Headsup: Disney's Hulu - mafia tool?! First warning already sent to the Knox series production team about the hoaxes and mafia connections. The Daily Beast's badly duped Grace Harrington calls it "the true story of Knox’s wrongful conviction of the murder of her roommate". Harrington should google "rocco sollecito" for why Italians hesitate to talk freely.

Category: Trials 2008 & 2009

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

That Widely Watched LA7 TV Interview With Giuliano Mignini - Herewith A Full English Translation

Posted by ziaK

This is a translation of the YouTube video posted by my fellow poster True North two weeks ago.

Many readers asked for a translation of what Mr Mignini said in that interview, and True North, who has pretty good Italian but is not a professional translator, requested some help from the translation team. The sound of the video is not always crystal clear but this appears to accurately reflect what was said. 

Male interviewer: In the biological evidence, is there any one item which is the one which you consider, especially in terms of the trial, to have had the most value?

Giuliano Mignini: I think that, in terms of the trial, the most important were the knife, the bra hook and also the biological traces in the bathroom. From the point of view of the trial, the knife certainly links the two defendants and the victim. Therefore it was (interrupted).

Andrea Vogt: There was low copy number, and that’s not normal, is it, to use DNA when there’s low copy number?

Giuliano Mignini: However, I hold that those traces were nonetheless indisputable traces. That is, there was not an absolute huge amount, in terms that are perhaps more understandable [ndt: to an Italian speaker, “low copy number” is not necessaryily understandable, because it is an English term]. The trace might be really high, with a high quantity, or it may be very low, but however the trace may be, it was never reasonably explained in any other way. That knife was never touched by the victim. She was never (inaudible: possibly “at Raffaele’s”] during the period that the two young folk, the two defendants, knew each other. It was a very short period: we think the relationship was (inaudible) or a week.

Male interviewer: Certainly. However, (inaudible) limited, either a contamination in the place of the crime or a contamination in the laboratory? This is not meant as a criticism of the work, however it is a danger that we technicians have which we must confront.

Giuliano Mignini: Yes. Well, that point about the knife comes from the specific questions of Professor Finsi himself, and of the Superintendant (Parebiochi?), and it was clearly shown that that knife was collected with absolute”¦ that is, there was no possibility of exposure to contact [with the victim?]. Because it was found in Raffaele’s house and it was take with all precautions. This was shown in (inaudible). I was keen to show that (inaudible) that knife.

Andrea Vogt: Also the hook was very controversial because you found it 46 days after.

Giuliano Mignini: Yes, yes. I know. I understand. This, alas, can happen when there are places that are so full of objects, full of”¦ When one is doing an analysis of this type, it can happen that (inaudible) is moved. However, it remained within that room. And (Andrea Vogt interrupts). And then, if there is contamination, that means that Sollecito’s DNA was somewhere within that room. We’re still there (i.e. at the same conclusion). I think that all the evidence was limited [ndt: to the one place?], and the first findings were of an investigative nature. In particular, that includes the numerous contradictions made by Knox. Which were then repeated during the investigation, during the interrogation in jail, and in my opinion also during the questioning and counter-questioning in court.

Andrea Vogt: I want to talk a bit about the motive.

Giuliano Mignini: As a first impression of the [inaudible: crime?] it was clearly, it appeared clearly to be a crime of a sexual nature. It was extremely clear. A young woman, killed in that way, and almost completely stripped/naked.

Male interviewer: Excuse me, but on the contrary, at times I have heard attributed (inaudible) a different reason, a fight which ended badly, and then instead a transformation of the crime to put forward the idea that it was a sexual murder. Also because, in fact, the position of Rudy, who was however found guilty, also from the beginning changed a bit. There’s his responsibility.

Giuliano Mignini: Also Rudy gave indications which then changed a bit. Rudi too, for example, said that there was an appointment with Meredith. Then in later interrogations he said that Meredith had asked for him to be there, and (Male interviewer interrupts: The reconstruction [by Nabil?]: what could have happened?). Yes, according to me, there was a situation, a progressive situation of disagreement between the two girls. That seems undeniable to me.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

First Of Three Excerpts In Italian from LA7 Program On Meredith’s Case

Posted by True North

Thanks to TJMK poster Cesare Beccaria for the video links. We posted some background last Friday.

