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, April 26, 2022

A Clinical Psychologist Gets Widespread Praise Today For Shapeshifting Expert Testimony

Posted by Peter Quennell

Actor Johnny Depp’s Defamation Suit

This is the second week in a courtroom just outside Washington DC for actor Johnny Depp and his ex wife Amber Heard.

Johnny Depp (net worth $150 million) is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard (net worth $8 million) for defamation, for having implied in a Washington Post article in 2018 that he had frequently been violent with her.

Court proceedings are being shown live on several TV channels and various streaming YouTube channels. The national audience may have jumped by several million today while forensic psychologist Dr Shannon Curry testified for Depp’s team.

There were strong shades of Amanda Knox’s apparent syndromes in this testimony. As The Guardian reported:

An expert in intimate partner violence called to give evidence in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard has testified that her evaluation of the actor revealed two psychiatric diagnoses – borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder.

Depp’s witness, Shannon Curry, said that the diagnosis came from examination of Heard’s previous psychological assessments, coupled with direct examination on two occasions, and participation in a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) test, a court in Alexandria, Virginia, heard on Tuesday.

Curry said that Heard, 36, displayed a “reactive”, “overly dramatic presentation” and used words like “magical” and “wonderful” to describe events. Heard, she said, flitted between “princess and victim”.

As sophisticated, “cute and girlish” as such people may present, Curry said, they “may in reality be very destructive”, “dramatic, erratic and unpredictable” and possessed of an “underlying drive to not be abandoned but also to be center of attention”.

Curry said borderline personality disorder represented an unstable personality, alert to rejection, with little access to self-regulation and marked by “a lot of anger, cruelty toward people less powerful, concerned with image, attention seeking and prone to externalizing blame, a lot of suppressed anger that may explode outwards”.

Anyone attempting an intimate relationship with such a personality, Curry said, would likely go from “idolized to dumpster”. It was typical of borderline personalities, she added, to be “assaultive as partners. They’ll make threats using the legal system, threaten to file for a restraining order, claim abuse.”

There are several full-day versions of today’s testimony on YouTube. Amber Heard did not seem to be enjoying it. YouTube comments are worth reading (scroll down). One comment:

A movie or show could never equate to this woman as a witness. Hands down best witness I’ve ever seen in all the court cases I’ve ever seen.

Saturday, March 19, 2022

Der Spiegel, Mafia Tool?! Yet More Fake News Inflames Millions Against Italian Justice

Posted by Peter Quennell

Editor-in-Chief Clemens Höges oversaw this fake news

1. Spiegel’s Fake-News Past

It now appears that Der Spiegel has grossly mangled the facts of the case TWICE!

The first instance consisted of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Knox’s greatest fraud. We posted on that the other day.

Now the second consists of Der Spiegel mindlessly channeling Sollecito’s greatest fraud. The low points are summarized below.

Clemens Höges, Der Spiegel Editor in Chief (image above) is greatly respected in German publishing. He was brought in specifically to stamp out fake news after a damaging incident hit Der Spiegel in 2018.

“Fool me once, shame on you… Fool me twice, shame on me!” One instance of fake news can perhaps be blamed only on the reporter. But two instances?! Especially at Der Spiegel, they are a sure sign of editorial mismanagement, or of grandstanding intent at top-manager level. Herr Höges??

2. Spiegel’s Fake News #2

For a current Sollecito baseline, you might do well to read this first. It is along the lines of what Der Spiegel should have reported.

Better than the weird nonsense about “I’m the real victim” Sollecito below. More about the one that all Italians know only too well in the next post.

You destroyed our life” Raffaele Sollecito was falsely charged [untrue] ... [He says] hardly anyone knows his name [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were finally acquitted [untrue] ... Spiegel: Quickly, the officials take in two suspects [untrue] ...  an unprecedented media hype develops [untrue] ... Sollecito features in the reports only on the edge [untrue] ... Sollecito [says] my fate was completely overlooked, no-one was interested in me, not even the police [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox and Sollecito were falsely arrested and accused of murder [untrue] ... The police had thought up this screenplay that Amanda and I would have allegedly killed Meredith [untrue] ... I was only a minor figure [untrue]: even the prosecutor was especially interested in Amanda [untrue] ... Sollecito [was] described by friends as restrained and thoughtful [untrue] ... Sollecito: The night of November 1st, Amanda and I spent together in my apartment [untrue]. We looked at a movie, heard music and slept [untrue] ... Spiegel: Knox’s parents advise her to leave Italy, but Knox remains in good faith to help the police [untrue] ...  What we do not know is ... they already suspect us of the murder of Kercher [untrue]...

Knox had been afraid since the murder to stay alone in his apartment, and [for that reason] accompanies him [untrue]... The officials decide to interview her as well [untrue]...  Spiegel: You and Knox both posted confessions that night [untrue]... Sollecito: We immediately withdrew the confessions next day [untrue]... The police manipulated us and played us against each other [untrue]... After hours of interrogation [untrue] they presented to me a prefabricated document [untrue], Amanda similarly [untrue]... When I asked them to change it because I did not agree, they said, I should not worry, it’s all accurate [untrue]... Spiegel: Knox says these days the police had put them under great pressure [untrue] ... Both - Knox and Sollecito - are arrested, although DNA analysis from the scene later prove that they had not been in Kercher’s room [untrue]...  Sollecito: The investigators know [untrue] that there are traces of a police informant [untrue] named Rudy Guede ... He had a criminal prehistory for burglaries [untrue], his traces were everywhere on the crime location [untrue] - it was clear that he was the killer [untrue]...  The investigators constructed the absurd theory that Amanda, I and Guede had killed Meredith together [untrue]... In the first months in court I had to laugh, it was almost as if the police invented their evidence [untrue]... A bra clasp of Meredith, allegedly with my DNA, lay around 46 days [forgotten] at the scene [untrue] ... But the police and the prosecutors were so in love with their murder theory that they did not want to give it up [untrue]...

