Dr Mignini’s 360-Page Blockbuster Book Due To Be Released in One Month

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Dr Mignini is perhaps the best connected prosecutor in Italy and most popular on TV due to this case and also to his academic and anti-mafia and Monster of Florence work.

Today, in fact, he delivered a report on the MOF case to the anti-mafia taskforce of the lower house of Parliament, known as the Chamber of Deputies.

https://tinyurl.com/2p823een

Ii is typical of Italian mafia cases that the evidence is quietly assembled for years, and then suddenly - bam!! - three hundred people are in court. Sicily saw several of those. Milan had one.

Dr Mignini has been a major player in such processes at least twice: once leading up to a big trial in Perugia, and once leading up to the current VERY big trial in western Calabria.

https://tinyurl.com/bdz2e2ju

Meanwhile in Montreal Sollecito’s mafioso Uncle Rocco (RIP) has been in the news.

The trial had begun recently of alleged shooter Jonathan Massari, when suddenly for reasons unannounced a mistrial was declared.

https://tinyurl.com/rz2w62r6

https://tinyurl.com/d5vtrmbv

Stay tuned. The Canadians will find a way, perhaps with Italian help, to make the jurors at a new trial feel safe.

I wonder how much of Mignini’s 360 page book is autobiographical and how much of it will actually deal with the Kercher case. We shall see.

As to Guede’s self published kindle book in Italian entitled “A Reasonable Doubt” this is very short at 144 pages. Usually you get to see the first 10% as a preview but Kindle aren’t allowing this at the moment. I expect it to give some of his background and a description of his time in prison and so what he has to say about the case may be fairly limited, and that to be mostly a rehash of what he said in statements and testimony in court. I don’t expect any surprises.

GM is setting out to vindicate Italian justice and I dont get a sense that it is an autobiography. He has done lots of YouTubes in which he never really talks about himself in personal terms. I’d say his book will be about as dense as your excellent book but with more on the bad guys. 😊

Guede’s book is summarized in online reviews in Italian including those on Amazon Italy and it does seem pretty introspective, explaining his lifetime arc with some major regrets, though it’s not a full confession of having been proactive in Meredith’s murder.

We carried his RAI YouTubes (which seemingly pointed to RS & AK more-so) but also oiur own scathing reports on his denials in his appeal late in 2009. Also the total chaos he and Alessi and Aviello caused at the Hellman appeal, with Bongiorno and Hellman having conniptions.

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A pro-Knox YouTube apologist asked what the reopening of the case in 2023 could achieve. The response posted was this.

Confirmation of the Nencini verdict. Italy cannot last in this nasty limbo forever. It has one of the best police & judicial systems in the world, and hosts THREE UN centers of excellence. All the lawyers thought RS & AK did it. Open secret in Perugia. RS lawyers both implied at trial AK led the pack. RS & AK have fought like dogs almost ever since, we list 35 incidents in a very funny post. RS’s book title is a jab at Knox. Both Knox & RS books were huge mistakes, in sustaining an open wound. RS lost badly at diffamazione trial (also Gumbel) to GM, for false claims, and had to pay huge damages. AK can still be sued for her book, GM just met her and gave her a chance to withdraw. Knox was actually pretty happy in prison, her mental condition (probably caused by her dad) was coming right. Now, she barely knows up from down - as GM just saw.

“Sollecito and his shadow writer Gumbel already lost a diffamazione trial, in Florence, that cost them big fines, and Knox lost a calunnia trial in Perugia, which cost her three years and huge damages owed to Patrick (still unpaid).”

To revisit an explanation of calunnia and diffamazione that we have posted quite often before.

These are both crimes AGAINST THE STATE and it was the Republic of Italy that sued Sollecito, and could still sue Knox and maybe others.

Italian police & justice & penal system employees are mostly career-path, well-paid and highly trained.

The mafias are incessantly trying to take them down a peg, as in this case - the mafias dont give a damn about RS or AK, they were building future protections for themselves.

All responses to accusations are required to be addressed in court, and police chiefs and judges and prosecutors are very limited in how much they can speak out.

Contrast this to the US system where most police chiefs and judges and prosecutors are elected and can thus talk their heads off on TV any time they want. They can sue for libel and slander too.

Main poster Machiavelli posted this further explanation back in 2009.

The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code.

Diffamazione is in the chapter entitled “crimes against honour” in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties.

Calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled “crimes against the administration of justice”, in a section that protects public powers.

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

Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.

The equivalent of “criminal slander” is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone’s reputation, usually to sway a judicial process.

The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence.

Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint.

Calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.

Where next:

Or to next entry Mignini Unchained: Rollback Starts, Of Perhaps The World’s Greatest Legal Hoax

Or to previous entry More Systems Crashes: Media Here Doing The Right Things