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

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

Long Post. Click here to go straight to Comments

1. Negative Swing In Italian Public Opinion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. The Dog That Didn’t Bark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Sollecito’s Non-Mention In Modena

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Instances Sollecito Brushed Knox Off

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

1. The year 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I recall Amanda was not back yet.

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

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

Yikes. Knox finds her best alibi yanked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. The Year 2008

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

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

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

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

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

3. The Year 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. The Year 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. The Year 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. The Year 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. The Year 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. The Year 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday, June 15, 2019

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

Posted by KrissyG

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

1. The Moneygrubbing Gang Arrives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. The Pringle Connection Explained

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

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

Surprise, surprise, the link continues now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Both were condemned to the electric chair.

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

So there has been hostility towards Pringle resettling in Ireland.

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

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

Thursday, June 13, 2019

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

Posted by Machiavelli

1. Knox Definitely Not Exonerated By Cassazione

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

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

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

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

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

We have translated in full their excellent report.

La Pressa, Modena

Knox returns as ‘heroine’ to Italy

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

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

Author: Editorial La Pressa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duped Organizer and Modena lawyer Guido Sola

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

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

1. Knox’s disastrous 2009 stint on the stand

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

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

2. Knox is a felon for life

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

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

3. Massive evidence ignored

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

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

4. Knox serially defames Italy

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

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

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

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

5. Other lawlessness by US students

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday, June 10, 2019

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

Posted by Our Main Posters

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

1. Why Italians Dont Know The Real Barbaric Knox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. Knox’s Massive Demonization Rampage

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

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

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

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

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

Most of these could be prosecuted as diffamazione of course.

3. How Knox Falsely Accuses Italian Officials Of Crimes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Examples Of The UK And US Media Facilitating Knox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note for Modena readers: more to come

Thursday, June 06, 2019

Un preavviso per i partecipanti al progetto di Innocenza Italia

Posted by Our Main Posters

Siate consapevoli che la Knox

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 04, 2019

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

Really? Here? Behind those garbage skips?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No word yet on whether Sollecito will be there.

Friday, May 10, 2019

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

Posted by KrissyG

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

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

Legal Context Of Italy’s Appeal

This report picks up where yesterday’s analysis concluded.

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

This update is translated from the Perugia newspaper UMBRIA 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARTICLE 43

Referral to the Grand Chamber

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

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

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

From another newspaper citing the ECHR in Strasburg:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday, May 09, 2019

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

Dr Alfonso Bonafede the Italian Minister of Justice

The Breaking News

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

Scarlet curve BT stock, purple curve Dow stockmarket index

When BREXIT Arrives…

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

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

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

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

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

Now a damning report has been issued by them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, April 12, 2019

The Numerous Little Italys Throughout North America - Check These Out

Posted by Peter Quennell

Monday, April 01, 2019

Former (And Future?) Very Fine City Seattle: Good Luck In Reversing This Tough Trend

Posted by Our Main Posters

This great old-style reporting was uploaded by Seattle’s KOMO News two weeks ago.

It was mentioned to us by a loyal reader there who wants to see addressed less Knox and more this.

This video is already nearing two million views. It is one hour long.

Best of luck, all.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Italy May Block Brexit Extension, Force UK Out Of EC Altogether March 29

Posted by Peter Quennell

Sardinia will lose a lot of trade

In The News

Italy may block the extension of the UK Brexit negotiations.

That would cause the UK to crash out on 29 March. Spain, France and Belgium are also said to be taking a hard line.

In economic terms this does not seem to make much sense. Sardinia alone could see 40 million pounds of exports down the tubes.

But in international sway Italy might gain a lot. For all years previously it was the EC’s fourth economy, after Germany, UK and France.

But now that the UK is leaving, Italy can, and should, step up. It is the third largest country and economy in the EU…

It has significant voting rights in the EU institutions. It is at the centre of the immigration crisis. It has a strong military and, despite its public debt, the third largest gold reserves in the world.

It is a manufacturing powerhouse, ranking among the top 10 exporters in the world.

With the UK out, this is the time for Italy to assert itself in, and for, the EU.

In practice, this would mean demanding to be present at any meeting where France and Germany take joint decisions designed to lead Europe forward.

“...third largest gold reserves in the world”? Hmmm!

 

Friday, February 22, 2019

Watch This “I’m The Victim” Interview Of A Few Days Ago In Full Amanda Knox Mode

Posted by Peter Quennell

TV actor Jussie Smollett makes everything up, in blazing victimhood.

Today, he was arrested, for stage-managing a fake hate-crime in Chicago three weeks ago. Numerous show-biz celebrities and politicians of all parties had come out in support of him. 

Resolving what actually happened in this volatile atmosphere has occupied a dozen competent detectives full-time. How they broke the case is pretty intriguing; some new YouTubes describe the very complex cliffhanger.

If you scroll back through the hundreds of YouTubes (really) on this over three weeks you will see that, to their great credit, most of the first posters to pick up the bad vibes and cry “fake” were from the black community. 

