Saturday, January 28, 2023

Dr Mignini’s Book #3 On How Most Non-Italian Media & Reporters Misrepresented The Case

Posted by KrissyG



Our 2020 assessment: max 1/3 of media played it fully straight

Long post. Click here to go straight to Comments.


1. Xenophobic Stereotypes

Quite early on in the book it becomes apparent that Dr Mignini had a big problem with the press almost from the moment when the body of the victim was discovered.

He singles out specifically the ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ media organisations of the United States, noting they were mostly unaware of the procedural documents and the protocols of the Interior Ministry experts, and taking ‘zero correct aim’ pot-shots at the Scientific Police of the Central Anti-Crime Directorate.

Why did they do this?  Mignini believes in part:

Because of a petty nationalistic prejudice and to defend, therefore, the American from Seattle was considered a victim of a legal system and of a “medieval” investigator, who would be me, as well as of a city obsessed, according to them, with witches, which were however not in Salem in Massachusetts, but… in Perugia’.  P 36

Mignini names “in particular the journalist Nina Burleigh” the author of The Fatal Gift of Beauty, an absurd book with pseudo-intellectual pontification about the mysteries of Perugia, weaving a fugue of some kind of mysticism that permeated the crime, with Knox the unlikely victim of some latter-day witch hunt, whom Mignini accuses of projection, noting that unlike Perugia, with ‘just one sentenced for witchcraft, a nearby area to Burleigh in Salem, USA, had many. (p 37). 

Judy Bacharach was another xenophobic stereotyper.

Among the many American newspapers (and even some British ones) that fell into this unforgivable mistake, I was unfavorably impressed by Vanity Fair and a journalist, a certain Judy Bachrach, who barely concealed the antipathy she felt for me, widely reciprocated. The same thing must be said about Nina Burleigh, whom I have already spoken about, author of a book on the Amanda case, full of mistakes and false stereotypes. p. 44


2. Downplaying Of Knox Felony

A major irritation for Mignini is the way the misguidedly patriotic US press and also the normally ‘quality’ UK left wing papers such as the Guardian and Independent played down Knox’s role in accusing her boss Patrick Lumumba of murder whom she knew was wholly innocent.

Far from seeing it as a serious crime (the UK equivalent of ‘Perverting the Course of Justice’, which attracts jail terms of between three to six years, or the US Federal equivalent of ‘Obstruction of Justice’ [knowingly misleading a federal police investigation] with a similar sentencing recommendation), it was instead misreported by these papers as some kind of normal reaction to stress, wherein you just name any innocent person of a heinous crime, as one does, or the well-known US custom of blaming the nearest Black man.  A pervasive problem is that the overseas press are not under any jurisdiction of Italy to correct this.

That’s another one of the nonsenses I’ve come across. Among other things, the “stars-and-stripe” journalists and even some British journalists (of “hostile” newspapers, I do not know why, like The Guardian or The Independent, tended to minimize “criminal slander”, equating it to a “defamation”, while this crime is, for us, a crime against the administration of Justice, a kind of “obstacle to justice”,something much more serious in the ordinances of civil law. P52


3. Fabricators Form Teams

Then there were the stories that were outright fabricated, such as the claim that Mignini was actually present when Knox first made her outrageous accusation against Lumumba: that he had gone to Meredith’s room and raped and killed her, whilst Knox cowered in the living quarters, hands over her ears from the harrowing scream and thud.  The implication being that the innocent Knox was coerced into making her calumny.

Abroad and especially in the United States, the public would not have understood the slants and even vicious bad faith of certain expressions of information (television or print) or, worse still, “innocentist” blogs and forums which have continued to claim that I was present when Amanda first uttered the name of Lumumba… There is evidently no deafness worse than those who do not want to hear. P 60

So what is the truth about the conviction for Calunnia, for which Knox was sentenced to three years and remains a conviction?  As far as Mignini is concerned, Knox openly lies in her book Waiting to be Heard.

