attempt to get information about whose number it was and what was happening. Thankfully, the operator didn’t give them anything.”

A further call was made to Vodafone in July. Mr Mitchell said: “Basically, it [the entry] claims the person ringing, not me, received a text message claiming that a third party had been trying to access their voicemail but there was nothing on the account showing that. That’s because it isn’t true, I never got such a text. Somebody else is again fishing for information.”

This week Mr Mitchell will pass his phone records to Scotland Yard. Kate and Gerry, both 42, have found nothing untoward on their phone statements, but are re-examining all their records.


in: Sunday Express, 30.01.2011

The Gaspar Statements: Cover Letter from Leicestershire Police, 24 Oct 2007

From: DC 1756 Mike Marshall

Dept.: Leicestershire Police, Phone nr. 0116 2484409

To: Ricardo Paiva

Ref.: David Payne

Date: October 24, 2007



Ricardo,


Please find enclosed Arul and Katherina Gaspar’s statements, as requested.


I have carefully read the written questionnaire that was handed over by David Payne, but I was unable to extract any other information apart from what is already known.

He states that he saw Madeleine, for the last time, at 5 pm on the 3rd of May, 2007, in the McCanns’ apartment. Kate and Gerry were equally present then. He did not state the reason why he was in the apartment at that time, or what they were doing. He does not state for how long he stayed there, either.

When he was asked with who he was in the evening of the 3rd of May, he states that he has already given that information to the police and that he cannot remember if he was aware of anyone else.

He cannot recall what he was wearing that afternoon.

In fact, he participated in the search, but for most of the time, he was alone. Sometimes he was accompanied by Matthew Oldfield.

He did not participate in the searches that took place on the 4th of May, because he spent most of that day at the police station.

To many of the questions there is no full reply, stating merely and he has already supplied the Portuguese police with the information / statements.


I have again examined Fiona Payne’s information. In her statement, she says that she went to the McCanns’ apartment at around 7 pm on the 3rd of May, along with Kate. She states that the husband arrived 10 minutes later; it is unclear what husband she is referring to, whether it’s Gerry or her own husband.

Her replies to the written questionnaire are vague, as she replies to the questions saying “according to my statement” or using a similar expression.



in: Processo 201/07.0 GALGS, pages 3909 and 3910 (Volume XIII)

Looking back on the Maddie case: "The PJ is forced to investigate abduction lead"

While doing some research on the Madeleine McCann case, I came across an old article from Correio da Manhã, dated August 12, 2007. It reminded me not only of the recent Wikileaks news, but especially of an even more recent quote from an interview that Clarence Mitchell gave to Peter Levy, on BBC Radio Humberside:

“And yes, you're right, there was a lot of criticism at different times and a lot of leaked rubbish, frankly, that came out in the Portuguese press and was then repeated without any attempt to check it in the British media and then recycled a third time into... back into Portugal.”

An idea that Mr Mitchell repeated in another interview, this time with Stephen Nolan, on BBC Radio 5live:

“And, of course, what makes it all the more frustrating for them was that they knew that much of the coverage was based on either falsehoods, misunderstandings, deliberate leaks from certain quarters, that were then mistranslated, either through mistake or through deliberately. A story that would appear on a Monday in Portugal, saying something was possibly the case - which we knew wasn't true - would then become hardened up as fact on the Tuesday in the British press and then, on Wednesday, it would be repeated, 'as reported by the illustrious London paper X or Y'.”

Mistranslations aside, here’s the article that brought back some old memories - linked to some not-so-old knowledge about the case's backdrop:

The PJ is forced to investigate abduction lead

Alípio Ribeiro, the Polícia Judiciária’s national director, received a telephone call from John Buck, the British ambassador in Portugal, on the night that Madeleine disappeared from the Ocean Club, on the 3rd of May

by José Carlos Marques / P. M.

At around 11 p.m., approximately two hours after the child’s disappearance was communicated, Alípio Ribeiro had to interrupt a private dinner in order to listen to the diplomat. The phone call was the first sign that the English were very interested in following the PJ’s action closely and to push the investigations into the direction of an abduction.

