Category: The officially involved

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Possibilities For Political Derailing Of Justice For Meredith Are Now Down Near Zero

Posted by Peter Quennell

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (below left) gets a huge slap in the face in a referendum of Italian voters. He had no obvious powers to wield over the appeal in any case.

Mr Berlusconi’s own grip on power will be weakened by the repeal of a law that excused senior office holders from attending court because of their workload. He is a defendant in three time-consuming trials involving allegations of bribery, fraud and paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl—cases that are sapping his authority.

And the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano (below right) makes clear through a spokesman that he will not lift a finger to help to spring Amanda Knox despite the request from some junior Berlusconi-party parliamentarians..

Italy’s president says he’s following the case of American student Amanda Knox but can’t intervene as she appeals her conviction on charges she murdered her British roommate.

President Giorgio Napolitano’s diplomatic counselor responded to an Italian lawmaker who asked the head of state to intervene to avert controversies stemming from the case.

Mr Napolitano is known to really dislike Mr Berlusconi and his party, so the Rocco Girlanda ploy the Knox forces inflated into an imminent home run was actually dead even before it ever began.

There is no growing global or American or Italian mass movement pro-Knox, and President Obama and Republicans leaders have nothing to gain by denying Meredith her justice.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Now The Grandstanding Junior Politician Girlanda Attempts Political Interference In Judicial Process

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. The Context

Rocco Girlanda is an Umbrian politician and father of five with a long and suspect history of inserting himself in this case.

He first rose to prominence when he dragged a parliamentary team into Capanne Prison right after the trial to make sure that Amanda Knox was quite comfortable. He emerged to make grinning self-congratulatory statements in front of every camera in sight.

Then he extended this privilege of politicians being allowed to inspect prisoner conditions into many more visits to Knox in Capanne, and a distinctly kinky book of Knox’s thoughts and his reflections emerged. That time-consuming process took him extensively away from the duties which Italy actually pays him for.

He also presided over two ill-attended panels for the Italy-USA Foundation of which he is the president (see here and here) and although he seemed to try very hard to insert emotional bias into the proceedings,  both the panels equivocated and he emerged essentially empty-handed.

Girlanda is notorious for seeming to be unable to grasp even the simplest details of the evidence and repeatedly mischaracterizing it. Six months ago we posted an open letter addressed to him with an extremely comprehensive series of questions to try to finally make him think straight.
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Apparently no such luck.

2. Girlanda’s Political Strongarming

Here is Girlanda yet again raising grave but essentially spurious questions about Italian justice in this case, which in fact has been very well handled and which Italy can show to the world with real pride. 

The letter is addressed to the president of the Italian republic and a similar letter went to the minister of justice signed by a dozen Berlusconi-party MPs. Translation is kindly provided by our main poster Clander who also attended and reported on the second panel.

Girlanda’s nasty charges play strongly into the overtones of xenophobia toward Italy which have repeatedly dogged the case. Nice move, Girlanda. Mission achieved?!

The President of Italy-USA Foundation, Hon. Rocco Girlanda, sent the following letter to the President of Italian Republic, Hon. Giorgio Napolitano, regarding the case of Amanda Knox.

Illustrious President,

I address you as President of the Italy-USA Foundation - that as you know is an international bipartisan institution to which dozens of parliamentarians belong, together with Italian scientists, journalists, diplomats, politicians - and as a parliamentary member of the Judiciary Committee in the Chamber of Deputies.

The event of the American student Amanda Knox’s detainment has provoked many discussions and debates, above all in the United States where even members of Congress and other influential institutional personalities are involved. I have been working personally for over a year to try to alleviate the tensions, both in Italy and in the United States, that this case has generated.

Also, in full respect of the trial process and of the role of the judicial magistrates, we must make note that the appellate trial has objectively opened more wide and resounding doubts on what was considered clear evidence in the first phase, in which further expertise and examination of testimony were not admitted, limiting the debate in fact to the only reasons of accusation.

After all, the same president of the Court of Appeals has opened the second level of trial with an eloquent clarification: “The respect of article 533 of the Penal Procedure Code (pronunciation of sentence only if the accused is guilty of the offense contested beyond any reasonable doubt) does not consent to share totally the decision of the Criminal Court from the first level”.

The question that I ask myself is who will compensate two young twenty-year olds, in the hoped for case that the appellate trial recognizes their innocence, of the four years of life and freedom that they have been unjustly depraved and for which no economic compensation could ever reimburse.

The use of preventative incarceration will unfortunately with time characterize our country. Even in the United States such measures are difficult to comprehend in so far as the varying rules from state to state. In the U.S. one can be detained from 48 to 72 hours, after which they are officially charged or are released.

Trials like that of Perugia could be celebrated with the charged in conditions of freedom, eventually with the restrictive measures about the ex-patriot regarding a foreign citizen. Still, the magistrate has adopted the possible reiteration of the offense as a reason for the detention in jail, a motivation that I limit myself to define as surreal for those like me whom for over a year in these parts have had the chance to get to know Amanda Knox.

I have in fact felt the obligation to write a book on Amanda Knox filled with many talks that I had with her in prison, in order to bring her justice and to explain to the world’s public opinion that the true Amanda is a girl completely different from the image that, with the contributions of the media, has emerged from the trials.

All of the Penitentiary Police personnel of the prison of Perugia, that have come to know her in the past three years, have confirmed her exemplary behaviour done with respect and kindness towards all of the other detainees and towards the personnel. Amanda is a girl of which today I am proud to call a great friend. She is an ideal girl with which I would send my five children on vacation.

Yet from the beginning, this case has pointed out some of the forceful and disturbing rule of law. During the investigation, a television and internet interview was conducted with a State Police officer that showed the corridor of the Roman Police offices, where there are framed photographs of such figures like the leaders of organized crime, serial killers, and other criminals convicted with severe crimes.

The officer in question also showed some of the successes of the Central Operating Services, and right after the portrait of Bernardo Provenzano, head of the mafia, there was a framed portrait of Amanda Knox. This portrait was displayed in the State Police offices even before the first trial, and it was accompanied by very serious declarations to the press of that ruling (which has never been sanctioned) where he argues that a “psychological” investigation without the help of science and technology has, “allowed us to arrive very quickly to identify the culprits”.

Is it not necessary to recall here that according to the legal principles of our country a defendant can only be found guilty at the end of three sets of hearings by the judiciary and not at the end of police interviews. It seems indeed rather curious and disturbing that in a democratic and liberal state, despite what is required by the Code of Criminal Procedure about the need for absolute and unambiguous evidence, it is possible to judge a citizen convicted only on “psychological” bases after a police interrogation.

Through the light findings from the appeal process, the so-called evidence and testimonies of the prosecution have proved to be at best considered contradictory and unreliable. All of these distortions have occurred in the various phases of the investigation by the out of place statements from the police and during the first trial; they been widely reported and distributed throughout United States, even in talk shows with tens of million viewers.

These distortions, not without reason, are fueling accusations against the administration of justice in our country. As Martin Luther King wrote in a letter from the Birmingham, Alabama prison, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere… Justice too long delayed is justice denied”.

In this light and with the hope of a different ruling on the Amanda Knox trial taking place in Perugia, I’m well aware of the feelings you have towards the American nation and towards the excellent, historic friendship between the two countries. I would make an appeal, Mr. President, because your authoritative intervention will help to reconcile and mitigate the many controversies that this incident has generated on both sides of the Atlantic.

In expressing my deepest gratitude, to the many citizens of Italy and America that the Italy-USA Foundation is honoured to represent, I take this time to express my utmost respects. 

