Tuesday, May 18, 2010

How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire (Part 4 of 4)

Posted by Cesare Beccaria

My previous report appeared here. In January 2009 the trial of Knox and Sollecito sees its first session. In February 2009 the prosecutor calls Rudy Guede to testify in the trial of his presumed accomplices.

A year earlier, Guede had said, on several occasions, that he wanted to have a face-to-face confrontation with Sollecito. This time, on the contrary, he says that he will be “mute” until his appeal, although he could “say some heavy stuff regarding the two defendants, but first I have to defend myself.”

All the attorneys conveniently keep their client off the stand, except for Amanda, who does a fairly decent job. Guede is not put on the stand and no confrontation was allowed by his lawyers. Sollecito is conveniently kept on the sidelines throughout the trial except for a couple of interventions. All their words were filtered by their lawyers.

On 4 April 2009 Guede is again called to testify at the trial in Corte D’Assise, andt he exercises his right to silence. From February to December 2009 the three attorneys play their game in Court, both in the Guede appeal and in the Knox-Sollecito trial in the Corte D’Assise.

Everything they said is documented in the trial transcripts and their reciprocal accusations went on and off until the last days in the Corte D’Assise.

As we have already seen for Rudy’s trial, during the closing statements the explicit accusations re-emerges with great strength (“the only guilty person is Guede, while Raffaele must be acquitted”, says Mrs. Buongiorno) and then the ceasefire kicks right back in again, right after the trial.

In mid-December 2009 a fourth Porta a Porta program discusses the murder of Perugia.

The previous week Amanda Knox and Raffaele Solecito have been found guilty of the murder, and now Guede is waiting for his verdict on appeal.

On this program the attorneys continue with their veiled reciprocal accusations, but without being direct and too explicit. More than a ceasefire, it’s an armed truce.

Amanda Knox’s attorneys were not present on the program, but Amanda was represented by Mrs. Sabina Castelfranco, the correspondent for CBS. This time she timidly tries to venture into the usual American media propaganda and lies regarding this case, but she’s regularly contradicted, and on certain occasions even ridiculed.

Sollecito’s father is present in the studio. His father talks about the innocence of his son, and only of his son, without mentioning anything in defense of Amanda. “My son was not at that house….  Curatolo could not have seen my son because he was at his house”. He says that if Raffaele was present at the crime scene he would have helped Meredith, and so on.

The host Bruno Vespa asks Sollecito’s father why did Amanda accuse Patrick, an innocent man? Francesco Sollecito responds “You are giving me a hard task, that of being not only the defender of my son but also of Amanda Knox”.

Giuseppe Castellini, director of the Perugia newspaper Giornale dell’Umbria, says that this trial has a logic, and such logic emerged from the various judges in 2008 up to Judge Micheli (GUP) that charged them with the crime.

The judges had said that more than one person committed the crime.

“Clear elements prove than more people were involved”. There’s physical evidence at the crime scene of more than one person. Two witnesses heard the screaming and more than one person leaving the house. The GUP had asked “Who are these people?” and Castellini concludes that “all clues and all circumstantial evidence lead to only two people and to no one else”.

“This is the weird thing”, says Castellini. “Everything leads to Amanda and Raffaele. There is not a third person….  Defense then rightly tries to dismantle such pieces of evidence one by one, but this is in essence the story of this trial”.

The host Bruno Vespa asks Guede’s lawyer Biscotti “You claim that the killers are Amanda and Raffaele?” Biscotti responds: “No, actually it is the Court that has decided on first instance that Amanda and Raffaele are the killers”.

The discussion rotates around Rudy’s role and statements.

We know that Rudy Guede never took the stand at either trials and only gave a spontaneous declaration that doesn’t require any questioning on the part of the prosecutor. In court, Rudy said: “I heard the voice of both Meredith and Amanda and they were arguing over what Meredith had already told me: the money that Meredith was missing”.

Rudy says he heard Meredith saying to Amanda “We need to talk”, and Amanda responding: “What’s happening?” In his declarations in Court Guede does not mention Raffaele (as he had previously done out of trial) but merely states that he was assaulted by a young man, in a time span of few seconds, and couldn’t recognize him. (Note that in previous statements he had said that the struggle lasted few minutes and that the assailant was Raffaele).

Vincenzo Mastronardi, a criminologist hired by Guede’s defense, repeats what Rudy told him: “I heard the bell. I heard it was Amanda. I heard Meredith say “˜we need to talk’”. Bruno Vespa asks him: “Did he only hear Amanda?”, and he responds “Yes, he only heard Amanda”.

Then Mastronardi explains his discussion with Guede. He asks him “Did he have glasses? He responded “˜no’. Did he look like Raffaele Sollecito? He responded “˜I don’t know, he might look like him but I am not certain’. “˜All I am certain of, is that the voice was of Amanda’ “.

This is interesting: why does Guede confirm that Amanda was in the house, but does not confirm - in December 2009, just a few days before his verdict on appeal - that Raffaele was also in the house?

Why has he been accusing Raffaele since March 2008 and now, just before his verdict on appeal, he says (or rather, his consultants say) that he’s certain about Amanda but not of Raffaele?

Do Guede’s attorneys fear a wrong move by Sollecito’s attorneys, while being confident about Amanda’s attorneys?

At this point the host Bruno Vespa starts a heated argument with the criminologists, claiming that it is not possible that Guede could have not recognized the assailant. “Come on, you’re a criminologist” says Vespa, “you know that anyone could easily recognize the face of the person that is wielding a knife in front of you….  You have to agree that this is an element of objective fragility” he adds.

Paolo Crepet, a psychiatrist, notes that originally Rudy’s version was kind of different. “Rudy talked to his assailant. He was threatened”.

Rudy’s attorney intervenes “No, you remember wrong”. Bruno Vespa also intervenes and says to Biscotti “Wait, you must admit that there is plenty of incongruence. They didn’t give Guede 30 years for nothing”. Biscotti responds “They sentenced Guede just like they sentenced the other two”.

On the timing of the murder, Bruno Vespa asks if it is true that Guede talked about 9:00-9:30PM.

Here the attorney of Guede gives an inaccurate response that was not picked up by anyone in the studio. He says that Rudy said that the murder happened at a later time. “He didn’t have a watch, therefore he didn’t know the exact time [of the murder], but it was certainly very late”, says Biscotti.

This is incorrect. Guede has said, at the beginning and on a couple of occasions after, that he entered the house with Meredith at 21:00 and that he heard the screaming at 21:20-21:30. So why is his attorney now saying that Guede testified that the murder happened much later? Why did no-one in the studio intervene to contest his statement?

On the forensic tests, Bruno Vespa says that “Non-repetitive testing must be done, by law, with the presence of all parties, otherwise they are not valid”.

The lawyer for Meredith and her family, Maresca, responds “All tests are not disputable, since all attorneys and their consultants were notified on the time and date of these non-repetitive tests”.

And in fact no one from the defenses showed up. By law, if they are notified and don’t appear for the testing, the results are perfectly valid. Defense attorneys chose not to be present, although notified and invited, because that was seemingly part of their defense strategy.

Regardless of the outcome of those non-repetitive tests, it would have been strategically preferable to avoid being present, because if the results were favorable to their client, that would be fine. And if the tests went against their clients, they could always claimed contamination at a later time.

On 4 March 2010 Rudy Guede, following the public release of the Motivazione against Knox and Sollecito, said: “chi sa’ parli” (“those who know must speak”).

On 6 March 2010 Rudy Guede writes a letter to Mediaset following the appearance on the scene of Mario Alessi, a child murderer serving a life sentence, who was claiming Guede divulged that he was alone at the house with another accomplice. Guede ends his letter by saying that the “horrible assassination” of Meredith was done by Amanda and Raffaele.

The court reached their decisions based on testimony and evidence from the night presented at trial. Everything else, including diaries, phone calls from Germany, cartwheels and media gossips, was totally irrelevant to the judges.

Formally, Guede’s accusations of the two accomplices must be dated from March 2008, but we know very well that the reciprocal accusations started on November 2007 and they went on for the entire two trials.

Except for Amanda, the attorneys have strategically avoided their clients from taking the stand and responding to questions, confrontations and cross-examination. Raffaele never spoke one word, except for spontaneous declarations. Guede was kept silent throughout the two trials, despite various promises of “speaking out”.

The prosecutor asked to have Guede on the stand for questioning, but he always exercised his right to silence and, as the Massei Report states on page 389 “The defense of Knox and Sollecito did not give their consent to admitting Guede’s declarations”. This is very indicative of the trial strategy adopted: avoiding their clients to pronouncing one bad word and avoiding putting them face to face with each other.

Now for some conclusions.

There is a lot of “I don’t remember” in this horror story. Rudy doesn’t remember the face of the aggressor, but then slowly, but progressively, his mind begins to function and, at appropriate moments, he remembers his name and that of his friend by the door.

Amanda doesn’t remember if she went to Via della Pergola with Lumumba, nor if Raffaele was with her. She doesn’t remember what she did at Raffaele’s house for the entire evening and night, but then she meets a nun in jail that restores her memory.

Raffaele also has a hard time remembering what happened in those few hours. He doesn’t remember if he was home alone or if Amanda was with him. Then he changes his statement but still doesn’t remember if Amanda left and, if she did, at what time she returned.

Can cannabis give such effects in exactly the time frame in which a young woman is being brutally murdered? Why did only three people out of 84 interviewed have this incredible amnesia?

As the journalist of Corriere della Sera, Fiorenza Sarzanini, said: “the arrests happened when they were saying things like “˜I was there with Patrick but can’t remember if Raffaele was also there’.

And Raffaele saying things like “˜I was at my house all night, but I don’t remember if Amanda was with me the entire time’”.

All three have lied several times, lost their memory but then slowly regained it, and changed their stories in order to fit new information as it became progressively known.

But most importantly they all have accused each other from the very beginning.

Not only the appellate judges of Rudy Guede’s trial but even Judge Micheli in Guede’s trial of first instance said that “The defendants, more or less explicitly, have intended to defend themselves by accusing each others.”

And that Rudy Guede “was there and he knows very well what happened”

“We might think that he remains firm on his unsustainable positions in order to cover up for someone, but on the contrary” says Judge Micheli, “it was from the very beginning that he chose not to involve others, and then he changed his attitude when he understood that other people were abandoning him to his own destiny”.

It should also be considered that the defense of Amanda Knox and of Raffaele Sollecito have called to trial only those witnesses that would testify against Rudy Guede and have requested only that police carry out more investigations on Guede.

Also, the Massei Report states that the defenses of Knox and Sollecito have at the end of it all “explicitly indicated Rudy Guede as the sole perpetrator of the criminal acts against Meredith Kercher”.

Rudy’s original story of the events was so ridiculous that no one could have possibly believed him. And no one did.

Despite this, he avoided naming his presumed accomplices directly, but chose instead, from the very beginning, to imply their involvement through his writings and his threats, while waiting for the appropriate time to formally accuse them of the murder.

“Guede kept quiet for as long as he could” said the Court of Appeal “because, given the deep connection of the events, accusing Amanda and Raffaele would have exposed him to their very probable retaliation”.

The court said all three should have explained what had happened in that house on the night of the murder, “at least for a sense of human compassion toward the poor victim”.

Instead, they “preferred to cram their statements (made on several occasions) with lies, reticence, half-truth, allusions, improbable occurrences and by more or less veiled reciprocal accusations”.

This is my final report. Ciao from Rome, and thanks.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire (Part 3 of 4)

Posted by Cesare Beccaria

My previous report on this appeared here.

During the first two months of 2008, the attorneys of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito begin to elaborate their theory of the sole killer that entered the house through the window, and then raped and killed Meredith.

It is interesting that these attorneys at first didn’t mention the name of Rudy Guede though the accusation was more or less explicit.

During his chat conversations from Germany Guede had already mentioned Raffaele’s involvement. When Giacomo asked him if that was Raffaele he had replied several times “I think so”. But as the two previous posts below show, thereafter he began to pull back.

By the time of his three-hour interrogation with the prosecutor on 26 March 2008 Rudy Guede apparently has had enough, and he is done with pulling back any longer. He now formally accuses Knox and Sollecito (“I saw Amanda and Raffaele that night”).

He now shows no doubts about identifying Raffaele Sollecito as the aggressor (“that guy with the knife was Raffaele”).

When asked by the interrogators why he responded “no” to the question of Giacomo as to whether Amanda “did it”, Guede states first that he was mainly concentrated on the male figure with the knife, and second his response to Giacomo’s questions was given in a hurry.

But Rudy did mention Amanda’s name in those previous conversations from Germany, indirectly implying her involvement. Amanda Knox was also mentioned extensively in his diary written at the end of November 2007, and he described her there in harsh words.

During his interrogation by the prosecutor, Guede now adds that he heard Amanda’s voice by the door, and then he saw her silhouette from Filomena’s window (“As Raffaele walked out I heard someone waiting for him outside. Now I can say that it was Amanda Knox”).

Judge Micheli in his January 2009 sentencing report for the Guede trial points out that Guede constantly “adjusted the content of his statements to the parallel and progressive evolution of the investigations”. He conveniently adjusted the time of the murder and other claimed facts as the investigation proceeded.

Guede originally indicated the time of Meredith’s murder as having been around 9:20-9:30PM. This is what he told Giacomo during the Skype conversation. His attorneys would later push the time to 11:30PM, denying that Guede had ever talked about 9:30 and couldn’t have known the time anyway as he hadn’t had a watch on him. 

The Micheli Report states that Guede’s accusation of Amanda and Raffaele formally happened during the interrogation of 26 March 2008. The conversations from Germany were not admitted by the court, and nor was his diary. Only Giacomo’s testimony was considered.

Judge Micheli in his sentencing report considers none of Guede’s declarations as credible.

On December 7in his first interrogation on his arrival back in Italy, Rudy never made references to Amanda. He said that he looked out the window but didn’t see or recognized anyone.

Judge Micheli therefore says that the interrogation of March 26, 2008 cannot be considered a completion of his previous declaration (as his lawyers were asserting), but rather a “radical change of course”.

Why didn’t Guede accuse Amanda and Raffaele during, or right after, the interrogation of December 7?

After all, he had a great opportunity to claim to recognize a person that was arrested and accused of the murder whose name was well known to Rudy. And as Micheli states in the report, “Guede didn’t even have the natural qualms that a witness might have in cases of uncertainty, knowing that he might get an innocent person in trouble”.

So why did he reserve the right to indicate his alleged accomplices at a later time?

On 15 May 2008 Guede asks to make some new spontaneous declarations.

Among other claims, he claims to have seen Raffaele at the scene of the crime, and his new conviction about this derives from the fact that he had seen his pictures in the newspapers. He also confirms the presence of Amanda: “I heard various steps of people leaving. I went to the closest room, I looked outside and I saw the silhouette of Amanda”.

On 19 October 2008 the prosecutor at Guede’s trial in his closing statement observes that “at the beginning Amanda had intentionally covered up for Guede, sidetracking the investigators toward another black person. For his part, Rudy has tried to keep Amanda out while being more explicit in involving Raffaele”.