The interviewer above is ABC’s Robin Roberts. She’s now accused of colluding with Smollett. She also colluded with Knox.

Thursday, February 07, 2019

Pyrrhic Victory For Knox #1: ECHR Complaint Seems To Leave Her Worse Off

Posted by Our Main Posters

Dalla Vedova and Knox: Tripped up by body of lies?

[Long post. Click here to go straight to Comments]

Part 1. Origin Of The ECHR Complaint

By Peter Quennell

Part 1 provides some of the context for an analysis by KrissyG in Part 2.

The ECHR has finally after six years issued an advisory to Italy to pay a small sum to Knox in damages. Grounds are (1) an investigator being too chummy at the list-building session ending 1.45am on 6 Nov 2007, and (2) Knox not having lawyer present at the Miranda-rights session ending 5.45am.

Both are weird. And way, way below what Knox had asked for early in 2013: E2.5 million in damages and a finding of actual abuse.

Remember how Knox’s ECHR appeal began. The year after their questionable release by Judge Hellman (2012) was a time of wild highs for Knox and Sollecito. They each wrote a book and set out on money-grubbing victory tours - Sollecito late 2012, Knox early 2013.

But then, in late March 2013, the Supreme Court First Chambers did a rare and surprising thing. That court did not merely quibble with aspects of Knox’s and Sollecito’s 2011 appeal outcome (normal practice), or send it back down to Judge Hellman to correct a few minor things in law. Instead it more or less wiped the slate clean.

In scathing terms, the First Chambers annulled the 2011 outcome (except for Hellman’s “guilty” calunnia ruling for Knox) and sent it off with some guidelines to a different judge (Nencini) in a different city (Florence), to run Knox’s and Sollecito’s first appeal all over again. And Judge Hellman was forcibly retired.

From then on, throughout most of 2013, in the months before the Florence appeal court convened, though feigning triumphalism, Knox and Sollecito each appeared scared out of their wits.

Knox was too frightened to even attend, despite her Italian lawyers flying to Seattle to try to drag her back (the last time they set eyes on her, nearly six years ago). She instead sent a ranting and defamatory email to the judge, which quite possibly made things worse.

For his part, a somewhat more buoyant Sollecito lingered for some months in the Dominican Republics (which had no extradition treaty with Italy) with his unsavory Canadian relatives (who he might have been hoping would bend another court or offer him a job).

But at the last moment Sollecito (with some public arm-twisting by his dad) did arrive back for the court sessions. (He soon took off again, secretly back to see his Canadian relatives seemingly to ask if they could help.)

As generally expected by followers of the damning 2009 trial, Judge Nencini’s judgment early in 2014 resulted in both Knox and Sollecito going down hard once again. Their sentences were reinstated, and now subject only to the Supreme Court giving the final nod.

It was right here, in this threatening context, that one of Knox’s lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova (who is not a criminal lawyer) attempted what Americans call a “Hail Mary pass”. There is no sign that Knox’s other lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, went along with him.

Dalla Vedova filed the ECHR complaint, seemingly mainly (as many other Italian lawyers have done) to fire a shot across the bows of the Supreme Court, in a bid for leniency for Knox. (Separately, Sollecito was trying other measures.)

Dalla Vedova and Knox kept the complaint document to themselves, so nobody had any chance to fact-check it and see whether the claims stood up. Knox followers shared wild fantasies about what the document requested.

The ECHR would not share it even with the Italian Ministry of Justice: seemingly an extremely poor ECHR mode, as the Ministry lawyers had no clear idea of what to defend against.

The ECHR “investigation” essentially ignored the 2009 trial report, and its participants and its documents. Many transcripts we have translated and know well seem not to have been read or understood at all.

Instead the ECHR relied heavily on three very misleading reports:

(1) the 2013 Knox complaint by Dalla Vedova, which appears to have included a number of false claims;

(2) the 2011 Judge Hellman sentencing report - despite it having zero standing after the Chieffi Supreme Court ruled;

(3) the 2016 Boninsegna report denying a second calunnia judgment against Knox for damaging claims she made against Perugia investigators. 

The ECHR seems ignorant of many fundamental facts of the case. For example it seems ignorant of the fact that Knox was flouting a Supreme Court ruling (four years previously) that Knox MUST still pay Patrick an award for damages of about $100,000.

Worse, the ECHR found that it did not matter that the Knox legal process was not yet done because, they claimed, it would be soon.  But, as a direct result of breaking its own rules, the ECHR advanced ignorant of the fact that subsequent to the Knox filing the Supreme Court in 2015 had rebuffed any ECHR findings against Italy in advance.

From the 2015 Marasca-Bruno Sentencing Report:

2.2. The request of Amanda Knox’s defense aimed at the postponing of the present trial to wait for the decision of the European Court of Justice [sic] has no merit, due to the definitive status of the guilty verdict for the crime of calunnia, now protected [locked in stone] as a partial final status against a denouncement of arbitrary and coercive treatments allegedly carried out by the investigators against the accused to the point of coercing her will and damaging her moral freedom in violation of article 188 of penal procedure code.

