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Breaking news: In its August 9th report the Florence Court again explains why Knox is guilty of unprovoked calunnia against Patrick - and left him in prison for several weeks. Very hard line, hits back against the Supreme Court's overruling of Florence in 2015. We hope to have it up in English by month's end. So Knox's deeply dishonest smear of the investigators in court in June had zero effect.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
CCTV Video: Seemingly Unlikely That Meredith And Guede Are Seen Here Together
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above: this is possibly Meredith returning home. Below: this is possibly Guede, presumably headed for the house as well..
First, the whole video really REEKS of wetness. Looks like Frank of Perugia Shock gets it wrong once again. All the horizontal surfaces are gleaming. Take a look at the last shot below. The reflection of the car headlights suggests a light rain - still in progress.
Second, the CCTV monitors in our own parking buildings here have a much wider field of view than we are seeing in the video. The video (see the post below) gives the impression of having been zoomed-in for the TV broadcast version - they do that a lot. And it is very compressed.
Three, it is something of a surprise not to see Meredith returning home by way of the steel stairs. That (blue line) is the shorter route for her. What we see here suggests she used the stone steps. Maybe the light is better on that route. Or maybe she picked up a gelato from the gelateria up the top..
Fourth, it is puzzling that Guede arrives from the direction of the steel stairs. That (the red line) is not the quick route down from the kebab place, and he may have had business in the direction of the Chic bar.
Or wanted very much to hide his face en route. For SOME nefarious purpose.
Two more images from the parking-facility CCTV camera.
Above: this is possibly Meredith returning home. Below: this is possibly Guede, presumably headed for the house as well.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
More On The Evil That Was Rained Down On Lumumba
Posted by Peter Quennell
The Tom Kington Interview
Tom Kington of the UK Observer interviews Patrick Lumumba.
Diya Lumumba, 39, was at last week’s first pre-trial hearing in Perugia at which Knox, 21, appeared in public for the first time since her arrest last year. ‘Why did she accuse me?’ he asked. ‘The black is always the killer in films, and I am convinced that is why she named me as her way of derailing the investigation.’
It was November last year when Knox, by then in custody, implicated Lumumba in the killing, telling police he entered Miss Kercher’s bedroom in their shared house on the night of 1 November, while she covered her ears in the kitchen… Police raided Lumumba’s home and arrested him in front of his Polish wife Aleksandra and baby son Davide, saying only: ‘You know what you did.’ Investigators leaked an allegation that Lumumba had entered the isolated house outside Perugia’s medieval walls to ‘possess’ Miss Kercher…
Please click here for more
Monday, September 22, 2008
Collateral Damage: Patrick Lumumba At The Maniacal Hands Of Amanda Knox
Posted by Tara
Everyone should “Google” his or her own name. The results are sometimes quite surprising.
You might find yourself quoted at a local political caucus, see your name mentioned in the legal documentation for some past dispute, come across a photo of yourself at a PTA meeting, or even be quoted by someone who didn’t tell you they were writing a story for a local rag!
Usually the results are not life altering, and some of us have no results at all.
Amanda Knox accused bar owner and musician Patrick Diya Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher. He was arrested and spent two weeks in jail. He has a wife and a young son, who watched as the police handcuffed him at home early one morning and swept him away in a parade of police cars.
The problem is that he was falsely accused and in fact was not involved in the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher.
To the relief of his family, he was released. Unfortunately, his association with a crime he did not commit has a long electronic shelf life.
Here’s what came up this past weekend in a quick search if you just type “Lumumba Perugia”:
- USA Yahoo Search: 153,000
- USA Google Search: 23,400
- USA MSN Search: 11,800
All of these results associate his name with murder. His young son and wife can “google” their last name and see the results, which are increasing daily because this sensational case is not over.
Le Chic, Patrick Lumumba’s bar, is now closed.
Mr. Lumumba has filed slander charges against Amanda Knox, his accuser. Some have been very vocal about their disapproval of his action. They claimed Lumumba had maybe profited financially from interviews and that he will continue to do so. Their thought is: why hit on a young woman who already has the weight of the world against her and is facing murder charges.
My thought is that when you tell a lie, and falsely accuse someone else of murder, you must be held accountable.
