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.

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Knox’s Modena Catastrophe: Explaining Her Very Telling Non-Mention Of Sollecito

Posted by Peter Quennell

Knox in 2009 seeking to warm up a cold-shouldering Sollecito; see Part 4

Long Post. Click here to go straight to Comments

1. Negative Swing In Italian Public Opinion

Reports we are getting suggest that Knox herself has turned more millions against her.

Not surprising. We need to understand (as Knox “forgets”) how almost all informed Italians back in trial and appeal days developed their knowledge of the case and their takes on Knox.

It was not from a demonizing media (there actually was none, as we’ll explain in another post) or self-serving police and prosecutors (there were also none as we’ll explain).

It was in fact from LIVE TV and COURT DOCUMENTS ONLINE.

Most of the 2009 trial and 2011 and 2013 appeals were beamed to all Italy live with no simultaneous commentary. If you live in the United States, the experience was identical to C-Span.

Despite extensive training to in part make her hate Dr Mignini (really), as even described in her book, Knox still came across appallingly.

At trial (before she was remodeled) Knox was already a known junkie, and she was seen acting cuckoo in the courtroom, desperately trying to warm up Sollecito, rising to defend the display of her vibrator when just minutes before there was damning testimony she could have challenged.

She came across in July 2009 on the witness stand for two days as arrogant, callous, inconsistent, dishonest, and demonizing.

It’s hard to think of any UK or US parallel to that last one. A real disaster. It led directly to every court from then on (including the Supreme Court twice) ratifying her guilty verdict for framing Patrick, starting with a unanimous trial jury (they dont have to be unanimous in Italy so Knox persuaded none of them).

So Knox quite rightly served three years in prison, and was fined E100,000 in damages to Patrick (unpaid) for that felony. 

Who molded the narrative from the prosecution side? Nobody. The main prosecutor, Dr Mignini, was famous for saying nothing, whether surrounded by microphones or emailed for comments. But he really did not need to. The TV cameras and documents were doing a fine job without him.

Who else might gain by falsely representing Knox? Really only those mafia poodles in the Knox camp, and their massive effort was in the other direction: to sanctify her and bring Italian justice to its knees.

So what did Italy just see in Modena? Another attempt (remarkably on failed July 2009 lines) to persuade Italians not to believe their lying eyes, and instead to buy her snake-oil.

2. The Dog That Didn’t Bark

This was perhaps the most famous phrase ever uttered by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

He had nailed a murderer because of something that DIDN’T happen - a dog didn’t bark and so the dog knew the murderer. Elementary, my dear Watson.

This case is riddled with dogs-that-didnt-bark examples.

It was the core modus operandi of the scorched-earth public relations campaign run by Curt Knox and David Marriott. Ignore the damning 95 percent of the facts that can’t easily be explained away. Instead concentrate on misrepresenting the other 5 percent.

Given what we explained about live TV and documents in the first part, this would not have worked at all in Italy.

But it was never meant to. It was not beamed at Italy - it was beamed at British and Americans who (1) could not observe Knox for days and days on TV and (2) could not read court documents readily available online in Italian. Then hopefully they would react politically, as in the US they did of course.

We will be posting numerous dogs-that-didnt-bark examples. One was posted just a few days ago: Knox was not exonerated. Don’t hold your breath - you will not hear that from Knox’s lips any time soon.

Now here’s the damning new one. The dog that did not bark in Modena.

3. Sollecito’s Non-Mention In Modena

Knox’s speech was all about the tribulations of herself and Sollecito, right?

Oh, no, of course. It wasn’t. Sollecito barely got a single mention. She tiptoed past that one. Effectively he was made a non-person.  And to make sure he stayed a non-person he was not even invited. In fact he has been publicly complaining about it so Knox will presumably try damage control.

So WHY did Knox and her increasingly ghoulish enabling mother Edda really not want the looming presence of Sollecito?

We can think of three quite valid and fact-based reasons.

Reason 1. Knox’s speech makes not the slightest sense in light of the fact that Sollecito throughout was treated absolutely identically, and in the Perugia and Florence courts was awarded almost identical sentences.

Read all the daily court reports here, and all the evidence and sentencing documents on the Wiki, and you will see not a millimeter of daylight between the take on Knox and the take on Sollecito. Sollecito is not a woman? That did not matter. Sollecito is not an American? That did not matter. Sollecito behaved himself in court? That did not matter.

Sollecito is the son of a quite rich and quite powerful father with extensive political connections in Rome? No, rather amazingly, even that did not matter. 

Reason 2. Sollecito’s family is quite publicly known to be connected to the mafias, no surprise there. His uncle at the time was possibly the most powerful mafioso in the world, having shot his way to the top of the (then) huge Canadian mafia working out of Montreal.

Italian media reported on Sollecito’s trip (which he really tried to keep secret) to huddle with that uncle in the Dominican Republic - right in the middle of the Nencini appeal where his chances were looking downright negative.

Thereafter a number of things happening, including an ebullient Sollecito and Bongiorno through 2014, the mystery referral of the final appeal to the FIFTH Chambers of the Supreme Court (the minor domestic crimes chamber), and an outcome which clearly broke Italian law by among other things not referring questions of evidence back down to the Nencini court.

Does Knox really want the public spotlight to be on this? Surely not.

Reason 3. From the day he was arrested in November 2007 to March 2015 when the Fifth Chambers ended all proceedings, Sollecito pretty well always gave Knox the cold shoulder. In recent years the atmosphere between them has almost always remained fraught.

This started on the very night they were arrested, when Sollecito destroyed Knox’s latest alibi (that she was with him at home on the night) and only two days later wrote: “I never want to see Amanda again. Above all, it is her fault we are here.”

That was the firm position of himself and his family and lawyers for years: without actually confessing to the crime, that Knox had dropped him in it. Never once in all those years did Sollecito say or do anything to back up Knox’s final alibi, though she pleaded again and again that he do. In court throughout, he silently hung her out to dry. 

Once or twice they met briefly after their release, and then one or other showed some warmth, but mostly they were hammers-and-tongs at one another full-time.

Did all Italy observe this? Of course they did. The nation-wide take? Knox was the Meredith-hater, the attack instigator, and the wielder of the knife that killed Meredith, to the sustained shock of Sollecito and Guede who never signed up for this. 

Reason 3 was surely Knox’s greatest threat in going to Modena, because it so blatantly points to her guilt.

4. Instances Sollecito Brushed Knox Off

Here is the SHORT VERSION of instances of the Knox v. Sollecito blame-game.

1. The year 2007

Our emerging Interrogation Hoax series quotes multiple witnesses testifying how quickly and decisively Knox and Sollecito got off to a fast start in dropping the other in the drink. Too many posts of relevance to include all here, but see this.