Rocco Girlanda

Pro-prosecution claims on talk shows in front of tens of millions? Really? All we have noticed 24/7/365 for over three years in the US is invented and seemingly libelous anti-police and anti-prosecution charges on the lines Girlanda is making.

No mention of course of Meredith, about whom, Girlanda doesn’t seem to give a damn.

3. New Development

New development reported by Italian poster ncountryside

MP Rocco Girlanda’s Parliamentary Question about Perugia police incompetennce or corruption can be now monitored here:

http://banchedati.camera.it/sindacatoispettivo_16/showXhtml.Asp?idAtto=39725&stile=6&highLight=1

The complaint to the President as head of the justice system can be read in full in Comments below in Italian.

The other lawmakers who signed the question are:

Lucio Barani, born in Aulla (Massa-Carrara) on May 27th, 1953;
degree in medicine;
constituency: XII ““ Tuscany.

Francesco De Luca, born in Naples on May 31st, 1961;
degree in law;
constituency: VII ““ Veneto 1.

Carla Castellani, born in Rieti on January 13th, 1944;
degree in medicine;
constituency: XVII ““ Abruzzo.

Mariella Bocciardo, born in Genoa on August 21st, 1949;
high school in foreign languages;
constituency: III ““ Lombardy 1.

Gian Carlo Abelli, born in Broni (Pavia) on May, 11th, 1941;
high school;
constituency: V ““ Lombardy 3.

Gianni Mancuso, born in S. Pellegrino Terme (Bergamo) on July 24th, 1957;
degree in veterinary medicine;
constituency: II ““ Piemonte 2.

Domenico Di Virgilio, born in Montefino (Teramo) on June 23rd, 1939;
degree in medicine;
constituency: XV ““ Lazio 1.

Agostino Ghiglia, born in Turin on July 4th, 1965;
high school ““ lyceum;
constituency: I ““ Piemonte 1.

Tommaso Foti, born in Piacenza on April 28th, 1960;
high school ““ lyceum;
constituency: XI ““ Emilia Romagna.

Gabriella Carlucci, (”¦ yes !! her “¦) born in Alghero (Sassari) on February 28th, 1959;
degree in literatures and art hystory, journalist (... vabbe’);
constituency: XXI ““ Puglia.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

So The Two Pressed Defense Teams Decide To Go Eyeball To Eyeball With Cassation

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. How Looks The Appeal?

The appeal is not looking very pretty for the defenses.

There seems no single brick in the wall of the prosecution’s case that, if pulled, will place the entire structure in doubt.

The Supreme Court ruled last December that at Rudy Guede’s trial, Judge Micheli had it right in saying that three perpetrators killed Meredith, one of which was definitely Rudy Guede.

Judge Micheli also ruled in October 2008 that only Knox had a reason to rearrange the crime scene, and Knox’s and Sollecito’s trial judge Massei ruled the same in December 2009.

The extensive forensic evidence in Filomena’s room, in the corridor, and in the bathroom Meredith and Amanda Knox shared, has so far been ruled out for re-examination.

None of it suggests Guede was ever in that bathroom or in Filomena’s room - in fact it suggests he headed straight out the front door .

Eye-witnesses other than the man in the park, Curatolo, are not to be heard from again.

Curatolo is probably not much discredited because he could say that it did not rain on the night he claims he saw Sollecito and Knox in the park watching the house (it did rain on Halloween) and that it was the night before all the cops arrived at the house. Buses were around as he described.

The only thing that might have shaken his timeline is that he might have seen a late Halloween reveler or two.

And the defenses seem to have no obvious way of explaining why Knox and Sollecito came up with so very many muddled alibis and why each at one point even ended up blaming the other.

A report today from TGCom said this on the review of two small parts of the DNA evidence:

Expert reports on the traces of DNA found on the knife held to be the murder weapon used to kill Meredith Kercher, and the clasp of the bra worn at the time of the murder, will be filed June 30.

This has been established by the 2011 Assize Court of Appeal in the Perugia trial of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox. The new deadline was set by the judges at the request of their experts who had requested an extension of 40 days.

The experts have been in the courtroom, explaining that they have obtained all the scientific data required.

They have however also highlighted the need to consult the minutes related to the seizure of the knife and the testimony in the 2009 trial of the agents that followed the inspection at the home of Sollecito. Documents that the Court ordered are to be provided to the experts.

In front of the judges one of the experts stressed that the “maximum cooperation” was provided by the scientific police who performed the technical tests in the course of the investigations.

Nothing in that looks too promising.

2. Best Defense Options Left?

What moves are available if Knox and Sollecito are really to be sufficiently suggested not guilty?

• Option 1: Putting both of them on the witness stand without preconditions for the first time so the appeal court can hear their stories in full, compare them, and subject Knox and Sollecito to no-holds-barred cross-examination.


• Option 2: Putting the two prison inmates Mario Alessi and Luciano Aviello on the witness stand, with several claimed corroborators, to say in Alessi’s case that Guede confided that he did it with two others, and to say in Aviello’s case that his missing brother did it with one other.

What we know of their claims so far - and police and prosecution have really checked out Alessi and Aviello and revealed nothing of what they have up their sleeves - there are only poor connects between their claims and what is described in the Micheli and Massei reports.

Each could crumble in a devastating way under cross-examination, and then be contradicted by a long line of witnesses that the prosecution could bring in to rebut them.

Here is Andrea Vogt reporting on Option 2 from the trial session yesterday which turned out to be mainly procedural: setting several new appeal court dates, and a new date for the findings of the reviews of the DNA on the large knife and bra clasp.

The parties eventually agreed to hold hearings June 18 and 27. And, surprisingly, Judge Hellmann also agreed to admit five new controversial witnesses into the appeals trial, a process normally reserved for debating contested evidence already introduced in the first trial.

The five new witnesses being requested by the Sollecito and Knox defense are all prison inmates ““ convicted of everything from child homicide to being Mafia snitches and drug dealing.

Some of the witnesses have given conflicting accounts of stories they’ve heard about the case while behind bars. At least three, however, agree on their version, that Rudy Guede told them that Knox and Sollecito were innocent (an account Guede denies).

The prosecution is likely to call for counter testimony. The decision to open up the appeal to wholly new testimony from convicted prison inmates is bound to complicate the already confused trial even more, and likely push any final decision far into the fall, toward the fourth anniversary of Kercher’s brutal stabbing and Knox’s incarceration in connection with it.

As if five convicts weren’t enough, Knox’s attorneys announced they had received yet another letter from a different inmate, Tommaso Pace, this time making bizarre and unfounded claims that victim Meredith Kercher was targeted by two unnamed brothers paid $100,000 to kill her over alleged drug debts.

The new letter from Pace (whom the judge and attorneys must still agree to call as a witness) sets up the prospect of potentially six prison inmates taking the stand in Knox’s defense over the summer””each of them with a slightly different story and motive for telling it.

Alessi’s own lawyer seems to have counseled him not to get up on the stand, presumably fearing perjury charges and additional time in his cell.

Aviello is literally unlikely to show his face.

The prosecution could bring back Rudy Guede as a witness against both, and even without Guede testifying, it looks like the prosecution might turn all five witnesses on their heads. 

So Option 2 could drag things out for some months, and try to confront the unequivocal Supreme Court finding issued last December and ported into this appeal: no one wolf.

And still have the Knox and Sollecito defenses conclusively crumble.

Meanwhile, the judges and jury could be watching a very prolonged dog-and-pony show, while impatiently wondering:

“WHY didn’t they simply choose Option 1? Then some or all of us might very quickly have gone home.”

