All our posts on The fall-outs

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Giuseppe Castellini Speaks Up For A “Kind Homeless Man Of Many Aspects”

Posted by Jools

Giuseppe Castellini (above) is the editor of the Journal of Umbria in Perugia. Throughout the case he and his various reporters have done amazing, fearless work.

Today he writes movingly about the sad passing in prison of the honest and brave free spirit Antonio Curatolo, who had been charged during the appeal on a minor eight-year-old charge, apparently at someone’s insistence.

Our lives crossed on the path of the tragic murder of Meredith Kercher. And, somehow, we were no longer separated. Even though, rather than crossing paths, in time they’ve run parallel courses. Up to Friday, when death took him away, at the age of 56. And in his passing we (I speak in the plural because the same sentiment is felt by Francesca Bene, Luca Fiorucci and Antioco Fois, the colleagues who have been following the Meredith case and who met him), we feel deeply saddened.

Antonio Curatolo was no saint. But he had his candour, his naturalness, his humanity and his inner rectitude. Sometimes, I felt he was perhaps dissociated. The homeless romantic and anarchic that reads a lot and has a self-taught culture, living on the edge of society by choice, but who “struggles along” not always in a limpid way. A stray cat, clever and naïve at the same time. Tough and kind, profoundly honest, and at the same time illicit.

I remember when we were informed that a homeless man told someone (who then informed us) that he had seen on the night of the murder Amanda and Sollecito in the Piazza Grimana in Perugia, when as usual he was reading while sitting on a bench in the piazza. The story is well known: Amanda and Sollecito are at the edge of the basketball court, and Raffaele sometimes gets up and leans over the guard rail.

An important testimony, because they had said they were asleep at that time. I remember the contact, the meeting, making him repeat continuously until he was exhausted, what he had seen. Trying to make him contradict himself, to see if what he was saying was true.

A good relationship was born in those days. We spoke about other things apart from the Meredith case, things in general. We got to know each other, we talked about our lives, so many things. And, eventually, it was not very difficult to convince him to tell the investigators what he had told us.

Even though we had to insist (with him, but also with the other witnesses that we found) on surpassing that anti-State Italian mentality in which everyone goes about his business, and that if you rather trust the State you’ll end up in trouble. He testified, and since his testimony was very important (he was defined by the media, with a bit of exaggeration, the “super-witness”), he was “grilled” very thoroughly. 

But he essentially repeated the same story. So much so that the defence teams of Amanda and Raffaele, in the end they stirred in the direction of Curatolo maybe having seen the two youngsters, but not on the night of the murder. His version fully convinced the GUP Judge Micheli (who pointed out that no one could dare question his story because of the mere fact that Antonio had chosen an unusual way of life) and also convinced the judges of the First Instance trial.

Not those judges of the appeal, though, according to whom all the witnesses - especially if found by journalists – were either mythomaniacs, or were prompted to exaggerate by the suppose desire at all costs for a journalistic scoop by reporters (showing, if I may say so myself, a strong cultural retardation of the judges and a very provincial point of view - far from the reality – toward the print press and, more generally, media).

Antonio, as mentioned, was not a saint. His relationship with drugs not only bears witness to his admission that he was a heroin addict, but also the legal troubles related to possession of drugs with intent to sell. An accumulation of small penalties that brought him under house arrest and in prison. Although he proclaimed his innocence. The last time I saw him, some months ago, was when I met him in the street and I accompanied him to the small flat he had rented in Corso Cavour. To complete the house arrest penalty, he told me.

But seeing him enter into that small apartment, after seeing him in the cardboard houses that he was building here and there, gave me the sad impression of a little bird entering a birdcage.

In short, I loved him, despite some aspects of his life. When I saw him we smiled. And they were smiles of men sincere with each other. I had affection for him. His sins, I’m sure, have been forgiven.

May the earth of the grave rest lightly on you, Antonio.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Rome Appeal Court Rejects Vanessa Sollecito’s Appeal For Reinstatement In The Carabinieri

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above and below: Francesco, father of Vanessa and Raffaele, outside their Bisceglie family home late 2011]


In 2008 Vanessa Sollecito and her father Francesco were caught on tape discussing the manipulation of Rome politicians into forcing changes upon the investigation team in Perugia.

Vanessa was fired from the Carabinieri the prestigious Italian national civil-military police force in November 2009 for demonstrating behavior and psychology inappropriate to a law enforcement officer’s job.