From 6 November 2007 Knox and Sollecito were kept separated, and were not allowed to talk. (That continued to late 2011.) Sollecito was pretty easy to read: he had little interest in talk. A sulky silence was his norm.

1 Click for Post:  Officer Moscatelli’s Recap/Summary Session With Sollecito 5-6 No

On 6 November Sollecito’s statement to Inspectors Moscatelli and Napoleoni included this about Knox :

I know Amanda for two weeks. From the evening I first met her she started sleeping at my house.

The first of November I woke up about 11.00, I had breakfast with Amanda, then she went out and I went back to bed. I then met up with her at her house around 13.00-14.00. In there was Meredith who left in a hurry about 16.00 without saying where she was going.

Amanda and I went to the [town] centre about 18.00 but I don’t remember what we did. We remained in the centre till 20.30 or 21.00.

I went to my house alone at 21.00, while Amanda said that she was going to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet with her friends.

At this point we said goodbye. I went home, I made a joint. Had dinner, but I don’t remember what I ate. About 23.00 my father called me on my house phone line.

I recall Amanda was not back yet.

I web surfed on the computer for two more hours after my father’s phone call and I only stopped when Amanda came back in, presumably about 01.00…

In my previous statement I told a load of rubbish because Amanda had convinced me of her version of the facts and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies.

Yikes. Knox finds her best alibi yanked.

2 Click for Post:  Summarised AK And RS Signed Statements 2-5 November 2007 

Not so long after, possibly knowing about this, Knox comes out with a statement which points at Sollecito in turn.

I don’t know for sure if Raffaele was there that night [during the attack on Meredith] but I do remember very well waking up at my boyfriend’s house, in his bed, and I went back to my house in the morning where I found the door open.

3. [Source to come] Then on 8 November 2007 Sollecito submitted a statement to Judge Matteini which began:

I never want to see Amanda again. Above all, it is her fault we are here.

4. [Source to come] There were multiple further instances throughout the rest of 2007, quotes of which will be included soon in the Knox Interrogation Hoax series.

2. The Year 2008

5. [Source to come] Knox and Sollecito each appealed Judge Matteini’s ruling to the Supreme Court. Neither helped the other at all. Both appeals failed in April and they were each kept locked up.

6. Click for Post: Sollecito Turns On Knox? This Is Extraordinary”¦

In October toward the end of Guede’s trial and RS’s and AK’s remand for trial Sollecito’s DNA expert testifies to Judge Micheli that he found Knox’s DNA on Meredith’s bra and bra-clasp.

7. Click for Post:  Sollecito Family Trial: On The Component About Their Alleged Attempt At Political Interference

Francesco Sollecito phone conversation in March 2008 with Vanessa captured by the Carabinieri in which he shows his extreme distrust and dislike of Knox who he blames for RS’s plight.

3. The Year 2009

8. Click for Post  The Letters Between The Women’s And Men’s Wings In Capanne

Letters sent from Knox to Sollecito in February are published, showing an eagerness to get together, suggesting she really needs Sollecito to speak up and confirm her latest alibi.

9. Click for Post  Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

This kind of callous, flippant behavior by Knox had the entire court backed off, not least the Sollecito team which had no desire to be chained to this seeming dangerous nut.

10. Click for Post  Sollecito Not To Be Trumped By Knox Antics In The Female Wing Of Capanne

While RS and AK didnt have access to one another they sure had access to the media and in the Italian media a competitive Sollecito posted a steady stream of stories

11. Click for Post  Trial: Knox Claimed Not To Have Been At The House On The Night

Knox suddenly claims this, despite contrary 2007 claims by both Knox & Sollecito, which messes with Sollecito’s alibi that he was at home alone on the computer.

12. Click for Post  Seems Sollecito Is Feeling Really Sorry - For Himself (So What’s New?)

Sollecito tries to give himself an edge over AK by being extra-whiny about how awful he finds prison, and the distasteful little people he was being made to mix with.

4. The Year 2010

13 Click for Post  How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire

The Knox team avoided this popular Porta a Porta TV series, maybe too scared of hard questions, while the Sollecito lawyers and family used it to promote suspicion of AK and Guede.

14. Click for Post  Newsweek Report From Italy On Damage Shrill Campaign Is Doing To Knox’s Interests & America’s Image

The shrill Knox campaign was irritating Italians and so hurting Sollecito’s image and prospects and it was not shoring up his own story. Bongiorno especially disliked the campaign. 

15. Click for Post  Rocco Girlanda’s Strutting Manic Grinning Intrusion Seems A Major Danger To Sollecito/Knox Harmony

The strangely kinky Member of Parliament (now voted out) paid numerous visits to Knox (“monitoring conditions”) and tried some nasty (though ineffective) political tricks - but not for Sollecito.

16. Click for Post  The Knox Movie: Sollecito Reported Angry - Real Risk That His Defense Could Break Away From Knox’s

The Sollecito camp had a strong belief that the Knox camp was behind this TV movie and so they fought it, though it turned out quite even-handed and the RS role was minor.

5. The Year 2011

17. Click for Post  Sollecito Defense Team Breaking From Knox Defense Team On Legal Measures To Stop Lifetime Movie

Further differences reported here between the two camps on the Lifetime movie which until it was aired was believed to favor Knox and build a case for her innocence.

18. Click for Post  Tenth Appeal Court Session: Might Today’s Testimony Give Sollecito More Of An Advantage Than Knox?

After his team’s (attempted) discounting of the main evidence at Meredith’s house against Sollecito, Knox’s position looks way worse, as she has motives both for killing and cover-up.

19. Click for Post  Is The Raffaele Sollecito Defense Team About To Separate Him From A Radioactive Amanda Knox?

Final days. Sollecito has at least five advantages over Knox. Better lead lawyer, better family in Italian eyes with smarter campaign, not much physical evidence at the house, no obvious motive unlike Knox, and a weak and washy personality Bongiorno plays up.

6. The Year 2012

20. Click for Post  In Desperation A Council Of War? All Of The Sollecito Family Suddenly Hop On Flights To Seattle

Sollecito is the one now in puppy-dog mode, though his father has said publicly that the relationship with Knox is at an end; here the RS family sets out for Seattle to try to make it so. 

21. Click for Post  Sollecito’s Book Honor Bound Hits Italy And Already Scathing Reactions And Legal Trouble

Sollecito’s book, which subtly promotes Knox’s guilt, runs into legal trouble for false claims, which could also impact Knox’s claims and legal future. His seeming sticking with Knox damages Bongiorno’s defense strategy.