Patrick and his family’s life is changed forever, and not in a good way: not when a search of their name brings thousands of results associated with murder.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Outcomes Of The First (16 Sept) Of Six Micheli Hearings
Posted by Peter Quennell
Reports From The Court
[Our emphasis added]
Not decided today: is there enough evidence to indict any or all of the three? But there were some developments:
The Independent reports:
Amanda Knox and Rudy Guede came face to face yesterday with the family of Meredith Kercher, the British student they are accused of murdering in Italy last year…..
Judge Paolo Micheli granted a request for a fast-track trial for Mr Guede [if indicted] who is fearful of a pact between Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito to frame him for the killing…
The family were admitted to the court as civil plaintiffs, as was a Congolese former suspect, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, 38, who was cleared of any involvement in the crime….
The owner of the house Miss Kercher shared with Miss Knox and others… has also been admitted as a civil plaintiff, and can therefore claim damages if someone is convicted of murder….
It was the first time that Miss Knox, from Seattle, had been seen in public since she was imprisoned last November. Dressed in blue jeans and a white embroidered top, her hair scraped back neatly in a half-ponytail, she was escorted by two female jail guards….
The next hearing is scheduled for 26 September.
The judge has yet to rule, however, on whether the case should go to trial - a decision which is expected at a future hearing, probably next month.
Judge Micheli’s First Of Six Hearings To Decide If The Three Must Stand Trial
Posted by Peter Quennell
Not decided today: is there enough evidence to indict any or all of the three? But there were some developments:
Rosa Silverman of The Independent reports:
Amanda Knox and Rudy Guede came face to face yesterday with the family of Meredith Kercher, the British student they are accused of murdering in Italy last year…..
Judge Paolo Micheli granted a request for a fast-track trial for Mr Guede [if indicted] who is fearful of a pact between Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito to frame him for the killing…
The family were admitted to the court as civil plaintiffs, as was a Congolese former suspect, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, 38, who was cleared of any involvement in the crime….
The owner of the house Miss Kercher shared with Miss Knox and others… has also been admitted as a civil plaintiff, and can therefore claim damages if someone is convicted of murder….
It was the first time that Miss Knox, from Seattle, had been seen in public since she was imprisoned last November. Dressed in blue jeans and a white embroidered top, her hair scraped back neatly in a half-ponytail, she was escorted by two female jail guards….
The next hearing is scheduled for 26 September.
Nick Squires of The Daily Telegraph reports:
The judge has yet to rule, however, on whether the case should go to trial - a decision which is expected at a future hearing, probably next month.
And Tom Kington of the Guardian reports.
The family of Meredith Kercher, the British student murdered in Perugia last November, came face to face with two of her alleged killers for the first time in an Italian court yesterday.
Amanda Knox, 21, the American student who was Kercher’s former flatmate, appeared nervous as she passed photographers outside the courtroom. Rudy Guede, 24, who has dual Italian and Ivorian citizenship, followed her minutes later. Knox’s former boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito did not attend court, but it was unclear why not. One of his lawyers said he felt unwell, but another claimed the IT student wanted to avoid “a media circus”. All three suspects, who are in custody, deny any wrongdoing.
Yesterday’s hearing was the first of six, after which Judge Paolo Micheli will decide whether to send Knox and Sollecito to trial next year. He accepted a request from Guede to undergo his own fast-track trial which could be concluded by the end of next month.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Startling U-Turn: Knox & Sollecito Agree To Truce, Will Now Dump All Blame On Guede
Posted by Our Main Posters
This is from a surprising report from the Guardian’s Tom Kington in Rome:
Claims have been made of a pact between Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24. It is alleged their lawyers have agreed to work together to blame the murder on Rudy Guede, 21, a part-time gardener from the Ivory Coast and the third accused.
Now, Guede’s lawyers are threatening to call for a separate trial for him alone - well away from the legal teams of the other two whom they fear could prejudice his case.
It is a pact, says Guede’s lawyer Walter Biscotti, that can be traced back to July when Sollecito sent Knox a bouquet of yellow flowers on her 21st birthday which both celebrated in prison.
‘There is a clear desire to make Rudy the guilty party, and it’s clear they will try anything,’ Biscotti said.
All three accused deny murder. Knox, or Foxy Knoxy, as she was known at her Seattle high school, shared a flat with Meredith, from Coulsdon, south London, who was studying in the city as part of her degree at Leeds University.