“The PJ lost too much time investigating the abduction”, a source linked to the investigation told Correio da Manhã. The English diplomacy’s pressure only relented when British police officers arrived in Portugal and supported the redirecting of the investigation towards the hypothesis of homicide. The biological traces that were found inside the apartment were decisive in changing the inquiry’s route, or at least, for the PJ to publicly admit to that change.

The decision to deepen the possibility of the child’s death at the Ocean Club – and the consequent reevaluation of Maddie’s parents’ statements, as well as their friends’ – was made while considering the English police officers’ opinion. The interview that Olegário Sousa – the Judiciária’s chief inspector who has been serving as the police’s spokesman in this case – gave to BBC and ITN televisions yesterday was planned with these agents.

The choice of these two television channels was motivated by the indignation that the English police officers in the Algarve felt themselves, concerning the accusations that have been made against the PJ by the British press. BBC and ITN have been covering the case with more coldness and impartiality, which is the reason why they were given privileged access to the interview.

This was the first time that Olegário Sousa publicly admitted the possibility of Madeleine being dead. A position that places the McCanns in the centre of the investigation, a situation that has been handled ‘with tweezers’ by the Portuguese police.

[…]

in: Correio da Manhã, 12.08.2007

McCann spokesman Mitchell tells of phone security fear

By Jon Manel PM, BBC Radio 4


The spokesman for the family of Madeleine McCann says he will contact the police because he believes someone attempted to access information about his mobile phone account and voicemail.

Clarence Mitchell became the family's point of contact for the media after three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the holiday apartment where her family was staying in Portugal in May 2007.

Journalists from dozens of news organisations around the world regarded him as a key to potential new angles.

Mr Mitchell asked his mobile phone provider, Vodafone, to check his account details after years of allegations about how some journalists got their stories.
'Blatant attempt'

"I was always concerned that if some journalists were up to this sort of thing that I might be a target but I had no proof," he said.

Mr Mitchell was told that records of calls made and received are routinely destroyed after about a year.

However, he was provided with some information including details of calls made to Vodafone about his account.

Two instances were drawn to his attention, the first one on 29 February 2008.

Mr Mitchell said: "The operator lists it, saying 'a gentleman called wishing to check the phone', as he gets calls each night from the number and wanting information and is a 'witness on the CID trial for McCanns'.

"Well, that doesn't make sense. It certainly wasn't me that made that call. I would never use that phraseology and there was no such thing as a CID trial for the McCanns. It's ridiculous.

"That appears to me to be a blatant attempt to get information about whose number it was and what was happening. Thankfully the operator didn't give them anything."
'Fishing for information'

Another call was made to Vodafone customer services in July 2008.

Mr Mitchell said: "Basically it [the entry] claims the person ringing - not me I stress - had received a text message, claiming that a third party had been trying to access their voicemail but there was nothing on the account showing that.

"Well, that's because it isn't true. I never got such a text. Somebody else is again fishing for information here. The Vodafone operator believed they were talking to me as the account holder, that's why they listed it as customer."

Mr Mitchell says he knows "absolutely" that he did not make either call.

On both occasions, he says, "thankfully" the phone company's security measures worked and no information was divulged.

To his frustration, due to the lack of other information now available, he says he cannot trace who might have done this.

"It is impossible to state with any accuracy who was behind these calls. Given the situation that I was in at the time and the amount of journalistic inquiry and traffic that I was receiving on that number, it would be naive of me to think that it wasn't journalistic in its nature.

"This was a cack-handed, pretty low level, amateurish attempt. I'm angry, I'm shocked by it but I'm not surprised."

Mr Mitchell also said that Kate and Gerry McCann, of Rothley, Leicestershire, had a "very dim view" of some sections of the British press and therefore had a "world weariness" about the situation.

"They're angered by this and will be upset, but again, like myself, in some respects not surprised that somebody could be so stupid as to possibly try this," he said.


in: BBC News, 20.01.2011

The Sun: Maddie 'seen with suspect' in Dubai

Cops are probing claims missing Madeleine McCann has been seen - in Dubai.

by Tom Wells and Dan Sales

A girl looking like Maddie was spotted with a man "identical" to an artist's impression of a suspect seen close to where she vanished in Portugal in May 2007.