22. Click for Post  Will Sollecito Drop Amanda Knox In It Further In A Public Seattle Interview At 7:00 PM Tonight?

Sollecito’s American book promotion tour often went badly and he seemed unaware of what was in his own book; though once again he was making out Knox was guiltier. His defense team despise the book.

7. The Year 2013

23. Click for Post  Knox & Sollecito Meet - To Attempt To Bury The Hatchet Other Than In Each Other?

The second public Sollecito attempt to end up with Knox, who already had chips on her shoulders about him but went through this charade. Soon, they were back to whacking one another.

24. Click for Post  Seeds Of Betrayal: Sollecito Twice More Implies Evidence Against Knox Much Stronger Than Against Him

Sollecito sustains this steady drum-beat of putting Knox down, highlighting the evidence against her, repeatedly saying he stuck with her despite no evidence against him (no deal helping RS was ever offered).

25. Click for Post  Seeds Of Betrayal: In Interview Knox Reveals To Italy Her Considerable Irritation With Sollecito

Knox does an extended interview with Oggi (for which she and Oggi are being charged) lying about officials and the evidence, but also uttering her angriest blast yet against Sollecito.

8. The Year 2014

26. Click for Post  Rejected Yet Again By Knox, Sollecito Seems Frantic To Avoid What Might Be A Final Return To Italy

Sollecito (like Sforza) was desperately looking for someone to marry him, to keep him in the US. Kelsey Kay was briefly interested, but he dumped her; he had told her Knox had recently turned him down.

27. Click for Post  What We Might Read Into Sollecito Lawyer Giulia Bongiornos Final Arguments To The Appeal Judges

Bongiorno shows contempt for Knox; she effectively conveys the sense of the RS family that a crazed Knox dragged RS into this. She see the RS book as a pro-Knox con job by her team.

28. Click for Post  As Knox & Sollecito Try To Separate Themselves, Each Is Digging The Other In Deeper

Sollecito is clearly trying to distance himself from Knox now, claiming that there is far more evidence against her than against him. Knox’s irritation with him is growing.

29. Click for Post  Sollecito Suddenly Remembers He Wasnt There But Cannot Speak For Knox Who (As She Said) Went Out

Members of Sollecito’s family are believed to be taking their anger at Knox to Twitter and making numerous taunts while emphasizing how they believe Sollecito was dropped in it by Knox and is less to blame.

30. Click for Post  Spitting In the Wind: Sollecito News Conference Backfires On Him AND Knox - What The Media Missed

Really irritated at the US-written RS book, Bongiorno goes a long way to separating the two perps in the minds of Italians; however RS hedges a little though, after having said the evidence points only to Knox.

Saturday, June 15, 2019

The World Isnt Short Of Suckers - Lupária, Sola & Cagossi Present “The Traveling Innocence Gang Show”

Posted by KrissyG

“Pssst! Turn it all on, we are being paid to put on a good show”

1. The Moneygrubbing Gang Arrives

See that headline above? The Modena Organizers were so short of imprisoned Italian innocents, they had to import a few

They all make big bucks out of this kind of event, each misconstruing their case. Read here how the moneygrubbing works, and how many get to gain.

At the Milan airport Thursday, press photos revealed Knox making a great show of bowing her head and looking fragile. “I feel frayed” she wrote, on social media, with boyfriend Christopher Robinson looking on from behind. Mom Edda was also there but wasnt featured in news reports.

Once again, the world got a glimpse of Amanda Knox the consummate actress who can never resist hamming it up, a manipulator of gestures and body language to convey drama.

Remember her clutching her chest, cross-armed, in a gesture of faux gratitude when news came her conviction had been annulled, for the benefit of the photographers on her doorstep? 

Or the time she pressed her hands together in front of her as a gesture of humble thanks at the conference in Seattle when she was released in 2011 by Judge Hellman (an appeal verdict which was shortly to be overturned)? 

Was there really anything humble about it, when just hours earlier as she changed at Heathrow, she was seen laughing happily and defiantly? 

Or the most famous occasion of all, when she gesticulated wildly and dramatically from the dock, as she made her final submissions to the court after her 2009 trial enunciating each word in Italian?  She was convicted, anyway.

Even earlier than that she was pictured outside the cottage on the day after the murder waving her hands about as a gaggle of reporters eagerly leant forward to discover what had happened.  She wore a pristine white skirt.

So we get it, image is all to Amanda Knox and this visit to Modena is no exception.

Newspapers reports Friday said she appeared to be visibly emotional, wiping away a tear, as old friend Peter Pringle gave his “testimony” of his time on “Death Row for 14 years” and an Italian innocence claimer.

Also Angelo Massaro, little known in the English-speaking world, described by the Italian news agency ANSA as “a Tarantino acquitted - and released from prison - after a conviction for murder”. So presumably he is not “exonerated”, either? Just released. 

(ANSA has to be restrained how it chooses its words in its home country, as a reputable good quality news agency on a par with Reuters or AP.)

So, once again, attention was on Knox, who knows how to play the press.  Good show by Amanda wiping away a dry tear.

2. The Pringle Connection Explained

As part of her “Innocence” campaign, you may recall Knox travelled early last year, February 2018, to the Republic of Ireland to appear in the Raymond D’Arcy Show.

Her connection to Ireland stemmed from her earlier connection to “innocence” campaigners Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs.

Surprise, surprise, the link continues now.

Peter Pringle pops up in Modena for the very same “Justice Festival”.  (Festival?  What IS it they are celebrating exactly?)

A brief history of their past:
 
(1) Knox appeared on US TV with Irish ex-murder defendant and ex-death row wife

Knox appeared on US TV with controversial ex-death row defendants, Peter Pringle, who was once jailed in Ireland for the alleged murder of two Irish police officers, after a bungled robbery by a political gang, and Sunny Jacobs, once on death row in the USA for supplying a gun to a man who then shot dead a two young policemen.

Pringle is Dublin born and spent 17 years in prison, the death penalty having been stayed by an Act of Irish parliament since 1954, for the murder of two young policemen after a botched robbery in Roscommon. He has always claimed innocence of the crime.

They were both acquitted - in Sunny’s case, without any certificate of exoneration - and now, like Knox tour the country and fundraise for “Innocence Projects” claiming ‘wrongful conviction’.

(2) Amanda Knox appeared with Sunny Jacobs and William Pringle on K5News channel in May 2017.

Knox shared a sofa with the pair expressing solidarity.  Knox said that she and Sunny were “women together” fighting injustice.

However, there is still much controversy in the Irish Republic as to Pringle’s innocence and emotions run high, as five young children lost their fathers in the murder of the police officers in 1980.

In addition, some say Jacobs was freed from death row for compassionate reasons, not because she was innocent, as she now claims.

