Headsup: To those many lawyers amazed that Knox did not get on the witness stand to head off a certain re-conviction: the best guess among Italian lawyers is that Knox's own lawyers feared ANOTHER calunnia charge if she repeated the crackpot and highly disprovable claims that she was tortured. The tough calunnia law is primarily a pushback measure against mafia meddling which is widely suspected in this case.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Understanding Micheli #1: Why He Rejected All Rudy Guede’s Explanations As Fiction

Posted by Brian S

Here now is the full 2011 Micheli Report kindly translated by Catnip for the Wiki and TJMK.

On Guede

Judge Micheli has had two very important roles. He presided over Rudy Guede’s trial and sentencing, and he presided over the final hearing that committed Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox to trial.

A week ago, just within the three-month deadline, Judge Micheli made public the 106-page report that explains the thinking behind both actions. This is a public document, and in the enviable Italian legitimizing process, the public is encouraged to get and read the report and to understand the full rationales. Excellent analyses have already appeared in Italian in Italy, but no English-speaking sources on the facts of the case have either put the report into English or published more than the most superficial analysis.

These posts will examine several very key areas of the report so that we too may choose whether to buy into the rationales. The translations into English here were by native-Italian speakers and fellow posters Nicki and Catnip. The next post will explain why Micheli ruled out the Lone Wolf Theory, and why he concluded that Knox and Sollecito appeared to be implicated in Meredith’s murder and should therefore be sent to trial.

Judge Micheli maintained that from the moment Meredith’s body was discovered until his arrest in Germany on November 19th, Rudy Guede was in a position to compile a version of his involvement in events at the cottage which would minimise his reponsibilities and point the finger of guilt elsewhere.

He was able to follow the course of the investigation in newspapers and on the internet. He would know of the arrests of Amanda, Raffaele and Patrick. He would know that the investigators had found biological evidence which would sooner or later connect him to the murder, and he would know of other discoveries and evidence which had been publicised in the media.

His story as told in Germany was compiled with all the knowledge about the crime and investigation he would have sought out. On his return to Italy in December he was interviewed by the investigating authorities and gave version 2. He was interviewed again in March which resulted in version 3, and later still made a spontaneous statement to change one or two facts including the admission that the trainer footprint in Meredith’s room could be his. Judge Micheli said:

Analyzing the narratives of the accused…he is not credible, as I will explain, because his version is (1) unreliable, and (2) continuously varying, whether on basic points or in minor details and outline.

Micheli then examined the details of Rudy’s claimed meeting with Meredith which resulted in his invitation to the cottage on the evening of November 1st.

He noted there were substantial differences between his versions of December and March, particularly with regard to the location of his meeting with Meredith on the night of Halloween and his movements in the early evening of November 1st.

He considered it likely that Rudy had made these changes as he became aware of evidence which contradicted his December version. Notably, in December Rudy claimed to have had his meeting with Meredith which resulted in her invite at a Halloween party given by Spanish students.

By March it was well known that Meredith had spent her entire Halloween in the company of friends, first in the Merlin pub before they later moved on to Domus disco. In March Rudy changed the location of his meeting with her from the Spanish party to Domus, which by chance Rudy had also attended following the party. However, neither Meredith’s friends who were continuously in her company nor those who accompanied Rudy to the Domus witnessed any meeting between the two. Judge Micheli commented:

On 26 March 2008, instead, Rudy explained to the Prosecution, drawing a picture, that the group invited to the Spaniards’ house actually moved wholus-bolus to the “Domus” club, but it was right in that nightclub that he met Kercher, and not before; offering up a tour-guide description from the chair, saying, “there’s a bar for the drinks and then there’s a room, there’s an arch and a room. I walking [sic] around there, and that’s where I met Meredith”. On the facts of the meeting and the subject of the conversation, he elaborated: “I started talking to Meredith “¦talking anyway I gave her a kiss.. after which I told her how much I liked her and asked her if the next day, in all the confusion anyway, if we were going to meet the next day and she said yes (”¦), we met in the evening around half eight, like that.