Saturday, April 30, 2011

sollecitos DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

About the Sollecito family trial session today. Only one report so far today, this one 20 minutes ago by Adnkronos:

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Regioni/Umbria/Omicidio-Meredith-sollevata-incompetenza-territoriale-udienza-rinviata_311959179408.html

Judge Alberto Avenoso says the case goes to a single judge although he apparently will preside over this issue of Perugia v Bari jurisdiction for the Telenorba component of the case.

Conceivably this might end up being two trials as Perugia does have jurisdiction over the subversion of justice attempts, the family is not arguing against that.

Will Savive has a small update on today’s events of the Sollecito Family Trial with codefendants Telenorba. He has a list of all the charges and who in the family is involved. The hammer will fall mostly on Raffaele’s father and sister. Telenorba will undoubtable also get fined. I think some jail time and a hefty sum is in order due to the nature of the offense. The perversion of justice charges, per Fast Pete, must be a separate part of the trial.
Also for our friends in Canada, the lifetime movie Lifetime movie Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy makes its debut on Sunday May 1 at 6 p.m. ET on Slice. Stay tuned. Projected network TV interviews with Amanda, for reasons beyond their control, have experienced considerable delays.

Today, the family members of Raffaele Sollecito faced their first day in court. Raffaele’s family: Francesco Sollecito (his father), Vanessa Sollecito (his sister), Mara Papagni (his stepmother) Giuseppe Sollecito (his uncle) and Sara Achille (his aunt) all from Bari have been charged with leaking a crime scene video out of the 10,000-plus pages plus of evidence and exhibits to Telenorba, a Bari television station. The charges are as follows: defamation, invasion of privacy, and publication of arbitrary acts of a criminal case.

The prosecutors are Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Handy; the judge is Alberto Avena; the Sollecito defense team consists of Marco Brusco, Francesco Crisis, Luca Maori and Donatella Donati; and the Kercher family (along with their lawyer, Francesco Maresca) is civil party to the trial and damages could be awarded to them if the defendants are found guilty.

The video included deeply upsetting close-ups of Meredith’s uncovered body and the wounds to her neck. It was later re-broadcast by the state network RAI throughout Italy. Vanessa Sollecito was fired from the Carabinieri late in 2009 for her involvement in this attempt to manipulate politicians.

During today’s proceedings, the Sollecito defense team raised an objection regarding issues of jurisdiction. Judge Avena postponed the hearing until 27 June 2011, at which time this matter will be decided.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Will Savive On Amanda Knox On The Witness Stand On The Afternoon Of June 12 2009 (2)

Posted by Peter Quennell

Knox’s other defense lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, then took the floor to question Knox.

Before questioning began, Mr. Dalla Vedova and Judge Massei asked Knox if she was too tired to continue. Knox stated that she was “ok to proceed.” Judge Massei advised Knox that being fresh and lucid is important while on the stand and that if at any time she feels tired and wants to stop to say “Basta” and the court will take a short recess. Knox thanked the judge and the questioning resumed.

Mr. Dalla Vedova began with a puzzling line of questioning that didn’t seem to have a purpose, but somehow he connected the questioning to Knox’s prison diaries and how she was told that she may have had AIDS””a ploy claimed to be a plot to extract from Knox how many sexual partners that she’d had.

Dalla Vedova began by asking Knox about her family and why she decided to come to Perugia. They then began discussing a particular writing course that she had taken at Washington State University. It was unclear, at this point, where Dalla Vedova was leading with this line of questioning; though prosecutors made no objections as the questioning was virtually irrelevant to the case and was not helping her defense anyway. One would assume that prosecutors would let this continue all day.

Mr. Dalla Vedova led the questioning to Knox’s writing, which she described as a way of expressing herself. Knox claimed that she often kept a diary, even back home, as a way to “let off steam” and to “understand herself.” While in prison, Knox kept a diary up until 29 December 2007, which at that time was confiscated by prison officials and held in her dossier.

Knox testified that she was faced with the choices of surrendering her diary willfully to prison officials or they would come retrieve it with a warrant; Knox gave it wittingly. The confiscated diary was at one point analyzed by one of Britain’s top criminal psychologists, Dr. David Wilson. In the diary Knox describes that when she first arrived in prison, blood was taken from her. Later, prison officials explained to her that the results of the blood test indicated that she may have AIDS.

She claimed he asked her to write down all of the men that she had slept with up to that point, which totaled “seven men.” Knox claimed to the court that for two weeks she was made to think that she had AIDS, but in fact, they were only trying to dig-out from her how many men she had slept with in order to paint her in court as a promiscuous woman. All of this was apparently done on the sly.

Also in that diary, Knox turned on Sollecito for the first time, speculating that he could have killed Meredith and framed her. “This could have happened: Raffaele went to Meredith’s house, raped her and killed her and then, having come back home, pressed my fingerprints””I was asleep””onto the knife,” Knox wrote.

Seeing how Mr. Dalla Vedova’s questioning was leading them nowhere, the more skilled Luciano Ghirga took over the questioning. Ghirga takes Knox back to her arrival in Perugia. They briefly discuss how well her Italian has gotten since she first arrived and what languages she spoke with some of her friends and roommates in Perugia. Knox claimed that she had been spending most of her time in prison studying, which is why her Italian has improved so much over the last two years.

Knox claimed that she was currently reading Hadrian’s Memoirs by Marguerite Yourcenar; a French writer, and she was reading the Italian version.  Mr. Ghirga then asked Knox to describe her relationship with her three female roommates. Knox stated that Laura was a lawyer during the day and a free-spirited guitar player at night. They often played guitar together””Knox borrowing Laura’s second guitar””and practiced yoga.

With Meredith, Knox testified that they would often discuss literature, because Meredith was always reading. Ghirga spent the next several minutes establishing the relationship between Knox and Kercher. At some point the discussion turned to Meredith’s English friends who had testified on day four of the trial.

Luciano Ghirga: Did you also get together with Meredith’s English friends?

Amanda Knox: Yes, but not much. [Laughs] Not much, because in the end, after I got a job with Patrick, we didn’t get together much, because they didn’t go to my university, they went to Meredith’s university. So we didn’t meet there, and then I wasn’t going around having fun any more, I was going to work. But that was fine.

Luciano Ghirga: But you preferred to be with Italians or foreigners?

Amanda Knox: I preferred to be with Italians, because I wanted to feel Italian, I didn’t come to Italy to feel English.

Mr. Ghirga then asked Knox what she thought about the assertions of Meredith’s English friends. The question was intercepted by Judge Massei who wanted Ghirga to be more specific with his question: the reason for this is, as Italian law prescribes, the witness (Knox in this case) is not permitted to give his or her impressions on the testimony of others.

After a brief discussion Ghirga clarified, asking Knox what she thought of the assertions of the girls that there was friction between Knox and Kercher towards the end. Knox disagreed with these assertions, claiming that for her there was no friction in the house.

According to Knox, the reason why she hadn’t been hanging around with Meredith towards the end was because she was working at Le Chic and had no time to go out and socialize. Ghirga asked Knox if she had been aware of any “candeggina” (“bleach”) in the cottage at the time of the murder. “I didn’t know if there was any there, in the house,” Knox replied.

Knox stated in her testimony (which was confirmed by her cell phone records) that she had asked Meredith via text messaging to meet up with her on Halloween night. Oddly, Knox testified that she had met a male friend (not Sollecito) at Merlin’s Pub, but she did not go inside the pub. Meredith was at this pub with friends and Knox met the boy outside as he exited the pub, but she did not go inside to speak to Meredith.