And also, a possible decision of the European Court in favor of Ms. Knox, in the sense of a desired recognition of non-orthodox treatment of her by investigators, could not in any way affect the final verdict, not even in the event of a possible review of the verdict, considering the slanderous accusations that the accused produced against Lumumba consequent to the asserted coercions, and confirmed by her before the Public Prosecutor during the subsequent session [ending 5:45], in a context which, institutionally, is immune from anomalous psychological pressures; and also confirmed in her memoriale, at a moment when the same accuser was alone with herself and her conscience in conditions of objective peacefulness, sheltered from environmental influence; and were even restated, after some time, during the validation of the arrest of Lumumba, before the investigating judge in charge.

And even worse! The ECHR seems ignorant of the fact that IF Knox’s complaints of abuse were credible to her lawyers they MUST convey the complaints to the authorities. In fact if they do not, they risk criminal penalties and even being disbarred (and may still do). In fact in 2008 both lawyers publicly announced to the media that Knox should stop telling so many lies and that they never said she was hit.

Without such an initiating complaint, the Republic of Italy can never be at fault. 

But on the plus side for Italy and the very minus side for Knox (1) the ECHR dismissed the Knox claims of abuse (“torture”) that might have shored up any attempt by her to get the calunnia conviction revisited; and (2) prospects for any Knox claim for damages for her 1-4 years in prison are terminally gone.

What DID Knox get out of this? A recommendation to Italy - which can take it or leave it -  for a very tiny award (based on patently wrong claims) which is in any case likely to end up in Patrick Lumumba’s hands!!

As the ECHR ruling is only advisory, Knox cannot argue about it or seek to repudiate it or seek to adjust the suggested award - but the Republic of Italy certainly can.

Part Two: Analysis Of Italy’s Legal Position

By KrissyG

Overview

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

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

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

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

1. Application admissible?

This takes up the larger part of the ECHR deliberations.  We can see that the dates are out of time and we can see it is keen to “˜get round’ this.  The relatively minor issues of police eagerness to befriend Knox, albeit misguided and improper, has clearly outraged the ECHR.

“I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS

The subject of the dispute

108. The Court notes from the outset that the applicant’s complaints relate solely to the criminal proceedings at the end of which she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for slanderous denunciation of DL and not to the other proceedings. of which she was the subject.

B. Failure to exhaust domestic remedies in respect of the complaints under Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (a) and (c) of the Convention

109. The Government submitted that, at the time of the introduction of the application, on 24 November 2013, the applicant’s conviction for slanderous denunciation was not final and that, therefore, this part of the complaint should be declared inadmissible.

110. The Court reiterates that the exhaustion of domestic remedies is assessed, with certain exceptions, at the date of submission of the application to the Court (Baumann v. France, No. 33592/96, § 47, ECHR 2001- V (extracts)).

111. However, it also recalls that it tolerates the completion of the last level of domestic remedies shortly after the filing of the application, but before it is called upon to decide on the admissibility of the application (Zalyan et al. Armenia, Nos. 36894/04 and 3521/07, § 238, March 17, 2016, and Škorjanec v. Croatia, No. 25536/14, § 44, March 28, 2017).

112. In any event, in the present case, the Court notes that the conviction in question was confirmed by the judgment of the Court of Cassation filed on 18 June 2013, at the end of three degrees of jurisdiction, and that the reference to the Assize Court of Appeal concerned only the existence of the aggravating circumstance.
113. In view of the foregoing, the objection raised by the Government must be rejected.”

2. Application premature?

By the ECHR’s own rules, as stated above, the submission was lodged 24 Nov 2013, when all domestic channels were supposed to have been exhausted.  The calunnia conviction against Lumumba had been finalised through Chieffi & Vecchio Supreme Court 18 June 2013. 

However, the second ““ and completely separate - case of calunnia brought by the police and prosecutor did not go through Boninsegna until 14 Jan 2015, on whose motivational report Knox and the ECHR heavily rely, over a year later.

Knox was acquitted by Bonisegna, hence, there was nothing for her to appeal against.  Further, Boninsegna had nothing at all to do with the merits of the Lumumba callunia, tried in 2009 and upheld at every stage, even by the egregious Hellmann court, whose judgement was largely expunged.

Why does the ECHR rely heavily on Hellmann and Boninsegna and not the superior Supreme and final court of Chieffi?

Even curiouser, Knox and the ECHR also rely heavily on quoting Hellmann of 3 Oct 2011.  Yet Hellmann was overrided and superseded by the superior Chieffi Supreme Court, finalised 9 Sept 2013.

The ECHR quotes Hellmann at some length, when it surely should have referred to Chieffi.

As an example, the judgment, translated from French, quotes Hellman as follows:

130. The Court observes that, in its judgment of 3 October 2011, [Hellmann] the Court of Appeal also emphasized the excessive length of the interrogations, the applicant’s vulnerability and the psychological pressure suffered by her, a pressure which was likely to compromise the spontaneity of his statements, as well as his state of oppression and stress.