Our Italian poster ncountriside has just alerted us to the posting of the official statement that her appeal has been turned down.

The European Court is quoted in that report as confirming that national members have the right to fire official staff for psychological and behavioral cause.

The Carabinieri carried out a very thorough investigation which included the secret bugging of her mobile phone and her father’s phone. Jools translated one key conversation here. Her father suspects they are being bugged by the police but she blithely talks on, digging them in deeper.

This ruling was probably posted when Vanessa Sollecito was already in the air bound for Seattle (see the post below) but she would have known it was coming. This does not bode well for the criminal trial she faces along with her close family, possibly starting in Bari at the end of this month. The charges could incur prison terms.

The Sollecito family arc has almost never been reported on in the English language press. In 21 June 2008 Tom Kington of the Guardian did file this brief report.

The investigation into the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy took a dramatic twist yesterday when the family of one of the suspects was accused of attempting to interfere with the inquiry.

Police tapping the phones of the father of Italian student Raffaele Sollecito overheard discussions that appeared to suggest plans being made to get senior politicians to use their influence and get detectives whom the Sollecitos considered hostile taken off the case. The phone tap information is in files handed over to lawyers as magistrate Giuliano Mignini officially completed the investigation into the strangling and stabbing of Kercher, from Surrey, who was found on 2 November semi-naked in a pool of blood in her bedroom in Perugia.

‘We’ve got to flay the Perugia flying squad,’ a family member was overheard saying, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. ‘If we can get rid of the head of homicide and that other one, we’ll be OK.’

Relatives of Sollecito, including his sister, a policewoman, were also overheard discussing politicians who could help their case. Giulia Buongiorno, a lawyer and MP in Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition, has now been retained to represent Sollecito. ‘She can help out on this case at a political level,’ Sollecito’s father was overheard saying.

Sollecito’s father, Franco, a well-to-do doctor from Bari in southern Italy, has campaigned to prove his son’s innocence, even to the point of allegedly leaking to a TV station a video obtained from the crime scene showing Kercher’s corpse, as well as highlighting perceived errors by the investigators, including the delayed recovery of parts of Kercher’s bra strap which were found to carry Sollecito’s DNA.

Police are holding in custody Sollecito, 24; his former girlfriend and Kercher’s flatmate, American student Amanda Knox, 20; and a third suspect, Rudy Guede, 21. All three deny involvement in the vicious killing.

As you can see here, Italian reporting like that translated by Jools usually includes a lot more damning detail.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Sad To See Anne Bremners Brother Doug Increasingly The Hottest Of The FOA Hotheads

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner helped to bring the FOA alive and Michael Heavey into the talk circuit.

We have good reason to believe that a while back one of her brothers, Doug Bremner, thought she was taking things rather too far. But when Anne rose to major prominence in Seattle news last year, and not in a good way, she gave signs of retreating to the sidelines.

And now not only is Doug on his blog and twitter sounding hotter than Anne ever did - he also seems in unholy alliance with “Bruce Fisher” who runs his own muddled, sliming and largely fact-free campaign. 

As you can see described on PMF at great length in recent posts, Doug has got himself into a childish confrontation with a 16 year old blogger, Daric, who having actually read Massei and Barbie Nadeau on the case refuses to swallow the FOA kool-aid.

Now claims like these are appearing on Doug’s blog and twitter.

“Do not send your kids to Perugia. The judicial system and police are rated only above Iran and N. Korea. This is not safe for your kids.”

“Perugia and possibly all of Italy are a police state that is very dangerous without proper due process and rights.”

“Not an issue of nationalism or anti Italianism. This is a very serious issue. Italians have sloughed into a state where they lost freedom”

Hmmm. He seems to be channeling Preston & Spetzi. Perhaps Doug and his commenters should check the real facts on the state of the Italian system.

In Italy complaints almost all revolve around it being too cautious, and thus too slow, and usually pretty lenient on the perps. Italians are mostly very proud of their system and almost never claim that it has gone haywire.

Here are some of its fundamental good qualities.

1) While Italy’s population is 1/6 that of the US its prison population is only 1/30 that of the US. It has no death penalty and its prison programs are considered among the most humane.

2) The checks and balances in the judicial system exceed those of any other country in the world and they are built into the (post WW II) constitution.

