Saturday, June 15, 2019

The World Isnt Short Of Suckers - Lupária, Sola & Cagossi Present “The Traveling Innocence Gang Show”

Posted by KrissyG

“Pssst! Turn it all on, we are being paid to put on a good show”

1. The Moneygrubbing Gang Arrives

See that headline above? The Modena Organizers were so short of imprisoned Italian innocents, they had to import a few

They all make big bucks out of this kind of event, each misconstruing their case. Read here how the moneygrubbing works, and how many get to gain.

At the Milan airport Thursday, press photos revealed Knox making a great show of bowing her head and looking fragile. “I feel frayed” she wrote, on social media, with boyfriend Christopher Robinson looking on from behind. Mom Edda was also there but wasnt featured in news reports.

Once again, the world got a glimpse of Amanda Knox the consummate actress who can never resist hamming it up, a manipulator of gestures and body language to convey drama.

Remember her clutching her chest, cross-armed, in a gesture of faux gratitude when news came her conviction had been annulled, for the benefit of the photographers on her doorstep? 

Or the time she pressed her hands together in front of her as a gesture of humble thanks at the conference in Seattle when she was released in 2011 by Judge Hellman (an appeal verdict which was shortly to be overturned)? 

Was there really anything humble about it, when just hours earlier as she changed at Heathrow, she was seen laughing happily and defiantly? 

Or the most famous occasion of all, when she gesticulated wildly and dramatically from the dock, as she made her final submissions to the court after her 2009 trial enunciating each word in Italian?  She was convicted, anyway.

Even earlier than that she was pictured outside the cottage on the day after the murder waving her hands about as a gaggle of reporters eagerly leant forward to discover what had happened.  She wore a pristine white skirt.

So we get it, image is all to Amanda Knox and this visit to Modena is no exception.

Newspapers reports Friday said she appeared to be visibly emotional, wiping away a tear, as old friend Peter Pringle gave his “testimony” of his time on “Death Row for 14 years” and an Italian innocence claimer.

Also Angelo Massaro, little known in the English-speaking world, described by the Italian news agency ANSA as “a Tarantino acquitted - and released from prison - after a conviction for murder”. So presumably he is not “exonerated”, either? Just released. 

(ANSA has to be restrained how it chooses its words in its home country, as a reputable good quality news agency on a par with Reuters or AP.)

So, once again, attention was on Knox, who knows how to play the press.  Good show by Amanda wiping away a dry tear.

2. The Pringle Connection Explained

As part of her “Innocence” campaign, you may recall Knox travelled early last year, February 2018, to the Republic of Ireland to appear in the Raymond D’Arcy Show.

Her connection to Ireland stemmed from her earlier connection to “innocence” campaigners Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs.

Surprise, surprise, the link continues now.

Peter Pringle pops up in Modena for the very same “Justice Festival”.  (Festival?  What IS it they are celebrating exactly?)

A brief history of their past:
 
(1) Knox appeared on US TV with Irish ex-murder defendant and ex-death row wife

Knox appeared on US TV with controversial ex-death row defendants, Peter Pringle, who was once jailed in Ireland for the alleged murder of two Irish police officers, after a bungled robbery by a political gang, and Sunny Jacobs, once on death row in the USA for supplying a gun to a man who then shot dead a two young policemen.

Pringle is Dublin born and spent 17 years in prison, the death penalty having been stayed by an Act of Irish parliament since 1954, for the murder of two young policemen after a botched robbery in Roscommon. He has always claimed innocence of the crime.

They were both acquitted - in Sunny’s case, without any certificate of exoneration - and now, like Knox tour the country and fundraise for “Innocence Projects” claiming ‘wrongful conviction’.

(2) Amanda Knox appeared with Sunny Jacobs and William Pringle on K5News channel in May 2017.

Knox shared a sofa with the pair expressing solidarity.  Knox said that she and Sunny were “women together” fighting injustice.

However, there is still much controversy in the Irish Republic as to Pringle’s innocence and emotions run high, as five young children lost their fathers in the murder of the police officers in 1980.

In addition, some say Jacobs was freed from death row for compassionate reasons, not because she was innocent, as she now claims.

(3) Knox’s appearance on Irish TV was controversial

William Pringle lived in the USA for many years after his release, and has in 2016 settled in Connemara in Ireland,

Because of Knox’s connection, the interview was bound to cause a lot of media interest, as it did when she sang a round of an IRA rebel song to a stunned D’Arcy, who was not impressed.

Many in the UK and the mainland of Ireland are not convinced by Knox’s claim to have been “exonerated”.

It could well be that Knox was invited to Ireland via contacts William Pringle and Sunny Jacobs.