Spiegel: Media worldwide reported on the “angel with the ice eyes” [untrue] The Italian judiciary is being observed by the global public - and under enormous pressure [untrue]... “Giving that she had been wrong, was not an option [for the officials],” writes the journalist [untrue] Nina Burleigh ... Spiegel: It was suggested several times you testify against Knox, in return for a milder prison sentence. You rejected this [untrue]. Sollecito: Of course [untrue] ...  Spiegel: In 2011, an appeal court released Knox and Sollecito [finally] from the allegation of the murder [untrue] ... Two independent [untrue] experts certify the police previously made blatant mistakes in the evidence collection and analysis [untrue]... Today it is assumed that the footsteps and Knox and Sollecito traces came from impurities [untrue] ... Knox and Sollecito have spent four years wrongly imprisoned [untrue] ... A new court [untrue] sentenced him and Knox in 2013 to long prison sentences [untrue] ... Two years later, 2015, Italy’s ultimate court exonerates him and Knox [untrue] ... Sollecito sued the Italian state for damages - and lost. The argument of the judges: he was wrong to defend himself [untrue]...

Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Correcting Fake-News Fraud In Der Spiegel By Alexandra Rojkov

Posted by Peter Quennell

Clemens Höges Der Spiegel Editor in Chief

1. Rojkov’s Defamatory Claims

These claims below are all taken verbatim straight from Rojkov’s Der Spiegel report.

All are 100% false. The interrogation hoax is Amanda Knox’s key hoax. She typically shrieks and wails, amid false claims that she was made to “confess”.

But Knox did not confess. She was not made to do anything. The Q&A on 6 Nov was purely voluntary. In fact it was suggested she go home and sleep, but she refused. It lasted less than 90 minutes, mostly listing some names.

While doing continued considerable harm in Italy and elsewhere, such as now in Germany, that hoax has paid Knox an estimated million or two to this date. Rojkov swallowed and propagates the hoax whole, and even makes it more inflammatory.

Reporters report [prosecution claims] that the murder was a satanic ritual [untrue]... They call the woman “Luciferina,” the devil [untrue]... The prosecutor claimed that Knox had committed the crime out of sheer lust and seduced the men into helping her [untrue]... Sometimes he speculated about a sexual orgy, sometimes about a satanic ceremony [untrue]... Sollecito was summoned by the Perugia police as a witness [untrue]... The couple claimed to have spent the night together [untrue]... This answer was not enough for the officials [untrue]... [Many] hours of interrogation [untrue]... police claimed they had evidence that Knox was lying [untrue]... Her lack of memory is a consequence of the trauma [untrue]... For hours after, the officers repeatedly demanded that Knox “remember the truth” [untrue]... In the process, they became more and more angry [untrue]... twice someone hit her head [untrue]... [Knox was] 24 hours without sleep [untrue]... she suddenly saw pictures and heard screams [untrue]...

Knox finally signed a statement that would cost her four years of her life [untrue]. “Of all that happened, this interrogation was the worst experience” [untrue] says Knox, “I was as scared and confused as I have never been in my life [untrue]... many people still don’t understand how police could incriminate someone just like that” [untrue]... A recording or transcript of the interrogation does not exist [untrue] although all other conversations were recorded [on paper] with Knox… Sollecito signs a statement saying that Knox was staying in [untrue]... Knox also signed a confession [untrue]... Both withdraw their statements shortly afterwards [untrue]...  the prosecution’s theory quickly crumbled [untrue]... The forensic experts… found neither their fingerprints nor DNA [untrue]... Guede had already been noted several times: for burglary, theft, attempted assault [untrue]... the forensic investigation of the crime scene acquitted Knox and Sollecito [untrue] but the judiciary did not let them go… a two-year pre-trial detention began [untrue]... supposed evidence that later turned out to be the product of a sloppy investigation [untrue]...

Sometimes it seemed as if the authorities were bullying [untrue]... Independent experts will later explain that the DNA may come from impurities [untrue]... After an appeal Guede’s sentence changes to 16 years [untrue]... Independent experts investigating the bra clasp again after some years conclude that it has probably been contaminated [untrue]... numerous errors were found by the investigators in the tracing and analysis [untrue]... March 27, 2015: Italy’s Supreme Court finally acquits [untrue] Knox and Sollecito of the charges of murdering Kercher.. [Knox] was an invention of the Italian authorities and the media who reported on the case [untrue]. Robinson had never heard of Knox’s case [untrue]... Knox grew up in sheltered conditions, nothing bad had ever happened to her [untrue]... What she experienced in prison and in court shook Knox [untrue].

All of the above is incorrect. For starters read our interrogation hoax series here, and some or all of these posts.

True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Meredith a non-person: Rojkov barely mentions her, and calls her only “Kercher” then. True to the Knox PR’s barbaric rules, Rojkov makes Knox the REAL victim here. 

There was zero interrogation on 6-7 Nov, merely a session of just over an hour listing names of visitors to the house; Knox’s notes and diagrams exist. Her status was “person with possible useful information”. She was not even a witness at that point. Same with RS.

Knox never confessed anything. She framed an innocent man, when under no pressure, and rightly served three years (Rojkov does not bother to mention that).

Knox confirmed at trial she was treated well. Sollecito absolutely did not ever back up Knox’s (third) alibi. Neither ever recanted what they had said. Knox herself insisted (twice) on writing her claims down. She signed every page of the typed records for every Q&A with the police.