3) Cases usually pass through several magistrates’ hands before they ever go to trial, and Italian prosecutors have more hoops to jump through than any other prosecutors anywhere.

4) Prison sentences under three years are almost always suspended and in those cases no time is ever served.

5) Two levels of appeal are automatic, and usually convicted perps are free on bail throughout - and not regarded as convicted until the Supreme Court finally rules that they are.

And one other thing. If Doug is seriously trying to help Amanda Knox, he might accept that Amanda’s own lawyers have repeatedly asked for such sliming of the prosecution and the system to stop.

There is absolutely no sign that it works. And in fact the hard line taken in all trial outcomes and appeal outcomes so far may be indicating just the opposite.  .

Monday, March 28, 2011

The Sollecito Family Criminal Trial And Civil Trial For Leaking Evidence Will Both Start On 29 April

Posted by Peter Quennell

The Sollecito family face charges for releasing an evidence video to the Bari TV station Telenorba showing Meredith’s body unclothed.

Also for attempting to influence some politicians to get some cops investigating the case moved on. Several Telenorba TV Bari staff-members will also also face charges. The trial was postponed five weeks ago as the judge was still on another case.

It is now reported in Italy by the news service Adnkronos that at today’s brief hearing a Kercher family civil suit against the Sollecitos for this disrespecting of Meredith will run in parallel.

The Sollecito defense team want to dispute the Perugia court’s jursidiction as the alleged crimes took place in Bari and Rome. That seems unlikely to fly as the evidence leaked was taken from Perugia.

The next court date for the Sollecito family will be Friday 29 April.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Thursday Trial Hearing Scheduled For Sollecito Family Charges Of Perversion Of Justice

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: Raffele Sollecito’s father Dr Francesco Sollecito who is a urologist practicing in Bari]

Update: Italian media sites are reporting that the new trial date for the Sollecitos is 28 March as the investigating judge Alberto Avena has commitments outside Perugia. The prosecutors are Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Handy. The Sollecito defense team is Marco Brusco, Francesco Crisis, Luca Maori and Donatella Donati.

There should be a hearing in Perugia in the case against the Sollecito family on Thursday.

Francesco (Sollecito’s father), Vanessa (his sister), Mara (his stepmother) Giuseppe (his uncle) and Sara (his aunt) all of Bari have been charged with leaking a crime scene video out of the 10,000-plus pages plus of evidence and exhibits to Telenorba, a Bari television station.

It was an apparent attempt to discredit the investigators although the video backed that claim weakly if at all. The video included deeply upsetting closeups of Meredith’s uncovered body and the wounds to her neck. It was later re-broadcast by the state network RAI throughout Italy.

Richard Owen of the London Times in an article no longer online described the Telenorba and RAI broadcasts as follows.

Relatives of Meredith Kercher, the British student murdered in Perugia in November, were said to be shocked and distressed last night after images of her bloodied corpse were broadcast on Italian television…

Telenorba, which showed the footage late at night, warned viewers that it was disturbing and suitable only for adults. It showed police scientists in white protective clothing pulling back the duvet to reveal Ms Kercher’s body and slashed throat, and turning the corpse over to examine her bloodied back.

Her eyes were covered by a mask. RAI did not include this part of the footage in its news broadcasts.

[Above Raffaele Sollecito with his sister Vanessa Sollecito who was fired late in 2009 by the Carabinieri]

This is a translation by Jools of an April 2009 report in La Nazione.

The prosecutor of Perugia has served notice of the completion of four investigations into Raffaele Sollecito’s family members and two journalists of the TV station Telenorba on the transmission of a forensic video in which the body of Meredith Kercher wa shown…

The report on the investigations (usually a prelude to a request for trial) indicates crimes were committed of defamation, invasion of privacy, publication of arbitrary acts of investigation and publication of gruesome acts.

According to the reconstruction by the Perugia prosecutor, the father and sister of Raphael Sollecito had legitimately obtained the scientific survey of the police, and had then illegally provided it to Telemundo.

The report also cites a journalist and the editor of Panorama for the publication of an article in which they reported that blood samples from Meredith had revealed an alcohol concentration above the legal norm - implying she was drunk when she was killed. This claim was proved a lie in the course of the forensic tests.

And this is a translation by Jools of an AGI news-service report of April 2009 also no longer online.

Eight “notices of termination of the investigations” have been reported by the public prosecutor of Perugia…  Four Sollecito family members, the TV journalist on Telenorba and the director of the station, are accused of the crimes of defamation, invasion of privacy, publication of documents during the investigation, and publication of gruesome acts….

