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, November 29, 2016
Epidemic Of Anti-Italy Fake News She Generates Bites Knox In The Tail
Posted by KrissyG
Fake News Has Been Knox’s Main Weapon
Amanda Knox has been in the news a great deal recently, riding the crest of a PR-driven “exoneration” campaign
Currently this barrage of fake news culminates with the Netflix film six years in the making which was released worldwide on streaming media in Sept 2016. In the film, the factors that led to her so-called “˜wrongful conviction’ (she claims) included Nick Pisa’s tabloid reportage in that most middle class of UK “comics” the crucifix-and-garlic Daily Mail.
The Lurid Caricatures Resulting, UK Version
A paper much loved for its doomladen headlines, to the extent that the Guardian’s pop hackette, Julie Burchill, famously nicknamed it “˜THE DAILY HORROR’, wherein the non-Guardian-reading masses could immerse themselves daily in an entertaining round of “˜illegal immigrants and asylum seekers flooding the country’, “˜family of 27 given 50-roomed mansion’ and that most loved standby of all, “˜Benefit Scroungers’.
Bearded “˜modern parents’ Guardian readers, on the other hand, in their peep-toed sandals and chomping of organic vegetarian nut roasts, lap up bleeding heart eulogies (note there the protest of over 100 of Meredith’s friends) of Simon Hattonstone and other reporters for the wrongfully imprisoned one.
Thus Guardian hack good. Daily Mail hack Nick Pisa bad.
In the Netflix movie there is the plodding Italian Prosecutor, a Dan Brown-style Italian Catholic, with a paranoia about masonic cults and devilish conspiracies, who sees himself (the film makers claim) as Sherlock Holmes.
So that explains his lurid interest in her! Not a shred of evidence she had anything to do with Meredith Kercher’s murder! Yes, it’s all about priggish, obsessive tyrants, still living in the Italian equivalent of the Victorian ages.
Fake News By Donald Trump Confounds Knox
Enter Donald Trump, whose finger in the pie of Meredith’s case actually goes way back.
Swept along on a wave of her own lies, see above, we are now entertained by the spectacle of Knox claiming that Donald Trump’s support for her, after her original conviction, only made it worse for her!
Because after all, the Italians were riding on anti-American feelings in convicting her (and Sollecito)! (But not anti-African, as Rudy Guede did do it. That’s quite different.)
Knox is now claiming, in her fervent support for the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton, that she despises Trump for his views on the Central Park Five, whom he still refers to as “˜guilty’, despite their exoneration, as contrasted with her, whom he described as “˜completely innocent’.
She sees racism in his stance. Oh, the irony of Knox who fingered an innocent black man for Meredith’s murder.
Paradoxically, Knox seems to be saying, the Five are innocent and Trump calls them guilty, whereas I am guilty and Trump calls me innocent. Both made because he’s a racist. Really.
Knox vocally states she does not stand with Trump and why should she vote for him, just because he supported her and helped fund her defence?
These are perhaps commendable points. But before we get carried away, whoa! Let’s stop and take a reality check. For the astonishing fact to come out of all of this, is that Knox should indeed be grateful to Republican Trump.
Of course, not to agree with his political views. However, had her conviction been upheld by the Marasca-Bruno Supreme Court, as all the legal experts expected, Trump, as President of the United States has the weapon of refusing her extradition. Not directly, as that is a veto tool for the State Secretary, but that power is there - and the Government of Italy knew about it
Senator Cantwell The First Politician To In Effect Threaten Italy
We saw it highlighted when Maria Cantwell the senator for Seattle (a Democrat) put out a press release, which was propagated globally and rebutted by our Seattle posters demanding of the then-State Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration that the USA should intervene to free Amanda Knox because of the clear anti-American sentiment of the Italian judicial system, or so she states.
Maria Cantwell even made an appointment to see Hillary Clinton, saying she had been strongly petitioned by friends of Amanda Knox.
Didn’t the makers of the Netflix film Amanda Knox (2016) assert it was the tabloid journalists who had bullied the Italian police and courts? We see immediately that, true, whilst the mass media is intensely powerful in influencing opinion, it doesn’t actually do anything, except reflect social mores. The real movers and shakers being politicians and political advisers.
From day one, Amanda Knox had the full weight of American politicians behind her, and, rather than Nick Pisa being responsible for her conviction, it is surely the likes of Donald Trump and influencers in the US State Department in part responsible for getting her off the charges. It can be readily seen that Knox has a debt of gratitude owing to these shady enforcers behind the scenes.
Tom Ford of The Washington Post writes on 06 Dec 2009:
As angry Americans promised to boycott Italian holidays, wine and food, a vociferous support group calling itself Friends of Amanda Knox urged people to email Barack Obama to ask him to support her appeal.
Maria Cantwell, a US Democrat senator for Washington state has said she plans to bring her own concerns about the trial, including possible anti-Americanism, to the Mrs Clinton’s attention.
Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, said on Sunday that she had not yet looked into the case as she had been preoccupied with Afghanistan policy.
She told ABC News: “Of course I’ll meet with Senator Cantwell or anyone who has a concern, but I can’t offer any opinion about that at this time.”
The dastardly Daily Mail publishes this on 8.12.2009:
After the verdicts, Knox’s furious father Curt Knox vowed to fight to clear his daughter’s name and spoke of his ‘anger and disbelief’ at the Italian justice system.
His campaign seems to be gaining support on Capitol Hill. Senator Maria Cantwell, from Washington state, declared there were ‘serious questions about the Italian justice system’.
She said she was concerned there had been an ‘anti-American’ feeling at the trial and said she would be raising her concerns with Mrs Clinton.
‘The prosecution did not present enough evidence for an impartial jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Miss Knox was guilty,’ she said. ‘Italian jurors were allowed to view highly negative news coverage about Miss Knox.’.....
Mrs Clinton was asked about the trial in an appearance on a U.S. news programme. She said: ‘Of course I’ll meet with Senator Cantwell or anyone who has a concern but I can’t offer any opinion about that at this time.’
She said she had not expressed any concerns to the Italian government. Last night, Knox’s Italian lawyer distanced himself from the senator’s claims. Luciano Ghirga said: ‘That’s all we need, Hillary Clinton involved. I have the same political sympathies as Hillary but this sort of thing does not help us in any way.’
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said: ‘This senator should not interfere in something she has no idea about. I am happy with how the trial went.’
Enter the American cavalry. Two years after first ranting at Italian justice, near the end of the Hellmann appeal Donald Trump tweets this:
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Everyone should boycott Italy if Amanda Knox is not freed—-she is totally innocent.
5:12 PM - 30 Sep 2011
In a tv interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren, Donald Trump explained:
“I helped the family out “” I felt very, very badly for that family and for her “” I never thought she did it,” Trump told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “I watched very intently, like everybody else, and there was just no way she was involved in that.
“And so I did help them out “” I feel very, very happy about it “” in fact, I said boycott Italy until they release her,” Trump said. “It was really an injustice “” and I would get on that plane so fast if I were her and get out.”
Van Susteren asked Trump whether he had ever spoken to her parents. Trump said he had and “well, they’re lovely people.”
(Newsmax 4th Oct 2011)
Not That Knox Reigns In Her Own Aggression
Whilst Knox has been complaining loudly about the intervention of Donald Trump the ingrate stalks, taunts and laughs in the face of the Kercher family, who had to struggle financially as John Kercher wrote:
How Foreign Office let us down
We were surprised at the lack of financial help available from the British Government as we dealt with the aftermath of Meredith’s death.
We had received tremendous support from the British Consulate in Florence, which arranged translation facilities and made transport arrangements, but despite our pleas, we did not receive any financial support from the Foreign Office.
A number of MPs campaigned on our behalf for some contribution towards our flights, but their efforts were to no avail.
Indeed, it seemed this was a policy decision, one that did not affect just us, but anybody who had suffered an ordeal such as ours. This lack of help was despite the fact that we were obliged to provide testimonies in court.
Nor could we expect any help from the Italian government. Before Meredith was murdered, EU states had said they would sign an agreement to compensate the families of foreign nationals who were victims of a violent crime committed in their country.
However, of all the states, Italy failed to sign the agreement in time.
Financially we were alone and it made the business of attending the trial, and seeking justice for Meredith, all the more problematic.
(Daily Mail Femail 15 April 2012)
Guardian Long Chained To PR Of Curt Knox & Marriott
The Guardian has been the most single-minded of any newspapers anywhere in giving Amanda Knox, in particular, a sympathetic ear. Nick Richardson in a reader comment wrote:
From the outset the innocentisti accused the colpevolisti of anti-Americanism. Following the trial the US senator Maria Cantwell wrote to Hillary Clinton to alert her to the anti-Americanism at work in the courtroom ““ though Sollecito, an Italian, was being tried too.
Was there anti-American sentiment among the colpevolisti? The resentment, even, of a former great imperial power towards the current hegemon? Almost certainly. But the anti-Italian sentiment flowing in the other direction has been just as concentrated.
The managers of Knox’s downfall have come in for savage caricature: Giuliano Mignini, a Perugia public prosecutor, has been portrayed as a senile fuddy-duddy; Monica Napoleoni, head of Perugia’s murder squad, a vindictive bully; Patrizia Stefanoni, who was responsible for collecting forensic evidence from the crime scene, has been slammed for incompetence, though at the time of the crime she was well respected in her field.
Cantwell stated that she had “serious questions about the Italian justice system”, though the state she represents, Washington, currently holds eight people on death row. (Guardian 30.1.2014)
A blogger on My North West astutely ripostes:
I was intrigued by a press release that came out right after the guilty verdict. Senator Maria Cantwell issued a statement in which she said “I am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial.”
Anti-Americanism??? I can understand how that could have been a factor during the Bush years when the world hated us.
But once we elected Obama, the world fell in love with the United States all over again. We were once again “welcomed into the world community””¦ and “no longer a pariah on the world stage””¦
How could Senator Cantwell suggest that anti-Americanism played a role in this verdict. Barack Obama is our president ““ THERE IS NO MORE ANTI-AMERICANISM!!!
I guess the other possibility is that Knox actually whacked the gal”¦
Dori Monson MyNorthWestCom
The “˜abominable’ Daily Mail published this:
This high profile case though, brings a particular set of problems for the Obama administration because of the high emotions if elicits on both sides of the Atlantic - not just in Italy and America, but in the United Kingdom too.
The United States and Italy enjoy a successful extradition relationship, with cooperation high on busting organised crime.
It would cause a potential diplomatic row should the president and John Kerry choose not to send Knox to Italy if her appeal fail.
However, on the flip side, Italy may choose not to anger their most powerful ally over such an emotive case.
Knox herself has said that she would not return to Italy and that would only do so, ‘kicking and screaming.’
Regardless, any decision on whether to extradite the 26-year-old from the U.S. is likely months away, at least. Experts have said it’s unlikely that Italy’s justice ministry would request Knox’s extradition before the verdict is finalized by the country’s high court.
If the conviction is upheld, a lengthy extradition process would likely ensue, with the U.S. State Department ultimately deciding whether to turn Knox back over to Italian authorities to finish serving her sentence.
So far the State Department has refused to be drawn on a position regarding the outcome of the Knox re-trial.
Spokesman Patrick Ventrell was asked in March last year what would be the likely decision and only offered that the verdict was still months away.
‘We can’t really comment beyond that,’ Mr Ventrell told reporters according to the Daily Telegraph. ‘We never talk about extradition from this podium in terms of individual cases.’
(31 Jan 2014)
So, we see that the decision to extradite would now have been in Trump’s Secretary of State remit whether or not to extradite and with the power to override any treaty with Italy or US court.
From what we see of Trump’s attitude towards the legally exonerated “˜Central Park Five’ and his public disregard in continuing to label them guilty and to refuse to apologise for the ads he took out in four main newspapers calling for the death penalty, it is a short step to his overriding any guilty verdict by the Italian Supreme Court.
Many observers in Italy are convinced of the invisible hand of the US State Department in the background in the recent shock acquittal of the pair.
In Fact Knox Got Unique Level Of Official Help
Another disturbing aspect is the issue of press releases by Maria Cantwell calling on Italy to free Knox. The question arises, on whose authority was she given permission to issue press releases about sensitive international legal matters?
It seems she then had to petition Hillary Clinton during the appeal process, who prudently declined to comment. Matt Ford of The Atlantic.com analyses the issue in fine detail on 31.1.2014:
Slate’s Justin Peters hypothesized that the U.S. could use Article X of its extradition treaty with Italy, which requires the requesting nation to prove “a reasonable basis to believe that the person sought committed the offense for which extradition is requested,” to block her extradition.
There are more drastic options the U.S. government could take to protect Knox, though. Could Congress and/or President Obama override the extradition treaty with Italy to shield Knox, for example? Yes, says Julian Ku, an international law professor at Hofstra University, but they’re unlikely to do so. “I doubt there will be any need for Congress to intervene,” he said. “If the political winds blow so strongly in favor of Knox, Secretary [of State John] Kerry has all the authority he needs to keep her in the U.S.”
But even if Italy does request Knox’s extradition, Kerry can still simply refuse regardless of whether there are legal problems, says Ku. “It would be a real diplomatic blow, and a bad policy decision in my view, but neither illegal nor unconstitutional.”
Peter Quennell of TJMK channeling John Kercher (see quote above) posted this earlier this year on US v UK governmental support.
Compare with how the UK government reacted after Meredith died. Basically it looked the other way. Many in Italian justice were amazed at how totally disinterested the UK government was in the case in all the years since Meredith’s death.
The US government sprang into action to help Knox and to make sure she was treated right, though there was no proof the Italians would do anything but. They found her a Rome lawyer with good English (Carlos Dalla Vedova) and monitored all her court sessions and her four years in Capanne.
This came at a probable cost of over half a million dollars. And that is just the public support. Nobody ever said “the Federal budget cannot stand this”.
The extent of the British government in pushing justice for Meredith and her family? Exactly zero over the years.
Nothing was ever paid toward the legal costs or the very high travel costs of the Kercher family to be in court as the family finances ran into the ground. Nobody from the Foreign Office in London or the UK Embassy in Rome observed in court except in Florence, just the once.
So Hothead Knox Distances From Hothead Trump
In more recent weeks Knox made a powerful denunciation of Trump in the wake of Clinton’s presidential election defeat.