Guede was not known for burglary. Evidence the three attacked Meredith is overwhelming - as even defenses agreed. There was zero evidence of anyone else. Knox and RS didn’t make bail in 2007-08 because evidence was so strong - even the Supreme Court ruled that.

In prison Knox survived just fine and there are shots of her enjoying herself. The untruthful husband Robinson is actually the son of the West Seattle Herald’s owner; in which from 2007 he published the nastiest and most defamatory of all US reports.

2. Rojkov’s Numerous Omissions

Example: The illegalities of the enormous and brutal PR in bending three courts ls totally left out; also the known mafia role.

Example: Knox was not an exchange student with the normal funding and supervision; she was (very unusually) freelance, with her foolish and irresponsible parents in the know.

Example: Knox spent more time in Perugia doing drugs and chasing guys (mostly unsuccessfully; she was not much liked as her manner and hygiene were repellant) than anything else.

Example: The investigation was overseen by a magistrate (Matteini) and decision to go to trial (at which there were TWO prosecutors, one a woman) was made by a judge (Micheli).

Example: The evidence gathering took a full eight months, and its presentation at trial (much behind closed doors) left the pair and their defenses distraught.

Example: Most of the trial was shown on live TV. Media did not bend what Italians could see with their own eyes. Knox was an unmitigated disaster on the stand.

Example: Knox rightly served three years, and is a convicted felon for life. Because of that, dangerous trashing of Italy has been her only day-job for a decade. 

3. Tough Reaction From Dr Mignini

Rojkov’s article was published only in German (of course). Compared to suing reporters for libel in the US, suing in Germany is a walk in the park. Libel laws are tough, and newspapers are required to print the truth, not target justice officials in a country Germany is very friendly with. For starters Dr Mignini has published this for his team.

Kercher Case: Amanda Knox falsely attacks investigators again

First response from former deputy chief prosecutor Mignini: “Why keep lying so seriously?”

Amanda Knox again attacks the investigators and again presents herself as a victim of misjustice. An expression that produced this immediate reply from trial co-prosecutor Giuliano Mignini.

“I am forced, once again, to intervene on a trial I dealt with and which ended in 2015, with the second judgment of the Court of Cassation, opposing the judgment of the First Chamber of the same Court, 2013, on the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

I can understand different opinions about the evaluation of evidence, in a process, like the majority, circumstantial and linked to biological assessments. And I can understand, if not justify, that everyone feels empowered to deal with such complex matters, without a modicum of expertise in this regard.

What is not tolerable, however, is the total omission of facts which cannot be called into question and which have become irreversible; or the false interpretation of judgments wrongly stated to have been issued under Article 201 EC. 530, first paragraph, of the code, whereas they were actually issued under Article 530, second paragraph, of the same article. That is to say, in a “mitigated” and “doubtful” form [can be reversed in a further trial].

Also it is intolerable to ignore that there were two convictions handed down by two Courts of Assizes, of first instance of Perugia, and of second instance of Florence. In total, sixteen judges, highly competent and respected,  have condemned the two “Caucasian” defendants.

Instead, the De Spiegel article focuses on the police and the PM, which would be me, who merely asked for conviction [based on overwhelming fact].

It should be pointed out that the most detached expressions from reality did not come from Amanda Knox, but from the columnist Alexandra Rojkov, awarded by CNN, and by the American journalist Nina Burleigh who is notorious for a total, striking misunderstanding of the Italian legal system.

Why do they keep lying so seriously? Is it possible that they did not understand and did not even take a quick look at the judgment [2015] of the Fifth Chamber? Or the definitive and of opposite conclusion [2013] of the First Chamber? They may pretend to forget this, but it is also there and is definitive. Why do they continue to ignore the final sentence [of Knox] for calunnia [for which she served three years] ?

These are questions that neither Rojkov nor Burleigh will answer because they don’t know how.  We live in an age of decadence, not only because of wars but also and perhaps above all because of the contempt for the truth that characterizes this historical moment.

Giuliano Mignini, retired deputy prosecutor

4. Legal Assessment

The false claims made to very large and influential audiences are damaging and court-worthy in Germany and Italy. Bennett and Rojkov have put their reputations and careers on the line, soaking up defamatory talking points of the Knox PR, lying to their readers, harming their newspapers, and putting people in Italy they never even consulted at real risk.

Thursday, March 03, 2022

Russian Alexandra Rojkov Channels Anti-Italy Bigotry In Der Spiegel

Posted by Peter Quennell

Added: there are now text versions in German and English below in Comments. On Page 2 Knox hoodwinks Rojkov with her Interrogation Hoax (see link in our left column). Knox was not interrogated at all until 17 December, and on the night of 6 November she was merely building a list of visitors and spontaneously fingered Patrick, for which she rightly served three years. She did NOT confess. Rojkov is obviously ignorant of the fact that Knox is a convicted felon for life, and of many other aspects of the case. Appalling reporting for Der Spiegel.

Yet Another Amanda Knox Con-Job

Bizarre timing for a “Russian Jessica Bennett”...

This reporter, based in Berlin, flew to Seattle against the better advice of her colleagues (see the podcast summary below in Comments) for a gushy Knox interview, very obviously with zero due diligence.

German followers of the case know their facts and have generally tilted strongly on the side of caution. This pro-Knox fraud seems a first for Germany. However, despite it occupying four pages in Der Spiegel, it seems to have created zero buzz and spinoff, unlike the frequent misreporting in the New York Times

One of our German readers kindly sent us these page-images below. He could not offer good translation, but if anyone else with German might help us, we’d be grateful.

Main source appears to be the mafia tool Nina Burleigh, who we have warned about often. 


