Category: Amanda Knox

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Today In Perugia: Another Sign of Extreme Nervousness In The Knox-Mellas Camp?

Posted by True North

[above: successful former prosecutor and respected judge Claudia Matteini]

Edda Mellas and Curt Knox were expected to show up for their day in court today. But they didn’t.

Presumably their lawyers warned them in advance that Judge Matteini’s ruling on whether there is to be a libel trial would be going against them. Perhaps not one of the most perfect press-conference moments when loose tongues already seem to have got them in hot water. 

Their defamation trial hearing was postponed by Judge Carla Giangamboni to 15 February. This is today’s court report from the Italian news service AGI.

Five police officers from the Perugia Flying Squad have launched a civil party libel action suit against the parents of Amanda Knox.

Curt Knox and Edda Mellas were not in attendance for this morning’s hearing which has been postponed to February 15.  Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, who are divorced and remarried, have always stood together in defense of their daughter.

They are accused of defaming the officers of the Perugia Flying Squad in an interview made to the Sunday Times in June 2008, in which among other things, they claimed that Amanda had been interrogated for 9 hours without the aid of an interpreter, was kept without food and drink,  and that she was threatened and hit on the back of her head.

Meanwhile on November 24 the appeal hearing will commence in the Court of Appeal in Assize for the two former lovers, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito who were sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Is The PR Campaign Finally Now Pushing Amanda Knox Very, Very Close To The Edge?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Things seem to be getting increasingly tough for Amanda Knox.

We have already posted that she seems increasingly adrift. Now consider all that is about to hit her.

1) Next week a book of interviews with Knox will be release by an Italian politician, Rocco Girlanda (image below), who we hear comes across as more than a little obsessive toward her. 

We are told that an active Italian MP is in fact legally forbidden from meddling in an ongoing case, and it seems he started the interviews with Amanda in Capanne without her even realising she was being recorded. Who knows how this book will come across in Italy, and how she will then be regarded?

2) Next week also the slander trial of Knox’s parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, may get under way in Perugia. We have posted repeatedly lately on what seems the real reason why Amanda Knox accused Patrick Lumumba: Sollecito had just destroyed her alibi.

Only very much later did Knox start to claim that she was driven to make her demonstrably false accusation because she was being harrassed by an interrogator. This is supported by no witnesses at all. The tough confident insouciant Amanda Knox who took the witness stand last June did not manage to make this claim sound remotely credible.

In the echo-chamber occupied by such shallow grandstanding self-servers as Steve Moore (Machine’s post below) this belated accusation somehow morphed into Prosecutor Mignini himself leading the harrassment, which was said to go on for hours and hours, with no food, no water, no lawyer, and no interpreter present in the room.

So Amanda Knox herself and her two parents are now facing their separate slander trials - Knox’s own trial will recommence in November. All three seem to be between a rock and a hard place. Either they must look all of the cops right in the eyes and say “Yes you did this” or visibly freeze or melt down emotionally on the witness stand, and end up facing possible legal punishment.

3) The Sollecitos increasingly seem to be going their own separate way. The Sollecito family trial for illegally releasing an evidence video to Telenorba showing Meredith naked at the crime scene (which stirred considerable dislike for them all across Italy) will recommence on 24 February in Perugia. Raffaele’s sister Vanessa, who was fired from her job in the Carabinieri (federal police) for trying to get politicians to use their influence for Sollecito, will also be facing her own hearing.

As we have explained so many times before, Raffaele Sollecito has NEVER endorsed Amanda Knox’s final alibi - that she was with him at his place all night. The Sollecitos do NOT like Amanda Knox or her family, and they have no time at all for the strident anti-Italianism of the PR campaign, which has done them nothing but harm.

4) Amanda Knox is now said to be pretty desperate to talk in person or on the phone with Raffaele Sollecito. This has just been approved. For each, it will be their one approved phone-call a week, and it will be monitored.

Although some of the Italian media have made light of this - that this may be a sign of love’s hot embers - the far more likely explanation is that Amanda herself and the inner Knox team are desperately worried that Sollecito could cut them adrift, and come out at appeal with a show of penitence and even a sort of explanation.