Then, in the midst of the legal process, Amanda wrote a book containing a serious and conscious distortion of the facts; however her final conviction for Calunnia now precludes any possibility of repeating her version, that she had named Patrick because it was suggested to her by the police to escape the intolerable pressure to which she claimed to have been subjected.
[…]
Amanda, and only she, is definitively guilty of calunnia to the detriment of Lumumba, and this crime was committed by her and only by her without any external pressure being invoked. Amanda had thus unprovoked accused Lumumba, and I remember perfectly that she made out to be seriously afraid of Patrick and in need of police protection.  p61

Then there is best-selling pulp fiction novelist Doug Preston, who liked to purvey a false narrative that a somehow corrupt Mignini as prosecutor in the Monster of Florence case had forced him to flee Italy, as an abortive attempt by Preston to ally with Spezi to solve the crime themselves, causing conflict with the official investigation.

A perfect chance of revenge for the perceived slight then, for Preston was to become a leading and influential campaigner against Knox’s charges from the legal safety of the United States.

Another such fabricating campaigner was Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner, and yet another, one Paul Ciolino of CBS, whom Mignini paints as a comedy character.

The “lobbying” vehicle of the compaigners began to invest in and airbrush one of the College of Jesuits in Seattle [former judge Heavey] and one of them phoned the fabricator Douglas Preston to inform him that the PM who had had Amanda arrested was the same who had investigated him. Then the fabricating lawyer Anne Bremner launched “moralising” lectures at Italian jurists like me (and who would end up pathetically in a cell for driving while drunk).

Soon joined in were the investigators Joe Tacopina (a character who surfaced to take on the defense of Amanda and was then dropped) and Paul Ciolino, a kind of clone of the long-gone American comic actor Lou Costello.

[…]  In the end, this group conquered the US media, even the New York Times.  Then the powerful lobby crossed the Atlantic, and conquered British newspapers in the “lefty” area (I don’t know why) and those seemingly neutral such as The Independent, with its strange correspondent from Rome, the ineffable Peter Popham, italophobic like few others, a writer of poor quality, plagued by all kinds of “tics” as I could see for myself in the talks I had with him.” p 68


4. Contrasting Media Teams

Before Mignini knew it, there was an entire orchestra of journalists, self-styled ‘freelancers, such as Frank Sforza, and someone Mignini refers to as a ‘neojournalist’, Candice Dempsey. Also Michelle Moore, the ‘perennially exaggerating’ wife of a former FBI agent Steve Moore, who would be in court in 2011 and later accompany Knox from Capanne Prison back to Seattle.

When the trial of Knox and Sollecito began before Judge Giancarlo Massei on 16 January 2009, Mignini was confronted by a whole cacophony of the clamouring press.  With characteristic wit and pith, Mignini describes them as thus:

There, I met envoys from various news agencies and television broadcasters, especially American ones, such as CBS, ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, and CNN And also from other media outlets such as those for the fine Barbie Nadeau, Andrea Vogt, Ann Wise, Sabina Castelfranco, Phoebe Nathanson and others.

I also remember the fine Britons, Tom Kington of The Guardian, Nick Squires of The Telegraph, Nick Pisa of Sky News, and John Follain of The Times, as well as a very nice older journalist, Richard Owen of The Times.

More praise for the good.

Above all, amongst the Anglo-Saxon journalists who are objective and balanced towards the work of the investigators, I recall especially four or five:

There was Barbie Nadeau of Newsweek, also American, originally from South Dakota, an attentive observer of the legal process whose services I appreciated, and was inspired also by her
rigorous impartiality. […]

Paul Russell, British television producer, distinguished by his seriousness and scrupulous information gathering and a great integrity of character, as well as a characteristic and funny British humour.
[…]
I remember John Follain, correspondent of The London Times, with whom I had a mutual “feeling” and who established a friendship with both me and Manuela Comodi’


5. Bizarre Media Parasites

Attaching himself to these journalists was a strange character, completely uninformed in procedural matters but who managed to credit himself as a kind of freelance, self-styled “persecuted” by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and in particular by me: Frank Sfarzo (pseudonym of Francesco Sforza), an individual with dark and thin hair, almost Maghrebi-looking, who lived with his mother, and also apparently his sister with whom he was on anything but on good terms, in an apartment on Via Fonti Coperte.