Below: click for larger images

Tuesday, March 01, 2022

Correcting NY Times 24: No It Was Not TABLOIDS That So Misrepresented The Case

Posted by Our Main Posters

Pisa among those who reported objectively and fast

This is a repeat of a Nov 2016 post showing that “the tabloids” actually turned up in court, unlike the NY Times, and typically got their reporting 100% correct - unlike the NY Times. You can find Jessica Bennett’s several smears of “the tabloids” in this list and our earlier rebuttals in Part 5 of the mafia/p-r playbook list.

1. Context Of This Post

The Netflix report “Amanda Knox” showed British reporter Nick Pisa relishing some early headlines, and a scene where the solving of the crime by the national and Perugia police is announced to the press.

From those seemingly damning episodes, the audience is encouraged to make the vast extrapolation that it was a voracious media and an overzealous police that drove the whole case.

Also that this was fundamentally unfair to a self-effacing, publicity-shy Knox, and that it caused the verdicts to go the “wrong” way - twice, first in the 2009 Massei trial, and second in the 2013-14 Nencini appeal.

2. The Real Police “Slant”

The police announcement - typical of such announcements in the US and UK when the local population is freaked out - was NOT made simply to win points for the police or to isolate and slam Knox (Sollecito and at that point Patrick were also described as suspects in the crime).

There had not been a single murder in Perugia for many years. This murder was reported (rightly) as singularly depraved and (rightly) as a pack attack with knives.

Many people could not sleep at night. The immediate effect upon Perugia and in particular its huge student population (over 20,000) of Meredith’s death was that many men and women, especially women as a sex crime was (rightly) described, did indeed become freaked out.

Literally thousands began to leave town.

Both the town managers and the university managers were quite desperately demanding an early break or major assurances to stem this tide. The police announcement did in fact do that.

Thereafter the investigators went on about their work for the better part of a year, and the documentation is huge - it was put at 10,000 pages early on but is now substantially larger than that.

Here is one example of just how much work was done after the police calmed things down.

At the infamous “interrogation” of Knox on 5-6 November 2007 she in fact worked on a list of seven names of people who might be able to help the police. The police took that list and they tracked down all seven, and the cross-checking of their accounts went on for months.

Complicated, of course, because Knox most heavily pointed at Patrick, and used the list to point away from herself. Her drug dealer, which police soon found out about, did not appear on the list though he had repeatedly been at her house.

3. The Real Media “Slant”

In the next post, we shall show how there really was a huge slant - but not what Netflix depicts.

All of the Netflix’s global demonization of the media flows from Nick Pisa’s few deprecating words. No extensive checking of his reports is seen.

No Italian media disposition was examined at all - the Italian media was by far the most likely to have an effect on a jury of Italian speakers who are encouraged by the system to do some research.

Netflix maybe omitted this for their own convenience - there was little or no slant to point to at all.

Italian media reported methodically before and during trial and long thereafter on what the US and UK media mostly did not - all the crucial process steps pre-trial were reported in Italy but largely ignored by the UK and US press.

You can read about the remorselessly building evidence in this eye-opening series here.

The Netflix team dont appear to have read even one official document on the case.

The key two documents here would be the report on the Massei guilty verdict in 2009 and the report on the Nencini guilty verdict in 2014. That was respectively two years and over seven years after the early “damning” media reports. 

Take a look.

In fact try to find even ONE instance where a UK reporter writing in English for an English audience in late 2007 got inside an entire panel of Italian judges’ heads late in 2009, and again in 2014, which is what Netflix would like you to believe.

4. Nick Pisa’s Real Reporting On The Case

Fortunately for the hard truth, what we often called the “Rome pool” of foreign correspondents included nearly a dozen exceptionally talented reporters (those posted in other countries usually are the cream of the crop).

Thanks to their very hard work and their incessant costly travel to Perugia, we were able to repost on the 2008 and 2009 developments with a scope far beyond what any one “man on the spot” could do (we did have several of those too).

Free-lancer Nick Pisa in fact reported from the court for a lot of media outlets in the UK, not simply one. He was the only non-Italian reporter to pretty consistently have a cameraman along, for his reports for Sky News, and some of his good video reports still show.

This kind of fast, comprehensive coverage badly rattled the Knoxes and Mellases and their camps and especially diminished their PR, and they openly displayed angry aggression at times.

We’ll describe in the next post their desperate attempts to demonize all of the few reporters they did not have on a chain as coming straight from hell. 

We have carried a total of 43 of Nick Pisa’s reports, in whole or in part. Check them all out below. Do you see ANY bias here?

5. Reports We Used As Trusted Valuable Source

Click here for post:  Trial: The Proceedings Commence: The UK’s Daily Mail Reports First

Click here for post:  Trial: Friday Morning Not A Good Start For The Knox Team

Click here for post:  Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Of On-The-Ball Sky News Reports Early Testimony

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Of On-The-Ball Sky News Reports On Saturday Morning

Click here for post:  Guede’s Grounds For Appeal Sound None Too Convincing

Click here for post:  Trial: Sky News Video Report On Friday’s Court Session

Click here for post:  Confirmed: Neither Knox’s Father Nor Stepfather Were So Solicitous In Seattle

Click here for post:  Trial: Prosecution Witnesses Present Many More Reports On Odd Behavior Of Knox

Click here for post:  Sollecito Gets A Birthday Card From His Co-Defendant

Click here for post:  Trial: Witness Emulates A Loud Scream She Heard On The Night

Click here for post:  Trial: Sky News’s Report On Today’s Eyewitnesses

Click here for post:  Trial: The Closed Court Sees Graphic Photos And Video Footage Of The Autopsy

Click here for post:  Trial: One Busy Day On The Court Agenda For The Judges And Jury

Click here for post:  Owner Says The House Will Be Available For Rent

Click here for post:  Trial: The Trial Agenda For Today And Tomorrow Is Physical And Forensic Evidence