So Knox reaches out to Sollecito now in what seems to be growing desperation.

5) Hayden Panettiere is hanging around in Rome waiting for the shooting of the Lifetime movie to begin, grinning vacuously for the cameras as she thoughtlessly heaps still more pain on Meredith’s family and her friends and shows zero concern for the real victim.

To their considerable credit, Amanda Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia seem to have taken a strong dislike to Hayden Panettiere, and to the timing of the Lifetime movie. We have just now heard that they have said no to a request from Hayden Panettiere to meet with Amanda Knox in Capanne Prison. This film is likely to stir enormous controversy unless it sticks to the facts, and the facts hardly seem to favor Amanda Knox.

6) There is less sign now than there ever was that the US Rome Embassy or the State Department are inclining to intervene, even if there was an obvious way open. They know the case from end to end and they believe last year’s trial was a perfectly fair proceeding.  Just a couple of weeks ago the State Department did move actively to help some other Americans in foreign trouble, but in light of the strident anti-Italianism and the Massei Report, it just isn’t going to happen here.

7) The depth and detail and precision of the Massei Report is a nightmare for the Amanda Knox defence team. Even if all the DNA and other forensic tests are repeated, the result are very unlikely to be fully in their favor, and there’s a real chance new tests will work against them.

And now we are hearing that the opportunistic prisoners Mario Alessi and Luciano Aviello, one of who claims he was a cellmate of Rudy Guede who heard him confess, and the other who claims he is the brother of the “real” murderer, may STILL be the defense’s star witnesses at the appeal starting late in November. Both are very much reviled in Italy for their crimes, and each has a known history of lying.

So good luck to the Knox defense team with this one. Their appeal statement seems weak and disjointed. Amanda surely picks up on their despondent vibes, which hardly helps in her own struggle for emotional stability. 

***

So what do we ourselves hope for here? We hope that Amanda Knox finally breaks. Not calamitously, of course, but in a totally new direction. Maybe a shorter sentence for her. And certainly relief to the thousands this cruel senseless act toward Meredith has so very much damaged.

Friday, October 01, 2010

Knox Slander Hearing Adjourned: Her Lawyers Make It Sound Like She Might Crack - Too Late?

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Amanda Knox and her lawyer Luciano Ghirga in court last June]

The slander hearing was adjourned by Judge Matteini to Monday 8 November, after less than one hour.

Amanda Knox now knows she is not only facing the huge and detailed Massei Report and (vital to remember) the really huge volume of witness and expert statements and evidence exhibits and other documents to which it it links, which are for the most part only available in Italian.

Now she knows she is facing a bunch of hostile cops, as she was exchanging stares with all of them today in court. And if she continues to accuse them in court, she will be cross-examined, and pressed very hard to name which one or ones it was - while looking him or her or them right in the eye.

Quite some pressure. Mr Ghirga has just been reported as saying this about Amanda Knox’s state of mind.

“She has hardened herself, she has become more unhappy and less serene,” he said. “I hope we can help her to find her serenity back before Nov 24 and that she doesn’t lose her courage. This would not help us.”

And here is another report from another of her lawyers.

“She’s very down,” said her lawyer, Maria del Grosso of Rome. “I’ve told her to be tough. It won’t help to fall apart now. “

This all seems to imply that Knox just might decide to abandon the hard line encouraged by the PR campaign, which seems to be getting her nowhere except into more hot water, and move from her various conflicting stories and over now to something completely different. 

Something credible and consistent that actually sounds like the truth? Who knows?

Coming so late in the process, with Meredith’s family and friends already put through deep pain for nearly three years, it may not happen - at least not yet. Still, one consistent story if believed could affect her sentence and the conditions of her stay in prison if she does not win her freedom at appeal.

And some peace of mind for all those who have been hurt. All except one: her family’s very precious Meredith. Stay tuned.

Knox Calunnia Hearing: Amanda Knox Enters Court Via The Underground Entrance

Posted by Peter Quennell

Amanda Knox enters the court in the more modern part of town where Rudy Guede was tried last October.