(3) Knox’s appearance on Irish TV was controversial

William Pringle lived in the USA for many years after his release, and has in 2016 settled in Connemara in Ireland,

Because of Knox’s connection, the interview was bound to cause a lot of media interest, as it did when she sang a round of an IRA rebel song to a stunned D’Arcy, who was not impressed.

Many in the UK and the mainland of Ireland are not convinced by Knox’s claim to have been “exonerated”.

It could well be that Knox was invited to Ireland via contacts William Pringle and Sunny Jacobs.

Sunny Jacobs is now 70. Her husband, Jesse Tafero was executed at age 43. Sunny Jacobs is alleged to have supplied the gun by which he shot dead two police officers from their car, in Florida.

Both were condemned to the electric chair.

The robbery for which Pringle was jailed, which led to the killing of the police officers in Roscommon, was allegedly connected to the INLA, an Irish “liberation” terrorist group of the day.

So there has been hostility towards Pringle resettling in Ireland.

Pringle made a new bid for compensation from Ireland in January 2018.  The judge “reserved” the judgment and we have heard nothing more since. So presumably his application has failed.

Peter, Sunny and Amanda certainly seem to have the “Innocence Gang Tour” sewn up, as they make their way from country after country.  Dabbing an eye and giving their moving “testimonies” and moneygrubbing away.

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Hoax: To Modena’s La Pressa Innocence Project - Knox NOT An “Exoneree”

Posted by Machiavelli

1. Knox Definitely Not Exonerated By Cassazione

Knox again and again claims “exoneration” and blames the media for getting it wrong.

But few in the US and UK realise the final written Supreme Court judgment left a huge black cloud over her head.

Duped organizer Professor Luparia claims to reporters to have read the entire report - and that Knox came out fine.

Untrue. In fact, Luparia lies. Knox rightly served three years. And even Cassazione’s Fifth Chambers managed to get in many digs against Knox.

Commendably Modena’s paper “La Pressa” has today tried to at least set some Italians right.

We have translated in full their excellent report.

La Pressa, Modena

Knox returns as ‘heroine’ to Italy

But here’s what the Marasca/Bruno motivation report says

Date: 12 June 2019 - 22:38 / Category: La Nera

Author: Editorial La Pressa

This is the first time Amanda Knox returns to Italy after acquittal of murder for lack of evidence.

We are reporting here very controversial but not widely known passages of the 2015 Cassazione sentence

Tomorrow the long-awaited Criminal Justice Festival begins in Modena. A festival promoted by the Criminal Chamber of Modena together with the Italy Innocence Project and which has had national and international importance for the Saturday presence of Amanda Knox who will address the topic of the ‘Media And Criminal Trials’ together with the lawyer Guido Sola, Raffaella Calandra, Andrea Mascherin, Vinicio Nardo and Martina Cogossi.

This is the first time after 8 years that Amanda Knox returns to Italy after being acquitted in 2015 for the murder of Meredith Kercher with the sentence of the Fifth Criminal Chambers of Cassation signed by the Court president Gennaro Marasca and by the rapporteur Paolo Antonio Bruno. With that declaration the sentences of Raffaele Sollecito and Knox were canceled without referral [back down to Florence, the correct legal path], absolving them for not having committed the crime due to a lack of certain evidence and the presence of numerous errors in the investigations.

As an acquittal sentence that closed the case, so, on the eve of Knox’s return to Italy, we wanted to reread in its entirety and it deserves to be included in the conversation,  however controversial the 52 pages of motivation are. Here are seven passages that we want to reproduce in full with the original pages of the sentence, perhaps never published in its entirety before.

1. It is an established fact, in the [2010] trial motivation report, that Knox was in Meredith’s home at the time of the murder.

9.4.1 Given this, we now note, with respect to Amanda Knox, that her presence inside the house, the location of the murder, is a proven fact in the trial, in accord with her own admissions, also contained in the memoriale with her signature, in the part where she tells that, as she was in the kitchen, while the young English woman had retired inside the room of same Ms. Kercher together with another person for a sexual intercourse, she heard a harrowing scream from her friend, so piercing and unbearable that she let herself down squatting on the floor, covering her ears tight with her hands in order not to hear more of it. About this, the judgment of reliability expressed by the lower [a quo] judge [Nencini, ed.] with reference to this part of the suspect’s narrative, [and] about the plausible implication from the fact herself was the first person mentioning for the first time a possible sexual motive for the murder,

2. Knox was present, because she was aware of details of the murder that the police did not yet know, and she was also aware of the non-presence of Lumumba.

[continues] a possible sexual motive for the murder, at the time when the detectives still did not have the results from the cadaver examination, nor the autopsy report, nor the witnesses’ information, which was collected only subsequently, about the victim’s terrible scream and about the time when it was heard (witnesses Nara Capezzali, Antonella Monacchia and others), is certainly to be subscribed to. We make reference in particular to those declarations that the current appellant [Knox] produced on 11. 6. 2007 (p.96) inside the State Police headquarters. On the other hand, in the slanderous declarations against Lumumba, which earned her a conviction, the status of which is now protected as final judgement [giudicato], [they] had themselves exactly that premise in the narrative, that is: the presence of the young American woman inside the house in via della Pergola, a circumstance which nobody at that time – except obviously the other people present inside the house – could have known (quote p. 96). 

According to the slanderous statements of Ms. Knox, she had returned home in the company of Lumumba, who she had met by chance in Piazza Grimana, and when Ms. Kercher arrived in the house, Knox’s companion directed sexual attentions toward the young English woman, then he went together with her in her room, from which the harrowing scream came. So, it was Lumumba who killed Meredith and she could affirm this since she was on the scene of crime herself, albeit in another room. 

Another element against her is the mixed DNA traces, her and the victim’s one, in the “small bathroom”, an eloquent proof that anyway she had come into contact with the blood of the latter, which she tried to wash away from herself (it was, it seems, diluted blood, while the biological traces belonging to her would be the consequence of epithelial rubbing). 

The fact is very suspicious, but it’s not decisive, besides the known considerations about the sure nature and attribution of the traces in question. 

Nonetheless, even if we deem the attribution certain, the trial element would not be unequivocal, since it may show also a posthumous touching of that blood, during the probable attempt of removing the most visible traces of what had happened, maybe to help cover up for someone or to steer away suspicion from herself, but not contributing to full certainty about her direct involvement in the murderous action. Any further and more pertaining interpretation in fact would be anyway resisted by the circumstance – this is decisive indeed – that no trace linkable to her was found on the scene of crime or on the victim’s body, so it follows – if we concede everything – that her contact with the victim’s blood happened in a subsequent moment and in another room of the house. 