Knox has attracted headlines through a leaked prison diary in which she detailed her sexual escapades and a Facebook page on which she wrote about rape and fantasy. She has also speculated Sollecito, her then boyfriend, could have been responsible.
Knox’s lawyers maintain that bloodstains in the flat and DNA on a knife found at Sollecito’s flat cannot put her at the murder scene.
Sollecito’s lawyers will also question whether his DNA, found on the back of Meredith’s bloodied bra, is conclusive proof of his involvement. He and Knox claim that they were at his flat when the murder took place.
Guede, who fled to Germany after the murder, is the only suspect who has admitted to being in Kercher’s bedroom on the night she died. He states that they were planning to have sex - though he denies rape and murder. He has stated he was using the bathroom when she was killed, claiming Knox and Sollecito had rushed past him as he emerged.
Sensing a campaign against his client, Biscotti may press for the hearings to be separated in the hope Guede will be cleared quickly. It could involve a fast-track trial behind closed doors and a verdict as early as mid-October.
This could mean that Guede is convicted before a decision is made on whether Knox and Sollecito even stand trial.
‘There was a tacit agreement to just work on the defence of your own client,’ said Biscotti of the other legal teams. ‘But it looks like this is finished.’
He points to a recent briefing by one of Sollecito’s lawyers, Giulia Buongiorno, an MP and high-profile lawyer who has previously defended former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti against Mafia charges, who told journalists that there had been just one killer.
The Kerchers’ lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said: ‘We are holding out for a trial of the other two, even if Rudy is found guilty.’
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Patrick In Mail-On-Sunday: “I Fired Foxy Knoxy For Hitting On Customers”
Posted by Our Main Posters
We are posting this amazing interview by Antonia Hoyle in full a decade later and backdating it because so many vital early reports are awol now.
I fired Foxy Knoxy for hitting on customers
Patrick Lumumba reveals why he was framed over Meredith’s murder
By Antonia Hoyle
Last updated at 13:01 25 November 2007
It was nearly midnight in Le Chic and the three-floor club was heady with excitement.
The crammed dance floor was a flurry of bodies and the queue for the speciality rum cocktails was growing by the second.
Yet in the middle of it all sat barmaid Amanda Knox, whispering sweet nothings to her latest conquest, her chest pressed against his, their mouths just millimetres apart and seemingly unaware of the chaos ensuing around her.
It was at that moment that the club’s owner, Patrick Lumumba, finally realised he’d had enough and told the brash blonde American he wouldn’t be requiring her services any more.
For four weeks he had quietly tolerated her wild mood swings, crass sexual innuendo and complete unwillingness to do any work so terminating her employment was, on the face of it, a wise decision.
It was also, tragically, one that Patrick believes came close to costing him his family, his business and his freedom.
For just a week later, he believes, 20-year-old Amanda took her revenge by framing the 38-year-old Perugian club owner for the murder of her British friend, Meredith Kercher, whose half-naked body was discovered in a pool of blood by police on November 2.
Amanda painted him as a violent sexual predator who had raped the 21-year-old student before savagely slitting her throat and left him to languish in jail for a fortnight for a crime he didn’t commit.
It was only last Tuesday, when police in the picturesque Italian hilltop town discovered DNA found on Meredith’s body belonged not to Patrick but to loner Rudy Guede, that he was finally freed.
Now, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Patrick reveals his feelings towards the infamous “Foxy Knoxy”, and tells how the seemingly quintessential American turned into a tormented monster eaten up by anger towards both himself and Meredith.
“She was angry I was firing her and wanted revenge,” he says. “By the end, she hated me. But I don’t even think she’s evil. To be evil you have to have a soul. “Amanda doesn’t. She’s empty; dead inside. She’s the ultimate actress, able to switch her emotions on and off in an instant. I don’t believe a word she says.
Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie. But those lies have stained me for ever.
“She tried to play the race card. She thought that by pointing the finger at a black person she’d distract attention from herself. She used me as a scapegoat.
“I’ve never had so much as a fine for not paying a bus ticket before. But now I’ve been branded a cold-blooded murderer.”
Knox is in custody on suspicion of murdering Meredith, along with her Italian boyfriend, computer studies student Raffaele Sollecito, 24, and police have arrested Guede, 20, who has joint Italian and Ivory Coast nationality and was found on the run in Germany.
Her statements to police have changed four times, the only aspect of her complex personality remaining consistent being her extraordinary envy of her friend and room-mate, Meredith.
