New Mignini Interview Makes Doug Preston Look Increasingly Incompetent And Vindictive





This is famed actor and Italy-lover George Clooney above.

He has or had a movie option on Doug Preston’s “fact-based” story of the Monster of Florence investigation, in which Giuliano Mignini played a very small part, very late in the case.

Wow could HE be in for a surprise!! 

We do hope that he consults closely with Mr Mignini. A few true facts might not hurt - might keep him out of defamation court even. To say that Doug Preston’s uninvited venture into real-crime reporting in Italy was a disaster seems a gross understatement.

We know that good Italian reporters think Preston (who apparently speaks little Italian) got the facts of the Monster of Florence case seriously wrong. And his bizarre and overheated afterword in his MOF book on Meredith’s case, added opportunistically later, appears even more wrong.

And Preston’s very brief encounter with Mr Mignini probably ended up precisely as this nosy American really deserved - with Preston scared off Mr Mignini’s case, and reduced to whining childishly from across the Atlantic. 

Here are some of our previous posts on the sliming of Mr Mignini which all seems to have flowed from Preston’s frenetic endeavors.

  • Take a look here at Kermit’s amazing Powerppoints on the compelling evidence for The REAL Railroading From Hell where there are a number of slides illustrating Preston’s own satanic obsessions - believe it or not, Preston actually DOCTORED THEM before trying to shrug them off on his own site.

  • Take a look here and here and here on the sliming Preston seems to have inspired from Seattle - and how Amanda Knox’s own lawyers protested against it.

  • Take a look here at how the BBC interviewed Mr Mignini and found him competent, well-meaning, and quite sane.

  • Take a look here at how the administrative charges against Mr Mignini are slowed and seemingly all crumbling.

  • Take a look here at how Mr Mignini himself in a long email to Linda Byron defends his interrogation of Amanda Knox, and explains what is REALLY behind the one remaining administrative charge against him.

  • Take a look here at how the pro-Knox campaign again misfires in the attacks against him.

  • Take a look here at why Mr Mignini and other Italian prosecutors are actually rather popular.

  • Take a look here at how Mr Mignini and the police and prosecution team have done for Meredith the very best they can.

Now Mr Mignini has done an excellent interview with Claudio Paglieri in Il Secolo XIX.  Mr Mignini waited for a long time to respond to Preston’s falsities and here, after winning at trial, he speaks up to set the facts straight.

He does so with a surprisingly moderate tone, considering the amount and gravity of the offenses hurled at him by the FOA-fueled American media. Perhaps a lesson of civilization and class for Preston and the rest of the money-making gang.

[Claudio Paglieri: Concerning Doug Preston?]

Mr Mignini: I have been patient but now I’ve had it. This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about. I saw him for two hours in all my life, but for years he has been spreading on the Internet his reconstruction of a story of which he hasn’t understood a thing.

And now, perhaps to get even, he’s calling from overseas in the Kercher trial, saying things that are not true.

Giuliano Mignini, public prosecutor in the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher, has gone in a few hours from accuser to accused. The Amercans didn’t like Amanda Knox’s sentence, and the journalist and writer Douglas Preston is making precise accusations.

Let’s start from the “pending issue” between the two of you. Preston who together with the journalist Mario Spezi was investigating the Monster of Florence, says that you interrogated them for two and a 1/ 2 hours . The next day he left Italy in order not to be arrested.

He hasn’t understood a thing. He is a writer but he doesn’t know the judicial procedures. Reality is different: While I was hearing him out as a person informed of some facts in a proceeding I was involved in, some circumstances emerged that threw suspicion on Preston, ie lying to the public prosecutor.

According to Article 63 of the penal code I told him that he had to get a lawyer, and that I could not continue the interview. I added that for that crime (lying to the prosecutor), based on article 371 bis, I should have waited for the end of the proceeding during which such declarations had been rendered.

He told me he understood Italian well, but obviously it wasn’t so. He claims that I told him to run to America and don’t come back, otherwise I would have him arrested.This is absolutely not true..

Surely Preston was shocked by the interrogation. He says you were quite hard on him

Shocked? What can I say? This is how interrogations are conducted, their purpose is also to accuse.