Knox went on to say that Trump called for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York during the Central Park Five case.
Is It Because I Is White?
“Even now, he views (the suspects) as guilty, though they were exonerated when the true perpetrator, a serial rapist, confessed to the crime,” she wrote. “Why did Trump defend me and condemn them? Is it because I was an American on trial in a foreign country? Is it because I’m a white woman?”
So, when Amanda Knox declares her opposition to Trump, are we to take her seriously? Any more so than her claim it was, “˜Nick Pisa wot got me jailed’?
Knox has had all kinds of senior and anonymous political figures involved in her rescue from justice: Cantwell, Kerry, Clinton, Ventrell, President elect Donald Trump, and faceless officers of the US State department, the latter of whom appear to have issued a press release to the global media, circa 31 Mar 2015, that they would refuse to extradite.
We need to ask, on whose authority were all these press releases circulated? It kinda takes your breath away when Knox claims ““ and as reported in the national press ““ that she is not “˜standing by Trump’.
To claim firstly that the likes of Nick Pisa is more powerful than US politicians really exposes the manipulative lies of Knox and the Netflix film makers.
Donald Trump is reported in the Italian press in recent days as being “˜bitter’ about Knox’s comments about his donation towards her legal costs, and who can blame him? Sure, she doesn’t need to share his views, but a little gratitude may have been the better part of valour.
Law And Order And Donald Trump
Consider Trump and his views otherwise on law and order. The Washington Post interviewed Kevin Richardson, one of the Central Park Five on 8 Oct 2016
Trump became a part of this widely reported and closely followed crime story when, two weeks after the teens were arrested, he spent a reported $85,000 placing full-page ads in all four major New York daily newspapers.
“Just like those ads, that speech was a call for extreme action based on a whole set of completely false claims. It seems,” Richardson said, “that this man is for some strange reason obsessed with sex and rape and black and Latino men.”
This week, when confronted again with just how wrong he was about the Central Park Five, Trump not only refused to acknowledge widely reported and well-known facts or the court’s official actions in the case.
He did not simply refuse to apologize: He described the men as guilty, and then demonstrated, once again, that he is a master at the dark art of using long-standing racial fears, stereotypes and anxieties to advance his personal and political goals.
He used the Central Park Five to differentiate himself from his political opponent. He stoked support for solutions inconsistent with the law. And he refused to admit any error….
Wise “” who served the longest term of all the wrongfully convicted teens and eventually crossed paths with the real Central Park rapist in prison, setting off a chain of events that got the convictions tossed out “” said the content of Trump’s campaign is really a continuation of those 1989 ads.
The Washington Post also interviewed Yusef Saleem, on 12 Oct 2016
At the time, our families tried to shield us from what was going on in the media, but we still found out about Trump’s ads. My initial thought was, “Who is this guy?” I was terrified that I might be executed for a crime I didn’t commit.
Another man, Matias Reyes, eventually confessed to the rape and was definitively linked to the crime through DNA. Because of this, we were exonerated in 2002. New York City paid us $41 million in 2014 for our false imprisonment. (As is customary in such settlements, the city did not admit liability.)
Trump has never apologized for calling for our deaths. In fact, he’s somehow still convinced that we belong in prison. When the Republican nominee was recently asked about the Central Park Five, he said, “They admitted they were guilty.”
In a statement to CNN, Trump wrote: “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. [= This applies to Knox, her confession and Sollecito. ~ KG] The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.”
(Meili, for her part, told CNN in 2003: “I guess there are lots of theories out there, but I just don’t know. .”‰.”‰. I’ve had to come to peace with it by saying: “˜You know what? I’m just not going to know.’”‰)
It’s further proof of Trump’s bias, racism and inability to admit that he’s wrong. When I heard Trump’s latest proclamation, it was the worst feeling in the world. I couldn’t breathe….. I realize, too, that I’m not the only victim. Trump has smeared dozens of people, with no regard for the truth.”
Some Final Commentary
Trump’s intervention in the Central Park Five case illustrates how imprudent it is for a politician to attempt to intervene in legal cases. He can have had very little idea of the impact of the huge body of evidence presented before the jury.
Trump’s gung-ho White Knight charge-to-the-rescue of a fellow German-American - and backed by hard funding - is based on irrationality, emotion and jingoism, “the last refuge of a scoundrel”.
How dangerous and meddlesome for Cantwell to demand a defendant be released, regardless of the facts of the case. How reckless and patronising, too, were Trump’s interventions.
Okay, Knox doesn’t stand by Trump today. But it’s directly thanks to the likes of the Lizard King she is walking free today.
I am the Lizard King
I can do anything
I can make the earth stop in its tracks
I made the blue cars go away ~ Jim Morrison
Posted by KrissyG on 11/29/16 at 08:49 AM •
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Monday, November 21, 2016
Fast US Arrival Of Eataly The Remarkably Large Italian Marketplace With Multiple Places To Eat
Posted by Peter Quennell
New York city now has two of the huge Eataly food marketplaces, the first of which opened in Turin just a decade ago.
Each has multiple bars and numerous areas to buy or to eat Italian food. Chicago already has one open (see the video below) and next Tuesday Boston will open one too. Eatalys are already open in Los Angeles and San Francisco as well.
Each occupies the equivalent of a city block. One in New York is on 23rd Street by Madison Square Park, with a special elevator to a rooftop restaurant and the other is in a newly-occupied highrise tower at the World Trade Center which has great views - and thousands of financial types looking for lunch.
It seems Atlanta and Toronto have joined the line. And next year a 20-acre Eataly will open in Bologne.
If you are in any of these cities, do think to take a look. This is an exciting new scene with a lot of happy mingling going on, something the US could use a lot more of.
And happy mingling on Thursday, Thanksgiving for those in the US!
Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/21/16 at 09:32 PM •
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Thursday, September 22, 2016
Wiki Status: Harder & Harder To Claim No Evidence Or 2009 Jury Got Verdict Wrong
Posted by azoza
A rough physical equivalent of our document library
Overview
This is a progress update on the increasingly vast Meredith Wiki file library:
Remember that much of the trial was conducted behind closed doors. Italians got good reporting from the trial, often in real-time; but those of us in other countries far less-so - though the notion that any of the fairly limited English-language media mentions in 2009 influenced the Italian jury is a seriously absurd one.
So the one and only key to getting the case right is in the documents. Absent a knowledge of the documents (as in the Netflix case) conclusions become quite vacuous.
Remember that NO media outfit ever translated any of the large documents. The Italy-based foreign reporters certainly did some for their own use and for excerpting, but all the heavy lifting was done by the teams on our cluster of websites.
Remember that NO American or British lawyer ever who is fully on top of the extraordinary number of documents has attempted to argue that this was not a strong case or that points pointing to guilt were not overwhelming.
The file library is increasingly being made into something resembling a huge book with a internal strong logic for the help of the numerous intended researchers.
You can see that logic strongly at work here.
Four search approaches
Since my article last June, there have been big changes to the file library layout. We scrapped the nested box approach due to the amount and different kinds of documents.
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Main_Page
Now there are four approaches to find files: (1) the master list; (2) by file type; (3) by subject matter; (4) by chronology of when file was made.
The last branch will be done when uploads are complete.
(1) The master list contains links to all the files, roughly in chronological order. Given the thousands of files (over 3800 now), the master list serves only as a reference point. You get a sense of document flow- what appeared when- by scrolling through the list.
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Master_list
(2) The type pages subdivide files by main types (audio, documents, images, videos) and then further subcategories.
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Files_by_type
The images category will be better filled with more files in due time. The documents category has the most subcategories with descriptions under the headings. So for instance, all court motivation reports are here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Court_motivation_reports
All court testimony PDFs are here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Court_testimony
All deposition and interrogation PDFs here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Depositions_and_interrogations
and police and consultant reports here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Reports
The above are most significant, but there are many other subcategories.
(3) The by subject pages will have pages of all files, disregarding type and date, of a particular subject. So all files related to DNA on one page; all files related to the knife on one page; all pages related to Curatolo on one page. These pages will be more detailed than other pages.
(4) By chronology pages organize files by date:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Files_by_chronology
These pages are only PDFs for now. Eventually the other file types will be linked too. At the bottom of each chronology page is a link to the next section, so it’s possible to click through chronology pages without returning to the chronology menu page each time.
Important files:
Crime scene:
Crime scene photos were distributed by police in 5 volumes and can be found here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Crime_scene_photos
There are more photos in the 5 volumes than in the web page photo gallery.
A subset of these photos are in a second police document from Dec 31, 2007 done in Word. We printed it to PDF:
Photos from this document were captured, censored and stored in this zip file, which has crime scene photos not in the webpage gallery:
Crime scene video is here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Crime_scene_videos
We have taken great pains to keep November 2-3 crime scene video intact with sound, censoring as necessary to respect Meredith and her family. It is the most complete version available- 1 hr 20 minutes long.
There is also video of Scientific Police (Dr. Stefanoni) at Sollecito’s apartment on November 13th:
Police video comes from discs prepared by police, complete with menus. It’s likely the video compilations on these discs don’t show all video taken. As an example, the above video at Sollecito’s apartment seems incomplete and is cut-off at the end.
The December 2007 video of the 2nd cottage visit is complete. Police purposely distributed this video without sound.
CCTV:
We have made films of CCTV capture:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_CCTV_videos
We did this because the program and files are proprietary. We will capture photo sequences of important segments and post later.
We could not find “˜video’ for camera 7 from 00:00 to 06:00 on November 2nd. There are other cameras at the garage as well, and we are looking to find any extra footage.
DNA:
We have DNA report complete and in color:
so charts are now clear. Dr. Stefanoni’s DNA report references these photos here too:
Egrams in color are here:
Clearer Egram prints of key traces can be found on this page, and also negative controls:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Reports
UACV report:
As mentioned by Olleosnep, this report has not been talked about, but very important crime scene analysis report:
More UACV materials are here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Presentations
Rinaldi & Boemia:
Rinaldi & Boemia presentation showing errors in Vinci report is here:
There is much Rinaldi & Boemia presentation material on that page. They also did two reports, one on footprints and a second on shoes. Those are here, with separate photo attachments:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Reports
Conti & Vecchiotti critiques:
Dr. Stefanoni presentation showing errors in Conti Vecchiotti report is here:
and her written report here:
Dr. Novelli report critiquing Conti Vecchiotti report is also good reading:
Dr. Torricelli has two reports. The second is an updated version of the first:
Medical consultants:
This medical consultant hearing- asked by Judge Matteini in April 2008- is very important:
Related reports (all censored for disturbing content):
Autopsy:
Matteini’s consultants:
Mignini’s consultants (replacing Lalli):
Dr. Mignini:
His case summary to the Riesame court on November 24, 2007 is important. It shows an early description of the case:
He made a case summary for Guede too in December 2007:
Formal charges issued in English from July 2008:
Final fingerprint report:
Court testimony:
There is much more court testimony now. Matteini, Micheli, Massei, Hellmann Nencini, but also Guede appeal court Borsini. All testimony is here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Court_testimony
Much of Micheli is audio only, which is here:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Court_audios
Various:
This Kokomani interview with Canale 5:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Interview_videos
shows Kokomani in a good way. Court transcripts with him seem confusing, but here he is easy to follow.
This video shows unpacking of kitchen knife on February 26, 2008 in front of all consultants:
The meeting was after knife was tested for DNA, but shows the original box used.
Posted by azoza on 09/22/16 at 08:15 PM •
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Sunday, September 04, 2016
Huge Help For Knox/Marriott PR: Media NOT EVEN THERE For Most Damning Parts Of Trial
Posted by Peter Quennell
Closed Court
Do you know this? Most people still dont. It explains a LOT including the numerous innocence frauds.
The attack on Meredith as summarised by Dr Mignini in the Machine’s must-read post below was reconstructed by Italy’s best crime-scene specialists, from Rome Headquarters, and it took an entire Saturday. Every mark in Meredith’s room and on her body were convincingly accounted for.
After the killers left and locked her in, Meredith was still alive, holding both sides of her neck to stop her life-blood leaking out. She might have lived for half an hour, in great pain, during which time an ambulance could easily have arrived and saved her.
But nobody called one. Her death was quite deliberate.
The Massei jury is said to have found all this evidence very powerful and left in NO doubt three had been involved (unanimous verdict) in what was a prolonged and exceptionally barbaric attack.
The Kercher family had asked Judge Massei in January 2009 for a closed trial as the autopsy part in particular would be key but also long and very graphic. Unfortunately it was settled that only the trial days covering the autopsy and the horrific attack would be closed.
This unique call by Judge Massei turned out to be a terrible one. It has caused immense damage to public understanding outside Italy, and to the legitimacy of the case ever since.
The public and the two later appeal juries never got to witness directly all this compelling evidence. In Italy, descriptions leaked out (not illegal) and so Italians following the case could get a good grasp - and the vast majority, perhaps all, were convinced (and still are) that the government team had got it right.
But the Hellmann and Nencini appeal juries and the Marasca/Bruno panel of the Supreme Court never got the full impact. And trial followers in the US and UK and so on had no idea (and even now only a very few have any idea) of what was presented behind those closed doors in 2009 and how it came across (several present were in tears during it) to the trial jury.
This terrible situation has allowed Knox and Sollecito and their teams and media supporters starting with Doug Preston, Candace Dempsey and Frank Sfarzo (a stage name, real name Sforza) and ending (for now) with Woffinden to lie incessantly for eight years about Guede as a lone wolf and about the numerous hard facts of the attack and the autopsy.
There would be NO effective PR and NO effective appeals and NO effective innocence fraud otherwise.
Our summaries of the sentencing reports by Judge Micheli for Guede and by Judge Massei for Sollecito & Knox are very good, but even they fall short here. The best way to get all this powerful evidence right is to read the full Micheli report (translated by Catnip) and full Massei report (translated by Skeptical Bystander and team). Both reports are on the case wiki.
“Missing” still from the public record because it was part of the closed trial was what is said to be a very compelling video construction of the attack. This video is also ridiculed and misrepresented by Sollecito and Knox and their teams and apologists - because they could get away with it.
Will the Netflix movie being unveiled in Toronto this week explain all or even any of this? Why do we doubt it?
