Saturday, September 18, 2010

Explaining The Massei Report: Its Reasons For Existence And Its Significance In The Appeals

Posted by Storm Roberts

Inroduction

What is the “Massei Report”?  Put simply, the Massei Report is a document produced by the two professional judges, Dr. Beatrice Cristiani and Dr. Giancarlo Massei, who presided over the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito at the Court of Assize in Perugia from 16th January to 5th December 2009, which explains the judgement and sentencing.

In reality this document is far more than that.  It examines the evidence laid before the court; it discusses both the prosecution and defence cases in great detail - referring back to both the documented evidence produced to the court and to witness testimony; it explains who the witnesses are, it evaluates their reliability and precisely what their evidence tells the court; it gives a detailed analysis of how the court came to it’s verdict.  This document is a careful and considered analysis of the entire trial, from opening procedural arguments through to the final sentencing.

The most important aspect of this report is that, despite the need to be cool, dispassionate, focussed on evidence and cold, hard fact, at no point do the authors loose sight of the fact that this report is about a human being: Meredith Kercher. 

The Massei Report comes at the end of the initial trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of Meredith Kercher (and other charges - see below).  It is not however the end of the judicial process.  The Italian system gives two appeals to those convicted at their first trial.

The first appeal can be an appeal from the defence, the prosecution, or both, and is a review of the merit of the decision of the first trial and is heard by different judges and lay judges - it is not a full review of the evidence, it is a review of the merit of the decision of the first trial and is heard by different judges and lay judges.

The second and final appeal is to the Italian Supreme Court and is on matters of errors in procedure or in the application of the law, it is not a review of the evidence.  The appeals process is described by Commissario Montalbano here on TJMK (link to post of 17th August 2010)

The Massei Report is the basis of the appeal, to be heard later this year, by both the prosecution and the defence teams of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.  Both defence teams have submitted their appeals and they will be heard in due course.  I note, for the sake of clarity, that, it is the job of the defence teams to question the Massei Report - simply because the defence teams have questioned the report does not, at this stage, mean that the Massei Report is incorrect.  As of today, prior to the appeal court’s judgement, the Massei Report is the definitive discussion of the case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and the judgement passed against them.

For those who wish to have a detailed knowledge of evidence presented in the case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito there is no substitute for reading the Massei Report in it’s entirety - it is available, thanks to the work of a dedicated team of volunteers, both here on TJMK and on the PMF forum, in English (Please see the link in the menu on the left of your screen).  Here I am going to highlight some areas considered in the report, my hope being that, in highlighting certain evidence, it will be possible to address the areas most often called into question by those who do not have full information on this sad case.  This is not a full review of the Massei Report.

Even for those who have followed this case the Massei Report has some surprises.  For example, I knew that both the prosecution and defence teams had appointed experts in forensic medicine and science, but I had not realised that, at an earlier hearing the Perugian court had appointed it’s own forensic experts, thus there were three sets of experts heard at the trial - the prosecution’s, the defences’, and independent court appointed experts.

N.B.  In the following review the references to page numbers relate to the above mentioned translation of the Massei Report - specifically the first published version - v1.0 - dated 8th August 2010.

The charges.  [Pages 10-13]

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were charged, alongside Rudy Guede, with the murder of Meredith Kercher at the flat Amanda Knox shared with Meredith and two Italian girls at number 7 Via della Pergola, the murder was committed for trivial reasons whilst Rudy Guede, in concourse with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, committed the felony of sexual assault. 

Additionally Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were charged with carrying a knife without justified reason - this is what is known as the “double DNA knife” to which we will return later, with sexual assault (in complicity with Rudy Guede who is held to be the material executor), with theft of approximately €300, two credit cards and two mobile phones from Meredith Kercher, and finally with the staging of the scene to make it appear as if the flat had been broken into. 

In addition Amanda Knox was charged with the crime of calunnia - as explained below there is no direct equivalent in English or American Law - this is the crime of falsely implicating Diya “Patrick” Lumumba in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Explanation of calunnia

The charge of calunnia (art. 368) has been commonly translated as “slander” in the English/US media. This translation is incorrect, however, as calunnia is a crime with no direct equivalent in the respective legal systems.

The equivalent of “criminal slander” is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone”Ÿs reputation. Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.

The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence. Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint, while calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.

The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code: while diffamazione is in the chapter entitled “crimes against honour” in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties, calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled “crimes against the administration of justice”, in a section that protects public powers.

Some Details from the Report:

The Massei Report deals with the various declarations made by Amanda Knox; her statements to the police, her email to friends and family, and also her testimony to the court on 12th and 13th June 2009.  Knox’s memorandum to the police does form part of the body of evidence - it was not “thrown out”.  The memorandum she wrote on 6th November 2007 was admitted into evidence during the opening arguments and as such this is detailed in the first part of the Massei Report.  Additionally it is worth noting that Knox’s police interviews when she was being interviewed as a witness have not been “thrown out” - as per Italian Law, statements when made as a witness (i.e. prior to becoming a suspect) are only admitted as evidence against others.  When interrogated as a suspect Knox had both a lawyer and an interpreter - the interpreter, Dr Anna Donninio, actually testified at the trial.

Many claims have been made by Knox’s supporters that can be directly countered by the evidence in the Massei Report.  Let us consider just a few of these claims:

1) Amanda Knox did not know Rudy Guede.

This is clearly untrue as Knox herself, when questioned during her trial, admitted to knowing Rudy Guede and to having met him on several occasions during the month of October 2007.  They were not “best friends” but they knew each other to speak to and they had socialised in the same group (a group which included Knox’s flatmates and the boys from the flat beneath her’s). [Page 67]

2) Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox have maintained the same story throughout.

Clearly this is not the case.  Just two examples highlighted in the Massei report are as follows:

a) Knox’s reactions at the scene, namely her indifference to the problem of Meredith’s locked door, run counter to her email sent to friends and family in the USA where she indicates the locked door caused her to panic [Pages 31, 32 and 91 - 95]; and,

b) During Knox’s testimony on the stand she changed details of her story from the first day to the second day.  On 1st November Sollecito and Knox ate dinner at Sollecito’s flat and, whilst washing up, a pipe under the kitchen sink leaked and caused water to pool on the kitchen floor.  Dr. Sollecito (Raffaele’s father) telephoned his son at 20.42 hrs - during this conversation Raffaele told his father about this leaking pipe, thus fixing the time of the meal at before 20.42 hrs .  On 12th June 2009 Knox timed this meal at 21.30 - 22.00 hrs, on 13th June she changed her testimony moving the timing of the meal even later, to around 23.00 hrs. [Page 78]

3) There is no evidence against Amanda Knox or Raffaele Sollecito.

Having heard all the evidence and arguments from both the prosecution and defence teams the court reached the following conclusions (NB.  These are the ‘headline’ points of the evidence, for the entire bank of evidence (including the DNA trace evidence) please read The Massei Report itself) - Page numbers refer to the detailed evidence and arguments.

a) The Double-DNA Knife (Exhibit 36) [Page 264 also Page 287]

The knife had Meredith’s DNA near to the tip of the blade; Amanda Knox’s DNA was on the handle.  This knife, the court concluded, was compatible with the large wound on the left side of Meredith’s neck.

b) The Bra-clasp (Exhibit 165) [Page 266 also Page 294]

Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was on the bra-clasp.  The bra-clasp was not contaminated.

c) Computer evidence (including internet usage) [Page 299].

The last interaction with Raffaele Sollecito’s computer on 1st November 2007 was at 21.10 hrs and 32 seconds.  There was no further interaction with the computer nor with the internet line at Sollecito’s flat until the computer was used to play some audio files at 05.32 hrs in the morning of 2nd November 2007.  Thus the computer usage and internet connection do not support the notion of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito remaining in Sollecito’s flat all night.

d) Telephone evidence (both land line and mobile) [Page 311].

Raffaele Sollecito’s father telephoned him at 20.42 hrs on the 1st November and this gives a time for the washing up after dinner as Raffaele told his father about the leaking pipe in this call.  His father sent him a text message at 23.14 hrs 1st November which was not picked up by the phone until 06.02 on the 2nd November - the court concluded that this was due to the phone being switched off between 20.42 hrs 56 seconds on 1st November and 06.02 hrs 59 seconds on 2nd November. 

On 2nd November the following activity on Raffaele Sollecito’s phone is noted:

12.50 hrs a call to Raffaele’s sister from the area of Via della Pergola 7, followed by two calls to 112 (the Europe-wide emergency number) the first at 12.51 hrs and 12.54 hrs.  (Note: The two Postal Police officers noted their arrival at Via della Pergola 7 at approximately 12.30 hrs.)

On 1st November Amanda Knox claimed to have turned her phone off after having replied to Diya Lumumba’s text message at 20.35 hrs 48 seconds.  There was no further activity on her phone until 12.07 hrs 12 seconds on 2nd November.

This call was the first to Meredith’s English phone - it was of 16 seconds duration and connected through a cell covering Sollecito’s flat.  The court held the opinion that this call was to check that the phone, and the second phone that was disposed alongside it, had not been discovered.

There was then a flurry of activity:

12.08 hrs - Amanda called Filomena Romanelli again from Sollecito’s flat.
12.11 hrs 02 seconds - Amanda called Meredith’s Italian phone.  This call lasted 3 seconds and again was made from Sollecito’s flat.
12.11hrs 54 seconds - Amanda called Meredith’s English phone for a second time.  This call lasted 4 seconds and was made from Sollecito’s flat.
At 12.12 hrs. 12.20 hrs, 12.34hrs Filomena Romanelli called Amanda, the first two calls connected through the cell covering Sollecito’s flat the third a cell covering the flat at 7 Via della Pergola.

At 12.47 Amanda Knox telephoned her mother in America.  This is the call during which her mother, Edda Mellas, testified that she told her daughter to call the police.  Mrs. Mellas detailed this call in her testimony; her daughter testified that she did not remember making this call.  (Again, note the two Postal Police officers noted their arrival at the flat at approximately 12.30 hrs.)

A further call to her mother was made at 13.24 hrs - this call, Mrs. Mellas testified was when her daughter told her that a foot had been seen in the room, Mrs. Mellas said that there was yelling and that her daughter was upset.  In her testimony, Amanda Knox claimed this was the first call to her mother that she could remember.

e) Prints - shoe prints and footprints [Page 332].

The footprint on the blue bath mat in the bathroom shared by Meredith and Amanda is attributed to Raffaele Sollecito, and barefoot prints two compatible with Amanda Knox and one compatible with Raffaele Sollecito were highlighted using luminol.

4) Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not under the influence of drugs on the night of 1st November 2007.