While not intending to explore the question, basically irrelevant, of whether the pair had agreed to a more or less specific time (his confirmation of the suggestion of 8.30 pm in both verbal statements however allows the inference that according to Guede they had an appointment), the patent contradiction between the two versions jumps out. One context, of a room between two bathrooms, in an apartment, is completely different to that of a drinks-bar and an arch, in a pub; one might concede, perhaps, the possibility of forgetting which place it was where they last bumped into a friend, but hardly the first time there was a kiss with a girl towards whom one was attracted.

With regard to his movements in the early evening of November 1st, Rudy’s friend Alex failed to corroborate Rudy’s December claim to have visited his flat. He said he didn’t see Rudy either before or after his meeting with Meredith at her cottage.

In March, Rudy changed his story and claimed to have risen at 6pm(following the all-nighter at Domus) before wandering around town for an hour or so. He then said he went to Meredith’s cottage but received no answer so he carried on to Piazza Grimana in the hope he might see people he knew. He thought he arrived in the Piazza at around 7:30pm. He claimed that some time later he left Piazza Grimana and called at the Kebab shop before returning to Meredith’s cottage and arriving some time between 8:30 and 9:00pm.

He said he then waited until her arrival some time just after 9:00pm. It was noted that in both his December and March versions Rudy said he had arranged to meet Meredith at 8:30pm. Micheli noted that this didn’t sit well with another arrangement Rudy had made to meet Carlos (from the Spanish party) between 9:00 and 10:00pm.

Micheli said that neither version of Rudy’s movements could be treated as true because he changed his story to fit facts as they became known and there was absolutely no corroborating witness evidence.

Rudy claimed two situations evolved following his entry with Meredith into the apparently empty cottage:

Whilst he was having a drink of fruit juice from the fridge, he claims Meredith found that 300 euros (her rent money) was missing from her bedside cabinet. Meredith was naturally upset by this discovery and straight away blamed “druggy Amanda”. Rudy said they both checked Amanda’s room to see if the money was there. However, it couldn’t be found and Rudy sought to console her.

He says that this consolation developed into an amorous encounter which proceeded to the stage where “Meredith asked him” if he had a condom. He told he didn’t and since she didn’t either they stopped their lovemaking.

Judge Micheli had a real problem with this story as told by Guede. He found it unlikely that Meredith would be interested in lovemaking so soon following the discovery that her money was missing. He found it unlikely that it was Meredith who was leading the way in this amorous encounter as Rudy was suggesting with his claim that it was “Meredith who asked him” if he had a condom.

Surely, Micheli reasoned, if Rudy was hoping to indulge in a sexual encounter with Meredith following the previous night’s flirting, he would, as any young man of his age, ensure that he arrived with a condom in anticipation of the hoped for liason. But even if he didn’t, and it was true that events had reached the stage where Meredith asked him, then surely given his negative response, Meredith would have again gone into Amanda’s room where, as she had told her friends, condoms were kept by her flat mate. Judge Micheli simply didn’t believe that if they had got to the stage of lovemaking described by Rudy, and following his negative response to her question, they just “STOPPED”. Meredith would have known she had a probable solution just metres away.

Rudy claimed he then told Meredith he had an upset stomach because of the kebab he had eaten earlier. She directed him to the bathroom through the kitchen.

Rudy put on his i-pod and headphones as he claimed was his habit when using the toilet. In his December version Rudy said the music was so loud he heard the doorbell ring but he made no reference to hearing any conversation. A perfect excuse, Judge Micheli says, for not hearing the disturbance or detail of Meredith’s murder. However, in his March version he claims he heard Amanda’s voice in conversation with Meredith. When Rudy did eventually emerge from the bathroom he says he saw a strange man with a knife and then a prone Meredith. Micheli commented:

...it is necessary to take as given that, in this case, Kercher did not find anything better to do than to suddenly cross from one moment of tenderness and passion with him to a violent argument with someone else who arrived at that place exactly at the moment in which Rudy was relieving himself in the bathroom. In any case, and above all, that which could have been a surprise to the killers, that is to say his presence in the house, was, on the other hand, certainly not put into dispute:

Meredith, unlike the attackers, knew full well that in the toilet there was a person who she herself allowed in, so for this reason, in the face of someone who had started raising their voice, then holding her by the arms and ending with brandishing a knife and throwing her to the floor, why would she not have reprimanded/reproached/admonished him immediately saying that there was someone in the house who could help her?