It considered that the applicant had, in fact, been tortured to death, resulting in an unbearable psychological situation from which, in order to extricate herself, she had made incriminating statements in respect of DL (see paragraph 85 (8) and (10) above).

Yet the Chieffi Supreme Court in spiking much of Hellman’s lower court judgment writes:

So Knox was in a position, even after an initial although long moment of bewilderment, amnesia and confusion, to regain control of herself and understand the gravity of the conduct she was adopting; at the very least, in the days immediately following her heedless initiative she could have pointed out to the investigators that she had led them in a false direction, availing herself of the support of her Defence team, given that in the meantime she had acquired the status of a suspect.

Her persistence in her criminal attitude (discovered only through her taped conversation with her mother) proves the clear divergence with behaviour that could be interpreted as an attempt at cooperation, as the Defence would have it, and does not lend itself to evaluation as a response to a state of necessity, the very existence of which depends on a condition of inevitability and thus on the non”existence of any alternatives, so that it cannot even be recognized [as existing] as [her own] erroneous hypothesis.

Neither can the exercise of any right be invoked, given that the right of [self] defence does not extend under the legal system of any constitutional state to the point of allowing one to implicate an innocent person so seriously ““ it is worth recalling that he [Lumumba] underwent a period of incarceration uniquely and exclusively on the basis of the false accusations of the defendant.

3. Application Material?

Having ruled in favour of admissibility, the ECHR ruled that as the nature of Knox’ complaints of being hit and being placed under great duress triggered at least the lowest level of a potential Article 3 complaint, that of degrading and inhuman treatment, Italy should have taken it upon itself to launch an investigation of its own initiative into the allegations made against the interpreter [Donnino] and another officer [RI].  “˜RI’ claimed to have cuddled Knox, stroked her hair and held her hands.  This, the ECHR rules, had the effect of undermining Knox’ dignity and independence of will.

It has several criticisms surrounding this behavior including the fact it is not minuted in the police notes, and nor is the start and end times of the supposed “interrogations” at 1:45am and 5:45am.

The serious issue of course though is that of being allowed a lawyer. The ECHR writes of Italy’s defense (“the Government”)

142. The Government observes that the statements made by the complainant on 6 November 2007 in the absence of a lawyer were declared unusable in relation to the offenses under investigation, namely the murder of MK and the sexual violence perpetrated at against him. However, it states that, according to the established case law of the Court of Cassation (judgments Nos. 10089 of 2005, 26460 of 2010 and 33583 of 2015), spontaneous statements made by a person under investigation in the absence of a defender can in any case, be used when they constitute, as in this case, an offense in themselves. He added that the applicant had the assistance of a lawyer when the first indications of his responsibility for the murder of Mr K appeared.

143. In addition, the Government alleged that the applicant had been sentenced for slanderous disclosure not only on the basis of the statements made on 6 November 2007, but also on the basis of “a multitude of other circumstances”, recalled in the judgment of conviction of the Assize Court of 5 December 2009 (see paragraph 80 above).

144. The complainant submits that she was not informed of her right to legal assistance during her hearings on 6 November 2007, since a defense lawyer was not appointed until 8.30 am that day, and denounces the impact of the use of this evidence on the fairness of the proceedings.

A. Admissibility

145. Noting that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention and that it does not face any other ground of inadmissibility, the Court declares it admissible.
2. Application of general principles to the facts of this case

(a) The applicability of Article 6 of the Convention
(b) 146:

147. The Court notes at the outset that the first question in this case is whether Article 6 § 1 of the Convention was applicable to the facts of the case. It recalls in that regard that, on 6 November 2007, the applicant was heard twice: at 1.45 am and 5.45 am

148. It notes that the two statements were originally collected as part of the police’s acquisition of summary information, during which time the complainant had not been formally investigated.

149. With regard to the statements taken at 1.45 am, the Court reiterates that the guarantees offered by Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention apply to any “accused” in the autonomous sense of the term. the Convention. There is a “criminal charge” where a person is formally charged by the competent authorities or where the acts of the latter on account of the suspicions against them have a significant impact on his situation (Simeonovi, cited above). , §§ 110-111).

150. Applying this principle to the present case, the Court therefore wonders whether, at the time of the hearings, the domestic authorities had reasonable grounds to suspect that the applicant was involved in the murder of Mr K.

151. It observes in that regard that the applicant had already been heard by the police on 2, 3 and 4 November 2007 and that she had been tapped. It notes that the facts of the case also show that, on the evening of 5 November 2007, the attention of the investigators focused on the applicant (see paragraphs 12-14 above). She notes that while she went to the police station spontaneously, she was asked questions in the corridor by police officers who then continued to interrogate her in a room where she had been interrogated. subjected twice, for hours, to close interrogations.