The Massei Report clearly states that both then defendants were “accustomed to the consumption of drugs and the effects” and Amanda Knox stated that she and Sollecito had consumed drugs on that evening. [Page 367]

In Conclusion

Above I have considered just a few areas of the Massei Report,  for those new to TJMK I hope that this has given an insight into the incredible detail provided by the judges and I hope it will have encouraged you to read the Report for yourselves in order that you may fully understand this sad case.

Shortly I will be looking at sections of the report dealing with the medical forensics.

 

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The Ultimate Immorality And Intense Hurt Of Blaming A Victim

Posted by Emma

Recent comments on boards frequented by supporters of Amanda Knox have taken an ugly turn. In desperation some have started playing the lowest game of all - the “˜Blame the Victim’ game. Not content with championing the murderers of Meredith Kercher, they now seek to denigrate the real victim of this crime after her death. Comments made about how she “˜messed up’, about how she must have let Rudy in to the house and, unbelievably, even about her family’s accent, have shown the real class of the Friends of Amanda, clearly frustrated at the recent publication of the damning Massei report. It cannot be emphasised enough what a powerful impact the Massei Report has had on public opinion. Meticulously translated over many weeks by a group of professionals at the Perugia Murder File, the Report has shown up the lies being propagated by Amanda’s out of control supporters. A number of previous innocenti journalists have privately admitted to now believing in the guilt of Amanda and Raffaele having read the report, distribution of which via all channels is more than 7,000 and continuing. The word is spreading; the evidence is overwhelming. All that is left now for the FOA is the empty rhetoric and tired arguments which have been repeated over and over. The desperation is showing in the latest outing of the hopelessly ill-informed ex-FBI “˜expert’, Steve Moore, who seems to be following a different case altogether. In his recent ABC interview he was not even able to name the victim, preferring instead to call her “˜the girl’.

But let’s consider the morality of those who post against Meredith in support of Amanda Knox. These are people who are not beneath smearing the memory and good name of a young girl who was brutally murdered. How did Meredith “˜mess up’? How is it that she, or any victim, can be said to be “˜responsible’ for what happened to them? All the evidence suggests that Meredith merely wanted to return home for study that night, prior to her lecture the following morning. She borrowed a book that she promised to return to her friend the next day. She was tired, having been up into the small hours having fun at a Halloween Party. She wanted a quiet night in. But if she had let Rudy into the house, invited him in, shared a drink with him? How does this show her having “˜messed up’? How would she be to blame in any way for what happened to her? The answer, as any card-carrying member of the human race will testify, is that she would not.

Victims are a favourite target for some. They “˜must have’ invited the attention”¦if they hadn’t been walking home in the dark alone”¦on and on. The fact is that Meredith was wholly innocent. She made no mistakes, she lived a good life. She was kind, warm, funny, studious, with a firm sense of her own moral boundaries and many good friends who were left devastated by her death. Recent comments about how she couldn’t have screamed, and she didn’t fight are deeply offensive. During a violent assault it is common for victims to freeze entirely. Perhaps it is a biological protective mechanism, as often seen in animals who sense overwhelming danger. Maybe it is simply the logical response to a situation where one is simply unable to fight back. Being physically restrained by another human being, and realising there is absolutely nothing you can do is an emotionally overwhelming experience. The brain is “˜flooded’ with sensations of terror and horror, which it is impossible to process at speed. Victims speak of an almost near death sensation, of “˜leaving their bodies’ and escaping into their mind during an attack. The instinct for many is to submit, in the hope that the pain will be over soon, that it is their best chance of survival. Often this leads to feelings of deep shame and guilt if the victim survives the assault. Blaming themselves for their “˜weakness’ in not fighting back deepens already severe mental scars. Perpetrators also use the victim’s inability to fight back as a form of defence “˜I had no idea!’ etc. This is why the victim blame game is so harmful. In order for justice to be done, and civilised society maintained, there must be a supportive climate for victims. Otherwise crime will not be reported and violent criminals will walk free, endangering everyone.

For a man to subject a woman to a violent assault is the most cowardly of acts, as the woman has no ability to fight back. For three individuals to attack a woman is utterly repugnant, particularly when one is a woman herself. The evidence is that Meredith screamed. The evidence is that she was unable to fight because she had her arms held behind her back while she was beaten and stabbed, for the amusement of others. Terrified and confused she must have felt a deep sense of betrayal and incomprehension as this attack escalated. Make no mistake, Meredith suffered in a way that is almost too distressing to contemplate. But to truly put ourselves in the position of the victim - the real victim - then we should perhaps, in a strong moment, make ourselves go there. It is only then that we can truly accept the full horror of this crime, and that the sentence handed down to the three convicted murderers is the only correct response of a moral society.

After the reporting of a crime it is essential that no blame be apportioned to victims, already struggling to recover from the trauma of assault. Suggesting that victims of violent crime are “˜to blame’, that they “˜messed up’, can only deepen the mental anguish they are feeling. In the case of a murder victim such comments cause untold distress to their shattered relatives. It is a cruelty of the highest order. A second assault.

What sort of person would blame Meredith for what happened to her? You be the judge.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Conspiracy Theorists Follow A Well Known Pattern - They ALL End Up Out Of Steam And Ignored

Posted by Stilicho

[above: conspiracy theorists don’t want you to believe that is an aircraft]

Conspiracy Theories And Those That Surround Meredith’s Murder:

What do the Apollo moon landings, the JFK assassination, the 9/11 attacks, and Meredith Kercher’s murder all have in common? 

They have each attracted the vigorous cult-like attention of conspiracy theorists.  Despite the cold hard fact that in each case there has been ample documentation to support what might best be called the official story. 

We know from independent and highly credible and very respected sources that the Apollo missions were successful, that a lone gunman shot and killed the US president in Dallas, that a terrorist group was responsible for hijacking of four aircraft, that the World Trade Center complex was destroyed by the subsequent fires..

And that Knox, Sollecito and Guede attacked and killed Meredith in her rented room in Perugia on the first of November in 2007.

Among the dozens of similarities between the Meredith case conspiracy theorists and others, we will focus on those made most apparent by the words and actions of those advocating for Knox and (occasionally) Sollecito.

A Commonality: Lack Of Any Coherent Alternate Narrative:

The court was obliged to create a logical narrative supported by the evidence.  That narrative, briefly, states that Knox and Sollecito encountered Guede after they found they had no obligations that evening, consumed drugs that lowered their inhibitions, and entered Meredith’s room. 

What followed was a sexual assault upon the young British woman, the active participation of each of the three accused, Meredith’s attempts to scream for help, and the silencing of the victim by covering her mouth, throttling her and finally stabbing her in the throat.  The three assailants then departed after locking Meredith’s bedroom door. 

Her mobile phones and keys were taken by Knox and Sollecito to be discarded in a remote location. Once it was apparent that the authorities had not responded to Meredith’s screams, Knox and Sollecito returned to the cottage to stage a break-in and to obscure as much evidence of their presence as was possible.

Those advocating for Knox and Sollecito have never supplied a coherent narrative to refute the official story.

Similarly, 9/11 truthers have never been able to agree on much apart from their strident belief that the official story simply must be wrong.  Various hypotheses have been advanced and withdrawn in the face of objections by scientists, engineers, and even rival truther factions. 

There is a no-planer faction that argues there were no planes hijacked and that all the video and film evidence was created in a government production studio.  There is a controlled demolition faction that argues government agents secretly wired unknown explosive devices in one of the busiest office buildings in the world while nobody noticed.  There are others who believe the leaseholder of the site ordered the demolition because of concerns about asbestos replacement.

When asked how Guede gained entry to the cottage, conspiracy theorists promote three main theories without selecting the one they all agree upon. 

They argue that Guede entered through Filomena’s window OR that Meredith let him in the house herself OR that he entered by unknown means and was there before she returned home at roughly 21:00.

Because conspiracy theorists are not constrained by the requirement for a logical narrative they will pick any of the three available and contradictory claims.

A Commonality: An Aversion To Respecting Good Science:

The Apollo moon landing hoaxes have a lot in common with the advocacy sites proclaiming the innocence of Knox and Sollecito. 

Apart from the development of the atomic bomb, there has likely been no human technological achievement so intensively documented as the Apollo programme.

Among the many claims of the conspiracists is the position that late-Sixties technology and instrumentation was insufficient or too bulky to allow the moon landings to take place.  They compare the size and power of 21st century computing hardware and software with that of 1969 and make their conclusions based on a perceived inadequacy of the previous era’s equipment.

In Meredith’s case there are several advocacy sites that criticise the scientific police on exactly the same basis. 

The techniques employed by (mainly) Dr Stefanoni, in determining the presence of Meredith’s DNA on a knife found in Sollecito’s drawer, are attacked partly because the equipment had not been used this way before. 

Just to be sure of their position, however, they add confidently that she simply could have faked the results or kept her tweezers in a beaker of Meredith’s DNA accidentally left in the laboratory.  It matters little to the unscientific mind of the conspiracy theorist that Stefanoni’s techniques were fully documented and observed by an independent party as required by law.

A Commonality: Lack Of A Credible Alternate Suspect:

Wrongful convictions happen.  There are dozens of them documented on a site operated by The Innocence Project, an American advocacy group.  Its banner proudly proclaims that 258 convictions had been overturned. 

The foundation seizes upon several important facets of wrongful convictions including DNA evidence and improper defence counselling. In almost all the 258 cases there is another common feature:  a credible alternate suspect.

JFK conspiracy theorists have never been able to establish a credible alternate suspect - and neither have Knox/Sollecito advocates. 

The latter have not yet gone so far as to accuse the Mafia, Fidel Castro, the Teamsters Union, LBJ, Nixon, the CIA and a man carrying an umbrella in Dealey Plaza.  But their attempt to establish Guede as the sole perpetrator accomplishes the same thing. 

Just in case the ‘lone wolf’ doesn’t make any sense, they are not beyond implicating even Filomena, falsely claiming that it is only her word against that of Knox that Meredith did not normally lock her bedroom door.

There was only one attempt to identify an alternate suspect and that was made by Knox herself.  She told police investigators that Patrick, her boss, was the killer. 

She is one step ahead of those proclaiming her innocence; she knew better than they that without another explanation it is she and Sollecito who remained the prime suspects.  She also knows, more than her supporters, that naming Guede instead would invite reciprocation.

Conclusions About Conspiracy Theorists

As briefly illustrated above, the length and depth of those being falsely implicated by the mostly anonymous Knox/Sollecito conspiracy theorists, untethered by the 80,000 pound gorilla in the room, the Massei Report, now knows few bounds.

This has now reached such levels of absurdity that they are increasingly being laughed at or, for the most part, ignored.  Nobody - really nobody - in either the Italian or American governments is paying them even the slightest attention. 

Meredith’s case is showing to the clear-thinking and objective world that Italy has an enviable justice system, that it is very careful and very humane, and that its scientific and forensic techniques are among the vanguard in applied criminal research.

