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: Appeals 2009-2015

Friday, December 04, 2009

The Ruling Deliberations: Updates On Any New Developments Today Friday

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: the main entrance of the court complex]

Update 1: After a brief hearing in the courtroom this morning the judges and lay judges commenced their deliberations on a ruling around mid-morning.

Update 2: The Croydon Guardian reports the departure of Meredith’s family from London for Rome and then Perugia.

The parents of murdered Coulsdon student, Meredith Kercher, are due to arrive in Italy for the verdict of her murder trial.

Arline and John Kercher flew to Perugia today to see the jury deliver its verdict on whether or not Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were involved in their daughter’s murder.

Update 3: The BBC has a brief simulation of the police finding Meredith in her room on the day.

Update 4: The Independent devotes a report exclusively to the Kercher family’s two-year ordeal.

Update 5: Today for the first time ever, Meredith’s family may get to meet face-to-face Raffaele Sollecito’s family and Amanda Knox’s family. During Guede’s trial in October 2008. Meredith’s family were in court, and Knox’s family apparently observed the courtroom from a hillside up above.

Update 6: A video of Amanda Knox making her final statement in Italian has been added to the post below on the wrapping-up of the summations yesterday.

Update 7: Sky News has just posted a written report and a video report.

Update 8: La Notizie is saying that the ruling, barring unforseen circumstances, should come tonight. On Perugia Murder File forum (link just below) they are saying that might not bode well for the defense. 

Update 9: Eight PM in Perugia now, and the judges’ deliberations on their rulings continue. Meredith’s family are waiting at their hotel now, as are Amanda Knox’s and Raffaele Sollecito’s families. No further news leaking out. Everybody tense.

Update 10: Nine PM in Perugia and informal word from Perugia is that the rulings are expected tonight some time after midnight, maybe 4 or 5 hours away. Knox and Sollecito are right now back in their cells in Capanne prison.

Update 11: The AGI News Service  is reporting this below.

It has been now more than 8 hours since the Court of Assizes of Perugia began in closed session to reach the verdict against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. Deliberating are the presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, 55 years old, head of the criminal division of the court in Perugia, the judge Beatrice Christians, 52 years old, and 6 lay-judges, three men, 35 , 38 and 57 years… and as many women, 37 43, and 51 years, all residents in the area of jurisdiction of the court in Perugia. (the alternates were set free - ed.)

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Germany’s Der Spiegel Posts An Analysis Of The Case

Posted by Peter Quennell

Please click above for Der Spiegel’s analysis in German

The case is being followed closely in Germany. Many Germans take vacations in Italy and they know the country well, and of course Rudy Guede was arrested there. Reporting is good, and TJMK see a number of hits daily from Germany.

With thanks to Has-Georg for the heads-up..

Andrea Vogt Asks Some Useful Questions Concerning The Legal Process

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click here to read all of this well-researched report on the Seattle P-I website.

After presenting an overview of the system similar to those posted here by Nicki and Commisario Montalbano Andrea Vogt asks two experts on the system these questions.

Do jurors have to find Knox guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

Yes. The concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt has long been a part of Italy’s justice system. It was formalized and passed into law in 2006.

Knox’s defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga said his team will remind jurors that, even after more than 40 hearings, everything is still in doubt.

The court’s ruling (which is not called a verdict in Italy) is made by an eight-member jury: six laymen and two professional judges. They will vote, and the majority rules. In the case of a 4-4 tie, acquittal overrules.

Could Amanda Knox have plea bargained?

Knox maintains her innocence.

However, while not completely analogous to plea bargaining, Italy does have a similar alternative to trial, also a part of the 1988 reforms. The alternative is not applicable for serious crimes, such as murder, punishable by more than five years in prison.

Suspects who cooperate fully with the police, however, may become eligible for a bundle of mitigating circumstances that would lower prison sentences. A judge may also choose to apply aggravating circumstances to increase a sentence.

Negotiation on the evidence—in which both sides agree what can be admitted—is also available when defendants choose a fast-track trial, as did Rudy Guede, sentenced to 30 years last year for his role in the case for which Knox is on trial. Guede is appealing his conviction.