Click here for post:  Trial: At Saturday Morning Session Bloody Footprints Said To Match The Defendants

Click here for post:  Trial: The Morning Report By Sky New’s Nick Pisa

Click here for post:  Trial: Court Hears Of Enormous Cruelty Of The Crime

Click here for post:  Trial: Meredith’s Family Recounts The Terrible Pain Of Her Loss

Click here for post:  Trial: Richard Owen Reports First Knox Testimony With Nick Pisa Video

Click here for post:  The Letters Between The Women’s And Men’s Wings In Capanne

Click here for post:  Trial: Dr Sollecito Testifies About The Human Qualities Of His Son

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Reports Knox Sisters’ Macabre Posing Where Meredith Was Killed

Click here for post:  Trial: Early Report By Nick Pisa On What Was Expected To Be Heard Today

Click here for post:  Trial: Defense Witnesses Testify On Cannabis Effects And Meredith’s Mobile Phone

Click here for post:  Trial: Further Expert Examinations Denied - The Report From Nick Pisa

Click here for post:  The Summations: Nick Pisa In Daily Mail Has A Late-Morning Report

Click here for post:  The Summations: Defendant Leaves Court As Prosecutor Proposes What Meredith Was Subjected To

Click here for post:  The Summations: Patrick Lumumba’s Lawyer Describes Defamation By Knox As Ruthless

Click here for post:  Could The Italian Authorities Be Starting A Wave Of Libel + Slander Investigations?

Click here for post:  The Summations: Lawyer Luca Maori Sums Up All Day Today In Sollecito’s Defense

Click here for post:  The Summations: The Two Defendants Make Their Final Pleas To The Court

Click here for post:  US Overreaction: Amanda Knox’s Own Lawyer Groans “That’s All We Need, Hillary Clinton

Click here for post:  The Controversy Over The Lifetime Movie Seems To Be Stirring Some Needed Changes

Click here for post:  Kercher Family Lawyer Walks Out As Amanda Knox Engages In What Looks Like Yet Another Stunt

Click here for post:  UK’s Sky News Carries A Pre-Session Report from Nick Pisa In Perugia This Morning

Click here for post:  A Belated Attempt To Do A U-Turn On The Misconceived Loser Of A PR Campaign?

Click here for post:  The Fourth Appeal Hearing Today Saturday: The Main Items On The Court’s Agenda

Click here for post:  Fourteenth Appeal Session: Judge Hellmann Consults Jury And Concludes They Have Enough To Wrap Up

Click here for post:  Conspicuous By Their Absence Now: Legal Commentators For Sollecito And Knox

Click here for post:  Lord Justice Leveson: In Fact MANY Press Errors Were Made In The Reporting On Meredith’s Case

Click here for post:  A Smug Killer Who Thought Perhaps He’d Escaped Justice Was Brought Down In The UK Today

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty On Most Charges Of Severe Damage To Young Women

Posted by Peter Quennell

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

2011 Hellman Appeal Verdict Annulled Misrepresentations Fog Reality Still

Posted by James Raper

Hellman Misrepresentations Explained

Here’s an interesting vignette on Hellmann’s modus operandi in his Motivation.

In the quote below he pins Guede with sole responsibility and provides Knox and Sollecito with an alibi.

Here’s what Hellmann wrote -

“In that chat, furthermore, [ed : Hellmann is referring to the 2nd Skype chat with Giocamo Benedetti] Rudy Guede states that he was in Via della Pergola between 9 and 9.30 pm; and this fact which significantly brings forward the time of death of Meredith Kercher, in respect of that held in the sentence under appeal, does not reconcile with the prosecution hypothesis in regard to the present accused who, even with the desire to recognize as credible some elements held by the prosecution in support of it’s own hypothesis, at the time were certainly at the house of Raffaele Sollecito and not at Via della Pergola.”

There are three basic elements to this argument.

1. Time Of Death (TOD) between 9.00 and 9.30 pm
2. Guede was in the cottage with Meredith between these times
3. Neither Knox nor Sollecito were.

Ergo, it was Guede, or perhaps, at a push, Guede and others but not including Knox and Sollecito, who murdered Meredith.

This is important because it appears towards the beginning of the report and, reading on through it, we can see that virtually the whole report, and the ludicrous waiving away of all the other evidence, is predicated on it.

However, what’s the evidence for these propositions - and is it reliable?

Although TOD could have been between these times there is no evidence that it was other than, as we shall see in a moment, Guede’s own words.

So, if an appeal judge can hold Guede to be reliable in this respect do the little angels have an alibi? However just check the record of that skype chat.

In Italian -

Guede - “allora siamo entrati, e penso che saranno state le otto e mezza così, le otto e venti, è stato, è stato detto che lei aveva detto alle sue amiche che era stanca che sarebbe andata a casa. Invece no, ci dovevamo vedere, ci eravamo dati puntamento la sera prima nella festa di Halloween, che abbiamo passato a casa di questi ragazzi spagnoli e posso dire anche dove, non so la via ma posso indicare dove.”

Translation -

Guede - “So we went in, and I think it was about eight‐thirty, or eight‐twenty, they’re saying that she told her friends she was tired and wanted to go home. But in fact no, we were supposed to see each other, we had made an appointment the evening before during the Halloween party, at the Spanish kids’ house, and I can also say, well I don’t know the street but I can say where it was.”

Although this does not exclude Hellmann’s time frame of 9.00 to 9.30 there is a manifest problem with Guede’s account.

Guede has himself and Meredith meeting up at the cottage by prior appointment at a time when Meredith could not possibly have been there, because she was still at the house of her english friends and she and Sophie Purton did not part ways until they were near the cottage at 9 pm.

Given what is certainly a falsehood why give credence to any of Guede’s times? But Hellmann does. It is true that in the Skype chat Guede goes on to say the following.