On 24 October 2008 Francesco Vinci, the forensic consultant for the Sollecito defense, hands over to the Court his analysis report for the DNA on Meredith’s bra hook (Evidence 165B).

He states that “the analysis clearly shows that there are profiles of three other individuals on the clasp”, adding that the genetic profiles of Amanda and Rudy are also on the clasp.

Although Vinci’s presumed intention is to try to remove from trial the evidence against his client (since too many DNA profiles are found on the clasp, making it hard to reach an “unequivocal interpretation”) in reality this intervention comes across like an attempt to involve Guede’ s other two unlucky friends.

Meo Ponte, correspondent of La Repubblica, puts it nicely: “One asks if this is an involuntary false step or if Sollecito’s defense has decided to return to their previous steps when, at the beginning of the investigations, they were looking at every possible way to separate the fate of Raffaele from that of Amanda, trying to reduce charges against Raffaele to those of a lesser crime”.

Interesting here is that four days before the verdict of the first instance against Rudy Guede (and the decision on the formal charging of Knox and Sollecito) all the attorneys for all three can be seen to be fighting a three-way war, trying to save their own clients at the expense of the others.

Mr Mignini couldn’t have asked for more. This tactic almost renders superfluous the presence and arguments of the prosecutor.

Knox’s and Sollecito’s attorneys are indirectly accusing Guede (without mentioning his name) by trying to prove the sole-killer theory. And Guede’s attorneys are definitely implicating Knox and Sollecito, and at the last day of trial explicitly accuse them of the murder.

On 28 October 2008 Rudy Guede receives a 30 years sentence, and Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are formally also charged for Meredith’s murder.

The day after on 29 October 2008 the top-rated national TV program Porta a Porta (in the second of the four shows so far) discusses the trial outcome of the previous day. All the lawyers are present except for those of Amanda Knox.

Whereas during the days before the trial all the attorneys were fighting for their own client, and accusing each other’s clients of murder, during this Porta a Porta program they look fairly friendly.

Mrs. Buongiorno (the lead lawyer for Raffaele Sollecito) says that she is not saying that it was Guede who killed Meredith, she is saying that “procedural elements” conclude that there is such responsibility. “All I want to say is that Raffaele was not in that house.”

Bruno Vespa, the host of the Porta a Porta program,  asks Mr. Biscotti (Rudy Guede’s attorney) if his defense claims that Amanda and Raffaele are the two people identified by Guede on the night of the murder. Biscotti replies that Guede “heard two people”, but he doesn’t confirm that it was Raffaele and Amanda.

Why does Guede’s defense all of a sudden avoid mentioning the names of those whom until the previous day they had accused of the murder?

The magistrate on the show, Simonetta Matone, intervenes and she says: “As part of your defense strategy I remember that you have said that Amanda and Raffaele are the two people responsible for this homicide”.

The attorneys of Guede responded: “well, this is a trial dialectic (dialettica processuale)”. The magistrate then asks them “what are you talking about, trial dialectic? You have claimed that Amanda and Sollecito committed the crime”.

Mr. Biscotti (Guede’s attorney) doesn’t respond, and Mrs. Buongiorno (Sollecito’s attorney) steps in and immediately changes the subject.

Further on in the program, Mr. Biscotti says that Rudy heard Amanda’s voice, but doesn’t say that Guede identified Raffaele.

The Porta a Porta host, Bruno Vespa, asks Biscotti how could it be that Rudy was not able to see the assailant? Biscotti explains that it was dark and the assault was quick.

Bruno Vespa continues to be incredulous and insists that it is impossible for him not to have recognized his attacker.

Why does Biscotti now hide the fact that Guede saw Sollecito, when up to just a few days before he was confirming his identity? In fact, why would both Guede’s attorneys and Sollecito’s attorneys avoid discussing the reciprocal accusations that had gone on for months until just a few days earlier?

Could it be that they are both now preparing for the next trial at the Corte d’Assise, both of them hoping for an acquittal that would be beneficial both to Raffaele and to Rudy?

Right after the first verdict the ceasefire is back in place, and everyone is back out of the gray area.

It’s also interesting that during the program Mrs. Buongiorno insists in defending only Raffaele. She contests the bra clasp but never says anything about the knife. Her only concern is Raffaele.

She says “My trial is as follows: you must prove that three people committed the crime, or you must prove the presence of Raffaele in the house”.

At a certain point in the Porta a Porta program, Alessandro Meluzzi, a well known psychiatrist hired by the Guede team, intervenes during a discussion and says: “”¦ but wasn’t there a footprint found of Raffaele?”.

Mr. Biscotti - Guede’s lawyer - blocks him immediately and says “no, no, no”. Mr Meluzzi looks around in despair and then realizes he has said something outside of the defense line and now keeps quiet instantly. Why was he stopped?

In the first session of the Knox-Sollecito trial in the Corte D’Assise of 16 January 2009 Luca Maori, Sollecito’s second attorney, begins by saying that “Raffaele’s life was destroyed on October 25, the day he met Amanda “¦ this changed his life because of the tragic consequences and at the end [meeting her] has destroyed him”.

In the opening statement Mr. Maori makes it clear and simple: “Justice is already done. Rudy Guede, the only person responsible for the murder, has received a 30 years sentence”.

Asked by journalists about his reaction to these accusations, Walter Biscotti responded as he had done on other occasions: “My client will speak at the appropriate time.”

On 19 January 2009 they are all back again, on the third Porta a Porta show, except (again) for Amanda Knox’s lawyers.

Guede had been sentenced in the first instance to 30 years. His lawyer Biscotti now adds a little more detail to Guede’s story. He explains that Rudy went to the bathroom and heard Amanda discussing with Meredith, put on his earphones and closed the door.

The TV host Bruno Vespa reminds Mr. Biscotti that the attorneys of Sollecito and Amanda have accused Guede, and have said that he was already convicted and therefore he must be the sole killer.

Mr. Biscotti doesn’t appear very happy: “In our opinion this has been a “cowardly procedural move (“vigliaccata processuale”)....  They took advantage of the absence of Rudy in that hearing” of 16 January, he replies.

And then he adds that their strategy would not work since the GUP has denied their clients’ release on house arrest and has issued a definite ruling on the matter.

Guede’s attorney is practically saying here that, even though Rudy was convicted in the first instance, the other two are also charged and will also have to stand trial. “We will be vigilant and we’ll observe every breath of that trial”.

(It’s funny how Biscotti refers to his accusation of the other two a few months earlier as “dialettica processuale” (dialectical) but now calls Maori’s accusation of Guede a “vigliaccata processuale” (cowardly).)

The prosecutors have announced that they will call Rudy Guede to testify at the trial of his presumed accomplices, and the Porta a Porta host Bruno Vespa asks Biscotti if Rudy will finally tell the complete truth in front of the Court of Assise.

Biscotti responds that Rudy has already told the truth and that he will next talk further in front of the judges of appeal, implying that his client will not testify at Knox’s and Sollecito’s trial.

He says that since Judge Micheli didn’t find him credible, just like as he didn’t find the other two credible (they were not even called as witnesses at Rudy’s trial), Guede could exercise his right to silence at Knox’s and Sollecito’s trial.

Giuseppe Castellini, director of the Perugia-based newspaper Giornale dell’Umbria, weighs in at length on this Porta a Porta show about Guede’s changing of his versions.

In the second version, Guede says that as he entered the bathroom he heard the bell ring and heard Amanda’s voice. He then was reassured because he knew it was Amanda. Guede also said in his second version that from Filomena’s room he sees Amanda and another person that he couldn’t identify, running away.

In the third version, Rudy hears the voice of Amanda (“We need to talk. What is the matter?”) and he asks Mignini to have a confrontation with Sollecito.

Mr Biscotti, Guede’s attorney, disputes Mr Castellini’s claim that the description changed and he says that Guede never changed his version, but rather “integrated it with details” and that Guede asked for a confrontation with both Raffaele and Amanda.

Mr. Gentile, the other lawyer for Guede, adds that Guede was interrogated in Germany without attorneys present (implying that what he said back then cannot be considered as a first version).

The Porta a Porta host. Bruno Vespa. notes that every one of the three accused is claiming their innocence and at the same time each accusing the other of the murder.

He then asks Luca Maori, one of Sollecito’s attorneys, if the situation of Raffaele is linked to that of Amanda or if there could be a different scenario (“she was there and he wasn’t”).

Mr. Maori responds that “Raffaele is Raffaele and Amanda is Amanda, although this does not mean that their positions could not be linked….  Raffaele was at his house and probably even Amanda, so both were at his house during the night”.

He adds that Raffaele never changed his version.

The newspaper director Giuseppe Castellini reacts strongly to this claim by Mr Maori.  He illustrates by reading Raffaele’s statements word by word that he did in fact change his version, three times.

On the first version, of November 5 (which is actually the second version if we exclude the statement in which he said he spoke “a lot of rubbish”) Raffaele said he went home alone, while Amanda went to meet her friends. He says he surfed the web all evening and Amanda returned at 1:00AM.

Days later, police hear from Jovana Popovic, who testified that she rang the bell at 8:40PM and Amanda answered the door, and therefore Amanda must have been home at that time.

Mr Castellini observes that now Raffaele changes his version again and notes how he had said “on November 5 I lied because I was under a lot of pressure”. Mr Castellini says that Raffaele had stated that Amanda was with him all that night, but now, in his latest version, he doesn’t remember if she went out that evening and for how long.

Bruno Vespa asks how can it be possible that a person cannot remember, after just a couple of days, if his girlfriend was with him or not, what time she left, and what time she returned?

“Everyone is able to remember where they were when the man landed on the moon. And that was forty years ago….  Raffaele should have been able to describe minute by minute what happened on that evening”.

The answer of Sollecito’s attorney Mr. Maori is as follow: “Someone must have killed poor Meredith. This someone is certainly not Raffaele Sollecito, because there are no evidences that put him inside the house of the murder. Everything else is details”.

It’s interesting to note that Mr. Maori hardly mentions Amanda Knox.

Even when asked if Amanda was with Raffaele he doesn’t give a straightforward answer, he just repeats that his client is not guilty. Throughout the two hours of the Porta a Porta program, he keeps saying that his client was not at the crime scene: “We will prove in court that he wasn’t there, and that he did not commit the crime.”

The CBS correspondent on the TV show, Mrs. Castelfranco, keeps trying to insert Amanda into the discussion (“Amanda wasn’t there either”) but Maori was not confirming this, he was not even listening.

The host Bruno Vespa tells Maori that there was more than one person reported by a witness as leaving the house and therefore “the killers must have been more than one”.

Mr. Maori’s answer is: “We are not alone in saying that the killer is only one. It’s the judge that has sentenced just one person”.

Guede’s attorney replies: “Oh, come on, Maori ! How can you say these things?.

A very important issue is now brought up by the host, Bruno Vespa.

Talking about Amanda, he says that it’s very strange that a person says “I was there” and then days later denies being there.

“Usually people say “˜I was not there, I know nothing, I have seen nothing’ and then eventually they admit that they were there”, says Vespa. “Instead Amanda [at first] says “˜I was there’ and the killer is Lumumba”.

No one in the Porta a Porta studio contests Mr Vespa’s claim that this is strange, including Maori and the CBS correspondent.

And the reason is very simple: while the U.S. media has justified Amanda’s behavior by claiming that she was forced to name Lumumba under brutal police pressure, the Italian media has never reported this because there is zero evidence that it ever happened.

The widely known and believed fact is that Amanda named Lumumba voluntarily, when the police asked her to verify her cell phone activities and was asked who that person was. This is a given and indisputable fact, confirmed by various witnesses.

Even Mrs. Castelfranco, the CBS correspondent, is very careful in not repeating the false claim of the U.S. media. She says instead that Knox was “young and confused”.  The CBS correspondent adds that after all none of them remember well what happened that night.

The host Bruno Vespa interrupts her: “One thing is remembering single details. Another is remembering if she was there or not. Being at the house [of the crime] or sleeping at the house of the boyfriend, are two enormously different things…. It is very striking that her first instinct was that of saying “˜I was at the house of the crime’”.

The CBS correspondent remains silent.

At this point, Mr. Biscotti, Guede’s attorney, says that while Rudy admits to being in the house, the other two each deny their presence although there is evidence that unequivocally confirms both of their presences.

Mr Vespa asks Biscotti if their trial strategy is that of proving Rudy’s innocence, or if it would be convenient to them to also demonstrate the culpability of Amanda and Raffaele.

Guede’s lawyer Biscotti responds: “We don’t want to prove their guiltiness. But since there is no other individual whose evidence in the house is proved, we must make a logical inference”.

The host reminds Biscotti that they have explicitly accused Raffaele and Amanda during Guede’s trial. Biscotti responds: “Well, the logical inference tells us that Amanda and Sollecito are the guilty ones”.

Mr Vespa asks “Therefore the person that ran into Rudy (whom he did not fully identify) would be Sollecito?”.

And Biscotti responds “In our opinion, since we were not there and could not have seen it, by linking all the circumstances that emerged from the investigation of the prosecutor and those that emerged from the preliminary hearing, this leads to the conclusion that whoever killed Meredith could not have been other than the other two defendants”.

Francesco Maresca, the attorney for the Kercher family, makes it plain that in his view all three defendants are without any doubt responsible for Meredith’s murder.

My next report appears here.

Friday, May 14, 2010

How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire (Part 2 of 4)

Posted by Cesare Beccaria

My previous report on this appeared here. On 12 November 2007 Guede has a first chat conversation on MS Messenger, from Germany, with his friend Gabriele.

His friend asked him why he keeps running away, and Guede answers “I can’t”.  “You can’t what?” asks his friend. Guede replied “you know [why]”. “What should I know” asks his friend, but with no further reply.

Up to that moment the media knew nothing about Rudy Guede’s involvement, but he certainly felt that police were already investigating him. He knew that thus far Amanda and Raffaele had not mentioned his name.

On 15 November the investigators identify the finger print on the pillow as belonging to Rudy Guede.

On 16 November Giacomo, another friend of Rudy, was informed that Guede could have had something to do with the murder, and on the 18th he is interrogated by the prosecutor.

On 18 November Raffaele writes in his diary: “As I am thinking and rebuilding [my thoughts] I think that Amanda always remained with me. The only thing I don’t remember exactly is if she left during the evening for few minutes”.

At this point police know that Raffaele and Amanda were together at his house when Jovana Popovic arrived at 8:40PM. But they were also found together at Raffaele’s house when Jovana rang the bell in the afternoon between 5:45-6:00PM.

Why then would Raffaele say at first that he went home alone at 9:00PM, and then that “maybe it was 8:30” and Amanda was with him, and now he thinks that Amanda was with him the entire time, but he doesn’t remember if she left and, in the event that she did, at what time she returned?

Was he desperately attempting to dissociate himself from Amanda? Was he then being told to retract, but just not too much?

“I am certain that she cannot have killed Meredith and then returned home” says Raffaele. “I hope that truth emerges. None of us three [meaning also Patrick Lumumba] have anything to do with this”.

Here again we find this supposition regarding Amanda. A week before he said “It would be fabulous if Amanda hasn’t done anything” and the previous day he said: “I don’t think she’s capable of killing someone”.