Why does the figure of prosecutor seem so powerful in Italy?

The prosecutor is a powerful figure in Italy connected to the judiciary, not elected or appointed. While there is a career separation between judges and prosecutors, the qualifying examination and training are common, That has made judges and prosecutors close both culturally and professionally.

In the U.S., prosecutors are appointed in federal system and typically elected in the state system, hence it is common to hear cases referred to as The State vs. X.

In Italy, protections were put in place precisely to prevent the state from pursuing or persecuting, hence the independence of prosecutors.

As a result, prosecutors haven’t shied away from taking on politicians. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, for example, faces a series of criminal procedures in the courts.

That independence , some argue, is precisely the protection needed as a check against government power, and without it, corruption could not be exposed, said Maffei. But others argue that prosecutors wage their own political battles. using their independence to attack political opponents.

Another major difference: the prosecutor supervises the investigation rather than letting police handle it.

Further, he or she also has no discretion over the decision to seek charges. There is a constitutional principle of mandatory prosecution. If there is sufficient evidence to build a case against a defendant, a prosecutor must seek an indictment.

In the U.S. prosecutors can and do drop cases for such reasons as workload or because the defendant has agreed to help with a criminal investigation.

Was it legal for Knox not to have an attorney present when police questioned her?

Yes and No.

Amanda Knox’s interrogation falls into a gray area of the law because she came voluntarily to the police station and was being interviewed in the beginning as someone who could become be a witness, not a suspect.

Then, in the course of questioning by police in November 2007, she blamed Patrick Lumumba for the slaying, and said she was present at the scene of the crime. Lumumba was innocent. Knox has since denied she knows anything about the slaying and says she wasn’t in the flat the night Kercher was killed. Limumba is suing Knox for slander.

The law is very clear: A suspect must not be interrogated without a lawyer.

Once a suspect, an interrogation must be interrupted, the suspect read his or her rights to remain silent and be provided a lawyer. Italian law does not allow waiver of one’s right to counsel. Even if a suspect doesn’t want a lawyer, the authorities are required to appoint one.

If a suspect’s freedom of movement is hindered, the interrogation must be videotaped.

In Knox’s case, a video or audio recording of the entire police interrogation (authorities have denied that any such recordings exist) could identify when police began treating Knox as a suspect and what procedures were followed.

In fact, Italy’s Supreme Court has already said that some of her early statements may not be used against her because they were made without an attorney present.

 

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Rudy Guede Appeal: Nick Pisa Of Sky News Reports DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Version 8 is having a widely reported problem showing these online Flash videos; other browsers all seem to work fine]

Rudy Guede Appeal: Lawyer For Meredith’s Family Mr Maresca In Court Today DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Italian reports are still conflicting and there are none out yet in English.

But it appears that the court has rejected the request of the Guede appeal team to reopen several components of the investigation, to bring in new witnesses, and to hear testimony on stress psychology and on the towel found beside Meredith.

This does not bode well for his appeal prospects.

Judge Micheli summarised a lot of evidence proving that Guede was throughout a part of the vicious assault on Meredith. He handed Guede a rape conviction as well as a murder conviction and Guede is serving his 30 years in the sex offenders’ wing of Viterbo Prison north of Rome..

Probably the best Guede could have done would have been to come clean, relate the full story, and claim that he was unaware from the other assailants of where events were headed.

But that he did not call an ambulance may have sealed Meredith’s fate forever.

Added from Paolo Santalucia of the Associated Press

Later Wednesday, prosecutor Pietro Catalani asked the court to confirm the sentence of 30 years in jail for Guede.

“He is not credible,” Catalani said, adding that wounds on Kercher’s body suggest it took far longer for her to die than Guede’s testimony indicated.

Proceedings were adjourned to Dec. 21, when Guede’s defense lawyers will argue their case.

Rudy Guede Appeal: Yes Guede Testimony Does Sound Far From The Full Truth

Posted by Tiziano

[click for larger image]

1) La Stampa runs essentially the same story as Nicki translated and posted jut below, but with this addition.