Sunny Jacobs is now 70. Her husband, Jesse Tafero was executed at age 43. Sunny Jacobs is alleged to have supplied the gun by which he shot dead two police officers from their car, in Florida.

Both were condemned to the electric chair.

The robbery for which Pringle was jailed, which led to the killing of the police officers in Roscommon, was allegedly connected to the INLA, an Irish “liberation” terrorist group of the day.

So there has been hostility towards Pringle resettling in Ireland.

Pringle made a new bid for compensation from Ireland in January 2018.  The judge “reserved” the judgment and we have heard nothing more since. So presumably his application has failed.

Peter, Sunny and Amanda certainly seem to have the “Innocence Gang Tour” sewn up, as they make their way from country after country.  Dabbing an eye and giving their moving “testimonies” and moneygrubbing away.

Thursday, June 06, 2019

Un preavviso per i partecipanti al progetto di Innocenza Italia

Posted by Our Main Posters

Siate consapevoli che la Knox

(1) fa danni immensi infiammando il bigottismo contro l’Italia,

(2) è condannata per reato di calunnia criminale, giustamente incarcerato 3 anni,

(3) non è stata esonerata dalla Cassazione per omicidio,

(4) ha mentita su larga scala ai media , che si è rigirata per lei,

(5) può essere arrestata per oltraggio alla Cassazione poiché non sono ancora stati pagati 10000 danni a Lumumba.

Tuesday, June 04, 2019

The Italian Venue (Really) Where Knox Will Feature On A Media Panel Next Week

Posted by Peter Quennell

Really? Here? Behind those garbage skips?!

We had to laugh. This really is the main entrance to the Open Laboratory space in Modena which that northern city now makes available for happening events.

The image below shows the main interior. It looks rather prison-like, to us appropriately so.

Here is the program in Italian for the first-ever conference of the Innocence Project’s Italian arm.

Knox’s media panel is shown as being next saturday there. 

As there are no known innocents in Italian prisons, given how careful the justice process is, importing Knox was apparently the best they could do to get anyone to come.

We’ve held back posting on this up to now, as we really do want to see how Knox is received there.

But expect some posts intended to open Italian eyes to Knox in the next several days.

No word yet on whether Sollecito will be there.

Friday, May 10, 2019

Pyrrhic Victory For Knox #3: Italy Now Challenges Knox’s “No Lawyer” ECHR Award (Continued)

Posted by KrissyG

Linos-Alexandre Sicilianos, from 1 April the ECHR’s chief judge

Added June 2019: Another panel of ECHR judges has just reviewed Italy’s appeal but balked at send the minor matter to the Grande Council of all ECHR judges (which is actually reserved for cases with greater import: less than 10% of requests make it up there). So Italy gave in amicably. The Ministry’s lawyers could see how confused and misinformed the judges had become, still thinking Knox had incriminated herself and not Patrick. In sharp contrast, Dalla Vedova was a sore winner. He showed anger in front of the press having lost face in being denied the now-public E2.5 million demand. He again claimed Knox was interrogated for 54 hours, with no interpreter, blah blah. Ghirga, a real criminal lawyer, must be laughing.

Legal Context Of Italy’s Appeal

This report picks up where yesterday’s analysis concluded.

The Italian government has lodged an appeal against the ECHR ruling in January 2019 upholding that Amanda Knox’ right to a fair trial (Article 6 of the Human Rights Convention) had been breached, in that the translator had not been impartial, and that as a suspect (was she?) Knox should have been given a lawyer earlier than she had.

This update is translated from the Perugia newspaper UMBRIA 24

The ruling by which the European Court of Human Rights has argued that Italy has violated Amanda Knox’s right of defense during the investigation of the murder of Meredith Kercher is being contested before the Grande Chambre in Strasbourg.

The decision by which last January Italy had been advised to pay 10,400 euros for moral damages to the American student, definitively acquitted by the accusation of murdering her English roommate on November 1, 2017 in Via della Pergola in Perugia, is was challenged by the Italian government.

La Grande Chambre, which represents a sort of Cassation of the European Court, is composed of 17 judges. In the recent past, Silvio Berlusconi has also passed through the Grande Chambre, bringing to the judges’ attention a question concerning its reliability.

Last January, the Court recognized Italy’s violation of Knox’s right to defense during the November 6, 2007 interrogation, and also evidence confirming complaints about police during the same interrogation . Amanda had asked for two and a half million euros.

In yesterday’s post I summarized from my point of view the findings of the ECHR in the original deliberations and how they may be challenged.

Summary:  The main issues revolve around the question of admissibility.  I have identified two or three possible grounds of appeal on points of law.  They are:

• Italy submitted that date-wise, the application by Knox had been submitted too early as the hearings had not yet been finalized.  ECHR rejects this saying that the hearings finalized very shortly after.  As far as I can see, this is not so.