What is the need of all these quasi affirmations? And why does Amanda make the exact same quasi affirmations in her own diaries?

On 19 November Guede has another chat conversation on MS Messenger, this time with Giacomo. He explains to Giacomo what had happened that evening, and that neither Amanda nor Patrick are involved.

Why does he explicitly deny Amanda’s involvement in the murder? Could he be covering up for her, since she also hasn’t ever mentioned his name up to this date?

On the same chat session, Rudy describes the aggressor as an Italian of young age. When Giacomo asks if that person was Raffaele, his reply was “I don’t know, but I think so”. He repeated “I think so” several times as Giacomo kept asking him if he was sure that person was Raffaele.

Soon after, Giacomo and Rudy started a conversation via Skype, the online video phone system. This conversation was recorded, and made public.

A couple of parts are very important. First of all, Rudy puts a lot of emphasis on the money stolen, and on Meredith being upset with Amanda. Why would he be so insisting on this matter?

Rudy adds that “Amanda never mentioned the money issue, nor did Raffaele” implying that he somehow knows this information first-hand, since it had not ever been reported in the media up to that day.

Rudy then tells Giacomo that he went to the bathroom, and heard the doorbell ring and Meredith opening the front door. Rudy adds that “It could have been anyone “¦ it could have been Amanda”.

So again he explicitly mentions Amanda. Why would he say “It could have been Amanda”?

On that same conversation Guede reads a paragraph to Giacomo from a media article mentioning the laundry, the break-in and the undressing of the victim, Meredith.

Guede says “If all this really happened, it must have been done by Amanda or Raffaele… they have done it”. Giacomo asks “Why would they have done this”? And Guede replies “Because when I left she [Meredith] was dressed”.

Giacomo says “So they killed her while she was dressed”. And Guede says: “Yes, here it says that they [clothes] were washed in the washing machine, but that’s not true. She was dressed”. And then he explains to Giacomo how she was dressed and adds: “That means that they have washed them [Meredith’s clothes]”.

Then Giacomo asks “But why did they wash her clothes if she [Amanda] has nothing to do with this”, and Guede replies “What the hell do I know”. And finally Guede adds: ” “¦ then after, from what I read, someone came back, because when I left the window was not broken. That means that someone broke it, and it wasn’t me”.

Again, here we have Rudy Guede mentioning Amanda and Raffaele. Why would he mention their names, and assume that they staged the break-in, undressed the victim, and did some laundry?

On 20 November Raffaele writes “Today they finally caught the real killer of this incredible story. They found him in Germany. But at the moment I am not 100% tranquil because I fear that he might make up strange things”.

Why would Raffaele fear that the killer might fabricate some strange things?

On 20 November Rudy is arrested in Germany. He is interrogated for the first time, in Koblenz, where he repeats the same version he had given to Giacomo on the phone, except that he does not mention Amanda or Raffaele.

During his detention he writes a memorandum in which he describes the events of the night of the murder.

This document is of extreme importance, since this time he does mention Amanda again, this time with serious threats.

First, he includes “kind words” for Meredith

To see these written in a memorandum while denying his own role in her death and failure to save her seem simply repulsive. They seem about the lowest thing that a man with a minimum of decency could ever write.

He was undeniably there when she was killed, and according to the judges he participated to the murder. His story of using an I-Pod when going to the bathroom and not hearing things and then hearing things seem simple stupidity.

Second, Guede indicates that Amanda’s story of being at the house with Patrick is not true.

He knows that Patrick has been recently released. Why then does he ask “How could Amanda have slept in that place full of blood”? Also, why is he blaming Amanda for not calling the ambulance?

Also, Rudy knew that Amanda stated that she heard Meredith screaming. Why would he tell Giacomo on Skype that he heard “a scream so loud that it could have been heard from the street”?

Third, in his writings, Rudy asks Amanda for the reason for her account of Meredith being raped. “Meredith and I just talked that night” Rudy writes. Then he adds “Say the truth, what are you hiding”.

We see here another important statement that Guede is making. Why would he be upset that Amanda said that Meredith was raped? Also, why would he want to clarify the fact that with Meredith they “just talked”?

Guede sounds as if he’s extremely upset about Amanda’s story of rape, and about the accusation of a black man. To him all this must appear as if Amanda was giving clues to the prosecutor to look further into Guede as the possibly killer.

We should note that Amanda did make a partial retraction when she states that her story could have been an imagination of her mind. But she never fully retracted her story, or her accusation against a black man.

Guede knows that Amanda’s story is not just partially but totally untrue. For this reason he writes a harsh criticism of Amanda and asks her, in a threatening way, to talk and speak the truth.

Guede is also angry about what he read regarding the staged break-in, the undressing of the victim, and the laundry, and quite probably about the evidence left intact in the toilet.

To him, the sum of these events and statements by Amanda probably looked like a direct attempt now to accuse him of the murder. “You already knew who to blame” he asks.

And then in turn he blames Amanda for the killing. “Did you hate your friend so much to the point of killing her or wishing her death?”.

All this was written as early-on as 20 November 2007.

Raffaele is also mentioned by Guede in his prison diary. He writes: “that AF, AF, could have been his name?”. Rudy adds: “what the hell happened that night. Talk and say the truth. What are you hiding. If it wasn’t Raffaele with you that night, who was it?”.

So we can clearly see that the reciprocal accusations began long before March 2008. Much less than one month after the murder of Meredith, they were already threatening one another and accusing each other.

And there’s more.

On 23 November 2007 three days after Guede is arrested in Germany, Raffaele requests an appointment with the prosecutor because he wants to clarify his position.

Mignini sets the appointment for 6 December 2007.

On 3 December 2007 Walter Biscotti, Guede’s attorney, announces on the Porta a Porta show (the most popular television program in Italy) that his client has important revelations to make, and that he “saw the killer and might be able to identify him “¦ Rudy didn’t tell me his name “¦ on his return I will show him the pictures and I imagine that he will be able to recognize him”.

But hadn’t Rudy already seen Raffaele’s pictures on the media while in Germany? Didn’t Giacomo ask him if it was Raffaele, to which he responded “I don’t know but I think so”?

On 5 December 2007 Guede meets his father in Mannheim.

According to “Il Messaggero” and “Il Mattino”, Rudy is quoted as saying: “I want to return to Italy as soon as possible and tell everything I know. I want to indicate the murderer of Meredith. I saw him and I could recognize him. Someone else was with him”.

When journalists ask Rudy’s attorney if he has seen the photos of Raffaele, he responds that all this is a matter for the prosecutor.

On 6 December 2007 Raffaele is questioned by Mr. Mignini - but he exercises his right to remain silent! Although it was he that asked to be interrogated in order to “clarify his position”.

On 7 December 2007 Guede arrives in Italy and is interrogated by the prosecutor.

Everyone is expecting Rudy to announce the name of Raffaele, but he doesn’t. He never even mentions Amanda. Rudy’s attorney tells the journalists that his client “did not give out the name of the killer because there is no name to give”.

So why did Guede announced from Germany some “important revelations” and that he saw the killer and could identify him - and then he doesn’t?

Why did Raffaele ask to be interrogated and then, after Rudy’s threat, and the day before Guede’s arrival, he exercises the right to remain silent once he sits down, face to face, at his own request, with the prosecutor?

Walter Biscotti tells the prosecutor that any “possible procedural action of recognition will be subject to subsequent interrogation” (“eventuali attivita’ processuali di riconoscimento saranno oggetto di successivo interrogatorio”).

Does this mean that Rudy is reserving the right to indicate the killer sometime in the future?

During the trial, Mr. Biscotti specifically noted that the name of Amanda Knox was not brought up by Guede only late in the day, since during the interrogation of 7 December 2007 by the GIP (the judge for the preliminary hearings) the attorney had stated that his client would be “available to provide further clarifications” right then.

Only the working schedule of the prosecutor made the interrogation slide to March 2008. 

On 7 December 2007 Rudy Guede was interrogated by the GIP for seven hours, and he claimed his innocence. He explains his byzantine version of the events on the night, and he never mentions Amanda or Raffaele.

Guede says “I don’t know who the killer is and I cannot give a precise description because I was concentrating on looking at the knife”. Guede says that he heard two people talking outside the house, but he couldn’t even tell if those voices were of a male or a female.

In response to many other questions, his recurrent phrase was “I don’t remember”. He also explained his knowledge of Meredith’s missing money, which Rudy knew way before it became of public knowledge as he revealed in the conversation with Giacomo from Germany.

Amanda had previously said she had been at the house on the night of the murder, and she had never mentioned the name of Rudy, accusing instead another black man.

On 14 December 2007 Guede is heard by the Tribunale del Riesame.

He repeats that he didn’t see the aggressor because it was dark but that he could create an identikit. He confirms that two people were present, but doesn’t name Amanda or Raffaele.

The judge warns him that he must reveal the truth by telling the names of the people involved, but he refuses, saying that he never met Raffaele, and that he didn’t know Amanda had a boyfriend. 

The Tribunale rejected his plea of house arrests because he was not coming clean.

A few days after his return to Italy, Guede receives a visit in prison from his friend Giacomo. During the conversation, Guede tells him that his memory was improving and that he saw Amanda at the house.

We can again see therefore that Amanda is mentioned, way before March 2008.

Guede also adds that Amanda accused Lumumba because, most likely, the assailant told her that a black man was in the house. Guede tells Giacomo that he had never met Sollecito before.

This discussion in prison took place on 7 December 2007 though it was brought out at trial only much later, through Giacomo’s testimony.

On 25 January 2008 Sollecito’s attorneys allow him or make him to say “I don’t know Rudy Guede but I am ready for a face to face confrontation with him”.

Obviously it was just a bluff.

Raffaele never talked, was never cross-examined, and was always kept off the stand. All we know about his statements was either through his lawyers or his father.

My next report appears here.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire (Part 1 of 4)

Posted by Cesare Beccaria

Most people in Italy believe the two trials ended correctly because they have been exhaustively reported-to throughout.

Also they have been able to follow the machinations and the twists and turns of the three defendants and defenses in real time. And the court documents and transcripts are all issued in Italian, and some are officially posted on the Internet.

The media coverage in Italian in Italy exceeds the media coverage in English in the UK and USA by a factor of five or ten. And there have been a number of very highly rated and balanced TV talk-shows on the case, in the course of which the defenses were not able to muzzle or slant the discussions - even if they ever considered doing such a thing.

These TV talk-shows on the case have included the most prestigious of all such shows in Italy, Porta a Porta, which offered hours of discussion by all the legal players except for Amanda Knox’s team in December 2007, October 2008, February 2009, and December 2009.

The Porta a Porta discussions are at various points referred to here, and the images used here are from those shows.

This is a four-part analysis, based mostly on Italian-language sources, of the many twists and turns of each of the defendants (as they then were) and their defense teams when intent on giving themselves an edge while often slyly selling out the others.

This interplay has been evident almost as much between Knox and Sollecito and their teams as it has between either of them and Rudy Guede, though rather less hostile.

It is worth pointing out two things up-front. First, that this is still far from played-out, more twists and turns can be expected, and we still might see the complete flying-apart and separation of all three. And second, that public maneuvering like this by three people accused of a crime is REALLY unusual and there have been few real precedents. This behavior sure is not typical of innocent parties.

So to begin…

“Guede has kept quiet for as long as he could” said the Court of Appeal in its recent motivation report “because, given the deep connection of the events, accusing Amanda and Raffaele would have exposed him to their very probable retaliation”. (“Guede, finché ha potuto, ha taciuto, poiché, stante la profonda connessione degli eventi, accusare Amanda e Raffaele lo avrebbe esposto a più che probabili dichiarazioni ritorsive da parte di costoro”).

This phrase in boldface is extremely important in understanding the connection of the three actors to this horrible story.

Their attorneys have done an excellent job so far (the best they could) and will continue on appeal to try to convince the judges of their innocence, or at least for a substantial reduction of their sentence. Rudy Guede’s attorneys have already obtained what they needed. He will probably be out on parole in less than five years now.

The other defense have played a very delicate game in this trial. From the beginning, they could have asked for a finding of “preterintenzione” (a sort of non-intentional second-degree murder). But this would have forced their clients to admit the truth without the certainty of the judicial outcome. Hence they opted for the not-guilty plea.

Their first strategic action was in each case (RS and AK) to stop the damages that their clients were inflicting upon themselves with their statements.

The next strategic action was that of not appearing at the lab for the non-repetitive testing for the DNA, with the obvious intention (almost habitual in Italy) of refuting ex-post each and every forensic finding that could have been adverse to their client.

The third strategic action flowed from the major problem all the attorneys were facing in defending their own client: the risk of reciprocal retaliation. Like concentric circles, they all came to share a gray area that was tacitly considered off-limit for everyone else, like a haunted house that no one else dared to enter.

At first, this tacit accord was respected. But when various defense necessities emerged, the breaching of the accord began. The process was gradual but inexorable, leading to two brief but clear breaches: Guede’s explicit accusations against the other two in March 2008, and reiterated right after the disgraceful intrusion on the scene of Mario Alessi earlier this year.

This tactic was observed by the Appellate Court that heard Guede’s appeal. In their recent motivation report.

The judges reprehended all three offenders by stating that all three should have explained what had happened in that house on the night of the murder, “at least for a sense of human compassion toward the poor victim” and that instead they had “preferred to cram their statements (made on several occasions) with lies, reticence, half-truth, allusions, improbable occurrences and by more or less veiled reciprocal accusations”. (“Gli imputati hanno invece preferito infarcire le loro dichiarazioni, rese in diverse occasioni, di bugie, reticenze, retromarce, mezze verità , allusioni, prospettazioni inverosimili, accuse reciproche, più o meno velate”).

Rudy Guede was questioned in Koblenz, Germany, right after his arrest. He was also interrogated on December 7, 2007 and on March 26, 2008, and made spontaneous declarations on May 15, 2008.

At first he did not formally accuse anyone, and he remained very vague about his accomplices. He chose to go on trial first and so he had a slight advantage over the others.

Rudy Guede is undoubtedly a compulsive liar. He told his version of the events to perfectly fit his case, and adjusted his inconsistencies according to the changing development of events.

He first says Meredith was killed around 21:20 and then his attorneys made him change the time to 23:30. According to his absolutely improbable account, he met with Meredith at 21:00 and within TEN MINUTES they managed to talk about her mother’s health, go around the house looking for the missing money, had oral sex, and then suddenly had an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Then he puts his I-Pod on at high volume while doing his business in the bathroom of a girl he barely knew.

In this implausible story, Guede doesn’t explicitly name his accomplices. Amanda and Raffaele also told their fair share of lies, but at the beginning they didn’t directly accuse Guede either.

Things changed when the various attorneys started to slowly penetrate inside the off-limit zone.

Guede’s memory began to function as the lone-wolf theory was materializing. Apparently the volume of his I-Pod was not loud enough now to impede him from recognizing Amanda’s voice. His vision became clearer and he began to recognize her silhouette from the window and the identity of the aggressor.