“¦Meredith didn’t shout out loudly for Rudy to come and help
“¦There was a progression of violence
“¦The victim sought to fight back

If it is reasonable to think that a lady living 70 metres away could hear only the last and most desperate cry of the girl ““ it’s difficult to admit that Guede’s earphones, at 4-5 metres, would stop him hearing other cries, or the preceding sounds.

Micheli was also mystified as to why Amanda (named in Rudy’s March version) would ring the doorbell. Why wouldn’t she let herself in using her own key? He supposed it was possible Meredith had left her own key in the door which prevented Amanda from using hers, but the girls all knew the lock was broken and they were careful not to leave their own key in the door. Perhaps, Meredith wanted some extra security/privacy against someone returning and had left her key in the lock on purpose. Maybe Amanda was carrying something heavy and her hands weren’t free. Or, maybe, Rudy was just trapped by his December story of the doorbell when he didn’t name anybody and an anonymous ring on the doorbell was plausible.

The judge then took issue with Rudy’s description of events following the stabbing of Meredith. Rudy claimed that when he emerged from the bathroom he discovered a man with a knife standing over Meredith. In the resultant scuffle he suffered cut wounds to his hand. armed himself with chair to protect himself. before the attacker fled when he fell over because his trousers came down around his ankles. Micheli said that those who saw Rudy later that night didn’t notice any wounds to Rudy’s hands although some cuts were photographed by the police when he was later arrested in Germany.

Micheli found Rudy’s claim that the attacker ran from from the house shouting “black man found, black man guilty” unbelievable in the situation. In the panic of the moment it may be conceivable that the attacker could shout “Black man…, run” following the surprise discovery of his presence in the house, but in the situation Rudy describes, blame or expressions of who the culprit thought “the police would find guilty” made no sense. It would be the last thing on an unknown attackers mind as he sought to make good his escape.

Micheli considers the “black man found, black man guilty” statement an invention made up by Rudy to imply a possible discrimination by the authorities and complicate the investigation. Micheli also saw this as an excuse by Rudy to explain away his failure to phone for help (the implication being that a white man could have made the call). It was known by her friends and acquaintances that Meredith was never without her own phone switched on. She kept it so, because her mother was ill and she always wanted to be available for contact should her mother require help when she was on her own

Judge Micheli regarded Rudy’s claimed efforts to help Meredith impossible to believe, given the evidence of Nara Capezzali. Rudy claimed to have made trips back and forth to the bathroom to obtain towels in an attempt to staunch the flow of bood from Meredith’s neck. He claimed to have leaned over her as she attempted to speak and written the letters “AF” on the wall because he couldn’t understand her attempted words. His described activities all took time and Rudy’s flight from the house would have come minutes after the time he alleged the knife-man ran from the cottage.

Nara Capezzali maintained that after she heard Meredith’s scream it was only some seconds (well under a minute) before she heard multiple footsteps running away. Although she looked out of her window and continued to listen for some time because she was so disturbed by the scream, she neither heard nor saw any other person run from the house. That Rudy had run wasn’t in doubt because of his collision on the steps above with the boyfriend of Alessandra Formica. Micheli therefore considered it proven that “all” of Meredith’s attackers, including Rudy, fled at the same time.

Earlier in his report Micheli considered character evidence on Rudy given by witnesses for both prosecution and defense. Although he had been seen with a knife on two occasions, and was considered a bit of a liar who sometimes got drunk, the judge didn’t consider that Rudy had previously shown a propensity for violence, nor behaviour towards girls which differed markedly from that displayed by many other young men of his age.

However, because of the wealth of forensic evidence [on which more later] and his admitted presence in the cottage, combined with his total disbelief in Rudy’s statements, Micheli found Rudy guilty of participation in the murder of Meredth Kercher.