I do not know what he did in life, probably nothing until he was “transmogrified” on the “way to Damascus” by Amanda Knox, whose innocence he “married” immediately and tenaciously, without knowing anything about the trial.” p127

In Sfarzo’s context Mignini describes the amateur Seattle blogger Candice Dempsey, of Calabrian ancestry (who we spotted stalking the Kerchers) as looking at him ‘with eyes full of hate’, and ‘always close to Sfarzo’

Finally, a strange British gentleman, a certain David Anderson, who was probably even closer to verbal intemperances than the last two, which says it all. I believe he was a “psychologist” and lived with his wife in a villa near Todi.

An Englishman “enlisted” in the pro-Amanda lobby who was a “goofball”. He seemed totally incapable of a serene and balanced attitude, and did not tolerate opinions contrary to his own. One day I saw him lashing out at my colleague screaming outraged and incomprehensible expressions… with me he was probably holding back because he was afraid that I would react and have him arrested. After all, wasn’t I, for them, the “Chief Prosecutor” and Manuela my “Assistant”?

Mignini praises Nadeau, Penny Ganong and Andrea Vogt in their scepticism towards the efforts of Greg Hampikian to blind with science, so to speak, and as described by Mignini,

‘He was historically the first “American” defense adviser’ [operating from outside of Italy’s jurisdiction].

TJMK is name-checked in Mignini’s spotlighting a particular misinformation campaign:

In a much later era, in 2014, Prof. Halkides was responsible for a serious defamation campaign against Dr. Stefanoni, revealing a particularly virulent character, conducted together with another biologist named Tom Zupancic.
[…]
True Justice for Meredith Kercher has always tried to fight these falsehoods [of the formers’ falsely claimed procedural fraud by Dr Stefanoni] and focus on the undisputed points of the story. The virulent content of the campaign can be assessed at [various websites]. p 155

(A full discussion of Halkide’s and Zupancic’s scurrilous claims are set out in the book, which doesn’t concern the topic of the book review post here.)

6. Two Of The Very Worst

More sinister, taking place as it did in Italy, ahead of the outcome of Pratillo Hellmann’s appeal court hearing brought by the defence, was a revelation to Mignini by a UK journalist, Bob Graham, in an interview, that he, Bob Graham, had been privy to the content of Conti and Vecchiotti before it even became public before the court. 

“I had informed my colleagues of this extremely serious fact which revealed, at the very least, a serious indiscretion made by persons legally bound by professional secrecy, such as experts or perhaps their staff, in favor of the accused. I realized that Graham had misled me and, in doing so, had recorded his imprudent statements and handed it over to the lawyers. […]
It is unsurprising that this cassette would then disappear from the chronicles because, I believe, the “pro-defendants” community immediately realized that those words that Bob Graham had uttered and released were a boomerang that could have backfired heavily against the experts and the defenders themselves, and probably shake the outcome of the appeal process; however,the very serious and far too eloquent fact remains of a journalist who was aware of the content of the expert report when it had yet to be disseminated.” P 197

Yet the journalistic nightmare for Mignini and the prosecuting team does not stop here.  Mignini talks of the bias of a CNN reporter.

He perfectly embodied a central and paralyzing defect of American psychology, the narcissistic type, and he could not hide the hostility he felt for me. I should have known that he had been “catechized” by a familiar character, the “yellow-lister” Douglas Preston
[…]
The “blend” was explosive. The interviewer was a “belligerent” journalist who made me think of a “shark”. His name was Drew Griffin. His smile, in which he exhibited his dentition, was not a smile, it was an artifact. I don’t think he could smile spontaneously. He looked like a fake, artificial, plastic character, and like all Americans, he would always pose, theatrically, when he had to present himself as an American in front of a foreigner, especially a European and an Italian.”  P 199 (Written before Griffin passed away recently.)