The more Knox and Sollecito’s attorneys were elaborating their theory to reinforce their defensive strategy, the better Guede’s memory became. Every time allegations of the sole killer emerged, Guede’s attorneys were ready with their rounds of ammunitions, needed to keep the other attorneys at bay.

Now, if we take a closer look at the chronology of events, we can observe a possibility that has been largely overlooked but is of extreme importance. 

Maybe the staged break-in was not necessarily made with the intention specifically to frame Guede. (Judge Micheli actually advanced this notion, as Amanda and Raffaele most likely had no knowledge of Guede’s earlier break-in in Milan.).

And yet it is without doubt that some one person or several persons intentionally tried to mislead investigators and with a good degree of certainty these people took also part in the crime. And for obvious reasons Guede was not among them during the staging and the cleaning.

Let us now look more closely at the chronology of the events in order to understand why it is clear that Guede did not act alone. Also to see that he did mention Amanda and Raffaele way before the interrogation of March 2008. We can also observe how the three defendants have tried in various ways to accuse each other from the very beginning, through their voluntary statements and through their “prison diaries”.

It should be noted that it is highly unrealistic that lawyers let their clients write “prison diaries” without their consent, especially after all the lies and inconsistencies they have told to police and prosecutors until they took over. Those “prison diaries” sound anything but spontaneous.

Raffaele changed his versions of the events at least three times. At first he confirms Amanda’s original deposition. But then, under interrogation on 5 November he admits to having spoken rubbish in his previous statement, because, he claimed, Amanda convinced him of her version and he didn’t think of the inconsistencies. And that he went home alone around 9:00 PM, smoked a joint, ate and surfed the net, and finally Amanda returned at 1:00 AM.

Amanda then is told by police that Raffaele had just blown her alibi. But instead of refuting Raffaele’s statement, she immediately takes the opportunity to accuse Patrick Lumumba, adding that Raffaele was probably with her at the crime scene.

Let’s now look at Amanda’s statement given to police on 6 November 2007.

Amanda writes: “I know that Raffaele has placed evidence against me, saying I was not with him on the night of the murder “¦ there are things I remember and things that are confused “¦ what happened after I know does not match with what Raffaele was saying”. Amanda goes on to explain what happened at Raffaele’s house in a very confusing way and with many “perhaps”, I’m not sure” and “I don’t remember”.

She goes on to write: “my boyfriend has claimed that I have said things that I know are not true “¦ I never asked him to lie for me “¦ What I don’t understand is why Raffaele would lie about this. What does he have to hide? I don’t think he killed Meredith but I do think he is scared, like me. He walked into a situation that he has never had to be in, and perhaps he is trying to find a way out by disassociating himself with me”.

She adds: “I also know that the fact that I can’t fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele’s home during the time Meredith was murdered in incriminating”. Raffaele as well states that he cannot recall precisely what he did at his own house that evening.

Amanda remembers that she noticed blood on Raffaele’s hand, “but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish”. Amanda then asks: “is there any other evidence condemning Patrick or any other person. Who is the real murderer?”

A week later, when the knife was found, Amanda goes even further. She now wonders if Raffaele could have killed Meredith and then put the knife-handle in her hand while she was sleeping. “Was Meredith’s DNA on the knife?” Raffaele had asked “Maybe, because one time I accidently pricked her”.

“It’s impossible that Meredith’s DNA is on the knife”, says Amanda, “because she’s never been to Raffaele’s apartment. So unless Raffaele decided to get up after I fell asleep, grabbed said knife, went over to my house, used it to kill Meredith, came home, cleaned the blood off, rubbed my fingerprints all over it, put it away, tucked himself back into bed, and then pretended really well over the next few days, well, I just highly doubt all of that”.

Doesn’t all this sound like a reciprocal veiled accusation? Why would two people accused of murder, with exactly the same fate, write down their doubts about the innocence of their presumed accomplice? Why doesn’t Amanda mention Patrick or Rudy at all in her diary?

On 7 November 2007 Raffaele Sollecito begins writing his own diary. His most recurrent phrases are “I don’t remember”, “maybe I did this, maybe I did that”. The prosecutor has already reminded him that he has given three different versions of his story, in particular about Amanda. He is still not sure if Amanda left the house, and if she did he now doesn’t remember how long she was out for. “Why don’t they investigate on her”, he asks.

On 11 November 2007 Raffaele recalls that someone told him that on the morning of November 2 Amanda went home to take a shower and then went to a public laundry with some Argentinean guy and he put a pair of blue Nikes in the washing machine.

“All this makes me totally lose faith in Amanda, after she keeps on lying”, Raffaele writes. Adding that “I know little of her, but although I don’t think she’s capable of killing someone she could be capable of lying in order to hide the fact that she has relations with [hangs out with] disreputable people”.

We note here Raffaele saying: “I don’t think she’s capable of killing someone”, while a few days before Amanda wrote: “I don’t think he killed Meredith”. Why would they both have the need to make such conjectures? It is very unlikely (if not impossible) that lawyers would allow them to make any written statements, including diaries, without their consent.

Raffaele goes on to write: “I worry about two things: if Amanda that night remained with me all night, we might (although that is a very remote hypothesis) have made love all evening and all night, stopping only to eat. That would be a mess because there would be no server connections during those hours.” (How can a twenty-three years old boy not remember if he made love “all evening and night”?). Four days earlier Amanda wrote: “perhaps I made love to Raffaele. In fact, I think I did make love with him”.

Raffaele’s second worry is that “Amanda could have stolen my knife and gave it to the son of a bitch that killed Meredith, although even this hypothesis sounds like science fiction, but possible, therefore I am not at ease.”

Amanda writes in her diary that the encounter in prison with a nun made her memory function all of a sudden.

She says: “In my cell I was waiting for an answer to come to my head when a sister arrived at my door. She told me to be patient because God knows everything and would help me remember the answer “¦ and then it hit me. Everything came back to me like a flood one detail after the other “¦ I cried, I was so happy. I wrote everything I could remember and an explanation for my confusion previously “¦ Police think that I’m involved “¦ But now at least I know it’s not true. I remember what I did that night and there’s no way that they can prove that I was there, in Meredith’s room”.

“They really think I’m involved and its sad, because it means they still have no idea what happened. They really don’t know who killed my friend”. Then she continues to ask herself why Raffaele is lying, what is he afraid of.

This reciprocal accusation of lying is also repeated. We will see that in his diary Rudy also accuses Amanda of lying. Why do they constantly accuse each other of lying? And why do they also insist on the recurrent phrase: “what are you hiding”?

On 12 November 2007 Raffaele gets 90% of his memory back.

He says: “I am 90% sure that on my second declaration I said rubbish”, and that his first version (that Amanda was with him) is the right version. It should be noted that in his second police interview he said the exact contrary, stating that his claim that Amanda was with him was rubbish.

Now Raffaele changes his story again and adds: “the fact that Amanda induced me to tell her version is rubbish “¦ I’m realizing that probably Amanda was with me all night, without ever leaving. And I am certainly not the one that lies in order to help the investigations and put everyone in trouble. On the contrary, it would be fabulous if Amanda hasn’t done anything”.

The memory loss claim now surfaces. Raffaele adds: “I realize that if we all ended up in jail is also my fault regarding the facts of that evening and also because me and Amanda smoked many joints.” “I lived in weightlessness an event that I could not believe it could have been real”. Raffaele is basically saying that it’s also his fault if he cannot remember what happened that night. As we have seen, Amanda wrote something similar when she acknowledge that her lack of memory could be “incriminating”.

Not only Raffaele, but also Amanda and Rudy have this mysterious amnesia on the events of that evening. All three of them don’t remember well. All imagine that certain things happened “¦ but maybe not. No one is able to recall even the most impossible things to forget (was it Raffaele the aggressor with the knife? Was Amanda home with Raffaele? Was Amanda at the cottage with Lumumba? Was Raffaele with her? Did they really make love all night?).

My next report appears here.

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

From The Book Darkness Descending: The Insights On Rudy Guede

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above and just below: Abidjan, the very attractive West African city where Rudy Guede was born and where he lived until he was five.

Darkness Descending includes this well-researched and revealing portrait below of Rudy Guede and the two traumatic experiences that really threw him: his moving in with the Caporali family, and the collapse of the restaurant in northern Italy which briefly employed him.

No claims here about Rudy Guede being a drifter or drug-dealer or dangerous knife-wielder or petty criminal.

None of those things are confirmed by the record or the Micheli report, and few or none in Perugia or Italy generally seem to believe Rudy Guede was the sole perpetrator or even the main perpetrator of Meredith’s death. 

(Above: the downtown of Abidjan, the economic and former political capital of the Ivory Coast)


From Darkness Descending by Paul Russell and Graham Johnson (Pocket Books) pages 292 to 296

Unlike Amanda and Raffaele, the background of Rudy Hermann Guede seemed to inspire a degree of sympathy in readers and viewers.

At least once the undercurrents of reactionary racism had run its course and readers were able to identify with Guede the individual.

Guede had been dragged up a virtual orphan. He seemed to be luckless, directionless, prone to following others into trouble, his carers said. He’d never had a paternal figure to look up to or guide him.

That, and the fact that once he’d been caught he seemed to be at least trying to tell the truth about his involvement with Meredith, gave him a certain credibility.

He was often given a fair hearing in the papers for not trying to evade guilt by changing his story. Editors and readers seemed to appreciate that he had not relied on high-powered family connections to duck out of one of the most tragic cases that had ever come before them.

(From Piazza Italia at the south end of the walled city - Rudy Guede first lived off there to the south-east)

Guede came to Italy in 1992, when he was five years old. His father Roger had emigrated from the Ivory Coast a few years before at a time when the Italian economy needed new manpower to fuel the country’s post-industrial boom…

Roger Guede had trained as a teacher in the former capital city of the Ivory Coast, Abidjan, where his wife still lived with little Rudy, but in Italy he found work as a bricklayer.

Life was hard because of exploitation, denial of workers’ basic rights and rampant illegal labour.

After five years he was granted a regular resident’s permit and returned to Abidjan to his wife, to see if he could take the young Rudy back to Italy with him. She agreed that in Italy he would have a chance of a better life.

Roger and Rudy found a flat in the shabby low-lying suburb of Perugia called Ponte San Giovanni. The neighbourhood was not at the top of the hill, with its wide vistas, ancient buildings and air of academia.

Roger’s life had no room for aspiration or fanciful gap-year adventures. He settled for a seedy new-build on the valley floor near the railway station. An unhealthy stream meandered through the projects like a sewer.

Still, it was better than the shanty town where Rudy’s mother was eking out a bare existence.

[Shots here and just below of Ponte San Giovanni, the town just to the east where Guede first lived]

New to immigration, Italy’s attitude to race relations has often been schizophrenic. Far-right extremists have been known to whip up dissension. But in Perugia, a small community like many that made up the backbone of Italian society, Roger and his son were welcomed.

His presence stimulated the lively cutiosity of Italians, not their hostility. The kindness of his neighbours and the willingness of social services to offer him childcare were proof of that, and he was free to hit the road to find building-site work.

During these absences Rudy was fostered by local families. One of his first full-time carers was a Mrs Mancini, who had been his maths teacher at school. She never lost interest in him and was to be like a second mother.

Rudy also struck up a lifelong friendship with her son Gabriele and another schoolmate, Giacomo Benedetti. The fabric of a closeknit Italian working-class community felt like a protective cloak and Rudy thrived.

His teachers and foster families all say that he was a quiet child, well behaved and responsible. He had moments of daydreaming stupidity, but no more than other kids.

He was good at basketball - tall, athletic and serious. The local professional basketball team was sponsored by one of Italy’s most successful companies, Liomatic, who manufactured coffee dispensers - a link that would later change the course of his life.

One day, Rudy’s dad went home to Abidjan to renew his passport, but civil war broke out when he was in the country and instead of spending two weeks away from his son he was trapped for six months, as strife raged in the Ivory Coast.

Back in Italy, the social services stepped in with a view to formalizing Rudy’s foster status and finding a long-term home for him.

Rudy was unhappy but he coped with the loneliness and uncertainty with admirable courage. He didn’t complain. And he was soon rewarded. Astonishingly, he was catapulted into the heart of one of Italy’s richest families.

[Another shot of Ponte San Giovanni, where Guede in his early days apparently lived happily]

His change of fortune was like something out of the plot of the musical Annie. Rudy had met one of the Caporali sons at basketball. Now the family wanted to officially take him in as one of their own. He never lived with Roger again.

The change wasn’t smooth. Rudy found it difficult to adapt. When he moved out of Ponte San Giovanni, he lost touch with many of his old friends, which he found particularly hard.

They had been the bedrock in what had so far been a rather unstable family life. He soon missed the informality, the lack of pressure to succeed and the maternal bonds that Italian families are famous for.

It wasn’t long before his new father figure, Paolo Caporali, was calling Rudy ‘an inveterate liar’. He skipped school and spent his time in front of the television or on PlayStation. Caporali’s wife and kids were much kinder in their view:

Rudy was introverted and shy. He lied to protect himself, but not maliciously to hurt others or gain personal advantage.

The move from a poor area to the home of the super-rich Caporali family had confused Rudy and, to some degree, had embarrassed him.

His basketball trainer Roberto Segolini said Rudy was friends with everyone and never missed a training session. Where he could prove his worth and show success to his new high-status family, Rudy thrived.

With such a chequered school career, Rudy would find it hard to find a job that suited him once he left school. But at the age of nineteen he went to stay with an aunt in Lecco and landed a job as a waiter in Pavia.

[Shot of Lecco north of Milan where at age 19 Rudy Guede moved to live with an aunt]

Finally, he had found his way. He was ecstatic. He was now going to prove that he could knuckle down and stand on his own two feet. He thought about learning the trade and one day opening a restaurant.

But as soon as he settled in, the rug was pulled from under him - his employer was arrested and the business folded.

To someone with a fragile view of himself, this chance setback took on a great and doom-laden significance. Rudy blamed himself and worried about how he would explain his bad luck to the Caporalis.

[Shot of Pavia south of Milan where Rudy Guede worked as a waiter till the restaurant collapsed]

Confidence shattered, he fled back to Perugia in shame. It was July 2007 and the beginning of the long summer that would end in tragedy.

The Caporalis were desperate to bolster his self-esteem. In August they found him a gardener’s job at a restaurant they owned out of town.

He stayed with the Mancinis, where the father and mother made sure he got up early to catch the bus. But the rot had set in; he wanted to live where the excitement was.

He was distracted by the scallywag antics of the lads in Perugia, who never seemed to work but always had money, and by the beautiful students from allover the world who were descending on the University to find digs and party.

Amanda and Meredith would be among them. Once he failed to go to work for a whole week, claiming he had flu and snivelling unconvincingly over the phone. He was sacked.

He lived off his savings until 2 November, when the murder and his doomed getaway would end any hopes he had of turning his life around.

[Shot of Mainz on the Rhine between Frankfurt and Bonn where Rudy Guede was captured]

Monday, May 03, 2010

From The Book Darkness Descending: The Insights On Knox And Sollecito

Posted by Peter Quennell

This is Hamburg above. And that is Berlin and its parliament (the Bundestag) below. 