According to the reconstruction, the Sollecito family members delivered to Telenorba the video and photos of the crime scene survey carried out by the forensic team on November 2 of 2007 in Meredith’s house. Telenorba then put the material on the air.

Other investigations are on-going.

The family members are all also charged with an attempt to manipulate the Knox-Sollecito trial through the political process. There is said to be evidence wiretaps capturing them trying to get family friends in the Italian parliament in Rome to have several senior investigators removed from the case.

Vanessa Sollecito was fired from the Carabinieri late in 2009 for her involvement in this attempt to manipulate politicians, and we believe she still faces a further internal Carabinieri hearing. 

[Above: the town of Bari in south-east Italy where ferries depart for the east Adriatic coast and Greece]

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Curt Knox And Edda Mellas Defamation Trial To Go Full Speed Ahead On July 4

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: An image of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas in court shortly before the verdict late in November 2009]

Italy’s news service AGI is reporting that motions for acquittal have failed and that the defamation trial of Curt Knox and Edda Mellas will indeed proceed.

Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, the parents of Amanda Knox, were indicted today by the GUP of Perugia for the defamation of five policemen from the Perugia police who investigated the murder of Meredith Kercher….

The charge says the alleged defamation statements were posted in 2009 on the website of The Sunday Times. The story said they falsely attributed to the police some actions and conduct which is out of line with their official code of conduct.

In particular, the charge continues, it was related that, contrary to the truth, Amanda had not been assisted by an interpreter, she had not been given food or water, she was abused both physically and verbally, and she had been slapped on the back of her head with a threat “if you ask a lawyer that will make things worse for you.”

Knox’s parents are being defended by lawyers Luciano Ghirga and Maria Del Grosso, who asked today for the acquittal. The five police officers are represented by the lawyer Francesco Maresca.

The charges were filed by the police themselves and the prosecution is not involved. The illegal actions were alleged to have occurred after Amanda Knox arrived voluntarily and unrequested at the Central Police Station along with Raffaele Sollecito. She herself agreed to be further questioned as a witness, and so no lawyer was present.

After she fingered Patrick Lumumba, her questioning was stopped, and she was soon after questioned further as a suspect. Amanda Knox only made the slapping claim months later, while trying to explain why she fingered Lumumba, and she herself referred to the presence of an interpreter in her two-day stint on the stand in July 2009.

With the exception of a claim of a slap over the head by someone she has not ever identified, she confirmed she was not mistreated. Amanda Knox’s own trial for defamation resumes on 17 May. Her own lawyers have never ever claimed that any mistreatment took place, and they have never ever filed any complaint.

So. Can Curt Knox and Edda Mellas present evidence to refute the charges?  And can they explain away all of these?

And at the trial, for which side will Amanda Knox testify?

We don’t know if Lifetime include the claimed hitting and other abuse in the movie - but it would seriously seem better not to.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Report Of The Decay Of The Hard Pro-Knox Party Line In West Seattle

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Images by pq above and below: former storefront offices that were the headquarters of the West Seattle Herald]

The Seattle Salmon reports with some amusement on how the residents are increasingly speaking out.

They whisper at the local library branch, nod to each other in line at the Morgan Junction Starbucks, and even occasionally email their true feelings to each other.  What is this secret society?  It’s not the Masons, Scientologists or even the wily Northwestern Republicans.

No, this fearful group is West Seattleites who think Amanda Knox did it.  By “it,” they are referring to the 2007 murder in Italy of which she was convicted. Knox was raised in West Seattle and the community has rallied around her claim of innocence with a fervor that straddles the militant/cult divide.

But some in the community are not so sure and not so talkative about their doubt.  One resident who demanded anonymity told the Seattle Salmon, “It’s like a police state out here.  You have to go to the legal defense fundraisers – like six last year – or else you are ostracized at the Westcrest Off-leash area.”

Another said, “The groupthink is terrifying.  You step outside of it and you’re like the stupid Regular Seattleite who jaywalks through the all-way crosswalk at The Junction – you’re all alone and danger could come at you from any direction.  Plus they’d light your ass up on the West Seattle Blog. You’d have to move.”

Perhaps no surprises there. It has been a long time since pro-Steve-Shay comments on the West Seattle Herald have been in the majority. Yesterday he made this ludicrous claim.

