Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Sentencing Report:  The State Of The Report’s Distribution

Posted by Peter Quennell

Just over a year ago the Micheli report was released as an electronic document and we had it and began translating within hours.

In contrast the judges sentencing report for the Knox-Sollecito verdict and sentence was released to the media and public only on paper and only in Perugia. There was little advance warning of this, and the Rome group of foreign reporters had to make their way to Perugia at short notice to get their own copies.

The intent seems to have been to stop selected quotes being used in media reports under lurid headlines. The practical effect is that the report so far has been less - and possibly less accurately - dispersed than the Micheli report at a similar point in time.

We have lodged a request for an electronic copy and if the court still prefers to go the paper route we will be adjusting to that. In due course the report will - must - appear on the Ministry of Justice website, in Italian. And all or most of it will appear here, in English. 

Saturday, March 06, 2010

Meredith’s Perugia #12: Would Some Of These Have Been Her Best Friends For Life?

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click double rectangle at lower-right above for full screen]

As it seems to have escaped the judges and jury in what we have read so far, a repeat of this post showing how bright, hard-working, ambitious in an idealistic way, and surrounded by fine friends Meredith already was in Perugia.

She was a natural friend-maker. Her achievements so far - getting into the elite Leeds University, excellent grades, and winning the Erasmus fellowship - already put her in the UK’s top one or two percent for her age. Compare.

Meredith was on Europe’s elite Erasmus Program for her year in Perugia. It must have been one of the happiest moments of her life when she won that award.

Not only is it well structured and well funded - Erasmus students find themselves transformed in their career expectations, and invariably they bond with their classmates for life.

These in the video above are Erasmus students from Perugia who would have been there for the same year (2007-2008) as Meredith. They are photographed here at Perugia and at Foggia University during a semester there - Foggia is south-east of Perugia, on Italy’s east coast,

The video below captures the spirit of the program - why Meredith would have been so attracted, and so proud.

. 

Friday, March 05, 2010

Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Bill Edelblute’s full commentary in The Examiner. Key Excerpts:

Sometimes analysts of legal or criminal matters will say, the simplest explanation is the best.  When the victims’ DNA is on a knife blade, and the suspect’s DNA is on the knife handle, what is the simplest conclusion?  When someone blames an innocent person, the simplest explanation is that they are a liar, are themselves guilty, and can have no conscience of any kind to deprive an innocent person of their liberty.

To those who condemn the Italian criminal court system, show us the written findings that have to back up a verdict rendered in the United States of America.  There are none, once a judge finds evidence sufficient to go to a jury, all you hear after that is “guilty,” “not guilty,” or unable to reach a decision (hung jury.) The jury does not have to speak to anyone after the verdict if they choose in the U.S. and their exact reasoning can remain forever a mystery.

Issuing the written report, with the detail Knox and Sollecito don’t want to hear, helps remind us that Meredith Kercher was a living, breathing, feeling, thinking person, until they came along.  Instead of just a piece in a board game that Knox supporters play.

The report provides a basis for the facts in the case, instead of cheap shots taken by those with no consequences to pay when they are wrong. 

In a recent Oprah show, Knox’s new American attorney on appeal [Theodore Simon] stated unequivocally that there had been “no interpreter” when defending Amanda’s blatantly false accusation of Patrick Lumumba, her former boss. 

In fact, Knox’s own trial testimony refers to the interpreter that was present, as she gives her pathetic excuse of why she was going to let Lumumba rot in prison if she could get away with it.  (Give a college student a few bucks, she can eat for a day.  But give her a job, and she will put you in prison for life.) ....

The written “motivations” may dispel some of the media hysteria that would otherwise surround the appellate process. 

The side supporting Knox is largely based on the premise that typical American female college students do not suddenly become transformed into murders upon their arrival in Italy.  And, that the police abused Knox into an admission she was at the scene, poorly handled DNA evidence, and that one of the prosecutors, Mignini, has been found to have committed evidentiary abuses in another case.

But the evidence is that Knox is not exactly clean-cut, that there is considerable physical evidence against her, that she clearly changed stories, and could not identify the policewoman she says was hitting her in what she claimed was a 14 hour interrogation.  Her own explanation for changing stories included not remembering much of the night due to hashish consumption. 

And while each item of evidence viewed in isolation has its weaknesses, it is curious that there are so many different pieces of it that need explaining. 

The DNA on the knife, the DNA in the bloody footprints, the change in stories of both Knox and of Sollecito, the accusation of an innocent person by Knox, Knox’s demeanor as shown on videotape outside the crime scene (extended kissing with her boyfriend), as shown by witnesses at the police station, of showing little emotion, and turning cartwheels, doing the splits, at the station.  Of statements made just a few days later while buying underwear that she would have wild sex with her boyfriend that night. 

Of the argument that a normal college student just doesn’t kill her roommate, there is abundant evidence of actions by Knox that are anything but normal. 

Little Miss West Seattle comforted a fellow roommate worrying about whether Meredith suffered by saying “What do you think? ...  She f ... ing bled to death.” Apart from how she knew the victim bled to death, is that normal empathy for the victim? 

There is just too much here to suggest that the charging and conviction of Amanda Knox was the result of anti-Americanism by an incompetent court system.

Sentencing Report: Andrea Vogt Has More Details In The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Andrea Vogt’s full report. Key excerpts:

Jurors theorized that Knox, Sollecito and Guede arrived at the apartment together and got high. They suggested Guede used the bathroom, and when he came out saw Knox and Sollecito being intimate, became excited and sought out Kercher, who was reading in her room.

When she resisted, Knox and Sollecito came into the room and aided Guede in restraining her so he could continue. The violence spiraled out of control, and Kercher was eventually killed, with Knox threatening and eventually stabbing her with the large kitchen knife the jury was convinced is the murder weapon, jurors decided.

The court said it did not believe the crime was premeditated, but rather a result of violence partly attributable to the suspects’ uninhibited behavior after getting high.  It also noted that it gave Knox and Sollecito a reduced sentence because they were young and had taken pity on the victim and covered Kercher’s body with the duvet.

The court cited as reliable elements of proof not just the alleged murder weapon (a knife with Knox’s DNA on the handle and a trace amount of Kercher’s on the blade) and the bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA, but also the luminol-enhanced footprints attributed to Knox and Sollecito.

The judge paid particular attention to the multiple traces of mixed blood (Kercher’s) and DNA (Knox’s) in the apartment’s small bathroom, noting that also the door and lightswitch in the bathroom had been touched with someone with bloody hands or clothes.

Traces of Kercher’s blood and Knox’s DNA were found together in several spots, the judge wrote, specifically, the on a cotton swap box, the sink and the bidet.

“Mixed biological traces belonging to Meredith and Amanda in the washbasin and bidet and seemed to indicate the cleaning of hands of feet,” the opinion read, going on to suggest that Knox’s skin tissues had rubbed off as she tried to scrub off Meredith’s blood in the bathroom.

However, jurors found two of the prosecution’s witnesses as “not credible” and did not agree with prosecutors’ theory of exactly how the murder unfolded.

Jurors discounted as unreliable two eye witnesses—an Albanian drug-dealer and another student. Both testified they had seen Knox, Sollecito and Guede together.

Sentencing Report:  Hada Messia Of CNN News Rome Has More Details

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Hada Messia’s full report. Key excerpts:

The jurors believed that Guede went into Kercher’s room and attempted to have sexual contact with her, but Kercher pushed him away. Knox and Sollecito then came into the room and attempted to help Guede have “his way” with Kercher, the report said. Sollecito held Kercher while Guede fondled her, the report said, but things spiraled out of control.

Sollecito poked Kercher with a knife, inflicting one wound measured at 4 cm (1.5 inches), and Knox poked her with a bigger knife after she screamed, inflicting a larger 8-cm (3-inch) wound, jurors found.

“The most plausible hypothesis is that Rudy decided by himself to enter Meredith’s room,” the report said. “The reaction and refusal of the girl must have been heard by Amanda and Raffaele, who actually were probably disturbed and intervened, given the unfolding of events. They backed Rudy, whom they allowed to enter the house” and ultimately became Kercher’s killers because of events that followed, according to the judges.

All three, the jurors believed, were under the influence of drugs. “The motive is therefore of erotic sexual violent nature, which originating from Rudy’s choice of evil, found its active collaboration from Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.”

While both Knox and Sollecito denied being at the crime scene, jurors noted that Knox’s blood was found in the bathroom and Sollecito’s DNA was found on Kercher’s bra. The two cannot prove they were at Sollecito’s home until the following day, as no evidence puts them there, according to the report.

Sentencing Report: Richard Owen Has More Details In The Times

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Richard Owen’s full report. Key excerpts:

In a riposte to Knox’s family and friends who claim she was the victim of a mistrial based on flawed evidence, the judges said the prosecution had drawn “a comprehensive and coherent picture, without holes or inconsistencies”. The defendants had been able to describe Ms Kercher’s injuries, and their guilt was clear from DNA traces and naked footprints found “in various parts of the house”....

In their 427-page summing up the two judges, Giancarlo Massei and Beatrice Cristiani, indicated that they and the jury of six had also been swayed by Knox’s attempts to shift the blame by falsely accusing Patrick Diya Lumumba, a Congolese barman for whom she worked part time, “knowing him to be innocent”.

Knox had tried to “put the investigators onto the wrong track” even though Mr Lumumba had always treated her well and she had “no motive for spite, enmity or revenge toward him which could justify such a serious accusation”....

The judges said that on the evening of the murder in November 2007 Knox and Sollecito had found themselves at a loose end when they met Guede by chance at the cottage at a time when Ms Kercher was alone. After the murder they had covered Ms Kercher’s lifeless body in a gesture combining pity, denial, and “a sort of repentence for what had been done"…

The judges said more than one person must have committed the crime since Ms Kercher was fit and strong, as her mother and sister had testified, and her sports included boxing and gym training.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Sentencing Report: Barbie Nadeau Quotes The Motive, Physical Evidence, And Alibis

Posted by Peter Quennell

Please click above for Barbie Nadeau’s full report on the Daily Beast website. Key excerpts.