“Meredith was a natural charmer, a beautiful girl who made friends easily, and effortlessly received attention wherever she went,” Patrick explains, sitting beside his pretty Polish-born girlfriend of six years Aleksandra Kania, 28, and their 19-month-old son, Davide.
“Amanda tried much harder, but was less popular. I didn’t realise it at the time, but now I see that she was jealous. She wanted to be the queen bee, and as the weeks passed, it became clear that she wasn’t. She hated anyone stealing her limelight – and that included Meredith.”
Patrick, who moved from his native Congo 15 years ago when his family opened a chain of clothes stores in Italy, met Amanda and Meredith, both exchange students at Perugia’s University for Foreigners, in late September.
“I’d just opened Le Chic and one of my friends said he knew an American girl who needed work, so I told her to come along to the bar.”
As Amanda, a teacher’s daughter educated at a Roman Catholic school, entered his bar that evening, dressed in flimsy trousers and full of bravado, he decided she’d fit the bill immediately.
“She was open and bubbly, and said she’d bring in more customers because she knew everyone. I didn’t find her attractive, but she was confident about the way she looked. It was almost as if she didn’t need to wear revealing clothes – she thought she was sexy enough as she was.”
The English Language student from Seattle then introduced Patrick to her
new flatmate Meredith, a Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, who had arrived in August for a year’s stay in the country on an exchange programme.“Her Italian was poor, but she smiled and commented on the special make of vodka I kept behind the bar. She said she’d used it herself instead of rum when she was a barmaid making mojitos back in Britain,” he remembers.
“I was surprised she was English as her skin was so dark. She told me she had Indian ancestry.
“As she and Amanda headed off to chat with the rest of their group of girlfriends, I thought how close-knit they all seemed. It was a Latin and reggae night, and they danced happily, attracting the attention of all the guys around them.”
The following day he employed Amanda to collect glasses for two shifts a week from 10pm to 3am. But he soon realised she was more interested in making herself available to his male customers than making herself useful at the bar.
“Every time I looked round she was flirting with a different guy,” he says.
“I’d tell her off, she’d smile sweetly and apologise, and be back at it within five minutes. She’d put her mouth so close to her conquests it looked like they were kissing.
“Sometimes, when I tried to get her back to work, the men would become rowdy. Once I was told to mind my own business and butt out of Amanda’s.
“She was always causing trouble. Even my girlfriend thought she was strange. Whenever she met her she’d death stare her and turn her nose up.
I don’t think she was jealous – she never came on to me. She just felt so threatened by other women.”
Economics graduate Aleksandra adds: “Amanda was so cold. She seemed like a girl who would do anything to get her way, and her man. If she had wanted Patrick I’m sure she wouldn’t have thought twice about pushing me aside.”
As Amanda’s flirtatious behaviour continued, Patrick was faced with a dilemma, knowing that to sack her could generate as much negative word-of-mouth publicity as bringing her in had intended to create.
“I decided to put up with it,” he says. “Even though she’d ask to leave early all the time and got into work late so she could call her American boyfriend. She never told me his name but they seemed very much in love. He sent her presents and she giggled when she mentioned him.”
It was a couple of weeks before Patrick met Sollecito, a doctor’s son from Southern Italy, when he came into Le Chic.
“He was with a couple of friends, drinking rum and pear juice,” he says. “After about four rounds I spotted Amanda flirting with him. Needless to say, I wasn’t surprised.”
What he was surprised to discover, however, was that she had started to date Sollecito. “I’d always thought her flirting was harmless,” he says. “But I couldn’t believe she was two-timing her American boyfriend.”
He next saw Meredith at a party he threw in the club for his employees a couple of days later. “She made everyone two rounds of her special mojitos,” he says.
“She was sparkly and cheery and lifted everyone’s spirits. I bumped into her again in town soon after. I asked her if she wanted to have a spell behind the bar when I next had a female DJ playing, as a kind of ladies’ night.
“She jumped at the chance, although she’d stopped coming into Le Chic, and I heard she wasn’t hanging around with Amanda much either. I wasn’t surprised. The two couldn’t have been more different.”
Amanda, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly erratic. “Her moods started swinging from docile and lazy to hyperactive and flighty.
“I knew she smoked cannabis and it was impossible to predict which one she’d be.