Meredith’s father, John, who believes Knox is guilty and has a lawyer in the courtroom fighting to insure she and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito remain in jail.

These were the first two responses.

John Kercher’s lawyer is not ‘fighting’ anyone or anything. He has a legal duty to provide representation at the automatic appeal which Italy’s very liberal criminal justice system provides to all convicted criminals.

Your inflammatory, arrogant coverage of this legal process stinks. The US State Department doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the year-long legal process which convicted Knox and Sollecito of torture and murder, and neither do their victim’s family. Again, this doesn’t mean they are ‘fighting’, so grow up.

Mr. Shay atypically made only one glaring distortion in this article; The Kercher family lawyer is involved in the appeals process not to insure that Ms. Knox stay in jail, but rather to make sure the prosecution’s case is presented fairly and objectively, as was certainly done in the court’s verdict.

Not to make the lawyer sound one sided and intent on a path; there are way too many like Shay in the pro innocent Knox camp; this population has been known to lie and distort facts so as to exculpate their darling “West Seattle bred” Knox.

Nice work West Seattle.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Harvard Political Review Writer Alex Koenig Reproaches The Sliming of Italy’s Justice System

Posted by Peter Quennell

With the Pepperdine University and Washington University student newspapers consistently mis-reporting Meredith’s case, it is nice to see a Harvard publication getting it seriously right.

Alex Koenig writes a column for the Harvard Political Review. He is not commenting on the evidence of Meredith’s case as reflected for example on TJMK and in Massei. But he takes several deadly cracks at the arguments of the conspiracy theorists, which he doesn’t see reflecting the real world.

In 2008, 16,277 people were murdered in the United States. 1,176 of these murders were committed by women, of which about a third were confirmed to be white.

That means that in one year there were around 400 white female murderers on US soil— the majority of whom were convicted to no public outcry. What America needs to ask itself is: does the fact that Amanda Knox is a white sorority sister exonerate her from the murder she is alleged to have committed on foreign soil?

Knox is currently serving a 26-year sentence in Italian prison, in Perugia, for the murder of her then-roommate Meredith Kercher. Seemingly lost among the outrage towards the Italian justice system, the demands of US government intervention in her defense, and the constant assertions of Knox’s innocence is the possibility that, maybe this once, the trained professionals who investigated, tried, and convicted the 23 year old Knox got it right.

Without getting into the facts of the case, and conceding that people are wrongly convicted on a regular basis both in the United States and abroad, we must consider just how America’s treatment of this case reflects upon our society.

The fact of the matter is, those that immediately claim that Knox was wrongly accused and jailed by a corrupt justice system make two extremely arrogant assumptions that reveal perverse American exceptionalism. 

1) It is assumed that, as an American – an American woman no less – Knox is incapable of murder. This case differs, of course, from the 1,176 domestic murders committed by women because, well, who knows?

2) It is assumed that not only is the Italian justice system incapable of fulfilling its legal duties, but that the intentions of the court were swayed by anti-Americanism.

This is not merely an abstract sentiment, but was actually articulated by Senator Maria Cantwell (D) of my home state of Washington. Cantwell, whom I generally agree with ideologically, released a statement saying that she “had serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted the trial.” She went on to say that she would seek assistance from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Regarding the first problem, I take Knox’s assumed innocence in the public eye to be a representation of national pride. I am as proud to be American as the next guy; I understand all the benefits being American has afforded me and appreciate the sacrifices men and women make each day to ensure that these benefits remain for me and my countrymen.

But assume the superiority of the same countrymen when compared to other citizens of the world I do not. It is as if Knox’s co-citizenship has absolved all her sins in the American court of public opinion. This, by itself, is difficult to grasp but can be forgiven.

What’s harder to forgive is the assumption that Knox has been wronged by a corrupt system because she is American.

Having lived in Italy for a year, I would never accuse the Italian justice system of being exceedingly efficient or flawless. However, I wouldn’t accuse the US justice system of this either.

Anti-Americanism does exist in parts of the world, but the chances of it being present in this trial are low. Are the judges supposed to see the conviction of an innocent American college student as a way to deter American tourists from coming to Italy?

“Putting this girl away for 26 years seems to be an easy way to get rid of those annoying tourists with their stupid hotel rooms, airplane tickets and restaurant bills. Good riddance!”