And with no obvious way of obtaining special gains for themselves (or for that matter of hitting back against the anonymous attacks) the very fine police and investigators and prosecutors and judges and juries in Italy are doing the very best they can for Meredith.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

The Anne Bremner Case: Seattle Media Obtain Arrest Documents And A Video

Posted by Peter Quennell

This silent CCTV footage, released today, shows Anne Bremner being encouraged by King County police in the general direction of a breathalyser test.

Last Friday we posted on the plea and the sentence, but could not post most of the arrest document including quotes from Anne Bremner as it was heavily redacted by Bremner’s lawyers.

This redacting incensed the Seattle media as (1) otherwise she seemed to get off pretty lightly - she didn’t even lose her driver’s license - and (2) she started to deny that alcohol was the main source of her problems on the night of her arrest almost immediately after being sentenced. 

Now thankfully un-redacted again, the arrest records were released today, and in a good report Levi Pulkkinen of the Seattle PI posted almost all of what was actually said. Some excerpts:

On the night of her arrest for drunken driving, prominent Seattle attorney Anne Bremner told the sheriff’s deputy who arrested her June 4 that she was the “attorney for Seattle police,” that she was “famous,” and that this “will be bad for you guys,” according to a copy of the officer’s report.

“I represent Seattle police, you can’t arrest me,” Bremner told one of the officers who assisted with the investigation. “You can’t arrest me. I represent Seattle and King County, you are making a mistake.”...

In reports released Tuesday, a King County sheriff’s detective contradicts the findings of a defense investigator used to bolster Bremner’s previous claim, since abandoned, that she was the victim of a hit-and-run crash.

The sheriff’s detective concluded that damage to the tires and undercarriage of Bremner’s BMW were “consistent with a raised curb impact.” Dents to the right side and rear of the car could, the detective continued, were likely caused by the car striking stationary objects at low speed.

According to the copy of arresting officer Deputy Brandon Moen’s report, Bremner was stopped shortly after midnight on June 4 after the officer saw her BMW driving on a flat tire at slow speeds in the 8300 block of Northeast Bothell Way in Kenmore. The deputy noted that her eyes were watery and bloodshot, she slurred when she spoke and that he could smell the “overwhelmingly strong odor of intoxicants on her breath.”

She told the officer she was coming from a dinner party but could “provide no information on how the tire got flat,” according to the report. According to statements filed with the court, the party was attended by lawyers and judges.

The deputy asked if she knew where she was and she “just stared blankly.” When he asked a second time, she replied: “I’m not going to play games,” according to the report.

When he asked how much she had had to drink, she said “not much,” and that she just had wine with dinner. She told the deputy she called 9-1-1 for help with her tires but was ignored, according to the report….

The records provided Tuesday include two 9-1-1 calls to Seattle police from Bremner about her flat tire. In the calls, she is unable to tell the dispatcher what street she is on. In one call, what sounds like her tire slapping the road can be heard.

Through GPS, the 9-1-1 calls were traced to an area near Fairview Avenue East and Lakeview Bouelvard along Lake Union. About 40 minutes later, a citizen called 9-1-1 to report seeing a car driving on a flat tire on Lake City Way Northeast at Northeast 145th Street, according to an officer’s report. Fifteen minutes later, Bremner was stopped about three miles away….

Nowhere in either recording does Bremner report a hit-and-run crash or request medical assistance. Instead, the dispatcher provided her during both calls with the number for the American Automobile Association, a roadside assistance service….

After the deputy arrested Bremner, she was handcuffed and placed into his patrol car. When she was taken to the police station, Bremner at first said she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to take the Breathalyzer test. She then said she would make the decision on “her time,” according to the deputy’s report.

“I instructed Bremner how to provide breath samples,” the deputy stated. “However, Bremner blew into the tube for only a few seconds and then stopped.”

He said he told her again that she would need to blow for about 10 to 15 seconds. She again blew into the tube, but “not even coming close to satisfying the machine’s duration requirement.”

The deputy reported she appeared to be trying to stall the process, and during another attempt at administering the test, the deputy heard a “sucking-type sound,” like she was sucking on the tube or sticking her tongue into the mouthpiece, according to his report.

“It was clear at this point that after multiple attempts to get Bremner to provide breath samples, that she was not putting forth effort and was therefore effectively refusing the test,” according to the deputy’s report.

The deputy reported that Bremner called him a Nazi and the “creepiest officer” she’d ever met. She also threatened “I will sue your ass” and “it’ll be bad for you guys,” according to the report.

Saturday, September 04, 2010

In The Seattle Media The Anne Bremner Case Continues To Reverberate

Posted by Peter Quennell

Maybe Anne Bremner should have quit talking while ahead. This thing continues to bounce around like a billiard ball.

1) Tim Haeck of Kiro Radio set out the terms of the sentence.

The 52-year-old attorney will do jail time and get five years probation but she keeps her driver’s license because she’s agreed to use an interlock device on her ignition. She’s required to blow into the device and the car will not start if she’s intoxicated.

Longtime DUI attorney Doug Cowan says Bremner’s sentence is normal for a first time offender. “That is the mandatory minimum sentence, the judge doesn’t have any discretion but to impose at least what was imposed in Bremner’s case. That’s what is typically given whether it’s after a trial or a person pleads guilty,” says Cowan…

Cowan says Bremner’s sentence is typical. She got a $5,000 fine, with all but $1,100 suspended. She’s on five years probation. She’ll attend an alcohol education class and listen to a panel of drunk driving victims.

2) In this radio interview first linked to by commenter Cath, which seemed to demonstrate a lot less class than her court statement, Anne Bremner seems to play down her alcohol level in favor of her bipolar disorder, and suggests that “in a perfect storm” the traffic officer may have wrongly reacted to a claimed very small alcohol intake.

3) Today Friday in a Seattle Times report by Sara Jean Green the King County cop presents a picture of someone who was severely alcohol-impaired when arrested rather than someone suffering a bipolar attack.

High-profile Seattle attorney Anne Bremner was belligerent during her arrest for drunken driving in June, calling the King County sheriff’s deputy a “Nazi” and the “creepiest cop” she’d ever met, according to a heavily redacted copy of the deputy’s report Bremner released Friday.

Deputy Brandon Moen wrote that he could smell an “overwhelmingly strong odor of intoxicants” coming from Bremner’s breath. As she was being driven to the King County Jail, Bremner, 52, threatened to sue Moen and called him a liar, the report says.

She began “hitting her head” on the plastic partition between the front and back seats in the police cruiser, apparently upset the deputy “wasn’t responding to her comments,” Moen wrote….

4) And also in Sara Jean Green’s report posted today, Anne Bremner and/or her legal team seem to be strongly backing down from a promised full release of the video and documents which the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, and two Seattle TV stations had requested the county courts to release - and presumably now could sue for. 

At the time of her guilty plea, her attorney Bill Bowman said Bremner would withdraw her legal challenge that sought to keep the documents from being released, and said records would be available by Friday.

But as of 4:30 p.m. Friday, Bremner’s case docket showed nothing had been filed with the state Court of Appeals to lift the stay that was keeping the records out of the public eye, according to King County sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. John Urquhart.

Instead, Bremner sent The Seattle Times a redacted version of the deputy’s report, partial video footage and audio files of two 911 calls she had made before her arrest. Her name and other information was blacked out throughout the report.

If the stay had been lifted, the Sheriff’s Office was prepared to release at least three reports from different officers, an officer’s handwritten notes, a report from an investigator who examined Bremner’s car, at least two e-mails, police radio transmissions, Bremner’s 911 calls, a 911 call placed by another driver who observed her vehicle, and video footage from several areas in the Kenmore police precinct, Urquhart said.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Anne Bremner’s Drunk Driving Mea Culpa: Now One For Meredith’s Friends And Especially Her Family?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Anne Bremner rather classily pleaded guilty today to drunk driving, in this King5 video above and this Seattle PI story.

The only victim in this incident, very fortunately, was Anne Bremner’s pride and self-image. No actual person got hurt.

Very different from the strident campaign she has run on TV and via her creation, the now-hapless Friends of Amanda. That misguided effort over two-plus years which misled so many and bred so much false hope caused a lot of real hurt in England and Italy.

The much-praised Massei sentencing report has now methodically shot down every one of her claims, and it shows how competent the investigation really was and how fair Amanda Knox’s trial and verdict.

There is pretty well zero chance of the verdict being overturned on appeal. Amanda Knox’s lawyers and Knox herself now seem to realize this.

How nice then if, while Anne Bremner is in an apologizing mood, she offers a similarly classy mea culpa to the Italian authorities. And to Meredith’s many friends, who have had a very tough two-plus years.

And especially to Meredith’s poor family.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Is The Campaign That Ranted Against Italy For So Long Now Fearing An Italian-American Backlash?

Posted by Peter Quennell

This bizarre Seattle PI blog post suggests that the Knox PR campaign may now fear a major Italian-American backlash.

Really?!

Not exactly surprising, after first stirring up so much anti-Italy hate - remember “third world country” and “keystone cops” and “kangaroo court” and “saving face” and “anti Americanism” and “tabloid journalism” and on and on?

Not to mention “evil Mignini” hoodwinking everyone in Italy all the way up to the Supreme Court with “satanic conspiracies” that work easily in a “catholic country” implying everyone there is too prudish or simply not very bright?

When did they ever say anything about Italy that was actually nice? Or restrain their forces from being over-the-top nasty, as with the venom the white knights STILL direct toward Mr Mignini?

Really GOOD PR people seek to merely shade the truth.

They don’t ever build a campaign around a really big lie, because when the really big lie comes down, it really comes crashing down and ALL is lost. A result worse than if there had been no campaign at all.

Proof?  Read the many hard, angry and incisive comments right under that blog post. And we know that Italian Americans now are showing some sure signs of having had more than enough.

Not exactly a PR man’s dream. 

Added: Important Breaking News

We all already know that the US State Department up to and including Hillary Clinton not only finds the Knox campaign ludicrous and very unhelpful -  they also regard it as xenophobic.

Now the chief of staff of an Italian-American member of the US Congress in Washington DC (not, obviously, David Wu’s chief of staff) has sent us this request.

He would like to get every possible example of the sliming of Italy and the Italian officials on Meredith’s case, including the sliming of Giuliano Mignini.

Please could our readers email or post here below any examples you may know of? We may create a new TJMK page just for them.

This may factor into political races in November, and there may be a political motion in the US Congress to stop this vile anti-Italy campaign dead.

The Anne Bremner Case: The Seattle Times Posts A Tough No-Nonsense Editorial

Posted by Peter Quennell

The post directly below this brings the case up to date.

The Seattle Times has been taking a strong principled stand in its court motions and in its reporting. Now this strong editorial indicates that the Seattle Time stand is resonating with the vast majority of Seattlites.

They presumably want to see Anne Bremner treated precisely as they would be in a like case. And their kids safe and out of harm’s way from any drunk drivers.