1) The motive

“One can hypothesize that the bad decision came after the consumption of stupefying substances.”

But they disagreed on the motive. The prosecution lawyers began their case in January, 2009 by arguing that Kercher was killed during a sex game gone awry. By closing arguments, they had changed the theory slightly, trying to make the case that Knox resented her prissy British roommate and killed her in hatred. The jury rejected both theories, and the reasoning document declares that “the killing was carried out with no planning, no animosity and no revenge against the victim.

”The two young lovers, interested in each other and in the intellectual and cultural world around them, would not have made a conscious decision to kill Kercher. Instead, the judge wrote, they killed spontaneously under the influence of drugs. “One can hypothesize that the bad decision came after the consumption of stupefacente—stupefying substances—that Amanda verified in her testimony.”

As the jury saw it, Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast native who was convicted for his role in Kercher’s murder after a fast-track trial in 2008, came to the house the two girls shared in order to get high. Guede used the toilet, then became aroused when he saw Knox and Sollecito making out. He went to Kercher’s room and made sexual advances toward her. The reasoning refers to evidence presented at Knox’s trial that Guede was the type of guy that “bothered women” when he was under the influence.

Then, according to the reasoning, Kercher cried out for help, but instead of helping her, Knox and Sollecito, their judgment impaired, decided instead to help Guede. The killing was based on “sexual-erotic violence” but not with Knox as the mastermind. The jury felt that it was Guede who led that attack, and the other two, too high to know better, joined in.

2) The physical and forensic evidence

The judge’s reasoning also underscores what the jury believed to be the most important elements of the prosecution’s forensic case. They believed that a kitchen knife with Knox’s DNA on the handle and a trace of Kercher’s on the blade was the weapon that made the large fatal wound in Kercher’s neck. They also referred to Sollecito’s “knife habits,” surmising that, as an admitted collector of blades, he likely used his own knife to make the second wound. The jury agreed that Sollecito and Knox conspired to stage a break-in in another bedroom to cover their tracks.

And they attributed an unidentifiable bloody shoeprint found on the pillow under Kercher’s body to Knox, even though the prosecution only implied that it was compatible with a woman’s shoe size. A spot of Knox and Kercher’s mixed blood in one of the bedrooms, found using Luminol, and four additional spots in the small bathroom the girls shared also swayed the jurors.

“These were left when Amanda was cleaning her hands and feet of Kercher’s blood,” the judge wrote.

3) The Knox and Sollecito alibis

The judge also wrote emphatically about the lack of credible alibi. Although Knox and Sollecito claimed to be at his apartment all night, “Not one phone call, not one meeting, no computer activity or any other element proved that they stayed at that apartment.” And the judge was particularly hard on Knox for accusing Patrick Lumumba, an innocent man, of the murder “knowingly and deceivingly.”

Overall, however, it appears that the jury was sympathetic to the two suspects, but ultimately felt that they committed a crime for which they must pay a hefty price.

Sentencing Report: La Repubblica Has The Most Substantive Report So Far Today

Posted by ziaK

Click above for the Repubblica’s story in the original Italian.

This translation below is of this the longest report so far today in the Italian media, presumably by staff reporters in Perugia, although it is unsigned.

Verdict filed in Meredith crime: Murder arising from Guede’s sexual violence

PERUGIA - Four hundred and twenty-seven: This is how many pages it took for the judges of Perugia’s Court of Assizes to explain the sentence on the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia on 1 November 2007. For this crime carried out, the judges wrote, “without any planning, without any animosity or feeling of rancour”, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were sentenced to 26 and 25 years imprisonment, respectively. For the same crime, Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede was sentenced (to 30 years following a “fast-track” trial, subsequently reduced to 16 years in appeal) and is currently waiting to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. The Perugian judges wrote: “The motive, was of an erotic, sexually violent nature, which riginated in the evil choice made by Rudy, and elicited the active collaboration of Amanda and Raffaele.”

From Viterbo prison, where he is held, Rudy wrote a letter with an appeal: “to those who know, talk”. A request which appears to be addressed to the same Amanda and Raffaele (both - particularly the American student whom he has always claimedto know - pointed to by Rudy as having been present at the crime scent, ndr) who have always declared themselves to have no involvement in the affair.

Together, all the elements which emerged during the process “demonstrated a comprehensive and unified picture, without gaps and inconsistencies”, wrote the judges in the file signed by the Court President, Giancarlo Massei and by assessor judge Beatrice Cristiani. According to the College [as in the board of judges], the picture that emerges “has, as its necessary and strictly consequential outcome, the attribution of the hypothesized facts of the crime to both the accused.”

The measure furthermore asserts that Knox “freely accused Patrick Diya Lumumba of having killed Meredith, and so accused him with the full knowledge of the innocence of the same Lumumba”. The judges underlined that there had not been “any confirmation” that Amanda had been urged by the investigators to accuse Lumumba. For Perugia’s Court of Assizes, the objective aimed at by the American (who was also convicted for the crime of calumny with regard to the Congolese [sic] musician, ndr) was to “lead the investigators down the wrong path, far from that which could have led them to establish her own responsibility, and that of her boyfriend”. “Such behaviour is a choice”, wrote the Court, “and thus merely defensive: Amanda had a good relationship with Lumumba, by whom she had always been well treated, and therefore there could have been no motive for rancour, animosity, revenge which could have justified such a serious accusation.”

The murder of Meredith Kercher, it further reads, was carried out “without any planning, without the animosity or feeling of resentment towards the victim which in some ways can be seen as the preparation/predisposition to commiting a crime”. According to the board of judges, “the actions turn out to have been carried out as a result of purely coincidental events”.

In the judges’ report, they talk of “purely coincidental events which, when joined together with each other, created a situation which, in the combination of various factors, made possible these crimes to the detriment of Meredith: Amanda and Raffaele who suddenly found themselves without any commitments, meet Rudy Guede by chance (there is no trace of any appointment having been made), and find themselves together at the house on the via della Pergola on the very evening (between 1 and 2 November, ndr) that Meredith is there alone”. According to the judges, “even the behaviour towards Meredith - once the assault and the murder have been commited - which consisted in covering her lifeless body, shows a feeling of pity for the victim, refusal, and thus a sort of repentance for what has been done: refusal and repentance shown through such an act of pity.”

The judges attributed the material criminal act, that is, the sexual violence, to Rudy Guede, who was aided by Amanda and Raffaele, weakened by the drugs they had consumed. The judges wrote: “Amanda and Raffaele participated actively in the criminal actions carried out by Rudy with the aim of overcoming Meredith’s resistance, subjugating her will, and allowing Rudy to relieve his lustful urges.” The judges also wrote in their report: “The prospective of helping Rudy achieve his aim of subjugating Meredith in order to sexually abuse her may have appeared to be an exciting detail which, although unforeseen, should be tried”.

“The motive”, added the Perugian judges, “was therefore of an erotic, sexually violent nature, which originated in the evil choice made by Rudy, and elicited the active collaboration of Amanda and Raffaele. That such participation, active and violent, had also involved the current defendants as well as Rudy can be deduced from what has been observed in talking about the lesions suffered by Meredith, by the outcome of the genetic investigations, by the prints of bare feet found in various parts of the house.”

According to the judges, in this murder case, one of the tests, carried out by several people, is confirmed by Meredith’s physical strength, by the fact that she was conscious on the evening of the assault, and by her previous experience in the gym. “Meredith, when the violence began, was awake and dressed, and was not laying down on her bed.” Furthermore: “According to the analyses, the young woman had a slender and well-endowed physique, and was physically very strong, as was claimed by Meredith’s mother and sister. She had even done boxing”.

Judges’ Sentencing Report Released In Perugia And It Is 427 Pages Long

Posted by Peter Quennell

Judge Massei is seen above on live TV from the court on the night he announced the verdict and sentence.

The sentencing report is four times the length of the Micheli report a year ago which itself was very detailed. It was made available to the media today on paper by the court in Perugia.

First take in the Italian media is by TGCom.

The judges of the Court of Assizes of Perugia lodged the grounds for the condemnation of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox for the murder of Meredith. All the issues raised in the process, it says, “demonstrate a comprehensive and unified whole, without gaps and inconsistencies"… The reasons for conviction of two defendants are contained in a voluminous file. It is 427 pages signed by the President of the Court Giancarlo Massei and assessor Beatrice Christians.

The motive is described in the report as essentially the thrill of the moment in helping Rudy with a sexual attack and while there was a predisposition there was no longer term intention.

Drugs are seen as having played a role.

Sollecito and Knox are apparently seen in the report as the knife wielders and one of them seems to have delivered the fatal blow.

We will be obtaining the report of course and arriving at our own English-language version in the next several weeks.

RIP poor Meredith. This has to be so tough on her family and her friends. We love this photo below. So trusting and so full of life.

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports On The Seattle End of The Case (2)

Posted by The 411

This below is a translation of this excellent report by La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano which was widely watched on Italian television.

Like the article below it also follows the typical mould of Italian reporting on Seattle - polite but seemingly doubting of the FOA claims about Amanda and the case.

AMANDA KNOX SPONTANEOUS STATEMENT: “In these days, I’ve reflected a lot about what I’ve wanted to say and what came into my mind. I wrote a question that maybe still puzzled a lot of people.”

ITALIAN ANNOUNCER VOICE-OVER: But it was the entire Meredith Kercher murder story that leaves many people puzzled in spite of the triple first-degree conviction of Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito, and Amanda Knox.

We went to Seattle to try to see if we could enter into the world of the American 20-something girl - angel for her family, devil according to the judges.”

The obligatory first stop is the office of David Marriott, spin doctor these past two years, who has handled media relations for the family. You can’t enter into the inner circle of the girl without passing by him first.

The first interviews are with the mother and father, separated [i.e., divorced] for 20 years.

CURT: “Amanda is a person who’s always been extremely real. As her parents, it wasn’t always pleasant to hear what was said. But, she wasn’t able to hide the truth. She’s someone who takes care of others, honest, as a study habit she has an intellectual approach to things.”