It’s not as if Knox is accused of murdering an Italian either. Kercher was a Brit. Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede, Knox’s alleged accomplices who are both serving similar sentences for the same charges, are both Italian, although Guede emigrated from the Ivory Coast when he was five.

No, I doubt that anti-Americanism was involved in this conviction. It seems, instead, to be nationalism on the side of Knox’s supporters. Amanda couldn’t have possibly been the one at fault, she’s one of us.

And maybe they’re right. I really don’t know. What I do know is that the anger and offense that the American public has taken in response to this trial obscures the real tragedy at hand, the violent death of a young woman.

It’s possible that Knox has wrongly had her future taken from her. It’s a fact that Kercher has. As the appeal process continues and the story gradually slips out of the consciousness of the average American, with the protest left to the truly passionate among us,

I want to remind us all of one thing: Italy’s murder rate is 1/3 that of America. Perhaps, without the actions of one American there’d be one less death in Italy’s tally. I’ll leave that judgment up to the only court that really matters in such a case, the court of law.

One small correction to what Alex Koenig wrote. Italy’s murder rate is actually 1/6th that of the United States. It is a very law-abiding country with a very low crime rate and a very small prison population - less than 1/20th that of the United States.

But Alex is certainly right in his conclusions.Neither the Micheli not Massei Sentencing Reports show ANY sign of extreme nationalism. 

Friday, January 14, 2011

Perugia Park Name Dropped, But Most Of Seattle Seems Now To Accept Knox’s Guilt And Moves On

Posted by Peter Quennell

Reports on the naming of this tiny park, now to be Summit Slope, appear in local Seattle media outlets here and here and here.

The xenophobic ugliness of the Knox-Mellas-Marriott campaign rolls on.

But many of the commenters from Seattle on the threads seem to find this slap at Perugia embarrassing and some even cowardly.  The previous parks commissioner who first blinked at the naming of Perugia Park made himself wildly unpopular over this and other decisions and was forced to resign.

The pro-justice-done trend of the Seattle readers’ comments, except for the regular fanatics that biased reporter Steve Shay attracts, confirms what we are hearing from all our Seattle posters and readers. Seattle is seeing Knox’s guilt and is moving on.

The Massei Report has been very widely read among those interested in Meredith’s case, and our posters and readers say they can go days or week between encounters with anyone who still sees a railroading. Commendably, that includes in West Seattle.

One witness in Meredith’s case, the guy in the park, Antonio Curatolo, is reported-on in a couple of the same stories to have been charged with drug dealing a very long time ago.

One of several positive aftermaths of the terrible crime against Meredith seems to have been a major clamping-down against drugs in Perugia, and even cold cases are being revived.

Our main poster Machine had this to say about Curatolo in a comment on the post directly under this one.

It’s completely misleading of some journalists to refer to Antonio Curatolo as a key witness, star witness or super witness. Knox and Sollecito weren’t convicted on the strength of his evidence. His testimony merely provided further confirmation that Knox and Sollecito’s alibis are false and helped establish Meredith’s time of death.

I find it astonishing that Curatolo is facing trial for drug dealing 8 years after these offences allegedly took place. If there was sufficient evidence against him at the time, surely he would have been charged and convicted of this crime years ago. I wonder if the police officers and prosecutor involved in Curatolo’s case informed the authorities in Perugia of his alleged criminal activities.

It will be interesting to see what evidence there is against him. Photographs of him talking to a drug addict in Piazza Grimana will prove nothing. Why was wasn’t he stopped and searched for drugs? It seems there is no actual evidence that he was ever in possession of heroin. It needs to be established whether Curatolo was specifically targetted by the police for drug dealing or whether he was photographed when the police were carrying out survelliance on all the people who frequented Piazza Grimana.

Presumably all the people who think Curatolo testimony should be discounted because of the allegations against him feel the same way about the convicted baby killer and convicted mobster who have been called as witnesses for the defence.

True. There is zero sign that Antonio Curatolo had anything to gain by making things up at the trial of Knox and Sollecito. His testimony stood up well, and he was unflustered in the face of the lackluster and uncertain defense cross-examination.

In strong contrast defense witnesses Alessi and Aviello are both in prison and hoping for breaks, are almost certainly potential perjurers, and may blink rather than taking the stand and face perjury charges and longer sentences

Worth noting that the defenses have NEVER produced a witness that actually undermined the real case, as opposed to simply raising bizarre hypotheticals.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

John Kercher: “Its Despicable That The Girl Jailed For Killing My Daughter Has Become a Celebrity”

Posted by Peter Quennell

Meredith’s father John passionately speaks out against the making of convicted killer Amanda Knox into a celebrity.