152. In the Court’s view, even assuming that these elements are not sufficient to conclude that, at 1.45 am on 6 November 2007, the applicant could be considered to be a suspect within the meaning of its case-law, it is necessary to note that, as the Government acknowledged, when she made her 5:45 statements to the public prosecutor, the applicant had formally acquired the status of a person under indictment. The Court therefore considers that there is no doubt that, at 5.45 am at the latest, the applicant was the subject of a criminal charge within the meaning of the Convention (Ibrahim and Others, cited above, § 296).

(b) The existence of overriding reasons for the restriction of the right of access to a lawyer.

Knox and her lawyers again has a second bite of the cherry and rehashes what was surely res judicata by Chieffi:

2.1.16 “ Inconsistency and manifest lack of logic in the reasoning concerning the failure to recognize an aggravating circumstance in the aims underlying the confirmed offence of calunnia. [The Prosecutor General argues as follows:] In upholding the offence of calunnia as charged against Ms Knox, the second instance court ruled out any link with the murder. It was not explained on what basis the court had inferred that the young woman had been stressed by the interviewers and that therefore she had committed the calunnia to “free” herself from the questions of the investigators, seeing that none of the young people who were living in that house, none of Ms Kercher’s friends, and many others in the days immediately following the murder, all of whom were summoned and interrogated, had the insane idea of committing a calunnia to free themselves from the weight of the unpleasant situation.

[43] The objective facts are therefore absolutely irrefutable, as was deemed in both trials; whereas the argument adopted from a subjective point of view, according to which the young woman resorted to extreme behaviour by giving the name of Lumumba only in order to get out of a situation of mental discomfort into which she was driven by the excessive zeal and unjustifiable intemperance of the investigators, cannot be well”founded given that ““ as it was ascertained ““ the accusation of Lumumba was maintained after her first statements and re”affirmed in the letter, which was written in complete solitude and at a certain distance in time from the first uncontrolled reaction in response to an insistent request for a name by the police. 

JUDGEMENT OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CASSATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF ITALY (PRESIDED OVER BY DR SEVERO CHIEFFI) IN THE MURDER OF MEREDITH KERCHER

Translated from Italian into English by http://www.perugiamurderfile.org 9 September 2013

The whole issue of whether Knox was denied a lawyer, I am sure could be an article in its own right and I know others have strong views on this issue, therefore I shall leave it here to set out the ECHR reasoning.

My Conclusions>

So, we have a heavy reliance on the judgments of Hellmann and Bonisegna, when it seems to me, Hellmann is overrided by Chieffi who upholds Hellmann’s own final conviction anyway and Boninsegna is well past the earliest admissibility date, quite aside from not being directly involved in the Lumumba calumny at all.

Having ruled that objections by Italy can be swept aside, including that of failure to exhaust domestic avenues, the ECHR then goes on to rule on Knox’ lawyer status without proper reference to the latest and highest courts.  I can understand the argument that Italy should itself have investigated the police brutality anyway.  The rest of the reasoning seems misguided in light of what higher courts than those referred to have found. 

Sources

2103 The Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy Sentencing Report

Knox Complaint: The Full ECHR Judgment (English version soon available here.)

Friday, February 01, 2019

Migration To Quality Media Continues - Away From Bottom-Feeders Hosting Knox

Posted by Peter Quennell

Demonization Enablers

Truth-telling media such as the New York Times have seen a sizeable readership influx.

Meanwhile the tabloid bottom-feeders gasp for air. Brooklyn’s VICE Media is one of those badly hit. Staff layoffs are as the video describes.

VICE gave Knox a platform just under a year ago, to wail about demonized women.

Knox omitted to point out (and sloppy VICE failed to find out) that the barbaric Knox herself is one of the nastiest most dangerous demonizers on the planet.

VICE should never never never have espoused bigotry against any country, which of course is what it was doing in providing Knox a platform.

And the bigotry was voiced in English, against a country whose first language is Italian, and whose defamed officials have no easy way of responding.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Euro Court Of Human Rights May Rule Tomorrow On Knox’s Much-Hyped “Appeal”

Posted by Machiavelli

Dr Guido Raimondi, Italian, current president of the Court

[Long post. Click here to go straight to Comments]

1. A Weak Submission By Knox Team At Best

Italian defence lawyers file more spurious “appeals” in Strasbourg than any other.

Knox’s “appeal” was filed by her lawyer Dalla Vedova FIVE-PLUS years ago. The ECHR saw nothing in it to cause haste. It was submitted following the Nencini appeal where the court, following Cassazione guidelines, had reiterated a very strong case and Knox’s guilt for murder was reaffirmed.

Since then Knox has been confirmed definitively guilty of calunnia, case closed, not subject to reversal, and she has served her three years. Also she was found not guilty of Meredith’s murder by the Fifth Chambers of Cassazione - which should not even have got into the evidence under law.

Here are our main past posts explaining the spurious nature of what Strasbourg received.

