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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, October 29, 2008
Judge Micheli Denies RS & AK House Arrest, Reason “Absolute Disregard” For MK’s Life EDIT
Posted by Peter Quennell
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/30/italy
Tom Kington In The Guardian
The suspected killers of Meredith Kercher were refused transfer from jail to house arrest last night while awaiting trial for her murder, because of the danger that they might flee and kill again.
After 12 hours’ deliberation in Perugia, the judge, Paolo Micheli, said there was a “concrete possibility” that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito would run off if freed from prison.
In a written ruling to lawyers, he said he believed the murder of the British student was not premeditated, but the likely “absolute disregard” shown by Knox and Sollecito for the victim’s life meant they would be capable of murdering again.
On Tuesday, Micheli sentenced Rudy Guede, 21, to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting and killing Kercher. She was found semi-naked with her throat cut in Perugia last November. Guede had requested a fast-track trial, and plans to appeal against his sentence.
In a parallel pre-trial hearing Micheli ordered Knox, Kercher’s 21-year-old American housemate, and Italian IT graduate Sollecito, 24, to stand trial in December. Turning down their request for house arrest yesterday, Micheli agreed with prosecutors that more than one person took part in the sexual assault and murder, dismissing claims that the 47 bruises and knife wounds on Kercher’s body could have been made by a single attacker.
He upheld the testimony of a neighbour who heard more than one person fleeing Kercher’s house, adding that while footprints there might not definitely belong to Knox and Sollecito, they did indicate more than one attacker. He stood by forensic evidence indicating Kercher’s and Knox’s DNA on a knife found at Sollecito’s house which investigators suspect is the murder weapon, and ruled Sollecito’s DNA on Kercher’s bra strap as reliable evidence.
He dismissed as “fantasy”, the claim that Knox, Sollecito and Guede planned to involve Kercher in an orgy inspired by “Halloween parties” instead describing the fatal encounter as unplanned.
Next-Day Press: A Good Take By Andrea Vogt For Hearst’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer EDIT
Posted by Peter Quennell
PERUGIA, Italy—A little more than a month from now, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will stand trial for murder in an Italian courtroom. For Americans following the case, it’ll seem a little strange.
The trial is expected to be open to the public—in stark contrast with the series of closed-door hearings held over the past year just to get to this point.
Under Italian law, Knox and Sollecito could be held in prison for several years during the trial and appeals, if any, but this case is likely to take only months to play out because there’s already been an unusual amount of trial preparation, according to legal observers.
Unlike a typical criminal trial in the United States, the Italian version is longer—often taking months to get to a verdict.
Until two decades ago, the trial process here was similar to that of France, but recent reforms have brought the system closer to what might be expected in an American trial.
There are usually six civilian jurors and two judges, one of whom serves as the “president” of the jury and helps manage the procedural elements of the trial. All of the jurors, including the judges, are chosen randomly.
Although it’s a sensational case, Knox and Sollecito will probably be tried in Perugia, a central Italian city with a population of about 340,000. A change of venue to another city jurisdiction is seldom granted.
The capital of the region of Umbria, Perugia is known for its high-profile jazz festival each summer, its chocolate fair in the fall and as a magnet for international students. But the influx of foreign students and tourists belies how the real Perugia operates, many say.
“It is a paradoxical city,” said veteran Italian journalist Meo Ponte, who is covering the case for the Italian daily La Republica and lived several years in Perugia before transferring to Turin.
“It has the dimension of a small town,” he said, “but because of its large student population, it also has the openness of a large, cosmopolitan city.”
A Good Profile Of Guede, Now Starting His 10,950 Days EDIT
Posted by Peter Quennell
By Nick Squires in Perugia
9:09AM GMT 29 Oct 2008
Within days of Meredith Kercher’s half-naked body being found in Perugia last November, key suspect Rudy Hermann Guede, 21, fled the Umbrian hill town and jumped on a train to Germany.
His flight across the Alps sparked an international manhunt. Italian police wanted him in connection with Miss Kercher’s brutal killing, having found his bloody hand print on a pillow at the scene of the crime.
During a desperate few days on the run, he slept rough in empty train carriages and on a barge on the Rhine.
At one point he was contacted on Facebook by journalists, including the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent, and engaged in an online chat in which he protested his innocence.