He is stridently critical of the utterly contemptible antics of Amanda Knox’s parents Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, and of the callous self-promotion of narcissistic limelight-seekers like Hayden Panettiere and Rocco Girlanda.

Enough is enough, he now says. His article appears in the Daily Mail.

It’s utterly despicable that the girl jailed for killing my daughter has become a celebrity

From Meredith Kercher’s father, a passionate attack on the cult of ‘Foxy Knoxy’

By John Kercher

Last week, I switched on my television to see the parents of the young woman convicted of ­taking my daughter’s life proclaiming her innocence. And, once again, I felt the pain and the anger and the raw grief resurface.

Amanda Knox was found guilty of ­killing my daughter Meredith at the house they shared in Italy three years ago. Yet since that act of horrific ­violence, Knox, it seems, has been accorded the status of a minor celebrity.

Sometimes it seems that there is no escape from her or her jaunty nickname, ‘Foxy Knoxy’ (doubly hurtful, for the way it trivialises the awfulness of her offence).

Cherished memories: John Kercher misses daughter Meredith every day

Last week, Knox’s parents were given star billing on the ITV breakfast show Daybreak, where they had free rein to profess their conviction that their daughter is not guilty.

Kurt Knox and his ex-wife Edda ­Mellas have never expressed their condolences to our family for our grievous loss. There has been no letter of sympathy; no word of regret. Instead, I have watched them repeatedly reiterate the mantra of their daughter’s innocence.

Alas, I fear there is more yet to come. Their TV appearance last week, trailed for two days as if it were some exclusive media coup, coincided with the resumption of Knox’s appeal against her conviction.

This appeal, like the initial court case, will drag on for months, while the dark tunnel between my family and our ­ability to grieve for Meredith in peace becomes ever longer.

If Knox doesn’t get the result she wants, our agony will be even more ­protracted: she may then take her case to Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome. Put simply, our ordeal could go on for years.

‘To many, Knox seems an unlikely killer. Yet to my family she is,  unequivocally, culpable’

Knox is one of three people convicted of killing my beautiful and talented daughter. It was a brutal murder. Meredith’s throat was slit, and she was stabbed to death.

Knox and her former boyfriend, ­Italian Raffaele Sollecito, are serving jail sentences of 26 and 25 years ­respectively for their heinous crime. A third person, drifter Rudy Guede, convicted with them, is also in prison.

Yet it is Knox who still exerts such a hold over the media. As a journalist myself, I know the reason why. Knox is young, attractive and female. To many, she seems an unlikely killer.

Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable. As far as we are concerned, she has been ­convicted of taking our precious Meredith’s life in the most hideous and bloody way.

And the sadness is, the nature of that death too often prevents us from celebrating her life. She has become ‘Meredith Kercher, ­murder victim’, not Meredith Kercher, our lovely, intellectually curious daughter.

So, today, I’d like to redress the balance and tell you about our irredeemable loss. About the ­Merdeith we knew and loved.

Our girl was 21 when she died; a bright, sweet-natured and engaging young woman. She had been studying for a degree in European Studies and Italian at Leeds ­University when she had opted to spend some time in the medieval Italian town of Perugia, at the ­university there, improving her knowledge of the Italian language and culture.

On November 1, the third anniversary of her death, I gathered with the rest of the family in the cold, grey cemetery where she is buried. One by one, we laid bright flowers on her grave and left messages. Mine said simply, ‘I miss you’.

Along with our own handwritten notes, there were dozens from Meredith’s friends.

They write as if she’s still with us, telling her about their new jobs, their boyfriends.
They remind her of all the wonderful times they had, of the shared laughter. And like us, they hope — really, they do — that Meredith might somehow know what they have written.

None of us, you see, wants to forget her for even one second. So she is here, among us, everywhere. She lives on in the public memorials, with trees planted in her ­honour at her old school and university, and in the private ones, too.

At her home in Surrey, where she lived with her mum during the university holidays, her room remains as it always was. It is not a shrine; but neither will it ever be disturbed.

‘All we want now is the peace to be able to celebrate her life. Is that so much to ask?’