He sentenced him to 30 years in prison and ordered him to pay compensation of E2,000,000 each to Meredith’s parents John and Arline Kercher, E1,500,000 each to Meredith’s brothers John and Lyle Kercher plus E30,000 costs in legal fees/costs + VAT. Also E1,500,000 plus E18,000 in legal fees/costs + VAT to Meredith’s sister, Stephanie Kercher.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Influential Legal Talking Head Nancy Grace Of CNN Is Now On The Case

Posted by Skeptical Bystander

[Click the arrow above, and then drag the time button to the 5-minute mark.]


Nancy Grace [image at bottom] runs a wildly popular CNN crime talk-show.

It is the companion program to the wildly popular show of Jane Velez-Mitchell that is already on the Perugia case.

A couple of days ago Nancy was on another wildly popular show, ABC’s The View, talking about the Perugia case. The View reaches three and a half million viewers daily, remarkable for a daytime show.

I think we can all agree that Nancy Grace does not mince her words. Nancy proceeds methodically here, presenting these relevant facts:

• Age of the victim and the American suspect
• A description of the relationship between the victim and her American roommate
• Knox’s statement to police that she was present when her roommate was killed
• Knox’s subsequent claim that she was coerced into making the statement, rather weakened by her assertion that she had smoked pot on the night of the crime and was therefore confused
• The key physical evidence placing Knox at the scene (the knife and the mixed blood).

Nancy then closes the segment with these observations on the case:

• She says Knox was “obviously” involved in the murder.
• She notes that the victim was tortured and sexually assaulted prior to being murdered.
• She ends by bringing up two other seemingly unlikely murder suspects: Ted Bundy and Scott Peterson.

This came just two days after the antic Paul Ciolino fundraiser which got extensive coverage in Seattle.

Nancy’s compelling intervention on The View could not have exactly pleased the David Marriott PR team or the Friends of Amanda who organized the fundraiser.

Nancy’s appearance also coincided with the release of the much-awaited and very detailed report of Judge Paolo Micheli (post below) on the Guede sentencing. It was Judge Micheli who had decided after a preliminary hearing that there was ample evidence against Knox and Sollecito to send them to trial.

The wheels really seem to be coming off the media effort at this new development.

We already see anew the reflexive barrage of protests from Friends supporters in Seattle. Candace Dempsey, the Seattle blogger who signed a book deal with Penguin to make money out of Meredith’s murder, attended the Saturday night Friends fundraiser for Amanda Knox.

But in her very next post, rather than describe her wonderful night with Mr Ciolino, she weighed in on Judge Micheli’s ruling. The title of her post is quite ludicrous: Why would she [meaning Amanda] let a killer in?

Well, Rudy was not actually a killer at the point when Amanda Knox allegedly let him in. And he was not convicted until months later. Is this really too subtle a point to be grasped?

And there’s more. On the NBC Today show on Wednesday morning, a visibly agitated Anne Bremner claimed to bemused host Matt Lauer that Judge Micheli was guilty of “theorizing” (gasp!)

She then changed tactics in a way frequently observed of the Friends PR effort: Oops! Change the story-line being propagated.

Perhaps a Lone Wolf or a Spiderman didn’t actually enter the cottage through the window? Bremner “theorized” that perhaps it was Meredith who opened the door to Guede?

Do I hear Candace Dempsey shouting “Why would she let a killer in?” Never mind! Remember Jonathan Demme’s terrific Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense?

It looks to me like some people have really heeded that command.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Judge’s Report On Guede Sentence Suggests Roles Of Knox And Sollecito

Posted by Our Main Posters

Seems rather a bombshell for the remaining two defendants. A shapeshifter, even.

Last October, Judge Micheli [bottom here] released a summary rationale of his verdict and sentencing of Guede. And last night, the judge released his full report on the rationale.

Richard Owen of the London Times [above] seems the only reporter so far to have read all 106 pages - how we wish American coverage could achieve this superb level. Some excerpts:

Judge Paolo Micheli, releasing a report on his reasons for sentencing Rudy Guede, 22, to 30 years in prison in October for his part in the murder, said the killing was “a group crime”. Guede had not himself cut Ms Kercher’s throat. But there was “cast iron proof” that he had taken part in the murder, even if he did not strike the “mortal blow”.

Under Italian law a judge has to outline the “motivation” behind his verdict. Unlike Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito, Guede… opted for a “fast track” trial in the hope of a reduced sentence.