On November 20, nearly three weeks after the murder, he was stopped on a Frankfurt-bound train near Mainz after a conductor found him without a ticket.
He was arrested, held for two weeks in a German prison and extradited back to Italy to face charges of murder and aggravated sexual assault.
It was all so different from the life of opportunity his immigrant father had envisaged when he left his native Ivory Coast in the early 1990s with five-year-old Rudy in tow.
Leaving his wife behind, Pacome Roger Guede settled in Perugia, Umbria’s provincial capital, and found work as a building site labourer.
He put down roots in the university town but after a decade decided to return to West Africa, leaving the teenage Rudy in the care of an Italian family, who looked after him as their own son.
For all their good intentions, he developed into a troubled youth, skipping school, dabbling in drugs and dropping out of courses in accountancy and hotel management.
He lived for a time in Milan and proudly posted on his Facebook site a photograph taken of him with Giorgio Armani in the fashion guru’s bar.
His adoptive father, wealthy local entrepreneur Paolo Caporali, 63, told the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica: “It is pointless to hide the fact that for me, Rudy was a disappointment. I hoped to help him build a future. I thought I had given him an opportunity. But as the months passed I understood I was mistaken, that my hopes were all met with delusion.
“He said he was at school, but he skipped class. He preferred to spend the day in front of the television or with video games. He had little wish to study, and even less to work.”
Rudy was thrown out ““ cut loose from those who cared for him for the second time in his life - and drifted into a rootless existence of part-time work, petty crime and drug dealing.
In the evenings and at weekends he mingled with the thousands of students who are drawn to Perugia each year to learn Italian at the town’s University for Foreigners.
He played basketball on the concrete court just up the hill from the house which Miss Kercher shared with Miss Knox and two other students, becoming friendly with the people living in a basement flat.
Through them he met Miss Kercher in a bar at a Halloween party, the night before the murder.
Four days before the party, he was in Milan and broke into a nursery school so that he could spend the night there.
He was armed with an 11-inch kitchen knife, telling police he had to “protect” himself against thieves.
In a 25-page handwritten note he gave to police after his arrest, Guede said he regretted leaving Miss Kercher to die from her injuries. “Had I been a man, I would have saved Meredith”. Instead, he fled the scene and did not call the emergency services.
He described the scene he came across in chilling terms. “When I closed my eyes, I could only see red. I have never seen so much blood. All of that blood on her beautiful face.”
And the inevitable bluster about appealing. Good luck on that one, Rudy.
Next-Day Press: How The Suspects Enjoyed Their Day In Court EDIT
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click above for the translation from Ansa.
Actually, it seems they spent the day locked up in the basement. Down below everybody else’s feet. And simply not enjoying it at all.
Presumably they were trotted upstairs one at a time, to be told of the finding by Judge Paolo Micheli.
Guede seems to have remained cool, but Knox and Sollecito were both visibly distressed at their outcomes.
Hard landings. Perhaps a case of too many rosy scenarios. Of lawyers, friends and families failing to let them down easy,
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Guede Gets 30 Years, Knox & Sollecito Trial Starts December 4 EDIT
Posted by Peter Quennell
[PHOTO PENDING]
Lee Glendinning of the UK Guardian reports:
Rudy Guede has tonight been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, an Italian judge has ruled.
The judge at the court in Perugia also ruled that there was sufficient evidence available for Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito to stand full trial for Kercher’s murder.
Knox, 21, a US student, and Sollecito, 24, an Italian IT graduate, were
accused of having killed Kercher in the course of a sex game that went wrong, alongside Rudy Hermann Guede, 21.Kercher’s semi-naked body was found on November 2 in her bedroom in the cottage she shared with Knox. Her throat had been cut.
Lawyer Francesco Maresca, who represents Miss Kercher’s family, said: “We are very satisfied, even though this was a young man who faces a very heavy sentence.”
For the past two months, Guede, from Ivory Coast, has been involved in a fast-track trial at his own request on charges of murder and attempted sexual assault. He has the right to appeal the sentence.
At the same time, judge Paolo Micheli listened to evidence from lawyers for Knox and Sollecito in pre-trial hearings to decide whether the pair should face trial over the student’s murder.
Knox and Sollecito have been held in jail since shortly after the murder and the judge has tonight indicated that he would not grant their requests for house arrest. The trial is set to begin on December 4….