The male reporter asks Prosecutor Mignini what was the most damning evidence in this case? Mignini replies: the knife, the bra clasp, and the mixed blood traces in the bathroom.

Mignini stands firm when answering Andrea Vogt’s repeated question of what about “the low copy numbers?” He asserts that it was indisputably Meredith’s DNA on the knife. There was never any transfer or contamination of DNA on the knife because Meredith never touched it nor had she ever been to Sollecito’s house.

While admitting that the bra clasp had not been retrieved until 46 days later, there was never any transfer or contamination of DNA on the clasp. He stresses that the bra clasp never left Meredith’s room and yet still had plenty of Sollecito’s DNA on it.

*********

Added: As suggested in Comments below, there seems very good reason to translate all of Mr Mignini’s remarks, and we will be posting a full transcript of this video one day this week.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Knox Appeal Points Seem Essentially Points That Gained Limited Traction In The Trial

Posted by Peter Quennell

And the fact that the prosecution will get a shot at firming up their case does seem to have caught the defenses off-balance.

US-based Knox family legal advisor Ted Simon has appeared several times on US networks in the last few days, seemingly clean out of new ideas for how to get Amanda Knox off.

No motive? Well, a motive does not have to be confirmed in Italy, but Micheli, Mignini and Massei all suggested credible motives, each involving an escalation of violence, and each probably involving drugs as one component - drugs like enhanced (skunk) cannabis, crystal meth, and cocaine increasingly seem to be triggering psychotic episodes that can lead to murder.

No DNA in the room? Well, most murders take place with no DNA left behind, and if Knox was the one simply holding the large knife and uttering threats, there is no reason why her DNA should have have deposited. Rudy Guede left only a few microscopic traces of DNA, but clearly he too was in the room. And there was plenty of forensic evidence implicating Knox right outside of Meredith’s door.

And as usual, Ted Simon skirts the very problematic rearrangement of the crime scene, and the testimony of various key witnesses, and the very incriminating pattern of phone calls, and the major discordance between all the alibis.

Pity that the US reporters never ever seem to press him on these things.

And in Perugia, it seems that Mr Ghirga and Mr Della Vedova are also only going through the motions - recycling just a few of their points that were already not too convincing at the trial. Andrea Vogt reported on the grounds for their appeal in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

The 220-page document filed with the of Court of Appeals in Perugia on Saturday morning is a total appeal of all the points of the sentence, said Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga from Perugia in an interview with the Seattlepi.com.

“It includes the first days of the interrogation, the DNA and the traces detected with luminol. We re-iterate the innocence of Amanda and remain convinced there is not proof of her presence at the scene of the crime,” Ghirga said….

The hotly contested forensic evidence presented in the trial played an important role in the jury’s reasoning but was not the only element that led them to convict. Inconsistent statements, witness testimony, Knox’s placing the blame on an innocent man, which she maintains she did under police pressure, and the staging of the crime scene were also cited as key factors by the jury.

Knox’s legal teams are expected to contest all points, but are also asking for a third-party review of the forensic evidence. Such a request was rejected once already during the 9-month trial, but a different appeals court judge could decide to grant such an independent review. In Knox’s case, lawyers are contesting the kitchen knife that prosecutors said was the murder weapon that had Knox’s DNA on the handle and a trace amount of Kercher’s on the blade.

Knox’s lawyers also contest the luminol-positive traces discovered in the corridor (footprints) and the spot in the roommates room where prosecutors say Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, later staged a break-in to make the scene look like a rape-robbery to throw off investigators. Police biologist Patrizia Stefanoni testified during the trial that these luminol-positive traces had mixed genetic material of Knox and Kercher.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Italian Media Reporting Impartially On Prosecution Appeal Filed For Increased Sentences

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: Prosecutor Manuela Comodi.]