Click for Post:  Amanda Knox Lies Again To Get Herself Into Another European Court “But Really, Judge, Its Only PR” (Kermit)

Click for Post:  Note For Strasbourg Court & State Department: Knox Herself Proves She Lies About Her Interrogation (James Raper)

Click for Post:  Multiple Provably False Claims About “Forced Confession” Really Big Problem For Dalla Vedova & Knox (Finn MacCool)

Click for Post:  Knox’s Unsound Appeal To The European Court Of Human Rights Slapped Down By Cassation (Main Posters)

Click for Post:  Carlo Dalla Vedova, Is ECHR Made Aware Italian Law REQUIRES Lawyers To First File Local Complaints? (Main Posters)

Click for Post:  Carlo Dalla Vedova: Is ECHR Advised You Condoned Malicious Defamation By Knox Of Chief Prosecutor? (Main Posters)

Click for Post:  Bad News For Knox -  Buzz From Italy Is Spurious ECHR Appeal Will Probably Fail (Main Posters)

Click for Post:  Telling Non-Development For Knox Re The European Court Of Human Rights In Strasbourg (Main Posters)

2. My Takes On The ECHR Judges And Italy’s Role

Now, we know the ECHR response is on the docket for the court most likely Thursday the 24th (one of 48 cases) and if not then the 29th.

We DONT know if a full decision has been reached.  We cannot tell yet what the ECHR verdict will be. But we can tell in advance a few things, which we should point out:

1) The ECHR verdict will not be a “yes” or “no” response; that is, whatever kind of agreement the Court may find with Knox’s recourse, the pro-Knox advocates if any are left will try to make it look as if it was a full “yes” to Knox’s narrative while it is certain it will not endorse her fully if at all. In other words they could twist it and use it as a media stunt just to have the media reporting incline their way, and they won’t pay attention to any actual content;

2) How the ECHR rules, is something that depends on how the State Attorney of Italy in Rome decided to submit: if she decided to defend Italy’s position and on what points, to what degree. Therefore, the submission and outcome are basically political: they do not involve an applicant (Knox) against an independent party, but rather against a political entity (Italy) that may or may not offer a defense and if it does so, it may follow political criteria.

So the response does not depend very much on Knox’s telling the truth or not, but more on Italy’s political interest in “winning” the points or not.

For these reasons, while we know that there are legal and factual arguments to reject completely all of Knox’s claims - and to expose some of her claims as abusive - we actually don’t know exactly how much of an interest the State of Italy had in exposing her abusive arguments and defeating her points. We don’t know, for example, if the State Attorney worked to find and bring forth all key facts (see Part 1 above) and to submit all possible evidence to the Court.

The work of the Court is very indirect. They mostly don’t perform any actual fact finding directly. Rather they rely on organs of the State party to submit to them a report about the facts - and they certainly won’t have a way to discover any information that is missing in the reports (unless the other party pushes for that).
 
The ECHR Court does not actually assess the merits of a trial; it is no real “appeal” instance. The political nature of the “trial” thus is the reason why we don’t know what the Court will decide on each point; and it is also one of the reasons why the ECHR decision will be basically meaningless however pro or anti Knox.

3) The ECHR court in any case WILL NOT suggest (it cannot demand) any court review of all the steps of the case 2007-15 by the Italian courts.

The ECHR WILL NOT overturn the calunnia conviction. This should be absolutely clear: the calunnia conviction is definitive. Cassazione firmly closed it down. Knox is never going to be “cleared”. She is a convicted felon and will remain such for life.

Knox was also found beyond reasonable doubt by Cassazione to be present in the murder room when Meredith was killed, she washed her blood from her hands, and it is definitively established in Knox/Sollecito Bruno/Marasca ruling that Guede did not kill alone and Meredith was physically killed by more than one person.

It is also definitively recognized by the Bruno/Marasca ruling and also by subsequent rulings, that Knox and Sollecito are repetitive liars (“all their versions are lies”).

One reason why there will never be a trial review of Knox’s calunnia conviction is that Knox’s application to the ECHR actually willfully omits this component.

In other words, Knox simply does not want a second calunnia trial - probably mainly because her lawyers know that she would be found guilty again in a new trial, even if the “spontaneous statements” were considered inadmissible as evidence: there is sufficient evidence that she committed calunnia even without the 1:54 and 5.45 statements).

4) the Knox ECHR application contradicts Knox’s recollection of facts she gave in her book (one of the multiple version she gave), for example in the ECHR application she accuses “Perugian doctors” of performing a fake HIV test and leaking results to the media, while in her book she accuses an abusive prison guard.

5) it is to be pointed out that, independently from ECHR ruling, we can show that Knox’s application claims are false, contradicted by trial documents, and mostly contradicted by her own positions in the trial and subsequent statements. 

6) The President Judge of the Court panel is an Italian Magistrate, his name is Guido Raimondi, he is from Naples, and this is one of his last ruling before his retirement.

As our readers might guess, I am allergic to Neapolitan Magistrates who are by their last rulings just before retirement! But let’s wait and see (he might be a decent and honest person; I don’t like his position of link to the Naples Office though).

7)  I’d like to point out a peculiarity of Knox’s ECHR application: the only part among the claims that has some chance to be accepted by the Strasbourg Court, in my opinion, is the claim about alleged violations by the police, that is where Knox claims she was not “told” early enough she was a suspect by police officers and complains about not having a good interpreter.