However, now it’s Preston accusing the methods of the interrogation of Amanda. Is it true she was pressured? And why doesn’t a recording exist?

The first time Amanda was heard as person informed of facts [a witness]. In these cases, because of the urgency, we never record. Then we suspended the interrogation as suspicion of crime emerges. I explained to Amanda that based on article 374 of the penal code - the one on spontaneous declarations - she would have been able to render a declaration [as a witness].

A lawyer should have been present only if I had asked her questions of complicity and/or accused her. But I didn’t asked a thing, practically I had only the function of a “notary public”.

You didn’t record it?

No. I usually do when for example I am in my office. I recorded the declarations of her roommates and of the witnesses. But that night, we were at the police station, there was agitation, and we had to go and arrest Lumumba, who had just been accused by Amanda. Lumumba was later cleared thanks to me

Preston in an article on the Guardian says you are the ones who suggested Lumumba’s name.

It is not true. During the trial, the presiding judge asked her about this, and Amanda clearly answered no.

During the first interrogation [as a witness] Amanda was without a lawyer and without an interpreter.

Another falsity. The interpreter was there, Dr Donnino. I am adding that during the first interrogation in front of the GIP she invoked her right to remain silent. The interrogation that took place in jail, with three attorneys present was recorded.

Let’s talk about HIV. Amanda in jail was told that she was HIV-positive and was asked to make a list of all her ex-lovers in order to tell them. Then the positivity turns out to be a false positive sample. The suspicion of a trick arises.

I never asked Amanda anything like that . We have the utmost respect for the suspect, and on top of it, what would have been the purpose of asking her?

Because the list ended up on the newspapers and contributed to giving a negative image of the girl, of an “easy” woman.

Nobody has depicted Amanda as an “easy girl”. Why would I do it? She was totally unknown to the police and the procura. Her sexual life is totally irrelevant in order to describe her personality, though it helps to explain the tense relationships with the other roommates.

Let’s conclude with the other issues by Douglas Preston. The DNA evidence is not convincing.

What can I say? The scientific police of the Ministry of the Interior have worked with it, that’s the best we have in Italy. I trust them, I am not a biologist, and neither is Preston.

What about the investigation on your abuse of office and wiretapping in Florence?

I still have to understand what I am being accused of.

However, the investigation has now ended. During this time the Tribunal of Riesame in Florence followed by the Cassazione have annulled all the proceedings initiated by Prosecutor Luca Turco against Dr Giuttari [who investigated the Monster case], my codefendant, as no evidence of the crime of abuse of office exists.

You will not   appeal the sentence and the Court of Appeals will acquit the defendants,  in America they seem sure of this i.e that the first degree sentence [sentence of the trial just concluded] serves the purpose of “saving face” in the Procura and “the truth will come out later?”

I don’t even want to comment on this. I will only say that a total of 18 judges among the Riesame, Cassazione, GUP and Assise courts have confirmed the prosecution’s theory. Did I deceive them all? This is a sovereign state, and there is a a sentence In the name of the Italian people that is in the name of all of us. Period.

This post is put together with the kind translation help of my fellow posters Jools and Tiziano.

[Below: Terminally confusing or just terminally confused? Doug Preston as wannabe true-crime reporter]

 

Posted by Nicki on 12/16/09 at 08:20 PM in

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Comments

PM Mignini has done his public duty in this case.

We all know the agenda of the ‘Friends of Amanda’ and of course Douglas Preston.

They are money driven and out to make a fast buck out of poor Meredith Kerchers murder, for example with the books they have authored and the tacky ‘Amanda’ merchandise that has been on sale from very early on in this tragedy.

No amount of sliming from these same people will negate the hard work, professionalism and compassion on behalf of the Kercher family PM Mignini has brought to this case while performing his duties.

Posted by Deathfish2000 on 12/16/09 at 11:09 PM | #

Amanda said what she admitted to because she did not understand Italian well back then (how she could study in Italy is therefore a mystery as well…). It is to notice that 2 years later she still mixes up “tu” e “Lei”...