Then there was CBS’s Peter Van Sant:

“There was also a journalist and commentator from Seattle, CBS, Peter Van Sant, distinguished for a furious and irresponsible campaign against Italian Justice in recent months, which culminated in his bizarre hope that the 82nd Airborne Division (that of the failed airborne raid of September 8, 1943 over Rome and the landing at Salerno) would free Amanda from prison in Perugia “ p237

It is simply astonishing the extent Mignini reveals how the defence – and proxy defences in the USA -conspired and collaborated with Conti and Vecchiotti to release an unknown woman from Seattle, whom noone had ever met, all on the strength of grievances, money-making and xenophobia held by third parties that had nothing at all to do with the Kercher murder case.

“ The only culprit was, for the press, not the American nor the Italian, but the “black” Rudi Hermann Guede, who could not benefit anyone who defended him.” P 251


7. Finally, Note This Irony

The irony is, in the Fifth Chamber’s motivation report in annulling the sentences of Knox and Sollecito, ‘interference by the press’ is cited as one of the factors leading to the reversal of the 2014 Nencini verdict.

Posted by KrissyG on 01/28/23 at 04:55 PM in Hoaxes Sollecito etc

Comments

Extremely helpful post. KrissyG shows how Dr Mignini’s quick takes on the main mis-representers are implacable. This is the first-time mention of many of them to Italian readers. David Marriott and Bruce Fischer are mentioned elsewhere as main organizers,  Many are listed in the links in our right column. See below for tips on further reading.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/13/23 at 07:07 AM | #

Thanks KrissyG, nicely summarised. Building on your previous post:  https://tinyurl.com/2r5ub8fn

On the issue of Halkides and his defamation of Stefanoni, it would, I think, be helpful just to reprise what Mignini had to say about this.

It arose over the issue of what Halkides and his chums called “the raw data” which, they said, was being withheld by the prosecution because either it had been destroyed or because it had been tampered with.

Therein lies the defamation. This insistence by Halkides, and the like, for “the raw data” came after the trial. To be fair I think what they latched on to was the fact that during the trial there had been an adjournment following a request by the defence teams for disclosure of the SAL cards which, when produced by Stefanoni, did reveal some information which had not been disclosed in her presentation/summary documentation for the Court.This further information had to do with the full scale of TMB testing.

Quite what is meant by “the raw data” is another thing.The SAL cards were a full record of all the genetic and other testing in the laboratory and had been disclosed in the trial. Halkides I think, as far as I can recall, also wittered on about the electronic records. This can only be a reference to the electropherogram machines but quite what he meant by this I am at a loss to understand. Did he want experts to examine the exact same machines used in the analysis for defects? Likely? especially given the result of the test on sample 35a on the knife? Really?

In the event, as Mignini says, the defence teams did not request “the raw data” at the appeal in Perugia - because they already had it - and because Professor Novelli was able to demonstrate that there had been no contamination of samples in the lab over the relevant period of testing.

Posted by James Raper on 02/13/23 at 07:17 AM | #

Spot-on James. And of course Halkidis etc never ever mention (may not know in fact) that defense observers were present at every single processing and never once saw problems.

Added to your last para could be the point that the DEFENSE lawyers became pretty irritated at Halkidi’s etc incessant blundering.

Dr Mignini knows but does not mention that it was an open secret in Perugia that all on the defense teams believed there was guilt on the part of their clients - hence a key Knox lawyer exiting in December 2007.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/13/23 at 07:43 AM | #

For starters on further reading, here’s a list of most of the hapless mis-reporters, other than the 600 or so who posted effusive reviews of the Netflix “documentary” for which we have a separate list.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/13/23 at 07:45 AM | #

I myself would not go so far as to say that there is any evidence of direct collusion between the Independent Experts and the likes of Budowle, Hampikean and Halkides. This is not to say that one cannot join up the dots.