Posted by Peter Quennell on 09/04/16 at 06:19 AM •
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Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Florence Courts Resent Mangling Of RS/AK Appeal By Cassation Now Have Ominous Ways To Re-Visit
Posted by Peter Quennell
Highrise Florence courts are just visible at left background
The Marasca/Bruno verdict setting RS and AK free has taken some hard knocks within the Italian legal community.
It is not lost on anyone that Sollecito defense lawyer Bongiorno was given special favors, including being allowed to argue unchallenged before the Fifth Chambers for some hours beyond the legal limit.
Or that the Fifth Chambers should never ever have received the appeal.
Or that the drafter, Bruno, was suffering seriously ill health at the time, and delivered a report which is largely legal nonsense.
Here Machiavelli and Catnip and most exhaustively James Raper explained many of Marasca’s and Bruno’s absurdities.
But the Florence courts are not done yet. They are still processing cases involving Knox, Sollecito, Sfarzo (a stage name, real name Sforza) and Aviello. They still sit on this potential bombshell of a case against Sollecito lawyer Maori, which explains how the Fifth Chambers acted illegally.
Other cases are also possible, and two involving Knox are still continuing in Bergamo.
Now Rudy Guede’s team of lawyers in Rome and Viterbo prison have filed an appeal against his own conviction. It is filed with the courts in Florence.
The team notes that judgments against Guede up to and including the Supreme Court’s First Chambers concluded that he had acted against Meredith only in collusion with others and not in isolation.
This could reopen the Marasca/Bruno outcome which argued that he DID act alone or at least not with RS and AK though there is massive evidence to the contrary. That judgment while final in the normal course of things cannot stand under Italian law if illegalities were entered into.
With more and more documentation being read widely, the case against Knox and Sollecito acting in collusion with Guede is coming to look as strong as it did throughout their trial in 2009.
That is the quite possible Florence outcome.
It is one that Guede might accept fairly calmly, as his fury at Sollecito is quite palpable, and he wants nothing more than to nail his fellow attacker.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/30/16 at 09:12 PM •
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Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Bad News For Knox - Buzz From Italy Is Spurious ECHR Appeal Will Probably Fail
Posted by Our Main Posters
[The European Court Of Human Rights in Strasbourg France]
One major misrepresentation out of the Knox campaign in recent months was that the ECHR had already agreed to entertain her appeal.
See here and here and here (wow) and here (wow!).
We have posted repeatedly that the ECHR had “accepted” nothing - a processing clerk had merely asked prosecution and defense for actual hard facts “acccidentally” omitted from defense lawyer Dalla Vedova’s submission documents.
Had Dalla Vedova acted ethically and truthfully, there would have been no need at all for this stage.
We explained especially that Knox’s team had never lodged a complaint with any Italian court as Italian law requires and so due process in Italy prior to involving the heavily burdened ECHR had not even begun.
And that pre-emptively the Italian Supreme Court itself had already forcefully ruled that Knox had no ECHR case.
All this was known to Knox and her lawyers and PR but they continued to lie to the world anyhow.
Now the buzz is that detailed Italian government submissions to the ECHR have killed all prospects for Knox’s fraudulent appeal.
The absence of any effective comeback to the ECHR from Knox lawyer Dalla Vedova is understandable - by not filing any complaint in Italy first on behalf of Knox he might have been breaking Italian law requiring such a complaint if deemed credible.
Posted by Our Main Posters on 08/17/16 at 11:29 AM •
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Saturday, August 06, 2016
Crash Ruins Prospect Of Olympic Gold For Italy’s Cycling Star the “Shark Of Messina”
Posted by Peter Quennell
What a real shocker for cycling-mad Italy..
You could watch world-class cycling for years, and maybe never see anything quite like this.
The men’s Olympic cycling road race is unusually long and grueling - six hours on average.
The American TV commenters were agreeing that the course, on the coast just south of Rio, was the most beautiful ever - and also the most dangerous.
Termed dangerous because there were three steep descents down one mountain, and then two more descents, even steeper, down another mountain with a ten-to-one gradient.
A main leader throughout, Vincenzo Nibali, is not for nothing called the Shark of Messina.
Just minutes before the race’s end a breakaway group of 3 cyclists, including Nibali, were heading down the final descent so fast that the motorbike with the camera could not keep up with them.
Breathtaking stuff. Normally you just never ever see that happen. All 3 disappeared from sight, leaving just shots of an empty road descending sharply.
When the TV camera DID catch up with them several minutes later it was only because of what you see in the video - two of the lead cyclists unstuck at a probable 60-plus mph.
The commentators had been saying a gold for Nibali seemed certain. Now he is not only out of the Olympics - he is being flown back to Italy for surgery.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 08/06/16 at 07:23 AM •
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Sunday, July 03, 2016
How Amanda Knox Is Encouraging West Seattle To Adulate Seriously Sick Individuals
Posted by Hopeful
At bottom: judge Persky may be fired for a light rape sentence
Fellow poster Pensky encouraged us to consider some bizarrely narcissistic postings by Knox on her Facebook.
That led me to her June 13, 2016 discussion of the Stanford rape case. My eyeballs nearly popped out at seeing Knox wax eloquent about Brock Allen Turner (right, at bottom, with lawyers).
He assaulted a comatose young woman outside a frat party, ran away but was seized by passersby. Then 12 jurors unanimously convicted Turner guilty of 3 felonies, but all he has admitted to doing is ingesting alcohol.
He is defiant, unrepentant, and really got lucky with Judge Persky giving him a slap on the wrist, 6 months in county jail, not even prison and he may serve only 3.
IMO, Brock Allen Turner is Knox’s new object of envy and Judge Persky is her new hero.
She waxes prolific about this light-sentenced rape case in the West Seattle Herald yet never ONCE reproaches or rebukes Brock Turner in a sincere and unambivalent way. She minces words, dances around in the passive voice, pretends to silently agree with the public’s outrage, yet she doesn’t fool anybody.
She is seething with jealousy that Turner got such a light sentence!
She is probably comparing Turner’s lucky escape with how she might have dodged a bullet had she only let Meredith live and not “finished her off” (my quotes, my assumptions).
Instead of dispatching the violated Meredith, Knox hoping to avoid prosecution by silencing her victim, now regrets it even more when she sees that Brock Allen Turner left his rape victim alive and that despite his alcohol fueled assault, he got off very lightly. Oh, how green with envy is Foxy Knoxy in retrospect.
Her entire article trumpets the concept of “punishment does no good”.
Yes, just let the devils go because nobody can make them feel ashamed of their crimes if the perp doesn’t wanna feel ashamed. Knox knows that from experience. She sees it in Brock, with his mealy-mouthed letter he wrote as a smokescreen fake apology.
Knox remains defiant and without remorse like Brock Turner. In this article she has the audacity to talk about how sexual assault can rarely be determined; that it’s mostly a he said/she said dilemma as to consent, and thus the suspect must be considered innocent due to reasonable doubt in most cases.
She even quotes Blackstone: “better for 10 guilty folks to escape than one innocent suffer”. I certainly agree with that. Knox got the benefit of that adage. So did Sollecito. Because they scrubbed and cleaned so well.
Knox wonders in this article if Turner’s torments in having to register as a sex offender, lose his college scholarship, lose great job opportunities, live with his reputation in tatters””if these realities will prevent him from reoffending.
She concludes, “Perhaps not. Judge Perky’s [sic] humanization of Turner-the-criminal is not abominable.” Of course not, Knox loves this judge. Herself the felon would desire the judge to go easy on all such birds of a feather as herself.
Nope, Knox isn’t into punishment. Not severe ones at any rate. No, punishment does no good in her opinion.
Her solution? to support the victim, to educate women on how not to become a victim, give victims solidarity and support, “pay attention and care about the suffering of the victim, whether they are vindicated in a court of law or not.”
Duh”¦this is precisely what TJMK and Perugia Murder File.net and .org have been doing for nearly a decade!!!
Knox’s desire as in the title of her article about redirecting focus, redirect it to what? To Knox’s new wisdom that sentences of any sort do no good, they’re vengeance and we should support the victim rather than shame the criminal! Otherwise, the criminal if treated too harshly has the right to his own victim status.
I do agree that extremely harsh sentences do as much damage to the soul of a prisoner as the lightweight joke sentence Brock Turner received.
Knox must be so jealous of the bumbling Mr. Turner. Oh if only she had let her victim live and accepted a few months behind bars, is probably her regret.
Like Turner, Knox confesses to nothing but being confused and forgetful on the night of the crime due to a fog of cannabis. She pretends to have been reduced to a dream state, thus removing any culpability in her conscience. How convenient.
Turner’s best ally and defense was his inebriation. So was Knox’s. Thank goodness for substance abuse which removes felt guilt, though the victim lies dead on the floor.
I cannot believe the gall of Knox to highlight the Brock Turner rape case and parade as a pundit for improved sentencing (or cessation of all sentences, in her ideal world, right?)
She is a ridiculous twisted pundit who claims to seek to improve the criminal justice system. Unmitigated gall. Most jailbirds like her do have great ideas for what society “should have done” with them other than imprison them for their crimes.
She talks about good things but they all assume the victim is still alive to help, things like “embrace a victim through their recovery, offer them resources, give them voice, recognize their value.” But did she recognize Meredith’s value? She could barely speak her name at trial or write it in her book. How many trees has she planted for Meredith?
Her last paragraph says not to equate condemning a criminal with recognizing a victim, and do not deny the “reparation a victim deserves.” What reparations has she paid Patrick Lumumba?
I will assess her silly Dawndra Budd photo spread soon. It is just more blind preening and another form of lies. Dawndra Budd has been deceived along with many others but The Herald article takes first prize in the brass mule contest. Knox loves Mr. Turner the escape artist.
And I am by no means entirely sympathetic to the drunk Emily Doe who was raped by Turner due to her own bad morals and stupidity.
However the really egregious culprit is the even dumber and cowardly Turner. His father is his best apologist, until Knox. At least Brock Turner did his crime alone and without a knife in hand and without a wolfpack of strong accomplices for moral support like Knox needed, if one compares the “courage” of Knox and Turner. They both used Dutch courage from a bottle as the saying goes.
Turner the lout deserves at least a two or three year sentence in lockup and extra community service hours, and stiff fines paid to his victim. Knox has skipped out on three-fourths of her rightful sentence and she remains as defiant and unremorseful as Turner, and she offended much much worse than he did. She seems to hint she might reoffend.
She never really denounces Turner, nor clearly supports Emily Doe except to admire Doe’s courage to “articulate her experience of absolute vulnerability with clarity and dignity”.
Articulate, schmiculate. Emily Doe cries loud and long about her offended dignity when there was little dignity to start with as her drunken public stupor showed. She did not deserve a physical attack, however.
Knox sympathizes with her because Doe was angry at the litany of questions put to her by the police and the wringer the police put her through about her lifestyle in an effort to delegitimize her. Knox takes umbrage with the police at all times, recalling her own dangerous position under interrogation.
Unlike Emily Doe, however, Knox was hiding a true crime of her own. Doe was merely ashamed of her alcoholic excess and her flirting at the frat party with guys when she had a boyfriend elsewhere. Knox totally empathizes with Doe’s lifestyle (remember David Johnsrud and others besides Raffaele when she dated him).
Meredith doesn’t need to articulate. She lived her goodness all along. Actions speak louder than words. Meredith never got to write her memoirs, but they would have been anointed. And truthful, unlike Knox’s clever lies.
Posted by Hopeful on 07/03/16 at 08:04 PM •
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Archived in Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, 3 No evidence hoax, 8 No motive hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, 13 AK persona hoax, 20 No-PR hoax •
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Sunday, May 29, 2016
Montreal Mafia Kingpin Rocco Sollecito Dead In What The Police Termed A “Mob Hit”
Posted by Peter Quennell
Mob Hit In Montreal
Rocco Sollecito was shot yesterday morning through the window of his SUV.
Rocco had been in a leadership role in the Rizutto clan since Vito Rizutto died of natural causes a few months before. Vito’s father was gunned down in 2010.
Both Vito and Rocco were familiar figures in resort casinos at the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic, a pretty Caribbean island through which small mountains of drugs headed north.
Authorities know that Raffaele Sollecito also headed right there, in December 2013, after Prosecutor Crini asked for a sentence of 26 years.
Rocco Sollecito was born in southern Italy in the village of Grumo Appula about five minutes drive from where Raffaele Sollecito was born.
This is the Vice website report.
This morning’s murder of well-known mobster Rocco Sollecito may very well signal the death of the Montreal Mafia.
At least, this version of it.
According to a couple of experts on the city’s Italian organized crime scene, the assassination of the 67-year-old Sollecito is the latest twist in a generational war, with an emerging leadership group looking to oust and eliminate the old guard.
But first, the facts:
At around 8:30 Friday morning, Rocco Sollecito was gunned down as he sat behind the wheel of his white BMW SUV at an intersection in the Montreal suburb of Laval.
It’s believed his killer was waiting for him at a bus stop just half a kilometre from the Laval police headquarters. Sollecito was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Witnesses told a TVA reporter they heard as many as eight gunshots. “There were two shots at first, then a brief moment of silence, and then a burst,” said one.
Laval police were quick to characterize the nature of the shooting. “It’s not complicated. It was a mob hit,” a spokesman for the force told CBC. The provincial Sûreté du Québec is taking over the investigation.
Sollecito’s is the latest in a string of murders that has claimed a number of members of the Montreal Mafia in recent years. Most are linked to the fallout of the death of Mafia patriarch Vito Rizzuto at the end of 2013.
According to author Pierre de Champlain, who was a civilian analyst for the RCMP, Sollecito is just the latest victim of a transition of leadership, Mafia-style.
“Each time that the Mafia is in a period of turmoil, whether it’s the Sicilian or the American Mafia, it’s always because of a generational conflict,” he told VICE. “It’s the old guard versus the new guard.”
Sollecito was staunchly of the old guard. A senior member of the Rizzuto leadership core who was close to both Vito Rizzuto and his father Nicolo, Sollecito also acted as a close advisor to his son Stefano Sollecito, who, along with Vito Rizzuto’s son Leonardo, inherited the leadership mantle after Vito’s passing. He is also believed to have overseen a large illegal gambling and bookmaking empire.