“With Raff, they met for the first time at a classical music concert. They went out for about a week, before Meredith was found dead. In such a brief period, you don’t transform a beginning relationship in to [the type of] scenario made up by the judges. You don’t go from zero to an orgy. It doesn’t happen in nature.... It’s not started out in an orgy manner.”

EDDA: “Amanda and Meredith were friends. She only said good things about her. They spent their time together, going to bookstores, or hanging out around town, reading and discussing books. Everyone will say that Amanda is a type of person who couldn’t hurt a fly. She couldn’t even do aggressive sports, because she doesn’t like violence. She’s affectionate with the elderly and children. She’s a kind human being.”

“The only direct contact we have now is 10 minutes every Saturday morning, in which we all try to tell her we love her and we all say “hi” quickly because there’s such little time. And then there are the letters. She’s written a lot of them to us, and we try to do the same.”

VOICE OVER: An important turning point for Amanda’s life was high school - attended at Seattle Prep, a Jesuit school attended by all the offspring of the upper middle class, which, later, would mobilize for The Cause.

We met Kris Johnson, her Literature teacher for two years, who let us see in the classroom where she taught, a letter, in very childish handwriting, that she sent from prison.

KRIS JOHNSON: “Amanda was an enthusiastic student who loved to learn..It really affected her. She sent me a lot of emails after class. She was simply excited by learning. She was fascinated by characters and people because she wanted to become a writer....as if she wanted to train for it, continuously.  It is not at all possible that the person I knew in class could even THINK of the things that the media has portrayed.”

VOICE OVER: Before coming to Italy, Amanda studied at Washington University and she lived near campus. There she met and became friends with Madison Paxton, the official friend, the only one Marriot lets journalists come close to.

MADISON: “One of the reasons that we became such good friends is that we had opposite views of life and people. She’s a very trusting person, while I’m not. In the end, we balanced out each other.”

“As for her man-eater reputation, when she came to college, she had less romantic experience than the average student. In high school, she hardly went out with anyone, and in college, she had a total of two boyfriends.”

VOICE OVER: Not all of Seattle, however, is so united in their outraged defense of their famous fellow citizen. Among the despised critics of the family is Peggy Ganong, a doctoral student in French at the University, who moderates the forum “Perugia Murder File” where information is gathered about leading stories on the case.

PEGGY: “One of the things that aroused my suspicions was that the family issued a press release the day after the arrest. I found it strange- and interesting. And then I discovered that a Public Relations firm was recruited to manage the Amanda image - a firm known to use techniques, I don’t want to say unethical, but let’s say unconventional, in order to reach their objective.”

“I think that the incredibly one-sided coverage of the case in the American media is the result of this massive PR activity that cost more than a million dollars. What Marriott and the family have done was to say from the moment that the tabloids demonized Amanda, we’ve painted her as an angel. That’s why they’ve constructed an image of a typical American girl, which is probably just as false as the demonized image of her, which the tabloids have perpetuated.”

VOICE OVER: Ms. Ganong is not the only one to think that way, and to say it publicly. Among the skeptics, there’s Charles Mudede who’s in charge of the cultural pages of “The Stranger,’ a popular weekly newspaper.... We meet him at the Quarter Lounge, near his workplace.

CHARLES: “She didn’t grow up as the classic American girl. She played soccer, which isn’t a national sport here. In fact, it’s fairly non-traditional. And then, yoga, which speaks of a Far Eastern influence, rather than of praying.”

“You might expect from a classic American girl that she’d be very focused on the Christian side [of things] —she on the other hand did a mixture of different things, typical of the liberal cosmopolitan girls of Seattle.”

PEGGY: “The reason why many of our well-known local people have mobilized in her defense, organizing fund-raising dinners, putting together groups of people on her behalf all goes back to Seattle Prep.”

“People who pay $13,000 a year to send their children to high school so they can prepare them to go to the best colleges do not want to see the value of that investment go down, as a result of that type of scandal. Seattle Prep was the school where Judge Mike Heavey’s daughter went, [a girl] who was quite friendly with Amanda. As were the children of Tom Wright.  I believe worrying about saving the good name of the school is a good part of the [motivation behind the] ‘Innocentisti Movement’ in Seattle.

“Although it’s important that these influential people on her side have made a big splash, they don’t really represent the entire city.”

VOICE OVER: Anne Bremner, former prosecutor and current TV legal commentator is the spokeswoman for the Friends of Amanda, a site where counter-information regarding trial facts is continually updated.

ANNE: “An injustice in any part of the world is an injustice in all of the world.  I personally felt it was important to lend a hand, to expose the absolute lack of evidence. In other words, someone who has absolutely nothing to do with this horrendous crime. What has happened since the verdict? Nothing, except to increase the passion, that much more. We will never, ever abandon Amanda.”

SUBTITLES OF STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS CONFERENCE - A REPORTER ASKS: “Today Senator Cantwell spoke of contaminated evidence… of unsequestered jurors and a questionable prosecutor… additionally, we’ve seen jurors wearing tri-colored sashes… and there was anger in the Italian press and all this indicates that there hasn’t been a fair trial…and all of you in the State Department claim the opposite…”

VOICE OVER: In the meantime, they continue their tireless lobbying activity, recruiting the most varied of advocates. Senator Maria Cantwell has expressed such serious doubts about the judicial system, that Anti-Americanism contaminated the case, also making Hillary Clinton more aware of the case.

Fortunately, she [Hillary] was too busy dealing with Afghanistan and Iran to offer an opinion on the matter. [There are] even VIPs, like Donald Trump, who proposed a boycott of Italy, until the girl comes home.

SUBTITLE OF STATE DEPARTMENT PRESS CONFERENCE: “Italy has its own justice system, different than our own.”

VOICEOVER: No one remembers one detail-- that at least Italy doesn’t have the Death Penalty.

Nor does anyone seem to remember the many cases when America made great efforts to collaborate with Italian judges, including such times as [after] the Disaster of Cermes, and the [after] the killing of Agent Nicola Calferi by [American] soldier Mario Lozano.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

La Repubblica’s Riccardo Stagliano Reports On The Seattle End of The Case

Posted by Nicki

[click for larger image]

La Repubblica’s cool and objective reporter Riccardo Staglione visited Seattle recently to meet all the parties, and he filed this balanced and unequivocating report.

Seattle, In The World Of Amanda

By Riccardo Stagliano

Seattle. The fabulous world of Amanda Knox is a catalog of goodwill skits. Amanda, whose worst fault is to trust everyone. Amanda, so sincere as to become self-damaging. More about Amanda, comforting a lonely child and pampering her old zen master. All she wants to do is work and study more and more. She finds love at a classical music concert, not at a Black Sabbath rave.

Such a mirrored biography tends to become dazzling, to the point that it seems to have been rinsed in Photoshop. Only the end doesn’t add up. A retroactive, corny and sanctifying portrait to the point that one finds it natural to look for the scriptwriter’s signature. But the end doesn’t add up.

She has been convicted of murdering someone of her same age, stabbed in the house that they shared . A devilish tail springing out of her angelic body. As if the first part of the movie had been directed by Federico Moccia [an Italian writer and movie maker specialized in corny, sentimental plots] and the second part by Dario Argento [Italian horror movies director].

At the beginning of March, the first degree judges [judges for 2009 trial] will explain in the motivations of their sentence why they believe that this 20 year old from Seattle who went to Perugia for a student exchange is guilty. The Court of Appeal judgment will confirm or deny.

Here we ‘ll talk about the environment where the girl was born and grew up, and why in her city and starting from the same premises, some people have reached opposite conclusions about her, and how this event has put the US and Italy up against each other.

This low intensity war started in newspapers. With a scandalized Timothy Egan asking on the New York Times “In which century are we? Haven’t Jeanne d’Arc, the Inquisition and witch hunts taught a couple of things to civilized nations relatively to sexual hysteria with devilish nuances?”. Needless to say [according to Egan] we are the uncivilized hysterics.

Next it was the VIP’s turn, such as tycoon Donald Trump, who has recently proposed a boycott of Italy until the girl will be freed. And politicians such as Senator Marie Cantwell, who has expressed “serious doubts on the Italian judiciary system and the circumstance of anti-americanism that may have contaminated the process” and who has tried to involved Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, luckily too busy with Afghanistan and Iran to look into it.

This is the climate and it is the second thing to be noted upon arrival in this city after the scenographic skyscraper Space Needle: the direction of the reconstruction of this nasty story, very professional and entrusted to a proven spin doctor, whose fees according to local sources are about $ 100,000 a year. David Marriott is the journalists tamer that has been managing the family’s relations with the press for two years.

His first question is if one has spoken with anyone else and if so who they are. His black list has grown long with time. In order to finish up on this list, it’s enough not to go with the official tales, or to raise doubts or point out inconsistencies.

In his posh PR offices even the paintings speak eloquently. On a poster from the 40’s a soldier warns against the risks of espionage : “Someone has talked”. There, it’s important that only authorized people speak, and that they have been instructed about what to say.

The first to arrive in the meeting room is Kurt Knox, relaxed in his black leather jacket. After about 10 minutes Edda Mellas rushes in, breathless.

Mom and Dad, separated for 20 years, seem to only have in common the white plastic bracelets claiming “free Amanda”. And some key words that we’ll hear from the mouths of the other witnesses carefully selected by the PR people. “Amanda? Her main characteristic is to always say the truth, even when it is not convenient” they say, first the father and then the mother, his eyes dry, her eyes shedding tears. It’s the woman giving more details about how Amanda cannot simply restrain from commenting if she didn’t like a dress or a hair cut , how she is not capable to say those white lies that make life easier. A problem for a shrewd manipulator such as she has been described.

In the same way, how could she be a knife wielding murderer, she who is “incapable of violence?”. She didn’t even enroll in the kickboxing course that all her friends were attending, her mother recalls. “ If she found a spider in the house what would she do?” her father asks, with the expression of one who is holding a royal flush. “Well, Amanda would never squash one”.

The third quality of Amanda that is once again discussed is her being booksmart, more comfortable with books that with real life. Is such a girl capable of killing someone? Absolutely not.