Another element against her is certainly constituted by the false accusations [calunnia] against Mr. Lumumba, afore-mentioned above. 

It is not understandable, in fact, what reason could have driven the young woman to produce such serious accusations. The theory that she did so in order to escape psychological pressure from detectives seems extremely fragile, given that the woman…

3. In the [2010] trial motivation it is ‘incontrovertible’ that other people participated in the murder besides Guede (we recollect the condemned man with the abbreviated trial route). And this derives not only from the final judgment on Guede but from ‘other evidence that confirms its reliability’.

Based on such provision “(…) the verdicts [p. 26] that have become irrevocable can be accepted [acquired] by courts as pieces of evidence of facts that were ascertained within them and evaluated based on articles 187 and 192 par 3”. 

Well, so the “fact” that was ascertained within that verdict, indisputably, is Guede’s participation in the murder “concurring with other people, who remain unknown”. The invoking of the procedural norms indicated means that the usability of such fact-finding is subordinate to [depends on] the double conditions [possibility] to reconcile such fact within the scope of the “object of proof” which is relevant to the current judgement, and on the existence of further pieces of evidence to confirm its reliability. 

Such double verification, in the current case, has an abundantly positive outcome. In fact it is manifestly evident that such fact, which was ascertained elsewhere [aliunde], relates to the object of cognition of the current judgement. The [court’s] assessment of it, in accord with other trial findings which are valuable to confirm its reliability, is equally correct. We refer to the multiple elements, linked to the overall reconstruction of events, which rule out that Guede could have acted alone. Firstly, testifying in this direction are the two main wounds (actually three) observed on the victim’s neck, on each side, with a diversified path and features, attributable most likely (even if the data is contested by the defense) to two different cutting weapons. And also, the lack of signs of resistance by the young woman, since no traces of the assailant were found under her nails, and there is no evidence elsewhere [aliunde] of any desperate attempt to oppose the aggressor; the bruises on her upper limbs and those on mandibular area and lips (likely the result of forcible hand action of constraint meant to keep the victim’s mouth shut) found during the cadaver examination, and above all, the appalling modalities of the murder, which were not adequately pointed out in the appealed ruling. 

And in fact, the same ruling (p. 323 and 325) reports of abundant blood spatters found on the right door of the wardrobe located inside Kercher’s room, about 50 cm above the floor. Such occurrence, given the location and direction of the drops, could probably lead to the conclusion that the young woman had her throat literally “slashed” likely as she was kneeling, while her head was being forcibly held [hold] tilted towards the floor, at a close distance from the wardrobe, when she was hit by multiple stab wounds at her neck, one of which – the one inflicted on the left side of her neck – caused her death, due to asphyxia following [to] the massive bleeding, which also filled the breathing ways preventing breathing activity, a situation aggravated by the rupture of the hyoid bone – this also linkable to the blade action – with consequent dyspnoea” (p. 48).

Such a mechanical action is hardly attributable to the conduct of one person alone.

On the other hand such factual finding, when adequately valued, could have been not devoid of meaning as for researching the motive, given that [27] the extreme violence of the criminal action could have been seen…

The motivation certifies that the alleged burglary in the home is in fact a “staging”.  It should therefore be noted that these are judicial truths present in the motivations of the final sentence of acquittal: that is, the fact that Knox was certainly present and that Meredith was physically killed by other people besides Guede.

4. The sentence certifies that Knox has washed her hands of the victim’s blood, which is called an “eloquent proof”; for this reason the Court envisages only two possibilities: either Knox was directly involved in the homicidal action, or the contact with the blood occurred at a later time in the ‘probable attempt to remove the traces’ in order to ‘cover someone’ and “Remove suspicion from oneself”. The Fifth Section says this.

And moreover, the staging of a theft in Romanelli’s room, which she is accused of, is also a relevant point within an incriminating picture, considering the elements of strong suspicion (location of glass shards – apparently resulting from the breaking of a glass window pane caused by the throwing of a rock from the outside – on top of, but also under clothes and furniture), a staging, which can be linked to someone who – as an author of the murder and a flatmate [titolare] with a formal [“qualified”] connection to the dwelling – had an interest to steer suspicion away from himself/herself, while a third murderer in contrast would be motivated by a very different urge after the killing, that is to leave the apartment as quickly as possible. But also this element is substantially ambiguous, especially if we consider the fact that when the postal police arrived – they arrived in Via della Pergola for another reason: to search for Ms. Romanelli, the owner of the telephone SIM card found inside one of the phones retrieved in via Sperandio – the current appellants themselves, Sollecito specifically, were the ones who pointed out the anomalous situation to the officers, as nothing appeared to be stolen from Ms. Romanelli’s room.

5. The motivation certifies that Knox washed her hands of the victim’s blood, which is called an “eloquent proof”; for this reason the Court envisages only two possibilities: either Knox was directly involved in the homicidal action, or the contact with the blood occurred at a later time in the ‘probable attempt to remove the traces’ in order to ‘cover someone’ and “remove suspicion from oneself”. The Fifth Section says this.

Another element against her is the mixed DNA traces, her and the victim’s one, in the “small bathroom”, an eloquent proof that anyway she had come into contact with the blood of the latter, which she tried to wash away from herself (it was, it seems, diluted blood, while the biological traces belonging to her would be the consequence of epithelial rubbing). The fact is very suspicious, but it’s not decisive, besides the known considerations about the sure nature and attribution of the traces in question. Nonetheless, even if we deem the attribution certain, the trial element would not be unequivocal, since it may show also a posthumous touching of that blood, during the probable attempt of removing the most visible traces of what had happened, maybe to help cover up for someone or to steer away suspicion from herself, but not contributing to full certainty about her direct involvement in the murderous action. Any further and more pertaining interpretation in fact would be anyway resisted by the circumstance – this is decisive indeed – that no trace linkable to her was found on the scene of crime or on the victim’s body, so it follows – if we concede everything – that her contact with the victim’s blood happened in a subsequent moment and in another room of the house.

6. During the interrogation [it wasnt but however] of 6 November 2007 to Knox, who did not speak Italian well, an interpreter or lawyer was not made present. This is why in January of this year the Court of Strasbourg (ECHR) condemned Italy to compensate her. [Italy has appealed.] Well, stated in the 2015 motivation report is that a possible ruling in favor of Knox by the European Court could not ‘in any way tarnish’ Knox’s conviction of guilt for criminal slander for her false accusations against Lumumba.