De Champlain says he has files on the senior Sollecito dating back to the early 80s, as he began rising through the ranks alongside Vito. “He was a presence of longstanding in the Montreal Mafia landscape,” he says.
For decades, Sollecito was at the heart of a very successful criminal enterprise, one believed to have made vast amounts of cash on everything from construction to the import and distribution of narcotics via Montreal’s port. At the height of the Rizzuto clan’s power, in the 1980s and 1990s, the family was run first by Nick Rizzuto and then by his son and heir Vito.
The family’s fortunes changed in the middle of the previous decade. Vito Rizzuto was extradited to the US in 2006 and spent time in prison on charges relating to a triple murder in 1981. In his absence, his organization began to crack. Several members of his family, including his father and son, were murdered.
Other allies turned up dead or went missing. Shortly after Vito was released and deported to Canada in 2012, a number of murders followed, believed to be in retaliation for the liberties taken against his family.
But Vito’s second reign did not last. He died of cancer just over a year after his return. Emerging out of the fog of the criminal underground was a new council of six leaders, among them Stefano Sollecito, Leonardo Rizzuto and Lorenzo Giordano.
They didn’t last long either. The younger Sollecito and Rizzuto were arrested in November and remain behind bars. And on March 1, Giordano was gunned down in a Laval parking lot, just months after his release from prison. Two other associates were said to be so afraid for their lives that they volunteered to return to prison after their release in February.
“It’s a strategy of terror,” author and journalist Antonio Nicaso told VICE. “There is a campaign to remove the management of the Rizzuto crime family. Someone wants to put an end to it…. No one is capable to lead a counterattack. I don’t see anyone among the old guard who is able to fight back.”
Neither de Champlain nor Nicaso wants to speculate on who might be behind the attacks on what remains of the Rizzuto group. But Nicaso doesn’t think the violence will end until everyone on one side””and probably that side will be the old Rizzuto group””is dead.
“In the Mafia, retirement is not an option,” he says. “If you have to replace the top members of the organization, the only way to do it is to kill all of them.” He notes that the Rizzutos took power themselves by murdering the then-leaders of the Montreal Mafia in the late 1970s.
For de Champlain, the war is already over, and the Rizzutos clearly lost.
“We have to refer to the Rizzuto family in the past tense,” he said.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/29/16 at 01:13 AM •
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Thursday, May 26, 2016
Carlo Dalla Vedova: Is ECHR Advised YOU Condoned Malicious Defamation By Knox Of Chief Prosecutor?
Posted by Our Main Posters
To Dr Carlo Dalla Vedova
You are trying to make the ECHR believe that, while Knox may have lied to the police, it was only under immense and illegal pressure.
Really?! In effect, your case is only that Knox only lies and defames under extreme pressure?!
Amanda Knox and her agent and her publishers all claim you okayed the Knox book Waiting To Be Heard before the publication date.
If you had advised otherwise, the book would never have been published in the US - the publisher already had legal advice not to publish elsewhere.
Under our own analysis, this book you okayed includes perhaps 600 lies and 100 defamations by Knox. All written when she was under no pressure at all and seemingly simply intent on inflicting random harm.
The Knox camp claims you provided the go-ahead for the book to be published (1) in the 2013 hardcover and (2) unrevised but with an addition in the 2015 softcover.
And those 600 and 100 are only the lies and defamations in the book. Knox is on record for so many others.
Here is one of the most dangerous and destructive lies by Amanda Knox in that book. Strident diffamazione for which Knox can be charged.
As you know, Dr Mignini was not even at the central police station when Amanda Knox was sitting with Rita Ficarra quite voluntarily building a list - which you misleadingly describe to the ECHR as an interrogation.
Days and days of trial testimony by all who actually were there on the night - which you and Knox both sat through - proved that Dr Mignini only saw Knox much later, to read her her rights and then to be subjected to her beating his ear about Patrick. Knox finished the second written statement she insisted upon at 5:45 am.
But Knox here is claiming in her book written under zero pressure that Dr Mignini conducted a highly illegal interrogation - in effect that he committed crimes which could destroy his career and perhaps even put him in prison - when in fact he was in bed at the time.
This is the spurious Knox claim about Dr Mignini in English. An Italian translation is immediately below.
[This is a partial description of Knox’s voluntary discussion with Rita Ficarra concluding 12:45 am. Dr Mignini was at home in bed at the time.]
Eventually they told me the pubblico ministero would be coming in.
I didn’t know this translated as prosecutor, or that this was the magistrate that Rita Ficarra had been referring to a few days earlier when she said they’d have to wait to see what he said, to see if I could go to Germany.
I thought the “public minister” was the mayor or someone in a similarly high “public” position in the town and that somehow he would help me.
They said, “You need to talk to the pubblico ministero about what you remember.”
I told them, “I don’t feel like this is remembering. I’m really confused right now.” I even told them, “I don’t remember this. I can imagine this happening, and I’m not sure if it’s a memory or if I’m making this up, but this is what’s coming to mind and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
They said, “Your memories will come back. It’s the truth. Just wait and your memories will come back.”
The pubblico ministero came in.
Before he started questioning me, I said, “Look, I’m really confused, and I don’t know what I’m remembering, and it doesn’t seem right.”
One of the other police officers said, “We’ll work through it.”
Despite the emotional sieve I’d just been squeezed through, it occurred to me that I was a witness and this was official testimony, that maybe I should have a lawyer. “Do I need a lawyer?” I asked.
He said, “No, no, that will only make it worse. It will make it seem like you don’t want to help us.”
It was a much more solemn, official affair than my earlier questioning had been, though the pubblico ministero was asking me the same questions as before: “What happened? What did you see?”
I said, “I didn’t see anything.”
“What do you mean you didn’t see anything? When did you meet him?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Where did you meet him?”
“I think by the basketball court.” I had imagined the basketball court in Piazza Grimana, just across the street from the University for Foreigners.
“I have an image of the basketball court in Piazza Grimana near my house.”
“What was he wearing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he wearing a jacket?”
“I think so.”
“What color was it?”
“I think it was brown.”
“What did he do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’m confused!”
“Are you scared of him?”
“I guess.”
I felt as if I were almost in a trance. The pubblico ministero led me through the scenario, and I meekly agreed to his suggestions.
“This is what happened, right? You met him?”
“I guess so.”
“Where did you meet?”
“I don’t know. I guess at the basketball court.”
“You went to the house?”
“I guess so.”
“Was Meredith in the house?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did Patrick go in there?”
“I don’t know, I guess so.”
“Where were you?”
“I don’t know. I guess in the kitchen.”
“Did you hear Meredith screaming?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you not hear Meredith screaming?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I covered my ears. I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m just imagining this. I’m trying to remember, and you’re telling me I need to remember, but I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.”
He said, “No, remember. Remember what happened.”
“I don’t know.”
At that moment, with the pubblico ministero raining questions down on me, I covered my ears so I could drown him out.
He said, “Did you hear her scream?”
I said, “I think so.”
My account was written up in Italian and he said, “This is what we wrote down. Sign it.”
And here is the same spurious Knox claim about Dr Mignini in Italian.
Alla fine mi dissero che sarebbe entrato il pubblico ministero.
Non sapevo che fosse l’accusa, o che fosse il magistrato a cui si riferiva Rita Ficarra qualche giorno prima, quando aveva detto che bisognava aspettare di sapere cosa avrebbe detto lui, per vedere se potevo andare in Germania. Pensavo che “pubblico ministero” fosse il sindaco o qualcuno che detenesse una carica politica simile in città e che, in qulche modo, mi avrebbe aiutata.
Dissero, “Devi parlare col pubblico ministero di ciò che ricordi.”
Dissi loro, “Non credo che questo sia ricordare. Sono davvero confusa in questo momento.” Gli dissi perfino, “Non mi ricordo di tutto ciò. Riesco ad immaginarlo, ma non sono sicura se sia un ricordo o se lo stia solo immaginando, ma è quello che mi viene in mente e non so. Davvero non so.”
Dissero, “I tuoi ricordi torneranno. E’ la verità . Aspetta e ti ritornerà la memoria.”
Entrò il pubblico ministero.
Prima che iniziasse a interrogarmi, dissi, “Guardi, sono davvero confuse, e non so cosa sto ricordando e non mi sembra giusto.”
Uno degli ufficiali di polizia disse, “Ci lavoreremo su.”
Nonostante il setaccio emotivo per il quale ero passata, realizzai che ero una testimone e che quella era una testimonianza ufficiale, che forse avrei dovuto avere un avvocato. “Ho bisogno di un avvocato?” chiesi.
Disse, “No, no, peggiorerebbe solo le cose. Sembrerebbe che tu non voglia aiutarci.”
Era una situazione molto più solenne e ufficiale dei miei precedenti interrogatori, benché il pubblico ministero mi stava facendo le stesse domande che mi avevano già posto: “Cosa è successo? Cosa hai visto?”
Dissi, “Non ho visto niente.”
“Cosa intendi dire con non ho visto niente? Quando l’hai incontrato?”
“Non so,” dissi.
“Dove l’hai incontrato?”
“Al campo da basket, credo.” Avevo immaginato il campo da basket a Piazza Grimana, proprio al di là della strada dall’ Università per Stranieri.
“Ho un’immagine del campo da basket a Piazza Grimana, vicino casa mia.”
“Cosa indossava?”
“Non so.”
“Indossava una giacca?”
“Credo di si.”
“Di che colore era?”
“Credo che fosse marrone.”
“Cosa ha fatto?”
“Non lo so.”
“Cosa vuol dire che non lo sai?”
“Sono confusa!”
“Hai paura di lui?”
“Suppongo.”
Mi sembrava di essere quasi in trance. Il pubblico ministero mi guidò in uno scenario e io concordai docilmente con i suoi suggerimenti.
“E’ successo questo, giusto? Lo hai incontrato?”
“Suppongo di si.”
“Dove lo hai incontrato?”
“Non lo so. Al campo da basket, suppongo.”
“Siete andati a casa?”
“Credo di si.”
“Meredith era casa?”
“Non ricordo.”
“Patrick é entrato?”
“Non so, crdo di si.”
“Dove vi trovavate?”
“Non lo so. Nella cucina, suppongo.”
“Hai sentito Meredith urlare?”
“Non lo so.”
“Come potevi non sentire Meredith urlare?”
“Non lo so. Forse mi sono coperta le orecchie. Non lo so, non so se mi sto solo immaginando tutto. Sto cercando di ricordare e voi mi dite che devo ricordare, ma non lo so. Non mi sembra che sia la cosa giusta.”
Disse, “No, ricorda. Ricorda cosa é successo.”
“Non lo so.”
In quel momento, mentre il pubblico ministero mi tempestava di domande, mi coprii le orecchie, così da non sentirlo.
Disse, “L’hai sentita urlare?”
Dissi, “Credo di si.”
La mia dichiarazione era scritta in italiano e lui mi disse, “Questo é quello che abbiamo messo a verbale. Firmalo.”
Posted by Our Main Posters on 05/26/16 at 06:42 AM •
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Archived in The officially involved, The defenses, The legal followups, Knox followup, Hoaxes Knox & team, 24 ECHR appeal hoax, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR •
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Monday, May 23, 2016
Carlo Dalla Vedova: Is ECHR Made Aware Italian Law REQUIRES Lawyers To First File Local Complaints?
Posted by Our Main Posters
To Dr Carlo Dalla Vedova,
You are aware of this, right? It is not optional: if Italian clients credibly claim police abuse, their lawyers MUST lodge a complaint.
This is a serious requirement in Italian law, which looks to protect the client while heading off innuendo and frivolous appeals years down the road. Under the principle of infedele patrocinio (betrayal of the interest of the client), if you really believed Knox’s varying claims that she was abused, it seems you’d have no choice but to lodge a formal complaint.
Not only was no formal complaint that we know of ever filed by you, and so no investigation ever begun, summaries of your ECHR case by Cassazione and by ECHR itself make no mention of any process having been followed. They specifically ask you about this.
The ECHR quotes in full a letter to you from Amanda Knox dated 9 November 2007 claiming at length that police abuse explained why she was “confused” at the so-called “interrogation” of 5-6 November 2007.
But the ECHR seems to have not been made aware that you never passed this letter on to any prosecutor or any judge. In fact, you provide it as evidence only now. Why was this not made clear?
And even more daunting for your appeal, your legal colleague Luciano Ghirga at Rudy Guede’s trial late in 2008 specifically said this - in effect, the exact opposite of your current claim.
“There were pressures from the police but we never said she was hit.”
Now the ECHR in its first response to your submission is asking some questions of fact. It has addressed this first question to you.
1. Has the applicant exhausted the domestic remedies available to her to complain about the violation of Article 3 of the Convention, concerning the slaps (scappellotti) allegedly suffered, and under Articles 6 §§ 1 and 3 a), c) and e) and 8 of the Convention?
It appears that no, Knox the applicant never did initiate the formal process to seek a remedy through Italian law. The point is one that ends the ECHR appeal process all by itself if the answer is no.
- (1) because of the obvious status of inadmissibility of the application under the ECHR rules (no domestic remedy was first attempted),
(2) because of its damaging probative value for assessing the credibility of the version of facts provided by the applicant.
You will of course know of the legal provisions under Italian law about which the ECHR may not yet be aware:
- (1) the crimes of beating (cp 581), or physical violence or threat (cp. 610-612) require the victim to file a complaint in order to allow prosecution of the charge, otherwise investigation cannot be initiated;
(2) the Ethics Code of lawyers requires a defence attorney to file a charge if he/she collects a claim by a client under detention, and to properly inform the client about the necessity to file a complaint;
(3) if a lawyer is informed by a client under detention that the same client suffered violence or offence by authorities, and does not take proper legal steps, the lawyer would commit the extremely serious criminal offence of infedele patrocinio (betrayal of the interest of client) besides breaching the Ethics Code;
(4) a defence attorney is also required to object any irregularity of breach of the code that could be suffered by the client, namely, in any particular case, if the applicant’s current claims had been made at the time, the lawyers should have denounced the breach of Procedure Code claiming that a prosecution interrogation had taken place (thus, that would mean breaching the Procedure code that prevents prosecution from questioning a suspect prior to his/her appearance before a judge)
So, in summary, no formal complaint ever seems to have been filed allowing local investigations to begin. And the failure to initiate the procedure for domestic remedy by the applicant on this claim could be a crime under Italian law if Knox had insisted on it.