In court this morning there was also the psychiatrist Alessandro Meluzzi, who together with the criminologist Vincenzo Mastronardi, provided expert testimony for the defence on the behaviour of the accused after the crime.

Guede fled and was arrested in Germany. This was behaviour of “flight and avoidance”, according to Meluzzi, linked to “traumatic stress syndrome” which struck him after the crime.

2) Corriere della Sera also has essentially the same story but with these additions.

The defence of the young man intends to ask for the partial reopening of the trial debate to hear new witnesses and to hear from others already heard by the prosecution, but who - according to the lawyers - could give a different version from the initial one.

The lawyers also are putting their hopes on the possibility of a new expert report on the towels found next to the English student’s lifeless body, which Guede claims to have used in an effort to help Meredith, staunching the wound to her neck.

The aim of the defence is to show that it was not Rudy to kill Meredith that evening, because as the young man has always claimed, he was at the house at Via della Pergola on the night between November 1st and 2nd, 2007, but when the crime happened he was in the bathroom. 

Once he came out, he clashed with Mez’ assassin for a moment.  He tried to help the girl but then, overcome with fear, he took flight. 

To specifically evaluate this thesis, the defence of the Ivorian has had an expert report done by the criminologist Vincenzo Mastronardi and the psychiatrist Alessandro Merluzzi, who were both in court. 

Speaking to journalists before the hearing began, Merluzzi explained how Rudy, after the facts, was overcome by “post traumatic stress syndrome” in which a ” gentle, weak but mild personality like Rudy’s was able to put into action the flight behaviour, which certainly did nothing for his credibility but which we believe is completely understandable and explained from the psychological point of view, clinical psychology and psycho-dynamics.” 

Merluzzi explained, “We believe that our evaluation will give the judges an element of evaluation which is new and different not only in the facts which have emerged from the supporting proceedings, but also on the reasons and motivations which incited Rudy.”

[click for larger image]

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Guede’s Grounds For Appeal Sound None Too Convincing

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for La Nazione’s report in Italian. Nick Pisa of the Daily Mail filed a good report in English. Excerpts:

Today Guede’s lawyers Valter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile launched their appeal and filed a 50-page request at the court in Perugia where a decision will be made on a hearing within 45 days.

Mr Biscotti said: ‘This crime was motivated by a row over money between Meredith and Amanda Knox - and she was killed by the accused (Knox) as a result of this row.

‘There is no proof at all to say it was motivated by sex and nothing to suggest our client was involved.

‘Rudy has always admitted being at the scene but he had nothing to do with any sexual assault and murder - this crime was motivated by a row over cash and nothing else.’

Mr Biscotti added that after having read trial judge Paolo Micheli’s 106-page ‘reasons for sentencing’ he felt that had ‘good grounds for an appeal’ as no firm link of a sex attack by his client was proved.

At his fast track trial the court heard DNA from Guede was found at the scene on a bloodied pillow and on Meredith’s body.  His lawyers claim this was because the pair were ‘petting’ after having made an appointment to meet up the night she was murdered.

Guede told the court that he had ‘eaten a dodgy kebab’ and was in the bathroom listening to his iPod when Meredith was killed. He said he emerged to find her dying in a pool of blood.

Guede told the court he struggled with a man who resembled Sollecito and that he thought a woman who looked like Knox was at the door of the house waiting.

Mr Biscotti added: ‘My client tried to help poor Meredith and put towels around her wound but then ran away. The only thing he is guilty of is not staying to help and he will have to live with that for the rest of his life.’

According to a prosecution reconstruction, Guede and Sollecito held Meredith down, while Knox stabbed her in the throat. They deny the claim and stress the DNA evidence against them is contaminated and flawed.Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, 21, was jailed for the murder and sexual assault of Meredith, also 21, six months ago after opting for a fast track trial.

The student was found semi-naked with her throat cut. Prosecutors and police say she was murdered after refusing to take part in a drug-fuelled sex game.

In lodging the appeal against his conviction and sentence (mandatory in Italy) his lawyers have offered no new exculpatory evidence.

Just claims that the other two did it, that an argument over Meredith’s stolen money was the motive, and that he was in the bathroom at the time.