Edda did not say to anyone her daughter told her she had Patrick Lumumba arrested “by mistake” because .... she did not know how to speak Italian. But Lady, Italians usually speak at leasat a bit of English, don’t you know? (che le bugie hanno le gambe corte…)

And here is this idiot Preston, the Pink Panther who goes to solve a problem nobody could solve, but he, smart as he is, he has! And he understood “fischio” for “fiasco” as the others…

Luckily, Mignini has a brain, he does.

Does Tom Cruise?

Posted by Patou on 12/17/09 at 12:45 AM | #

It seems evident to me that Preston has made too many glaring errors in his reporting of the events that happened in the MOF case and in his ‘involvement’ with the Meredith Kercher case.

It’s easy to see how he has misled his readers (and if a film is to be based on the book, Tom Cruise too) when the following statement is taken in to account:

“Italian reporters think Preston (who apparently speaks little or no Italian)”

In his MOF book Preston claims to have upped sticks one day and moved to Italy. He claims his children began to understand and speak the language quickly and that he and his wife followed slowly but surely behind. By the end of chapters one or two he has clearly insinuated his grasp of the Italian language is fairly good, good enough at least to meet Mario Spezi in a coffee shop to discuss the Monster of Florence case. Preston also implies Spezi’s comprehension of English was not good.

Tut tut, yet ANOTHER porker from Mr Preston, who would’ve thought? If he can’t even be trusted to comment truthfully on his own language capabilities why shouldn’t we expect him to have grossly exaggerated everything else?

Including his encounter with Dr Mignini. After all, every good story needs a villain, throwing obstacles in the way of the protagonist who is trying to ‘save the day’ with his handy sidekick.

I’m not suprised Tom Cruise liked the book it’s an interesting and exciting tale, it’s just a shame it’s pretty far removed from the truth and that Preston had to smear the reputation of Mignini and spread misinformation about the Meredith Kercher case to tout it.

Posted by Miss Represented on 12/17/09 at 11:51 AM | #

Like Tom doesn’t have enough trouble already with Anonymous on his back for Scientology on a daily basis….....They are just stupid enough to encourage him to take this film. Considering all of his most recent movies bombed at the box office, I would expect another dud! Loved Mignini’s interview! He is truly a man that garner’s my complete respect and admiration for his composure through this ordeal of a trial.

Posted by tigger34 on 12/17/09 at 04:06 PM | #

It seems Preston felt humiliated by Mignini and now he is getting back at him in a very big way.

It is my experience that people often spend a lot of time accusing others when they have something to hide themselves. I lived in a community some years ago where a young man committed suicide. He was addicted to various medications enabling him to keep working on little sleep and had just been relieved of his supervisory duty, as well as a crumbling marriage he was forced into by the management, as opposed to a young woman who he truly liked but who the management didn’t. It would seem that one could question managaement as to why no one helped him with his medication addiction (most of the managers had the same problem) and why had no one noticed his being upset about being relieved of his position, and why they stopped him marrying someone he truly loved.

So what happened? Management pointed the finger at the young woman with whom he’d had an affair which ended 6 weeks before the suicide(the same young woman management would not allow him to marry). She became the scapegoat for his suicide as did a friend who was her confidante. I felt they were all so afraid of being blamed that they had to find someone else to blame. It worked.

Observing this taught me to very wary of people who spend a lot of time accusing others, openly and vehemently and to ask what it is that they are hiding?

Posted by Vedantist on 12/17/09 at 07:24 PM | #

To me the most damning evidence against the veracity of Preston’s account of his meeting with Mignini is this: many journalists have had interviews with Mignini in connection with the Meredith Kercher case, and not one of them has come away with a tale to tell about Mignini coming after them, threatening them, or pressuring them into leaving the country. Many of these journalists have been pro-Amanda and therefore hostile to Mignini. Many of them are American. Why were they not given the Preston treatment? I think it is simply because they were acting within the bounds of the law. They were not trying to plant evidence and get a scoop to boost the sales of an otherwise humdrum book.

Posted by Skeptical Bystander on 12/18/09 at 02:10 AM | #
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