Amanda Knox speaks German and she spent several months in these two cities, staying for some weeks in in Hamburg with her relatives, and several days in Berlin, before moving to Perugia to start her study period there.

Darkness Descending is the book on Meredith’s case by two British writers from which we excerpted on Meredith a few days ago.

As far as we know the writers did not visit Seattle, and their focus is more generally on Italy and to some extent the UK. But they did offer this brief take on Amanda Knox, and also one on Raffaele Sollecito.

**********

From Darkness Descending by Paul Russell and Graham Johnson (Pocket Books) pages 291 and 292

Meredith had enjoyed making the pop video with her University of Leeds friends, but Amanda’s summer job, before travelling around Europe and going to Perugia, had not been so successful.

A politically well-connected uncle in Hamburg had got her an internship to die for - a job working for a German MP at the Bundestag. Kindly Uncle Uwe also set Amanda up with a flat on the .outskirts of Berlin.

Astonishingly, two days later, his seemingly ungrateful niece walked out on the job without telling anyone, moaning that she had nothing to do and she wasn’t sure if she was getting paid. Again, money was a big feature in her thoughts.

She’d spent most of the time reading Harry Potter and showed no curiosity about how the parliament or the high-powered people in there worked. She ignored conversations about its history and architecture.

After walking out, she spent her time drinking wine in the local bars and reading more Harry Potter.

Two days later she left Berlin for Hamburg, where her uncle was waiting for her. He was furious - she had let him down.

It seems Amanda craved excitement on her terms, usually based on getting drunk and goofing around.

Her friends said she simply feared boredom like any young girl. She showed a healthy streak of youthful carelessness, they said, no worse or better than anyone else. A video posted on YouTube showed her drunkenly giggling in a friend’s kitchen after downing shots.

On campus, back in the US, Amanda had been fined for being drunk and disorderly at a party held in a fellow student’s house. During the incident she had also insulted the police.

However, her defenders gave another version, portraying a magnanimous Amanda. They said that in fact she was courageously fronting up for her underage friends, who were in no state to talk to the police; she was the only one sober enough to handle the situation.

A big plus in her character assessment, they said, possibly displaying a sense of chivalry that would later get her into deeper trouble in Perugia.

Despite her college party lifestyle, there was no denying that Amanda was clever and that she could compartmentalize her life.

She made the Dean’s List, an elite commendation of the University of Washington reserved for the institution’s brightest students, and an honour that would ultimately qualify her for a prestigious and sought-after place on the study-abroad exchange programme.

If Amanda wanted something, she would go all out to get it, no messing around.

Raffaele Sollecito’s later years were quite different: he seemed to laze around and evade responsibility.

He posted pictures of himself on the internet wrapped in blood-covered bandages, brandishing a meat cleaver, and wrote a weird story to go with the images. In a blog he expressed satisfaction at once being lodged in the same hostel as the infamous ‘Monster of Foligno’, a murderer who slaughtered two youths in the 1990s.

And yet his new-found fascination with gory horror and violent comics would have surprised the friends he left behind at Licea Scientifico Einstein secondary school at Molfetta.

They said Raffaele suffered from excessive softness - his kickboxing instructor recalled that he even hesitated when kicking out, for fear of hurting the hardened expert.

***********

A few interesting insights there, though we could use more on Sollecito.  For most of it, this is a pretty good book, the weak part being the closing analysis of the evidence. Two small corrections.

• The house where the notorious rock-throwing party took place was where Knox herself was living at the time. See here.


• Knox was not on an official University of Washington study-abroad program, as the university has rather anxiously tried to make plain. See here.

If Knox had indeed been on a proper study-abroad program - something many caring parents actually insist upon - her behavior might have been more restrained. She may not have moved in with Sollecito for one thing.

She may not have hit the drugs so hard. And she would not have run so desperately short of money, just when Patrick was apparently about to hire Meredith to replace her. No monthly checks were arriving from Seattle. 

Maybe the second correction is not such a small one.

In fact, it is a pity that no writers have really explored all of this - there is, if anything, a surfeit of motives in this case, and the writers might be able to narrow them down.

Although he went to highschool in Molfetta (bottom shot here) and the book is correct on that, Raffaele Sollecito actually comes from Giovinazzo which is ten minutes drive south along the coast.

Both are north of Bari, where his father practices medicine.   

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Amazon Reviewers Of New Dempsey Book Don’t Seem Universally Impressed

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the Amazon customer reviews - there are nine reviews right now.

Oddly, the several reviewers that rate the book five stars are all writing their very first Amazon review - and their.language reads suspiciously similar.

In contrast, the reviewers that rate the book only one star seem to be genuine enough - all of them have a previous track-record of Amazon reviews.

So perhaps we could quote from a couple.

*********

By Amazon reviewer Norbert

Public Relations Spin by a Knox Family Acquaintance

Friends and family may appreciate this book for its sympathetic portrayal of convicted killers Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. Unfortunately, Ms. Dempsey’s bias is so obvious that she lacks all credibility.

Readers interested in truth and justice would be wasting their time here; this book is 100% spin. It constructs a kind of alternate fairy tale universe in which Knox and Sollecito are innocents abroad ... in a “holiday mood” on the morning after the murder.

This imaginary place is full of Italian stereotypes: Raffaele’s proud and loving parents, the bumbling & malevolent police, the paparazzi, the courtroom crucifix, and a demented prosecutor.

Ms. Dempsey’s between-the-lines message: the black guy did it!

Candace Dempsey is a Seattle-based food & travel writer who happens to be acquainted with the Seattle-based Amanda Knox clan. She is essentially a member the Knox defense team. And she’s moved way beyond her pay grade.

With a superficial knowledge of Italian and one or two visits to Perugia, she pretends to be a competent crime reporter.

The intention of the book (aside the profit motive) is to portray Knox as charming innocent abroad - while ignoring or distorting the mountain of evidence and testimony that led to a unanimous first degree murder conviction by an Italian jury on December 4, 2009.

Essentially “Team Knox” is trying to do for Amanda Knox what F. Lee Bailey and Johnnie Cochran did for O. J. Simpson.

*********

By Amazon reviewer Retired Farmer

Blatantly Biased, Shallow, and Inaccurate Version of Events

This book is the third one I have read on the Knox Case, and by far the worst.

The Seattle based author is apparently convinced of Ms Knox’s innocence and makes every effort in this book (and in her Seattle newspaper blog) to bring all readers to the same conclusion.

She does so by deliberately overlooking… irrefutable, obvious facts to the contrary .

Many have reported that Seattle based Ms Dempsey’s Seattle newspaper blog, and now her book pretty much totally conforsm to the media briefings and talking points of the large Seattle based public relations firm that the Knox family employed to publicly paint a favorable impression of Ms Knox and to promote a belief in her innocence here in the US.

This firm tightly controls access to the Knox Family, and very selectively allows very few approved spokespersons to speak with authors and reporters in the US media that the PR Firm works in.

Ms Dempsey apparently believes few of her readers are aware of the PR Firm and their self described ‘sometimes unorthodox’ methods.  I say this because she promotes herself and her book by bragging about this Family access.

In fact, many have observed that she has sadly and shamelessly traded her objectivity for this Knox family access.

My suggestion to interested readers is to now obtain a good translation of the Motivations Report written by the Judges.

You will see for yourself the true reasons that Amanda Knox has been unanimously convicted of this horrific murder, as well as the innumerable inaccuracies and blatant bias in Ms Dempsey’s shallow, self serving, erroneous, dry and dreary version of these events.

Finally, IMHO, the PR Firm, their minions and some Seattle zealots have grossly distorted book reviews, ratings, and comments on this site, as well as engaging in some sad school yard name calling.

*********

By Amazon reviewer M C Rogers

Author is a friend of the Knox/Mellas family

Potential readers of this “story” would be well-advised that Ms. Dempsey is a friend of the Knox/Mellas family and approved by the PR firm hired by the Knox/Mellas family. This is hardly an unbiased piece of work.

Throughout the book, self-proclaimed feminist Dempsey refers to Knox and Meredith Kercher as “girls”.

She does her best to portray the victim, Meredith Kercher, as a stuck-up prude, and Ms. Dempsey paints Ms. Kercher’s British friends with the same brush, instead asking us to believe that Amanda Knox and her family somehow knew Ms. Kercher better than even her friends did.

Ms. Dempsey, while all throughout her blog on the subject, decries the tabloids and their treatment of the case, uses quotes from the Daily Mail to make what she must consider overwhelming proof of the family’s PR missive.

Readers have the right to know Ms. Dempsey’s ties to the family of Amanda Knox. For her to not make this connection known is deceptive and portrays Ms. Dempsey’ attempt at serious journalism in a very negative light.

Don’t waste your money. Take that $7.99 and make a donation to an organization that works hard for women who are victims of rape and abuse. RAINN is a good one, as is your local women’s shelter.

Dempsey is a woman who followed the victim’s family around, taking sneaky photographs of them.

Shameless.

Seattle Parks Commissioner Who Angered Perugia Resigns - Amid Plenty Of Anger In Seattle

Posted by Peter Quennell

So the controversial Seattle parks commissioner Tim Gallagher bites the dust.

He seems to have shot himself in, well, three feet.

• He espoused a clearcut-and-rebuild policy (video above) when Seattelites are increasingly seeing the natural beauty of their city as a resource


• He made an expensive trip to Australia to look at some parks just when Seattle’s park system is financially tanking - very likely because of his style of management.


• He was very quick to blink and put a heavy-handed stop to the naming of a small city park “Perugia Park” when Seattle’s (very small) anti-Perugia faction howled.

Mr Gallagher’s last action was widely noted in Perugia (Seatle’s twin city), the Mayor of Perugia made an angry statement, and a Facebook-based movement was created, to lobby to end the twin-city arrangement.

Comments about his short reign as parks commissioner on the West Seattle Blog (scroll down) seem almost uniformly negative.

The Mayor and many others he irritated in Perugia might be pleased to take note…

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, April 16, 2010

Italian Media Reporting Impartially On Prosecution Appeal Filed For Increased Sentences

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: Prosecutor Manuela Comodi.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

La Stampa Headline Reads: “This Is The Way That Amanda Subjugated America”

Posted by Tiziano

There’s an excellent review in Italian of “Baby Face” by Glauco Maggi in Italay’s most influential paper, La Stampa. This is the translation.

The Accusation of an American Journalist: the Family Is Spreading Misinformation.

The dense wall of the believers in her innocence, which sprung up in the USA in defence of Amanda Knox, 20 years old, during the trial in Perugia for the murder of her English friend, Meredith Kercher, 22 years old, has been subjected to the first blow from the American side. 

In the book Angel Face (Angel Face, the true story of the student killer Amanda Knox), the journalist from Newsweek, Barbie Latza Nadeau, accuses the family of the girl, condemned to 26 years for the voluntary murder, of having created “an innocentista media machine” which has tried to cancel out the heavy body of clues which built up during the trial.

“They have simply chosen to ignore the facts which were coming to light in Italy”, writes Nadeau, who has been the Rome correspondent for Newsweek and other American newspapers since 1996, from the site of the Daily Beast to major television networks (CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN). 

The accusations of the journalist are based on her direct experience as a witness, in Italy, of the conduct of the American media.  According to Nadeau, access to sources close to Amanda depended on the feelings expressed by the correspondents: the family, essentially, cooperated only with the believers in Amanda’s innocence, to the extent of the payment of travel expenses in exchange for exclusive interviews. 

An example of the climate created by the Knox family is the affair of lawyer Joe Tacopina.  Having arrived in Perugia as a “legal expert” for the ABC TV channel, at first he played the role of an unofficial of the defender of the interests of the Knoxes.  However, when he confided to Nadeau that he could not declare himself to be 100% sure of Amanda’s innocence, having studied the trial documentation, he was excluded from the family circle, which from that moment curled up like a porcupine and actively operated so that their own version would be the only one to reach the USA.

From the moment of the arrest, Nadeau writes, “Amanda and Raffaele were a pushover for the sales of Italian newspapers and of the English tabloids.  The local press reported the gossip of the lawyers and the magistrates to liven up the crime story and very soon labelled Amanda as Angel Face, encouraging a morbid fascination. 

The British newspapers, ardent in the defence of the English victim’s honour, dug into the details which Amanda had inadvertently put on the Internet, starting from her name on MySpace, Foxy Knoxy.  Phone calls to teachers and friends in Seattle provided the description of a studious, intelligent and athletic young girl.  But the social networking sites told another story.”

Nadeau unveils the video on YouTube of Amanda drunk at a party, but she strikes the most serious blow to “good girl” when she adds: “Other appearances suggest a more enigmatic and a darker personality.  Baby Brother, a film which Amanda had put
on MySpace, is not totally disturbing but contains a rather irresponsible reference to rape.” 

The investigators took the stories which emerged about her past “as proof that she had at least daydreamed about it, that this was in her mind.  Add drugs and alcohol, was their reasoning, and not much was needed for these hidden thoughts would lead to action.  The picture was being formed of a shrew who was in thrall of dark impulses and the family struggled to control the storm.”  For those who did not accept the reconstructions of the Knoxes as pure gold there was ostracism: 

“The TV crews learnt to be careful in letting themselves be seen with people like me, the family would have cut them out of the circle.”

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

The Transcript Of Today’s Online Chat Session With Barbie Nadeau Of The Daily Beast

Posted by Peter Quennell

Lucas Wittmann:
Hi, I’m the Books Editor at The Daily Beast and I’m delighted to welcome Barbie Latza Nadeau and our readers to discuss her new book, Angel Face…

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I’m Barbie Latza Nadeau. Welcome.

[Comment From kcolorado: ]
how was your sense of who she is affected by seeing her in court everyday? Have you spoken with her directly?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Seeing Amanda Knox walk into the courtroom every day was very important in understanding how she interacted with her lawyers and her family, and in understanding how the jury perceived her. Amanda has not yet given any one-on-one interviews so no, I have not spoken to her directly.

Lucas Wittmann:
Just so you know we see your comments and will publish them live as Barbie is ready so please keep them coming…

[Comment From Kevad: ]
You have also stated in tv coverage that “we still do not really know what happened in that room”, is that how you still feel?

[Comment From stint: ]
Great job with book, Barbie. I really enjoyed it.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Yes, after over two years following this case, none of us know exactly what happened in Meredith’s bedroom that fateful night. No one has confessed to the crime, so until someone does, we will not have a clear understanding of the exact dynamic of the murder.

[Comment From Guest: ]
How do you think your journalism during the trial affected its outcome?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Thank you. I’m glad you liked the book. My hope is that it provides perspective of this complex case.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I don’t think that any of us who covered this trial as journalists had a direct impact on the jury’s decision. We were not in the deliberation room.

[Comment From Wade: ]
Why in your opinion did the seattle media frame the events as they did

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that many of my colleagues in the Seattle market did the best job they could with the information they had. Their primary source was the Knox family, so their coverage was affected by that. When members of the Seattle press came to Perugia, they did not speak Italian and had a difficult time following the court sessions because there was no translator. Those of us who live and work here in Italy often helped the American press as best we could.