And also, a possible decision of the European Court in favor of Ms. Knox, in the sense of a desired recognition of non-orthodox treatment of her by investigators, could not in any way affect the final verdict, not even in the event of a possible review of the verdict, considering the slanderous accusations that the accused produced against Lumumba consequent to the asserted coercions, and confirmed by her before the Public Prosecutor during the subsequent session, in a context which, institutionally, is immune from anomalous psychological pressures; and also confirmed in her memoriale, at a moment when the same accuser was alone with herself and her conscience in conditions of objective peacefulness, sheltered from environmental influence; and were even restated, after some time, during the validation of the arrest of Lumumba, before the investigating judge in charge.

7. The motivation report defines as ‘simply not credible’ the idea that Sollecito was not also present. As mentioned, the presence of Knox is quite certain.

9.4.2 Also the evidential picture about Mr. Sollecito, emerging from the impugned verdict, appears marked by intrinsic and irreducible contradictions.

His presence on the murder scene, and specifically inside the room where the murder was committed, is linked to only the biological trace found on the bra fastener hook (item 165/b), the attribution of which, however, cannot have any certainty, since such trace is insusceptible of a second amplification, given its scarce amount, for that it is – as we said – an element lacking of circumstantial evidentiary value.

It remains anyway strong the suspicion that he was actually in the Via della Pergola house the night of the murder, in a moment that, however, it was impossible to determine.

On the other hand, since the presence of Ms. Knox inside the house is sure, it is hardly credible that he was not with her.

And even following one of the versions released by the woman, that is the one in accord to which, returning home in the morning of November 2. after a night spent at her boyfriend’s place, she reports of having immediately noticed that something strange had happened (open door, blood traces everywhere); or even the other one, that she reports in her memorial, in accord to which she was present in the house at the time of the murder, but in a different room, not the one in which the violent aggression on Ms. Kercher was being committed, it is very strange that she did not call her boyfriend, since there is no record about a phone call from her, based on the phone records within the file.

Duped Organizer and Modena lawyer Guido Sola

2. How Were Lupária, Sola, And Cagossi Duped?

In addition to obviously not reading the final ruling, consider these many red flags they ignored.

1. Knox’s disastrous 2009 stint on the stand

Click for Post:  Italy Shrugs: Why Amanda Knox’s Testimony Seems To Have Been A Real Flop

She had repeatedly failed opportunties made available to free her in the 20 months before that.

2. Knox is a felon for life

Knox emerged from court in 2009 with a criminal-libel prison sentence that eventually amounted to three years.

NOT ONE COURT ever believed she was forced to finger Patrick - and by the way, she did NOT confess, she blamed another, so the ECHR was wrong (and Italy is appealing Knox’s award) it was not a “must” she have a lawyer.

3. Massive evidence ignored

The real case against Knox was enormous as the dummies should have found out. Watch this.

Click for Post:  Why The Totality of Evidence Suggests Knox And Sollecito Are Guilty Just As Charged

4. Knox serially defames Italy

There’s probably nobody alive in the whole world who has done Italy’s image more harm. She works at it full-time.

Thus American tourism has dropped and American exchange students have dropped more.  Addicted to stalking and blood-money, Knox has worked to make everybody scared. Encouraging her act comes at a real cost.

Google “amanda knox” and “kangaroo court” and see what shows up. Try “amanda knox” and anything “medieval” or “third world” and you will get some hits.

Click for Post:  Amanda Knox Case Prompts U.S. Students To Shy Away From Italian Study Abroad Programs

5. Other lawlessness by US students

There’s much evidence they could have found that Americans, not Italians, were at fault.

In fact American universities took a wave of actions in light of this case - to protect themselves from lawsuits and make their exchange students behave.

Click for Post:  In Perugia Why Some Students Tend To Run Wild

Click for Post:  Report Students Studying Abroad on Average Double Or Triple Their Alcoholic Intake

Click for Post:  Could One Good Outcome Of This Sad Case Be That Italy Sees Less Foreign Student Druggies?

Click for Post:  An Excellent Report By Andrea Vogt On The University Of Washington Reforms

Monday, June 10, 2019

Demonizations By Knox: Trashing Of Many Fine Italians - But Only In English

Posted by Our Main Posters

The IP director, mafia poodle Luca Luparia, obviously did no due diligence.

1. Why Italians Dont Know The Real Barbaric Knox

Amanda Knox is surely one of the most dangerous demonizers and prolific liars on the planet.

On a daily basis she puts others down and elevates herself up. Stirring bigotry is her whole career now. She is making big blood-money bucks out of damaging others.

This is how the virulent million-dollar Knox public relations campaign labored mightily to stop Italy and Italians from ever finding out what the addled and bribed US and UK media were saying about them day-to-day.

Click for Post:  How The Strongarm Public Relations Resulted in Most Of The Media Getting It Wrong

Click for Post:  “Million Dollar Campaign” To Try To Influence The Jury Is Being Widely Reported To A Startled Italy

Click for Post:  Knox Public Relations Manager Starts Premature Crowing Years Before Legal Process Ends

Click for Post:  Tomorrow Could See The Beginning Of The End Of The Rampaging “Public Relations” Campaign

Much of the virulent Knox PR output could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

2. Knox’s Massive Demonization Rampage

Knox’s English-only book (read it here in Italian now) contained AT LEAST 500 LIES as our indomitable legal reseacher Chimera highlighted here.

Knox never, never, never admits that she rightly served three years for accusing her kindly boss of murder. And in continued defiance of the Italian Supreme Court, Knox refuses to pay Patrick the E100,000 awarded for destroying his life.

But Knox very freely accuses others of terrible behavior and actual crimes.

In Knox’s book she accuses Sollecito, her defense lawyers, her flatmates, police officers and analysts, witnesses, prosecutors, judges, prison staff, on and on. Examples here:

(1) “Mayor” Prosecutor Mignini—framed her, (2) Prosecutor Comodi—framed her, (3) Officer Ficarra—abuser, hitter, (4) Officer Napoleoni—accused of perjury, (5) Interpreter Donnino—duplicitous double agent, (6) Court interpreter—useless, (7) Officer Chiacicelli—framed her via the knife he found, (8) DNA analyst Stefanoni—accused of withholding data, and incompetence, (9) Other CSI people (though not Guede evidence), (10) Dozen of unnamed police Nov 6, (11) defense lawyers Dalla Vedova and Ghirga—alleges they ignored complaints, (12) Witness neighbor Nina—who heard screams, (13) Witness Quintavalle—lying shop owner, (14) Witness Curatolo—lying drug addict, (15) Judge Matteini—jumping to conclusions, (16) Employer Patrick—kind of deserved what happened to him, (17) Prison guards—sexual harassment (Agiro is the only one named), (18) Prison medical staff—commit sexual assault and leak private information, (19) Flatmate Filomena—drug use at home, (20) Flatmate Laura R—drug use at home, (21) Judge Micheli—incompetent pre-trial judge who runs a “farce” of a court, (22) Judge Massei and his panel—idiot trial jury, (23) Witness Kokomani—deranged drug dealer, (24) Spiderman Guede—committed attack alone, (25) Co-defendant Sollecito—the doofus boyfriend, (26) Postal Police—clueless and incompetent, (27) Reporters, in fact virtually everyone in the media, (28) Lawyer Biscotti—Guede lawyer an opportunist, (29) Kercher family—cold and unforgiving, and whatever else, (30) Officer Battistelli, framed her, (31) Officer Finzi, framed her, (32) Officer Profazio, framed her, (33) Donald Trump, wrong politics.