Parents are clearly doing their job, a tough job nowdays, and that deserve respect. They meet only on Saturday mornings, just for the 10 minutes weekly call from the prison. Then, they stick to the defense line agreed upon with the communication strategist, and they are very careful and ready to bite their tongue when there’s something to say about Giuliano Mignini who has already sued them for some declarations believed to be slanderous

They are emotionally and financially devastated, says Kris Johnson, who taught Amanda English at Seattle Prep, the exclusive Jesuit high school which costs about $ 20,000 a year. She is number one on Marriot’s approved list. In the tiny cafe near the school where they serve cappuccino in cups as big as soup bowls she pulls out an envelope sent from the Capanne prison and sealed with a drawing of a laughing heart.

“Do you see the handwriting? How could do someone with such a handwriting harm anybody?” . In the two pages the ex student reasons with melancholy about the grey colors of winter she sees during her daily two hours outside her cell, with many more spelling errors than what one would expect from an honor student, as she has been depicted.

But the teacher tells me instead about the boldness of some Italian males when in 1972 in Florence they were proposing her to become their umpteenth lover. It’s not a casual memory and she explains: “Italian men have strange ideas about American females”. She is thinking about the jurors, the prosecutor, the public opinion that are all seeing a witch instead of the sensitive youngster that she knows. “She reads a lot of books, she thinks a lot. She could only attend one course but she was following two. She was writing me emails to comment on the classes. It was a pleasure to teach her”

The fourth word that she introduces is the adjective that Amanda university mates will use: “trusting”, even too much. Madison Paxton is the kosher friend, the one that the careful Marriot casting has approved. I met her at the Cafe on Ave, a couple of blocks from campus, very close to the dorms where she met Amanda in 2005.

“The main difference between us, what was really fascinating is I was very wary, she was the opposite.” An attitude that during the year and a half they were socializing was never a problem. This petite photography student, with honey colored hair and wearing dark shades, seem not to possess an ounce of malice. She would seem the ideal character witness, one everybody could believe. She tells of when Amanda was waiting outside the darkroom because she was afraid to return home alone at night. She is laughing thinking about Amanda as a man eater, she only dated a couple of boys when she was in college “actually a number below the average “.

And if the Italian public have remarked how she didn’t seem contrite during the trial, it’s only because they don’t know “the girls from the North West, they are raised not to cry in public and to behave like guys”. In a letter from jail, Amanda wrote to her not to despair: “even if I’ll be locked in here until I am 46, I’ll still have a big chunk of life ahead” .

If she’ll be freed earlier, one who is ready to hire her right away is Rick Kirsten. She worked for this art gallery owner for two months. but he’s betting on her qualities, as if he has known her forever. “I put an ad, I had 31 applications and I chose her. She used to finish her work in half the time and she would ask for more. And she knew how to deal with people”. His favorite episode-that Amanda’s parents recommended he tell me is about a 8-10 years old girl that seemed to be lost in the crowd at the gallery.

“I was getting ready to go to take care of her, but a client stopped me, and Amanda was there already and the child was happily laughing.” Not to speak of Amanda’s kindness to his father, a 90 years old painter and zen meditative that was often at the gallery

The beatification front is coherent and uniform. If the tabloids, especially the British ones. depicted during the first months after the murder the image of a heartless, shrewd and bad girl, the Foxy Knoxy from MySpace, then the American counteroffensive is aiming at an immaculate picture. Amanda Santa Subito (Amanda Saint Now).

One who definitely doesn’t tolerate it, breaking the city chain of solidarity is Peggy Ganong, a doctoral student in French at the university, a translator who has lived for 20 years in Paris, she is the spoiler who has taken up the task to dismantle the “consensus machine” on her internet forum perugiamurderfile.org.  “I don’t know if the girl is guilty I only know that this rabid activity of image management to bleach her reputation is not convincing, actually, it is suspicious”

[Amanda’s] family - that between airplanes, lawyers, press offices appears to have spent more than $ 1,000 000, and claims it is deep in debts - is only partially responsible for the operation, as several local potentates whose path have crossed Amanda’s in the classrooms of the Jesuit high school have taken action to defend the future possible convict. It seems that Amanda was very fond of the daughter of judge Michael Heavy. He was the first one to write an outraged letter to the Italian magistrates and to inspire the group Friends of Amanda, together with Tom Wright, a tycoon with interests in the movies industry whose children were at Seattle Prep.

“In order to defend the reputation of an institution that prepares the local ruling class” Ganong explains, “they have organized fund raisers to pay some of the costs necessary to sell the image of the typical naive American girl which, regardless of how things went, it’s totally false”.

“We are not in Wisconsin, Kansas, Georgia nor in any other puritan area of the US. The middle class here is liberal, open, cosmopolitan.... Amanda was practicing yoga, she played soccer and was studying abroad. Not really typically American, but rather a Seattle behavior”, Charles Mudede from the weekly magazine the Stranger explains: “But it was more convenient to present her like a standard girl because this would have triggered national solidarity and the suspicion derived from the ignorance that America nurtures towards everything situated outside its border”.

Thus also subduing diffidence toward that other foreign land, adolescence, that for the average American is the dungeon of evil. Mudede is not ideologically a colpevolista, he has been to Perugia, followed the case and objects to the patriotic critics against the Italian judiciary system: “They had Lumumba, a black from Congo and Amanda, a white American. If they wanted a murderer at any cost, which of the two was the easiest target?

The FOA don’t see it this way. Their spokeperson Anne Bremner, a sort of super-blond and sharpened Crudelia Demon that was a prosecutor and TV commentator, cites Martin Luther King: “An injustice in any place is a threat to justice everywhere else”. She claims that with such scarce evidence nobody would have been found guilty anywhere else in the world. She promises that they won’t stop, they will get to the White House.

Meanwhile, they keep recruiting witnesses that describe us [Italians] as the savages of jurisprudence. But have these people who are pointing their sharp little fingers ever heard of the Cermis deaths [details here], and of the US marine Lozano who killed Nicola Calipari [details here] just to name a couple of cases of “lack of judiciary collaboration between Washington and Rome”?

If there is something besides our national health service about which we do not feel inferiority complexes towards the USA it is our justice, slow, at times fallible, but at least without the death penalty. Amanda knows it and in fact she writes to her friend Madison that in the worst case she will be out by the time she is 40. Her lawyers know it too, and so do the spin doctors who hope to shake the fragile probatory evidence on appeal. For her the outcome is still to be determined.

The one for whom is definitely closed is Meredith Kercher, in this grim drama the least quoted protagonist by the Seattle guarantists.

Monday, March 01, 2010

The Sad Case Of Sonia Marra #6: The Sole Suspect Goes Missing For Several Days

Posted by Tiziano

We have posted several times previously on the case of Sonia Marra, a missing and possibly murdered Perugia student.

Her boyfriend Umberto Bindella (above after being found) is the sole suspect. On March 12th the Review Court will decide on the appeal by Prosecuting Magistrate Giuseppe Petrazzini against Umberto Bindella’s recent release from Capanne Prison, where he was being held while police investigations were advancing.

Terni In Rete reported a couple of days ago that Umberto Bindella had gone missing for several days and there was a fear that he might have caused himself harm .

BINDELLA FOUND. “THEY HAVE RUINED MY LIFE AND CONTINUE TO DO SO”

FEBRUARY 28TH 2010 18.08 HOURS

By Adriano Lorenzoni

Bindella has been seen in the woods near Deruta in the vicinity of the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Baths.

UPDATE: The Carabinieri from Deruta have found Umberto Bindella in the woods around Deruta, near the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Baths. According to the first reports it has been learnt that Bindella was found in a confused state.  His vehicle was bogged down in a pool of mud. His parents and his lawyer, Daniela Paccoi rushed to the spot.  Bindella himself exchanged a few words with journalists to whom he insisted that he had absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance of Sonia Marra.

“They have ruined my life and continue to do so.  In reply to the reporters who asked him why he had run away from home, he replied, “I needed a break to think”.  His mother as well repeated that her son was “a victim”.

Lawyer Daniela Paccoi asked for “respect on behalf of the media” for her client.  “Umberto is confused, it’s been two days since he ate, he needs peace.  Perhaps we will give a press conference, for now let’s leave him in peace.”

Umberto Bindella was found safe and sound.  He was seen in the early afternoon by a group of trippers who were on a horse ride through the woods around Deruta.  The Carabinieri who were alerted straight away went to the spot.  First they found Bindella’s car, then they came upon Bindella himself, who was found in good physical conditions.  According to first reports, Bindella is supposed to have told the officers that he had no intention of going home.

During the 48 hours when Bindella left no trace of himself, his parents feared that he could have done himself extreme harm.  He had left papers on his desk in which he expressed his disappointment about justice, holding himself to be its victim....

And La Nazione has the story on what he claimed happened, and Bindella is now back in Perugia. 

Perugia, the finding of Umberto Bindella

Luca Vagnetti

“I didn’t run away, I just needed to be alone and think a bit, away from everyone.” The mystery around the disappearance of Umberto Bindella finished in a little stretch of woods, between Deruta and Casalina.

Deruta, March 1st, 2010 – On Friday evening the traces of the 31year-old young man accused of the murder of the student Sonia Marra (missing since November 2006 when she was 25) were lost. 

Yesterday the Carabinieri of the Deruta Branch found him not far from the sanctuary of the Madonna of the Baths, from where it seems that he had not budged in the period of time between his leaving home and his discovery.  Upset and nervous to the point of attacking a photographer, but alive, hidden in a little wood on the edges of the highway in his Honda Jazz, which had ended up accidentally in a ditch.

Therefore the possibility of a tragic final gesture has been averted.  “My family knows that I could never do such a thing,” Bindella said referring to the theory of a suicide which had actually circulated straight after he went away. The arrival of the forces of law and order, of his parents, of his sister and brother-in-law served to calm down the young man, who then vented his feelings into the microphones of the press.

“The system is disgusting” he said “and this event is ruining my life.  I’m not afraid of the trial, I’m afraid of the system; in spite of everything I still trust in justice, I’m ready to defend my honour and to show my innocence.”