[Comment From stint: ]
Regarding earlier comment. Since Knox Family PR firm *very* closely controls any and all media contact with themselves, and they have reportedly blackballed any reporters even seen *near* you, do you really think you might interview Amanda in the future

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I have hope that Amanda might want someone objective who understands Italian to conduct an interview with her at some point down the road. But because I have been skeptical, I am fairly sure I am not high on the list of interview candidates.

[Comment From mnh12121887:
But why did the American media take the Knox family version so much on face value without even trying to look deeper?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that the economic crisis has played a role. Many bureaus have been closed across Europe and it would have been a major expense to send a correspondent to Italy for such a long trial. I think that had there been a larger Italian based press corp it would have made a difference in coverage.

Lucas Wittmann:
Let’s explore now the facts of the case.

[Comment From Guest: ]
Do you believe Knox’s assertion that she was abused during her final interrogation?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think it depends how you define “abused.” If you mean to ask if she was flicked on the back of the head (which is a cultural norm here in schools and in criminal investigations), then yes, that very likely happened. If you mean to ask if she was abused in the way the American police have been caught on CCTV abusing detainees, then no, I do not think she was abused.

[Comment From Guest: ]
You seem to have made some strange claims in your book - about AK and RS actually NOT remembering what happened. How on earth did you reach that conclusion?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I gave my hypothesis about the crime based on sitting through 11 months of a trial. I believe that if Amanda and Raf would have remembered exactly what happened, whether they were involved or not, their explanation of the evening of November 1 would have been more clear. A lie is often very black and white. Their confused responses seemed to me to be more consistent with a hazy memory or no memory at all.

[Comment From hattie: ]
I still believe that Amanda Knox is innocent, and I read your book to get another point of book. Thank you for that. My concern is that there is so much more DNA evidence against Rudy. How was Amanda able to clean up and not leave more DNA evidence in Meredith’s room?

Lucas Wittmann:
Don’t have Angel Face yet? Order it now as an e-book or paperback: http://bit.ly/chDjIX

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think it is important to remember that the same scientific police and laboratories tested the DNA for all three suspects. That is to say, if the DNA matches Rudy and is accepted, then the DNA that matches the other two should also be accepted. How she may have left so little DNA if she was actually in the room is very hard to square. Whether some of the 14 unidentified fingerprints belong to her is a big question in this case. There were very few fingerprints on any flat surfaces belonging to Rudy either. Is it possible to pick and choose how to clean up DNA? Maybe not, but it is possible to wipe up fingerprints and footprints that you know are your own.

[Comment From Guest: ]
If they didn’t remember then why did they do the clean up? They clearly knew they had ‘something’ to hide!

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
That is a very good question. Perhaps waking up in a house with a dead body makes one act irrationally. Perhaps because they might not have remembered what they did the night before, they panicked. We do not know, but that is one question I will ask Amanda if I ever get a chance.

[Comment From Guest: ]
After 11 months viewing the trial, do you believe that Amanda joined in any sort of sex game with Meredith? It seems that Amanda did, bt then went to her room BEFORE and DURING the murder.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
There is no forensic evidence that Amanda had sexual relations with Meredith. I have a hard time accepting that it started as a sex game. I believe that if they were involved it was because they could not stop themselves from an aggravated escalation of violence. In essence, they could not tell agony from ecstasy and did not realize that Meredith needed their help. Instead, they may have helped Rudy and that is when things got out of control.

[Comment From Lisa: ]
I see that some folks her responded to the question “Who Killed Meredith Kercher” with “Amanda and Raffaele” only. No Rudy. How could that be? Do you think journalism had anything to do with that?

Lucas Wittmann:
We’re going to wrap this up in 10 minutes so please contribute any final questions now.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that the fact that Rudy’s trial was sewn up before Amanda and Raffaele’s began is the reason many people separate them in this crime. But Rudy was convicted for his role in the murder, not as a lone assailant. His judge’s reasoning clearly states that he felt Rudy acted in tandem with Amanda and Raffaele.

[Comment From mhm12121887: ]
What is happening now—in Italy?

[Comment From Noel: ]
How do you see the appeal going?

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Right now lawyers for both Amanda and Raf are preparing their appeal briefs. Those will be filed within a few weeks and then the date will be set for the appeal hearing, likely in the fall.

[Comment From Kermit: ]
Hi Barbie. Your journalism has opened up transparency and debate from an Iron-Curtain situation of control in the American press. Where do you see each of the three convicted (pending appeal) murderers 10 and 20 years from now?

[Comment From stint: ]
Thanks so much for this opportunity, and again thanks for all your objective coverage in “Angel Face”.... great read.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that the appeal will result in a few years taken from the sentences of both Amanda and Raffaele.

[Comment From Guest: ]
hasn’t her real beauty complicated this hugely from day one?

[Comment From hattie: ]
Thank for an excellent book. I read it in one day, and it gave me a different side of the story. I hope that both pro- and anti-Amanda sides will take an opportunity to read this book.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that it is very likely that all three of the convicted murderers of Meredith Kercher will return home one day.

Lucas Wittmann:
Here is the link if you’d like to order the Angel Face e-book and paperback: http://bit.ly/chDjIX

[Comment From mhm12121887: ]
Thanks also for the book and for the “on the spot” reporting and objectivity

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that Amanda’s beauty has increased the interest in this case, but I do not think that it dictated the outcome.

[Comment From Patty: ]
Thanks for answering questions Barbie.

Lucas Wittmann:
Down to our final question…

[Comment From somealibi: ]
(For the end) Compliments on the presentation and technology with the poll-type questions

[Comment From Patty: ]
Do you think any of them will ever confess?

[Comment From Guest: ]
You’ve been a real heroine in this case Barbie. Well done for your objective reporting.

Lucas Wittmann:
Thanks for answering the polls!

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I think that one day we will have a confession, yes. But not while they are in prison.

Lucas Wittmann:
Wait…one more!

[Comment From Guest: ]
Can you give your reactions to the 2 op-ed pieces in the NYTimes (Seattle writere)?

[Comment From Guest Guest: ]
Can we have another session please????

Lucas Wittmann:
Re: another session. So many great comments and questions, we’ll keep it in mind.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
I was in Perugia when those op-ed pieces came out and they were not helpful to Amanda. The prosecutor was angry, the jury members were insulted and Amanda’s own lawyers were not happy. Op-ed pieces are by nature controversial, but they should be weighed to see whether they will impact the topic. That sort of journalism likely had more impact on this case than what anyone wrote with a Perugia dateline.

Lucas Wittmann:
Thanks everyone for participating!
And thanks Barbie for answering all these great questions.

[Comment From ricardoricardo: ]
which ‘op-ed’ pieces > do you have a link ?

Lucas Wittmann:
Here is the link: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/an-innocent-abroad/

[Comment From Guest: ]
Cheers Barbie! Will raise a glass to you tonight…

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Thank you. I want to also thank Andrea Vogt, of the Seattle P-I who was a voice of reason in Seattle during the trial based in Italy. The op-ed pieces are by Timothy Egan.

[Comment From Guest:]
Thank you. This is nice technology and nice pace. Could have been twice as long 😊

[Comment From somealibi: ]
Keep it going Barbie - thanks - we value an objective take

Lucas Wittmann:
Thanks again to everyone and we’ll definitely keep this in mind the next time.

[Comment From ricardo: ]
many thanks…

[Comment From Patty: ]
Thank you, and Andrea, for your coverage of the trial. Invaluable.

BARBIE LATZA NADEAU:
Thanks to everyone who sent question.

[Comment From Clander: ]
Ciao from Roma !! You ROCK Barbie !

The Daily Beast’s Online Poll: Clear Majority For All Three Having Been Involved

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger images]

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Claimed Guede Confidant Mario Alessi Has Been Moved Two Hours North To Parma Prison

Posted by Peter Quennell

Nice city, Parma. Famous for good food. Where the prosciutto hams come from.

The French singer on the video is Juliette Greco. The French generally love Italy, the fifth most visited country in the world (it is also the fifth largest industrial producer). Tourists from France and Germany constitute the largest national groups.

Not that he is likely to enjoy it very much. But it is reported that Mario Alessi has just been moved from the Viterbo prison north of Rome to the prison in Parma.

The newspaper website Viterbo Daily reports that this was a precautionary move by the Prisons Department, in the light of the bitter disagreement between Guede and Alessi as to whether Guede confided to Alessi that he had a companion along on the night Meredith died.

Alessi’s claim has been met in Italy with great scepticism, and it seems unlikely that the two ever even talked.  No-one else has made a similar claim. Those grasping at straws argued that Guede also confided in a priest and a nun, but they seem to have gone awol.

Alessi is serving 30 years and if it can be proven that he lied under oath in his testimony to prosecutors Mignini and Comodi, he could see his term extended by several years.

Our next post (a complex one) hopefully later today looks again at Rudy Guede’s role in the case.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Judges Report On Guede Appeal Outcomes Of 22 December Is Released

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

Apology over Meredith won term cut

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

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

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

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

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

Friday, March 19, 2010

Rome Panel On Meredith’s Case: Seems To Have Been Shallow, But Of No Comfort To Knox Apologists

Posted by Cesare Beccaria

[Above: IAF president Rocco Girlanda - a wannabe Italian David Marriott?]


The outrage that directly led to the creation of TJMK late in 2008 was the deliberate attempt to disappear Meredith and to replace her as the “real victim”.

Reversing that horrible trend and ensuring Meredith is revered, and at the end of the day granted her true justice, has always been our main mission. We have also worked to reverse the horrible sliming of Italy (a country Meredith loved and so looked forward to) and the officials and the trial process.

As far as we can see no English-language media have better explained the impressive Micheli Report and the impressive Italian system and the powerful evidence of guilt. Or for that matter lately shown Italy in such a positive light.

Ideally, if it had wanted to spread actual understanding, the Italian American Foundation Rome panel yesterday should have covered much of that same ground.

As far was we can see, it didn’t. And there seems to have been little mention of Meredith.

But at least the panelists seem to have come up with no new criticisms. Today Italy looks no worse, and Knox’s position looks no better. And the panel was inconclusive on what might have happened differently in the United States. (We reckon the outcome would have been identical but the sentences would have been Life.)

Andrea Vogt reports for the Seattle P-I on yesterday’s doings. Key excerpts below.

1) On the Italian American Foundation panel

The gathering was not so much an exercise in legal theorizing as one to smooth the hard feelings between Italy and the United States over the trial of one American college student. It’s a case that has spawned books, Websites and congressional involvement.

In fact, experts decided they couldn’t say what would have happened in an American trial.

“The only answer is, it is impossible to answer this question,” lawyer Anthony Sistilli told the audience, according to ANSA Italian wire services that covered the forum. “We do not want to retry the case. We want to help bridge the gap of understanding, which is our mission for this meeting.”...

“Trial outcomes are unpredictable. You really can’t guess what the outcome would be,” Arcabascio, who is co-director of the Florida Innocence Project, told the crowd. “But reasonable doubt is a standard of proof we use in both countries.”

Arcabascio also noted that sequestered juries are still used in the United States, but less and less common due to the high cost….

“No-one had any intention of bringing up criticisms,” said Rocco Girlanda, president of the U.S.-Italy Foundation told seattlepi.com. “Our scope was simply to compare the judicial systems and trial processes of Italy and the U.S.”

2) On Amanda Knox in prison

Girlanda ended the evening on a light note, saying that perhaps after the case’s expected appeal, the association would even have the chance to have a “special honored guest,” meaning Knox.

He also mentioned that the association is continuing to meet regularly with Knox in prison. Italy-USA Association officials said that prison authorities have called Knox’s behavior in Capanne “exemplary.”

Though she had requested work in the prison laundry, she has been given a less menial task with the prison commissary. Her job, according to foundation officials who meet with her, is to take orders from the various cellmates about what they want from the prison store. Inmates are able to buy items such as candy, cheese, soda or other small shopping items.

There are also some must-read paragraphs by Andrea Vogt on the very fishy commercial aspects of IAF president Rocco Girlanda’s role in the case. Is he seeking a PR contract?

Rocco Girlanda, who is also a parliamentarian and PR consultant, has been criticized before for raising false hopes for Knox apologists, and yesterday he did it again.

Andrea Vogt also reports on the state of Seattle-Perugia relations (with links to some Facebook pages), on the new books on the case, and on a new pro-Sollecito website, apparently created by a certain Chris Mellas.

What a surprise.

Low-traffic low-traction and generally highly inaccurate apologist websites, all with a nasty sneering tone, seem to be springing up like wildflowers these days.

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

Below: IAF president Rocco Girlanda at right with fellow parliamentarians outside Capanne Prison, after visiting Amanda Knox.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A New York Supreme Court Admits Low Copy Number DNA Testing As Valid

Posted by pat az

[above: the Queens New York Supreme Court]

Cross-posted with an added intro from my own website on Meredith’s case at the kind invitation of TJMK.

The large kitchen knife (image at bottom) found highly cleaned in Sollecito’s apartment was considered by the prosecution (and now by the judges) as the weapon used by Knox and Sollecito to kill Meredith.

Previous posts on the knife on TJMK can be found here. and here, and here, and here, and here, and finally here. 

The knife evidence has been persistently attacked by the defenses and their surrogates on these three fronts.

• First, that it didn’t match the fatal wound on Meredith - although, in fact, it did, perfectly.
• Second, that the DNA charts could match others - but, in fact, there were perfect matches at all points with the DNA of both Knox and Meredith.
• And third, that the sample of Meredith’s was too small for valid results using a new kind of testing which it was claimed would be invalid in US courts.

A ruling in the Queens County New York Supreme Court, released on Feb 8th 2010,  presents difficulties for Knox supporters using this third argument. It is this same type of DNA test that the Queens Supreme court issued its ruling on, a ruling that allowed results from the new DNA test to be admitted into the Queens trial.

The testing is performed on a very tiny amount of DNA material, and it is called Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA testing. The Queens ruling establishes that results from LCN DNA testing can be entered in as evidence, and is the first challenge to LCN DNA testing in a US court. 

While the Queens ruling is only applicable in that jurisdiction, it does establish precedence, and an argument for LCN DNA test results to be accepted at other trials in America.

The DNA test results presented at the Knox trial were key evidence that directly implicated Knox as participating in the murder. Meredith’s DNA was found via LCN DNA testing on a knife found in the apartment of Knox’s boyfriend, and Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of the knife through a regular DNA test.  Based on this, Knox was also found guilty of transferring a murder weapon, which added additional time onto her sentence.

The Queens ruling cites “Frye vs. the US” (1923) to determine criteria for acceptance; Frye “requires the proponent of new or novel scientific techniques to establish by sufficient evidence the general acceptance and reliability of the technique within the relevant scientific community”.

The Queens ruling is that the LCN DNA procedure passes this test, and actually isn’t even a “new or novel” technique; merely a refinement of a generally accepted technique. It further states that while the defense may argue critiques of LCN DNA testing (interpretation issues, transference issues), these arguments “do not affect the admissibility of the evidence for trial purposes pursuant to Frye”.

The Queens Supreme Court is one of 62 in the state of New York, and is similar to circuit courts elsewhere. The highest court in the state of New York is called the “Court of Appeals”.

References here and here. An abridged version of this post was first posted here.