Respect the state’s open-records laws in DUI case of Seattle attorney

Do not allow creative arguments employed to evade the state’s public-disclosure law, in a case of suspected drunken driving, be used to compromise its intent.

Creative, aggressive lawyering intended to deny access to public records is an insult to citizens who have made open records and open government a priority in Washington.

Seattle attorney Anne Bremner, 52, is inventing arguments to stifle release of a deputy’s report describing her June arrest on suspicion of drunken driving.

However mortified she might be by the events of early June 4, personal embarrassment is not an exemption under the state Public Disclosure Act.

A King County Superior Court judge cleared the report, and selected law-enforcement videos, for release, but the decision was immediately appealed by Bremner’s lawyer to the state Court of Appeals in Seattle.

Another challenge is based on the apparently creative application of a King County District Court administrative rule procedure. Invocation of the rule comes out of the blue, especially for the King County Sheriff’s Office, which releases 17,000 case reports a year under state law and has never heard that argument used.

The Sheriff’s Office can withhold reports if release might compromise an investigation, but that is not a factor with Bremner.

Access to reports is couched in terms of release to the news media, but it fundamentally represents a conduit to the public and citizens with their own legal issues. Tamping down those rules serves no one, especially the philosophical and practical importance of transparency in government.

The court system showed an abundance of caution by shifting the judicial review to the Spokane appellate court, away from the professional and personal ties between the local bar and bench. The physical distance can be cut by teleconferencing, but an appropriate measure of detachment is maintained.

Release of the deputy’s report is routine and should be treated that way.

Rules and procedures are created for orderly, uniform application of justice, not to allow their exploitation to hide things from the public.

 

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Amid Growing Seattle Criticism, Anne Bremner Tries Another Move To Keep Video And Records Hidden

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the new Seattle Times report and the rapidly-proliferating (currently all negative) comments. Here’s the key passage.

Bremner’s attorney, Tyler Firkins, filed a motion Monday in King County District Court in Shoreline, seeking to use a rule that governs which records the court can release to bar the Sheriff’s Office from releasing the report. A Superior Court judge already has ruled the report can be released under the state Public Disclosure Act, a decision that Bremner is appealing.

At issue in the new motion is a rule known as Administrative Rule for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction No. 9, or ARLJ 9, which exempts district-court officials from releasing police reports unless they have been admitted into evidence, incorporated into a court pleading or have been placed into public record. In district court, a police report isn’t considered evidence unless it is submitted as an exhibit during trial or a plea hearing, something that hasn’t happened in the Bremner case.

According to Firkins’ filing, Bremner is seeking to have that rule extended to the Sheriff’s Office to prevent it from releasing the report.

“We release 17,000 case reports a year under the [state] public-disclosure statute and we’ve never heard this argument in the past,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart.

Our lawyers here remark that that state and county rules would trump any local township rules. Seattle is pretty well certain to see all those records. Especially as the case is now moved to the Spokane Court of Appeals, which at 280 miles away from Seattle should be safe from the attempted exertion of any influence. 

Our previous posts and comments here and here explain how this development involving Anne Bremner goes to the guts of the motives and credibility of the most ardent pro-Knox TV talking-head in the U.S. Good people in the US she may have influenced or misled may number up in the millions, not to mention those hurt in Italy and the UK. 

Many of the comments under this and previous Seattle media reports come from other lawyers, first-hand or second-hand, who obviously believe that Seattle deserves very much better. This is one.

Some lawyer friends with combined experience of 60 years say they have never seen this kind of flagrant abuse of court rules and the appeals process by someone for whom the facts and evidence are so clearly damning. It appears the appeal to the Seattle appellate judge was a brazen attempt to capitalize on the influence of friends on the system. Appears this judge could smell the unethical ramifications and wisely passed it on.

The tenacity of the prosecutors, the Sheriff’s office, and the Superior Court judge to treat this self proclaimed important person with big connections the same way others are treated is commendable. They may not be invited to the next party of drunken judges and celebrity barristers. The state FOI statute clearly trumps a local court procedural housekeeping rule.

And this is another.

Kudos to the Court of Appeals Commissioner for transferring the appeal to Spokane, to the Kenmore Prosecutor for (finally) filing charges, and the Sheriff’s Office for standing their ground on the evidence as they see it.

I just hope the transparency and even-handedness continues, that influence doesn’t rear its head behind the scenes, and that justice prevails in the end.  This has become a much bigger issue than just a DUI charge.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Could Knox Campaigner Anne Bremner Be Facing A Prison Term And Disbarment?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Anne Bremner has just been charged with drunk driving in Kenmore north-east of downtown Seattle. 

Our legal friends observed loud legal warning bells going off for Anne Bremner when they reviewed an apparent long list of past driving transgressions in the comments under this post.

One remarked that if she is shown in court to be a serial law-breaker, and an unrepentant danger to the public, a judge could (actually, he said should) really throw the book at her. That may even be for her own good. 

A few days ago there was a hearing concerning a certain “Jane Doe” who wanted suppression of a police dash-cam video of a driver apparently drunk and some police records of an arrest by King County police.

Both of the main Seattle newspapers in addition to two Seattle TV stations were now wanting the records and video unsealed by the court.  That particular Jane Doe seemed to adopt a surprisingly aggressive attitude toward the King County police, demanding the arresting officer’s service record for one thing.

Louder legal warning bells were observed going off.

There is no sign in Kenmore (as there is no sign in Perugia) that going head-to-head with good police officers really does pay off. Now the Seattle PI is reporting she is indicted..

High-profile attorney charged with drunken driving

By Scott Guttierrez

Seattle-PI Dot Com Staff

Prominent Seattle lawyer and TV legal analyst Anne Bremner has been charged with drunken driving, according to court records, despite her claims that she suffered a head injury in a hit-and-run accident and was mistakenly arrested.

On June 4, Bremner, 52, was stopped in Kenmore after driving on three flat tires. She was returning from a dinner party at a judge’s home in Seattle. The charge was filed Wednesday in King County District Court in Shoreline. Her arraignment is set for Sept. 1.

Bremner, a partner at Stafford Frey Cooper who often represents police officers accused of misconduct, has been fighting the release of the police report stemming from her arrest after it was requested under open records laws by several local media outlets, including seattlepi.com.

King County Superior Court Judge Laura Inveen ruled last week that most of the records should be made public.  The judge, however, immediately stayed that decision as Bremner’s attorney announced an appeal of the decision.

Bremner claims police failed to respond to two 911 calls some time before her midnight arrest in Kenmore and, in a statement submitted to the court on her behalf by her doctor, alleged that she was manhandled by the sheriff’s deputy. In a complaint filed under the name “Jane Doe,” her lawyer argued she would suffer “substantial and irreparable harm to her personal and professional reputation if the unsubstantiated DUI allegations” were made public….

She has been one of the most vocal advocates for Amanda Knox, the University of Washington student convicted of killing her roommate in Perugia, Italy. Knox’s attorneys are appealing…..

To support their contention that Bremner suffered a head injury, her attorneys in the filed a statement by local psychiatrist Dr. Philip Lindsay.

Lindsay wrote in court documents that Bremner had been the “victim of a hit and run driver at 50 mph and had suffered a concussion,” and argued that the deputy who stopped her in Kenmore “rushed to judgment.”

“She was mistakenly arrested for DUI based solely upon the symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” Lindsay wrote the court.

Attorneys for the county called the doctor’s statements “grossly misleading” and contended Bremner never reported a hit-and-run crash or head injury until well after her arrest.

Monday, August 09, 2010

The Judges’ Sentencing Report For The Guilty Verdicts In The Case Of Meredith Kercher

Posted by Our Main Posters

This is the report of Judge Massei and his colleagues, now translated into English.

This was a joint effort of PMF and TJMK and all who worked so hard on the report are active on Perugia Murder File and are or will be posters here on True Justice For Meredith Kercher.

The five months of work by all of us, on three continents, was done in memory of Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, who was known to her friends as Mez.

Rest peacefully, Mez. We’d have been so honored to have been your friends.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Anne Bremner Arrested, Locked Up, Now Complaining (Surprise, Surprise) The Cops Got It Wrong

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner was arrested and locked up for apparent drunk-driving and now seems to be scrambling for arcane excuses.

What a surprise. Here is the report by Sara Jean Green of the Seattle Times with some very beleagured PR spin among the generally pretty sarcastic and hostile comments. 

Bremner is a showboating Seattle lawyer who injected herself into Amanda Knox’s case nearly three years ago.  She created a notoriously inaccurate website on the case and more than anyone set the Friends Of Amanda alive.

Ever since the FOA have made their mainstay in commentary on the case disingenuous misstatements of the evidence and the contemptuous sliming of Prosecutor Mignini and seemingly pretty well all things Italian.

Bremner herself was featured in a TV network rant about Italian cops disturbing the crime-scene (the upstairs apartment where Meredith and Knox lived) when in fact they were filmed clearing the way into the downstairs apartment (where Meredith and Knox did not lived).

Her claims and smears over the past three years have been immensely hurtful to a very large number of people in Italy and the UK, and the general thrust of the FOA campaign was thoroughly disliked by Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia. .

It is hard to see how her muddled and often very nasty claims ever did Amanda Knox any good. This sounds like poetic justice for sure.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Oregon’s David Wu: Another Opportunistic American Congressman That Takes An Anti-Italy Stance

Posted by Peter Quennell

Are there REALLY no Italian-Americans in Oregon’s Congressional District 1 (map below) which is Mr Wu’s political district? 

Would someone please ASK him?!

This undated take on the case by David Wu, a letter to a constituent, was posted a few days ago on the New York Daily News website.

We already know that the Italian justice system has been almost excruciatingly fair, that the evidence is massive and conclusive, and that there is a snowball’s chance in hell of the US federal government even raising this case with the Italian government.

Let alone using any actual political capital to try to spring Amanda Knox in face of what was a fair trial.

Nevertheless, complete with nasty attitude, errors, and illusory claims, Congressman Wu’s letter is being feverishly spread around by the adolescent Knox groupies. Together with the claim that somehow, therefore, Amanda Knox’s support is growing. 

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the fair treatment of Amanda Knox, an American student who was found guilty in an Italian court for killing her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy in 2007.

I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important matter. In December 2009, Ms. Knox, a native of Seattle, was convicted by an Italian jury on charges of murder and sexual violence. During the trial, the prosecution claimed that Ms. Knox killed her roommate with the help of her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and an Italian drug-dealer named Rudy Guede. Ms. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

I was saddened by the verdict, and I agree that many facets of the prosecution’s case against Ms. Knox raise serious questions about her guilt.

In April 2009, Ms. Knox’s attorney, Ted Simon, stated before national media, “There’s brand new information presented as part of Amanda’s appeal by another person…that states for the first time that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not present or were not involved.”