“R. I was in the bathroom, in the bathroom maybe five minutes. So, I really had to take this shit, but then I heard a scream, but let me tell you, a really loud scream, so loud that according to me, if anyone was passing by, nearby, they would have heard this scream, because she screamed so loud…and then, then, I got a bit worried and I got out of the bathroom right away, without even putting my pants back on, they were practically falling down, I was wearing just my underwear and my pants were falling around my…
G. But if I understand, I mean like where was this…I mean, what time do you think this happened, I don’t know…
R. Around nine, nine twenty or so, because in the meantime we had gotten to talking and all.
G. I see.
R. I think nine‐twenty, nine‐thirty, around then, and then, when I heard the scream…………”

This is where Hellmann gets his time frame for Time of Death. Hellmann does not give us the full context and details of Guede’s remark. But if one is going to give credence to these times then the context in which they arise has to be evaluated and given some credence too. This would also have to involve evaluating the impact on Guede’s account of the fact that Meredith was not at the cottage until 9 pm. Instead, what he writes is as follows -

“In fact Rudy Guede, while confiding to his friend in a moment when he did not know that the police was also listening in, and while talking about a point (the time of the assault) which he had no reason to lie about, given that he stated he was present at the time in the house of via della Pergola 7 albeit denying his responsibility, he indicates a time between 9 PM and 9:30 PM.”

However even if any of the foregoing were to be true it does not give Knox and Sollecito a complete alibi. It can not be held to be certain that Knox and Sollecito were at the latter’s flat for all of that time. The last alibi corroboration is the manual interaction with Sollecito’s computer at 9.10 pm and Guede’s “nine-twenty, nine-thirty” looks the more definite time in it’s context and given that Meredith was only in the process of arriving at 9 pm. He could perhaps seek some tenuous assistance from Curatolo’s testimony but he has already held that witness as unreliable.

So, putting his two quotes together Hellmann conveniently has Guede in the cottage between 9 and 9.30, with the same time frame for TOD. Given the verdict it is obvious why he would want to do this but equally it is obvious why Hellmann shirks from quoting what Guede had actually said, as to his time of arrival with Meredith, because of the obvious difficulty as to his credibility that causes, and as to what he was doing when he heard the scream, because if the scream (and hence TOD, if in fact the two are related) was between, say, 9 and 9.10, thus giving probably at least Sollecito an alibi, that gives us the added unlikely scenario of Guede arriving with Meredith (no earlier than 9.00 pm it now has to be) and then immediately excusing himself from the presence of his attractive date, and diving in to the toilet for a crap. But that is not how Guede has it and in that respect he is probably right.

If the scream was between 9 and 9.10, and Guede did not in fact go immediately to the toilet, then we have him turning violently upon his date within a very short space of time and then going for a crap after the murder. No, I don’t think so.

It could be speculated that Guede was already at the cottage, having broken in earlier, and being surprised by Meredith’s arrival, but a genuine break in is a dead duck topic on any rational evaluation of the evidence, not that Hellmann shirks from bringing the same MOD to that topic as well.

Before I go on there are some observations to make about a genuine break in based on what Guede said. Guede, one can reasonably surmise, would have been keeping abreast of developments in the media about the case and so would have known about the reports of a break in, none of which suggested, at the time, that it had been staged. By placing his arrival at the cottage with Meredith at 8.30 he can therefore disassociate himself from responsibility for that and, furthermore, imply that the break in was not what it seemed.

On the other hand had he broken in earlier then obviously he knew that Meredith was not there. He was taking a risk by running with a story that he and Meredith had met at the cottage at 8.30 pm when he would know, as a consequence of the foregoing, that there was at least the chance that others could vouchsafe for Meredith’s whereabouts elsewhere at the time. His state of mind on the subject may be confused by the Catch 22 situation he was putting himself in but would surely be different if he knew there had been no such break in. He would still be taking a chance but not, in his mind, such an obvious one.

But Hellmann should not go unchallenged when he states that Guede had no reason to lie.

That we know of no reason for Guede to lie about these times does not mean that he was not making it up or simply making a hash of the times (and looking at the excerpt he does seem rather unprepared for Benedetti’s question) or that he did not have a good reason to lie, especially if TOD was much later. He could have been anticipating more witnesses coming forward, like Alessandra Formica who, with her friend Lucio Minciotti, were walking down the stairs towards the cottage at around 10.40 pm when they were bumped into by a dark man rushing up the stairs. Or Nara Capezalli and Antonella Monacchia who had heard the ear splitting scream much later.

There is, of course, another obvious motive for placing himself at the cottage at 8.30 pm. He has already, in the 1st Skype chat, explicitly denied that Knox was at the cottage. Needless to say Hellmann picked up on that and accepts Guede’s word for it. However, in Guede’s account he is on the toilet when a man and a woman, whom he either did not see or was unable to identify, arrive and commit the murder. So, given that it was only the male that he actually encountered, why so positive that Knox was not there?

What he is suggesting is that others, but who could be Knox and Sollecito, did it. What benefit does Guede derive from this?  The answer, again, is the obvious one that by being more specific he would be running the risk of a counter allegation from Knox and Sollecito as to his precise involvement in the murder.

Also, just in case his explanation were not to be considered all that convincing he gives the duo, and himself, the added protection of having himself arrive at the cottage without them at 8.30 pm. That is at a time when he might well have known (from his own personal knowledge) that they would be able to put together an alibi.

In any event perhaps, as to the scream, it was not so much a question of lying as just a matter (even if only in his own mind and, we have to remember, he was just chatting with a friend, not giving a deposition) of making it seem likely with his own account. After all he has himself there with Meredith at about 8.30. Did Guede have a watch? Was he checking times? Are we supposed to believe that Guede would check on the time when he went to the toilet, and when he heard a loud scream outside and rushed out of the toilet with his trousers round his ankles. He did not say, and no-one seems to know.