Most of these could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

3. How Knox Falsely Accuses Italian Officials Of Crimes

In early days Dr Mignini went to great lengths to give Knox a break as he believed she was mental or on a cocaine high.

Inventing a crime he could have been fired for or imprisoned was Knox’s way of paying him back

Click for Post:  How Amanda Knox Falsely Accused Dr Mignini Of A Felony

Prison staff treated Knox very well. Accusing them of crimes is how she and her team paid them back. 

Click for Post:  Serious Felony Charge Of Deliberate HIV Leak Was In Fact A Knox Defense-Team Hoax

And Knox lied on a grand scale to the Nencini appeal court, accusing the police who were actually very kind of TORTURING her.

Click for Post:  Demonizations By Knox: Multiple Ways In Which Her Email To Judge Nencini Is Misleading

These and many others could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

4. Examples Of The UK And US Media Facilitating Knox

Click for Post:  Slanted Associated Press Parroting Of Knox PR Campaign Release Achieves Over 800 Google Hits

Click for Post:  Inaccurate Report By The Associated Press Carried By Over 2,000 Media Sites

Click for Post:  Another Highly Misleading Associated Press Report By Colleen Barry Appears on 700 Media Websites

Click for Post:  Demonizations By Knox: OGGI Charged For Article Conveying False Claims To Italy

Click for Post:  Demonizations By Knox: How A Mismanaged VICE Media Failed To Check Out The Facts

Click for Post:  Obstruction Of Justice? How The Guardian Poisons Public Opinion Against The Italian Courts

Click for Post:  Knox’s War Of Aggression Against Italy: Questions For Media To Nail Her Once And For All

These and many others could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

5. A Couple Of The Too-Few Objections From Italy

Click for Post:  Million Dollar Campaign And American Media Come Under Intense Ridicule By An Influential Italian

Click for Post:  It Seems Italy’s Anger Only Grows: Read La Nazione’s Editorial Today

Note for Modena readers: more to come

Thursday, June 06, 2019

Un preavviso per i partecipanti al progetto di Innocenza Italia

Posted by Our Main Posters

Siate consapevoli che la Knox

(1) fa danni immensi infiammando il bigottismo contro l’Italia,

(2) è condannata per reato di calunnia criminale, giustamente incarcerato 3 anni,

(3) non è stata esonerata dalla Cassazione per omicidio,

(4) ha mentita su larga scala ai media , che si è rigirata per lei,

(5) può essere arrestata per oltraggio alla Cassazione poiché non sono ancora stati pagati 10000 danni a Lumumba.

Tuesday, June 04, 2019

The Italian Venue (Really) Where Knox Will Feature On A Media Panel Next Week

Posted by Peter Quennell

Really? Here? Behind those garbage skips?!

We had to laugh. This really is the main entrance to the Open Laboratory space in Modena which that northern city now makes available for happening events.

The image below shows the main interior. It looks rather prison-like, to us appropriately so.

Here is the program in Italian for the first-ever conference of the Innocence Project’s Italian arm.

Knox’s media panel is shown as being next saturday there. 

As there are no known innocents in Italian prisons, given how careful the justice process is, importing Knox was apparently the best they could do to get anyone to come.

We’ve held back posting on this up to now, as we really do want to see how Knox is received there.

But expect some posts intended to open Italian eyes to Knox in the next several days.

No word yet on whether Sollecito will be there.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Pyrrhic Victory For Knox #3: Italy Now Challenges Knox’s “No Lawyer” ECHR Award (Continued)

Posted by KrissyG

Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos, from 1 April the ECHR’s chief judge

Added June 2019: Another panel of ECHR judges has just reviewed Italy’s appeal but balked at send the minor matter to the Grande Council of all ECHR judges (which is actually reserved for cases with greater import: less than 10% of requests make it up there). So Italy gave in amicably. The Ministry’s lawyers could see how confused and misinformed the judges had become, still thinking Knox had incriminated herself and not Patrick. In sharp contrast, Dalla Vedova was a sore winner. He showed anger in front of the press having lost face in being denied the now-public E2.5 million demand. He again claimed Knox was interrogated for 54 hours, with no interpreter, blah blah. Ghirga, a real criminal lawyer, must be laughing.

Legal Context Of Italy’s Appeal

This report picks up where yesterday’s analysis concluded.

The Italian government has lodged an appeal against the ECHR ruling in January 2019 upholding that Amanda Knox’ right to a fair trial (Article 6 of the Human Rights Convention) had been breached, in that the translator had not been impartial, and that as a suspect (was she?) Knox should have been given a lawyer earlier than she had.

This update is translated from the Perugia newspaper UMBRIA 24

The ruling by which the European Court of Human Rights has argued that Italy has violated Amanda Knox’s right of defense during the investigation of the murder of Meredith Kercher is being contested before the Grande Chambre in Strasbourg.

The decision by which last January Italy had been advised to pay 10,400 euros for moral damages to the American student, definitively acquitted by the accusation of murdering her English roommate on November 1, 2017 in Via della Pergola in Perugia, is was challenged by the Italian government.

La Grande Chambre, which represents a sort of Cassation of the European Court, is composed of 17 judges. In the recent past, Silvio Berlusconi has also passed through the Grande Chambre, bringing to the judges’ attention a question concerning its reliability.

Last January, the Court recognized Italy’s violation of Knox’s right to defense during the November 6, 2007 interrogation, and also evidence confirming complaints about police during the same interrogation . Amanda had asked for two and a half million euros.

In yesterday’s post I summarized from my point of view the findings of the ECHR in the original deliberations and how they may be challenged.

Summary:  The main issues revolve around the question of admissibility.  I have identified two or three possible grounds of appeal on points of law.  They are:

• Italy submitted that date-wise, the application by Knox had been submitted too early as the hearings had not yet been finalized.  ECHR rejects this saying that the hearings finalized very shortly after.  As far as I can see, this is not so.