Judge Micheli was also the pre-trial judge who in October said there was enough evidence against Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito for them to be sent for trial. The prosecution alleges that Guede tried to sexually assault Ms Kercher while Mr Sollecito held her down and Ms Knox toyed with a knife against her throat, which she then used to stab her. Judge Micheli said he accepted that there was “complicity” between the assailants, but said some aspects of the prosecution reconstruction were “fantasy”.

Reconstructing the crime in his 106-page report, Judge Micheli said the first blow was struck at Ms Kercher while she was standing up. He said she was killed because she refused to take part in a sexual game which “escalated into violence and got out of control”.

Judge Micheli said Guede was “a liar” and there were “no extenuating circumstances”. “Even someone who wanted to believe him would find it impossible,” the judge wrote. He added: “It is credible that Guede entered the house because he was let into it by someone else, and that someone could only be Amanda Knox.”

He said there had been an “agreed plan” to satisfy “sexual instincts” which ended in “murderous intent”. Guede had continued to try to assault Ms Kercher sexually even when a knife was produced and even when the knife “sank deeper into her neck” the judge said. Guede had not completed the sexual act only because of Ms Kercher’s “screams of pain and fear”.

The prosecution in the trial of Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito alleges that Ms Knox arranged for Guede, who had made clear that he was attracted to Ms Kercher and wanted to have sex with her, to come to the cottage when she knew her flatmate was there.

Judge Micheli said the statements Guede, who fled to Germany after the murder, had made following his arrest and extradition to Italy were “nothing more than a colossal accumulation of contradictions and attempts to throw investigators off the track”.

In his haste to flee, Guede had bumped into a couple near the cottage who had testified to police, the judge said. Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito meanwhile had been seen at a square above the cottage by a homeless man, and apparently waited there “to see if police arrived”, the judge said.

He said that because of “complicity” between the three, Guede had “never once mentioned the name Amanda” until late into the inquiry, when he said he had heard Ms Knox’s voice at the door and seen a man “resembling” Mr Sollecito….

Judge Micheli said Guede had had “no intention of saving” Ms Kercher’s life as she lay bleeding to death. He noted that neighbours had testified that they clearly heard a woman screaming in agony inside the cottage late at night.

In his defence Guede had claimed that he was in the bathroom with stomach pains when Ms Kercher was murdered. The judge said this was untrue.

So it seems Meredith was set-up. Tortured. Stabbed, many times. And abandoned. Walked out on, when she still could have been saved. Savagery incarnate.

Poor Meredith. Poor poor Meredith. How very much sadness you evoke.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Web Commentary Skeptical Of “Friends” Campaign Proliferating

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for an example.

More commentaries like these are surfacing now. Posted by independent news-watchers who are all of them unknown to us.

They are taking a close look at the case, and finding the Friends of Amanda Knox claims wanting. And the financial angles of some of them suspect.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is The “Mignini Has Framed Them” Meme Now Fading?

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Looks to us like it might be a strong case.

Perhaps easy to challenge the bits and pieces of the evidence. Perhaps harder now to challenge the sum of the whole.

The whack-a-mole problem.

And if Rudy Guede mounts the stand to tell all (he is to be an early witness, and wants time off his 30 years) and if Rudy’s tale cannot be seriously shaken by the defenses ...

Well, as the lead judge observed, this trial might be over by summer.

In Italy, the notion that Prosecutor Mignini somehow invented or twisted the facts of the crime to frame two of the defendants never really seemed to catch fire.

The problems with this notion are that there were too many professionals involved, the case has had to pass through too many judicial hoops, and there now seems an awful lot of evidence needing serious addressing.

Maverick Rome-based Peter Popham of The Independent (new image above - he looks better!) has seemed to be the lone media holdout for the Mignini-invented-it point of view.

But even Mr Popham is now sounding as if he’s in the dispiriting early phases of a U-turn.

This is from a skeptical piece of his just recently posted:

... how did Mr Mignini discover these salacious details? Through confessions, witness accounts, tapped telephones? Was there a video camera or tape recorder running throughout? None of the above.