Wearing a dark red jumper, blue jeans and black shoes, Bindella let himself go and intensely showed his state of mind.

“They are depriving me of liberty, of dignity, of work and everything.  This whole business is stopping me from living the years between 30 and 40; and once all the accusations against me collapse, nobody will be able to give me back what has been taken away from me.  I am innocent, I reaffirm this, but the system thinks differently: I have clarified my position; I have given all the explanations, everything that I have been asked.”

“I don’t feel like a scapegoat, at the most a victim: the investigations are all going in one direction; they are trying every way to find me guilty, without examining other possibilities.”

Bindella speaks openly of the “obtuseness” of the magistrates, while his mother holds her hand on his shoulder and seems to almost hold up this big man who is almost a foot taller than she is.

“I believe him – the woman declares, her eyes dense with emotion and understandable concern – because he is a good lad.  He needed to think and probably he could have done so differently; he’s done something foolish, but this going away doesn’t mean anything in itself.”

The tow truck arrives to pull out Bindella’s car, a small crowd gathers on the edge of the road: the young man who wanted to reflect all alone thus finds himself once again with so many eyes directed at him.

Below: Deruta is about 20 minutes drive south of Perugia at the west edge of a forrested area.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

This Was Definitely Not A Close Or Indecisive Case - Reasonable Doubt Was In Fact Totally Eliminated

Posted by FinnMacCool

You can see from the posts directly below that the Knox-was-framed camp is, if anything, becoming more superficial with all those pesky facts rather than less.

Hard reality is that nobody has ever come within light-years of constructing an alternative scenario of the crime. Hard reality is that for Knox and Sollecito the totality of the facts, seen together as the judges and jury did, are extremely damning. Hard reality is that the verdicts were decisive and unanimous. And hard reality is that Judges Sentencing Report due out some time this week will apparently be quite definitive. 

But the nasty, trite and misleading dog-and-pony shows continue. Like that for Oprah’s audience, as described in the posts below. And like this post by a Washingon DC writer Matthew Harwood who apparently came lately to the case and whose grasp of it is flimsy and untethered.

Harwood’s post appeared on the site for the one apologist newspaper for Knox in the UK, the Guardian (is the Guardian editor on the Knox PR payroll? nah...!) in an area called “Comment Is Free”.  That title comes from CP Snow’s observation that “comment is free but facts are sacred.” Harwood’s blog and the Guardian in general seem a lot stronger on the freedom of comment than they are the sacredness of the facts.

Harwood opens with the bizarre claim that “anyone who has followed the trial should have had a gnawing feeling that the bars closed on the wrong people” and then predictably goes on to argue that the “right person” was the black man, Rudy Guede, who was in fact, um, convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Nobody looking at the case thinks that the guilty parties are still out there. The two minority partisan views are, for Knox and Sollecito, that Guede acted alone; and for Guede, that Knox and Sollecito were the instigators and the main perpetrators of the crime.

The majority non-partisan view – ratified by an incredibly cautious and painstaking succession of court hearings and a really massive body of evidence – is that all three are guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Meredith, that reasonable doubt probably fled the courtroom about the time that Knox got on the stand and shot herself in both feet, and that the judges and jury were swayed only by what they saw in front of them, and so the verdicts and sentences are quite correct.

The facts-lite version of Harwood is very typical (some might say suspiciously typical) of the claims still occasionally made that there still is reasonable doubt. And that somehow the incredibly large number of fine Italian professionals daffily got it all wrong and the writer is the lone smart guy who got it right.

Let us dismember the few skimpy arguments Harwood advances to smugly declare “case closed and only Guede is guilty” and see if anything is left standing.

That the non-sequestering of the jury caused it to ignore what it saw in front of it

Harwood writes: “The jury in the Perugia sentenced Knox and Sollecito to prison for about a quarter of their lives, despite no motive, scant physical evidence, and no prior criminal histories.”

Meredith of course was deprived of 100% of the rest of her own life and she appears to have been a far finer person than all three. Let’s leave aside, for a moment, the choice of that flexible word “scant”, beyond observing that a succession of courts have found the physical evidence sufficient to proceed and ultimately to convict Guede, Knox and Sollecito.

Harwood goes on to make the claim (the same claim made on Oprah) that “[unlike in] the US, juries in Italy are not sequestered.”

West’s Encyclopedia of American Law makes the following observation about jury sequestration in the United States:

Jury sequestration is rare. Typically ordered in sensational, high-profile criminal cases, sequestration begins immediately after the jury is seated and lasts until the jury has delivered its verdict. It is unusual for juries to be sequestered longer than a few days or a week. Occasionally, however, jurors are sequestered for weeks. The 1995 trial of former football star O. J. (Orenthal James) Simpson for murder was highly unusual: the Simpson jury was sequestered for eight and a half months — half as long as the period Simpson was imprisoned while under arrest and on trial. The experience provoked protest from the jurors and calls for legal reform.

It is worth noting that the expensively sequestered jury in the OJ Simpson trial is far from universally believed to have arrived at a sound conclusion. The defense of “OJ Simpson got off, so why not me?” seems doomed to failure both legally and as a method of swaying public opinion.

The claim that Knox and Sollecito had no plausible motive for murdering Meredith Kercher also seems odd. Guede had no good reason to murder her either. But – and here’s a newsflash – Harwood and company think it is not acceptable to kill people for no good reason. In fact the reverse argument would seem more persuasive: those many murderers who kill without a good motive are and remain more of a menace to society than murderers who kill a specific person for a unique reason.

But behind the “no motive” argument is the implicit suggestion that Guede – being a young (black) male – needs no special motive for murdering a young woman. But even if we accept that uncomfortably racist-sounding premise, it still leaves Rudy Guede as the perpetrator of another motiveless crime: we have to believe that Rudy Guede staged a phony break-in at the house (and extensively cleaned-up traces of everyone except himself) where he had just murdered one of the residents.

How, precisely, does THAT help him?

That the break-in was real and that is how Rudy Guede entered the flat

There is no serious doubt that the break-in was staged. Everyone who saw Filomena’s room on the morning of November 2, 2007 (including Filomena herself) testified that the break-in looked fake.

The police officer who led the initial inquiry that morning testified that he pointed this out to Knox and Sollecito, and reported that they said nothing to counter this. For example, the broken glass was on top of the clothes that had been strewn on the floor, suggesting that the window was broken AFTER the clothes had been flung around.

Later investigation showed traces of glass from the window led from Filomena’s room, along the hall, and out to the front door. No such traces were found in the murder room itself. All of this suggests that whoever broke the window did NOT subsequently go into the victim’s room, but DID just walk straight out through the front door.

So why would Rudy Guede do this? He didn’t live in the house, so he had no reason to think that a break-in would deflect attention away from him. His own claim, that the victim herself let him into the house, is absurd, and conflicts with what we know of the victim’s movements and intentions that night. The prosecution’s theory, that all three perpetrators entered the house together, since one of them (Knox) had a key to the front door, seems trhe only one to really hold up.

Speaking of scant evidence, there is no evidence at all that Rudy Guede was ever in Filomena’s room.

If we ignore the evidence that the break-in was faked, and we suppose that he genuinely broke in to the house that way, then we have to believe that he did this while leaving no DNA traces of himself anywhere in the room (not even on the window that he would have had to climb through) although he went on to leave plenty of evidence in other parts of the house.

But forensic examination did show a trace of Knox’s DNA, mixed with the victim’s blood. In the room where the botched staging took place. (And, as we noted above, whoever broke the window seems to have gone from Filomena’s room straight out of the front door, shedding tiny particles of broken glass as they went.)

What that leaves us with is a choice of two motiveless crimes. On the one hand, a lone killer accompanies a victim into her own home, kills her, and then fakes a break-in. On the other, three people – probably under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol – conspire to kill an innocent acquaintance, and then one of them (the one who is a resident of the house) fakes a break-in to make it look like an outside job.

Which is the more likely? The DNA evidence suggests that Knox, and not Guede, was a main party in staging the break-in.

That the crime was carried out solely by a black “drifter”

Harwood is surprised that the jury convicted Knox and Sollecito (who he wrongly claims have “no prior criminal histories”) despite having already convicted “a drifter and small-time drug dealer” called Rudy Guede.

If comment is free but facts are sacred, then the fact is that there is no indication whatsoever that Rudy Guede has ever been a drug dealer of any kind.

Such an accusation was never made in court, and formed no part of the detailed 105 page Micheli report that explained the reasons for his conviction.

Not only that, but as there is something of a weakness in the prosecution’s case (the tenuous connection between the three supposed conspirators) if there had been any indication that Guede had been a drug dealer, this could have helped the prosecution’s case immensely.

It would have provided Guede with a link to Knox and Sollecito (they admitted to being regular drug users at the time of the killing).

The “small-time drug dealer” accusation is one of the many fictions that are regularly stirred up in this PR-driven case. The term “drifter” is different, because (a bit like calling evidence “scant”) it’s flexible enough to mean whatever you want.

And Rudy Guede is, after all, a convicted murder, so we might think it acceptable to use the term “drifting” where innocent people would perhaps just be moving decisively with innocent purpose.

If we apply this rule, we can say that on the Friday before the crime, Guede “drifted” from Perugia to Milan, where he was questioned by the police after breaking into a nursery school to spend the night (as he claimed to the school owner who found him in her office the following morning). Guede was fingerprinted, released and then “drifted” back to Perugia. After the murder, he “drifted” to Germany, although a better phrase might be “attempted to escape”.

Applying the same rule to Amanda Knox, we can say that, after being fined $269 by the Seattle police in June 2007 for creating a public disturbance, she “drifted” to Europe, where in September the German branch of her family arranged for her to take up a week’s employment at the Bundestag (the German Parliament). She started this job on Monday September 10 and “drifted” out of it on Tuesday September 11.

By her own account, what she did next was this: “then i walked, and walked and walked and walked. all over berlin, for two whole days. it was great. i was supposed to pick up a bus on friday, so i spent wednesday and thursday wandering around berlin, seeing things, meeting people, drinking a glass of wine in a park near my apartment every night.”