Clearly the IEs knew about Budowle because he had written an Open Letter and is referred to in their Report, and very prominently in the Helmann Motivation. Hampikean boasted endlessly about how he had won the case because of his involvement on the issue of contamination but Boise University refused to comply with statutory requests for information. Mignini seems to think it possible that Halkides may have pursued his obsession about “the raw data” as far as the IEs and then to the Appeal Court via a letter Conti wrote to Hellmann.

If there was no direct communication between the aforesaid and the IEs (and I doubt that there was) then this material must have come to the IEs (and most likely did) via the defence teams. Now I would not say that there is anything wrong with this Provided that there is full disclosure. In particular if one is nominated by the Court as an Independent Expert, and you take into account (or even just see) material that emanates from contributors (even experts by their own lights) who have not actually had a role in, that is, given evidence in Court, but are merely offering opinions, then you should identify the source and how you came by it so that at least the said opinions - and indeed any conclusions drawn from them by the IEs themselves -  can be challenged.

There should also be a requirement on the defence teams (or the prosecution for that matter) to disclose what material has been provided to the IEs.

These are, after all, Independent Experts appointed by the Court, and one would think that complete transparency would be required.

I see no indication that such full disclosure took place by the IEs and the defence teams, and given the dubious competence of these IEs (who had certainly not been properly vetted and were not, as far as I can see, on an approved Register of Experts) that is when one starts to join up the dots.

Independent Experts really do need a strict set of requirements attached as to how they are chosen and how they perform their work.

Posted by James Raper on 02/13/23 at 01:56 PM | #

Hmmmm. Why do I doubt that “independent” experts Conti & Vecchiotti were strenuosly avoiding Hampikian, who was in Rome and Perugia at the time, complete with miscellaneous American police manuals that got their noses under the tent of Judge Hellman’s report?!

“Independent” experts actually came to look more and more loaded at appeal back in 2010-11 as the nature of how the pair were selected and were operating was pretty murky. (I’d sure like to read a book by co trial prosecutor Dr Comodi on this, she handled all of the forensic testimony, much behind closed doors, at trial, and was publicly scathing of the judges’ and consultants’ bias).

https://tinyurl.com/bdevyyzb

The Machine pointed out in this December 2010 post that Dr Stefanoni was hardly not independent, her team was brought in from Rome and they worked for the Scientific Police, not for the Perugia police.

Also that reviews by Dr. Renato Biondo, Professor Francesca Torricelli, General Luciano Garofano (who created the Carabinieri labs the Nencini appeal used) and Dr. Anna Barbaro were all pretty independent.

Chief Criminal Judge Chiari was forced aside in 2010 favor of the business-law judge Hellman. He has subsequently said that he saw zero reason to revisit the forensic evidence, and had he remained the lead appeal judge the 2010-2011 appeal would have lasted no longer than half a dozen sessions (implying RS and AK would still be locked up).

Hampikian did Conti & Vecchiotti no real favors, of course, they were slammed by the Supreme Court in early 2013 which annulled Hellman, and by the Carabinieri experts at the repeat of the first appeal in 2013-14.

KrissyG has looked at this whole arc as much as anyone and reported wonderfully at length here on Vecchiotti’s downfall.

https://tinyurl.com/mrxnnych

Nor were Knox and Sollecito winners, despite Hampikian’s absurd claims. Their first-level appeal had to be done over at Supreme Court demand, and they lost as decisively that time around as back at trial.

Only a bent Fifth Chambers “saved” them, and even that has proved a sword over their heads ever since - see KrissyG’s summary of Dr Mignini on this.

https://tinyurl.com/388rrvyv

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/13/23 at 03:28 PM | #

TJMK is moved to an even safer long-term place. We didnt realize though that this would entail global re-propagation of our numeric address. Sorry about that.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/18/23 at 01:44 AM | #

An off-topic note on systems disarray in the UK. This article (if the Financial Times will allow you to read it free) seems to put its finger on fundamental root cause.

https://tinyurl.com/4929xvp3

Way too much power at the top-down Bank of England not balanced by what it calls an “economics ministry”.