Dramatic Day For Guede, Knox, Sollecito: The Cast Arrives
Posted by Peter Quennell
[click for larger images]
Above: Prosecutor Mignini
Above: Prosecutors Mignini and Comodi
Above: Kercher family lawyer Maresca
Above:Sollecito lawyers Buongiorno and Mauri
Above: Knox lawyers Ghirgha and Vedova
Above: Falsely accused Lumumba and lawyer Pacelli
Above: And the defendants; in the vans
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sollecito Team Turns Sharply Against Knox? This Is Extraordinary, A Really Big Deal
Posted by Our Main Posters
Breaking News In London Times
A report says Sollecito places Knox at the scene of the crime.
As she had herself as well, twice, in the evening before her arrest. Still, a surprise move coming so soon after this truce.
The report, by Richard Owen from Perugia for the UK Times went online on the Times website three hours ago.
It also confirms what case-watchers already know; that tomorrow, Tuesday, is quite a cliff-hanger for the third defendant, Rudy Guede, who may be convicted and possibly sentenced right there and then.
Amanda Knox, the American flatmate of the murdered British student Meredith Kercher, has for the first time been implicated as being at the scene of the crime by her former Italian boyfriend.
With a verdict imminent in the pre-trial hearings over the murder in Perugia almost a year ago, the three suspects in the case appear to have turned on each other.
After the conclusion of the hearings, Judge Paolo Micheli, 44, a former Carabinieri officer who has been a magistrate since 1990, will decide tomorrow whether Ms Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her former boyfriend, should stand trial for the murder.
At the same time, he is also due to convict or clear Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant who is accused by prosecutors of taking part in the killing, but who has opted for a fast track trial in the hope of a reduced sentence if found guilty.
Lawyers for Mr Sollecito have told the judge that, according to a forensic expert called by the defence, Ms Knox’s DNA is on Ms Kercher’s bloodied bra-strap as well as that of Mr Sollecito and Rudy Guede.
Professor Francesco Vinci, the forensic scientist, said the DNA traces were “too contaminated” to be useable as evidence, but showed the presence of “at least three people”.
The admission appears to support the prosecution case that all three were present at the scene of the crime.
It also breaks a [recent] tacit pact between Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito, who have sent each other supportive letters while in custody and until now have avoided incriminating each other. Mr Sollecito even sent Ms Knox flowers on her birthday this summer.
Lawyers for both Mr Sollecito and Ms Knox have repeatedly claimed the couple spent the night of the murder at Mr Sollecito’s flat, indicating that Mr Guede was the lone killer.
Today, the prosecution and defence lawyers will present their closing arguments. They will argue that if a trial date is set, the suspects should be released from prison into house arrest. Ms Knox has asked to be housed at San Fatucchio, a supervised community and farm in the Umbrian countryside, 40 kilometres from Perugia, for recovering drug addicts and young offenders run by the Catholic charity Caritas.
Last weekend Walter Biscotti, one of Mr Guede’s lawyers, accused Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito of framing his client, a drifter and small-time drug dealer who was brought up in Perugia and mingled with the student community. “We believe Knox and Sollecito were the murderers,” Nicodemo Gentile, another of Mr Guede’s lawyers said.
Mr Biscotti said Mr Guede, the only one of the three who admits he was at the hillside cottage Ms Knox shared with Ms Kercher on the evening of the murder, admitted attempting to have consensual sex with Ms Kercher, but had not raped or killed her. The prosecution says that Mr Guede’s DNA was on Ms Kercher’s bloodstained pillow.
Ms Kercher was found last November semi-naked in her bedroom with her throat cut. The prosecution claims she was assaulted just after Hallo’een in a murderous sex game, possibly inspired by a Japanese comic strip about vampires which Mr Sollecito had been reading.
Prosecutors say that Ms Knox stabbed her flatmate while the other two forced her to her knees and held her down, with Mr Sollecito pinning her by the arms and Mr Guede holding her by the throat.
Ms Knox’s lawyers reject this, saying Ms Kercher was assaulted by “one robust killer”. Last week, Ms Knox burst into tears when the allegation was made in court that she stabbed Ms Kercher, saying: “Meredith was my friend, I had no reason to kill her.”