• The ECHR relies on comments by Hellmann Appeal Court, which was largely superseded and outranked by Chieffi Supreme Court, to argue factors of free will.

• The ECHR relies heavily on police minutes and the fact interpreter Donnino and a police office, RI, fail to record details of their expressions of familiarity with Knox, or make a note that (i) Knox was asked if she wanted a lawyer and declined, (ii) that start and end times are not recorded, and that (iii) hours are condensed into minutes. Is it an error of law to assume these police minutes represented a failure of procedure?

That’s not to say that these are the grounds Italy have set out. We don’t know those yet.

The rules for such an appeal are set out under Article 43 which states the following:

ARTICLE 43

Referral to the Grand Chamber

1. Within a period of three months from the date of the judgment of the Chamber, any party to the case may, in exceptional cases, request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber.

2. A panel of five judges of the Grand Chamber shall accept the request if the case raises a serious question affecting the interpretation or application of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, or a serious issue of general importance.

3. If the panel accepts the request, the Grand Chamber shall decide the case by means of a judgment.

From another newspaper citing the ECHR in Strasburg:

STRASBOURG (France) - The Government has challenged in front of the Grand Chamber the decision with which the European Court in Strasbourg claimed that Italy violated Amanda Knox’s right to defense in the investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher, carried out at Perugia the evening of 1 November 2007, for which she has already been definitively acquitted by the Italian justice. The action - as learned by ANSA - was notified to the American’s lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga.

The Grand Chamber is a sort of Cassation of the European Court. “This - the lawyer Dalla Vedova explained - is a judge only of legitimacy. The Grand Chamber {Panel} will now have to rule on the admissibility of the Government’s request to transmit the case to be decided {by the Grand Chamber} of the European Court. Decision on the request has reserved. The request will move to discussion {by the Grand Chamber Panel}.”

It has to said that it is relatively rare for a case to be referred back to the Grand Chamber after the appeal is assessed for permissibility.  ECHR is predicated on case law, so I would expect Italy will be demonstrating an error of interpretation based on a previous case or cases. 

Case law generally refers to cases that have set a legal precedence.  For example, Salduz, which was to do with the rights of a person suspected of terrorist acts.

Yesterday I argued (1) that the original ECHR claim by Knox was ‘out of time’ – in this case presented too early - as internal procedure had not been exhausted - and (2) there was a too-heavy reliance on Hellmann (First Appeal Court) and Boninsegna (Knox’s second calunnia case) instead of the First Chambers of the Supreme Court (Chieffi) which overrode the Hellmann appeal.

In Judge Chieffi’s rationale Hellmann’s reasoning was largely struck down, and came in for stern criticism by Chieffi.

In effect, Dalla Vedova for his client, Knox, had resuscitated the appeal lodged with Hellmann although Judge Chieffi’s was the Res Judicata verdict. 

A principle in law is that you cannot have your case heard twice unless a higher court directs it back to the lower court.

It should be kept in mind that a referral to the ECHR Grand Chamber is statistically remote as the issue of admissibility has to be surmounted first.

Thursday, May 09, 2019

Pyrrhic Victory For Knox #2: Italy Challenges Knox’s “No Lawyer” ECHR Award

Posted by Peter Quennell

Dr Alfonso Bonafede the Italian Minister of Justice

The Breaking News

There should be more to come. This is what we know so far. Knox’s suggested award last February was simply for questions having been asked of Knox when her lawyer was not there.

But the ECHR was in fact parroting two corrupted courts (Hellman and Boninsegna) and so very clearly did not understand what other courts including the Supreme Court had already definitively found: (1) Knox specifically refused a lawyer several times; and (2) Once Knox falsely fingered Patrick no questions were asked.

The Italian Justice Ministry has just announced it is refusing for now to make the ECHR’s suggested award, and will soon be making (1) and (2) clear to the Strasbourg Court.

ECHR Strasbourg had already handed Knox numerous setbacks, in not accepting various grounds of her “appeal” although her team tried to paint the tiny suggested lawyer-related award as a win.

Knox’s biggest setback was that ECHR went along, not with her, but with the Supreme Court in refusing to find that Knox had been tortured and abused. That forever-repeated and defamatory false claim is STILL at the very heart of Knox’s book, paid presentations, and TV appearances and magazine interviews. Knox is again threatening to return to Italy to yet again repeat her defamatory claims. She might find some legal action awaiting her.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

If You Are Going To Offshore A Fraud, Maybe It’d Be Smart To Not Pick Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Scarlet curve BT stock, purple curve Dow stockmarket index

When BREXIT Arrives…

The UK is going to need a few world-beating companies. Relentless prods by Italy suggest British Telecom is not one of them.