Albeit there is no actual violation of Italian law, Dalla Vedova complains of some alleged violation of European rights and drops in a slippery, irregular request of “changes to the law”, rather than indicating any specific damages Knox would have allegedly suffered.

An interesting aspect of this, though, is that such a point of law raised by Dalla Vedova is only about alleged violations of legal principles in the prosecution for murder.

There is no request that could affect the course of the prosecution and trial for calunnia.

In other words, the Knox ECHR application might have some theoretical potential to find a violation or violations of Knox’s rights regarding her being investigated for murder. But it has no potential to affect the regularity of her being tried for calunnia.

No way the ECHR ruling could change the course that lead to calunnia finding, no way such conviction could be cancelled, and her ECHR application does not even contain a request that would dispute the legitimacy of such conviction.

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Major Anti-Mafia Success In Italy Is Making Skilled Italian Police In Demand Elsewhere

Posted by Peter Quennell

Gamechanger

The mafias really are gone from the United States and Canada, and in Italy it is mostly likewise.

So the mafias have been moving elsewhere - the UK, Germany, Netherlands, especially Malta - and Italian police are being invited to spearhead huge sweeps against them.

Hundreds of special forces arrested at least 84 men and women overnight in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands in the largest-ever pan-European investigation into organized crime. Raids were also carried out in South America as part of the sting operation. More than three tons of cocaine and 140 kilograms of ecstasy were also seized, police said.

UK-based expert Felia Allum explains the organizational adjustments.

When I walk around London, I wonder how many of the busy nail bars, shops and restaurants are merely fronts for organised crime. For I was once told by a former member of the Neapolitan mafia: “The ambition for [an Italian] mafia member, is to go abroad, and particularly, England.”

They consider the UK to be an attractive destination because it is relatively easy to set up a company, and its legal system does not recognise “mafia membership” as a crime….

In 1991, British police based in Rome warned of the presence of Italian mafias in the UK. Two years later, the French parliament reported on the fight against the mafia’s attempt to penetrate France. Similar warnings were being made in the Netherlands.

But it wasn’t until 2012 that the European Parliament really addressed the situation. The following year, Europol (the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation) finally published an “Italian Organized Crime Threat Assessment”.

It attempted to fill the “important information gap” which exists around the activities of Italian mafias in Europe. As Europol itself noted, the “difficulty in collecting information” highlights the fact that mafias operate “under the radar” outside Italy.

Finally, in November 2018, Europol set up a specific operational network focusing on Italian mafia activities abroad, with the Italian Anti-Mafia Police playing a leading role.

Malta is fighting an influx similar to that in the Dominican Republic, a Raffaele Sollecito hangout till his uncle bought it.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle! You Came Down From The Stars

Posted by Our Main Posters

One of the main Italian carols, one that just about everyone knows.

Monday, December 17, 2018

Today All Political Factions May Lurch US Justice One Big Step Toward Successful Italian Model

Posted by Peter Quennell

Culinary school inside a modern Italian prison

Overview

Justice reform was a popular issue in the national elections last month. Vox’s German Lopez describes the first step the US Senate will vote on today.

Who Is Affected

The bill, known as the First Step Act, would take modest steps to reform the criminal justice system and ease very punitive prison sentences at the federal level. It would affect only the federal system “” which, with about 181,000 imprisoned people, holds a small but significant fraction of the US jail and prison population of 2.1 million.

What Is In First Step

(1) The bill would make retroactive the reforms enacted by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences at the federal level. This could affect nearly 2,600 federal inmates, according to the Marshall Project.

(2) The bill would take several steps to ease mandatory minimum sentences under federal law. It would expand the “safety valve” that judges can use to avoid handing down mandatory minimum sentences. It would ease a “three strikes” rule so people with three or more convictions, including for drug offenses, automatically get 25 years instead of life, among other changes. It would restrict the current practice of stacking gun charges against drug offenders to add possibly decades to prison sentences. All of these changes would lead to shorter prison sentences in the future.

(3) The bill would increase “good time credits” that inmates can earn. Inmates who avoid a disciplinary record can currently get credits of up to 47 days per year incarcerated. The bill increases the cap to 54, allowing well-behaved inmates to cut their prison sentence by an additional week for each year they’re incarcerated. The change applies retroactively, which could allow some prisoners “” as many as 4,000 “” to qualify for release the day that the bill goes into effect.

(4) The bill would allow inmates to get “earned time credits” by participating in more vocational and rehabilitative programs. Those credits would allow them to be released early to halfway houses or home confinement. Not only could this mitigate prison overcrowding, but the hope is that the education programs will reduce the likelihood that an inmate will commit another crime once released and, as a result, reduce both crime and incarceration in the long term. (There’s research showing that education programs do reduce recidivism.)

Comparison With Italy

On measures (1) and (2) Italy (which does not have the US’s gun problem or rate of murders) would remain far down the road with its short prison terms and small numbers locked up..