In light of the judges’ sentencing report (due soon here and on PMF in English) the prosecution have filed an appeal that Knox’s and Sollecito’s sentences be revised upward to life.

Life sentences were their original request to the court last November, and the Italian media in November and early December largely anticipated at least 30 years. The 26 years for Knox and 25 for Sollecito came to many as a surprise.

First legal advice from the Italian lawyers on our team is that at minimum this could firm up the existing sentences, and at maximum Knox and Sollecito actually could be looking at life behind bars - such upward revisions do happen. 

Remember that the Italian public are way better informed on the cruel depravity of the crime than the British or American publics.

And that Knox’s cold smug antics on the stand, during which she spoke flippantly and callously of Meredith’s passing, seemed to leave few in Italy feeling any real sympathy.

Grounds for the appeal are twofold: (1) That the judges’ arguments for the granting of extenuating circumstances was a stretch (such as the conclusion that the duvet placed over Meredith was a sign of remorse), and (2) That the judges’ dismissing of aggravating circumstances was in effect a shortfall (such as the possibility that Meredith could have been saved if they had not removed her phones, locked the door, and walked off).

The posters here and on PMF may be the largest group in the English-speaking world so far to have actually read the judges’ sentencing report.

Typically we are finding the description of the evidence to be extremely detailed and quite remorseless. There is very, very little room for argument about it, and the defense teams in the appeals will have an even tougher time laying a paw on it than they did in the course of the trial.  We are highly impressed by this - this case NEEDED this to put an end to the endless myth-mongering, and to give Meredith’s family and friends hope of some respite.

But the motives assumed in the sentencing report, the judges’ timeline (which differs from both Micheli’s and Mignini’s), and the instigating role given to Rudy Guede, were interpretations the sentencing judges made which the appeals judges may not buy into.

The defense teams will not be resting any easier in light of this. The pressures may be mounting for the lawyers and defendants to finally split three ways - we will have a major post next week on their three-way herding of one another over the past two-plus years.

And perhaps enough pressure on each of the defendants to show real remorse and finally tell their version of all.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Judges Report On Guede Appeal Outcomes Of 22 December Is Released

Posted by Peter Quennell

We have several posts coming up on Rudy Guede. This is the first on a report by the UK Press Association explaining Guede’s appeal outcome of 22 December.

Apology over Meredith won term cut

An appeals court said it shaved 14 years off the sentence of a man involved in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher because he was the only one of the three defendants to apologise to her family.

Rudy Hermann Guede denied killing Ms Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student from Surrey, but said he should have done more to help her as she lay bleeding in her room in a Perugia flat she shared with Amanda Knox, the American student from Seattle who was also convicted of her killing, Italian reports said…

By law, Italian courts must give a written explanation of their rulings within a few months of the end of trial. The ANSA and Apcom news agencies said the appeals court also said that while Guede sexually assaulted the woman, he was not the one who stabbed her….

Guede “was fully involved not only for being the one who carried out the sexual violence, but also for having held firm the left hand of the victim while she was being fatally wounded,” the ruling said, according to ANSA.

He was the only one among the defendants to apologise to the victim’s family, “even if it (the apology) was limited to failure to come to her rescue”. Guede testified during his trial shortly after the killing, saying that he was in the bathroom in the house listening to music when the attack took place.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Sentencing Report:  The State Of The Report’s Distribution

Posted by Peter Quennell

Just over a year ago the Micheli report was released as an electronic document and we had it and began translating within hours.

In contrast the judges sentencing report for the Knox-Sollecito verdict and sentence was released to the media and public only on paper and only in Perugia. There was little advance warning of this, and the Rome group of foreign reporters had to make their way to Perugia at short notice to get their own copies.

The intent seems to have been to stop selected quotes being used in media reports under lurid headlines. The practical effect is that the report so far has been less - and possibly less accurately - dispersed than the Micheli report at a similar point in time.