None of the three accused has dropped even a hint that they were involved in an orgy, no party trash was discovered, nobody was peeking through the windows. The account seems to have emerged fully formed from the prosecutor’s imagination.

But this is from a more jaded piece also just posted.

Where did they actually pass the night, and doing what? Why did they make a start on cleaning up the murder scene next morning, and why didn’t they call the police? Amanda Knox will have to do a lot more than smile if she wants to go home.

As we mentioned yesterday, Mr Popham’s first piece above was strongly challenged by a commenter - a lawyer in the UK, who actually knew Meredith in person.

Comment by Liam O’Huigin

Title: Peter Popham: Legal Genius

“Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are on trial because Meredith Kercher died horribly, and they gave conflicting accounts of what they were doing at the time and behaved suspiciously the next day.”

Yeah, right. And I suppose everything else the Independent has reported about the pair since November 2007 has come fully formed from the brains of its journalists without the benefit of corroboration from the pair.

Before we take up Mr Popham’s invitation to consider Knox and Sollecito to be whiter than the driven snow, let’s remember, inter alia, that Knox implicated a man who could prove that he was not at the crime scene at the relevant time, that they have given a number of inconsistent accounts of their own whereabouts and activities, that the pair have fallen out between themselves, and that DNA evidence was recovered strongly suggesting their presence. If a prosecutor failed to bring a case against them, people would rightly think that some sort of cover-up was in place.

If it was Mr Popham’s daughter who was the victim of this crime, I doubt he’d be writing about the case in such a lofty and detached tone. I happen to have known Meredith, and I also happen to be a lawyer. I would be outraged if the Italians had not taken matters this far in the light of what we have so far read about the case. And unless the defence manages to produce something very special during the course of the trial I know what verdict I expect to be brought in….

Mr Popham commits an interesting Freudian slip in this article, which shows where his sympathies lie. He talks of the “three” accused, by which I assume he is including Rudy Guede: the latter is no longer an accused, having been convicted of the murder and sentenced to thirty years.

He is therefore correctly described as a murderer, or a criminal or a convict. Why does Mr Popham find that hard to do?

None of Mr Popham’s commenters, in fact, are still buying the fading “invented and framed” line. And we would REALLY like to see more of Meredith’s friends now speaking up.

Write to us, or for us, if you want to win one for her.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Influential Legal Talking Head Jane Velez-Mitchell of CNN Is Now On The Case

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click above for the transcript]

CNN airs two one-hour crime talk-shows nightly. Nancy Grace’s, and Jane Velez-Mitchell’s.

They are wildly popular in the US, and the shows can be real scene-changers.

Nancy and Jane are INTENSE advocates for and defenders of victims’ rights - something this case could use some of, right now. 

They have very little patience for defendants who make a weak case or lie. And if they see tricks going down, in the courtroom or outside, they will leap on the case like a dog on a bone.

Usually for days or weeks, and sometimes for months.

Jane has clearly concluded that tricks are going down in the Meredith case. She is becoming very, very scathing in her increasingly frequent segments.

The first time we caught Jane on the case, she was working over a confused, stuttering Peter Popham of the Independent - that’s a great comment below his absurd piece, by the way.

You could watch Jane’s skepticism growing, minute by minute. Last night, her show aimed its spotlight at the opening session of the trial.

Click on the shot above for the astonishing discussion.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Trial: The UK Sunday Times Reports The Prosecutions’ Possible Scenario of The Crime

Posted by Peter Quennell

Excerpts from the report by John Follain in Perugia.

Meredith was “Softened up for Fatal Sex Game”

Prosecutors allege that Amanda Knox instigated an ‘erotic game’ with her housemate and became violent when she resisted. Amanda Knox says she is glad ‘the hour of truth’ has arrived. She denies killing Meredith Kercher

New details about a sex game that allegedly led to the murder of Meredith Kercher, the British exchange student, have been revealed by an Italian prosecutor.

Giuliano Mignini, the official leading the case, alleges that Amanda Knox, Kercher’s American housemate, instigated the “erotic game” and probably persuaded an accomplice into “softening up” the 21-year-old Briton.

Reconstructing the student’s final moments, Mignini alleges that Kercher’s killers became “incensed and violent” after she resisted their advances….