Actually “ministry of development” is more usual globally, and a better idea, because systems not economics is the name of the game.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/18/23 at 01:55 AM | #

As the Independent Experts are appointed by the court during the live course of a criminal hearing, court protocol decrees that any exchange of information or communication must be shared with all of the parties (defence, prosecution and judge) and all at the same time.  It is most unethical for any party to request the ear of the judge or of the appointed court IE in private.  That is considered a major breach of Bar Standards in England & Wales.

Ironically, Candace Dempsey herself in Seattle Intelligencer PI, revealed that Conti & Vecchiotti were confronted by the Caribinieri when caught red-handed preparing the notorious video for the defence re the handling of samples at the crime scene with claimed ‘dirty gloves’.  This was totally improper even by Hellmann’s low standards and he ordered them before the court to explain why they had not disseminated what they were doing with himself and the prosecution.  Of course, he let them off with a mild reprimand (being hauled before the court).  It shows how corrupt the entire Hellman court was.

It is certainly not correct that they had the freedom to seek opinions from the defence, without full disclosure and transparency to the judge and prosecution.  This is because the other party must be allowed the opportunity to make objections and applications.  Thus the IE’s cannot act ultra vires as this seems to imply.

(I would love to know who tipped off the Caribinieri.)

Posted by KrissyG on 02/18/23 at 08:52 AM | #

“I would love to know who tipped off the Caribinieri.”

Hahaha! Anyone on the prosecution, I’d say. Hellman’s obvious bias and incompetence was driving them all up the wall.

This happened in quite a minefield only hinted at by GM or it would have been taken straight to the Supreme Court.

The minefield first became apparent when Judge Chiari was pushed aside in 2010.

He was pushed aside by Chief Umbria Judge De Nunzio, after defense lawyer Bongiorno got to him. She had badly failed as defense in a national mafia case in Perugia, and Chiari had been the (very fair) judge. 

Judge De Nunzio was an extremist among Masons (no equivalent in the US) and they often meddle in Italian justice along with the mafias. There were rumors that others on the Sollecito/Knox side might be masons too. There are hints of this in GMs book.

Below the Chief Judge in Perugia sits the Umbria Attorney General. In 2010 the incumbent retired, and a new Attorney General was brought in (from the Rome Supreme Court). 

He fully saw the bias being complained of by the appeal prosecution (it was in the media) and by the trial prosecution sitting in as it was such a complex case.

But he didnt want to go head to head against the chief judge so soon, and so he decided that, rather than ending up with half a loaf, a questionable appeal outcome should be appealed to the Supreme Court.

That happened, and, in early 2013 with the First Chambers annulment, the prosecution sure did end up with a full loaf.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/18/23 at 05:53 PM | #

@KrissyG

I have a murky memory of this being reported.It would be interesting to know more about it. What does being “caught red-handed” mean? The IEs would be quite entitled to view the video. Contamination was part of the remit. Were they then viewing the video with only the defence present, to offer their comments, and without the prosecution having being notified? That would undermine their independence completely and should have resulted in their instant dismissal and the appointment of a fresh set of IEs.

Posted by James Raper on 02/19/23 at 09:57 AM | #

Hi James. “The IEs would be quite entitled to view the video.” But they were not just viewing. What KrissyG actually wrote above (which I knew about also) was: “Conti & Vecchiotti were confronted by the Caribinieri when caught red-handed preparing the notorious video for the defence re the handling of samples at the crime scene with claimed ‘dirty gloves’.”

Hellman blundered incessantly on criminal law and more than once lost control of his courtroom, for example when Guede and Alessi and especially Aviello were testifiying. I guess Hellman was confident that Chief Judge De Nunzio had his back and he could muddle his way through anything. He did get his comeuppance: he was edged into retirement (though he continued sniping from the sidelines) and the 2013 Cassation ruling is not much of a legacy.