 

Friday, March 12, 2010

Behind Mario Alessi’s Own Trial And Life Sentence: The Kidnap And Murder of A Baby Boy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above: Mario Alessi and his wife Antonella Conserva at trial in Parma, Sicily, in 2008.

A notorious and very cruel case. A masked Mario Alessi kidnapped a baby at gunpoint, and 20 minutes later beat him to death with a shovel. He received a life sentence and his wife Antonella 30 years.

Here on the People You’ll See In Hell website is one apparently quite accurate English-language report of their crime.

Tommaso Onofri was a beautiful baby who lived with his mum, dad and older brother in a country house near Parma, Italy. The evening of March 2nd, 2006, seemed a normal one at Onofri home. The family was having dinner, and 17-month-old Tommy was in his usual place for this time of day, sitting in his high chair.

Suddenly, two men with their faces covered by balaclava burst into the room. The family, terrified and thinking they were being robbed, wisely told the pair of bandits, “Take whatever you want.” But this was no robbery ““ no, it was much worse than that. To everyone’s shock and surprise, instead of taking money or jewels, one of the men pulled the baby out of the high chair,and the two intruders ran off with little Tommaso Onofri.

The Police and news media went mad about this case. The Onofris seemed like such a normal family, without secrets, and they were not rich. Nobody ever asked for a ransom. Little Tommy was an epileptic baby who needs daily medications, but days passed and there was no trace of the child or the kidnappers.

Investigators looked at every angle. They found traces of child pornography in Mr. Onofri’s computer, and for a short time police suspected him, but it turned out there was no evidence to support the theory that he was connected to the disappearance of his son.

Then, police checked on a man who worked in the Onofri house as a builder, some days before Tommy was kidnapped. His name was Mario Alessi and he’d done time for sexual assault; some years before, he raped a girl in front of her boyfriend.

But now he was a free man, and he had a wife and a son. Police interrogated him, and Mario Alessi became the first legitimate suspect. But again, they had no evidence and were forced to release him.

He went back home and did an interview with his wife for an Italian TV show (for money, I suppose). Video cameras went to their house, they showed what fine, upstanding people the Alessis were, how suspecting them was a huge mistake. “You shall not touch children!” said Alessi to millions of fellow Italians on TV.

Some days later, he, his wife, Antonella Conserva, and another builder who worked with Mario Alessi, Salvatore Raimondi, were arrested for the kidnapping of Tommaso Onofri. But where was little Tommy? Antonella ConservaIt seemed to everyone that now that the case was over, the baby should now be back in his mother’s arms.

Finally, in April of 2006, one month after the disappearance of little Tommy, Mario Alessi confessed. He led the police to a river not far from the baby’s country home. The police found the body of 17-month-old Tommaso Onofri buried in a shallow grave at the bank of the river, in high state of decomposition. It turns out he was murdered just 20 minutes after he was taken from his highchair.

Here’s how police say this crime took place. Mario Alessi and Salvatore Raimondi planned the kidnapping. They had decided to kidnap the baby because they did some work for the Onofris and mistakenly assumed they were rich. The original plan called for them to give the baby to Alessi’s wife, Antonella Conserva, to care for him, while they made arrangements to ransom Tommaso.

But something went terribly wrong: Alessi took the baby and ran off on a motorbike. First he heard police sirens closing in behind him, then he saw police cars on his road, and he started to get nervous. Little Tommy couldn’t stop crying and Alessi began to panic, so he went down to the river. Finally, fearing the police would hear the baby’s cries, Mario Alessi took a shovel and beat Tommaso Onofri to death. He buried the body in the sandy soil at the bank of the river.

Mario Alessi was condemned to life in prison. His accomplice, Salvatore Raimondi, got 20 years (he was the first to confess and he had chosen an abbreviated process), and Antonella Conserva was sentenced to 30 years”.

Amanda Knox and Raffele Sollecito: please meet your new best friend from hell…

Rudy Guede Now Counter-Claims From Prison That Knox And Sollecito Were Real Instigators

Posted by Tiziano

Please click here to read Rudy Guede’s hand-written letter from Viterbo Prison (above)  in Italian.

Below is our translation of the letter as posted by TGCom.

Rudy Guede was obviously provoked into putting his version of events out by the claim of Alessi (see video at bottom of this post) that he had a colleague with him on the night, and also by the finding of the judges in the Dispositivo that he was the prime instigator.

The complete text of the letter written by the Ivory Coast man.

Guede’s letter to News Mediaset.

Viterbo 07/03/2010

As usual in this beloved beautiful country of ours, there are many dishonest people given over to lying.  And there are likewise those who give these people a voice without the slightest questioning of their consciences, whether it’s worth the trouble of giving space to certain conjectures.

In recent days the only things I have heard have been blasphemous insinuations about me; baseless gossip which has done nothing other than harrying, hither and thither, TV news channels, even though for reasonable people it is the pure invention of a wicked mind.

It must be said that all I have heard in recent days in the media, about what has been falsely stated by this foul being by the name of Mario Alessi, whose conscience is nothing but stinking garbage, are purely and simply the ravings of a sick and twisted mind, his ravings are the dreamed-up, untrue declarations of a monster who sullied himself with a frightful murder in which he took the life of an angelic little human being, as is known throughout Italy. This fellow, now, is telling lies about things that I never said to him and (other things) that I never said, things that don’t exist either in this world or the next.

To his ““ or rather their- rotten declarations, it’s my intention to put in black and white that I never confided in this disgusting creature, since moreover that I’ve got nothing to confess or anything else (to say), and everything that I had to say I have already said to the judges and I will go on shouting and fighting while I am still alive, until the truth itself and justice itself prevail over such lies, and even less did I speak one to one or together with other people or with other inmates about my trial affairs, and if I had ever had something to say, don’t you believe that I would have talked about it with my lawyers?  Giving rise to and giving credit to what is a blasphemous statement made by a sick mind, to a monster who had no pity for a child.

With this latest scenario, which my lawyers, my family and I are now used to, from this latest person, the monster Alessi, I hope that Italians and the rest of the world realise that they are dealing with pigs, pigs which stink of the slime of falsehood, but which, not withstanding everything, go around showing their faces and suffocating people with their fetid lying.

Like their umpteenth scenario which does nothing more than give me the strength and the awareness to struggle more than ever, so that the truth that they want to hide is revealed for everyone to see.

As far as I’m concerned, (I have) the serenity and the calm of complete peace of mind, as a person who does not parade this unfair suffering, but who trusts in justice and in the good sense of Italians. 

And finally I wish that sooner or later the judges will recognise my complete non-involvement in what was the horrible murder of the splendid, magnificent girl who was Meredith Kercher, by Raffaelle Sollecito and Amanda Knox.

Guede Rudy

Below: Alessi’s statement at Viterbo Prison to Raffaele Sollecito’s defense team. Warning: this very self-serving statement by Alessi is graphic and offensive, as well as, in our view, almost certainly untrue. 

Rudy Guede will be interrogated on the claims in this statement today Friday by Mr Mignini and Ms Comodi at Viterbo Prison. There could be news coming out of this interrogation later today.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Jailhouse Snitch With “New Evidence” Doesn’t Seem To Be Widely Believed

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Andrea Vogt as usual has the best report. Key excerpts:

1) Claims by a fellow prisoner oif Rudy Guede

In a bizarre development Friday, attorneys for Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox’s former boyfriend, deposited a new piece of evidence in the slaying of British student Meredith Kercher—the deposition of a Sicilian bricklayer serving a life sentence in the same prison as Rudy Guede in Viterbo, Italy.

In the statement, deposited Friday and obtained by the seattlepi.com, the fellow convict claims Guede confided in him that Knox and Sollecito were innocent and that the murder was committed by a friend of Guede’s who had gone to Kercher’s house for a threesome.

Mario Alessi, 38, is currently serving a life sentence in connection with the brutal kidnapping and murder of Tommaso Onofri, a 2-year-old boy from Parma known as Tommy, whose high-profile disappearance and murder in 2006 shocked the nation….

Sollecito’s attorneys requested authorization from the Bologna Court of Appeals and sent their legal assistants to videotape Alessi’s statement in Viterbo, where he is detained in the same sex crimes section of the prison.

In the statement, Alessi claims three other prisoners can confirm his declarations. He said he wrote several letters to Sollecito’s attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, because he felt the need to tell her what he had heard from Guede during their open air breaks.

Buongiorno is a noted lawyer from Sicily who is also a parliamentarian and heads a governmental justice commission. On many occasions Guede said explicitly and clearly that Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were completely extraneous to this homicide, he said in the deposition.

Around the time of Guede’s appeal, Alessi claims Guede confided in him that the murder was actually committed by a friend of his, who had joined him at Kercher’s for a threesome, which she resisted. Alessi gives a detailed description of the scene as he claims was described to him by Guede: with Kercher getting wounded as he tried to get away from her knife-wielding attacker. While Guede tried to stem the bleeding, the friend said “we’d better finish her off or we’ll both rot in prison,” according to Alessi’s account.

The friend then stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and fled, leaving Guede to try to stop the bleeding, Alessi claims. Later, the two saw each other in the disco, where the friend gave Guede money to flee to Germany, Alessi claims he said. The name or identity of the friend Alessi said Guede was referring to was not given. Guede’s attorney, Walter Biscotti, drove to Viterbo on Saturday to speak with Guede, who emphatically denies the conversation ever took place.

2) Denials by Guede, his lawyers, and prison authorities

In the strongest terms possible, Rudy denied ever having talked to Alessi about these matters, Biscotti said. Alessi’s appeal of his life sentence was denied, so he is not credible. He is doing what those who are desperate do grab onto someone else in desperation. But Guede is bothered by the fact that he is always being dragged into the middle, Biscotti said.

Authorities who interrogated Alessi in the Onofri case said Saturday that they do not believe he can be considered reliable and had given misleading declarations in the past.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Sentencing Report:  The State Of The Report’s Distribution

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

Friday, March 05, 2010

Sentencing Report: Washington State Lawyer Bill Edelblute Offers An Opinion

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Sentencing Report: Richard Owen Has More Details In The Times

Posted by Peter Quennell

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Sentencing Report: Barbie Nadeau Quotes The Motive, Physical Evidence, And Alibis

Posted by Peter Quennell

Please click above for Barbie Nadeau’s full report on the Daily Beast website. Key excerpts.

1) The motive

“One can hypothesize that the bad decision came after the consumption of stupefying substances.”

But they disagreed on the motive. The prosecution lawyers began their case in January, 2009 by arguing that Kercher was killed during a sex game gone awry. By closing arguments, they had changed the theory slightly, trying to make the case that Knox resented her prissy British roommate and killed her in hatred. The jury rejected both theories, and the reasoning document declares that “the killing was carried out with no planning, no animosity and no revenge against the victim.

“The two young lovers, interested in each other and in the intellectual and cultural world around them, would not have made a conscious decision to kill Kercher. Instead, the judge wrote, they killed spontaneously under the influence of drugs. “One can hypothesize that the bad decision came after the consumption of stupefacente””stupefying substances””that Amanda verified in her testimony.”

As the jury saw it, Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast native who was convicted for his role in Kercher’s murder after a fast-track trial in 2008, came to the house the two girls shared in order to get high. Guede used the toilet, then became aroused when he saw Knox and Sollecito making out. He went to Kercher’s room and made sexual advances toward her. The reasoning refers to evidence presented at Knox’s trial that Guede was the type of guy that “bothered women” when he was under the influence.

Then, according to the reasoning, Kercher cried out for help, but instead of helping her, Knox and Sollecito, their judgment impaired, decided instead to help Guede. The killing was based on “sexual-erotic violence” but not with Knox as the mastermind. The jury felt that it was Guede who led that attack, and the other two, too high to know better, joined in.

2) The physical and forensic evidence

The judge’s reasoning also underscores what the jury believed to be the most important elements of the prosecution’s forensic case. They believed that a kitchen knife with Knox’s DNA on the handle and a trace of Kercher’s on the blade was the weapon that made the large fatal wound in Kercher’s neck. They also referred to Sollecito’s “knife habits,” surmising that, as an admitted collector of blades, he likely used his own knife to make the second wound. The jury agreed that Sollecito and Knox conspired to stage a break-in in another bedroom to cover their tracks.

And they attributed an unidentifiable bloody shoeprint found on the pillow under Kercher’s body to Knox, even though the prosecution only implied that it was compatible with a woman’s shoe size. A spot of Knox and Kercher’s mixed blood in one of the bedrooms, found using Luminol, and four additional spots in the small bathroom the girls shared also swayed the jurors.

“These were left when Amanda was cleaning her hands and feet of Kercher’s blood,” the judge wrote.

3) The Knox and Sollecito alibis

The judge also wrote emphatically about the lack of credible alibi. Although Knox and Sollecito claimed to be at his apartment all night, “Not one phone call, not one meeting, no computer activity or any other element proved that they stayed at that apartment.” And the judge was particularly hard on Knox for accusing Patrick Lumumba, an innocent man, of the murder “knowingly and deceivingly.”

Overall, however, it appears that the jury was sympathetic to the two suspects, but ultimately felt that they committed a crime for which they must pay a hefty price.

Sentencing Report: La Repubblica Has The Most Substantive Report So Far Today

Posted by ziaK

Click above for the Repubblica’s story in the original Italian.

This translation below is of this the longest report so far today in the Italian media, presumably by staff reporters in Perugia, although it is unsigned.

Verdict filed in Meredith crime: Murder arising from Guede’s sexual violence

PERUGIA - Four hundred and twenty-seven: This is how many pages it took for the judges of Perugia’s Court of Assizes to explain the sentence on the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia on 1 November 2007. For this crime carried out, the judges wrote, “without any planning, without any animosity or feeling of rancour”, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were sentenced to 26 and 25 years imprisonment, respectively. For the same crime, Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede was sentenced (to 30 years following a “fast-track” trial, subsequently reduced to 16 years in appeal) and is currently waiting to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. The Perugian judges wrote: “The motive, was of an erotic, sexually violent nature, which riginated in the evil choice made by Rudy, and elicited the active collaboration of Amanda and Raffaele.”

From Viterbo prison, where he is held, Rudy wrote a letter with an appeal: “to those who know, talk”. A request which appears to be addressed to the same Amanda and Raffaele (both - particularly the American student whom he has always claimedto know - pointed to by Rudy as having been present at the crime scent, ndr) who have always declared themselves to have no involvement in the affair.

Together, all the elements which emerged during the process “demonstrated a comprehensive and unified picture, without gaps and inconsistencies”, wrote the judges in the file signed by the Court President, Giancarlo Massei and by assessor judge Beatrice Cristiani. According to the College [as in the board of judges], the picture that emerges “has, as its necessary and strictly consequential outcome, the attribution of the hypothesized facts of the crime to both the accused.”