“I told her I’d asked Meredith to come and work for me and her face dropped and there was a big silence. Then she said, ‘Fine,’ and stropped off. I knew then she was extremely jealous of Meredith. She obviously thought she was invading her territory.”
By Tuesday, October 30, his patience ran out. He told Amanda she could carry on handing out club flyers, but could no longer work in the bar.
“She looked at me blankly and walked away,” he says. “The club was busy and I didn’t see her again that evening.”
The next day Amanda attended a Hallowe’en party at the club, knocking back the free red wine. “She was all over two American boys,” Patrick says. “There was no sign of Sollecito and I didn’t see her leave.”
At 3am he locked up and went on to another club, where he bumped into Meredith. “I mentioned the idea of her working for me again,” he says.
“She smiled sweetly and said she couldn’t wait, and she’d bring all her friends back to my club for me.”
That was the last he heard of either girl, until 6pm on Saturday November 3, when a couple of friends walked into his club.
“They asked me if I’d heard that Amanda’s English friend had been murdered. And when they said she was the dark-skinned girl, my heart stopped.”
He called Amanda, who quietly confirmed that Meredith was dead.
“I expected her to be distraught, hysterical and sobbing,” he says. “Surely, just because they’d grown apart didn’t mean she wouldn’t care?
“But instead she sounded weird. Her tone was completely flat and she sounded calm and unaffected. She said she was talking to the police and hung up. I was shaken and sick with sadness.
Things like this just didn’t happen in Perugia.”
Over the next couple of days the murder stunned the town’s 162,000 inhabitants. “It was all we could talk about, and we were all subdued,” says Patrick, who handed out flyers for a candlelit vigil in her memory.
“Everyone became tense and suspicious. Everyone except Amanda, who’d gone into a kind of autopilot mode. I saw her a couple of times and all she talked about was the police, and how stressful the ordeal was for her.”
At 6.30am on Tuesday, November 6, the bell to his fourth-floor flat in the town buzzed insistently and a woman’s voice outside demanded he opened the door.
He had barely had time to do so when the woman, assisted by, Patrick estimates, 15 to 20 others, barged their way in.
“They were wearing normal clothes and carrying guns,” he says.
“I thought it must be some sort of armed gang about to kill me. I was terrified. “They hit me over the head and yelled ‘dirty black’. Then they put handcuffs on me and shoved me out of the door, as Aleksandra pulled Davide away, screaming.”
He was greeted outside by a convoy of seven police cars, sirens blazing, and driven to Perugia’s police station, where he was subjected to a ten-hour interrogation.
“I was questioned by five men and women, some of whom punched and kicked me,” he claims. “They forced me on my knees against the wall and said I should be in America where I would be given the electric chair for my crime. All they kept saying was, ‘You did it, you did it.’
“I didn’t know what I’d ‘done’. I was scared and humiliated. Then, after a couple of hours one of them suggested they show me a picture of ‘the dead girl’ to get me to confess.
“It might sound naive, but it was only then that I made the connection between Meredith’s death and my arrest. Stunned, I said, ‘You think I killed Meredith?’
“They said, ‘Oh, so now you’ve remembered’ and told me that if I confessed I’d only get half the 30-year sentence.”
It wasn’t until 5.30pm that – still handcuffed and unfed – he was shown the evidence against him, a statement from Amanda saying that on the night of November 1 he had persuaded her to take him back to the house she shared with Meredith and two others.
He had then, she claimed, gone into Meredith’s room and raped her before killing her while she sat and listened to the screams from the kitchen. She said he was motivated by revenge after Meredith had rejected him.
“It was only then I realised just how mad she was,” he says. “I had no sexual feelings towards Meredith, and have never cheated on Aleksandra.
“Although I was filled with anger, I was determined to stay calm in front of the police. What Amanda was saying was insane. I have seven sisters and there’s no way I could even imagine hurting a woman.”
Her flawed evidence was, however, enough to keep Patrick in custody, as police feared he, Knox and Sollecito, would flee the country.
His fingerprints and a blood sample were taken and he was put in isolation in a sparse 6ft by 12ft cell in the town’s Capanne prison.
As the days passed police claimed to have further evidence against him, including proof from his mobile phone that he was near Meredith’s house around the time of her death, records of calls to Amanda, whose DNA had allegedly been found on the murder weapon, and a lack of till receipts to substantiate his claim he’d been working behind the bar on the night of the murder.