Italy’s criminal justice system is pretty pro defendant. But at the same time the straight judges and straight prosecutors that are above politics and not in bed with the masons and mafias are popular and respected. And they have the excellent Council of Magistrates to turn to - telling that when Bongiorno (then astoundingly also chair of the justice committee in parliament) tried to use it against the Florence appeal judge Nencini in 2013 she failed.

https://tinyurl.com/mr368w9z

By the way, the name of the Umbria Attorney General appointed in 2010 that I mentioned above was Galati and the appeal to the Supreme Court First Chambers post-Hellman was in his name.

https://tinyurl.com/3sw66773

He had been a prosecutor in Rome Cassation and was known to be one of the sharpest. As Umbria Attorney General, he would not normally appear in any courtroom unless the judge was seemingly blatantly anti prosecution. That actually did happen here.

https://tinyurl.com/4d4t4cdr

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/19/23 at 11:14 AM | #

By the way under that first link above the Machine in Febuary 2012 posted one of the first of our many scathing commentaries on C&V. It might be worth repeating here.

Conti and Vecchiotti never proved there had been any contamination. Alberto Intini, the head of the Italian police forensic science unit, pointed out that unless contamination has been proved, it doesn’t exist.

They didn’t visit the laboratories of the scientific police or ask about their cleaning procedures. They didn’t know that the negative tests had been filed with another judge. They didn’t know that Dr Stefanoni analysed the traces on the knife six days after last handling Meredith’s DNA or that she last handled Sollecito’s DNA 12 days before she analysed the bra clasp. This means that contamination couldn’t have occurred in the laboratory.

Conti and Vecchiotti regarded the downstairs flat as part of the crime scene even though no crime was committed there.

Worst of all, they didn’t carry out a new test on the knife despite the fact they were specifically instructed to do so and there are a number of laboratories that have the technology to carry out a test on the remaining DNA.

Incidentally, Vecchiotti was appointed by a judge at the Cosenza court and the judge didn’t accept her findings. Other experts were appointed and they found incriminating DNA evidence that she had missed. The suspect admitted his guilt.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/20/23 at 08:25 AM | #

As for official scathing of C&V, see our main poster Machiavelli’s excellent summary of the 2013 Cassation (Chieffi) appeal-verdict announcement.

https://tinyurl.com/2ys2kajn

And even more-so, parts 12 and 13 of Machiavelli’s even longer summary of the 74-page Chieffi report.

https://tinyurl.com/ysy4d6v6

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/20/23 at 09:49 AM | #

And finally, the most relevant C&V posts from the 2013-14 repeat in Florence of Sollecito’s and Knox’s first appeal - the dimwitted Knox in a nasty email to the judge showed zero understanding that the appeal was actually hers.

The Carabinieri DNA experts Major Andrea Berti and Captain Filippo Barni were super-smart, low-key but implacable in destroying the testimony of C&V.  They found that Vecchiotti had stored a key sample in a regular kitchen fridge.

JUDGE HELLMAN COULD HAVE USED THEM! Instead of the posturing flakes from a Rome university, both of which were less known and respected than any of the experts at trial.

Maybe Hellman still kicks himself? By apparently accepting Bongiorno’s recommendation (her father teaches at the same university) he put himself and his entire appeal and legacy on a slippery slope. 

https://tinyurl.com/592r2f7c

https://tinyurl.com/bdfky56m

https://tinyurl.com/4rjm9fkk

https://tinyurl.com/mr3frzea

https://tinyurl.com/bddbxdhn

https://tinyurl.com/d3n4vkxj

https://tinyurl.com/mr4755ej

https://tinyurl.com/45zzpvf9

At the end of January 2014 the Attorney General Of Tuscany Dr Tindari Baglione delivered the appeal verdict,  a decisive fail by Sollecito and Knox.

In the weeks after, Sollecito lawyer Bongiorno really ran amoke, and set about corrupting the Supreme Court - in her powerful position as head of the justice committee in parliament that was not so hard. It explains eg why the Fifth Chambers got the case.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/20/23 at 01:09 PM | #

James, the problem is, C&V were actually working with the defence. 

Years later it became blatantly apparent from the Netflix film, in which Conti is seen laughing and jesting about it all. 

Posted by KrissyG on 02/21/23 at 06:34 PM | #

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