Mr. Simon said that he is confident that new evidence in the 200-page appeal of her murder conviction will force Italian courts to take a hard look at the validity of her prison sentence.

Although the United States government’s ability to influence Italian criminal procedure is limited, I believe that Ms. Knox deserves a fair trial, especially in light of the defense’s new evidence.

I will be closely monitoring Ms. Knox’s appeal, and I will seize any opportunity to stand up for the values of fundamental justice and the rule of law. Thank you again for sharing your concerns with me.

As this tragic case plays out on the international stage, I will keep your views in mind.  If I may be be of additional assistance, please call my Oregon office at 503-326-2901 or 800-422-4003.

With warm regards, David Wu Member of Congress

Below: Congressional District 1 is David Wu’s home district

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.

Friday, July 09, 2010

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

Posted by True North

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

This is the interview with Rudy Guede’s defense lawyer Walter Biscotti, and the continuation of the re-enactment of the crime - warning: it is very jarring, with graphical shots of Meredith’s room after the crime, and then three figures running and two later kissing.

Walter Biscotti claims to the LA7 reporter Andrea Vogt that Rudy Guede entered the house with Meredith, they talked for a while, and then they had consensual sex. Rudy later goes to the bathroom.

He hears Amanda’s voice enter the house. He hears an argument over money between Meredith and Amanda. While listening to his iPod Rudy hears a loud scream.

When he enters Meredith’s room, he sees her bleeding and tries to stench the flow of her blood with a towel. Rudy hears two people outside the house running away, and he also runs away.

Mr Biscotti cannot explain the damning evidence of Rudy found on the pillow under Meredith’s body.

*************

Inserted by Peter: We have been told that Biscotti was trying to claim sexual intimacy not sex. Apparently there is some difference. Please read the following paras by True North in that context. Judge Micheli didnt believe ANY claim of intimacy at Guede’s trial, so Biscotti is contradicting the Micheli sentencing report without making that clear. There is ZERO proof of intimacy, and the claim is ugly and highly disrespectful to Meredith and her family. Biscotti should withdraw it.

*************

The sex claim is old, totally improbable, not born out by any facts in evidence, or by the timeline, Meredith’s moral disposition, or her known plans for the second half of that evening. These were to complete an assignment, and then, since she had been up late the night before (Halloween) to get plenty of sleep.

Meredith never - NEVER - had casual sex and she already had a boyfriend (then traveling) who lived in the apartment down below. Even Walter Biscotti may conceivably be repulsed by this line of defense, but he seems to have no other way of placing Guede legitimately in the house, or explaining the signs of Guede having been involved in a sexual attack on Meredith.

Many have pointed out that it seems a severe weakness of the rather soft-line Italian system that Rudy Guede’s defense can continue to make such offensive claims about a victim, make no confession, offer no full apology, and still emerge with a sentence of only 16 years. Meredith’s family and friends are very ill-served by this, and it fuels a dishonest line by Knox’s supporters. 

Mr Biscotti does strongly finger Amanda Knox by name and one other person who everyone watching would take to be Raffaele Sollecito. The lone-wolf theory, also totally improbable, is not even mentioned here. Nor are the claims by convicted baby-killer Mario Alessi that Guede said he had two other accomplices.

There is of course no huge outcry among Italians over the “wrongful imprisonment” of their fellow Italian Raffaele Sollecito. People in Italy followed the trial in far more depth than they could in the UK or US, and they are not susceptible to any blown smoke, almost certainly including the nasty claims Biscotti makes.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Second 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.

This is the interview with Knox defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga at his law offices in Perugia, plus a fleeting but telling reenactment.

When the LA7 reporter Andrea Vogt asks Mr Ghirga to explain Amanda’s version of events, he emphatically responds that throughout the trial Amanda has been painted as a liar.

He says that Amanda stayed and never left Sollecito’s house between 5:00 pm and 10:00 am the next morning. He disputes the eye witnesses who claimed to have seen Amanda at the convenience store, and at the piazza above the house with Sollecito around 11:00 pm.

When Ms Vogt asks Mr Ghirga what he thinks about the quality of the evidence, he raises the fact that the bra clasp wasn’t retrieved until 46 days later. He believes the bra clasp evidence was contaminated because it had moved from its original location.

Andrea Vogt says to Mr Ghirga: “You always argued that there was only one perpetrator”. He responds that the trial forensics experts never ruled out the possibility that all of the body wounds, including those on Meredith’s neck, mouth and knees, could have been committed by one person.

**********

Note that in this interview Mr Ghirga never states that Sollecito never left his house that night. He only mentions that Amanda never left that house. In line with the observations of our poster Cesare Beccaria that the defenses rarely give the other defenses any breaks, and often make things more difficult for them.

Both the Micheli sentencing report for RG and the Massei sentencing report for AK and RS conclude that the wounds on Meredith with two knives and the sexual assault HAD to have been done by more than one person, and that dozens of evidence points confirm this.

And Mr Ghirga’s arguments at trial that Knox never left Sollecito’s house were very weak - and undermined by Knox herself and by Sollecito. Even the few straws he grasps at seem to be floating out of reach.

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.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Curt Knox And Edda Mellas Back In Court - And This Time In The Dock

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Perugia old-city’s smaller piazza with the court at right and Lumumba’s bar ahead down the hill]

Possible to feel some sympathy for Edda Mellas and Curt Knox for the turmoil that their kid has put them through.

Hard to feel too much, though, because of the huge sliming by their campaign of others, the concretely-proven lies they have told on TV, the damage done to the Italian image in the US, and the untold agony to Meredith’s family and friends, for whom they have still shown zero real sympathy.

Barbie Nadeau has the report on their own trial about to start. If their sentence is less than three years, for a first offense it would not incur prison time. However it might not have been the worst experience in the world to see them cooling their heels for a while.

We hope from now truth really breaks out and Edda Mellas gives a full explanation of this, a key aspect of the trial that no reporter and no book-writer has ever pursued (so what’s new?!)

Did Edda Mellas actually lie on the witness stand? Lie when she was under oath?

Friday, July 02, 2010

Italy’s LA7 Is Running A Series On The Rare Phenomenon For Italy Of Female Criminality

Posted by Peter Quennell

Italy’s LA7 network is running a five-part series on notorious crimes in Italy involving women.

Compared to the US and most of Europe, Italy has only a small fraction of its population in prison at any one time. And an even smaller percentage of its female population. The involvement of women in serious crimes is rare in Italy - and the subject of considerable public interest. 

The first segment (which is not yet on YouTube, although we have hopes that it will be) two weeks ago focussed on Amanda Knox’s involvement in the murder of Meredith. It was very highly rated.

The excellent American reporter Andrea Vogt was a main presenter, as she is throughout the LA7 series, and the Knox segment included interviews with Prosecutor Mignini and the lawyers for Knox and the other two perps.

The third segment, which aired this week, involved Antonella Conserva. You can see her in the image above and briefly in the LA7 report in Italian below.

She is married to Mario Alessi, who claimed earlier this year, to wide ridicule, that he had encountered Rudy Guede in prison, and that Guede had thoughtfully shared with him that Knox and Sollecito were not at the scene of Meredith’s murder.   

Antonella Conserva and her husband, Mario Alessi were convicted four years ago of the kidnapping and murder of a baby (“Tommy”) and, although she was not even present when her husband murdered Tommy, she was sentenced to 30 years.

That is generally accepted in Italy as a reasonable sentence. This could be the new sentence for Amanda Knox, revised upward from 26 years, that the prosecution might win on appeal.

Absent any confession and show of contrition, which seems to us the smart way for Amanda Knox to go, reaction in Italy would probably be neutral or positive.

Like the name “Tommy” everyone in Italy knows the name “Meredith” and no last name is required. Speak up, Amanda.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Amanda Knox’s Supporters Obtain Rome Embassy Cables About Knox, Prove Of No Help

Posted by True North

The American Embassy in Rome above, and the State Department in Washington below.

Ninety-nine percent of the reason why countries put embassies in other countries is because they really want to get along.

The US and Italy in fact do get along, extremely well, and there are thousands of transactions between the two countries every day. Thousands of Americans live in Italy, and millions of Americans are of Italian descent.

At the request of the US Administration, the Italian government recently put a large contingent of Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Under the US Freedom of Information Act,  any American citizen can request and usually obtain astonishing amounts of official documentation, far beyond what can usually be extracted from the bureaucracies in most other countries.

Occasionally this information has embarrassed the department concerned, or the party in power in the Congress or the White House. But usually the documents are innocuous and without drama. Conspiracies simply never show up.

The blogger History Punk on his website Historiographic Anarchy has posted some cables (pdf format) from Rome to Washington, which report periodically on the Rome Embassy’s monitoring of Amanda Knox in Capanne Prison and her trial and appeals in Perugia.

As we would expect, these cables are extremely mundane. They were sent by a middle-level official in the consular section of the Rome Embassy to the Italy desk in the State Department.

They report carefully on the careful Italian legal process, and they never remark on anything wrong. No charges or claims or complaints are relayed from Amanda Knox. There is no talk of any anti-Americanism. No instructions, questions or comments are cabled from Washington in return.

One cable was not released. It was marked confidential and the contents are unknown. Here’s a guess at its contents: “Please keep those xenophobic ranters on a chain - they are doing the American cause in Italy no good at all”. 

My first post here on TJMK and proud of it. This is a good fight I join.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Aviello Story Seems To Show The RS & AK Defenses All But Concede Guilt Of All 3

Posted by Peter Quennell

Defenses Grasping At Straws?

The Sollecito defense latched with alacrity onto baby-killer and jailhouse-snitch Mario Alessi three months ago.

This seemed to have been widely taken in Italy as a sign of the Sollecito defense’s desperate weakness, rather than as a get-out-of-jail-free trump-card for RS.

Several weeks ago, the Amanda Knox defense latched onto Camorra clan-member and jailhouse snitch Luciano Aviello.

With a lot less alacrity though - his various stories have been around for a long time.  This seemed to have been widely taken in Italy as a sign of the Knox defense’s desperate weakness,

Luciano Aviello, who is now in prison, and his brother Antonio, now on the run, are or were connected to the Camorra (NBC Dateline report above) which is Naples’s equivalent of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the NDrangheta in Calabria. The Camorra was in some ways the older, larger and badder of the several mafia arms.

Luciano Aviello and Antonio Aviello were living in Perugia at the time the crime against Meredith took place. Over a year ago, our poster Catnip posted this translation of a report from Italy on the Perugia Murder File board.

Saturday 09 May 2009

Prisoner writes: ‘I know real murderer’s name’

“I know the real name of Meredith’s killer, a fellow-brother Albanian friend of mine told me, and it’s not Raffaele Sollecito.” Luciano Aviello is Raffaele Sollecito’s ex-cellmate and, now, maybe encumbering his admirer, is writing another letter to Court of Assize president Giancarlo Massei.

