Doug Preston’s Nasty Ant-Italy Anti-Mignini Campaign To Stir Bigotry Hits A Wall



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The Daily Beast has an excellent article on the unrelated case against Mr Mignini.

A final verdict has now been postponed, pending testimony from four other witnesses. This charge has been a huge part of the US PR campaign waged by Marriott and the FOA (of which Doug Preston is a member).

I came away from the article thinking that Doug Preston’s limited knowledge of Italian and excessive reliance on Spezi have not helped matters.

For example, in his Monster of Florence book - to which Preston has added an afterword about Meredith Kercher’s murder, even though the two cases are unrelated except for the fact that the prosecutor in both is Mignini - Preston relates that the crazy bloodied man in the square on Nov 2 was shouting “I killed her”, when in fact witnesses have testified that he shouted “I will kill her” (he was referring to his girlfriend and it was determined that he had nothing to do with the murder of Meredith).

In addition, Preston has claimed that Mignini told him he could not come back to Italy when in fact Mignini says he said no such thing, though he did suggest that Preston get an attorney, in part because his understanding of the Italian language (and certainy Italy’s laws) was limited.

It is also important to note that Mignini has been cleared of the illegal wiretapping of journalists charge. The pending trial is not about this at all, as the article explains quite clearly. The Daily Beast article actually provides invaluable facts for anyone who really wants to put the abuse of power charge against Mignini into perspective. I say “really wants” because I sometimes suspect that this is the last thing those stuck in “delirium” mode want.

Although the article only touches on the financial stakes - mentioning that Tom Cruise has optioned the MOF book - I came away feeling that there is a ferocious battle going on behind the scenes, and that the battle itself is part of the money-making drama.

The murder of Meredith Kercher has been caught up in this vortex, and I believe we have mainly Doug Preston to thank for that.

Poor Meredith.

Posted by Skeptical Bystander on 07/02/09 at 05:39 PM in The legal followups,  Italian related,  Hoaxes against Italy,  9 Mignini v Knox hoax,  10 Mignini MOF hoax,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  20 No-PR hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Knox-Marriott PR,  Preston & Spezi

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Comments

That Perugia afterword to the shrill and self-serving Monster of Florence book appears to us to contain an error in almost every paragraph. If the wrong facts don’t exceed the right facts in those 15 pages, then that will be a surprise!

By the way, we have yet to encounter anyone in Italy who knows about the MOF book (there are not many Italians who do, as it is not in Italian) (unsurprisingly!!) who takes it at all seriously.

Several who have looked at it have said that they found it quite ludicrous, and that foreign reporters trying to hijack serious crime investigations in Italy do so at their peril.

Mignini commands a lot of sympathy in Italy. He is widely regarded as fair, tough, hard-working, and endlessly solicitous of victims’ families. Again and again, the Kerchers have said that they think the prosecution is in great hands.

And the equally tough Prosecutor Comodi is very senior, experienced and successful. She is the current president of the Umbria chapter of the National Association of Magistrates.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/02/09 at 06:38 PM | #

Shopping in Seattle this week I was drawn by the deeply discounted price of the Monster of Florence book. 

I found myself holding a copy in my hand, turning it over, flipping through the pages ...then somehow it felt clammy and filthy. 

I hurled it back onto the untouched heap, waving my wand while cursing the pile with the “jettison jinx.”

Posted by Professor Snape on 07/03/09 at 11:00 PM | #
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