Knox alluded that she did not know that Meredith was inside the bar, and that she only knew that Meredith had gone to dinner with friends. This may have been because Meredith had not replied to the last two text messages sent by Knox. Maybe there was a reason why Meredith did not want Knox to know where she was going for the evening? In any event, it was well known that Merlin’s Pub was Meredith’s favorite bar in the area and that she often frequented that establishment.

Mr. Ghirga then takes Knox back to the night of 1 November 2007. There was nothing new that came out of this questioning, just reiteration of information that had already been said. One can wonder what the good lawyer was trying to accomplish by this line of questioning. In fact, Ghirga was trying to go through the day of November 1st with Knox, but she could not remember the times that any of the events had occurred.

As Ghirga prodded into the day’s events, he made several suggestions””leading the witness. This was met by objections from Francesco Maresca. There was, however, one interesting piece of testimony to come out of this exchange; one that did not necessarily help the defense. Ghirga asked Knox if she usually turned her phone off at night. Knox responded, “Not usually, because I use it as a clock, an alarm clock, so usually I don’t, but on that night I did.”

Ghirga wisely left that response alone and moved on to November 2nd, but again there was nothing new or helpful to her defense. At several points during Ghirga’s questioning of Knox, it seemed as if he hadn’t ever met with her before. Usually in criminal cases such as this, the suspect’s lawyer will rehearse the questions with the defendant or at least ask questions that he is aware that his client can answer. Yet, as the questioning continued it became evident that this was not a well thought-out interview.

Mr. Ghirga then requested the judge’s permission to play the court an audio taped conversation between Amanda and Filomena on 5 November 2007, at 10:29p.m. The call””which originated from Knox’s phone””was intercepted by police. T

The two spoke mostly in Italian, then at one point Filomena switched to speaking English. Her English was hard to understand. Ghirga stopped the tape periodically to ask Knox a question or two then restarted the tape. At the time of the call Knox was in the police station.

Knox had gone with Sollecito to the police station and she was waiting by the elevators for him to reappear. During the call Filomena asks Knox her whereabouts. Knox responds, “At the police station.” Filomena seems surprised and asks, “So you’re there again today?”

The reason for the call was apparently to discuss where they were going to live. The remaining roommates (Laura and Filomena) were trying to get out of the contract with the agency that they had rented the cottage from and find another place. Filomena informed Knox that she had an appointment the following day (November 6th) with that agency to discuss the situation.

Again, the purpose of Ghirga playing the call was unclear, other than to show that Knox’s main preoccupation was where she was going to be living-out the rest of her days in Perugia. Following the ending of the conversation, Ghirga discusses why neither Knox nor her family were concerned about the continued questioning by police.

Luciano Ghirga: I see. So, in all these days, following the discovery of the body, did you ever think about turning to the American Embassy, or to a lawyer?

Amanda Knox: No.

Luciano Ghirga: Because they were calling you every day to the Questura.

Amanda Knox: No, no. More than anything, I thought they wanted to talk to me so much because I was the closest person to Meredith in the house. And then, I was the person who went back to the house and found the mess. I never thought I needed a lawyer or to talk to the Ambassador, because I thought, okay, I’ll just answer a couple of questions, and then I can get on with my life, I don’t know. And I still had to orient myself in the world around me; I never even thought of contacting someone like a lawyer.

Luciano Ghirga: And the fact that you were being called every day to the Questura, didn’t that worry you and your family?

Amanda Knox: [Sigh] For me, I didn’t understand why, but I really never, never thought that they suspected me; never.

Luciano Ghirga: When they arrested you, did they tell you why? When they put the handcuffs on your wrists, on the morning of the 6th?

Amanda Knox: If they told me, I didn’t understand it. Because in the end, when I found myself””

Luciano Ghirga: And what did you think, when they put the handcuffs on you?

Amanda Knox: I was surprised. I thought—they told me “Come on, it’s just for a couple of days, because we’re protecting you,” so I said “All right, fine, but actually, you’re not even listening to me.” And then in those following days, when I was like ah—when I was alone in the cell, in those days, I was suddenly brought in front of the judge, with two lawyers, and they said “Ah, you are accused of murdering Meredith,” and I just stood there with my mouth open with everybody staring at me like “Hmmm.”

Luciano Ghirga: On the morning of the 6th, you didn’t understand why they were arresting you.

Amanda Knox: No. No. I—they—I thought that, as I had understood from them, that it was a formality that they had to do because there was some testimony that I had been near the scene of the crime or something like that.

Luciano Ghirga: But in the days that you spent in prison before that, before you met the undersigned lawyer Ghirga, what were you thinking during those days? What did you think was happening?

Amanda Knox: In those days, I only wanted to clarify the things that I hadn’t understood before, those images that I had imagined, that contradicted the reality that I remembered. This was my main preoccupation. For me, those days were a big moment of crying and confusion, and fear, and cold. Really, it was freezing.

Mr. Ghirga then requests that the remainder of the defenses’ questioning be suspended until the following day because he sensed that Knox was getting tired. Judge Massei denied the request, citing that the following days proceedings were scheduled for cross-examination by the prosecution.

Knox’s defense had squandered precious time on irrelevant issues, and now they were feeling the pressure. Perhaps it was just that Knox didn’t really have much to offer in the way of her defense.

A discussion ensued, and Judge Massei conceded that he would allot time the next day””only in the morning””for the defense to continue if need be. In the meantime, Judge Massei ordered a ten-minute break.

The questioning recommenced at 5:16p.m., with Carlo Dalla Vedova again taking the floor. Dalla Vedova began by bringing Knox back to the 17 December 2007 interrogation. Conducting the seven hour interrogation was the public prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini.

Knox recalls that she had an interpreter””Australian born Giulia Clemish. Knox explained that she was quite frustrated with her because she was not a very good interpreter and this led to much confusion. Dalla Vedova interjected that they had to get a different interpreter to translate the translator.

Dalla Vedova then asks about how she got the nickname “Foxy Knoxy.” Knox explains that the nickname came out of the fact that she was a defender in soccer and that it also rhymed with her name, “fox,” “Knox.”

Alessandro Clericuzzio, the interpreter responsible for retranslating the whole December 17th interrogation, translated “Foxy Knoxy” to “Mean Fox.” Mr. Dalla Vedova was clearly trying to demonstrate how the phrase “Lost in translation” had applied to this situation, which then shows that this could have applied to things Knox had said during other interrogations.

Knox was asked if she knew that Meredith had taken out money prior to her death. Knox said she did not, and then she corrected herself. “Wait, one time she told this thing to Filomena that she could already give her the money and Filomena said no, let’s wait a little, but I didn’t know if she carried it around in her wallet or left it at home.”

As Knox indicated in earlier testimony, this conversation was in regard to the rent for November 2007, so Knox did have prior Knowledge to the fact that Kercher had already taken out money to pay the rent.

The final discussion of the day centered around Knox’s cell phone discussions with Filomena on the day that Meredith’s body was discovered. The final discussion also touched upon the time between when Knox first arrived at the cottage and when the first officers arrived.

Judge Massei took over the questioning at one point on the matter to get clarification on Knox’s story. His questioning continued for several minutes. Judge Massei asked Knox whether she knew if anyone was home the first time she claimed to arrive at the cottage on the morning of 2 November 2007 (allegedly after leaving Sollecito’s flat in the morning and returning to the cottage).

Knox told the court that she had called out the names, Filomena and Meredith, thinking that maybe they were home. She said that she knew Filomena was going to a party the previous night and she wasn’t sure if she had returned home by then or not. The brief segment that followed was just a reiteration of prior testimony, with Carlo Dalla Vedova retaking command of the floor.

At the conclusion of the defenses’ questioning of the witness, Judge Massei asked the prosecution if they wanted to begin their cross-examination. The prosecution seemed eager to get to questioning with Manuela Comodi saying, “We can start now or we can start tomorrow.”