And it would seem to render the request inadmissible on this point. It also undermines any possible credibility of the claim itself. Regardless of whoever dropped the ball here, lawyer or client, it does not bode well.
Posted by Our Main Posters on 05/23/16 at 02:24 PM •
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Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, The defenses, The legal followups, Knox followup, Hoaxes Knox & team, 16 Interrogation hoax, 24 ECHR appeal hoax, Hoaxers from 2011, Amanda Knox #2 •
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Monday, May 02, 2016
Revenge “On” The Knox: Judges Bruno And Marasca Of The Supreme Court Strike Back
Posted by Chimera
Judge Bruno the drafter of the seriously bizarre Fifth Chambers report “Who, me?!!!”
1. Overview Of The Post
We have posted both multi-part analyses of the Amanda Knox book (extended 2015 edition) and also multi-part analyses of the 2015 Supreme Court verdict attempting to apply closure to the case.
Primarily because they both make so much up and leave so much out, both efforts appear to Italian lawyers and observers and our own team to have fallen far short.
Worse, as I demonstrate here, Knox and the Supreme Court were not even on the same page. They used different arguments which tend to cancel one another out.
In effect the report of Judges Bruno and Marasca late in 2015 pulled the rug out from under Knox’s book published a few months before.
2. Arguments Of The Supreme Court
The final report from the 5th Chambers of Cassation was released in September 2015, several months late, with rumors swirling in Rome that it was proving a tough task.
Our five critique series were put together by (1) the Perugia prosecution, (2) Machiavelli, (3) Catnip, (4) James Raper (the longest of those four), and (5) in draft by Olleosnep.
From James Raper critique Part 1
The Fifth Chambers argued as follows:
1. The standard of “beyond any reasonable doubt” was not met due to insufficient and/or contradictory evidence - pursuant to Article 530, section 2 of the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure.
2. Multiple attackers upheld. Guede was guilty with others unknown.
3. The break-in in Romanelli’s room was staged.
4. Amanda Knox was present in the cottage at the time of the murder but there is insufficient evidence that she played a participatory role.
5. The DNA profile of Meredith Kercher on the knife and the DNA profile of Raffaele Sollecito on the bra clasp have “no probative or circumstantial relevance”
6. “Motive is not irrelevant” and motive was not established.
7. No selective cleaning.
8. No purpose would be served in remanding the case back to the 1st instance court of appeal (as had occurred on appeal against acquittal)
From James Raper Critique Part 5
The Fifth Chambers argued as follows:
1. Knox was present in the cottage at the time of the murder but in a non-participatory role. Very probably (if this is not a held fact) she had scrubbed Meredith’s blood off her hands in the small bathroom.
2. Sollecito was very probably there as well, but it cannot be known when.
3. There was certainly an assailant (and perhaps more than one) in addition to Guede.
4. There was a staging of the break-in in Filomena’s room.
While this seems (in a very tortuous way), to assert an “insufficient evidence” finding rather than an “innocence” finding, the findings of the 5th Chambers are now considered final, unless they are overturned.
That being said, these findings directly refute the bulk of Knox’s book “Waiting to be Heard”
3. Arguments of Amanda Knox
Our 12-part series taking apart the claims in Knox’s book can be found here.
(1) Chapter 5, 6: The Evening and Morning After Meredith Died
Knox Version (A): AK/RS were at his apartment, watching Amelie, smoking pot, reading Harry Potter and f***ing. AK returned to her home late the next morning.
Knox Version (B): AK was in the kitchen while PL was murdering Meredith
Knox Version (C): AK was in the kitchen while PL was murdering Meredith, and RS was probably there
Knox Version (D): AK has no clue what was going on, and doesn’t remember anything.
Version (A) is the story AK told in her book and on television—though the details are flexible. Versions (B), (C), and (D) are the 3 statements she made November 5th/6th.
However, the truth Bruno and Marasca think is closest to the truth (pun intended), is version (C), with Guede as the killer instead of PL.
Other courts: Pre-Trial Judge Micheli (October 2008), Trial Judge Massei (2009), Appeal Judge Nencini (2014) all found that Knox was not only involved, but that she personally killed Meredith. Even if you accept the Cassation ruling that AK wasn’t actually involved, the final ruling did place her at the crime scene, and RS probably so.
Bullshit level: COMPLETE
(2) Chapters 7, 8, 9: The Ensuing Investigation
AK goes on and on in WTBH about how she was trying to help the police. She complains about how she was subjected to repeated and very lengthy interviews. However, she never shared any of the insider information she had about that night. The police officers involved noted that she and RS seemed particularly unhelpful.
Bullshit level: COMPLETE
(3) Chapters 10, 11: The Knox Interrogation Hoax
AK goes on in great detail especially in Chapter 10 about how she was lured to the police station, and brutally interrogated. In her December 2013 email to Judge Nencini, she refers to it as “torture”.
Interesting how she remembers it with such lurid detail.
As AK points out, there is no recording or video
All of the officers involved give “very” different accounts
AK claims to be traumatized and have her memory go blank
AK’s performance was convincing enough to make Judge Claudia Matteini (November 2007) believe PL was the killer. But since then ....
(a) the 3 judge panel headed by Judge Massimo Ricciarelli (November 2007);
(b) the 5 judge Cassation panel headed by Judge Torquato Gemelli (April 2008);
(c) pre-trial Judge Paolo Micheli (October 2008);
(d) trial jury headed by Judge Giancarlo Massei (December 2009);
(e) appellate jury headed by Hellmann/Zanetti (October 2011);
(f) Cassation panel headed by Judge Chieffi (March 2013);
(g) appellate jury headed by Judge Alessandro Nencini (January 2014);
(h) Cassation panel headed by Bruno/Marasca (March 2015)
.... have ALL ruled that AK framed PL, and that she did it willingly, and wasn’t tricked or coerced.
Bullshit level: COMPLETE
(4) The Afterword: Everything After Hellmann’s Ruling
AK triumphantly declares that Cassation (2015) found her and RS innocent. But once again, AK releases her book prior to the Cassation report. Idiot.
AK does misrepresent far more than just the 2015 Cassation findings in the Afterword. More on that later.
Bullshit level: COMPLETE
(5) Understanding the Bruno/Marasca Ruling
At a minimum, Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and the Afterword of “Waiting to be Heard” are complete bullshit.
Considering that these bogus claims are repeated throughout the book, it can reasonably be inferred that much of the rest is made up as well.
This is not me talking. This is referencing the Bruno/Marasca ruling, which as it stands, is final.
(6) Author’s Note
This is a lot of speculation on my part, (as Andrew Gumbel would say “hearsay and speculation abound”), but feel free to comment
The B/M report can be understood in one word: finality. They don’t want any one else looking at it.
(A) B/M rule “insufficient evidence” rather than “innocent” hoping to placate the Italian public.
(B) B/M sabotage AK’s ECHR appeal chances, as they don’t want another court looking to carefully at it
(C) B/M ruling essentially says “just short of guilty” to stop AK/RS from crowing about their innocence.
(D) B/M ruling claims AK/RS lied and obstructed to ward off any potential wrongful imprisonment lawsuit.
(E) B/M do strongly imply AK/RS are guilty to try to give a “moral win” to the Kerchers.
(F) B/M appear to bend over backwards to acquit, trying to look “incompetent, at worst”, rather than corrupt.
(6) The problem is: Bruno and Marasca haven’t taken into account the personalities of everyone involved
(a) The Hellmann/Zanetti ruling (October 2011) stunk of corruption, so Italy would be immediately suspicious of anything remotely similar.
(b) AK’s ECHR appeal seems to warded off for now, but AK seems hell bent on going ahead anyway.
(c) AK/RS did start parading around again, and AK re-released her book
(d) RS and Papa Sollecito sued anyway.
(e) Far from giving a “moral win”, this ruling and the accompanying report just leave a bad taste.
(7) Bullshit in WTBH (Beyond Bruno/Marasca)
Chapter 1: Before Leaving Italy
Questions For Knox: Why The Huge Lie About Your ZERO Academic Intentions In Europe?
Chapter 2: Federico Martini (a.k.a. Cristiano)
US And UK Media Wrongly Attribute Italian Report Of Knox/Cocaine-Dealer Link To Trial Prosecutors
Multiple: Capanne Chapters
The Amanda Knox Book: Good Reporters Start To Surface Amanda Knox’s False Claims In Droves
Chapter 31-35: The Hellmann Appeal
A Summary Of The Cassazione Ruling On Annulment Of The Knox-Sollecito Appeal
4. Final Thoughts
I stand by my claim that WTBH is 90-95% bullshit.
Fair to say, Bruno and Marasca would likely agree.
Posted by Chimera on 05/02/16 at 08:41 PM •
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Archived in Defendants in court, Amanda Knox, The officially involved, Supreme Court, Appeals 2009-2015, Cassation 2015, Hoaxes against Italy, 1 Ital justice hoax, Hoaxes Knox & team, Hoaxers from 2007, Knox-Marriott PR, Amanda Knox #2 •
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Sunday, May 01, 2016
“Guilt” Crime Drama 13 June On US Cable TV Features An Abrasive Self-Absorbed Troublemaker
Posted by Peter Quennell
Reminiscent of? You got it. Here’s one synopsis.
“Guilt” is a soapy drama about a young American woman in London who becomes the prime suspect in the savage murder of her roommate.
As the investigation unfolds, viewers will question whether she’s a naïve, young girl whose poor decisions are being magnified under the ruthless glare of the British tabloids, or whether she’s a sociopath who brutally murdered her friend.
Even her sister, who comes to London to defend her, will question how well she knows her little sister as more and more ugly truths come out.
This mystery will twist through all layers of London society ““ from a posh but depraved sex club, all the way up to the Royal Family itself.
Knox did soar high for a short while. But her self-absorbed manner on TV was never helpful to her. And now she has been hung out to dry by an angry Guede, an angry Sollecito, and even a disbelieving Fifth Chambers of the Supreme Court (see the next post by Chimera).
Posted by Peter Quennell on 05/01/16 at 07:32 PM •
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Archived in News media & movies, Media developments, Movies on case, The wider contexts, N America context •
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Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Endemic Hints By RS That He WAS One Of The Real Killers Pretty Blatant In Italy #2
Posted by Guermantes
Popular TV and newsprint presence Selvaggia Lucarelli one of more prominent anti-RS
The humorless and un-self-aware RS and AK really play into skeptical Italian commentators’ hands.
Almost everything Sollecito says and does now is put under the microscope. He seems to sort of get that he becomes the butt of a lot of often-subtle jokes. His ticked-off reactions only make things worse.
This is my translation of a second column by Selvaggia Lucarelli the popular TV and newsprint presence. This was our first.
April 5, 2016
Raffaele Sollecito becomes crime commentator on TV with TgCom24. Next stop ““ knife sharpener?
By Selvaggia Lucarelli
A year ago, the Court of Cassation definitively acquitted Raffaele Sollecito (and Amanda Knox). Evidentiary framework that would confirm their guilt beyond reasonable doubt was lacking. Now Raffaele Sollecito is a free man and has an inviolable right to do what he wants. He could be a singer, an insurance agent, a tailor, a blacksmith, a web designer, or a pizza maker.
And yet, all of his amazing attempts to kick off a second life are clues and evidence (which is rather damning) not to be guilty of murder “beyond reasonable doubt”, but to be guilty of bad taste, inelegance, missed opportunities and unintelligence beyond reasonable doubt. Beyond any doubt or hesitation at all. Beyond any uncertainty.
On this matter, the evidence is rather overwhelming and reliable. And no, I’m not part of that forcaioli (pitchfork, gallows) lobby Sollecito often likes to quote. I am part of that large group of people who witness his awkward and incoherent attempts at liberation / redemption and wonder if there is no one sensible next to him to suggest that he chooses a career a few fields away from the dead people / murder victims.
Because there would be other things to do if he wished so, yet the dear Raffaele, for now, of all the brilliant ideas about his future career has given birth to two: the first was that of an app (funded by the Puglia region with 66,000 Euro) to arrange funerals, share photos of the dead with others and, as is written in the introduction to his website, “to eliminate, through the services of the app, the distance between you and the person you want to commemorate.”
I mean, if really, thanks to Sollecito, there exists a way to keep in touch with the dead, we hope that Meredith’s mother downloads the app as soon as possible and chats with her daughter to ask who had murdered her, together with Rudi Guedè, seeing as he was convicted of murder in complicity with someone, but that someone has never been identified.
However, the Sollecito app, for which he won a grant (the Puglia region realized that the idea of funerals 2.0 was likely to slide into second place in the ranking of the top apps in the world after Whatsapp), must not have had the desired effect because Raffaele has decided to take a second road.
The news is just a few days old: Sollecito is now a TV crime expert in the Mediaset’s program “This Week’s Mystery” where he discusses amiably the most famous murder victims.
Of course, it should be recognized that in a world of improvised TV experts, it could not be said that the young man did not chew on his arguments, so all in all we appreciate his choice of Mediaset to work towards competence. It is the issue of good taste that continues to leave us vaguely incredulous, so much so that TgCom24 announced Sollecito’s debut on April 1, and virtually no one paid attention to the news believing that it was yet another surreal April Fools’ joke.
After three days and the airing of the program everyone had to believe the unbelievable and the news yesterday was revived by all. The moral of the story: Sollecito, commentator on TV in a broadcast on murder victims, in the history of all the April Fools’ jokes from the Cretaceous to the present, is not, alas, a false story mistaken for true, but the first real news mistaken for false.
I wonder now what will be his next steps in the world of work: maybe it would be a nice idea to open a guest house for students. Or become a sharpener of knives. Or open a real estate agency in Perugia. What is certain is that in the wake of this macabre narcissism anything is possible.
And yes, of course, that is the basic premise. The certainty that Raffaele Sollecito can do whatever the hell he wants. It is also true, however, a healthy person judged innocent by a court while half of Italy is still convinced he’s guilty would instead seek media oblivion.
And if not oblivion, at least a career a few fields away from the smell of death, the suspicion that death carries with it, the face of a little girl named Meredith who was killed like a dog. Not Raffaele, he does not intend to sever that bond (with the dead) but, on the contrary, seems to want to ride on with uncanny persistence.