Guede’s DNA was of course found right there at the scene of the crime, in Meredith’s room, and on Meredith’s body.

Considered in the context of the awesome detail of Judge Micheli’s report the grounds for his appeal sound almost laughable.

This is all being taken by some of the court analysts that Guede has nothing to bargain with that the prosecutors don’t already know.

And that they have great confidence in the strength of their case against Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox.

Enjoy your 30 years in the slammer, Rudy Guede. You might even have saved Meredith’s life by calling for some help.

And you didn’t. It appears, in fact, that you chose not to.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A Good Profile Of Guede, Now Starting His 10,950 Days EDIT

Posted by Peter Quennell

By Nick Squires in Perugia

9:09AM GMT 29 Oct 2008

Within days of Meredith Kercher’s half-naked body being found in Perugia last November, key suspect Rudy Hermann Guede, 21, fled the Umbrian hill town and jumped on a train to Germany.

His flight across the Alps sparked an international manhunt. Italian police wanted him in connection with Miss Kercher’s brutal killing, having found his bloody hand print on a pillow at the scene of the crime.

During a desperate few days on the run, he slept rough in empty train carriages and on a barge on the Rhine.

At one point he was contacted on Facebook by journalists, including the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, and engaged in an online chat in which he protested his innocence.

On November 20, nearly three weeks after the murder, he was stopped on a Frankfurt-bound train near Mainz after a conductor found him without a ticket.

He was arrested, held for two weeks in a German prison and extradited back to Italy to face charges of murder and aggravated sexual assault.

It was all so different from the life of opportunity his immigrant father had envisaged when he left his native Ivory Coast in the early 1990s with five-year-old Rudy in tow.

Leaving his wife behind, Pacome Roger Guede settled in Perugia, Umbria’s provincial capital, and found work as a building site labourer.

He put down roots in the university town but after a decade decided to return to West Africa, leaving the teenage Rudy in the care of an Italian family, who looked after him as their own son.

For all their good intentions, he developed into a troubled youth, skipping school, dabbling in drugs and dropping out of courses in accountancy and hotel management.

He lived for a time in Milan and proudly posted on his Facebook site a photograph taken of him with Giorgio Armani in the fashion guru’s bar.

His adoptive father, wealthy local entrepreneur Paolo Caporali, 63, told the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica: “It is pointless to hide the fact that for me, Rudy was a disappointment. I hoped to help him build a future. I thought I had given him an opportunity. But as the months passed I understood I was mistaken, that my hopes were all met with delusion.

“He said he was at school, but he skipped class. He preferred to spend the day in front of the television or with video games. He had little wish to study, and even less to work.”

Rudy was thrown out ““ cut loose from those who cared for him for the second time in his life - and drifted into a rootless existence of part-time work, petty crime and drug dealing.

In the evenings and at weekends he mingled with the thousands of students who are drawn to Perugia each year to learn Italian at the town’s University for Foreigners.

He played basketball on the concrete court just up the hill from the house which Miss Kercher shared with Miss Knox and two other students, becoming friendly with the people living in a basement flat.

Through them he met Miss Kercher in a bar at a Halloween party, the night before the murder.

Four days before the party, he was in Milan and broke into a nursery school so that he could spend the night there.

He was armed with an 11-inch kitchen knife, telling police he had to “protect” himself against thieves.

In a 25-page handwritten note he gave to police after his arrest, Guede said he regretted leaving Miss Kercher to die from her injuries. “Had I been a man, I would have saved Meredith”. Instead, he fled the scene and did not call the emergency services.

He described the scene he came across in chilling terms. “When I closed my eyes, I could only see red. I have never seen so much blood. All of that blood on her beautiful face.”