As described by Andrea Vogt in the quotes in the post just below, this is a closed hearing. This is NOT a charge initiated by the prosecution in Knox’s murder trial or for that matter by the State of Italy.

It is initiated by the complaining police (represented by the Florentine lawyer Francesco Maresca, who was also the lawyer appinted to represent Meredith’s family in the Knox, Sollecito and Guede trials) who are denying Knox’s claims that she was maltreated as a witness.

So Mr Maresca and Amanda Knox’s lawyers Mr Ghirga and Mr Della Vedova will go to it toe-to-toe.  Judge Claudia Matteini could put the case on ice today, or she could decide that it goes forward to full trial in one form or another.

Although prison time (up to six years) is a possible outcome of the main trial, if there is one, this is in essence a civil case. Slander cases are not that common in Italy for the simple reason that penalties are very tough - and so there is very little real slander.

Slandering the cops, if Amanda Knox did do that, would seem a singularly ill-advised move. Her own lawyers certainly never advised it, or complained about rough treatment, or even suggested that they believed it was true.

Italian cops generally have an easy relationship with the population, and the crime rate in Italy compared to most other countries is low. The murder rate is only 1/6 that of the United States, for example, and one of the lowest in the world.

Italy also has an impressively cautious and careful justice system described here by our Italian posters Nicki and Commisario and Cesare, which is unquestionably the most respected Italian public institution. The Innocence Project has never helped to overturn a case in Italy, and we believe they do not even have any questionable cases listed.

Amnesty International and the European institutions do occasionally complain of the Italian justice system being slow, but that is essentially a factor of its extreme caution, and all the hurdles that prosecutors have to make their way through.

What the record suggests actually happened in Knox’s brief examination as a witness on the night was described in this post here. 

So not only does Amanda Knox not carry very much credibility here - her charges seem to have been a seriously wrong turn. They perhaps in themselves halved what public sympathy she had left.

As we have often said here, we think her bravado has been very foolishly egged-on

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Knox Movie: Hardening Suggestions Panettiere & Dornhelm & Battles Have Been Sold A Total Dog

Posted by Janus

[Above: wannabee Amanda Knox impersonator actress Hayden Panettiere]

For three days the Knox machine in Seattle said nothing about the Lifetime movie.

On Monday Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia had said the proposed Lifetime movie was a bad concept badly timed. and lawyers for Sollecito indicated that this movie would be stopped by legal means as it could hurt them a lot more than it could ever help.

Maria Del Grosso, a lawyer who works with the criminal lawyers Amanda Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova, reached by telephone by Adnkronos, called the idea “at least inappropriate”¦. you can not think about making a film when the case is judicially still open”¦. when you remove all this tension, we can work better on the appeals.”

Finally on Thursday there came a very muted claim of denial of involvement from the Knox machine in Seattle in the form of a Facebook Causes message apparently signed by Deanna Knox - a rather sad low-traffic page that, by the way.
.

“to all those who follow my sisters case and have heard about the new lifetime movie. here are some facts that we know now.
1.) yes, as it looks right now lifetime is making a movie about my sisters trial.
2.) yes, it looks like Hayden Panettiere is playing my sister in this movie.
3.) no, Hayden Panettiere has not visited my sister in italy, nor has Hayden or any of the ptoducers have had any contact with the family.
4.) will this movie follow the facts….at this point it is hard to tell, from reading news on it, so far it looks like it wont, calling my sister guiltridden and an infamous killer which none are true, we shall see how the tabloid lifetime comes up with.
till later this is all we know. -Deanna Knox”

Claim 3 would appear at first glance to be unambiguous. However, it does not exclude the possibility that some other people from say Lifetime have, for example, sat with the Knox machine, maybe for many hours. And in any case, which branch of the extended family is Deanna Knox referring to? The Knox branch, the Mellas branch, the Huff branch, or all three? Like many Knox statements, this one begs more questions than it answers.

Claim 4 also seems unambiguous. However, Deanna has clearly not been “reading news” with a great deal of care, since the attributed quotes were not made by the movie-makers - they were made by neutral media reporters writing up the story.