Then we have the chatting, petting, searching for Meredith’s missing rent money, and then he’s off to the toilet. Perhaps he thinks an hour for that looks right and indeed most of that makes him look like the irresistible and OK kind of guy any gal would find good company and later after she finds her money missing, a good listener. Of course, Meredith did not come to the cottage until 9 pm but Guede does not factor that in. How would anyone, maybe even himself, know that anyway? So, we are actually up to 10 pm, not the 9.30 pm, when in his story he says he hears a scream.

Now we are moving towards the territory occupied by the witnesses Capezalli, Monacchia, and Formica.

Hellmann’s original hypothesis was that the murder had occurred no later than 10.13 pm.

“… it is more consistent…. to hypothesize that in fact the attack, and hence the death shortly thereafter, occurred much earlier than the time held by the Court of first instance, certainly not later than 10.13 pm”.

Here Hellmann refers to the time of the last interaction on Meredith’s English phone on the 1st November, before it rang again and the ringing was noticed by Mrs Lana’s daughter the next morning.

Notice that Hellmann makes an assertion and a linkage for which there is no corroborative evidence – “the attack, and hence the death shortly thereafter”, linking this to the last interaction on Meredith’s phone at 10.13 pm. But there could have been a non fatal attack at 10.13 ( e.g a wresting of her phones away from her) followed by the fatal one a little later.

Hellmann seems to think his supposition is the more consistent. Perhaps so. We do not really know, nor do we know for how long Meredith lived after the fatal blow.

But then, dispensing with consistency, he has the TOD come forward by at least another 45 minutes. Hellmann is more than ready to brand Guede as an out and out liar, but then, making a lone exception to his (and our) distrust of everything Guede has had to say, and without any other evidence to back it up, and as if there was any credence to be given to the exercise, he asserts, without ambivalence, Time of Death as between 9 – 9.30 pm, purely as a consequence of his own uncritical thinking, deceptions, agile skipping around the evidence, and cherry picking on a liar’s say so as to when he was there, and whether Knox was, and this despite Guede’s own stated time of his and Meredith’s arrival at the cottage being demonstrably unreliable, and in Meredith’s case untrue.

Hellmann has had to leap through a number of hoops in order to stick with his own pre-formulated premise that Guede was the sole perpetrator in this murder. And indeed Guede was already definitively convicted of the murder by this time, but in “complicity with others”. Hence the attempt to posit an alibi in the argument he put forward.

Not even the 5th Chambers was prepared to countenance that.

The quotes do nothing to establish TOD or provide Knox and Sollecito with an alibi but they are an example (among many one could give) of Hellmann’s bias toward the defendants and unwillingness, or inability, as a result, to evaluate the evidence rigorously and properly, a trait which was manifest throughout his Motivation.

That was the reason why his acquittal verdicts were annulled. Surprisingly though none of the foregoing even got a mention in the appeal recourse and annulment. Perhaps because there were more egregious defects in the Motivation.

It’s not surprising that he got a backlash from his professional colleagues and resigned from the judiciary shortly thereafter. But the damage to justice had been done.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Raffaele Sollecito, Once Again Being His Usual Muddled Self…

Posted by James Raper

Terrifying. Terrifying!

Corriere has published on the Internet Raffaele’s Sollecito’s latest outburst by social media video against the real media in Italy.

Here is what Corriere wrote -

“Raffaele Sollecito publishes on his social channels an outburst entitled “[Guede] found guilty in complicity with others is an invention of the media” against him by some of those he calls “newsagents” who, says Sollecito, continue to report “stupidities and falsehoods “. And he adds: “Below this video I will post the excerpt from the judgment with which Rudy Guede is sentenced. If one day I again observe that there are newsagents who write, or insinuate, that Guede has been convicted in complicity with others, and that therefore it remains necessary to find out who is this other culprit, I will be forced to file a complaint for defamation against me. Because it is thus being suggested that Amanda Knox and I [accused and then acquitted in the Perugia trial for the crime of Meredith Kercher, which took place in 2007, ed.] were acquitted either by luck or by chance.”

Below the video is Sollecito’s text.

“Sottolineo il tentativo della difesa di Rudy Guede di coinvolgere la responsabilità mia e di Amanda Knox ... tale tentativo miseramente fallito. In qualsiasi momento la Corte che ha giudicato Rudy Guede poteva chiamarci a deporre se qualcuno avesse mai dato fondamento a questo fantomatico concorso. Ciò non è mai avvenuto. D’altronde, nel processo contro di me e Amanda Knox, abbiamo chiesto di far deporre Rudy Guede che si è avvalso della facoltà di non rispondere.

I giornalai (giornalisti che hanno inventato la favola del concorso), non desiderano la verità ma vogliono soltanto arricchirsi alle spalle della vita di persone innocent.”

Translation -

“I emphasize there was an attempt by the defense of Rudy Guede to assign to myself and Amanda Knox responsibility ... this attempt failed miserably. At any time the Court that judged Rudy Guede could call us to testify if anyone had ever given grounds to this phantom competition. This never happened. But on the other hand, in the trial against me and Amanda Knox, we asked for Rudy Guede to testify, but he made use of the right not to answer.

Journalists (journalists who invented the story of the contest) do not want the truth but only want to enrich themselves at the expense of innocent people.”

What on earth is Sollecito talking about?! What attempt by “the defense of Rudy Guede”? What contest or competition? What judge could have called on them but didn’t? Micheli?

It was Judge Micheli who committed the pair to trial!

I do not think that Guede ever did try to directly implicate Knox or Sollecito before or at trial, not by name, not as a witness who saw them there at the time, not by stating what he saw them do.