We have lodged a request for an electronic copy and if the court still prefers to go the paper route we will be adjusting to that. In due course the report will - must - appear on the Ministry of Justice website, in Italian. And all or most of it will appear here, in English.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Bill Edelblute’s full commentary in The Examiner. Key Excerpts:

Sometimes analysts of legal or criminal matters will say, the simplest explanation is the best.  When the victims’ DNA is on a knife blade, and the suspect’s DNA is on the knife handle, what is the simplest conclusion?  When someone blames an innocent person, the simplest explanation is that they are a liar, are themselves guilty, and can have no conscience of any kind to deprive an innocent person of their liberty.

To those who condemn the Italian criminal court system, show us the written findings that have to back up a verdict rendered in the United States of America.  There are none, once a judge finds evidence sufficient to go to a jury, all you hear after that is “guilty,” “not guilty,” or unable to reach a decision (hung jury.)  The jury does not have to speak to anyone after the verdict if they choose in the U.S. and their exact reasoning can remain forever a mystery.

Issuing the written report, with the detail Knox and Sollecito don’t want to hear, helps remind us that Meredith Kercher was a living, breathing, feeling, thinking person, until they came along.  Instead of just a piece in a board game that Knox supporters play.

The report provides a basis for the facts in the case, instead of cheap shots taken by those with no consequences to pay when they are wrong. 

In a recent Oprah show, Knox’s new American attorney on appeal [Theodore Simon] stated unequivocally that there had been “no interpreter” when defending Amanda’s blatantly false accusation of Patrick Lumumba, her former boss. 

In fact, Knox’s own trial testimony refers to the interpreter that was present,  as she gives her pathetic excuse of why she was going to let Lumumba rot in prison if she could get away with it.  (Give a college student a few bucks, she can eat for a day.  But give her a job, and she will put you in prison for life.) ....

The written “motivations” may dispel some of the media hysteria that would otherwise surround the appellate process. 

The side supporting Knox is largely based on the premise that typical American female college students do not suddenly become transformed into murders upon their arrival in Italy.  And, that the police abused Knox into an admission she was at the scene, poorly handled DNA evidence, and that one of the prosecutors, Mignini, has been found to have committed evidentiary abuses in another case.

But the evidence is that Knox is not exactly clean-cut, that there is considerable physical evidence against her, that she clearly changed stories, and could not identify the policewoman she says was hitting her in what she claimed was a 14 hour interrogation.  Her own explanation for changing stories included not remembering much of the night due to hashish consumption. 

And while each item of evidence viewed in isolation has its weaknesses, it is curious that there are so many different pieces of it that need explaining. 

The DNA on the knife, the DNA in the bloody footprints, the change in stories of both Knox and of Sollecito, the accusation of an innocent person by Knox, Knox’s demeanor as shown on videotape outside the crime scene (extended kissing with her boyfriend), as shown by witnesses at the police station, of showing little emotion, and turning cartwheels, doing the splits, at the station.  Of statements made just a few days later while buying underwear that she would have wild sex with her boyfriend that night. 

Of the argument that a normal college student just doesn’t kill her roommate, there is abundant evidence of actions by Knox that are anything but normal. 

Little Miss West Seattle comforted a fellow roommate worrying about whether Meredith suffered by saying “What do you think? ...  She f ... ing bled to death.” Apart from how she knew the victim bled to death, is that normal empathy for the victim? 

There is just too much here to suggest that the charging and conviction of Amanda Knox was the result of anti-Americanism by an incompetent court system.

Sentencing Report: Andrea Vogt Has More Details In The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Andrea Vogt’s full report. Key excerpts:

Jurors theorized that Knox, Sollecito and Guede arrived at the apartment together and got high. They suggested Guede used the bathroom, and when he came out saw Knox and Sollecito being intimate, became excited and sought out Kercher, who was reading in her room.

When she resisted, Knox and Sollecito came into the room and aided Guede in restraining her so he could continue. The violence spiraled out of control, and Kercher was eventually killed, with Knox threatening and eventually stabbing her with the large kitchen knife the jury was convinced is the murder weapon, jurors decided.

The court said it did not believe the crime was premeditated, but rather a result of violence partly attributable to the suspects’ uninhibited behavior after getting high.  It also noted that it gave Knox and Sollecito a reduced sentence because they were young and had taken pity on the victim and covered Kercher’s body with the duvet.