A few weeks ago he had sent a letter in which he claims to have asked two of his friends to break into the murder house to prove that anybody could have done so. Yesterday, the page count of his letter jumped to five, and the tone was angrier.

He’s had it with journalists, because they’ve referred to his less than clear past, and because they wrote about his previous never-proven-true “revelations” on various important and dramatic criminal cases (like the disappearance of little Angela Celentano).

He’s had it with the police too, in whom he confided his secret about Raffaele’s innocence and who didn’t even give him the time of day.

He maintains that, actually, he has a letter written by an Albanian friend, which contains the real name of the murderer, and he wants to speak only to the court president, Giancarlo Massei, to reveal it to him.

Even the lawyer on the civil side of the case, Francesco Maresca, acting for the Kerchers, remains skeptical: “That letter ought to be re-read carefully: it’s not flour from his grainsack*”.

*****************

* This is a proverbial phrase (non è farina del suo sacco = “it’s not grist from his own mill”) meaning it wasn’t written off his own bat, and that other hands contributed to it.

And there is a video of a Sky News Italy report in Italian dated 21 April 2009 which in effect says “this isn’t any big deal’.

Judge Massei showed no interest in him. So Aviello and his kaleidoscopic claims thereupon went onto the back burner.

Fast-forward to several weeks ago, when the Knox defense engages in a high-profile, noisy flurry of activity to get a deposition from Luciano Aviello.

This time, Luciano recalls,  it was actually his own missing brother who did it, and he himself buried some clothing, a knife, and some keys.

Casting total doubt on everything Luciano Aviello ever says, his hometown newspaper Il Mattino in Naples comes out with this report. It is our translation.

The Meredith Case - A Mariano Clan Supergrass Pops Up

“Amanda Is Innocent”

By Gigi di Fiore

In the newsroom of the Mattino he seemed at ease. Luciano Aviello was [20 years ago] just over twenty years old, and had asked to recount his experience as a “streetwise youth in the Mariano Camorra clan”.

In an earlier time, a war was in full swing in the Spanish Quarter [of Naples] between the Mariano clan, the “picuozzo” [another name for this clan after the “picuozzo” or cord around a monk’s habit] and the Di Biase family, also known as the “faiano”.

The DDA (Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia or Distict Anti-Mafia Directorate) did not yet exist, but Federico Cafiero de Raho was already employed as prosecutor in the investigations into organized crime.

It was he who dealt with that bloody war. Twenty years later, Aviello had become a news-magazine character. Now in his own words, he claims to have a rolet in the Perugia trial for the Meredith Kercher case as a “decisive” witness.

On 19 April of last year, he addressed two little hand-written pages to the President of the Court of Assizes of Perugia, Giancarlo Massei. He declared himself ready to tell the truth, and revealed that he had twice given some friends of his the task of breaking the seals on the house where the crime took place.

On 31 March of this year, Amanda Knox’s defense team video-recorded the declarations made by Aviello, who is now 41 years old. As the weekly news-magazine “Oggi” writes, he said: “It was my brother who murdered Amanda [sic]. I can recover for you the knife used in the crime and the keys of that house”.

This fellow arrived on the third floor of via Chiatamone [Editor’s office of the Mattino] wearing casual clothes with a pretence of elegance: he never retracts anything, always seeking to find suitable words to best describe his “revelations”.

Contact lenses, slim, a cousin killed because he was affiliated to the Mariano clan, Aviello spoke, revealing an outline personality, in a shadow world of braggadoccio, always on the sidelines of the dealings and violent acts of those in power among the clans of the Quarter at that time.

He ended up in jail, having confessed to a murder. It wasn’t true, but they had promised him 5 million lira, a lawyer and an annuity.

The clan didn’t respect the pact, and so he began to talk freely. Enticed by the good life, he began to act as a gofer/go-between selling “black lottery” tickets. He felt important. He earned 500 thousand lira per week.

It wasn’t bad. Then he did “embassies” [message-running], little services, but never great criminal leaps. The clans considered him “not very trustworthy”.

He was implicated in the investigation into the Spanish Quarter Camorra, and convicted.

Today, Federico Cafiero, now deputy prosecutor and DDA Coordinator for the investigations into the Caserta province clans, says of him: “He was altogether untrustworthy, although every so often he would invent a new one [new story]. A revelation, as he would call it, which would subsequently reveal itself to be out and out nonsense”.

Such as when he said that he knew where Angela Calentano was to be found, or that he knew the hideouts of the main fugitives of the D’Alessandro di Castellammare clan.

For his “revelations” against Tiziana Maiolo, ex president of the Justice Commission of the Chamber, he was hit with a trial, in 1997, for calumny.

Two years ago, he fired off his biggest tale yet: he accused a public prosecutor from Potenza in the famous trial on “dirty robes” between Catanzaro and Salerno. He was given an audience by the prosecutor Rosa Volpe in Salerno.

He had announced revelations. His contradictions were immediately exposed.

On those occasions also, the sources of his stories were newspaper articles or gossip with his cell-mates. Such as Raffaele Sollecito, or Gennaro Cappiello for the “dirty robes” investigation.

A compulsive liar, a seeker of publicity?

Twenty years ago, Aviello seemed to be a self-centred person, proud to present himself as a witness to “important facts”. But he never managed to arrive at a scheme of constant collaboration.

For various crimes, he has so far served 17 years in jail. Now the Perugia case appears. Who knows?

Our poster SomeAlibi seems to have had the last meaningful word on the absurdity of this tale. SomeAlibi posted this rather devastating satire on the PMF forum.

I can see it now..

Ghirga: “Well thank you Mr Luciano Aviello, that testimony I think the court will find extremely interesting concerning why Amanda Knox couldn’t have done the murder because it was your brother who was responsible. Despite the fact he’s missing. But thank you and I believe we’re finished.”

Luciano Aviello (quietly): “We ain’t finished”

G: “Uh?”

LA: “So, about this de-fa-may-shun thing.”

G: “Uh?”

LA: “She didn’t do it.”

G: “Sorry?”

LA: “She didn’t dooo it.”

G: “But Mr Aviello we brought you here to talk about the murder not the—”

LA: ”—see it sounds like you ain’t hearing me too good. Perhaps you need a little airation of your ears to help you with that. How would a 22 millimetre hole strike ya? She didn’t say nothing. She didn’t doooo it, capice?”

G: “But, she said it in interview. And in court. I mean, we were all there”

LA (putting tooth-pick on witness stand) “See, now you are making me repeat myself and I don’t like that at all, no I don’t. But I am a tolerant man, so maybe once more for luck ok? She didn’t dooooooooo it.”

G: “All of us were there!... She doesn’t actually disagree she said it…. hello… Mr Aviello… hello… what are you…. what are you doing… why are you counting?”

LA: “Now requiring this many pine boxes ain’t going to be ecologically acceptable my friend, so I suggest EVERYONE here learns to listen up real good ok?”

Court (all): “Huh?”

LA: “Repeat after me. She didn’t dooooooooooooooooo iiiit”

Court (all): “Like hell she didn’t”

LA: “Wise guys, huh?”

Well… that certainly went very well! This all reads like an Italian movie called in English Johnny Stecchino by Italy’s favorite funny actor Robertio Benignii

He accidentally finds himself confused with a mafiosos in Sicily, sees his days are very numbered, and starts talking fast. Very fast… He gets out of it, somehow, but the real mafioso still takes the hit.

Nice knowing you, Luciano…

Friday, June 18, 2010

Why UK Media Deniers Like The Independent’s Amy Jenkins Come Across As Bigoted And Nasty

Posted by The Machine

“I can’t personally prove that Amanda Knox is innocent but I would bet every penny I own that she is.”

Bet away, Amy Jenkins.

The meme that Amanda Knox was being railroaded or framed was not too difficult to whip up in the United States.

Amanda Knox was not the first to get some Americans exercised over the notion that foreign meanies were picking on an American “just because he or she is American”.

Historically there have been a few cases for real. And it was easy to research the US dimensions of Meredith’s case in Seattle, and much harder to research the London, Leeds and Perugia dimensions. London, Leeds and Perugia are over there and in Perugia the language is Italian. 

But in London it is much easier to research Meredith, and to nail down the truth about this case.

Meredith was an exceptional person, with a very bright future ahead. And Amanda Knox probably had underlying issues even before she left Seattle, she was certainly on drugs and quite possibly an addict, she was running desperately short of money in Perugia, she quite possibly thought she had been fired because of Meredith, and in her relations with Meredith (and the other two girls in the flat) she was already like oil and water.

Meredith’s family have given some interviews with reporters who won their trust (you can see an image of one in this post) and people who knew Meredith in London and Leeds have talked about her with reporters who won their trust (you can see several in this post).

So it is always a real shock to read those stridently anti-evidence, anti-prosecution, anti-Italy, and frankly anti-Meredith pieces being pushed by a BRITISH journalist.  .

There have been maybe half a dozen British media deniers so far, and the online comments below their reports usually point out in spades how they got many many hard facts wrong. With the exception of the frankly peculiar Peter Popham of The Independent, toward whom not even one good journalist seems to have respect, they are then heard from on the case no more.

But their pieces hurt, and they do real damage. They are hurtful to Meredith’s friends, they have to be very hurtful to her family, and they are hurtful to Italy, the cause of justice, the memory of Meredith, and (in terms of equal and opposite reaction) to Amanda Knox herself. In Italy they do her no good whatsoever.

One of the WORST was this recent article in The Independent by the London-based freelance writer Amy Jenkins.

False claim: Amy Jenkins’s qualifications

Usually she writes about lifestyle, and particular about her own, concerning which she seems to have endless fascination - her articles are usually riddled with “I’ and “me” throughout. The photo below, with her kid for a prop, was actually posted with one of them.

Needless to say, these pieces don’t require very much in the way of research.

Here are some of the non-qualifications for Amy Jenkins to, all of a sudden, for the very first time, focus her attention on a foreign crime.

• She appears to have no history of criminal research and no special knowledge of the law (she dropped out of law school in the first year) 


• She has never stepped foot inside the courthouse in Perugia or attended any of the many court sessions.


• She hasn’t had full, if any, access to the the prosecution’s 10,000 plus pages of evidence.


• She obviously hasn’t read the Micheli report of January 2009 or the Massei report of March 2010.


• She seems not to have a clue who the true victim Meredith Kercher really was or reached out to any of the very handy UK sources.

In other words, Amy Jenkins knows almost nothing about the real facts of the case. She seems to be knowledgeable ONLY about the list of spurious facts disseminated by the FOA, the PR campaign, and the adolescent bunch of Knox groupies..

Any even half-competent journalist would surely have enough common sense and cynicism not to accept what they are told without question, and would independently check all their facts to make sure they are accurate and reliable. She didn’t.

Any even half-competent journalist would also make sure to research all dimensions of a story before settling for a point of view - especially for a very strident, inflammatory, libelous and hurtful one. She didn’t.