“I watched the case unfold on TV every day and was shocked by the sordid lifestyle Amanda and her boyfriend seemed to be leading,” he says. “That kind of life was foreign to me and it made me sick that people would think I was involved in some kind of threesome.
“I knew students here slept around, but to hear rumours of sex games with knives shocked me to the core. “As far as I am concerned, anyone involved in them needs psychiatric help. “I’d never even been to their house, and I knew that it was a mistake and I would be released eventually,” he said.
“But the days in prison were my darkest. Aleksandra visited me four times and I received cards of support from friends, but they wouldn’t let me have a picture of Davide or even allow me to change my clothes.”
Aleksandra adds: “I couldn’t sleep when Patrick was in prison. I tried to keep myself together for Davide’s sake and whiled away the hours watching mindless television to try to distract myself.
“I didn’t doubt his innocence for a second, and I tried to be brave for him. When I visited him in prison neither of us shed a tear, I knew we needed to be strong. But we were both crying on the inside.”
Meanwhile, a lack of any of Patrick’s DNA on Meredith’s body and witness statements proving he had been at work forced police to reconsider their original theory and, after 14 days, he was released.
But Patrick is scarred by the ordeal. Le Chic remains closed by the police. He says he may consider suing them after the case is resolved.
He is only too aware that for Meredith’s parents John and Arline, and sister Stephanie, 24, the agony continues. “My heart goes out to them. As a parent myself, I can’t begin to imagine what they’re going through. But I hope they get some peace when the killer is caught. I don’t always think Amanda did it, but I think she knows who did it, and whoever killed Meredith should stay in prison forever.”
He pauses before reflecting on the last time he saw the girl he believes did her damnedest to ruin his life. “It was outside the university library, on the Monday after the murder,” he says. “Despite all my misgivings of her, I wanted to give her comfort and support.
“I told her I was so sorry about Meredith. She seemed completely normal. But she had a nasty look in her eye and simply said I had no idea what it was like to be probed by police for hours on end.
“Well, thanks to her, I know exactly what she’s going through now, and I’ll never forgive her.”
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Key Reporting: La Repubblica 22 November 2007
Posted by Our Main Posters
Rudy, the DNA test confirms
“There was a sexual relationship”Rudy, the DNA test confirms
“There was a sexual relationship”B>
Rudy Hermann Guede
PERUGIA - The DNA test confirms: Rudy Guede had a sexual relationship with Meredith Kercher the night the girl was killed. These are the first results of the examinations conducted on the young man from the Ivory Coast arrested in Germany. The DNA, taken from the toothbrush seized in Perugia in the boy’s apartment, has been identified in the laboratories of the Scientific Police. That arrived in the evening, is the answer of the comparison between the DNA of the boy and that partial DNA that had already been detected during the autopsy of Meredith and on the scene of the crime. Precisely that partial DNA, which was already known to be of a man, which did not correspond either to Raffaele Sollecito or to Patrick Lumumba, which had been collected with specific tests on the victim’s body. And that testified to a sexual relationship that, as learned, had been incomplete and violent. The same DNA was on the toilet paper in the bathroom. It would seem therefore confirmed that, that evening, Guede forced the young woman to a relationship, before his death. The imprint of his bloody hand on the pillow had already confirmed the presence of the young Ivorian in the murder room.Meanwhile, from Koblenz, where he is detained , Guede tells his truth: “He was an Italian boy”. “I went to the English girl’s house and we went together,” she tells the German judge. “As soon as I entered, I got a stomach ache and when I was in the bathroom, I heard a shout: there was a young Italian in the house, one I do not know who attacked the girl, stabbed her and ran away. I tried to save her, I picked her up, tried to reanimate her, but then, panicked, I ran away “.
He declares himself innocent, Rudy Guede. The accusation seems to be addressed to Raffaele Sollecito, although a Polish student has confirmed to the police that “Amanda remained in Raffaele’s house at least until 20.40 on the first of November”, more or less the hour of the crime. The investigating judge, however, presses: Rudy “can strike again”.
The judge of Perugia, Claudia Matteini, does not believe in the innocence of the young Ivorian. In the precautionary custody order, in which he orders the arrest of the young man, we read: “From the cruelty of the crime, from the agony in which the victim was left and to the personality of the suspect taken from the quick escape after the crime - wrote the magistrate to justify the provision signed a few days after the murder - there is a real danger that the suspect commits crimes of the same species as that for which it proceeds “.