Too bad. It took eight years to prove his innocence, it would take five minutes to prove his intelligence. Maybe opening a kiosk outside the stadium or an architectural bureau in Barletta, instead of going on TV to argue with Bruzzone who knows most about killings, would be a better idea. Meredith’s parents would appreciate this, I’m sure.
Posted by Guermantes on 04/12/16 at 10:08 AM •
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Archived in Defendants in court, Raff Sollecito, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 25 RS persona hoax, 27 Single alibi hoax, 28 Not at house hoax •
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Saturday, April 02, 2016
Excellent “Is Amanda Knox Guilty?” Report By Vogt & Russell Close To 100,000 YouTube Views
Posted by Our Main Posters
This is just under one hour long - and very good. Viewer numbers just passed the 99,500 mark. About 1,000 a week.
Posted by Our Main Posters on 04/02/16 at 06:09 PM •
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Thursday, March 31, 2016
On April 26 Possible Sentences For Oggi For Publishing Defamations By Knox
Posted by Peter Quennell
Umberto Brindani, editor of Oggi, and Giangavino Sulas, veteran crime reporter
Outcome: OGGI caved, as it really had no defense (other than that Knox had extensively lied), and this was settled out of court.
This is still highly worth a read as it lists Knox’s false claims in Part 2 and all our rebuttals in Part 3.
OGGI seems to have steered clear of the case since. Smart move.
1. New Court Development In Italy
The Italian mafias have used three main weapons against the judiciary: bribes, slanders, and blowing them up.
As a result judges and prosecutors are protected in various ways. One is to make it a felony crime to maliciously defame them to try to throw trials off-course.
We are 1/3 of the way through Chimera’s elucidation of the 100 or so criminal felonies in Knox’s book, and the other two posts will follow next.
The first of what could be numerous trials of those who published them and repeated them is now approaching its climax.
This is the trial of Umberto Brindani, the editor of the weekly magazine Oggi, and Giangavino Sulas, a veteran crime reporter on his staff.
They have put up what amounts to zero defense, and on tuesday the chief prosecutor requested the judge to impose prison sentences of six years. Even if those sentences are minimised under Italian rules and no time will be served, each will still have a criminal record for life.
A guilty verdict bodes badly for Amanda Knox and her book agent Bob Barnett, her publishers, her lawyers, and her fellow-travelers, who could then all be easy targets for Italian prosecutors in future trials.
The foolish and uncomprehending Joel Simon of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, who knows nothing about WHY Italian prosecutors are protected from criminal defamations, could also find himself in the crosshairs.
Here below, from our posts of 12 May 2013, are Oggi’s paraphrasings of Knox’s claims (translation by Catnip) and our own rebuttals of those same claims.
2. Knox’s Defamatory Claims In Oggi
Amanda Knox: The American girl’s sensational story
Chilling. No other adjectives come to mind after having read Waiting to be Heard, finally released in the United States. An extremely detailed and very serious charge against the police and magistrates who conducted the investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher.
Immediately after the crime, Amanda recounts, and for entire days and nights, they had interrogated the American girl and placed her under pressure to make her confess to a non-existent truth, without officially investigating her, denying her the assistance of a lawyer, telling her lies, even prohibiting her from going to the bathroom and giving her smacks so as to make her sign a confession clearly extorted with something similar to torture.
And now the situation is very simple. There are only two choices: either Amanda is writing lies, and as a consequence the police officers and magistrates are going to have to sue her for defamation; or else she is telling the truth, and so they are going to have to go, not without being sanctioned by the CSM [the magistrates’ governing body] and the top brass of the Police. The third possibility, which is to pretend that nothing has happened, would be shameful for the credibility of our judicial system.
Amanda Knox has written her Waiting to be Heard memoir with the sense of revulsion and of relief of someone who has escaped by a hair’s breadth from a legal disaster, but has got her sums wrong. Cassation has decided that the [appeal] proceedings have to be redone and the hearings should be (re)commencing in October before the Florence Court of Appeal.
In a USA Today interview, Ms Knox has not excluded the possibility of “returning to Italy to face this battle too”, but it would be a suicidal decision: it’s likely that the appeal will result in a conviction, and the Seattle girl will end up in the black hole from which she has already spent 1,427 days.
In this way Waiting to be Heard risks being the “film” on which Amanda’s last words are recorded about the Mystery of Perugia, her definitive version.
We have read a review copy. And we were dumbfounded. Waiting to be Heard is a diary that has the frenetic pace of a thriller, written in a dry prose (behind the scenes is the hand of Linda Kulman, a journalist at the Huffington Post), even “promoted” by Michiko Kakutani, long-time literary critic at the New York Times.
The most interesting part does not concern the Raffaele Sollecito love story (which Amanda reduces it to puppy love: “With the feeling, in hindsight, I knew that he… that we were still immature, more in love with love than with each other”), and whoever goes looking for salacious details about the three Italian boys Amanda had casual sex with, one night stands, will be frustrated (Ms Knox describes those enounters with the nonchalance of an entomologist disappointed with his experiments: “We undressed, we had sex, I got dressed again with a sense of emptiness”).
There are no scoops about the night of the murder and even the many vicissitudes endured during the 34,248 hours spent in Capanne prison ““ the [claimed] sexual molestations suffered under two guards, the unexpected kiss planted by a bisexual cellmate, the threats made by another two prisoners ““ remain on the backdrop, like colourful notations.
Because what is striking and upsetting, in the book, is the minute descriptions, based on her own diaries, on the case documents and on a prodigious memory, of how Ms Knox had been incriminated (or “nailed”).
COME IN KAFKA. A Kafkian account in which the extraordinary naivety of Amanda (the word naïve, ingénue, is the one which recurs most often in the 457 pages of the book) mixes with the strepitous wickedness of the investigators decided on “following a cold and irrational trail because they had nothing better in hand”.
Devour the first 14 chapters and ask yourself: is it possible that the Police and Italian justice work with such incompetence, ferocity, and disdain for the truth? You place yourself in her situation and you scare yourself: If it happened to me? You’re in two minds: is it a likely accusation, or a squalid calumny, the version of Amanda?
Because in reading it you discover that in the four days following the discovery of Meredith Kercher’s body (on 2 November 2007), Amanda was interrogated continuously, and without the least of procedural guarantees [=due process].
She changes status from witness to suspect without being aware of it.” No one had told me my rights, no one had told me that I could remain silent”, she writes. When she asked if she had the right to a lawyer, the Public Prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, had responded like this: “No, no, that will only worsen things: it would mean that you don’t want to help us”. Thus, the Public Prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini.
For a long period of time, Ms Knox, who at the time spoke and understood hardly any Italian at all, mistook him for the Mayor of Perugia, come to the police station to help her.
Then, with the passage of time and of the pages, the assessment changes: Mignini is a prosecutor “with a bizarre past”, investigated for abuse of office (he was convicted at first instance, but Cassation annulled the verdict on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction: the case will be held in Torino ““ ndr) and with the hunger to fabricate “strange stories to solve his cases”.
Mignini “is a madman who considers his career more important than my liberty or the truth about the killing of Meredith”. On the phone, the Perugian prosecutor reacts with aplomb: “First I will read the book and then I will consider it. Certainly, if it really calls me “˜mad’ or worse, I think I will file suit”.
BEING IN PRISON IS LIKE CAMPING Amanda goes looking. When the officers mysteriously bring her along to the crime scene inspection of the apartment below the one in which she and Meredith were living in, Ms Knox put on the shoe protectors and the white forensics gloves and called out Ta-dah! spreading her arms “as if I was at the start of a musical: I wanted to appear helpful”.
When they dragged her in handcuffs into Capanne Prison, she believed what the Police would have told her, and that was they would hide her for a couple of days to protect her (from the true killer, one presumes) and for unspecified bureaucratic reasons. “In my head I was camping: “˜This won’t last more than a week in the mountains’, I told myself,” writes Amanda.
They take her money off her, and her credit cards, licence and passport, and she draws strength from repeating to herself that “surely they’re not going to give me a uniform, seeing that I’m a special case and that I’ll be here for only a little while”.
But it’s the account of the notorious interrogation that takes the breath away. Around ten in the evening on her last day of freedom, Ms Knox accompanies Raffaele to the police station (he was called in, also without a lawyer, by the Police) and is thrown into a nightmare which she populates with many faces: there is Officer Rita Ficcara, who gives her two cuffs on the head (“To help you remember,” she would say); there’s another officer who advises her: “If you don’t help us, you’ll end up in prison for 30 years”; Mignini arrives and advises her not to call a lawyer; super-policewoman Monica Napoleoni dives in and bluffs: “Sollecito has dropped your alibi: he says that on the night of the murder you had left his apartment and that you had told him to lie to “˜cover you’”.
And a crescendo of yelling and intimidations that lasts from 11 at night until 5.45 in the morning. Seven hours “produce” two confessions that, exactly because they are made without a defence lawyer, cannot be used in the proceedings, but forever after “stain” the image of the accused Knox: Amanda places herself at the scene of the crime and accuses Patrick Lumumba.
RAFFAELE CONFIRMS THE ACCUSATIONS An account of the horror is confirmed by Sollecito in his memoir, Honor Bound, Raffaele writes of having heard “the police yelling at Amanda and then the cries and sobs of my girl, who was yelling “˜Help!’ in Italian in the other room”, and of having being threatened in his turn (“If you try to get up and go, I’ll punch you till you’ll bleed and I’ll kill you. I’ll leave you in a pool of blood”, another officer had whispered to him).
Published lines which have passed right under the radar of the Perugian investigators: “No legal action [against the interrogators] has been notified to us,” Franco Sollecito, Raffaele’s dad, tell us. For having recounted the sourness of her interrogation in court, Amanda was investigated for calunnia: the trial will take place in Florence. This one, too, will be a circumstantial case: it’s the word of two young people against that of the public prosecutor and the police.
The recording of the interrogation would have unveiled which side the truth stands on. But it has gone missing.
3. Our Rebuttals Of Knox’s Claims
- Knox was NOT interrogated for days and nights. She was put under no pressure in her brief witness interviews except possibly by Sollecito who had just called their latest alibi “a pack of lies”.
- Knox WAS officially investigated in depth, after she surprisingly “confessed” and placed herself and Patrick at the scene. Prior to that she’d been interviewed less than various others, who each had one consistent alibi.
- Knox herself pushed to make all three statements without a lawyer on the night of 5-6 November 2007 in which she claimed she went out from Sollecito’s house, met Patrick, and witnessed him killing Meredith.
- Far from Knox being denied a lawyer, discussions were stopped before the first statement and not resumed, in the later hearing she was formally warned she needed one; she signed a confirmation of this in front of witnesses.
- Prosecutor Mignini who Knox accuses of telling her a lawyer would hurt her prospects when she claims she asked for one was not even in the police station at that interview; he was at home.
- She was not prohibited from going to the bathroom. At trial, she testified she was treated well and was frequently offered refreshments. Her lawyers confirmed this was so.
- She was not given smacks by anyone. Over a dozen witnesses testified that she was treated well, broke into a conniption spontaneously, and thereafter was hard to stop talking.
- There is no evidence whatsoever that Knox was subject to “something similar to torture” and as mentioned above only Sollecito applied any pressure, not any of the police.
- There is nothing “suicidal” about returning to Italy to defend herself at the new appeal. Sollecito did. She risks an international arrest warrant and extradition if she doesn’t.
- There is no proof except for her own claims of sexual molestations in prison; she is a known serial liar; and she stands out for an extreme willingness to talk and write about sex.
- Many people have testified she was treated well in prison: her own lawyers, a member of parliament, and visitors from the US Embassy were among them; she herself wrote that it was okay.
- She may have based her account on her diaries and “prodigious memory” but the obviously false accusation against the prosecutor suggests that much of the book was made up.
- The investigators had a great deal of evidence against Knox in hand, not nothing, and they were not ever faulted for any action; they helped to put on a formidable case at trial in 2009.
- “Police and Italian justice work with such incompetence, ferocity, and disdain for the truth” is contradicted by a very complete record prior to trial which was praised by the Supreme Court.
- Mr Mignini has NO bizarre past at all. He is widely known to be careful and fair. He would not have been just promoted to first Deputy Prosecutor General of Umbria otherwise.
- He was put on trial by a rogue prosecutor desperate to protect his own back from Mignini’s investigations; the Supreme Court has killed the trumped up case dead.
- There was nothing “mysterious” about Knox being taken to the crime scene to see if any knives were gone, but her wailing panic when she saw the knives was really “mysterious”.
- Knox never thought she was in prison for her own protection; she had signed an agreement at the 5:00 am interview confirming she did know why she was being held.
- Monica Napoleoni did not “bluff” that Sollecito had just trashed their joint alibi; he actually did so, because his phone records incriminated him; he agreed to that in writing.
- There was no crescendo of “yelling and intimidations that lasts from 11 at night until 5.45”. There were two relatively brief sessions. Knox did most of the talking, named seven possible perps, and drew maps.
- There was zero legal requirement to record the recap/summary interview, no recording has “gone missing” and many officers present testified to a single “truth” about what happened.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/31/16 at 04:39 PM •
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Sunday, March 13, 2016
Italy Excels At Innovation But Unfortunately The EC Hampers Most Good Execution
Posted by Peter Quennell
Italian production of Mazerati cars selling well in the United States - FIAT owns Chrysler
The previous post talked about innovations in the Italian prison system.
Given a free reign, Italians are in fact really, really good at making things better. Hardly anyone in the world can beat them and several of their industries are world-beating, in design areas especially.
Now here’s an article on some of PM Renzi’s reforms and why they are still awaiting execution.
Justice reforms are of course a part of it. We have observed some reforms already, but not yet the full package.
NO country in the world really does much better (see current American frustration) in the absence of a mastery and use of all of the growth knowhow now available which we quite often discuss here.
Mr Renzi is actually quite right (though the article seems to doubt it) that the EC, which always meant well, has become a vast and domineering slower of systems change.
He’s right. The EC really is his single biggest problem. Here are three hampering effects.