Mignini gave his account of the murder at committal hearings which were closed to the public. However, details of his reconstruction will appear in a book called Meredith: Lights and Shadows in Perugia.

It is written by Vincenzo Maria Mastronardi, a forensic psychiatrist, and Giuseppe Castellini, editor of the Giornale dell Umbria newspaper, and will be published this week.

Mignini said Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was likely to have been irritated with Knox for allegedly bringing Sollecito and Guede to the cottage the young women shared late on the night of the murder in November 2007.

Knox, whom Guede was always trying to please, probably pushed him into “softening up” the English girl and preparing her for the erotic “game” . . . while Knox “dedicated” herself to Sollecito, said Mignini.

And when Guede failed because of energetic resistance by the victim, the three became incensed and violent.

They grabbed Kercher by the neck and tried to strangle her. Sollecito grabbed her violently in the back and on a breast, deforming her bra clasp and then they finished her off with the violent knife stab to the left part of the neck. Kercher gave a last desperate scream, which was heard by [a neighbour].

The prosecutor said that just before the final blow, Kercher suffered a cut to the right hand as she tried to free herself and pushed away the knife which Knox allegedly held.

A minute after the last stab wound, the three allegedly fled the cottage, with Knox and Sollecito returning later to stage a fake robbery by breaking a window, said Mignini.

The prosecutor singled out the placing of a duvet over Kercher’s body as “extremely important from a psychological point of view”. He argued it indicated pity and respect for the victim: “Amanda, especially as a woman, couldnt bear that naked, torn female cadaver.”

Both Knox and Sollecito insist they were at his home on the night of the murder. Their defence teams dispute DNA evidence linking Knox to a knife, which investigators say may be the murder weapon, and Sollecito to Kercher’s bra clasp.

Last week Knox told her lawyer Luciano Ghirga: “At last the hour of truth has arrived. I’m not afraid. I hope that the whole truth will come out because I’ve always been a friend of Meredith’s and I didn’t kill her.”

However, Mignini alleges that on the morning after the murder Knox tried to delay the body’s discovery by telling other housemates that it was normal for Kercher’s bedroom to be locked.

When the door was kicked down, Knox and Sollecito were too far away to see into the room, where Kercher’s half-naked body lay on the floor under a beige duvet, according to witnesses quoted by Mignini at the committal hearings last October.

“When those present go outside after the body is found, Knox and Sollecito are also outside, intent on kissing and caressing each other, as they did subsequently during police searches.”

“A very strange way of behaving which started the very moment the victim’s body was found . . . and at a time when all the other young people were literally overwhelmed by that discovery” said Mignini.

Trial: Defendants Did Chat At Trial Friday: Defense Move? Or Just Making Nice?

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click above for full report]

Added later: We now have good reason to doubt that this chat ever happened. The meme may have emanated from a dubious source. There is of course a court order FORBIDDING the two from communicating.

We also believe that it’s doubtful that the eyes of the two ever met. RS sneaked 4 or 5 glances at AK, and AK sneaked at least one glance at RS, as the shot posted below showed.

But that may have been that. Nothing more. Signs of a fork in the road? One will now go one way and the other will go another way? Stay tuned.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Trial: Court Report From Trisha Thomas Of Associated Press

Posted by Peter Quennell

Trial: Amanda Knox Takes Her Place At The Start Of The Trial

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for a selection of shots. This may be the last time Knox is photographed in court.

Some shots available seem to catch Amanda Knox at a gleeful moment. It is hard to know what to make of those shots. Photographers click away at a “gotcha” moment. It may have lasted only five seconds and meant nothing.

These are a few of the less loaded shots. They show Amanda Knox being led in, looking around the courtroom, perhaps for people she knows, and reading some passage in the Italian legal code.

It appears that an uncle and aunt were present at the back or in the balcony. Her biological parents will be witnesses and so are not allowed to attend the trial before they testify.

It seems certain now that Rudy Guede will testify. And Knox and Sollecito have just both said they’re eager to do so.

So far as we are aware, the Kercher family and the parents of the defendants have not yet ever come face-to-face. That is probably an encounter that none of them look forward to.