• The ECHR relies on comments by Hellmann Appeal Court, which was largely superseded and outranked by Chieffi Supreme Court, to argue factors of free will.

• The ECHR relies heavily on police minutes and the fact interpreter Donnino and a police office, RI, fail to record details of their expressions of familiarity with Knox, or make a note that (i) Knox was asked if she wanted a lawyer and declined, (ii) that start and end times are not recorded, and that (iii) hours are condensed into minutes. Is it an error of law to assume these police minutes represented a failure of procedure?

That’s not to say that these are the grounds Italy have set out. We don’t know those yet.

The rules for such an appeal are set out under Article 43 which states the following:

ARTICLE 43

Referral to the Grand Chamber

1. Within a period of three months from the date of the judgment of the Chamber, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber.

2. A panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber shall accept the request if the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or a serious issue of general importance.

3. If the panel accepts the request, the Grand Chamber shall decide the case by means of a judgment.

From another newspaper citing the ECHR in Strasburg:

STRASBOURG (France) - The Government has challenged in front of the Grand Chamber the decision with which the European Court in Strasbourg claimed that Italy violated Amanda Knox’s right to defense in the investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher, carried out at Perugia the evening of 1 November 2007, for which she has already been definitively acquitted by the Italian justice. The action - as learned by ANSA - was notified to the American’s lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga.

The Grand Chamber is a sort of Cassation of the European Court. “This - the lawyer Dalla Vedova explained - is a judge only of legitimacy. The Grand Chamber {Panel} will now have to rule on the admissibility of the Government’s request to transmit the case to be decided {by the Grand Chamber} of the European Court. Decision on the request has reserved. The request will move to discussion {by the Grand Chamber Panel}.”

It has to said that it is relatively rare for a case to be referred back to the Grand Chamber after the appeal is assessed for permissibility.  ECHR is predicated on case law, so I would expect Italy will be demonstrating an error of interpretation based on a previous case or cases. 

Case law generally refers to cases that have set a legal precedence.  For example, Salduz, which was to do with the rights of a person suspected of terrorist acts.

Yesterday I argued (1) that the original ECHR claim by Knox was ‘out of time’ – in this case presented too early - as internal procedure had not been exhausted - and (2) there was a too-heavy reliance on Hellmann (First Appeal Court) and Boninsegna (Knox’s second calunnia case) instead of the First Chambers of the Supreme Court (Chieffi) which overrode the Hellmann appeal.

In Judge Chieffi’s rationale Hellmann’s reasoning was largely struck down, and came in for stern criticism by Chieffi.

In effect, Dalla Vedova for his client, Knox, had resuscitated the appeal lodged with Hellmann although Judge Chieffi’s was the Res Judicata verdict. 

A principle in law is that you cannot have your case heard twice unless a higher court directs it back to the lower court.

It should be kept in mind that a referral to the ECHR Grand Chamber is statistically remote as the issue of admissibility has to be surmounted first.

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Pyrrhic Victory For Knox #2: Italy Challenges Knox’s “No Lawyer” ECHR Award

Posted by Peter Quennell

Dr Alfonso Bonafede the Italian Minister of Justice

The Breaking News

There should be more to come. This is what we know so far. Knox’s suggested award last February was simply for questions having been asked of Knox when her lawyer was not there.

But the ECHR was in fact parroting two corrupted courts (Hellman and Boninsegna) and so very clearly did not understand what other courts including the Supreme Court had already definitively found: (1) Knox specifically refused a lawyer several times; and (2) Once Knox falsely fingered Patrick no questions were asked.

The Italian Justice Ministry has just announced it is refusing for now to make the ECHR’s suggested award, and will soon be making (1) and (2) clear to the Strasbourg Court.

ECHR Strasbourg had already handed Knox numerous setbacks, in not accepting various grounds of her “appeal” although her team tried to paint the tiny suggested lawyer-related award as a win.

Knox’s biggest setback was that ECHR went along, not with her, but with the Supreme Court in refusing to find that Knox had been tortured and abused. That forever-repeated and defamatory false claim is STILL at the very heart of Knox’s book, paid presentations, and TV appearances and magazine interviews. Knox is again threatening to return to Italy to yet again repeat her defamatory claims. She might find some legal action awaiting her.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

If You Are Going To Offshore A Fraud, Maybe It’d Be Smart To Not Pick Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Scarlet curve BT stock, purple curve Dow stockmarket index

When BREXIT Arrives…

The UK is going to need a few world-beating companies. Relentless prods by Italy suggest British Telecom is not one of them.

Back in the day, BT was perhaps the world’s most revered national telephone provider. It fielded teams to numerous developing countries to help with the planning and training needed to develop their national infrastructures.

BT was privatized by the British government in the mid 1980s, and if you had sold its stock around 2000 you would have done very nicely.

But since then BT has steadily headed down the tubes, and its stock now is actually worth less than on its very first day on the market.

Giving BT a hard time for several years have been the formidable fraud investigators of the Italian police.

Now a damning report has been issued by them.

Prosecutors in Milan allege that three former senior BT executives, Luis Alvarez, Richard Cameron and Corrado Sciolla, set unrealistically high business targets and were complicit in false accounting at BT Italy.

Alvarez and Cameron were respectively the former chief executive and former chief financial officer of BT Global Services, and Sciolla was the former head of continental Europe for BT. The three men, two of whom were based in London, left the company in 2017.

Allegations of fraudulent bookkeeping are part of a range of suspected wrongdoing at BT Italy. Italian prosecutors allege that a network of people at the unit exaggerated revenues, faked contract renewals and invoices and invented bogus supplier transactions to meet bonus targets and disguise the unit’s true financial performance.

The company has publicly disclosed that it uncovered a complex set of improper sales, leasing transactions and factoring at the division. Factoring is a way in which firms sell future income to financiers for cash…

Italy’s financial police found an email dated 5 August 2016, from O’Ferrall in which he says that Cameron wanted operating profit to increase by 700,000 euros and suggests to Luca Sebastiani, then CFO at BT Italy, along with other colleagues across Europe, that they capitalise labour costs as a solution.

“All, I have an urgent request from Richard to find another €700K,” O’Ferrall wrote to Sebastiani and his counterparts in Germany, Benelux, France, Spain, Hungary as well as Simon Whittle, then finance manager, reporting and consolidation, at Global Services Europe.

“Please, can you look at all opportunities and come back to Simon and me asap. Labour capitalization? Regards Brian,” says the email, whose subject line reads “Another €700K EBITDA needed in [July].”

Sad business. Italy and the UK have been special friends.

Friday, April 12, 2019

The Numerous Little Italys Throughout North America - Check These Out

Posted by Peter Quennell