To collect the testimony of Rudy, the Perugia judges will have to wait a couple more weeks. After the Wednesday hearing, which formally ascertained his identity, Guede will have to appear before the magistrate in Koblenz who will examine Italy’s request for delivery. He will be extradited to Italy not before December 10th.
Meanwhile, the words used by the investigating judge of Perugia remain: Rudy “felt a strong attraction for Amanda”; he used to go to the house that the American student shared with the same age then killed and, the magistrate unveiled, that night Rudy also slept drunk in the apartment in Via Pergola. But it is not written in the ordinance which link binds the attraction that the young black man had for the victim’s friend, and the possibility that he would come back to kill.
It seems clear that the investigators think that the crime is circumscribed between Amanda and Raffaele and Rudy, with roles all to be attributed. That Amanda is the pivot on which revolves the reconstruction of what happened, it seems obvious: his genetic code was discovered on the handle of a kitchen knife by Raffaele, along with the DNA of Meredith. But she keeps repeating that she is not a murderer. In his memorial , tries a desperate defense, then confesses: “I am exhausted and perhaps I confuse the dream with reality”.
Raffaele remains a controversial figure. He swears that that night, in Meredith’s apartment, he did not set foot as he was at his computer , but the results of the checks on his pc would have shown that no one was at the keyboard. Out of the prison there is only one of the four suspects, Lumumba. Arrested in the aftermath of the crime, with Raffaele and Amanda, he was released from prison after two weeks of detention. It remains investigated but, as the investigating judge wrote, “the clues are missing” to keep him in the cell.
( November 22, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Summaries Of Knox & Sollecito Statements On Night Of Their Arrest
Posted by Our Main Posters
From Corriere della Sera translated by the Daily Telegraph 7 November 2007
Suspect statements in Kercher murder case
By Aislinn Simpson
2:40PM GMT 07 Nov 2007
The following are extracts from police interviews with Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the murder case of Meredith Kercher, as printed in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera
Amanda Knox
Police said that Knox, when confronted by police with her boyfriend’s evidence, admitted she had lied in previous interviews.
She maintains she played a “minimal role” in what happened, Corriere della Sera reported.
The newspaper said Knox appeared “confused” in interviews, repeatedly putting her head in her hands and shaking it, and that detectives believe she is still not telling the whole truth.
She reportedly told them during interviews on Tuesday: “I want to talk about what happened because the incident has left me really upset and I am really scared of Patrick (Lumumba), the African man who owns the pub Le Chic where I work sometimes.
“I met him on the evening of November 1 after having replied to a message he sent me, with the words ‘Let’s meet up’.
“We met at around 9.00pm at a basketball court in Piazza Grimana and we went to my house. I don’t remember if my friend Meredith was already at home or if she came in later. All I can say is that they went off together.
“Patrick and Meredith went off into Meredith’s room while I stayed in the kitchen. I can’t remember how long they were in there together - I can only say that at one point I heard Meredith screaming and I was so frightened I blocked my ears.
“I don’t remember anything after that - my head’s all confused. I don’t remember if Meredith screamed and I heard thuds too because I was upset, but I guessed what might have happened.
“I found Patrick this morning (Nov 5) in front of the language school and he asked me some questions. He wanted to know what the police had been asking me. I think he also asked me if I wanted to meet some journalists, maybe to find out if I know anything about Meredith’s death.”
Of Sollecito, she said: “I don’t know for sure if Raffaele was there that night, but I do remember very well waking up at my boyfriend’s house, in his bed, and I went back to my house in the morning where I found the door open.”
Raffaele Sollecito
Sollecito reportedly told police in an interview that he wanted to change his story.
He said: “I have known Amanda for two weeks. From the night that I met her she started sleeping at my house. On November 1, I woke up at around 11, I had breakfast with Amanda then she went out and I went back to bed.
“I met her at her house again at around one or 2.00pm. Meredith was there too, but she left in a hurry at around 4.00pm without saying where she was going.
“Amanda and I went into town at around 6pm, but I don’t remember what we did. We stayed there until around 8.30 or 9pm.
“At 9pm I went home alone and Amanda said that she was going to Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends. We said goodbye. I went home, I rolled myself a spliff and made some dinner.”
He goes on to say that Amanda returned to his house at around 1am and the couple went to bed, although he couldn’t remember if they had sex.