But measures (3) and (4) definitely represent convergence on rehabilitation being more useful (and cheaper) for society than grindingly extensive punitive stays.

Thursday, November 08, 2018

“A Couple of Millennials Trying to Grope Their Way Toward Adulthood…”

Posted by Hopeful

Mafia poodles Robinson & Kovite


The header is from a NY Times review of a book by the above pair, no irony intended (I presume).

Knox supports murderer Brendan Dassey and Avery, has a boyfriend who wears dark fingernail polish (some man!?), has a cat named Mr. Screams, and received a blue glass award from Arizona Public Defender Association in June 2018 “for sharing your inspiring story”.

You can’t make this stuff up (or can you), in Knox’s case the ultimate fantasist liar who has always wanted to mythologize her own life, she’s a born actress prostitute seeking to be Amelie but is Jekyll-Hyde and had to cannibalize Meredith’s clean life to morph into notoriety.

Now she links up with Christopher Robinson who can play paparazzi to her diabolical story while she allows him to wear the crazy hats, necklaces, fur and outlandish clothes that force her to become the opposite: Miss Demure, Miss Meredith, Miss Speaker at Innocence Conventions, Supporter of the Oppressed, Miss I-Know-the-Law, I have lived through controversy, I’m a Survivor, I am Wrongly Accused, I now dress modestly, this is my classy side,

I am allowing Chris to be the wild child of this use and be-used duo.  Chris wrote his first novel with good friend Kovite, an Army veteran, titled “War of the Encyclopaedists”. Now in May 2018 they’ve got a new book out called, “Deliver Us”. I think Chris may mean deliver us from evil as in Knox. And guess where the two friends met? In Italy.

Kovite writes for Salon:

Our collaboration began 10 years ago in rome on a pilgrimage to Keats’ grave as part of an undergraduate study abroad. We had known each other only a few weeks. While wandering through the Protestant Cemetery the names of the dead called out to us: Baltimore Gosshawk Wakefield III, Aeneas MacBean Esq. They were begging to be turned into characters is a pulp historical mystery novel. So we wrote one. It took us five years and it eventually ended up in a drawer but it taught us how to write…together. Over the last five years we applied those lessons to a more serious project, “War of the Encyclopaedists.” (Scribner, 2015)

“Several years ago as we struggled toward a finished draft of “War of the Encyclopaedists”, Chris fell into an existential pit. He was thinking about culinary school, his five-year relationship dissolved, he was living out of a suitcase at one artist colony after another, he wrote a collection of nihilistic sonnets, he was thinking about suicide. Without stability his options were limitless; he was paralyzed by choice….Gavin (Kovite) meanwhile was looking toward his future as a lawyer with dread. This wasn’t the life he’d imagined for himself. He had little time to play music or write fiction, which, though fun was a big additional burden, as anyone who has written while working fulltime well knows.”

“And yet here we are awaiting publication of our debut novel (this was in 2015)...Without Chris’ drive, organization and friendly harassment, Gavin would never have made the time to contribute. And without Gavin’s contribution, Christ would be staring into the void. It was writing a novel together ... that deepened our friendship, changed the course of our lives.”

from Salon, “Why write a collaborative novel? Well…why write alone?”

Christopher Robinson is a Boston University and Hunter College MFA graduate, a poet, a MacDowell Colony fellow, etc. His co-author Gavin Kovite was infantry platoon leader in Baghdad 2004-2005, then attended NYU Law, served as Army lawyer and is now a high school teacher….Together Robinson and Kovite authored “Encyclopaedists” and “Deliver Us”.

I just hope that Knox does not destroy their good relationship. It sounds like a Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson friendship of the minds. I think Knox will sabotage it and Chris was crazy to link up with her. Now he has his new novel out, “Deliver Us” about drones from Jeff Bezos dropping items on a futuristic Detroit and the question is “are they saviors to Detroit black low earners bringing jobs to the blighted city or imperialists out for their own gain?” as one book review said. I wonder if Kovite worried about this in Afghanistan?

But I think the hidden message of Chris Robinson’s “Deliver Us” is that he is questioning his Amanda Knox relationship (why not put a ring on it, Chris?) and already regrets slumming around. It’s a true cry of “deliver us from evil”. A bit late Chris. Do you even care if Knox killed Meredith or not?

Knox was to moderate the book launch of “Deliver Us” because of “her experience with controversy, competing narratives and commitment to racial justice in the Innocence Movement.” Barf. That was a book launch in May 2018 at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle.

She will explode his life out of the water one day but more fool him for shacking up with a killer. It was Guermantes’ link to Chris Robinson Instagram that led me to look at some of his nonsense. I honestly believe he is mentally ill along with his live-in lover. Chris Robinson posts Instagram pix of multiple toilets out on some grassy area. He posts a piece of art of a woman on the toilet. He uses foul language constantly.

And michellesings1 (wife of this poodle) laughs at the trash they post. When their cat, Mr. Screams, sleeps on Amanda’s “bottom” she writes Hee hee, hilarious. When Knox gives a speech, michellesings1 chimes in, Love it, happy for you.