The measure furthermore asserts that Knox “freely accused Patrick Diya Lumumba of having killed Meredith, and so accused him with the full knowledge of the innocence of the same Lumumba”. The judges underlined that there had not been “any confirmation” that Amanda had been urged by the investigators to accuse Lumumba. For Perugia’s Court of Assizes, the objective aimed at by the American (who was also convicted for the crime of calumny with regard to the Congolese [sic] musician, ndr) was to “lead the investigators down the wrong path, far from that which could have led them to establish her own responsibility, and that of her boyfriend”. “Such behaviour is a choice”, wrote the Court, “and thus merely defensive: Amanda had a good relationship with Lumumba, by whom she had always been well treated, and therefore there could have been no motive for rancour, animosity, revenge which could have justified such a serious accusation.”

The murder of Meredith Kercher, it further reads, was carried out “without any planning, without the animosity or feeling of resentment towards the victim which in some ways can be seen as the preparation/predisposition to commiting a crime”. According to the board of judges, “the actions turn out to have been carried out as a result of purely coincidental events”.

In the judges’ report, they talk of “purely coincidental events which, when joined together with each other, created a situation which, in the combination of various factors, made possible these crimes to the detriment of Meredith: Amanda and Raffaele who suddenly found themselves without any commitments, meet Rudy Guede by chance (there is no trace of any appointment having been made), and find themselves together at the house on the via della Pergola on the very evening (between 1 and 2 November, ndr) that Meredith is there alone”. According to the judges, “even the behaviour towards Meredith - once the assault and the murder have been commited - which consisted in covering her lifeless body, shows a feeling of pity for the victim, refusal, and thus a sort of repentance for what has been done: refusal and repentance shown through such an act of pity.”

The judges attributed the material criminal act, that is, the sexual violence, to Rudy Guede, who was aided by Amanda and Raffaele, weakened by the drugs they had consumed. The judges wrote: “Amanda and Raffaele participated actively in the criminal actions carried out by Rudy with the aim of overcoming Meredith’s resistance, subjugating her will, and allowing Rudy to relieve his lustful urges.” The judges also wrote in their report: “The prospective of helping Rudy achieve his aim of subjugating Meredith in order to sexually abuse her may have appeared to be an exciting detail which, although unforeseen, should be tried”.

“The motive”, added the Perugian judges, “was therefore of an erotic, sexually violent nature, which originated in the evil choice made by Rudy, and elicited the active collaboration of Amanda and Raffaele. That such participation, active and violent, had also involved the current defendants as well as Rudy can be deduced from what has been observed in talking about the lesions suffered by Meredith, by the outcome of the genetic investigations, by the prints of bare feet found in various parts of the house.”

According to the judges, in this murder case, one of the tests, carried out by several people, is confirmed by Meredith’s physical strength, by the fact that she was conscious on the evening of the assault, and by her previous experience in the gym. “Meredith, when the violence began, was awake and dressed, and was not laying down on her bed.” Furthermore: “According to the analyses, the young woman had a slender and well-endowed physique, and was physically very strong, as was claimed by Meredith’s mother and sister. She had even done boxing”.

Judges’ Sentencing Report Released In Perugia And It Is 427 Pages Long

Posted by Peter Quennell

Judge Massei is seen above on live TV from the court on the night he announced the verdict and sentence.

The sentencing report is four times the length of the Micheli report a year ago which itself was very detailed. It was made available to the media today on paper by the court in Perugia.

First take in the Italian media is by TGCom.

The judges of the Court of Assizes of Perugia lodged the grounds for the condemnation of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox for the murder of Meredith. All the issues raised in the process, it says, “demonstrate a comprehensive and unified whole, without gaps and inconsistencies”...  The reasons for conviction of two defendants are contained in a voluminous file. It is 427 pages signed by the President of the Court Giancarlo Massei and assessor Beatrice Christians.

The motive is described in the report as essentially the thrill of the moment in helping Rudy with a sexual attack and while there was a predisposition there was no longer term intention.

Drugs are seen as having played a role.

Sollecito and Knox are apparently seen in the report as the knife wielders and one of them seems to have delivered the fatal blow.

We will be obtaining the report of course and arriving at our own English-language version in the next several weeks.

RIP poor Meredith. This has to be so tough on her family and her friends. We love this photo below. So trusting and so full of life.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

This Was Definitely Not A Close Or Indecisive Case - Reasonable Doubt Was In Fact Totally Eliminated

Posted by FinnMacCool

Trashing Of Hard Evidence Gets Worse

You can see from the posts directly below that the Knox-was-framed camp is, if anything, becoming more superficial with all those pesky facts rather than less.

Hard reality is that nobody has ever come within light-years of constructing an alternative scenario of the crime. Hard reality is that for Knox and Sollecito the totality of the facts, seen together as the judges and jury did, are extremely damning. Hard reality is that the verdicts were decisive and unanimous. And hard reality is that Judges Sentencing Report due out some time this week will apparently be quite definitive.

Please click here for more

Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Common View In Legal Circles: Knox Campaign Often Talks Legal Nonsense - As On Oprah

Posted by Peter Quennell

(1) This is the position lawyer Theodore Simon took in December 2008 on NBC Dateline as an impartial commentator then being straight with the American public.

“Theodore Simon thinks the prosecutors evidence made public so far is daunting. The defense could argue a faked robbery, and a moved body, and contamination, but eventually it could become like whack-a-mole, and all of their arguments could lose force.”

(2) This is the position Theodore Simon takes on the Oprah Winfrey show in February 2010 now that he is on the payroll and seemingly trying hard to mislead the American public. “The case makes no legal sense.”

The recent appointment of Theodore Simon as the US legal adviser to the free-Knox campaign met with some ridicule in Italy.

We certainly begin to see why.

Ted Simon’s performance on the Oprah Winfrey show sounded to us a lot like the hapless John Q Kelly. How grounded in either the very hard evidence or the very-different Italian law really is he?

The highly-respected Spokane lawyer Bill Edelblute (who we have quoted before) now weighs in forcefully on the New York Examiner website on the many claims made on the Oprah Winfrey show.

He pretty well reflects here what many other good lawyers are telling us: Don’t take any legal advice from that campaign - not if you actually want to win some…

Concerning the callous uncaring attitude to the Kerchers

Mr Edelblute starts by examining an arrogant and almost pathologically callous remark made by Curt Knox about the family of Meredith.

The parents of Amanda Knox lament the limited contact they now have with their daughter due to her imprisonment, while awaiting the upcoming appeal.  Only near the end of at least the ABC news account of the interview do they give any mention of the victim and the Kercher family. 

Here’s what they have to say in comparing their loss with that of the relatives of the murdered beautiful British student.  In commenting on the fact that they would not welcome a call from the Kerchers, Curt Knox explains it this way:

“We still have a chance with Amanda, and they don’t with their daughter,” he said, and that any such discussion might be best to take place only if the Kerchers are positive Amanda is innocent. “We still have a chance with Amanda, and they don’t with their daughter.”  No, they don’t have a chance with Meredith Kercher, because someone murdered her.  Amanda Knox has been convicted of that murder, subject to appeal.

Let’s see - - the victim’s parents are supposed to believe Amanda is innocent before they ever dare speak to the parents of Amanda Knox.  Guilty or innocent, the parents of Amanda Knox did not murder anyone, so why would they place conditions on what the Kerchers have to believe before ever speaking to them? 

Hint - the reaction of the Kerchers to the verdict was one of believing justice has been done, not of believing the trial went horribly wrong.  Don’t expect them to change their belief anytime soon. 

The Kerchers did not make Amanda Knox turn cartwheels, make out with her boyfriend a few feet from where the body was just discovered, or to change her story several times, or to say that she heard Meredith scream, and that a black individual was in the bedroom with Meredith.  It was scientifically proven with DNA that a black man, Rudy Guede, was in that room, and he said Meredith was screaming, just like Amanda said.  Who is at fault for all that?  The victim’s parents, or Amanda’s sisters?

The chances that the Kerchers feel they need to speak to anyone about the murder of their completely blameless daughter who has not been shown to have done anything other than act like a normal college student, with normal boundaries on her behavior, are nil.

The Kerchers have nothing to explain, but deserve more than an apology from anyone who has made the rights of their daughter a non-issue. And the parents of an accused also have nothing to explain, but when they decide to conduct a media campaign, do they set conditions for the parents of the victim?

Concerning Amanda Knox’s sisters

Bill Edelblute contends with a couple of the often-loose claims of Deanna Knox, well worth reading in the original, and then has a long commentary on the use of young children as PR puppets. He concludes “When comedy fundraisers for Knox don’t do the trick, try making a kid cry.”

Concerning Oprah’s performance

Next he assesses Oprah Winfrey as host - like us, he clearly believes Oprah was under-researched and under-briefed and fell into several traps. He commends her for not simply taking an “she’s innocent” stance and for asking a few blunt questions, concluding:

• She aired a written statement by Lyle Kercher, brother of victim Meredith Kercher, who apparently was invited to appear or speak live, but declined.  However, this was at the end of the segment when it probably belongs right smack in the middle. A photo of Meredith was flashed only very briefly.

But much of how Oprah handled the show he clearly did not like - becoming mushy over Amanda, misleading her audience on the sequestering of juries, and making an anti-Italy crack.                                                                                                                                                                                         

• Oprah made a unequivocal statement that the jury was not sequestered, as it would have been in America.  That is not true.  Even in murder cases, juries are not routinely sequestered throughout the trial.  It is possible a judge would grant such a request upon motion by attorneys.  It is possible a jury might have been sequestered during deliberations, but not during the trial, or both, or neither….
 
• When Edda Mellas told Oprah that Amanda said in a phone call to “tell Oprah I love her” Ms. Winfrey displayed what was clearly a flattered smile.  You are just told that someone who has been convicted of murder, albeit subject to appeal, likes you, and you react as though someone’s puppy has taken an immediate liking to you, or have received a much sought after complement.  We don’t know what Meredith Kercher thinks of Oprah or her show, as her life was taken and she is not here to groom and manipulate others, as is Amanda Knox even from a prison cell.  (Nor would Meredith need to do so.)
 
• For the banal statement, while turning to the audience: “If you want to be tried - you want it to be in the U.S.A.!”  Sure about that?  Amanda will get two levels of appeal as a matter of right in Italy.  In her home state of Washington, she would have only one. Oprah’s statement clearly implies the Italian system is not fair compared to that of the U.S., when there is no evidence of that, and implies there are more procedural protections, when there is no evidence of that.

We could have added this one: Oprah ignored the huge money-making operation and where all the money is going - for example, the very large sums that seem to be spent to mislead the American audiences.

Concerning Elizabeth Vargas

He then takes a look at the quality of the reporting of ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, who is notorious for repeatedly omitting key facts, muddling what the jury hears in court with what the media says outside, denigrating Italy and the Italian players, taking a very one-sided position (she is believed to have an exclusive deal with the PR campaign, one never made public on-air), and in general misinforming ABC’s viewers.

He judges her commentary as follows: “Ms. Vargas is loose with the facts.  There is almost no value of any kind in what Ms. Vargas had to offer, and negative value, when it comes to attacking a legal result with nothing to back it up, murdering the truth.” 

Concerning Theodore Simon

Bill Edelblute then has serious contention with many of the remarks of Ted Simon, again well worth reading in full.

On Knox pointing to a black man, Patrick Lumumba, now, as our post below underscores, replaced as the sole perp of choice by another black man, Rudy Guede.

Oprah asked him if the fact that Amanda “pointed at an innocent man” reflected on her integrity.  His answer: “Quite to the contrary.”  So it meant she had good integrity, being to the contrary of reflecting poorly upon it?  The tired old refrain that the police forced her to know that it was a black man in Meredith’s room does not mean Amanda was of good integrity, even if believed.  Simon’s answer just means his gun was cocked to say “to the contrary” to any evidence against Amanda.  Amanda would let an innocent man rot in prison, potentially for the 26 years she is doing, if he hadn’t been able to convince the court of his alibi. 

Yet it is “to the contrary” to suggest she has no integrity to allow Patrick to unjustly be deprived of his freedom, business, and reputation? Simon pointed out there had been no interpreter.  Knox didn’t say she had been misunderstood when accusing Lumumba.  She testified she made the false accusation only after being hit on the back of the head by a policewoman who she could not identify. What does lack of an interpreter have to do with the point of accusing an innocent man?  He was in prison two weeks.  Did Knox ever say during that time - no, he’s not involved, you’ve got an innocent man in prison?  His bar that employed Knox is now closed.  A product of Knox’s false accusations.

On Ted Simon on the physical evidence in the house.

Simon rattled off a list of things not found in the room where Meredith was found, such as Amanda’s hair, DNA, sweat, etc.  He did not mention that no murder weapon, which had to have once been in the room, was found in the room either. 

So is Meredith still alive? Simon did not mention the DNA of Amanda and the victim being on a knife where Amanda claimed at times she had spent the night of the murder.

He could have added - as our DNA experts here have often pointed out - that there was zero reason for Knox’s DNA to be in Meredith’s room if she was simply standing there with a knife, goading the men on and taunting Meredith. And that a bloody footprint of Knox’s size was found in the room, on a pillow. And that the mixed DNA of Knox and Meredith was found at five locations - and that mixed DNA had to have been deposited very recently.

And that it had to have been Knox who moved Meredith’s body - nobody else had a need to. And that Amanda Knox’s bedside lamp was found in Meredith’s locked room, presumably used in the cleaning up and rearranging of the crime scene - of which there is no doubt.

He continues on the physical evidence.

Simon does not identify any rule of law that says the sweat of the accused has to be found in the room where the the victim’s body is found.  Yet, he says the case “makes no legal sense.” 

This is a case in which there is an admission of being at the scene, of the DNA of the accused and a victim being on a knife, of knowledge that Meredith screamed while a black man was in a bedroom with Meredith. 

A black man was in a bedroom with Meredith, Rudy Guede, as shown by his DNA.  Guede, though denying murder, says he heard Meredith scream.  Knox said she screamed, before Guede was known by police to be involved.  How did she know what Guede knew?...

There is no legal element missing, it is more a question of the independent strength of certain pieces of evidence, all put together the jury was convinced, and that is their role in the system.

Hmmm. That seems to make a lot of legal sense.

And concerning Curt Knox and Edda Mellas

Finally Bill Edelblute questions many of the claims of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas of bias in the legal process and the Italian media. Please see his original post. He comments further on Curt Knox’s almost pathologically callous remark with regard to Meredith’s family.

While the comments above about the Kerchers could be construed as acknowledging their loss of their daughter, of having “no chance”, as worse than the situation of the Knoxes, I’m not so sure.  Because clearly Curt Knox then says that to speak to them, the Kerchers would have to acknowledge Amanda was innocent. 

That thinking is the product of a different kind of mind.  the Kerchers don’t have to do anything, it is not a question of why Curt Knox would not lower himself to talk to them, it is a question of why the Kerchers would bother.

In other words, why would Meredith’s family WANT to reach out to the family of a possible charming psychopath found guilty of killing their daughter, who still shows zero remorse? Especially when her family seem to display some chilling psychologies of their own.

Fine brave careful humane work by Bill Edelblute and the Examiner. which is helping to re-educate a huge component of the American public on the stark realities of the case.  Reader comments on the Examiner website and every other website we have looked at are running at least four or five to one against Oprah, Curt Knox, and Edda Mellas.

Something in their campaign must be broken. Perhaps they should just pack up and stay home.