- 1) The single currency handicaps all but the successful core and removes from all countries one of their two powerful levers for determining proper value, the ability to adjust currency exchange rates to maintain cost competitiveness.
2) In face of this uphill slope and of EC-wide multinational pretensions, its impossible to set compelling and unfettered visions by way of wide popular participation at the national level and below.
3) Any major system upgrade there (or anywhere) in absence of “value liberation” and a driving popular vision will become totally exhausting, and so reformers will only tackle change around the edges.
If you are thinking “erk!” you sure have that right.
So should Italy disengage from the EC, therefore? An Italian Brexit? It could be very much better off doing so. A total separation, not the half-baked one the British have been driven nuts by.
Set new goals with widespread popular participation and Italy could not only be off on a wild ride - it could show the world a much-needed model.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 03/13/16 at 03:18 AM •
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Friday, February 26, 2016
Surprising Similarities Between Sammy The Bull Gravano And The Ex-Perps In Meredith’s Case
Posted by Chimera
Overview
This piece is about Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, an admitted serial killer.
He had a career in the mafia, and was the underboss and hitman for the notorious mob boss John Gotti. Although his is a case about organized crime, there are many similarities between Gotti v Gravano, and Knox v Sollecito v Guede.
Some Gotti/Gravano history
John Gotti was a captain in the Gambino crime family (named after Carlo Gambino), based in New York, NY. A serious problem emerged for him when several members of his ‘‘crew’’ were indicted for drug dealing.
These indictments included his younger brother, Gene Gotti, and Angelo Ruggiero, a childhood friend. The policy within the crime family for many years had been ‘‘deal-and-die’‘.
The upper leadership of the mob had figured that drug dealing was too high profile a crime, and that the extra police attention was not worth it. True, this was extremely hypocritical, as the bosses collected their cut of all income, knowing that a large portion of those proceeds came directly from drugs.
The drug indictments suddenly meant that John Gotti was in danger.
Though not personally implicated, he thought he might also be killed on the assumption that he approved of the alleged dealing. He decided to strike first, to save his own neck by having then boss Paul Castellano ‘‘rubbed out’‘. Gotti solicited the help of Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, who was known as a prolific killer.
Paul Castellano had inducted Gravano into the mob in 1978. However, Gravano had no qualms about killing his ‘‘friend’’ since Gotti offered him even more: a promotion to ‘‘capo’’ or to ‘‘captain’‘.
Gravano helped Gotti set up the hit for December 16, 1985. With Castellano (and driver Tommy Billoti who was at the time underboss) dead, the family was temporarily leaderless. Gotti got himself voted in, and took over the Gambino family.
Castellano wasn’t the only ‘‘friend’’ that Gravano murdered, or would later murder. Gravano murdered Robert di Bernardo—a business partner, Louie Molito—a childhood friend, and others. He then took over any assets that they had. Some ‘‘friend’‘.
For the next several years, Gotti deliberately put himself into the spotlight. He managed to win 3 criminal trials, and seemed untouchable. However, in 1990, his mouth got him into trouble, and the FBI recorded Gotti implicating himself and other Gambino associates on murder and other crimes.
Gotti also made many nasty insults towards Gravano, now his underboss.
Gotti, Gravano, and Frank LeCasio (then the 3rd in command) were arrested December 11, 1990. All were held without bail. When Gravano finally heard the tapes of what Gotti had been saying about him, he turned and became a ‘‘mob rat’‘. Gotti and LeCasio were convicted of murder, racketeering and other crimes, and received life without parole.
Gravano, however got a deal that would put Karla Homolka to shame: 5 years for 19 murders. True, he could have served 20 for racketeering, but the judge cut it far below that.
For the complete interview, please see the YouTube video at the top here. This was shot in the 1990’s and converted to digital, so the quality is not that great. Here are a few more for background. The third one, the movie ‘‘Gotti’’ is fairly accurate, though off on some points.
- More on Sammy Gravano.
- More on the Gambino Family.
- More on John Gotti.
Gambino family highlights
(1) Albert Anastasia (underboss to Vincent Magino) made his ‘‘friend’’ disappear. Anastasia then took over.
(2) Carlo Gambino (underboss to Albert Anastasia) had his ‘‘friend’’ shot in a barbershop. Gambino then took over.
(3) Carlo Gambino made sure the ‘‘best qualified person’’ took over when he had a heart attack. He hand picked his brother-in-law Paul Castellano to succeed him.
(4) Paul Castellano’s underboss, Neil Delacroce, died of cancer. Castellano hand picked his buddy, Tommy Bilotti, to become new underboss.
(5) John Gotti and Salvatore (Sammy) Gravano, had their ‘‘friend’’ Paul Castellano shot dead in public. Gotti took over.
(6) While in prison, John Gotti made sure the best qualified person succeeded him as boss. He hand picked his son, John Jr.
So…. murder and nepotism seem to be how the top spots get filled in the mafia.
Excerpts From the Video
2:55 (Gravano) You can relate me to a soldier in Vietnam who killed hundreds of people. I was a soldier of Cosa Nostra. I am a hitman.
No. You are just a slimeball who kills for money.
3:25 (Gravano) Here I am
3:30 (Sawyer) They have said that you are the single most important witness ever to testify against the mob.
3:36 (Gravano) I think I am.
3:39 (Sawyer) So there’s a word you use, for people who turn ...
3:42 (Gravano) Who cooperate. You trying to goat me into the word? Rat? Is that the word?
3:51 (Sawyer) That’s the word. So are you a rat?
3:53 Gravano) I look at it as ‘‘I was betrayed. I betrayed him.’‘
3:59 (Sawyer) Double crosser?
4:01 (Gravano) Loud sigh ... master double-crosser. John’s a double-crosser. I’m a master double-crosser. We played chess, and he lost.
Gravano had in the past sneered at the idea of people testifying. However, when it is his turn, he dismisses it as a game.
4:30 (Gravano) Power has a way, where you can believe for a while that you can walk on water. And I think this is what happened to him.
And people who can walk away from 19 murders? What are they thinking?
5:25 (Sawyer) Were you Gotti’s friend?
5:30 (Gravano) His pit bull. And his friend.
5:42 (Sawyer) What was the reason, the real reason you cooperated? Or was it just to save your skin?
5:48 (Gravano) I was just tired of the mob, and tired of fighting. It was a door out of the mob. You know I watched the David Karresch incident, and I would say to myself: ‘‘how could these people get so brainwashed? Are they crazy? Are they nuts?’’ And then I look at myself in the mirror and I say ‘‘brainwashed?’’ Here I am on orders, killing people left and right. And I’m calling them brainwashed.
6:18 (Sawyer) There was a book written about you that you said you had a characteristic of committing murder with the non-chalence of someone pulling open the tab on a can of beer. That was about all that it phased you, or about all it took.
6:30 (Gravano) As far as being a hitman goes, I was actually good at it.
6:36 (Sawyer) Because you were fast, and lethal?
6:39 (Gravano) And loyal. If I was on your case, I dropped everything.
6:45 (Sawyer) Look at this list. There are ... how many?
6:49 (Gravano) 19
6:51 (Sawyer) Serial killers don’t have 19.
6:53 (Gravano) We’re worse than they are.
Okay, which is it? You turned on Gotti because it was a chess game? Or you did it because you were tired of the mob and the games? It can’t be both.
7:00 (Gravano) We only kill ourselves. What are you worried about? The public seems to like what we do. Look at John Gotti. If I have 19, forget about what he has. When he wanted a hit, he wanted it done yesterday. He would sent me to supervise it, or to control it, make sure the job got done. And I obviously did. When you’re the boss, and you’re giving orders, you’re credited with all of it, even if you’re not on the street.
Gravano is pulling the ‘‘John was even worse’’ card here. And he seems somewhat proud of what he has done. Sicko.
17:55 (Gravano) I remember something that surprised me is that I had no remorse at all. None. I didn’t feel sorry for him in the least. I felt power. I felt like my adrenaline in my body was completely out of control.
18:09 (Sawyer) You were excited?
18:13 (Gravano) I guess it’s like an animal going after its prey.
18:35 (Gravano) Everything changed. .... At a club, oh, no Sammy, you don’t have to wait in line. You can come right in.
18:40 (Sawyer) You were a player?
18:45 (Gravano) I was out of the minor leagues. I was in the major leagues.
No comment needed.
Other parallels with our pair
- Gravano is of Italian-American descent.
- Knox is American.
- Sollecito is Italian.
- Gravano was paid $1.5 million for ‘‘his’’ book called Underboss.
- Knox was paid $3.8 million for ‘‘her’’ book called Waiting to be Heard.
- Sollecito was paid $950,000 for ‘‘his’’ book, called Honor Bound
- Gravano tried to ‘‘cash in’’ on his murders by admitting what he had done.
- Knox/Sollecito tried to ‘‘cash in’’ on Meredith’s murder
- ’‘Gravano’s’’ book was really written by Peter Maas.
- ’‘Knox’s’’ book was really written by Linda Kuhlman.
- ’‘Sollecito’s’’ book was really written by Andrew Gumbel.
- The families of Gravano’s victims are outraged he is cashing in on the notoriety of his crimes.
- The Kercher family is outraged AK/RS are cashing in on the notoriety of their crimes.
- Gravano got an interview from Diane Sawyer.
- Knox’s first (of many) interviews was with Diane Sawyer.
- Sollecito’s first (of several) interviews was with Katie Couric.
- Gambino boss John Gotti was referred to as ‘‘John Gotti’‘.
- Sammy Gravano was referred to as ‘‘John Gotti’s Hitman’‘.
- Amanda Knox is referred to as ‘‘Amanda Knox’‘
- Raffaele Sollecito is referred to as ‘‘Amanda Knox’s Italian Ex-Boyfriend’‘
- Gravano has no problems airing personal details about his ‘‘friend’’ John.
- Knox has no problems airing personal details about her ‘‘friend’’ Meredith.
- Gravano criticizes Gotti’s public lifestyle, then after his deal becomes a media whore.
- Knox claims she wants to live in peace, but becomes a media whore to sway public opinion, and sell ‘‘her’’ book.
- Sollecito claims he was just dragged into Knox’s case, but becomes a media whore for the same reasons as Knox.
- Gravano blames Gotti for destroying the Gambino family, even though he was the one who testified at trial.
- Knox seems to blame Meredith for her own death, even though she stuck the knife in (well, she had it coming).
- Gravano (at least he claims) to have rigged Gotti’s racketeering trial to ensure an acquittal (or at worst a hung jury)
- Knox’s and Sollecito’s case was rigged by Hellmann/Zanetti and Marsca/Bruno to ensure an acquittal.
- Gravano was psychologically evaluated before leaving prison, and the results were disturbing.
- Knox and Sollecito were psychologically evaluated in prison, and the results were disturbing.
- Gravano smeared other mob associates for getting involved with drug trafficking.
- Knox smeared others (especially in her book) for drug use.
- Gravano’s drug smears were hypocritical as he was later brought to justice for drug trafficking.
- Knox’s drug smears were hypocritical, as she was into drugs, and slept with a dealer (Federico Martini) for drugs.
- Gravano’s most depraved act (outside of murder), was marrying a woman whose brother he had killed (Nick Scibetta).
- Knox’s most depraved act (outside of murder), was continuing her sex-for-drugs deal even after Meredith’s death.
- Sollecito’s most depraved act (outside of murder), was his various bride shopping efforts to avoid extradition.
- Warning signs? Gravano murdered his business ‘‘friends’‘, so betraying Gotti was no real surprise.
- Warning signs? Knox staged a break in, wrote rape stories, and threw rocks at cars, so violence in her home was no real surprise.
- Warning signs? Sollecito had supposedly attacked a classmate with scissors, so stabbing someone was no real surprise.
- Collateral damage? Gravano was prepared to kill innocent bystanders during the December 16, 1985 hit on boss Paul Castellano.
- Collateral damage? Knox framed an innocent person (Lumumba), and tried to pin it all on accomplice Rudy Guede.
- Collateral damage? Sollecito helped to pin it all on Guede, and cost his sister Vanessa her career with the Carabinieri.
A Final Thought:
Knox liked the Beatles. Here is ‘‘Working Class Hero’’ by John Lennon.
.... There’s room at the top
They’re telling you still
.... But first you must learn how to
Smile as you kill
.... If you want to be like all
The folks on the ‘Hill
Posted by Chimera on 02/26/16 at 07:17 PM •
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Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Why The Peaking Of Rage And Early Deaths Of Middle-Aged Lower-Prospects Whites In The US?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Recently a study was published showing that middle-aged less-successful whites in the US are dying off unusually fast.
Approximately this same group may be behind the “radical” candidatures for president of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. No question but that those supporters have a serious unmet need.
It may also be behind a lot of the rage we encounter on the web.
In the New York Times this “reference group theory” hypothesis by Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist, has just appeared. Excerpts from a longer whole:
Why are whites overdosing or drinking themselves to death at higher rates than African-Americans and Hispanics in similar circumstances? Some observers have suggested that higher rates of chronic opioid prescriptions could be involved, along with whites’ greater pessimism about their finances.
Yet I’d like to propose a different answer: what social scientists call reference group theory. The term “reference group” was pioneered by the social psychologist Herbert H. Hyman in 1942, and the theory was developed by the Columbia sociologist Robert K. Merton in the 1950s. It tells us that to comprehend how people think and behave, it’s important to understand the standards to which they compare themselves.
How is your life going? For most of us, the answer to that question means comparing our lives to the lives our parents were able to lead. As children and adolescents, we closely observed our parents. They were our first reference group.
And here is one solution to the death-rate conundrum: It’s likely that many non-college-educated whites are comparing themselves to a generation that had more opportunities than they have, whereas many blacks and Hispanics are comparing themselves to a generation that had fewer opportunities….
In the fourth quarter of 2015, the median weekly earnings of white men aged 25 to 54 were $950, well above the same figure for black men ($703) and Hispanic men ($701). But for some whites “” perhaps the ones who account for the increasing death rate “” that may be beside the point.
Their main reference group is their parents’ generation, and by that standard they have little to look forward to and a lot to lament.
In a comment on a previous thread our frequent poster Grahame Rhodes described a syndrome among ex-military looking for a cause, and asked if we have any ideas.