False claim: “No forensic evidence”

If any proof was needed that Amy Jenkins knows almost nothing about the case, she provides it right up front by bizarrely and erroneously claiming that that there is no forensic evidence.

If she had actually bothered to read the judges’ sentencing report, which has been available to the public since 4 March, she would have known about all of this forensic evidence:

• The double DNA knife which had Knox’s DNA on the handle and Meredith’s DNA on the blade.


• The detailed medical reports that led the judges to conclude that Meredith must have been stabbed with two different-sized knives.


• The evidence of countless forensic experts who testified that Meredith was attacked by multiple attackers.


• The five instances of Knox’s DNA mixed with Meredith’s blood in three different locations of the cottage.


• Knox’s DNA had united with Meredith’s blood into one single streak on the basin and bidet which means they were deposited simultaneously.


• Knox’s bare bloody footprints which were revealed by luminol in the hallway.


• Three traces of Meredith’s blood in Knox’s room which were revealed by luminol.


• According to two imprint experts, the woman’s bloody shoeprint on the pillow under Meredith’s body matched Knox’s foot size. It was incompatible with Meredith’s shoe size.


• Rudy Guede’s visible bloody footprints led straight out of Meredith’s room and out of the cottage which means he couldn’t have staged the break-in in Filomena’s room or gone into the blood-spattered bathroom.


• The abundant amount of Sollecito’s DNA on Meredith’s bra clasp which proves that Guede and Sollecito were both involved in the stripping of Meredith and her sexual assault.


• The bloody footprint on the blue bathmat which matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot, but couldn’t possible belong to Rudy Guede.

The forensic and other evidence against Sollecito also implicates Knox. Computer, mobile-phone and forensic evidence provided irrefutable proof that Sollecito’s and Knox’s alibis were false and that they had lied repeatedly to the police.

False claim: “There was no motive”

Actually there were PLENTY of possible motives for Knox at minimum starting a violent taunting of Meredith, and the Miss Represented website suggested a while back that both Sollecito and Knox may have fantasized it.

And while Amy Jenkins seems to think that the prosecutors have to prove a motive in order to secure a conviction, prosecutors in America, Britain and Italy DON’T have to prove a motive. One of the reasons for this is that no-one apart from the murderer or murderers ever really knows for definite why they killed their victim.

Judge Massei suggested the motive was “erotic sexual violence” and that Knox and Sollecito were acting under the influence of drugs, but he could have advanced no firm conclusions and his reasoning and verdict would still remain intact.

False claim: “No previous trouble with the law”

One of the reasons why Amy Jenkins thinks Amanda Knox is innocent is because Knox had no previous legal record. This is argument is quite frankly ridiculous. There have been countless murders throughout history committed by people with no previous record. And in fact Amanda Knox DID have a record.

Perhaps the reason why Amy Jenkins claimed Knox had no previous record was to highlight Rudy Guede’s alleged criminal background?

It seems to be totally obligatory for all Innocenisti journalists to sooner or later refer to Rudy Guede as a “drifter” and a “drug dealer” and to claim that “his DNA was all over” Meredith or the crime scene. Amy Jenkins is no exception:

“Rudy Guede was a drifter and a minor drug dealer. He was on the run and his DNA was all over the murder scene.” 

These two sentences are straight out of the FOA’s handbook. The same terminology has been parotted over and over again by Innocentisti journalists. It seems so obvious that the PR campaign and/or the FOA are spoon feeding these gullible journalists with lines.

Amy Jenkins is clearly ignorant of the fact that Rudy Guede had lived in Perugia since the age of five, and he had his own apartment. Also that he didn’t have a criminal record for drug dealing or any other crime at the time of Meredith’s murder. And also that his DNA was NOT all over the crime scene - there were in fact very few traces..

Amanda Knox is the only one of the three who had a record at the time of Meredith’s murder. She was charged with hosting a party that got seriously out of hand, with students high on drink and drugs throwing rocks into the road, forcing cars to swerve. She was fined $269 (£135) at the Municipal Court after the incident: Crime No: 071830624.

Raffaele Sollecito also had a previous brush with the law. He was stopped by the police and found to be in possession of a small quantity of drugs.

False claim: “Amanda Knox had no lawyer or interpreter”

Amy Jenkins further betrays her ignorance of the case by making the following claim: “She was interrogated with no lawyer and no translator present. She made a phony confession.”

Precisely as in the US or UK, the police weren’t required to provide Knox with a lawyer in the first (quite short) interrogation, because she was being questioned as a witness then, and not as a suspect.

And in fact Knox WAS provided with an interpreter, Anna Donninio. Anna Donninio’s testimony was widely reported-on by the British and American media. In fact Knox herself spoke about her interpreter when she testified at the trial. She says it right here in the video - she actually says the interpreter was trying to help her..

This was very widely reported. If Amy Jenkins had followed the case in the media, she would have known about this. Ten minutes in the archives of The Independent would have turned this fact up.

False claim: “Amanda Knox’s confession was phony”

Amy Jenkins claims that Knox made a phony confession. Hoever it did not escape the judges’ and jury’s attention that Knox’s several confessions contained significant elements of the truth.

• Knox claimed that she was in Piazza Grimana on the night of the murder, which was corroborated by Antonio Curatolo.


• She claimed that there were three people at the cottage when Meredith was killed: herself, Raffaele Sollecito and Diya Lumumba.


• The police were already suspicious of Knox and Sollecito, but they were not aware that there was a third person.


• Knox knew that Meredith had been sexually assaulted before the results of Dr. Lalli’s autopsy report were presented to the court on 8 November 2007.


• Knox knew that Meredith had been sexually assaulted by an African man.


• Knox claimed that she heard Meredith screaming. Nara Capezalli and Antonella Monacchia testified that they heard a loud scream on the night Meredith was murdered.


• Knox stated she heard thuds and this would explain how Meredith received wounds to her skull. The prosecutors believe that Meredith was banged against the cupboard.

And Amy Jenkins has completely ignored the fact that Amanda Knox made a false and malicious accusation against an innocent man, Diya Lumumba, and NEVER withdrew it while he was inside..

Knox admitted that it was her fault that Lumumba was in prison, in an intercepted conversation with her mother on 10 November 2007.

She and her mother both KNEW that her accusation was inaccurate and unjust and that she was responsible for it. However, she didn’t recant the allegation the whole time that Lumumba was in prison.

False claim: “Knox was charged because of frivolous behavior”

Amy Jenkins here willfully misrepresents the prosecution’s case by suggesting that they they thought Knox was guilty simply because she turned a cartwheel at the police station:

“she turned an inappropriate cartwheel. In a Catholic country, it’s clearly not such a leap to go from there to stabbing your room-mate in the neck during a violent sexual assault ““ because that’s the leap the prosecution made.”

So the anti-Catholic venom surfaces here. This bigotry is so common among the deniers. 

Knox wasn’t found guilty because of an “inappropriate” cartwheel and it is not mentioned anywhere in the judges’ sentencing report.

Jenkins reveals a simplistic and superficial knowledge throughout of Italian law. “If convicted of this “slander” the Italians will add six years to her sentence.”

This claim is simply not true. Six years is the maximum sentence. It’s not automatic.

False claim: “It was all because of a need to save face”

“However, at this point the rumour mill about Knox and her boyfriend had been in full flood for 18 days and the authorities had already put Knox behind bars….  To save face, Knox and her poor boyfriend had to be somehow levered into the frame.”

So the anti-Italy venom surfaces here. This bigotry is so common among the deniers. 

Amy Jenkins didn’t even attempt to provide any counter arguments to the mountain of forensic and circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito. Instead she put forwards a silly conspiracy theory:

The notion that several police departments in Perugia and Rome, the three interpreters, and more than TWENTY different judges, including the judges of the Italian Supreme Court, are involved in some huge, sinister conspiracy to frame two innocent people (one of whom is Italian) so that they can all of them save face, is utterly preposterous - and almost certainly it is libelous.

Diya Lumumba was released from prison because unlike either Knox or Sollecito he had an airtight alibi and there was absolutely no forensic evidence linking him to the crime scene. But if the authorities simply wanted to save face they could have kept him in prison instead.

It’s unforgivable for Amy Jenkins or any other journalist for that matter to get basic facts wrong about the case when they can read official court documents.

There is some very bad news on the horizon for David Marriott and the FOA: the judges’ sentencing report will soon be published in English - and very widely disseminated.. They won’t find it so easy to pull the wool over the eyes of gullible, lazy, bigoted journalists like Amy Jenkins in the future.

If Amy Jenkins has even the slightest decency, she will apologize to Meredith’s family and friends.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Commentary by The Most Widely-Read English-Language Website In Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Knox campaign seems to have divided out into three pieces, none of them seemingly at all effective.

The ludicrously shrill David Marriott campaign, the ludicrously shrill Anne Bremner/FOA campaign, and the adolescent internet rantings of the Knox groupies. All three seem to be painting themselves into a corner.

Meanwhile, Amanda Knox’s two lawyers in Italy seem to be going their own sweet way, quite impervious to the above, and it is clear that the Massei sentencing report has given them very much food for thought.

Italian-language reports as they have mostly done for two-plus years vary between strict neutrality and the occasional caustic comment on Knox or Sollecito.

Italy’s biggest English-language internet outlet, read by tens of thousands of residents and visitors who don’t speak very much Italian. has also adopted the same cool objective tone.

This is today’s thoughtful, well written commentary by Rome Journal contributor Rebecca. 

We had closely followed the first trial, in which Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty of murdering her British flat mate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia.

This was one of the most dramatic and internationally observed Italian trials of this decade, and Italy as the scene of crime and trial had come under close scrutiny, and had been at the centre of a bizarre media frenzy covering the case.

Now, Amanda Knox is back in court. She faces slander charges against the police, who she claims hit her during the questioning a few days after the killing in November 2007. Italian police strongly denied that Knox was subjected to any physical abuse, which is supported by an external inquiry.

If Knox is found guilty of slander, she could face another six years in jail, on top of the 26 years she is currently serving.

Knox’s defense lawyers filed a motion to prevent the presiding judge, Claudia Matteini, from hearing Knox’s slander case because of her involvement in the preliminary hearings into the murder. A hearing today will take the final decision about whether Matteini is the appropriate judge to hear this case. The trial is likely to start on October 1….

What is particularly unnerving about this case is the sense that much of the testimony is contradictory: All three convicted of the murder deny their involvement, but cannot explain their inconsistent testimonies, and keep changing their account of what happened on the night of the murder.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, a journalist who has followed the case from the start and has always provided excellent coverage and analysis, asks ten questions that Amanda Knox has never answered, even though they could set her free. That she never addressed them, indicates that her involvement in the murder may have been substantial.