Mr Guede claims he was listening to his iPod in the bathroom when Ms Kercher was killed in the bedroom. He fled to Germany after the killing, but was tracked down three weeks later in Germany.
Mr Sollecito’s defence team, headed by Giulia Bongiorno, a high profile lawyer and parliamentary deputy, brought props including a shop window mannequin wearing a bra into court last week to back their case. They claim “a thief”, who they suggest was Mr Guede, smashed a window to enter the cottage and killed Ms Kercher when she returned and recognised him, fleeing with her two mobile phones.
Ms Bongiorno argued that the presence of Mr Sollecito’s DNA on the bra fastener but not the rest of the garment proved it was due to contamination and mishandling by police forensic scientists.
Hmmm. Perhaps Rudy Guede should back out of the short-form trial (where the chips are loaded against him but the sentence is guaranteed shorter) and go for the long-form trial instead?
Oh, and better send more flowers, Raffaelle. She is going to be ticked at this one.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Test Your Grasp Of The Evidence: Locate The Witness’s Apartment
Posted by Kermit
1. Key Location: Signora Nara’s Apartment
The Meredith case is a puzzling and very complicated one, with a talented, hard-working and very appealing girl student, Meredith Kercher, as its sad victim.
Set in an exotic old Italian university town (which normally sees no murders) in another country and under another legal system for most followers. With the main reporting in Italian.
With the victim of one nationality and the suspects of three other nationalities. With limited public information released by police and prosecutors, and with some smoke blown by the defense teams and their enablers.
Analyzing the case based on the public information available at any one time might remind you of peeling the layers of onions. A lot of onions.
Here now is one example of the peeling of an onion. It concerns the evidence of a close neighbor who claims to have heard some telling sounds. Despite some attempts to harass her, the signora and her testimony emerge looking pretty credible.
Signora Nara (her first name) lives in an apartment somewhere above the house of the victim and one of the defendants. She thinks she heard a terrible scream - and then some running footsteps down in front of her apartment somewhere above the girls’ house.
Where her place is really matters because, if she is too far away or at the wrong angle, her evidence becomes a lot less credible.
You need all of these shots to understand her situation. The essential clue as to which one it is is hiding in plain site here. It was Kermit on the pro-evidence forum (Kermit knows Perugia and has studied the key locations in great depth) who first spotted it, around 10 days ago.The answer is at bottom here.
2. The Various Clues Hiding In Plain Sight
Below: Signora Nara’s apartment is in fact clearly visible somewhere in this shot
Below: The girls’ house cannot be seen from the basement floors of those house
Below: The roof of the girls’ house CAN be seen from apartments one flight up
Below: These are the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps
Below: Again, the steel stairs where Signora Nara says she heard climbing footsteps
Below: The main street south of her apartment; her front door is in a passage left of and parallel to this
Below: This is that parallel passage, here at its west end, emerging (left) onto the stairs by a park
Below: A CBS investigator and a translator in that passage outside Signora Nara’s front door
Below: The CBS investigator and translator again in that passage - at the ground-floor flat
Below: Her bathroom window seen from the parking facility at what is the BACK of her unit
Below: Two shots of Singnora Nara looking to the left and down from that bathroom window
Below: Shot of her on her balcony looking down and to the left - to the girls’ house
Below: Shots of the roof of the girls’ house; they are from one floor above Signora Nara’s
Below: Roof of the girls’ house in daylight from a similar location - not very far away
Below: And its gravel parking area where she claims she heard some of the footsteps
3. And The Vital Clue Is…
Below: The vital clue is this bathroom window - surrounded by an extensive mock window facade
4. And Therefore Her Apartment Is…
Below: The ONLY second-level apartment with a mock facade and balcony is above the trees at center here
A Professional Rates The Perp Walks
Posted by Peter Quennell
How They Shape Up
Someone in the criminal justice profession here in New York been examining the shots of those charged.
They thought about the demeanors, the bearings (to the extent this can be observed), clothing choices, and facial expressions, and whether they compel, for or against.
They informally rate Knox first, so far, Guede second (smart move, that $200 Sean John sweater), and Sollecito at the back of the pack.
And they insist on an interesting hedge: if there are any psychopaths in the group, all bets are off.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Three Suspects Enter Court For Next Micheli Hearing Today
Posted by Peter Quennell
More images on our People Page