An unnamed 35-year-old businessman told police he saw the girl with the man and two women outside a shopping mall in Dubai in November last year.

He said: "The guy looked very like the suspect because he had a scary face, a moustache, and was very skinny.

"The woman with him was also very thin. Behind them I saw a little girl, about seven or eight years old, with a black woman in a veil.

"The girl looked so similar to the younger Madeleine. She had light brown hair. But it was her nose and eyes that made me think it was the missing girl."

Interpol and private investigators hired by Maddie's parents Kate and Gerry are probing the sighting. Maddie was three when she vanished on a family holiday in Praia da Luz.


in: The Sun, 20.01.2011

Looking back, looking forward and not looking at all

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
- George Orwell


This is the time of year around which we tend to look back on the year that went by, and try to predict what may happen during the New Year that lies ahead.

For those who still follow the case of the mysterious disappearance of Madeleine McCann, this last year started in a rather negative way: the injunction that had been declared by the Civil Court of Lisbon against Gonçalo Amaral’s book, preventing it from being sold, published or even discussed, was upheld by that same court in mid-February.

Nonetheless, as everything in life has a positive side to it (it’s just that sometimes it’s dreadfully hard to find it…), the court hearings that took place in January revealed a lot more about the Portuguese police investigation than the McCanns probably wanted. And more than simply opening a bit of the investigation to the public, the fact that those revelations were made in court allowed the British press to do something that they hadn’t done in this case for a very long time: to report in an accurate, unbiased manner. Well, some of the British press, anyway.

Most of those who had attended the court hearings came away with the impression that Gonçalo Amaral’s case had been proved beyond any doubt; but a few who had been able to see beyond the objectivity of facts and arguments, had noticed small signs in court of what would become public a month later: the judge upheld the injunction and the book ban remained firmly in place.

More than half a year would have to pass until the Appeals Court of Lisbon decided upon the matter – and issued a ruling that not merely overturned the injunction, but made a point of mentioning several aspects of the wider ranging case. In the end, no matter how hard some may try to deny it, that text was not only critical of the way in which the Civil Court judge had decided, but it also validated Mr Amaral’s theory as an alternative to the Prosecutors’ shelving decision: an alternative that was solidly based on his many years of experience as a policeman.

In the meantime, the McCann couple had come away from the Courts in Lisbon holding a thick dossier that they declared to be chock full of very significant leads that the Portuguese Police had chosen to ignore. A wide-eyed, visibly shocked Mrs Duarte spoke to the cameras outside the court, and the rest of humanity could hardly breathe, as we waited for the McCanns’ team of experienced investigators to act on those extraordinary leads, and to recover Madeleine from a secret lair in a remote village somewhere in the outskirts of Praia da Luz.

The year came to an end, and still we wait.

Meanwhile, the McCanns made on and off headlines, with a petition for example, whose actual utility and effectiveness we also wait to comprehend. So far, it seems to have produced as much as Mrs Duarte’s favourite dossier: nothing.

But enough of looking back. The New Year will bring The Book – not a book about Madeleine, I'm afraid, but about her parents’ struggle to find her. A book that will finally allow the McCann couple to tell us the truth about their daughter’s disappearance, begging the question ‘What is it that they have been telling us for over three years, then?’.

The New Year will also inevitably bring its fair share of the usual non-news: it’s already started with the incredibly relevant announcement that The Book will not be launched on the 4th anniversary of the Tapas Group’s arrival in the Algarve, but rather on the 4th anniversary of the day that the couple displayed their award-winning smiles at the Church in Praia da Luz.

Whether or not 2011 will bring us new ‘historical notes’ by WikiLeaks, or another series of court proceedings, or any new sightings or any of the old scapegoats, is something that we will have to wait to see. I don’t know what the future holds, any more than anyone else, except for one thing: We will continue to try to contribute to the global flow of information about this case. We will continue to try to uncover the Truth about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. We will continue to give our best to help for Justice to be served, some day, somewhere, whomever it may hurt. What we will never allow ourselves to do, is not to look at all.

From the bottom of my heart: Have a Great Year!