Judge Massei asked Knox if she could continue, but Knox asked if questioning could be suspended for the day as she was tired. There was no doubt that the day had been long, drawn-out, and grueling for all present””particularly Knox. Realizing this, Judge Massei suspended the proceedings, announcing that they would continue the following morning at 9:00.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Will Savive On Amanda Knox On The Witness Stand On The Afternoon Of June 12 2009 (1)

Posted by Peter Quennell

[This excerpt covers the questioning by Luciano Ghirga and the next will cover the questioning by Carlo Dalla Vedova]

The afternoon session began at exactly 1:38p.m., as declared by the presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, who called Knox’s defense team for further examination. Knox took the stand again as her lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, stepped forward to begin his questioning.

Mr. Ghirga began by asking Knox the last time that she saw Meredith alive. Knox began by reiterating her previous version: which began around noon on November 1st, just before Meredith went to Robyn Butterworth’s apartment. This time, her answers were clear and concise. Knox further explained her first meeting with Raffaele Sollecito, the configuration of the living arrangements at the cottage (including who lived there with her and Meredith), and how the rent was paid.

Ghirga then began discussing Knox’s relationship with Meredith, trying to establish that there was no problem between them. Knox claimed that she and Meredith were close friends, but she did mention briefly that Meredith had expressed her discontent over her [Knox’s] cleaning habits; although she made excuses and downplayed the discussion. Knox snickered a bit and claimed that she “wasn’t the cleanest person in the house,” speaking of herself.

Going further into the night of the murder, Knox testified that she and Sollecito read a bit of the book Harry Potter, listened to music, watched the movie Amelie, and then ate a fish dinner around 9:30-10:00p.m. After dinner Knox told the court that Sollecito began doing the dishes. It was then that Knox claims that the sink began leaking water all over the floor. Sollecito was “displeased” she said, because he had recently had the sink fixed.

Sollecito didn’t have a mop, so they found some rags and let the water soak in, and Knox told him that she would go and get the mop she had at the cottage in the morning and bring it back to his place to clean the mess. Once that was determined, Knox says that they went into his room and smoked a joint (marijuana cigarette). After that she said that they had sex and then fell asleep.

From there Ghirga stepped back a few hours to the text message from Lumumba.

Knox said that she received his message “just before or right after” the movie had started. Knox claimed that she was so excited that she didn’t have to go into work that night that she jumped into Sollecito’s arms and screamed, “Woo!” Knox then reiterated her previous version in which she woke up the next morning around 10:00-10:30a.m etc (similar version in her November 4, 2007, email to family and friends).

Knox claims that they had plans to go to Gubbio, so she left his flat, went home to take a shower, and return to Raffale’s so that they could go to Gubbio. After noticing the blood in the bathroom and taking a shower, she returned to Sollecito’s flat.

There, Knox claims that they cleaned the floor in his apartment with the mop she retrieved from the cottage, and then ate breakfast and had coffee at Sollecito’s apartment. Knox then proceeded to testify that she called Meredith’s phone first, then she called Filomena, both from Sollecito’s apartment.

This varies from her 4 November 2007, email to family and friends, because in that email she wrote that she called Filomena first, and then Meredith. Also during her testimony, Knox never mentions running outside and banging on a neighbor’s door, which she writes about in her November 4th email.

Before the breaking of the door into Meredith’s room, Knox testified, “Yes, because I told them, look, the door is locked, and Filomena was going “˜Mamma Mia, it’s never locked, it’s never locked,’ and I said no, it’s not true that it’s never locked, but it is strange.” Knox testified that when Meredith’s door was broken down she was near the entrance.

Yet in her 4 November 2007, email to family and friends she claimed that she was “in the kitchen, having really done my part for the situation.” It also contradicts all other versions of those who were there at the time who claim that Knox was in the kitchen when the door was kicked-in.

Knox also claims that while in the car with Paola and her boyfriend, on the way to the police station, they informed her and Sollecito that Meredith’s throat had been cut.  This statement is suspect, however, as Paola testified that because of the “penumbra” (or “lack of light”) in the room, only a foot could be seen, no blood or anything else.

Knox claims that after she was told that Meredith’s throat was cut she cried. According to Luca and Paola’s testimony, Knox did cry in the car, and they also testified that they told Sollecito and Knox what they knew about how Meredith had died before they had gotten to the police station.

The questioning then switched to 4 November 2007 questioning when Knox was brought back to the crime scene.

Knox explained that the police requested her presence at the police station. Knox testified that she had requested to meet them at the cottage, but police asked her to meet them at the station first. She was driven there by Sollecito and the police then took her over to the cottage.

To her surprise, her other roommates, Laura and Filomena, were there; but they arrived without a police escort. Knox then briefly discussed her mental breakdown at the cottage when she was shown the knives. She claimed that she was very scared when shown the knives and that she was in shock; she claimed that she was just beginning to understand what exactly had happened there.

Luciano Ghirga then shifted questioning to what Knox had told police on November 4th about a man nicknamed “Shaky.”

On that date police had asked Knox to remember if there were any males who had visited the cottage that seemed like they could be dangerous. She could only think of one man who had made a bad impression on her since she had been in Perugia and his name was Shaky. Knox said that they called him Shaky because of the way he danced.

Amanda Knox: one time I had a, he [Shaky] went for example to the place where I worked, at the time when I was supposed to go home, it was very late, and he offered me a ride home on his motorbike. But during the ride, he insisted that I go have some dessert with him, and I said, “Look, I really want to go home,” and he said “No, look, I’m giving you a ride, a bit of dessert is nothing,” and he took me to have it, and then he took me to his house, which to me… 

I kept telling him again and again, “Look, I really want to go home, it’s really late, I’m really tired,” and he kept saying “No, no, relax, relax, come on, sit down on my bed, relax, make yourself comfortable.” I said “No, look, take me home.”

So he finally brought me home, and that was it, but it left me with an ugly impression because I thought he wanted to somehow try something, and he was the only person that had made an impression of strangeness on me, like he had intentions that were different from what I wanted. So he made that impression on me, but that’s all, because everybody else I met was nice.

Mr. Ghirga then switched question back to the November 4th, when police brought Knox to the cottage.

Mr. Ghirga asked Knox what conversations there were between her, Laura, and Filomena. Knox said that they discussed how stunned they were about what had happened, why nothing was stolen during the break-in, and the overall situation that had transpired thus far. Knox said that they also discussed future living arrangements, as the girls were staying with friends and Knox was staying with Sollecito.

On that day the three girls were talking about possibly moving-in together at a different location. Mr. Ghirga then said that he wanted to ask Knox about the evenings of the 5th and 6th, but he was cut-short by Judge Massei, who suspended the proceedings. The time was 2:30p.m., and judge Massei announced that they would have a break in the action and reconvene at 3:00p.m.

The trial picked-up again at 3:00p.m. Judge Massei called for silence and Luciano Ghirga resumed questioning. As Ghirga began to speak crowd noise could still be heard. Judge Massei again called for silence and Ghirga repeated his question, asking Knox about when she first came to Italy.

Amanda Knox had first moved into the cottage in Perugia in late September of 2007. She had previously been in Germany at her aunt’s house with her sister Deanna, and both Amanda and Deanna had gone straight to Italy afterwards.

Ghirga then asked Knox how many piercings that she had in her ear, as he pointed out that he counted eight on the left ear and four on the right ear; Knox agreed. It had appeared as though Mr. Ghirga was going to try to establish that the blood found at the scene of the crime that belonged to Knox came from the piercings. Yet, without warning, Ghirga said that he had exhausted the topic and went back to Knox’s interrogation on 5 November 2007.

