Perugia Police Chief During 2008 Investigation Rises To Head Of National Anti-Mafia Department

[Video commentary and interview in Italian]


Arturo de Felice has served more than 30 years in various police jurisdictions. Now he becomes head of the anti-mafia department in Rome.

He was in charge at the Perugia questura up to August of 2008 when the crime was being jointly investigated with experts from Rome.

Arturo de Felice made the anouncement to the media and a nervous Perugia on the day after interrogators caused Knox’s and Sollecito’s alibis to separate.  He announced to the media that Sollecito had admitted lying and Knox had admitted to being at the scene - with Patrick Lumumba, though, not with Guede.

He indicated that police were surprised at how quickly Knox crumbled, and this surprise was confirmed by interrogators themselves and an interpreter at the trial in 2009. From the 7 November Daily Telegraph.

The police said today that Knox’s confession could be the key to solving the case.

Mr De Felice said: “She crumbled. She confessed. There were holes in her alibi. Her mobile phone records were crucial.”

He said Knox’s claims that she was elsewhere had been demonstrated to be false. The police found text messages on her phone from Lumumba, fixing a meeting between them at 8.35pm on the night Miss Kercher died.

The police also said that Sollecito had cracked, and admitted he had lied. Tomorrow morning, all three will appear before a judge to have their arrests confirmed before they are formally charged with non-premeditated murder and participation in an act of sexual violence.

Of course, it was not an especially helpful crumbling by Amanda Knox. Lumumba was released after a lot of time and effort was wasted when a palm print at the scene was identified as that of Rudy Guede.

However in her two written confessions Knox was pretty nasty toward Patrick. Then she let him languish in prison for several weeks. And as Fly By Night posted on the PMF forum last year, Knox had admitted to crimes, if not to murder.

1. She provided the access for a murderer to enter the cottage.

2. She heard thuds and a scream, and imagined what was happening.

3. In her drunken stupor, she failed to come to Meredith’s aid both during and after the murder.

4. She actively covered up the murder by failing to report it or otherwise detail her actions for 4 full 24 hour days following the murder.

In December Knox was interviewed by Mr Mignini in the presence of her attorney and was asked her why she had implicated Patrick. She refused to answer.

At trial she raised no objections to any testimony from those present at the interrogation that she spontaneously fingered Patrick, and she admitted under interrogation that it was her idea.

Mr De Felice comes from Calabria in the deep south (where Dr Galati also comes from) and has headed many mafia investigations in his career. This is dangerous work and those who do it tend to be widely admired in Italy.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 11/26/12 at 04:46 AM in The officially involved,  Police and CSI,  The wider contexts,  Italian context

Comments

All her calculations went wrong when she was told that RS is no more supporting her alibis. She needed him more at that time than he needed her. All the rehearsals came to naught. She just could not think fast enough.

I also think that she had a false sense of over-confidence: I believe she actively ignored advices from her own lawyers. That it worked out mostly as per her script is merely fortuitous. It was a dangerous gamble.

Will she be lucky this time too?

Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school
make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car.

Posted by chami on 11/28/12 at 06:59 PM | #

It’s good to see that the authorities in charge of investigating Meredith’s murder continue to receive accolades and promotions.  I would argue, moreover, that AK’s and RS’s alibis had separated some time before te crucial night of 05-NOV but that Sollecito had finally accepted that his own story was nonsense.

That brings us to the enduring question of why Sollecito refuses to publish his signed statements or the transcripts of his police testimony prior to that evening.  If only he would, the public could determine for itself just how closely his several versions resemble those provided by his accomplices.

Posted by Stilicho on 11/28/12 at 08:59 PM | #

“He said Knox’s claims that she was elsewhere had been demonstrated to be false. The police found text messages on her phone from Lumumba, fixing a meeting between them at 8.35pm on the night Miss Kercher died.”

How is it that we can know these things and the world still believes a fiction?  And people are speaking of the “true, definitive” tale as her book, as if a convicted murderess will tell the truth.

People are amazing.

Posted by James Higham on 11/30/12 at 07:42 PM | #

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings…. A marionette’s puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose….OMG, this is truly the MO of Gogerty Marionette, I mean Marriott

Posted by chrrypi on 11/08/13 at 09:55 PM | #
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