Back in Hamburg, she discovered that her family was not happy with her for drifting off the Bundestag job and spending the week drifting about Berlin (the term is surely appropriate):

i was in trouble with my uncle who ahd landed me the job at the bundestag in the first place. aparently he had to go to a lot of trouble to get me my spot there and everyone was confused as to what had happened to me. so i talked to him today and explain ed the mess, but not before freaking out and crying a little becaue i was afraid i made my uncle look bad in front of these very importan people. oops. to say the least. [All spellings and punctuation are Knox’s own.]

That the hard evidence is very scanty

Three weeks after Knox walked out on the Bundestag job, she arrived in Perugia. Four weeks after that, Meredith Kercher was murdered in the house they both shared on Via della Pergola.

Some of the “scant” evidence against Amanda Knox includes Knox’s DNA, some of it mixed with the victim’s blood, in the bathroom and in the room where the break-in was faked; Knox’s DNA on the handle of a knife found in the kitchen of Knox’s new boyfriend Sollecito, with the victim’s DNA on the blade; and a woman’s shoeprint found on a pillowcase under the victim’s body – the shoe size is too big to be the victim’s, and too small to be Guede’s, but happens to be precisely the right size to be Amanda Knox’s.

What initially raised police suspicions about Knox and Sollecito was the fact that their alibis did not match up. In court, Knox gave her own (often self-contradictory) account of what happened that night, but it was impossible to compare this with that of Raffaele Sollecito, since Sollecito consistently refused to testify anew on his alibi since his final November 2007 version.

However, something that we do know is what Sollecito originally said about how the victim’s blood might have got on the blade of his kitchen knife.

He wrote in a letter to his family: “The fact that there is Meredith’s DNA on the kitchen knife is because once while cooking together at home, I stumbled while handling the knife. I had the point on her hand, and immediately afterward I apologized but there was no serious harm to her. So the only real explanation of the kitchen knife is this.”

Well, it’s one explanation. Comment is free, but facts are sacred, and the fact is that Meredith Kercher never set foot in Sollecito’s apartment, as we now know (from the trial testimony).

That the jury and Italy in general convicted because of the lives they led

Harwood concludes: “But for people who still believe in a reasonable doubt, there’s considerable unease that these two young people may be spending a good portion of their lives behind bars because the jury, the prosecution, and Italian society did not approve of the lives they led, especially Amanda Knox.”

Wow. That really nasty anti-Italy argument yet again? Don’t believe what Knox’s PR machine tells you, Matthew Harwood, and don’t slime Italy or its excellent justice system. Don’t in fact sound like a racist and xenophobic jerk. Try doing your own research, and go a great deal deeper than you just did.

There is no reasonable doubt left at all. Knox and Sollecito tortured and stabbed Meredith in a very depraved way, probably on a cocaine high with severe psychological underpinnings. Then they took away her phones while she was still alive, locked her door, and left her to die an agonizing death clutching her neck to stop her lifeblood running out. The autopsy report is OVERWHELMING that three people had to have been involved.

Knox and Sollecito were convicted not because of the lives they led, but because of the sheer weight of the evidence of the very gruesome cruel deeds they carried out against poor Meredith.

No reasonable doubt. 

Friday, February 26, 2010

The Prosecution’s Case Is VERY Formidable - Oops, The Prosecution’s Case Makes No Legal Sense

Posted by Peter Quennell

(1) Ted Simon’s objective and accurate statements on the strength of the case against Amanda Knox (Dec 2008)

(2) Ted Simon’s shrill and misleading statements on the strength of the case against Amanda Knox (Feb 2010).

Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Common View In Legal Circles: Knox Campaign Often Talks Legal Nonsense - As On Oprah

Posted by Peter Quennell

(1) This is the position lawyer Theodore Simon took in December 2008 on NBC Dateline as an impartial commentator then being straight with the American public.

“Theodore Simon thinks the prosecutors evidence made public so far is daunting. The defense could argue a faked robbery, and a moved body, and contamination, but eventually it could become like whack-a-mole, and all of their arguments could lose force.”

(2) This is the position Theodore Simon takes on the Oprah Winfrey show in February 2010 now that he is on the payroll and seemingly trying hard to mislead the American public. “The case makes no legal sense.”

The recent appointment of Theodore Simon as the US legal adviser to the free-Knox campaign met with some ridicule in Italy.

We certainly begin to see why.

Ted Simon’s performance on the Oprah Winfrey show sounded to us a lot like the hapless John Q Kelly. How grounded in either the very hard evidence or the very-different Italian law really is he?

The highly-respected Spokane lawyer Bill Edelblute (who we have quoted before) now weighs in forcefully on the New York Examiner website on the many claims made on the Oprah Winfrey show.

He pretty well reflects here what many other good lawyers are telling us: Don’t take any legal advice from that campaign - not if you actually want to win some…

Concerning the callous uncaring attitude to the Kerchers

Mr Edelblute starts by examining an arrogant and almost pathologically callous remark made by Curt Knox about the family of Meredith.

The parents of Amanda Knox lament the limited contact they now have with their daughter due to her imprisonment, while awaiting the upcoming appeal.  Only near the end of at least the ABC news account of the interview do they give any mention of the victim and the Kercher family. 

Here’s what they have to say in comparing their loss with that of the relatives of the murdered beautiful British student.  In commenting on the fact that they would not welcome a call from the Kerchers, Curt Knox explains it this way:

“We still have a chance with Amanda, and they don’t with their daughter,” he said, and that any such discussion might be best to take place only if the Kerchers are positive Amanda is innocent. “We still have a chance with Amanda, and they don’t with their daughter.” No, they don’t have a chance with Meredith Kercher, because someone murdered her.  Amanda Knox has been convicted of that murder, subject to appeal.

Let’s see - - the victim’s parents are supposed to believe Amanda is innocent before they ever dare speak to the parents of Amanda Knox.  Guilty or innocent, the parents of Amanda Knox did not murder anyone, so why would they place conditions on what the Kerchers have to believe before ever speaking to them? 

Hint - the reaction of the Kerchers to the verdict was one of believing justice has been done, not of believing the trial went horribly wrong.  Don’t expect them to change their belief anytime soon. 

The Kerchers did not make Amanda Knox turn cartwheels, make out with her boyfriend a few feet from where the body was just discovered, or to change her story several times, or to say that she heard Meredith scream, and that a black individual was in the bedroom with Meredith.  It was scientifically proven with DNA that a black man, Rudy Guede, was in that room, and he said Meredith was screaming, just like Amanda said.  Who is at fault for all that?  The victim’s parents, or Amanda’s sisters?

The chances that the Kerchers feel they need to speak to anyone about the murder of their completely blameless daughter who has not been shown to have done anything other than act like a normal college student, with normal boundaries on her behavior, are nil.

The Kerchers have nothing to explain, but deserve more than an apology from anyone who has made the rights of their daughter a non-issue. And the parents of an accused also have nothing to explain, but when they decide to conduct a media campaign, do they set conditions for the parents of the victim?

Concerning Amanda Knox’s sisters

Bill Edelblute contends with a couple of the often-loose claims of Deanna Knox, well worth reading in the original, and then has a long commentary on the use of young children as sockpuppets. He concludes “When comedy fundraisers for Knox don’t do the trick, try making a kid cry.”

Concerning Oprah’s performance

Next he assesses Oprah Winfrey as host - like us, he clearly believes Oprah was under-researched and under-briefed and fell into several traps. He commends her for not simply taking an “she’s innocent” stance and for asking a few blunt questions, concluding:

• She aired a written statement by Lyle Kercher, brother of victim Meredith Kercher, who apparently was invited to appear or speak live, but declined.  However, this was at the end of the segment when it probably belongs right smack in the middle. A photo of Meredith was flashed only very briefly.

But much of how Oprah handled the show he clearly did not like - becoming mushy over Amanda, misleading her audience on the sequestering of juries, and making an anti-Italy crack. 

• Oprah made a unequivocal statement that the jury was not sequestered, as it would have been in America.  That is not true.  Even in murder cases, juries are not routinely sequestered throughout the trial.  It is possible a judge would grant such a request upon motion by attorneys.  It is possible a jury might have been sequestered during deliberations, but not during the trial, or both, or neither....
• When Edda Mellas told Oprah that Amanda said in a phone call to “tell Oprah I love her” Ms. Winfrey displayed what was clearly a flattered smile.  You are just told that someone who has been convicted of murder, albeit subject to appeal, likes you, and you react as though someone’s puppy has taken an immediate liking to you, or have received a much sought after complement.  We don’t know what Meredith Kercher thinks of Oprah or her show, as her life was taken and she is not here to groom and manipulate others, as is Amanda Knox even from a prison cell.  (Nor would Meredith need to do so.)
• For the banal statement, while turning to the audience: “If you want to be tried - you want it to be in the U.S.A.!” Sure about that?  Amanda will get two levels of appeal as a matter of right in Italy.  In her home state of Washington, she would have only one. Oprah’s statement clearly implies the Italian system is not fair compared to that of the U.S., when there is no evidence of that, and implies there are more procedural protections, when there is no evidence of that.

We could have added this one: Oprah ignored the huge money-making operation and where all the money is going - for example, the very large sums that seem to be spent to mislead the American audiences.

Concerning Elizabeth Vargas

He then takes a look at the quality of the reporting of ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, who is notorious for repeatedly omitting key facts, muddling what the jury hears in court with what the media says outside, denigrating Italy and the Italian players, taking a very one-sided position (she is believed to have an exclusive deal with the PR campaign, one never made public on-air), and in general misinforming ABC’s viewers.

He judges her commentary as follows: “Ms. Vargas is loose with the facts.  There is almost no value of any kind in what Ms. Vargas had to offer, and negative value, when it comes to attacking a legal result with nothing to back it up, murdering the truth.”

Concerning Theodore Simon

Bill Edelblute then has serious contention with many of the remarks of Ted Simon, again well worth reading in full.