Mr. Ghirga then asked Knox about her allegations that she was struck in the head by police:

Amanda Knox: So, during the interrogation, people were standing all around me, in front of me, behind me, one person was screaming at me from here [she points in front of her], another person was shouting “˜No no no, maybe you just don’t remember’ from over there [points to her left], other people were yelling other things, and a policewoman behind me did this to me [Knox mimics the sound of two whacks to the back of her head].

Luciano Ghirga: Once, twice?

Amanda Knox: Twice. The first time she did this, I turned around to her, and she did it again.

Luciano Ghirga: I wanted to know this precise detail.

Amanda Knox: Yes.

Luciano Ghirga: After all that, that whole conversation, that you told us about, and you had a crying crisis, did they bring you some tea, coffee, some cakes, something? When was that exactly?

Amanda Knox: They brought me things only after I had made some declarations. So, I was there, they were all screaming at me, I only wanted to leave because I was thinking that my mother was arriving, and I said look, can I have my telephone, because I want to call my mom. They said no, and there was this big mess with them shouting at me, threatening me, and it was only after I made declarations that they started saying “No, no, don’t worry, we’ll protect you,” and that’s how it happened.

Ironically, just moths earlier “” at Rudy Guede’s trial “” Luciano Ghirga undermined and contradicted his own client’s (Knox’s) story when he said, “There were pressures from the police but we never said she was hit.”

Knox then recalls being brought several papers to sign: arrest warrant, declarations, etc. She claimed that she wasn’t sure what the papers were, and that she just signed everything because she wanted to go home.  However, these papers were brought to her after she had been informed that she was under arrest, which she doesn’t make reference to during this exchange.

After repeated questioning about her unpleasant interrogation””in an effort to show that she made the confessions out of exhaustion, intimidation, and miscommunication””Knox claimed to have asked for a piece of paper and a pen so that police could be sure that they understood her. “Look, I’ll give you a present,” Knox claims to have told police, as she lets out a small laugh.

Knox then speaks about the second letter which she wrote when she was first taken to jail.

Amanda Knox: So in prison I again asked for paper, because that’s how I’m used to expressing myself, the way I succeed best, also to organize my thoughts,  I needed to write them down. I needed to reorganize all my thoughts, because at that point I was still confused, I still had these images in my memory that finally I understood were a mixture of real images in my memory from other days mixed with imagination. So I needed those pieces of paper, so I could take everything and put it in order.

Knox’s answer even seemed to confuse Ghirga, who responded by saying, “All right, I’ve finished the subject of the night in the Questura.”

Knox testified that she lost track of the hours and was unsure of any of the times involved. That is quite common when a suspect is initially confined. There had been some confusion after the murder as to why Knox did not leave the country when she had the chance. Knox claims that she had worked hard to get to Perugia and that she wanted to stay and finish her studies.  However, she also said that she asked police if she could leave the country and they said “No.”

Mr. Ghirga then attempted to clear-up the statement made by Knox (on November 17th of 2007), which she made to her mother and father. The calls were from prison and were recorded by police.

There was a long pause as Ghirga flipped through the transcript of the calls and found the quote on page eight. Once he found the page, he read Knox’s comments aloud to the court. Knox said to her mother and father, “I was there. I can’t lie about this. I’m not scared of the truth. It would be stupid to lie about this because I know I was there.” Knox responded by claiming that when she said, “I was there,” she meant that she was at Sollecito’s flat during the murder, not at the cottage.

Mr. Ghirga then pulled out a letter that was written by Knox on 9 November 2007, which was addressed to him; Ghirga claimed to have received it on November 12th. In the letter Knox writes in English that she “felt upset about mentioning Patrick Lumumba’s name.” The letter was not known at the time by any other party and that along with the fact that it was written in English and transcribed into Italian by Knox’s other lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, brought an objection by Prosecutor Manuela Comodi.

A small argument ensued over the translation of the letter from English to Italian. Prosecutor Comodi stated that she did not trust that the translation was accurate. Judge Massei settled the argument by letting the interpreter, who was there translating for Knox, translate the two lines in the letter that Mr. Ghirga was referring to.

After Ghirga had established that Knox had informed him that she was upset about falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba””which slightly clarified an earlier question posed by Lumumba’s lawyer””he then switched questioning to the morning after the murder.

Mr. Ghirga wanted to establish that Knox was not at the Conad Store on Sollecito’s street at 7:45a.m., the morning after the murder. These statements were made earlier in the trial by Mr. Quintavalle, who owned the store, and had testified that Knox was in his store at that time.

Knox denied being at the store at that time or on that day. She did admit to being in the store a couple of times on other occasions, but with Sollecito””never alone. Knox also denied ever owning a red coat or anything resembling a red coat, which Mr. Gioffredi had testified that she was wearing when he saw her.

The last questions from Mr. Ghirga were regarding the scratch on Knox’s neck, which was clearly visible in a picture of Knox outside the cottage just after Kercher’s body was discovered. As indicated by prior testimony, the scratch was also seen by two others who had testified to its presence. Knox told the court that it was a hicky from Sollecito.

In the background, Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, called out, “Is it a scratch from Meredith?” Knox responded, “A hickey from Raffaele.” With that, Mr. Ghirga said, “For now, I’ve finished,” and he took his seat.

_______________

From The Study Abroad Murder by Will Savive

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Will Savive On Amanda Knox On The Witness Stand On The Morning of June 12 2009

Posted by Peter Quennell

Unlike Sollecito, who has exercised his right to silence, Amanda Knox had volunteered to take the stand. As we have seen, the Italian justice system has several differences from that of the United States Justice system. One of those differences is that in an Italian trial witnesses must swear to tell the truth. However, defendants do not.

Defendants can also interrupt the questioning at anytime or even choose not to answer certain questions, in theory of course, though in practice it would be a bad move (incriminating) if a defendant chose not to answer. One of Knox’s lawyers, Luciano Ghirga, told reporters a week earlier that Knox would be answering all of the prosecution’s questions.

Knox’s defense team, however, would offer-up objection after objection on even the simplest questions, and this came on the day that was scheduled just for defense questioning (aside from Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer). Every time Knox was caught in a contradiction, a fight would break-out between defense and prosecution. Knox’s vague answers along with her lawyer’s objections distracted lawyers and made it very hard for them to extract anything substantial out of her.

It was apparent early on that this was going to be a long drawn-out examination with nothing substantial provided toward her defense. Not only was Knox vague, but she seemed annoyed and not necessarily eager to tell her story; even using sarcasm on a few occasions and snapping at prosecutors. In the end, her testimony hurt her more than it helped her, because it did not help clear up her whereabouts at the time of the murder, and it lent to the notion that she was lying….

The schedule for the day was going to be questioning from her own defense team, along with questioning from Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer, Carlo Pacelli. Knox entered the courtroom with her hair tied back with a light-blue scrunchy, a white short sleeve collared top, pale trousers, and what appeared to be a large cold sore on her upper lip. She looked tired and pale as she took her seat, and looked around nervously as reporters jockeyed for position at the back of the courtroom.

The beginning of the session was held up a bit as Judge Massei discussed with lawyers whether to allow cameras in the courtroom. The final decision was to exclude cameras, allowing cameras to roll during only the first 20 minutes of Knox’s testimony. Questioning began with Carlo Pacelli, who would get the first crack at Knox as part of Lumumba’s civil lawsuit. Seated immediately to Knox’s left was a heavy-set, brunette interpreter. Knox understood most questions that were thrown at her and the interpreter mostly translated to the court what Knox was saying as opposed to what Knox was being asked by Italian litigators.