There seemed three possibilities in this instance: Firstly, that Deanna was a bare-faced liar. Secondly, that she is being kept “out of the loop” by other family-members and the Knox machine. Thirdly, that she really was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But now the CBS website is reporting that, contrary to earlier reports, Amanda Knox’s lawyers are not attempting to stop the movie being made. “Sources close to the case” (most followers of this case could have a good guess about who those “sources” might be) “told CBS News’ 48 Hours producers that Knox didn’t know about the film and has no plans to oppose it.

So it seems Mr Ghirga and Mr Della Vedova might have been told to please shut up. 

It is now only Sollecito’s legal team that wants to stop it - and do they ever; see the post directly below. They have immense powers to do that.

Meanwhile we are hearing from an entertainment industry source that the script may not adhere at all closely to the truth, and may in fact in fact be a conspiracy theory snow job, with Italy and its meanie officials once again as the villains of the piece. (Good luck Lifetime in all the slander suits that will fly in face of such xenophobic and libelous rubbish.).

There are basically three components to the Amanda Knox story.

1) Amanda Knox’s life growing up troubled in Seattle and what the books say about it was described on Thursday here. 

One problem with any movie that Curt Knox and Edda Mellas do not tightly control is the reports that are already out there (including in two of the books) of extreme family friction before and after the divorce - Amanda was not much more than a toddler at the time of the divorce.

Narcissistic sociopathy and narcissistic psychopathy, which psychologists have speculated Amanda might to some degree have (tests done on her in prison during the hearings were not released. but they helped sway a judge to not grant house arrest or bail), can apparently be triggered by early childhood trauma.

Another problem for Curt Knox and Edda Mellas if they do not control the film is the reports of Amanda’s quirky behavior over the years, which continued at the University of Washington and also in Perugia. It was most especially noticeable in the three days after Meredith’s murder, as her sentencing report points out, and again when she was on the witness stand in June 2009. And she has admitted to using drugs - in fact, she used that as a part of her defence.

2) Amanda Knox after she arrived in Perugia, where she had an almost uniquely unstructured and very under-funded student arrangement, where she had only a very light study load (especially compared to that of Meredith), where she was undoubtedly on drugs and possibly hard drugs (cocaine), where she was losing any friends in Perugia fast because of her loud abrasiveness, and where she was in danger of even losing her vital job - probably she thought she HAD lost it on the night, which would have sparked an angry storm in her just when Meredith died. (There are posts on all of these aspects here on TJMK.)

3) Amanda Knox and her team at trial. Amanda Knox and her mother did NOT do compellingly well on the stand, and the defence phase of the trial (unlike the prosecution phase) was weak, halting, indecisive, slow, and absolutely lacking in knockout punches. By the time of the verdict in December, Italian sympathy was hovering around zero.

Told truthfully, none of this - none - make her look like an attractive all-American girl. She was an apparently troubled person on drugs who was, with good reason, found guilty of a very vile murder.

And that’s it.  This is not a patch on Meredith’s inspiring story - the super-achiever Meredith was the REAL victim here, in case Lifetime forgets. The less talented and less focused and less popular Knox was not a victim, ever, in any sense of the word. Except maybe in her own home.

Lifetime really seems to have the victims back to front.

Good film makers like Robert Dornhelm and Wendy Battles should really be taking this description above, and the Micheli and Massei Reports, as their point of departure, not the made up “facts” and ludicrous explanations of conspiracy theorists who have already done so much to anger half of Italy.

Especially if Dornhelm and Battles (and Hayden Panettiere) don’t want to see the lawsuits flying (there are several more slander suits already rumored to be in the works).

Meanwhile, in South London, the pain and misery continues for the family of Meredith Kercher, and an arrogant unfeeling Lifetime Television has still not bothered to respond to their very real and heartfelt concerns. 

Common decency dictates Lifetime SHOULD have contacted Meredith’s family before this movie project passed step one. Since they chose not to do so, common decency now dictates that it becomes a matter of priority. That means reaching out to the Kerchers, today.