On Knox pointing to a black man, Patrick Lumumba, now, as our post below underscores, replaced as the sole perp of choice by another black man, Rudy Guede.

Oprah asked him if the fact that Amanda “pointed at an innocent man” reflected on her integrity.  His answer: “Quite to the contrary.” So it meant she had good integrity, being to the contrary of reflecting poorly upon it?  The tired old refrain that the police forced her to know that it was a black man in Meredith’s room does not mean Amanda was of good integrity, even if believed.  Simon’s answer just means his gun was cocked to say “to the contrary” to any evidence against Amanda.  Amanda would let an innocent man rot in prison, potentially for the 26 years she is doing, if he hadn’t been able to convince the court of his alibi. 

Yet it is “to the contrary” to suggest she has no integrity to allow Patrick to unjustly be deprived of his freedom, business, and reputation? Simon pointed out there had been no interpreter.  Knox didn’t say she had been misunderstood when accusing Lumumba.  She testified she made the false accusation only after being hit on the back of the head by a policewoman who she could not identify. What does lack of an interpreter have to do with the point of accusing an innocent man?  He was in prison two weeks.  Did Knox ever say during that time - no, he’s not involved, you’ve got an innocent man in prison?  His bar that employed Knox is now closed.  A product of Knox’s false accusations.

On Ted Simon on the physical evidence in the house.

Simon rattled off a list of things not found in the room where Meredith was found, such as Amanda’s hair, DNA, sweat, etc.  He did not mention that no murder weapon, which had to have once been in the room, was found in the room either. 

So is Meredith still alive? Simon did not mention the DNA of Amanda and the victim being on a knife where Amanda claimed at times she had spent the night of the murder.

He could have added - as our DNA experts here have often pointed out - that there was zero reason for Knox’s DNA to be in Meredith’s room if she was simply standing there with a knife, goading the men on and taunting Meredith. And that a bloody footprint of Knox’s size was found in the room, on a pillow. And that the mixed DNA of Knox and Meredith was found at five locations - and that mixed DNA had to have been deposited very recently.

And that it had to have been Knox who moved Meredith’s body - nobody else had a need to. And that Amanda Knox’s bedside lamp was found in Meredith’s locked room, presumably used in the cleaning up and rearranging of the crime scene - of which there is no doubt.

He continues on the physical evidence.

Simon does not identify any rule of law that says the sweat of the accused has to be found in the room where the the victim’s body is found.  Yet, he says the case “makes no legal sense.”

This is a case in which there is an admission of being at the scene, of the DNA of the accused and a victim being on a knife, of knowledge that Meredith screamed while a black man was in a bedroom with Meredith. 

A black man was in a bedroom with Meredith, Rudy Guede, as shown by his DNA.  Guede, though denying murder, says he heard Meredith scream.  Knox said she screamed, before Guede was known by police to be involved.  How did she know what Guede knew?…

There is no legal element missing, it is more a question of the independent strength of certain pieces of evidence, all put together the jury was convinced, and that is their role in the system.

Hmmm. That seems to make a lot of legal sense.

And concerning Curt Knox and Edda Mellas

Finally Bill Edelblute questions many of the claims of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas of bias in the legal process and the Italian media. Please see his original post. He comments further on Curt Knox’s almost pathologically callous remark with regard to Meredith’s family.

While the comments above about the Kerchers could be construed as acknowledging their loss of their daughter, of having “no chance”, as worse than the situation of the Knoxes, I’m not so sure.  Because clearly Curt Knox then says that to speak to them, the Kerchers would have to acknowledge Amanda was innocent. 

That thinking is the product of a different kind of mind.  the Kerchers don’t have to do anything, it is not a question of why Curt Knox would not lower himself to talk to them, it is a question of why the Kerchers would bother.

In other words, why would Meredith’s family WANT to reach out to the family of a possible charming psychopath found guilty of killing their daughter, who still shows zero remorse? Especially when her family seem to display some chilling psychologies of their own.

Fine brave careful humane work by Bill Edelblute and the Examiner. which is helping to re-educate a huge component of the American public on the stark realities of the case.  Reader comments on the Examiner website and every other website we have looked at are running at least four or five to one against Oprah, Curt Knox, and Edda Mellas.

Something in their campaign must be broken. Perhaps they should just pack up and stay home.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Oprah Gets Snowed: Why Was She Not Made Aware of The Race Card Being Played?

Posted by Peter Quennell

We will have a detailed takedown of the large number of disputable claims made today on Oprah Winfrey’s show posted here in a day or two. 

Meanwhile, we must say that it was a pretty weird experience to witness Oprah Winfrey, of all people, being taken in by the “of course the black guy did it” meme.

• Is she aware that the poor black guy Rudy Guede is the ONLY one of the three that had no prior convictions?
• Is she aware that there is NO reliable evidence that the poor black guy Guede has ever done drug dealing or burglary in Perugia or for that matter wielded a knife?
• Is she aware that there is no REMOTELY feasible scenario under which a lone wolf like the poor black guy Guede could have done this crime all alone?
• Is she aware that there is EXTENSIVE evidence that Knox and Sollecito rearranged the crime scene and moved Meredith’s body - while the poor black guy Guede was reliably reported at a disco?

There seems to be a nasty race card deliberately being played here to deflect blame from Amanda (remember Patrick Lumumba?) which Oprah’s staff should have picked up on in a mere 15 minutes of research.

This was the REAL story here - that blaming it all on the black guy is a theory that just doesn’t fly - and Oprah should have been onto this one like a hungry dog onto a bone.

Hopefully next time she will be. 

Monday, February 22, 2010

Oprah, Perhaps Your Guests On Today’s Show Could Explain This Very Tough One Away

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click here for Finn MacCools’ chilling analysis of Amanda Knox’s first call to her mom the day after.

Finn posted this incriminating piece of work on TJMK last July, and ever since, it has awkwardly lurked like an elephant in the room.

The prosecution never really required a smoking gun to prove the Knox-Sollecito case. To those in the courtroom who heard all the fine details, the totality of the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to guilt.

But for anyone for whom it hadn’t, this strange story of the call that suddenly wasn’t came as close as anything in the evidence to a smoking gun. One that Edda Mellas may have dropped to around two years ago, as Finn shows.

One that that in most courts around the world would almost by itself result in case closed. 

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Oprah Winfrey, Please Discuss The Case With Jeanine Pirro, Anne Coulter, And Now Tina Brown

Posted by Peter Quennell

Next Tuesday [today] at 4:00 pm the influential American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey will weigh in at last on the case.

There is a growing history of high-profile American media personalities like Oprah being misled and thus misleading on the real strength of the evidence (and it is very strong.)

And then going publicly silent. Apparently more than once, behind the scenes, very angrily.

Unquestionably, Oprah Winfrey helped Barack Obama to get elected. She is very powerful. And the self-made billionaire is famous for getting very, very angry behind the scenes if given wrong facts or lied-to.

In fact Oprah is probably the last woman in America that anyone would want to lie to.

In the past few months both prominent American media personalities and entire American networks and publishing empires have got deeper into the hard evidence, and seen for themselves that justice in this case has been done.

These days, no media personality or media empire in the United States seems to want to be the last one standing in defense of a probable charming psychopath.

• Larry King of CNN has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• Geraldo Rivera of Fox Cable has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• Jane Velez-Mitchell of CNN has not returned to the case since this fiasco.
• The New York Times has reported very fairly since this fiasco.
• CBS TV dropped its series of very biased reports after this fiasco.

Now Oprah is famous for being a voracious reader. And we know that her crack production team and possibly Oprah herself have been studying this website and our sister website the PMF forum.

There is a mountain of objective evidence on these two websites, and we will not be at all surprised if Oprah and her team get right on top of it and blow the faux defense right out of the studio.

Additionally, Oprah and her production team would do well to consider phoning Oprah’s fellow media stars Jeanine Pirro and Ann Coulter and now Tina Brown. All three consider the case to be closed. And the verdict to be a perfectly fair one.

Knox killed Meredith quite horrifically. Knox was rightly found guilty. And without further ado, Knox should get on with serving her time.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Formidable Tina Brown Speaks Out On Barbie Nadeau’s Forthcoming Book

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above and below: New York publisher and editor Tina Brown; click for larger images]

Someone you’d sure want to have in your corner if you have a good book to promote is New York’s colorful, driving Tina Brown.

A former editor first of Vanity Fair and then of the New Yorker, British-born Tina Brown launched the hustling Daily Beast news-site late last year. We get emails daily from the Beast on breaking news and, as a newspaper-blog hybrid, the Beast may have found the sweet spot that promises survival in this media day and age.

We believe that Tina personally sought out the Rome-based American journalist Barbie Nadeau to write a blog on Meredith’s case, and then Tina promoted the idea of a book - the Beast’s second book to be published, and one certain to be very high-profile. 

Here on MediaBistro’s Galleycat are Tina Brown’s first remarks about Barbie Nadeau’s book: Angel Face, The Real Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox

Q: What’s coming up next?

A: It’s called Angel Face by Barbie Nadeau. It’s about the true story of a student killer Amanda Knox. Nadeau was at every one of the sessions of the trial, so she covered it obsessively for the Daily Beast.

She gathered a huge following with us, and so we’ve given her the time and space to do a great 40,000 word narrative. She put the whole trial together into a really compelling narrative.

It’s terrific, I mean I couldn’t put it down; I was reading it this weekend.

Barbie Nadeau’s book on the student-killer Amanda Knox is due out early in April - the third book on Meredith’s case to hit the stores. The next three are expected to be Candace Dempsey’s polemic and then the cool factual studies by John Follain and Nina Burleigh.

Between now and the Knox-Sollecito appeal late this year, we expect to be posting first all of the judges’ sentencing report in English. The report is due out at the latest in a couple of weeks. And then many, many excerpts from the best of the books.

Those that see that, here, finally, true justice for Meredith really was done. 

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Sad Case Of Sonia Marra #5: Prosecuter Indicates Case Against Sonia’s Lover Is Strong

Posted by Tiziano

Sonia Marra and Meredith Kercher may be the only two women students to meet a brutal and senseless end over a very long period in Perugia.