Mr. Pacelli started by asking Knox if she knew Rudy Guede. Knox admitted meeting Guede before the murder, claiming that she met him while she was mingling with the boys that lived in the apartment underneath her. Knox said that they were in the center, near the church, when the boys introduced her to Guede. On that occasion, Knox says that she spent most of her time with Meredith, as they all (including Guede) went back to the cottage and had a party on the first floor. This party apparently took place in mid-October of 2007, a little more than a month before the murder. Knox also admitted seeing Guede at Le Chic (Lumumba’s restaurant) at least once.

Knox said that at the party she and others smoked a “spinello” (“marijuana joint”). Pacelli then focused on Knox’s relationship with Lumumba. Knox testified that Lumumba never mistreated her, always treated her with respect, their relationship was good, and she was not scared of him. Mr. Pacelli then brought Knox back to the night of the murder, asking her if she knew what time it was when Lumumba sent her the first text message on 1 November 2007. Knox said “around 8:15-8:30p.m.”

When asked, “When you answered Patrick’s message, where were you?”

Knox replied, “In the apartment of Raffaele, I think, yes.” Pacelli indicated that Knox answered the message 25 minutes later from another location. “It seems from cell pings that you were out of the house when you answered, in the center. Where were you?” asked Pacelli. This question was met by a stream of objections and a heated discussion between defense and prosecution. When the dust cleared Knox stated that she was at Sollecito’s apartment when she responded to the message.

Knox had deleted all received text messages on her cell phone at some point after receiving the last message from Lumumba. Knox claimed that this was because she had limited space on her cell. When asked why she did not delete the text messages that she sent, she answered very sarcastically, “I’m not a technical genius, so I only know how to delete the ones that I receive when I get them.” Knox told the court that she didn’t have an appointment to meet Lumumba at the basketball court on the night of the murder.

When asked why she wrote in her statement to police that she met him at the court that night, Knox responded, “It was a complicated situation. I can explain it if you want me to go into it.” Knox then proceeded to explain her version of what occurred and why she wrote what she did in the spontaneous letter to police after her arrest. She proceeded to explain what she claimed was a long grueling interrogation where police began asking the same questions over and over.

Then, in a long, drawn-out, drab tone that only an American could understand (due to the prosodic “” rhythmic, intonational aspect of human speech “” nature of the tone), Knox said that they kept asking her questions such as “w-h-o k-i-l-l-e-d M-e-r-e-d-i-t-h,” that sounded as if she was down-playing the question, because she had heard it so many times. Knox began to show several glimpses into the bizarre behavior that was previously testified to by others.

Although it may sound trivial, the response was strange; and coupled with the multiple accounts her of odd behavior, it only added to the quandary. During this monologue, Knox stated that police called her a “stupid liar,” several times when she asserted that she had been at Sollecito’s flat all night. Knox then quoted her interpreter during the interrogation, claiming that she had said that Knox was “traumatized and couldn’t remember the truth.”

Knox then continued with her confusing explanation of what happened during her interrogation/arrest:

So what ended up happening was that they told me to try to remember what I apparently, according to them, had forgotten. Under the amount of pressure of everyone yelling at me, and having them tell me that they were going to put me in prison for protecting somebody, that I wasn’t protecting, that I couldn’t remember, I tried to imagine that in some way they must have had, it was very difficult, because when I was there, at a certain point, I just, I couldn’t understand why they were so sure that I was the one who knew everything.

And so, in my confusion, I started to imagine that maybe I was traumatized, like what they said. They continued to say that I had met somebody, and they continued to put so much emphasis on this message that I had received from Patrick, and so I almost was convinced that I had met him. But I was confused.

The next few questions were met with objections by Knox’s lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, and banter between he, the judge, and Pacelli. More objections came when Pacelli asked Knox why she claimed to hear Meredith scream, with now several different lawyers arguing and trying to plead to the judge their reasons why the question should or should not be answered. The argument centered on what was and was not admissible according to the Supreme Court decision at the beginning of trial. Judge Massei then declared that they would take a short recess and he would consult with the lawyers in private on the matter.

When they returned, Judge Massei overruled the objections and stated that the question is permitted because it comes from Knox’s spontaneous statement, which was ruled as admissible during the first week of trial. Knox then switched to speaking Italian upon Judge Massei’s approval. Finally, Knox was able to answer the question, which she replied, “No,” I did not hear Meredith scream.

The following sequence occurred next:

Carlo Pacelli: In the interrogation of November 6, 2007, at 5:45, you declared that before she died, you heard Meredith scream. How could you know that Meredith screamed before she was killed? Who told you?

Knox: So when I was with the police, they asked if I heard Meredith’s scream. I said no. They said “But if you were there, how could you not hear her scream? If you were there?” I said “Look, I don’t know, maybe I had my ears covered.” So they said “Fine, we’ll write that down. Fine.”

Carlo Pacelli: [louder] But I can tell you that on November 6, the police did not know that Meredith screamed before she died, so why would they suggest it to you?

Knox: I imagine that maybe they were imagining how it might have been.

Knox asserted that police were not telling her what to say but suggesting paths of thought. “I kept following their suggestions,” Knox stated. “They asked me if I was in her room when she was killed. I said no. They said but where were you? I said I don’t know. They said, maybe you were in the kitchen. I said, fine.”

Knox testified that she went to the police station with Sollecito the night that they were arrested because she was scared and didn’t want to be alone. She verified that she was not called-into the station that night. Knox also confirmed that the spontaneous statement that she made was her idea, and not the result of pressure from police. Knox said that she asked for a piece of paper and a pen, and that she wrote it to explain her confusion to the police.

Knox then said several times that while at the police station after her arrest she “really wasn’t sure” what had happened on the night of Kercher’s murder. Knox told the court that she gave the written statement to the police freely, voluntarily, and that police did not suggest the content nor pressure her into writing the statement.

The following sequence occurred next:

Carlo Pacelli: Listen, in this memorandum, you say that you confirm the declarations you made the night before about what might have happened at your house with Patrick. Why did you freely and spontaneously confirm these declarations?

Knox: Because I was no longer sure what was my imagination and what was real. So I wanted to say that I was confused, and that I couldn’t know. But at the same time, I knew I had signed those declarations. So I wanted to say that I knew I had made those declarations, but I was confused and not sure.

Carlo Pacelli: But in fact, you were sure that Patrick was innocent?

Knox: No, I wasn’t sure.

Carlo Pacelli: Why?

Knox: Because I was confused! I imagined that it might have happened. I was confused.

Then the questioning turned to when Knox realized that Patrick Lumumba was innocent. Several fights and objections broke out over this line of questioning. The defense seemed to know that Pacelli was onto something and they were trying at all ends to block him or throw him off. Pacelli explained that in Knox’s 7 November 2007, memorandum, Knox wrote, “I didn’t lie when I said the murderer might be Patrick.”

However, Pacelli said that during a phone call with her mother on November 10th (three days later) Knox stated that she felt horrible because she (Knox) got him [Lumumba] put in prison and she knew he was innocent. Knox, then speaking like a politician, led Pacelli -and even the judge - around in circles; not giving a straight answer to the question: when did you inform police that Patrick Lumumba was not the killer?

Pacelli was trying to show that Knox had written that Lumumba was the killer on the 7th, told her mother that Lumumba was innocent on the 10th, but never informed the police at anytime after the 10th that Lumumba was innocent. He was subsequently released three weeks after his arrest, and at no time during the three weeks did Knox inform police that she falsely accused Lumumba. Knox’s final reply on the matter was, “I had explained the situation to my lawyers, and I had told them what I knew, which was that I didn’t know who the murderer was.”