Strange thing about the civilian mind set concerning Military personnel who have been involved in the actual horrors of warfare. Most civilians are squeamish about the necessity of eradicating an enemy by killing them. They deny the horrors of warfare by pretending that it does not exist, and yet civilians pay for the training and the arming of military personnel to keep them safe. Of course after soldiers are no longer members of any military organization they are generally ignored and even vilified for having taken part in saving any form of saving democracy.
Recently I was at a reunion quite close to Seattle, and sitting at a table among a group of perhaps thirty or so old soldiers the closes one asked me.
“What do you see?”
I said “I see a lot of old soldiers.”
The answer I got was as follows.
“Ah yes but I see far more than that. See him over there? He’s a weapons tech, or perhaps him, he used to teach unarmed combat, or those two who have served in several hot spots the world over.
There is a wealth of knowledge here from medics to drivers etc: But there is something far more important. Everybody you see, all highly trained in warfare and subversive operations are bored out of their mind. They need something to do.”I said that was very true and very interesting. The point being that when old soldiers are put out to pasture all that training goes to waste. That is a shame and something should be done about it.
Any suggestions?
My own suggestion for what it’s worth was this.
Great story. I know many or most ex-military have a tough time. Here’s an idea that I think might provide them with a viable way forward.
You’d think from what comes out of Hollywood that all our great problems can only be solved by some perverse lone-wolf superhero maverick essentially working against great resistance and with no team or one that is very small.
In fact that is not at all how most real progress works. The two things that create all good change are (1) group-group-group and (2) “seeing” systems and how to adjust them or build new ones afresh.
Really huge and significant processes can be made to come alive, which would fit well with most purely military missions. The kind of thing totally lacking after Bush’s wonderful war in Iraq,
A massive lack throughout the world of people skilled and organized according to these two principles is the root cause of global growth slowing down. There is shockingly little of it going on though US corporations and some others are doing more than they did.
Ex military are already at least 50% down the road in each of them.
They have learned dozens of systems, including the personal skills part, and they are very used to doing things in groups.
“Civilianizing” those abilities could have them playing key roles in exciting processes in communities and corporations and so on that need to upgrade.
Do you know of any book or training that says anything like this? If not I sense a need. As to what to read first, I’d suggest this book as a “compulsory read”.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Innovators-Dilemma-Revolutionary-Business/dp/0062060244
Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/23/16 at 06:24 PM •
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Sollecito v Italy & Guede: Damning Incriminations Guede’s Team Says RS Will Be Stuck With
Posted by Our Main Posters
“Huh???” Sollecito in one of numerous interviews, usually falling short of convincing everyone
Post Overview
Guede’s team in Rome and Viterbo have a number of cards up their sleeves against Sollecito.
Sollecito and his father and legal team have apparently filed some damages lawsuit in Florence for compensation from the Republic of Italy.
His intention seems also to be to sue Rudy Guede, for defamation. In the RAI interview Guede did pretty solidly place him at the scene of the crime.
This post and later others will suggest what Sollecito could see thrown back at him. We’ve already pointed out that previous legal threats and court filings went nowhere. We may of course see that not happen here also.
This is a pre-emptive rebuttal published by the pro-bono team working for Rudy Guede at Viterbo Prison. (He also has a pro-bono legal team in Rome now.) They are responding to an attempt by Sollecito to put his case to bed in the weekly Oggi.
As with Guede’s interview this includes claims that are very self-serving. But it does also highlight the kinds of problems Sollecito faces.
It is kindly translated and submitted by Guermantes, one of our friends at PMF dot Net. Guermantes in part used Catnip’s new translation of the Micheli Report explaining Guede’s original verdict.
First Shot From Guede Team
February 5, 2016
The Centre for Criminological Studies of Viterbo responds - on behalf of Rudy Guede - to Sollecito’s assertions made in the Oggi article of January 26, 2016:
Raffaele Sollecito responds to Rudy Guede: “How many lies in the interview with Leosini”
Raffaele Sollecito “challenges” Rudy Guede on stories told by the Ivorian on TV
OGGI, analyzing word for word the interview with the Ivorian, imprisoned for the murder of Meredith Kercher, has identified at least eight omissions and blatant lies aired without being corrected. Among these, the appointment with the girl, the denial of having performed thefts, the use of hard drugs, the content of the judgment of the Supreme Court regarding the placement of Sollecito and Knox in the murder house.
The story of Rudy Guede still stands up though. Here is why “¦
Viterbo - Received and published ““ We learned of Raffaele Sollecito’s indignation, who, in an article published by a well-known weekly (Oggi, ed), complains about the inappropriateness of the broadcast of the ‘Cursed Stories’ program, in addition to the way it was recorded and run without contradiction[uncontested].
On this point, it is hardly necessary to recall that Raffaele Sollecito had been the guest on a large number of programs such as Porta a Porta, La vita in diretta, Domenica In, Piazza Italia (Rai programs, public television), Quarto Grado, Pomeriggio 5, Matrix (Mediaset), Otto e Mezzo (La7). All this - before, during and after the trials / verdicts that concerned him.
In the article just published, he notes, however, that comments and observations about current events should be offered before the verdicts and not after. Otherwise we would be “in the presence of a surreal fourth degree of judgment.”
We respect this opinion but we would also like to add that another school of thought argues that trials should be conducted in courtrooms and not on the pages of newspapers or in television studios. And Rudy Guede has waited eight years until the end of all sets of proceedings (including those relating to Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox) before expressing his opinion.
Among other things, during a single television broadcast and not on the talk show circuit of national broadcasters. A choice, of Rudy, which should be respected. Because it is broadly related to the principles and values that characterize the Italian legal system.
Then, shifting the focus to the set-up of the program “without contradiction” [counter-arguments], it is necessary to point out at the outset that, in all those years of “Cursed Stories” programming, no one has ever complained about this mode. Moreover, Raffaele Sollecito himself was also the only guest “without contradiction.” Beginning with Porta a Porta of Bruno Vespa and ending with Otto e Mezzo of Lilly Gruber.
The [Oggi} article summarizes in eight points the alleged lies by Rudy quoting in some cases (not all) excerpts from transcripts or judgments about the case of Perugia. We try to respond to each of them, expressing the views of Rudy.
Point #1
Rudy had no appointment with Meredith? It may be! But speaking of appointments, the Court of first instance expressed itself by saying that “it is normal for twenty-somethings in a university town to meet up in the usual places without having to first set up a notary’s deed. “ [Par. 206.50] (page 93, Sentence of the First Degree Rudy Guede). This statement may also be taken into account even in the case of objection to Rudy’s words as having no value?
Still on point 1, credence is given to a few statements by Mr. Barrow, without saying, however, that the same had not only debunked at the hearing all his previous claims, but had also been in conflict with Rudy as regards girls. Moreover, the testimony of Mr. Barrow was interrupted by “the emergence of criminal behavior regarding monetary negotiations with a television news organization” (p.52). So much so that the witness was deemed unreliable.
Source: The Micheli Report
[194] Mr BARROW, already interviewed by the Public Prosecutor on the 11th of December 2007, which is to say a few days after Mr GEUDE’s return from Germany, had declared to knowing Mr GUEDE for some years, having often played basketball. On that occasion, though, he specified not moving in the same circles as him, due to RUDY being a habitual liar, drinking and using drugs, not to mention annoying the girls by molesting them in public and trying to kiss them.
[195] As for Ms KERCHER, who he described as shy and reserved, Mr BARROW had said he knew her from their shared visiting of the night clubs in the town centre, and in fact he had seen her on Halloween at the Domus, where ““ he says ““ RUDY definitely wasn’t; nor did it appear to him that the accused knew MEREDITH, and according to him it was not in fact true that he had spoken to her or had met her.
[196] In court, Mr BARROW restructured his grounds, saying for example that Mr GUEDE used to drink but a bit like how all the other young men were doing it, even if he had often seen him drunk; he instead denied being certain about any drug use on the part of RUDY, about whom he had mentioned it only for having heard gossip.
And also as regards the molestations, he corrected the gist of what he’d said in remembering only once when the detainee had struck up a conversation with a girl, without knowing that she was actually Mr BARROW’s girlfriend, and a squabble arose: on other occasions, he had seen him pull a girl towards himself while they were talking, although describing it as a gesture common to many others of the same age.
[197] On RUDY’s lies, the witness limited himself to saying that one time Mr GUEDE had been accused of having robbed something in a discotheque from a girl’s purse [translator’s note: handbag in BrE], the accused had immediately denied it, but then it had come out on the grapevine that it certainly had been him; on the presumed certainty that Mr GUEDE had not been at the “Domus” on the evening of the 31st of October, finally saying (and in effect he could not have said otherwise, ab initio) that he had not seen him, without being able to rule out that he really was there.
[198] The testimony, which in practice had not led to anything of significance being acquired, was then interrupted by the emergence of the outlines of an offence by Mr BARROW, concerning negotiations of a monetary nature with a leading television journalist, in whose regard he had presented a claim of trespass (when in reality he had invited those reporters in asking them for money for an interview), and it turned out he had then put forth a further request for money to settle things back to normal.
Point # 2
Rudy is a serial thief? The article in question contains two sentences that actually relate to the same incident five days before the tragedy, namely his entering an asylum in Milan. A reprehensible episode. So much so that Rudy has earned a related conviction for it (i.e. for possession of stolen goods.). However, beyond this, there is not a single record of another conviction, nor the presence of a complaint concerning other items mentioned in the article. Not only that, but the same Sentence of First Instance refers on page 101 to the absence of a “previous criminal record”, Rudy not having been tried yet for the Milan incident.
[Par. 44]””¦on 27 October 2007 (ergo, just five days before the murder) he had been identified in the Milan jurisdiction and had been charged without arrest [a piede libero] for theft, receipt of stolen goods, holding and carrying arms.
Point # 3
Rudy had left genetic traces in Meredith’s purse? In the trial papers we have not read even one time that Rudy’s genetic material was found inside her purse; if anything, only on the outside. And the difference is not trivial. In fact, finding his trace on the outside of the purse would allow to assume / hypothesize a simple movement of the object in question, while claim to have isolated Rudy’s DNA inside it would mean that the boy might have really went through it, the latter circumstance, which did not result in any conviction, was not confirmed because not supported by any element.
It is therefore in itself horrible and defamatory, the expression used in the [Oggi] article: “While Meredith was bleeding to death” Rudy “rummaged” [in her purse,] Also cell phones and anything else missing from Meredith’s bag were found elsewhere, without any fingerprints or traces of Rudy.
As far as first aid provided by Rudy to Meredith, his efforts were described even by judges who ““ still on p.101 of the Sentence of First Instance ““ conclude: “not being able to explain otherwise the presence near the body of three towels.”
Point # 4
flight into disco. As unspeakable as this behavior is, it is hardly necessary to mention that as regards Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, the Court of Appeal judges commented that there were “numerous and varied ways of how human beings react, faced with tragic situations” (taken from the Supreme Court with reference on page 17). Why should the same not apply to Rudy?
Point # 5
Rudy is a liar and he used cocaine? It is true that during the indictments are read expressions like the ones shown in quotation marks in the [Oggi] article, but in many circumstances the same assertions are revisited and subsequently confirmed by the judgments. Moreover, even as regards Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, it states that “the two have given versions not supported by objective evidence and not credible”.
Among other things, it is certainly not the case of measuring the credibility of all the defendants relying on the seriousness of the lies told; otherwise it would be appropriate to recall that Amanda Knox put at the scene of the crime an innocent, namely Lumumba, who only through an iron-clad alibi managed to get out of it.
[Par. 260.77] “It must finally be taken into account, still on the level of serious indicia of guilt and however arguing a contrario, that the two accused have given implausible versions [of alibis] or not substantiated by objective corroboration.
[Par. 260.78] “The circumstance of the missing memory or of the state of confusion, perhaps invoked with (convenient) reference to suggestive pressures on the one hand, or cloudiness of mind through use of stupefactants on the other hand, does not have concrete merit.
Point # 6
On this point Rudy says nothing special, so we do not understand just where the challenge is to what he said during the TV program.
Point # 7
The presence of Amanda and Raffaele at the crime scene. It turns out that during transmission Rudy have never claimed to have recognized the person he encountered that evening in via della Pergola. So we don’t understand the complaints about the alleged presence in that house.
It should be noted that in the Supreme Court ruling that absolves Sollecito and Knox is stated (p. 44) that “the hypothesized presence of the current appellants cannot in itself be considered as a demonstrative element of guilt.”
Why cannot the same reflection be taken into account for Rudy? Because the latter would leave traces “everywhere”? Rudy was there and admitted to having been there.
It should however be pointed out that this alleged abundance of traces must be scaled down seeing that on page 97 of the Sentence of First Instance it states that “the quantity of biological material referable to the accused could have been categorized, in effect, as minimal” [Par. 201], “ultimately nothing suggests that there was Rudy’s biological material in great abundance.”
[Par. 201] “”¦ with the conclusion that the biological material of Ms KERCHER was abundant, and Mr GUEDE’s, in proportion, was quite small.”
[Par. 9.3 on p.41 of the English translation (“pre-final”) of the Bruno/Marasca Report]: ”“¦the supposed presence in the house of the current appellants cannot, in itself be considered as a demonstrative element of guilt.”
Point # 8
In the last point it is reported that the substantial reasons for the denial of permission to obtain benefits requested by Rudy is to be attributed to the “lack of critical review of what has happened. He has not showed any remorse or repentance”.
First, if you intend to bring back quotation marks, it would be appropriate to bring it [the quote] back as it was actually written. And that is: ”“¦found that the applicant has committed serious crimes in respect of which he does not recognize his responsibilities.”
Why would he recognize [his responsibilities] if he claims to be innocent to the point of wanting to request a review of the process? Is it not his right? Or the rights that characterize the Italian legal system do not apply to Rudy?
If he really is a liar, he takes the consequences and responsibilities. But ultimately, in this dramatic story, it seems that it is widely assumed. Maybe - and we stress, maybe - far beyond his faults.
Posted by Our Main Posters on 02/17/16 at 02:37 AM •
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Archived in Defendants in court, Raff Sollecito, Rudy Guede, Hoaxes Sollecito etc, 25 RS persona hoax, 27 Single alibi hoax, 28 Not at house hoax, Hoaxes re Guede, 35 Good guy hoax, Raff Sollecito #2 •
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