Their Italian lawyer, Francesco Maresca, has worked long and hard for them. He is easy to contact, and he will surely be happy to discuss the issue with Lifetime, and protect the Kerchers’ interests and make their feelings known.

Monday, August 09, 2010

The Judges’ Sentencing Report For The Guilty Verdicts In The Case Of Meredith Kercher

Posted by Our Main Posters

This is the report of Judge Massei and his colleagues, now translated into English.

This was a joint effort of PMF and TJMK and all who worked so hard on the report are active on Perugia Murder File and are or will be posters here on True Justice For Meredith Kercher.

The five months of work by all of us, on three continents, was done in memory of Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher, who was known to her friends as Mez.

Rest peacefully, Mez. We’d have been so honored to have been your friends.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Oregon’s David Wu: Another Opportunistic American Congressman That Takes An Anti-Italy Stance

Posted by Peter Quennell

Are there REALLY no Italian-Americans in Oregon’s Congressional District 1 (map below) which is Mr Wu’s political district? 

Would someone please ASK him?!

This undated take on the case by David Wu, a letter to a constituent, was posted a few days ago on the New York Daily News website.

We already know that the Italian justice system has been almost excruciatingly fair, that the evidence is massive and conclusive, and that there is a snowball’s chance in hell of the US federal government even raising this case with the Italian government.

Let alone using any actual political capital to try to spring Amanda Knox in face of what was a fair trial.

Nevertheless, complete with nasty attitude, errors, and illusory claims, Congressman Wu’s letter is being feverishly spread around by the adolescent Knox groupies. Together with the claim that somehow, therefore, Amanda Knox’s support is growing. 

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for the fair treatment of Amanda Knox, an American student who was found guilty in an Italian court for killing her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy in 2007.

I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important matter. In December 2009, Ms. Knox, a native of Seattle, was convicted by an Italian jury on charges of murder and sexual violence. During the trial, the prosecution claimed that Ms. Knox killed her roommate with the help of her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and an Italian drug-dealer named Rudy Guede. Ms. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison.

I was saddened by the verdict, and I agree that many facets of the prosecution’s case against Ms. Knox raise serious questions about her guilt.

In April 2009, Ms. Knox’s attorney, Ted Simon, stated before national media, “There’s brand new information presented as part of Amanda’s appeal by another person…that states for the first time that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not present or were not involved.”

Mr. Simon said that he is confident that new evidence in the 200-page appeal of her murder conviction will force Italian courts to take a hard look at the validity of her prison sentence.

Although the United States government’s ability to influence Italian criminal procedure is limited, I believe that Ms. Knox deserves a fair trial, especially in light of the defense’s new evidence.

I will be closely monitoring Ms. Knox’s appeal, and I will seize any opportunity to stand up for the values of fundamental justice and the rule of law. Thank you again for sharing your concerns with me.

As this tragic case plays out on the international stage, I will keep your views in mind.  If I may be be of additional assistance, please call my Oregon office at 503-326-2901 or 800-422-4003.

With warm regards, David Wu Member of Congress

Below: Congressional District 1 is David Wu’s home district

Monday, July 05, 2010

Curt Knox And Edda Mellas Back In Court - And This Time In The Dock

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Perugia old-city’s smaller piazza with the court at right and Lumumba’s bar ahead down the hill]

Possible to feel some sympathy for Edda Mellas and Curt Knox for the turmoil that their kid has put them through.

Hard to feel too much, though, because of the huge sliming by their campaign of others, the concretely-proven lies they have told on TV, the damage done to the Italian image in the US, and the untold agony to Meredith’s family and friends, for whom they have still shown zero real sympathy.

Barbie Nadeau has the report on their own trial about to start. If their sentence is less than three years, for a first offense it would not incur prison time. However it might not have been the worst experience in the world to see them cooling their heels for a while.

We hope from now truth really breaks out and Edda Mellas gives a full explanation of this, a key aspect of the trial that no reporter and no book-writer has ever pursued (so what’s new?!)

Did Edda Mellas actually lie on the witness stand? Lie when she was under oath?

Friday, June 25, 2010

Amanda Knox’s Supporters Obtain Rome Embassy Cables About Knox, Prove Of No Help

Posted by True North

The American Embassy in Rome above, and the State Department in Washington below.