He said she got up the next morning and went home for a shower at around 10.30am.
“When she went off Amanda took an empty plastic bag, telling me it was for dirty washing. She came back around half past eleven and I remember she changed her clothes.”
At this point, he says Amanda told him she was worried.
“She told me that when she went back home she found the door wide open and traces of blood in the little bathroom. She asked me if it sounded strange to me. I answered that it did and I advised her to call her housemates. She said she had called Filomena (another housemate), but that Meredith wasn’t answering.”
He said the two went back to the house together.
“She opened the door with her keys and I went in. I noticed that Filomena’s door was wide open and there was broken glass on the floor and the room was in a mess. Amanda’s door was open but it was tidy. Then I went towards Meredith’s door and saw that it was locked.
“I looked to see if it was true what Amanda had told me about the blood in the bathroom and I noticed drops of blood in the sink, while on the mat there was something strange - a mixture of blood and water, while the rest of the bathroom was clean.
“I was asking myself what could have happened and I went out to see if I could get in through Meredith’s window. I tried to break down the door but I couldn’t and so I decided to call my sister to get some advice because she is a police lieutenant.
“She told me to call 121 (the Italian emergency number) but in the meantime the postal police arrived.
“In my previous statement I told a load of rubbish because Amanda had convinced me of her version of the facts and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies.”
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Kate Mansey Interviews Sollecito Several Days Before His Arrest
Posted by Our Main Posters
Published in the Sunday Mirror 4/11/2007
MURDERED IN ITALY. MEREDITH, 21
Friend tells how he broke down door
Kate Mansey In Perugia, Italy 4/11/2007A friend of murdered British student Meredith Kercher told last night how he discovered her body in her blood-spattered bedroom.
Raffaele Sollecito, 23, relived the horror of finding the body of the pretty brunette who died when her killer broke into her home and cut her throat as she lay in her bed.
“It is something I never hope to see again,” he said. “There was blood everywhere and I couldn’t take it all in.
“My girlfriend was her flatmate and she was crying and screaming, ‘How could anyone do this?’”
Meredith, 21, who had been studying in Perugia, Italy since August, was murdered the day after a Halloween fancy dress party at the city’s British-themed Merlin Pub on Wednesday.
On Thursday she posted happy snaps of herself in fancy dress on the internet and in the evening had returned home alone after watching a film at a friend’s house.
But her flatmates - two Italian girls and one American - had all stayed out for the night, so the gruesome discovery wasn’t made until the next day.
Raffaele had spent the night at his own house on the other side of the city with his girlfriend, Meredith’s American flatmate Amanda Knox, 22.
He said: “It was a normal night. Meredith had gone out with one of her English friends and Amanda and I went to party with one of my friends.
“The next day, around lunchtime, Amanda went back to their apartment to have a shower.”
As Amanda, from Washington DC, stepped into house [sic B] she could tell there was something terribly wrong.
Raffaele said: “When she arrived the front door was wide open. She thought it was weird, but thought maybe someone was in the house and had left it ajar.
“But when she went into the bathroom she saw spots of blood all over the bath and sink. That’s when she started getting really afraid and ran back to my place because she didn’t want to go into the house alone. So I agreed to go back with her. When we walked in together, I knew straight away it was wrong. It was really eerily silent and the bathroom was speckled with blood like someone had flicked it around, just little spots.
“We went into the bedroom of Philomena (another flatmate who was away) and it had been ransacked, like someone had been looking for something. But when we tried Meredith’s room, the door was locked. She never normally locked her bedroom door and that really made us frightened.”
Their panic grew as they desperately banged on her door.
Raffaele said: “I tried to knock it down. I thought maybe she was ill… I made a dent, but I wasn’t strong enough on my own so I called the police.”
When police arrived they knocked the door down straightaway and Raffaele followed them into the room.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said. “It was hard to tell it was Meredith at first but Amanda started crying and screaming. I dragged her away because I didn’t want her to see it, it was so horrible.
“It seems her killer came through the window because it was smashed and there was glass all over the place. It was so sinister because other parts of the house were just as normal.”
Raffaele, a computer science student, said Meredith had recently started seeing an Italian neighbour called Giacamo [sic B] who lived in the apartment beneath the girls.
He said: “Meredith was always smiling and happy. She was really popular and it’s horrible that someone would want to hurt her.”