This case - one of a search for true justice for Sonia - remains a demonstration of the same carefulness of the Perugia judiciary, cool persistence of the police and prosecuting magistrate, and restraint of the Italian press that we have seen in Meredith’s case. 

Last week Umberto Bindella was released from Capanne Prison as a murder suspect and he headed back to his apartment in Perugia. We presumed that Friday’s would be our final post on the case, at least for a while, and that it might never be solved.

Not so fast, it seems.

The prosecuting magistrate has now argued that the judge who released Bindella (Judge Micheli, yes, our Judge Micheli) had not considered new evidence against Bindella seriously enough, and seeks to put Bindella back behind bars to ward off the possibility of his disappearing.

This report on this stand of the prosecutor, which may or may not win out, appeared in today’s La Nazione - Umbria Edition.

THE PM: BINDELLA MUST GO BACK BEHIND BARS

By Erika Pontini

It was on the cards and it has happened: the magistrate Giuseppe Petrazzini wants Umberto Bindella behind bars and has lodged an appeal against the decision of judge Paolo Micheli who decided to free the only person under investigation for the murder of Sonia Marra because, in his opinion, the serious indications of guilt which permit the application of custody on remand were lacking.

“A leap in quality in the consistency and seriousness of the clues had been demonstrated, as evidenced above, precisely in the realisation that he [Bindello - Ed] had allowed himself to make incriminating admissions [to his police officer friend when he was supposed to have said ‘I’ve made a real mess.’-Ed] when he should not have yet known anything about the disappearance of Sonia Marra.... Up until today the clues were lacking that last but essential element.”

It will now be the Perugia Review Tribunal - presided over by Dottoressa Nicla Flavia Restivo - which will decide whether the thirty-one year old from Marsciano must go back to a cell, or whether the prosecution will continue investigations with Bindella out on bail. 

The tribunal should decide within twenty days.

Doubts remain about many of the statements of the person under investigation - this is even the opinion of investigating magistrate Micheli - who probably lied about some of the profiles noted above, both about relations with the girl and about [his friend the financier who provided an alibi - Ed] Galluccio, with whose contribution, whether as a witness or as a co-accused, it is fair to imagine it would be possible to reach concrete results. And the statement of the witness remains valid [the little girl’s - Ed] and has an important circumstantial value.

But in itself it is not sufficient to maintain the restriction on Bindella’s personal liberty.It is reasonable to hold that, on the basis of what has been gathered, he should be tried: but the law requires that he should take part as a free man; also, the theory that the differences can be resolved between the possible reconstructions of the phone call with [the police officer friend -Ed] through a confrontation between the latter and the person under investigation himself, does not legitimise the continuation of remand in custody, there exists nonetheless a situation of doubt where the general principles of the law bind this judge to resolve in the sense favourable to the accused, who must be permitted to take part in that and other trial activities as a free man.”

Umberto Bindella had been investigated in recent weeks after three years of uninterrupted investigations into the disappearance of the student from Specchia.  On January 18th judge Paolo Micheli, accepting the request of the prosecution, had ordered the measure of remand in custody against the ex forestry worker accused of murder, concealment of a body and the theft of Sonia’s two mobile phones.

After 19 days in a cell and following the application of the defence - Daniela Paccoi and Silvia Egidi - judge Micheli changed his mind and decided on the release of the man under investigation.  The Prosecuting Magistrate, however, is not convinced by that reasoning and in five pages explains to the Review Court why the thirty (sic) year-old from Marsciano must go back behind bars.

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Appeals Process

Judges sentencing report was released March 4. We will be posting most of it in English in due course. Appeals hearings late 2010.

Subjects This Page



• Concerning Meredith
  • In memory
  • Her London
  • Her Leeds
  • Her Perugia
  • Her family
  • Her video
• Crime hypotheses
  • The Micheli report
  • P-Points scenes
  • P-Points forensic
  • More scenarios
  • Myths rebutted
• Hearings and trials
  • Prelim hearings
  • Guede trial
  • RS + AK trial
• Public evidence
  • Known witnesses
  • Cellphone activity
  • DNA and luminol
  • Other physical
• Prosecution's case
  • Facts presented
  • Summing-ups
• Defense's case
  • Facts put forward
  • Summng ups
• The three defendants
  • Rudy Guede
  • Raffaele Sollecito
  • Amanda Knox
  • PR campaigns
• The legal participants
  • Italian law
  • Police and CSI
  • The judiciary
  • The prosecutors
  • The defenses
  • Victims family
• Reporting on the case
  • Best reporting
  • Worst reporting
  • Media news
• The wider contexts
  • Sonia Marra Case
• The many fall-outs

Your Comments

By John on the post 'How The Media Should Approach The Case If Justice Is To Be Done And SEEN To Be Done'.


NOV 1st
8:35 PM Amanda’s text message to Patrick
8:40 PM RS discovers he no longer has to go to the station, they turn their cell phones off
(They are now free for the…

By Hopeful on the post 'Sentencing Report: The State Of The Report's Distribution'.


Thank you, Peter, for sentencing report. A big effort. Translators, thank you.

By mojo on the post 'Sentencing Report: The State Of The Report's Distribution'.


Thanks for the update!

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Meredith's Perugia #12: Would Some Of These Have Been Her Best Friends For Life?'.


Hi bucketoftea. Delay is explained in the new post above this one. Slightly frustrating but we can understand the need for caution on the part of the Perugia court.

By bucketoftea on the post 'Meredith's Perugia #12: Would Some Of These Have Been Her Best Friends For Life?'.


Hi Peter
Are we expecting a copy of the motivations?

By Chan on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


commissario montalbano,

I’m hoping that you have answers to my curiosity.

Rudy got 30 years and ‘fast-tracked’ his trial.

K/S got 24 years but did not.

On appeal, rudy got assigned the…

By mimi on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


I am still puzzled by Knox’s series of SMS messages to Meredith during those last days. Was she honestly attempting to draw M into some shared activity, innocent or otherwise, or was she trying to determine whether, indeed, the cottage…

By Commissario Montalbano on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Although the “Procuratore Generale della Repubblica presso la Corte d’Assise d’Appello” has jurisdiction over the appeal as the competent prosecutor, he also has the faculty to call the same Prosecutor at the trial of first instance to argue the case…

By Earthling on the post 'Meredith's Perugia #12: Would Some Of These Have Been Her Best Friends For Life?'.


Thanks for linking to Hopeful’s post—amazing and spot-on, as always.

I always liked Mignini. He seems like the very model of a caring, intelligent elder statesman. I believe his ideas about the crime were closest to what happened,…

By Mo-in-Mass.,USA on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


I gave the Alessi issue more thought after my inital posting and there would be no logical reason for Rudy Guede to exculpate the people who left him holding the proverbial bag while cleaning up their own evidence. Of course,…

By Paddy5000 on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Hi Machine and Peter,

Thanks for both of your comments. I hope you are both right. The thought of these people getting away with this and indeed possibly gaining from it financially is truly disgusting to say the…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Meredith's Perugia #12: Would Some Of These Have Been Her Best Friends For Life?'.


Who cared absolutely the most for Meredith and her family throughout the whole process of hearings and trial?

Surprise, surprise.... Mignini.

The unfairness of the sad fate of Meredith deeply affected him and he was determined…

By Peter Quennell on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Hi Paddy5000.  I’m not seeing that scenario happening either. What you label a mess doesn’t look like a mess in Italy, especially in light of the judges report. They don’t even see a fight.

The FOA wiggle room…

By The Machine on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Hi Paddy,

Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, the FOA and a significant element in the US media still don’t understand that they cannot influence the legal proceedings in Italy. Their efforts have had absolutely no effect.

…

By Paddy5000 on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


The sad truth is, in this world you can go into court a Saint and go out a Sinner or vice versa. Very often the truth has nothing to do with the way things pan out.

The longer…

By mojo on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Hopeful, i do see some parallels to Joran with this case but the interview he did was months ago, why it was released now was up to the television station. Terror Jaap (the guy responsible) had been trying to get…

By Mo-in-Mass.,USA on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Either Alessi is lying or Sollecito’s clan got to Guede.  I’m thinking that it’s a lie.  One of the news items I read this morning said that Guede himself denied it emphatically.  I do find it curious that Sollecito’s camp…

By saskia on the post 'Sentencing Report: Andrea Vogt Has More Details In The Seattle Post-Intelligencer'.


The Knox’s family statement, criticizing the report, is interesting.

“In our opinion, there is a lot of conjecture in these motivations, a number of discrepancies as well as a number of inconsistencies and contradictions; as well as conclusions…

By Ann-Marie on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Well said, perfumed flower

By John on the post 'How The Media Should Approach The Case If Justice Is To Be Done And SEEN To Be Done'.


Kevin, you’ve got the one that definately makes the most sense - thats what I’ve been saying as well. your the first thats agreed with me, not that anyone reads this far down any more, but next tuesday, I’ll post…

By Nell on the post 'Sentencing Report: Barbie Nadeau Quotes The Motive, Physical Evidence, And Alibis'.


Amanda was supposed to work that night. So it probably was not premeditated and carefully planned. Maybe, however, she and Raffaele decided to go home and to play some prank, that is very possible.

This is in my…

By perfumedflower on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


“Rude is pathetic scum but he is in the catbird seat. No doubt it will become more circus like as the teams for Knox and Sollecito try to triangulate whether to kill him in prison or bribe him with promises…

By jennifer on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Rude is pathetic scum but he is in the catbird seat. No doubt it will become more circus like as the teams for Knox and Sollecito try to triangulate whether to kill him in prison or bribe him with promises…

By Hopeful on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


3/6/10
Rudy’s pulling a Joran van der Sloot with the Alessi story. It’s a new bid for attention. He’s stirred up by the Oprah Show, the judges report, the appeal. Naturally he wants to milk the celebrity and…

By Chan on the post 'Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion'.


Peter,

I’m telling you now, you read it here first and it’s an exclusive to the TMK site: but I have it heard it said, and from a reliable source, that Amanda Knox was not in Europe, let…