Back in the day, BT was perhaps the world’s most revered national telephone provider. It fielded teams to numerous developing countries to help with the planning and training needed to develop their national infrastructures.

BT was privatized by the British government in the mid 1980s, and if you had sold its stock around 2000 you would have done very nicely.

But since then BT has steadily headed down the tubes, and its stock now is actually worth less than on its very first day on the market.

Giving BT a hard time for several years have been the formidable fraud investigators of the Italian police.

Now a damning report has been issued by them.

Prosecutors in Milan allege that three former senior BT executives, Luis Alvarez, Richard Cameron and Corrado Sciolla, set unrealistically high business targets and were complicit in false accounting at BT Italy.

Alvarez and Cameron were respectively the former chief executive and former chief financial officer of BT Global Services, and Sciolla was the former head of continental Europe for BT. The three men, two of whom were based in London, left the company in 2017.

Allegations of fraudulent bookkeeping are part of a range of suspected wrongdoing at BT Italy. Italian prosecutors allege that a network of people at the unit exaggerated revenues, faked contract renewals and invoices and invented bogus supplier transactions to meet bonus targets and disguise the unit’s true financial performance.

The company has publicly disclosed that it uncovered a complex set of improper sales, leasing transactions and factoring at the division. Factoring is a way in which firms sell future income to financiers for cash…

Italy’s financial police found an email dated 5 August 2016, from O’Ferrall in which he says that Cameron wanted operating profit to increase by 700,000 euros and suggests to Luca Sebastiani, then CFO at BT Italy, along with other colleagues across Europe, that they capitalise labour costs as a solution.

“All, I have an urgent request from Richard to find another €700K,” O’Ferrall wrote to Sebastiani and his counterparts in Germany, Benelux, France, Spain, Hungary as well as Simon Whittle, then finance manager, reporting and consolidation, at Global Services Europe.

“Please, can you look at all opportunities and come back to Simon and me asap. Labour capitalization? Regards Brian,” says the email, whose subject line reads “Another €700K EBITDA needed in [July].”

Sad business. Italy and the UK have been special friends.

Friday, April 12, 2019

The Numerous Little Italys Throughout North America - Check These Out

Posted by Peter Quennell

Monday, April 01, 2019

Former (And Future?) Very Fine City Seattle: Good Luck In Reversing This Tough Trend

Posted by Our Main Posters

This great old-style reporting was uploaded by Seattle’s KOMO News two weeks ago.

It was mentioned to us by a loyal reader there who wants to see addressed less Knox and more this.

This video is already nearing two million views. It is one hour long.

Best of luck, all.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Italy May Block Brexit Extension, Force UK Out Of EC Altogether March 29

Posted by Peter Quennell

Sardinia will lose a lot of trade

In The News

Italy may block the extension of the UK Brexit negotiations.

That would cause the UK to crash out on 29 March. Spain, France and Belgium are also said to be taking a hard line.

In economic terms this does not seem to make much sense. Sardinia alone could see 40 million pounds of exports down the tubes.

But in international sway Italy might gain a lot. For all years previously it was the EC’s fourth economy, after Germany, UK and France.

But now that the UK is leaving, Italy can, and should, step up. It is the third largest country and economy in the EU…

It has significant voting rights in the EU institutions. It is at the centre of the immigration crisis. It has a strong military and, despite its public debt, the third largest gold reserves in the world.

It is a manufacturing powerhouse, ranking among the top 10 exporters in the world.

With the UK out, this is the time for Italy to assert itself in, and for, the EU.

In practice, this would mean demanding to be present at any meeting where France and Germany take joint decisions designed to lead Europe forward.

“...third largest gold reserves in the world”? Hmmm!

 

Friday, February 22, 2019

Watch This “I’m The Victim” Interview Of A Few Days Ago In Full Amanda Knox Mode

Posted by Peter Quennell

TV actor Jussie Smollett makes everything up, in blazing victimhood.

Today, he was arrested, for stage-managing a fake hate-crime in Chicago three weeks ago. Numerous show-biz celebrities and politicians of all parties had come out in support of him. 

Resolving what actually happened in this volatile atmosphere has occupied a dozen competent detectives full-time. How they broke the case is pretty intriguing; some new YouTubes describe the very complex cliffhanger.

If you scroll back through the hundreds of YouTubes (really) on this over three weeks you will see that, to their great credit, most of the first posters to pick up the bad vibes and cry “fake” were from the black community. 

The interviewer above is ABC’s Robin Roberts. She’s now accused of colluding with Smollett. She also colluded with Knox.