Political & economic headsup: US is demonstrating unsorted systems problems in spades. Do watch your investments. As Washington DC policy gets more & more off-target, big New York investors are betting very heavily that stocks will soon crash. Gross systems mismanagement 2017-20 tanked stocks several times.

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.

Trial: Court Report In Italian From Italian TV Network LA-7 DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Edited: The embedded video has been phased out. The six members of the jury and the four alternates (wearing sashes) could be seen seated on each side of the two judges. The courtroom is at the back of the court complex facing east, away from the Piazza Giacomo Matteotti. It is right at the edge of the Perugian massif, where the ground falls away sharply for several hundred meters. There is a spectacular view in that direction, though the court windows appear to be frosted over here.

The trial is now adjourned for the day (journalists will now be busy filing stories we’ll check out) and the BBC has reported that the next trial date will be 6 February. The other dates announced are: 13, 14, 27 and 28 February, plus 13, 14, 20, 21, 27 and 28 March, plus 3, 4, 18, 23 and 24 April. About five each month.

Trial: The Proceedings Commence: The Times’s Lunchbreak Report

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the story. The Kercher family is not present. Nor are the biological parents of Amanda Knox. It is not yet reported if Raffaele Sollecito’s father is present; his mother passed on.

And note this breaking news on yet another possible eye-witness, near the bottom of David Owen’s piece - the significance here being that Rudy Guede may have known both defendants prior to the night in question.

Il Giornale dell’ Umbria reported that a new witness, a researcher named only as Fabio G, had told police he had seen Ms Knox, Mr Sollecito and Mr Guede together near the cottage Ms Kercher shared with Ms Knox on 30 October 2007, two days before the murder and sexual assault.

Trial: The Proceedings Commence: The UK’s Daily Mail Reports First

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the story. From Nick Pisa’s report:

Dressed in a hooded grey sweatshirt Knox, 21, smiled and shook hands with her legal team as she was led into court. She seemed overwhelmed by the mass presence of over 150 journalists and TV crews - who, bizarrely, had been herded inside a caged area in the court normally reserved for terrorists.

Nick Pisa appears to be sitting in the terrorist cage at bottom-right below. Click for a better look at him.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Good Overview Of The Case In Germany’s Der Spiegel

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the two-part report by Alexander Smoltczyk.

Based on the numbers of reports appearing in Germany, interest in the case is high there. It seems to rank fourth after Italy, the UK, and the US.

There is some mild sensationalism in the newspapers there; not much. Reporting on the whole is as in this report: factual and objective.

Before she moved to Perugia Amanda Knox stayed with an uncle in Germany and interned for a day or two at the Bundestag in Berlin. German is one of her languages.

An on-the-run Rudy Guede was caught on a train in Germany and after a brief period he was semt back to Italy where he broke from the other two.

And Italy is the Number One tourist destination for Germans on vacation. They know and really like the place.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Another Book Deal We Are Maybe Not In Favor Of

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the breaking story. This book now seems prejudicial, and it might be good if it’s withdrawn.

The passage we quoted in an earlier post actually seemed beneficial to Knox. The book is not out in English.

[Added] The author has now stated that the contentious passages in the book were all written by Amanda Knox herself.

In my book I used the diary written by Amanda Knox herself and which is now part of the evidence in the trial against her.

‘I don’t understand how the fact that I have retold her own words in a book can have a negative influence on her trial.

Earlier proceedings have already established the sexual element of the this case and that is what I am saying in the book.

So Amanda should sue… herself?! The diary excerpts sure are getting a lot of reads. It was an Italian best-seller over Christmas.

Sounds like that withdrawal is too late and this may be a red herring that goes nowhere.

Mr Mignini, Pehaps Keep A Close Eye On This Person, Too

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Amended] That guy on the far left is said to be Frank. We owe you one, Candace. Thanks for the tip.

An email that came in from a trusted source says Frank’s collaboration on the book deal is believed to be dead.

If that really is the case, it is good news, and that is the end of this story. We’ll keep watching, though.

By the way we dont really go looking for stuff on Frank. It just pours in. Perugians seem really ticked at him.