Whether the lies aim to conceal that the convicted did partake in the murder ““ which frankly didn’t work ““ or whether they intend to cover up something else, remains a mystery. Any hints regarding the truth in this matter, even if they come from a separate trial, will be of high interest.

What are your thoughts on the trial? Why do you think Amanda Knox keeps lying? If she is truly innocent, why not tell the truth?

Decision On Who Will Be Amanda Knox’s Judge At Her Forthcoming Slander Trial

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above and below: Amanda Knox entering the court area less than an hour ago. The decision is due momentarily.

Our previous post on the slander trial was here.  The Appeals Court should be announcing the decision on which judge right about now>

Added: ANSA and other Italian news services are reporting that Knox made one of the spontaneous statements the Italian law allows her, and that the decision on a judge will take another five days. 

“I just wanted to defend myself”. So said Amanda Knox, back in court once more, this time for defamation. “I’m sorry that the matter has reached this point,’ said Amanda before the Court of Appeals in Perugia

The court will within another five days decide on the request of her defense team to replace the preliminary hearings judge, Claudia Matteini, for the trial of the Seattle student who is accused of slander against various police officers.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Oprah Winfrey Still Snowed: Still Helping To Advance The Fiction That A BLACK Guy Did It Alone

Posted by Peter Quennell

Sad but true. A black commentator helping to revile Rudy Guede. Certainly a historic first for Oprah - though the US media is unlikely to notice.

Oprah’s emotional fawning over the Knoxes and the Mellases (with copious shots of their kids, and some misleading statements by Ted Simon) is being rebroadcast on the ABC network this afternoon.

Click here for our previous comment - plus plenty by our insightful readers.

CNN Report On The Money Transfers That Bankrolled Van Der Sloot’s Trip To Lima

Posted by Peter Quennell

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Calunnia Claims At The Core Of The Problem For Amanda Knox - And Her Parents

Posted by Peter Quennell

Here is Amanda Knox claiming mistreatment as the reason why she falsely fingered Patrick Lumumba.

This was the court CCTV camera feed to the press-room on 12 June 2009. It was legitimate for the reporters there to capture it.

Our Italy-based Italian-speaking posters Fiori and Nicki both observed that to many or most Italians. Knox’s two days on the stand rang pretty hollow. She apparently needed to come across as a lot more fragile for the claims in the video to ring true.

Yesterday at the first hearing to set the date for Knox’s new trial, the number of police interrogators who are considered to have been targets of calunnia Amanda Knox was stated as twelve.

They will presumably all be testifying both at Knox’s new trial in October, and at the trial of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, who allegedly repeated Knox’s claims on TV, and for whom the first hearing is coming up on 7 July.

They could face prison time and/or fines.

Judge Claudia Matteini observed that her presiding over the early hearings into Meredith’s case in 2008 (and denying Knox house arrest, a denial believed based in part on a psychological profile never made public) was not automatically a reason for her being replaced as a judge in this new case.

Knox had not made the claims you can see in the video at the time Judge Matteini was presiding. However, she agreed with what seems a reasonable defense request that a higher court should take the question of a possible conflict of interest under review.

She stated that the appeals court will issue a decision on who should be the judge for the new trial on 17 June.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Knox Hearing On Calunnia Charges Technicality, Then Trial Set To Be Under Way June 16

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Nick Squires in Rome for the Daily Telegraph has the report which includes this.

Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, argued that it was inappropriate for the slander charge to be heard by judge Claudia Matteini, because she had been involved in one of the preliminary hearings into the Kercher murder.

The case on Tuesday was adjourned until June 17, when another judge is likely to be assigned to the case.  The trial is likely to start on October 1. Her appeal is also expected to start in the autumn, meaning that the two cases could run concurrently.

If Knox is found guilty of slander, she could face another six years in jail, on top of the 26 years she is currently serving.

And Knox could face MORE time than 26 plus six years if the prosecution wins it on appeal. Possibly a total of forty.

So much for the PR campaign and the ongoing misinterpretation of the evidence and sliming of the prosecution by the “pro-Knox” websites. Guede of course ran no campaign, his lawyers and friends were always respectful, he took the short-form trial (an admission of some kind of guilt), and he tried some sort of apology to Meredith’s family.

And after his first appeal he emerged with only 16 years.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Questions For Knox And Sollecito: Ten From Daily Beast As Knox Calunnia #2 Trial Starts

Posted by Peter Quennell

This Daily Beast report indicates that the cancelled jailhouse TV interview with Amanda Knox was a lot more firmed-up than Knox’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, seems to have claimed.

And it outlines the first phase of Knox’s Calunnia #2 trial which is based on charges brought by the interrogating police, all of whom testified at her trial that she was treated well during her interrogations as a witness and suspect. .

Click the image or link above above for the fine reporter Barbie Nadeau’s full article on some issues Knox has never been able to account for, including Knox’s callous skipping of Meredith’s memorial service.

The ten questions are all very tough, and each would also have been asked by the jury. Here they are:
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It’s back to court for Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle native currently serving 26 years in prison in Italy for sexually assaulting and murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher.

This week, Knox is expected to attend a preliminary hearing on slander charges lodged against her for accusing Perugia police of abuse. During her testimony at her murder trial last June, she accused the cops of slapping her on the back of the head during an interrogation just days after Kercher’s body was discovered in November 2007.

The police deny hitting her, and Knox’s own lawyers have never filed charges for the alleged abuse. If she is convicted of slander, a judge could add six years to her sentence….

Knox’s resurgence in the headlines was to coincide with a joint jailhouse interview she had granted to ABC News and the Italian broadcaster Mediaset’s Matrix program. But the bureau of prisons denied the interview in the final hour, effectively silencing Knox indefinitely.

A high-profile jailhouse interview with Knox is considered the Holy Grail by journalists covering the case, and the American and Italian networks have been vying for a chance to ask Knox a few questions on camera. Now it is unlikely anyone will get an interview before Knox’s appeal hearings this fall.

But if we did, there are a few questions we’d want her to put to rest.

1. Why did you and Raffaele Sollecito turn off your cell phones at the same time the night of November 1, 2007 and on again at the same time the next morning? You told the police that you and Raffaele slept late the morning of November 2, 2007, but phone records show that you both turned your phones back on very early that morning. How could that be?

2. Why were you bleeding? Your lawyers agree with the prosecution’s findings that at least one of the spots of Meredith’s blood found in the house where she was killed had your blood mixed with it. Your mother told me that you had your period. Your stepfather told others that your ear piercings were infected. Which was it?

3. Once you realized your mistake in blaming Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder, why didn’t you tell the authorities? You told your mother that you felt bad about it, so why didn’t you alert an official so Patrick could be set free?

4. Why did you go with Raffaele to the police station on November 5? You were not called in for questioning. Did you realize at that time that you were both under suspicion?

5. Why weren’t your and Raffaele’s fingerprints found in your house after the murder if the two of you had spent time there that morning and the day before? Only one half-print on a glass in the kitchen has been attributed to you, yet you have claimed that you took a shower there that morning. How did you spend so much time there and leave virtually no trace?

6. Why did you take the mop and bucket from your house over to Raffaele’s house? You told the prosecutor during your testimony in June 2009 that you took the mop and bucket to his house to clean up a leak under his kitchen sink. But by your own testimony, the leak was miniscule and could have been easily cleaned up without it. What were you really doing with the mop?

7. What would you do differently if you had a chance to rewind the clock back to November 3, 2007? Would you go to the memorial service for Meredith? Would you still have gone to the police station with Raffaele? Would you have left for Germany when your aunt asked you to?

8. What do you think happened the night Meredith was killed? You have professed your innocence. Who do you think killed her and under what circumstances?

9. What do you really think of the Italian justice system? You told an Italian parliamentarian that you got a fair trial, and you even thanked the prosecutors for trying to solve the mystery of Meredith’s death, but your supporters at home in Seattle maintain that the Italian system is corrupt and unfair. What is your real view?

10. Is there anything you wish you would have said in court during your trial? You talked about your vibrator and about how you did not want an assassin’s mask forced on you. But in your final appeal after the closing arguments on December 4, 2010, why didn’t you say the words, “I did not kill Meredith Kercher?” Raffaele did when it was his turn to speak. Why didn’t you?

Our posting soon of the judges’ sentencing report will open up dozens of new questions for Knox. Such as: “How did you track Meredith’s blood into your own room and leave three traces revealed by luminol?”

Friday, May 28, 2010

How Tough Are Perugia’s Prosecutors? Well, They Sure Are Shaking Italy’s Ruling Party

Posted by Peter Quennell

In 2006 Italy hosted the Winter Olympics at Torino, and in 2009 it suffered a severe earthquake at L’Aquila.

In each case, some politicians of Prime Minister Berlusconi’s ruling party seem to have figured out ways of siphoning off some of the construction funds.

The Italian justice system is nothing if not tough, neutral, painstaking, and relentless.

We have shown repeatedly that not only is it prepared to take an extra step to achieve a fair process and outcome - it is often prepared to take a dozen or more extra steps, as of course it did in Meredith’s case, with an extraordinary 20-plus judges involved..

Politicians have tried hard over the years to bend the justice system or reign it in through legislation, and they have had some effect in reducing average sentences and making prison life easy for the perps - measures, ironically, that the three perps in Meredith’s case have all received benefit from.

But the system is essentially intact and unbent, and in various different ways it has been tying Berlusconi in knots for years.

To remove any possibility of the Olympics and earthquakes judicial investigations being bent, they were taken away from Rome, Torino and L’Aquila - and handed to Giuliano Mignini’s colleagues, in Perugia.

Arrests and government resignations have begun and the Perugia-driven process is unsettling even Rome’s prospects of next hosting an Olympics in 2020.

Italy’s favours-for-tenders corruption inquiry ““ which has already led to the resignation of a key minister ““ is overshadowing a decision on whether the national Olympic committee should back Rome or Venice in their bids to host the 2020 Games.

An announcement by the committee is expected as early as Wednesday. According to media reports, the capital is seen as the frontrunner because it offers better accommodation and logistics possibilities than its lagoon city rival and has more experience in organising large sporting events.

But an investigation by magistrates into suspected high-level corruption in Rome in awarding contracts to a Rome construction entrepreneur, who was among four people arrested in February, has sparked controversy over how the Olympics would be handled.

The national Civil Protection agency, which organises “grand events” as well as dealing with national disasters, is at the centre of the probe led by prosecutors in Perugia, including contracts related to last year’s swimming world championships in Rome and the G8 summit in L’Aquila. Guido Bertolaso, who is under investigation as head of the agency, has denied accepting money and sexual favours in return for awarding contracts.

All of which makes quite a mockery of the continuing sliming of Prosecutor Mignini, the last desperate mainstay of the increasingly shrill FOA apologists claiming that somehow - somehow - Knox and Solleciito were railroaded.

It is doubtful that anyone - anyone - in Italy believes Giuliano Mignini did the railroading.