The court cited as reliable elements of proof not just the alleged murder weapon (a knife with Knox’s DNA on the handle and a trace amount of Kercher’s on the blade) and the bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA, but also the luminol-enhanced footprints attributed to Knox and Sollecito.

The judge paid particular attention to the multiple traces of mixed blood (Kercher’s) and DNA (Knox’s) in the apartment’s small bathroom, noting that also the door and lightswitch in the bathroom had been touched with someone with bloody hands or clothes.

Traces of Kercher’s blood and Knox’s DNA were found together in several spots, the judge wrote, specifically, the on a cotton swap box, the sink and the bidet.

“Mixed biological traces belonging to Meredith and Amanda in the washbasin and bidet and seemed to indicate the cleaning of hands of feet,” the opinion read, going on to suggest that Knox’s skin tissues had rubbed off as she tried to scrub off Meredith’s blood in the bathroom.

However, jurors found two of the prosecution’s witnesses as “not credible” and did not agree with prosecutors’ theory of exactly how the murder unfolded.

Jurors discounted as unreliable two eye witnesses—an Albanian drug-dealer and another student. Both testified they had seen Knox, Sollecito and Guede together.

Sentencing Report:  Hada Messia Of CNN News Rome Has More Details

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Hada Messia’s full report. Key excerpts:

The jurors believed that Guede went into Kercher’s room and attempted to have sexual contact with her, but Kercher pushed him away. Knox and Sollecito then came into the room and attempted to help Guede have “his way” with Kercher, the report said. Sollecito held Kercher while Guede fondled her, the report said, but things spiraled out of control.

Sollecito poked Kercher with a knife, inflicting one wound measured at 4 cm (1.5 inches), and Knox poked her with a bigger knife after she screamed, inflicting a larger 8-cm (3-inch) wound, jurors found.

“The most plausible hypothesis is that Rudy decided by himself to enter Meredith’s room,” the report said. “The reaction and refusal of the girl must have been heard by Amanda and Raffaele, who actually were probably disturbed and intervened, given the unfolding of events. They backed Rudy, whom they allowed to enter the house” and ultimately became Kercher’s killers because of events that followed, according to the judges.

All three, the jurors believed, were under the influence of drugs. “The motive is therefore of erotic sexual violent nature, which originating from Rudy’s choice of evil, found its active collaboration from Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.”

While both Knox and Sollecito denied being at the crime scene, jurors noted that Knox’s blood was found in the bathroom and Sollecito’s DNA was found on Kercher’s bra. The two cannot prove they were at Sollecito’s home until the following day, as no evidence puts them there, according to the report.

 

Sentencing Report: Richard Owen Has More Details In The Times

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Richard Owen’s full report. Key excerpts:

In a riposte to Knox’s family and friends who claim she was the victim of a mistrial based on flawed evidence, the judges said the prosecution had drawn “a comprehensive and coherent picture, without holes or inconsistencies”. The defendants had been able to describe Ms Kercher’s injuries, and their guilt was clear from DNA traces and naked footprints found “in various parts of the house”....

In their 427-page summing up the two judges, Giancarlo Massei and Beatrice Cristiani, indicated that they and the jury of six had also been swayed by Knox’s attempts to shift the blame by falsely accusing Patrick Diya Lumumba, a Congolese barman for whom she worked part time, “knowing him to be innocent”.

Knox had tried to “put the investigators onto the wrong track” even though Mr Lumumba had always treated her well and she had “no motive for spite, enmity or revenge toward him which could justify such a serious accusation”....

The judges said that on the evening of the murder in November 2007 Knox and Sollecito had found themselves at a loose end when they met Guede by chance at the cottage at a time when Ms Kercher was alone. After the murder they had covered Ms Kercher’s lifeless body in a gesture combining pity, denial, and “a sort of repentence for what had been done”...

The judges said more than one person must have committed the crime since Ms Kercher was fit and strong, as her mother and sister had testified, and her sports included boxing and gym training.