Ninety-nine percent of the reason why countries put embassies in other countries is because they really want to get along.

The US and Italy in fact do get along, extremely well, and there are thousands of transactions between the two countries every day. Thousands of Americans live in Italy, and millions of Americans are of Italian descent.

At the request of the US Administration, the Italian government recently put a large contingent of Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Under the US Freedom of Information Act,  any American citizen can request and usually obtain astonishing amounts of official documentation, far beyond what can usually be extracted from the bureaucracies in most other countries.

Occasionally this information has embarrassed the department concerned, or the party in power in the Congress or the White House. But usually the documents are innocuous and without drama. Conspiracies simply never show up.

The blogger History Punk on his website Historiographic Anarchy has posted some cables (pdf format) from Rome to Washington, which report periodically on the Rome Embassy’s monitoring of Amanda Knox in Capanne Prison and her trial and appeals in Perugia.

As we would expect, these cables are extremely mundane. They were sent by a middle-level official in the consular section of the Rome Embassy to the Italy desk in the State Department.

They report carefully on the careful Italian legal process, and they never remark on anything wrong. No charges or claims or complaints are relayed from Amanda Knox. There is no talk of any anti-Americanism. No instructions, questions or comments are cabled from Washington in return.

One cable was not released. It was marked confidential and the contents are unknown. Here’s a guess at its contents: “Please keep those xenophobic ranters on a chain - they are doing the American cause in Italy no good at all”. 

My first post here on TJMK and proud of it. This is a good fight I join.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Commentary by The Most Widely-Read English-Language Website In Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Knox campaign seems to have divided out into three pieces, none of them seemingly at all effective.

The ludicrously shrill David Marriott campaign, the ludicrously shrill Anne Bremner/FOA campaign, and the adolescent internet rantings of the Knox groupies. All three seem to be painting themselves into a corner.

Meanwhile, Amanda Knox’s two lawyers in Italy seem to be going their own sweet way, quite impervious to the above, and it is clear that the Massei sentencing report has given them very much food for thought.

Italian-language reports as they have mostly done for two-plus years vary between strict neutrality and the occasional caustic comment on Knox or Sollecito.

Italy’s biggest English-language internet outlet, read by tens of thousands of residents and visitors who don’t speak very much Italian. has also adopted the same cool objective tone.

This is today’s thoughtful, well written commentary by Rome Journal contributor Rebecca. 

We had closely followed the first trial, in which Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty of murdering her British flat mate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia.

This was one of the most dramatic and internationally observed Italian trials of this decade, and Italy as the scene of crime and trial had come under close scrutiny, and had been at the centre of a bizarre media frenzy covering the case.

Now, Amanda Knox is back in court. She faces slander charges against the police, who she claims hit her during the questioning a few days after the killing in November 2007. Italian police strongly denied that Knox was subjected to any physical abuse, which is supported by an external inquiry.

If Knox is found guilty of slander, she could face another six years in jail, on top of the 26 years she is currently serving.

Knox’s defense lawyers filed a motion to prevent the presiding judge, Claudia Matteini, from hearing Knox’s slander case because of her involvement in the preliminary hearings into the murder. A hearing today will take the final decision about whether Matteini is the appropriate judge to hear this case. The trial is likely to start on October 1….

What is particularly unnerving about this case is the sense that much of the testimony is contradictory: All three convicted of the murder deny their involvement, but cannot explain their inconsistent testimonies, and keep changing their account of what happened on the night of the murder.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, a journalist who has followed the case from the start and has always provided excellent coverage and analysis, asks ten questions that Amanda Knox has never answered, even though they could set her free. That she never addressed them, indicates that her involvement in the murder may have been substantial.

Whether the lies aim to conceal that the convicted did partake in the murder ““ which frankly didn’t work ““ or whether they intend to cover up something else, remains a mystery. Any hints regarding the truth in this matter, even if they come from a separate trial, will be of high interest.

What are your thoughts on the trial? Why do you think Amanda Knox keeps lying? If she is truly innocent, why not tell the truth?