And the inevitable bluster about appealing. Good luck on that one, Rudy.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Key Reporting: La Repubblica 22 November 2007

Posted by Our Main Posters

Rudy, the DNA test confirms
“There was a sexual relationship”

Rudy, the DNA test confirms
“There was a sexual relationship”

Rudy Hermann Guede
PERUGIA - The DNA test confirms: Rudy Guede had a sexual relationship with Meredith Kercher the night the girl was killed. These are the first results of the examinations conducted on the young man from the Ivory Coast arrested in Germany. The DNA, taken from the toothbrush seized in Perugia in the boy’s apartment, has been identified in the laboratories of the Scientific Police. That arrived in the evening, is the answer of the comparison between the DNA of the boy and that partial DNA that had already been detected during the autopsy of Meredith and on the scene of the crime. Precisely that partial DNA, which was already known to be of a man, which did not correspond either to Raffaele Sollecito or to Patrick Lumumba, which had been collected with specific tests on the victim’s body. And that testified to a sexual relationship that, as learned, had been incomplete and violent. The same DNA was on the toilet paper in the bathroom. It would seem therefore confirmed that, that evening, Guede forced the young woman to a relationship, before his death. The imprint of his bloody hand on the pillow had already confirmed the presence of the young Ivorian in the murder room.

Meanwhile, from Koblenz, where he is detained , Guede tells his truth: “He was an Italian boy”. “I went to the English girl’s house and we went together,” she tells the German judge. “As soon as I entered, I got a stomach ache and when I was in the bathroom, I heard a shout: there was a young Italian in the house, one I do not know who attacked the girl, stabbed her and ran away. I tried to save her, I picked her up, tried to reanimate her, but then, panicked, I ran away “.

He declares himself innocent, Rudy Guede. The accusation seems to be addressed to Raffaele Sollecito, although a Polish student has confirmed to the police that “Amanda remained in Raffaele’s house at least until 20.40 on the first of November”, more or less the hour of the crime. The investigating judge, however, presses: Rudy “can strike again”.

The judge of Perugia, Claudia Matteini, does not believe in the innocence of the young Ivorian. In the precautionary custody order, in which he orders the arrest of the young man, we read: “From the cruelty of the crime, from the agony in which the victim was left and to the personality of the suspect taken from the quick escape after the crime - wrote the magistrate to justify the provision signed a few days after the murder - there is a real danger that the suspect commits crimes of the same species as that for which it proceeds “.

To collect the testimony of Rudy, the Perugia judges will have to wait a couple more weeks. After the Wednesday hearing, which formally ascertained his identity, Guede will have to appear before the magistrate in Koblenz who will examine Italy’s request for delivery. He will be extradited to Italy not before December 10th.

Meanwhile, the words used by the investigating judge of Perugia remain: Rudy “felt a strong attraction for Amanda”; he used to go to the house that the American student shared with the same age then killed and, the magistrate unveiled, that night Rudy also slept drunk in the apartment in Via Pergola. But it is not written in the ordinance which link binds the attraction that the young black man had for the victim’s friend, and the possibility that he would come back to kill.

It seems clear that the investigators think that the crime is circumscribed between Amanda and Raffaele and Rudy, with roles all to be attributed. That Amanda is the pivot on which revolves the reconstruction of what happened, it seems obvious: his genetic code was discovered on the handle of a kitchen knife by Raffaele, along with the DNA of Meredith. But she keeps repeating that she is not a murderer. In his memorial , tries a desperate defense, then confesses: “I am exhausted and perhaps I confuse the dream with reality”.

Raffaele remains a controversial figure. He swears that that night, in Meredith’s apartment, he did not set foot as he was at his computer , but the results of the checks on his pc would have shown that no one was at the keyboard. Out of the prison there is only one of the four suspects, Lumumba. Arrested in the aftermath of the crime, with Raffaele and Amanda, he was released from prison after two weeks of detention. It remains investigated but, as the investigating judge wrote, “the clues are missing” to keep him in the cell.

( November 22, 2007

Posted by Our Main Posters on 11/22/07 at 12:47 AM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Various hypotheses,  Various scenarios,  Evidence & Witnesses,  Various timelines,  The pack attack,  Trials 2008 & 2009,  Micheli trial etc,  Appeals 2009-2015,  Guede appeals,  Hoaxes against Italy,  5 No pack attack hoax,  Hoaxes re Guede,  33 Sole attacker hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Amanda Knox #1,  Raff Sollecito #1 • Comments here (0)

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