Allegations of police misconduct
Though Leonor Cipriano confessed to killing her daughter, it was only after nearly 48 hours of continuous interrogation, and she retracted her confession the next day, claiming she had been beaten. She had extensive bruising after the interrogation, which the police claimed came about when she threw herself down the stairs.[7] Since then Gonçalo Amaral and four other Portuguese police officers have been charged with offences.[3] "Mr. Amaral was not present at the time of her alleged beating but is accused of covering up for his colleagues, which he strenuously denies."[8] Leonor Cipriano's former lawyer said that Leonor does not know who beat her up.[9]
[edit]Comparison to disappearance of Madeleine McCann
The village of Figueira is only seven miles from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann disappeared on 3 May 2007. In both cases the mothers launched campaigns[citation needed] to find their girls and in both cases the local police, unable to find the girls alive, investigated the possibility that the mothers had killed their daughters.[10] On 19 June 1996, a six-year-old German child, Renè Hasèe, also disappeared, from the Amoreira beach near Aljezur while walking a few metres ahead of his parents.[11][12]
A child protection specialist, Mark Williams-Thomas, who believes that Joana's and Madeleine's disappearances are related, commented that the disappearance of two children unknown to each other, within a period of four years in a seven-mile radius, would be a huge coincidence, especially considering that "Portugal is a small country with very, very few abductions[...]" (Portugal's land area is about 70% of England's land area; its population in 2007 was roughly 22% of England's population).[4] Leandro Silva, the common-law husband of Leonor Cipriano, commented that "the only difference between the McCanns and us is that we don't have money".[13]