So, Knox never really did answer the question why she never informed anyone - besides her mother on November 10th - that Patrick Lumumba was not the murderer. This was important because Pacelli already knew what Knox’s mother had told investigators about the call and what the basis of her testimony would be. Pacelli knew that her mother’s testimony was coming up the following week, and he wanted to get Amanda’s version on the record knowing that her mother would clarify and contradict - or at least not help - her (Amanda’s) story. Knox also revealed that she never actually said she was sorry to Patrick for her false accusations that put him behind bars for three weeks.

With that, Carlo Pacelli ended his questioning. Judge Massei then announced a break in the action and that the court would reconvene at 1:30p.m.

_______________

From The Study Abroad Murder by Will Savive


[Below: Falsely accused Patrick Lumumba and his lawyer Carlo Pacelli]

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Sollecito Family Trial: On The Component About Their Alleged Attempt At Political Interference

Posted by Jools

Almost nothing is showing up in the English language media on the court case Raffaele Solecito’s family are facing for allegedly trying to throw the murder investigation.

In the Italian media (as so often in this case) the reporting on this is franker, fuller, and on the whole way more honest. I previously posted articles that focussed mainly on the Telenorba TV video component of the trial.

This now is a translation of a June 2008 writeup of official wiretaps on a police association website of the political-influence component of the trial. The police association would be interested because it was some of their members allegedly being impugned. 

Perugia Flying Squad: other interceptions published.

The role of Carabinieri lieutenant, Vanessa Sollecito, becomes stronger from the latest interceptions published by the daily newspaper LIBERO”¦

THE TELEPHONE CALLS OF THE SOLLECITOS’ TO POLITICIANS FOR RAF

The relatives are accused of manipulating the investigation. The sister a lieutenant: “I break a finger and I move to the civilian personnel this is how I’ll get him out”

Murder in Perugia. This is the sister of Raffale Sollecito, the student from Giovinazzo charged with the murder of the young English girl Meredith Kercher, who in a telephone call to her father Francesco tells him that she is prepared to break a finger just to transition into a civilian role in the carabinieri and succeed like this to pursue an “illicit” scheme to get her little brother out of prison and help him to get out of this sh**”¦ country.

Vanessa Sollecito is 31 years old and she is a lieutenant of the Carabinieri armed forces in the Lazio Region. She too, like her father and the rest of the relatives (uncle/aunt, a brother in law, cousins, dad’s second wife), try to gain favors from well known “excellent” people in order to exonerate Raffy and to remove the “real culprits”. These (“real culprits”) would be the police officers that have placed him under investigation and the magistrates who don’t want to know about freeing him.

The Sollecito “clan” (this is how who’s investigating the murder of Via Della Pergola defines Raffaele’s family) is written in the logbook register on the occasion of a second line of police investigation on the murder of November 2 last. The alleged offences are: defamation, invasion of privacy, and publication of arbitrary acts of a criminal case.

The time is 18:20 hours March 3 last [2008] when Vanessa phones her father (a well-known cardiologist [sic] in Puglia) and announces: “I’ve met a man, he is from the penitentiary police who works at the Ministry of Justice. He says that a union leader has explained to him that there is one way for transitioning into the carabinieri civilian staff role, although it is not very legal. And that is for me to break a finger, if things were to go down badly for Raffy, in order to lose the (fit to serve) eligibility” and move to the authority in control of civil service roles.

Francesco Sollecito gets very angry. Not about his daughter breaking a finger, but because he knows that his phone is being intercepted, and screaming he says: “You mustn’t speak on this phone, it is intercepted.” And Vanessa says: “Yours might be intercepted, but not mine!”

Two weeks later, it’s the morning of March 17 - at 10:59, Vanessa tries to phone the “˜Idv’ party - Senator Domenico Formisano - in order to go to meet him. And conveys to her father “He is our friend. He asked me a favor for a young man who must stay in Rome. He’ll be in his office Wednesday at 12:30, I hope to please him so afterwards I make use of the favor owed and will help Raffaele. He is the number two to Di Pietro.”

It’s [a date in] May at 10:23 and aunt Sara Achille (wife of Francesco Sollecito’s brother, Giuseppe) says: “Listen Francesco, Senator Domenico Nania told me to call him to arrange for a meeting in Rome. You know, it’s always better to have a nice… And Sara wanted to involve in the affair even the honorable Renato Schifani.”

Three days before, at four in the afternoon, Vanessa also spoke to her father in a “sarcastic” tone: “That lot are still going to take the foot prints”¦ Colonel De Fulvio, who is the one from RiS, says that they are still at this point”¦ and he’s offered himself to meet up with lawyer Bongiorno in terms of friendship, to see the scientific police material”¦”

[Her father Francesco] Sollecito interrupts her: “About these things you must not speak on this telephone, THIS ONE IS BEING MONITORED! Call me later.”

Uncle Giuseppe Sollecito, on July 30, utters offensive phrases toward the magistrates in Perugia because they haven’t gone in-depth into investigating the trail of the junkie found covered in blood near the victim’s house the day of the murder… “and this is just on purpose to keep Raffaele in prison”. His brother Francesco responds: “I’ll skin them alive those… and they’ll hear from me as well.”

Raffaele’s stepmother Mara Papagni, puts her complete trust in lawyer Giulia Bongiorno: That one “Ms Thirtyballs” will fix everyone”¦ She knows how to behave on certain occasions.

The strategy of Sollecito’s relatives appears to be clear in other wiretappings: they want to put pressure on the judges of the Supreme Court of Cassation so that they’ll agree to accept the appeal presented by the defenders of the young man, they prefer that some investigators whom they regard as inconvenient be removed from the investigation.

In their targets above all are Commissioner Monica Napoleoni, head of the [Perugia] Homicide Section, and Giacinto Profazio, head of the Flying Squad. In their phone calls, the Sollecitos call them bastards, pigs, sons of whores. And they all agree: “We must find someone to intervene at any rate. As written in the logbooks: Its necessary to stop police from doing other vileness.”

The “clan” accuses them of falsifying evidence to frame Raffy. And for this reason they contact journalists and television networks to supply documents and images for broadcasting (such as those depicting the tortured body of poor Mez after the murder and aired by a local television in Puglia).

They wanted to demonstrate that the scientific police played dirty to frame Raffaele.  Now the Sollecitos’ and their respective wives are under investigation.

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Sollecito Family Criminal Trial And Civil Trial For Leaking Evidence Will Both Start On 29 April

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Sollecito family face charges for releasing an evidence video to the Bari TV station Telenorba showing Meredith’s body unclothed.

Also for attempting to influence some politicians to get some cops investigating the case moved on. Several Telenorba TV Bari staff-members will also also face charges. The trial was postponed five weeks ago as the judge was still on another case.

It is now reported in Italy by the news service Adnkronos that at today’s brief hearing a Kercher family civil suit against the Sollecitos for this disrespecting of Meredith will run in parallel.

The Sollecito defense team want to dispute the Perugia court’s jursidiction as the alleged crimes took place in Bari and Rome. That seems unlikely to fly as the evidence leaked was taken from Perugia.

The next court date for the Sollecito family will be Friday 29 April.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Giordano Supreme Court Report On Final Appeal By Rudy Guede

Posted by Our Main Posters

[St Peters in foreground; Supreme Court large white building in background]


Please click on the image above for this meticulous translation from Italian to English.

The PMF translation team on three continents consisted of Jools, Thoughtful, Clander, TomM, Catnip, Yummi and the 411.

This post spelled out how very ominous for the Knox and Sollecito defenses this report really is.

We will have a post soon examining the fine details of this very tough report.