Well… okay, so in his statements to the police he did do a bit of insinuating and implying. Presumably Judge Micheli at his 2008 trial had read those, but he still committed the pair to trial in 2009 in front of a different judge, Judge Massei.

No Guede statements were placed in evidence at their 2009 trial because Guede refused to testify for the prosecution fearing perjury charges (not for the defense, who did not even call him) rendering them inadmissable.

Despite not calling him, the pair’s own lawyers tried to have a field-day throughout the 2009 trial on the absent Guede. Recall the unproven drug-dealer nonsense, and the unproven serial-burglar nonsense.

Sollecito’s text continues, quoting from the Giordano Motivation dismissing Guede’s final Supreme Court appeal in 2011.

Incidentally I have re-read the Giordano Motivation and there is nothing there that states or implies that Guede acted alone or was responsible alone, in Meredith’s murder, as Sollecito apparently believes it says.

“8 - Il ricorso non ha fondamento e, pertanto, va rigettato.
Per intanto occorre da subito sfuggire al tentativo, perseguito dall’impostazione tutta della difesa, ma fuori luogo nel contesto della decisione, di coinvolgere il collegio nell’avallo della tesi di una responsabilità di altri, che sono S.R. ed K.A., per l’omicidio aggravato dalla violenza sessuale, di Ke.Me.. La decisione a cui è chiamata questa Corte concerne, e solo, la responsabilità del G. in ordine al fatto contestato e dell’eventuale partecipazione di altri al delitto si dovrà tener conto solo nella misura in cui una tale circostanza valga ad incidere sul tema che costituisce l’impegno esclusivo in punto di riforma o conferma della declaratoria di responsabilità dell’imputato, quest’ultima del tutto condivisa dai giudici di primo e secondo grado.”

Translation -

“8 – The appeal has no basis and therefore must be rejected.

In the meantime it is now necessary to escape the attempt, pursued by the overall setting of the defence, but out of place in the context of this decision, to involve the Court in supporting the thesis of the responsibility of others, namely Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, for the murder aggravated by the sexual assault of Meredith Kercher. The decision to which this court is called concerns uniquely the responsibility of Guede regarding the deed with which he is charged, and the possible participation of others in the crime should be taken into account only to the extent to which such a circumstance would have an impact on the exclusive commitment of the Court to either modifying or confirming the verdict of guilt of the defendant, which was entirely shared by the courts of first and second instance.”

So? Will this cause Italian media to be shaking in their boots!

Even the Supreme Court, in its bent final ruling on the case against Knox and Sollecito, found that Meredith had been attacked by more than one assailant.

Maybe is this an indirect attempt by Sollecito to warn Guede away from further involvement? Who knows? Isn’t the media already speculating on what might happen when Guede has finally served his sentence in December 2023?

Sollecito does appear to be feeling some heat, and this all really looks as if he is once again losing it a bit.

Thursday, July 01, 2021

Yet ANOTHER Nail In The Coffin Of The Faked Break-In

Posted by James Raper

Scuri is white object at left

Again, Things Just Don’t Add Up

I was looking at a Powerpoint by our former main poster Brmull debunking Hellmann’s take on the rock apparently thrown at Filomena’s window.

According to Hellmann there was a genuine break-in, but if not, then there was no reason to think that Knox and Sollecito were the stagers. That guff apart, Brmull made some good points and displayed a close up of the crush-mark on the scuri (inner shutter) which I found interesting.

Unfortunately I cannot use my snipping tool on a Powerpoint so I am not able to re-produce that picture. You will just have to take my word for what I say next.

First up, of course the rock could easily have been thrown or tossed from the corner of the residents’ car park, breaking the glass. Amusingly Hellmann refers to the defence expert’s report for this blindingly obvious clarification. The trajectory of a rock so cast is on a 90 degree angle with Filomena’s window, i.e straight at it, so no problem.

There are, however, some problems with this.

The crush mark is full on the upper edge, and inside this edge, of a recess on the scuri. Assuming that the crush mark was caused by the rock then this suggests that the impact was from a trajectory that was on a different angle from that of a rock thrown from the car park.

There are a couple of points to flow from this, both by way of confirmation but which also debunk another point raised in defence.

First, the very existence of the crush mark (and there was a fragment of glass embedded in the scuri close by) confirms that the scuri was in position behind the window. Filomena had said it was, even if she could not be sure that it had been clipped firmly into place.

Short of throwing a heavy rock at the window to find out, how would the intruder have known that it was not so latched into place? And if it was, throwing the rock would not have made any difference, just a lot of noise. The intruder could not have been unaware of the existence of the scuri.

Secondly, the only mark on the scuri was that crush mark. I am surprised that there is no other damage that I can see to the scuri i.e dents or chipped paint, which is what I would expect to see, from a rock weighing 4 kilos tossed full on at the window from just several feet away.

In fact the scuri looks remarkably pristine but for the crush mark. This, for me, establishes that the crush mark was not a glancing blow past that edge. Indeed the white paint is crushed down into the dent, hardly compatible with a glancing blow.

Hence a head on crush the result of a different trajectory from a rock thrown from the car park. Both these observations support the view that it was an inside job.

Hence, a staging, it sure seems.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Van Gogh “Immersion” Show, Selling Out In Numerous Cities Worldwide, Created By…

Posted by Peter Quennell

Two Italians. The show, designed by Italian digital artist Massimiliano Siccardi with music composed by Italian Luca Longobardi, and art (of course) by the late Vincent Van Gogh, consists of some 400 images projected onto 500,000 square feet for about one hour.

It’s on now in various countries in Europe. In north America, shows have concluded in Toronto, St Petersburg and Chicago, and are opening soon in various other cities including New York.