Her clothes remain in the wardrobe, her posters on the wall. Study books are piled on the table, make-up arranged beside them. It is just as she left it — and sometimes I even convince myself that one day she will return to it.

I wait to hear the cheerful cadence of her laughter. Even now, the memory of it has the power to make me smile.

People also always remember Meredith’s kindness and caring nature. She never gave the impression of being studious, but she was. She worked quietly and assiduously for her degree. But she was generous too. Several friends commented that she would lend out her lecture notes to ­anyone who asked: to her, it was second nature.

But Meredith, of course, was not perfect. Punctuality was never one of her qualities.

The last time I saw her, during a weekend trip back to London, she breezed into the Italian restaurant where I was waiting for her a full hour late. Yet when I saw her, wreathed in that famous smile, my annoy­ance instantly evaporated.

The vision of her delightedly showing me the new boots she’d bought that day is one I continue to hold dear.

The next thing we knew, we were travelling to Italy to identify her body.

And then there was the ordeal of the court case, the details of which have been picked over too often to bear repeating here.
Glamorised: Actress Hayden Panettiere is playing Knox in a new film about the events of Meredith’s death

Glamorised: Actress Hayden Panettiere is playing Knox in a new film about the events of Meredith’s death

But still, the hurt wasn’t over. I’ll share one small example.

Two years after her death, we were told that we could finally take Meredith’s possessions home with us. I expected a large suitcase full of her belongings, which we could all cherish.

Instead, I was given a small, ­battered case. Her beloved clothes had all been taken for forensic tests. Not even her treasured ­possessions were sacrosanct.

Who knew?

Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede received a total of 67 years in prison for Meredith Kercher’s murder

So we concentrate on the happy memories instead. Meredith was a Christmas baby, and as the festive season approaches, we hold in our hearts the memory of her 21st birthday, celebrated in a local Italian restaurant. None of us could have dreamed it would be her last.

Meredith meant so much to us all. Our lives have, of course, moved on, but not a minute passes when she is not in our thoughts. And the question that nags insistently at us is: ‘Why?’ Why was she taken from us prematurely and with such horrific brutality?

Like all grieving parents, we sometimes wonder what she would be doing now if she were still with us. She would have graduated with her degree from Leeds University in 2009. But, of course, we were never able to share her pride in reaching that milestone.

She was, however, awarded a posthumous degree, and her ­sister, Stephanie, collected it for her. Every student in the vast hall rose to their feet to applaud her that day. The standing ovation lasted a full minute, and my eyes brimmed with tears.

Sometimes, even now, I find it hard to believe she is not still with us. Her passing is easier to bear if I pretend she has just gone away for a while; that some day soon she will ring me — her voice ­bubbling with laughter and enthusiasm — to tell me about her ­latest adventure.

Meredith was the baby of the family, the beloved youngest child. Her mum, her siblings and I ­cherish every memory of her short life. It is her untimely and horrific death we would all prefer to obliterate from our minds.

All we want now is the peace to be able to celebrate her life. Is that so much to ask?

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Campaign That Stirred Against Italy For So Long: Is It Now Fearing An Italian-American Backlash?

Posted by Peter Quennell

This bizarre Seattle PI blog post suggests that the Knox PR campaign may now fear a major Italian-American backlash.

Really?!

Not exactly surprising, after first stirring up so much anti-Italy hate - remember “third world country” and “keystone cops” and “kangaroo court” and “saving face” and “anti Americanism” and “tabloid journalism” and on and on?

Not to mention “evil Mignini” hoodwinking everyone in Italy all the way up to the Supreme Court with “satanic conspiracies” that work easily in a “catholic country” implying everyone there is too prudish or simply not very bright?

When did they ever say anything about Italy that was actually nice? Or restrain their forces from being over-the-top nasty, as with the venom the white knights STILL direct toward Mr Mignini?

Really GOOD PR people seek to merely shade the truth.

They don’t ever build a campaign around a really big lie, because when the really big lie comes down, it really comes crashing down and ALL is lost. A result worse than if there had been no campaign at all.

Proof?  Read the many hard, angry and incisive comments right under that blog post. And we know that Italian Americans now are showing some sure signs of having had more than enough.

Not exactly a PR man’s dream. 

Added: Important Breaking News

We all already know that the US State Department up to and including Hillary Clinton not only finds the Knox campaign ludicrous and very unhelpful -  they also regard it as xenophobic.

Now the chief of staff of an Italian-American member of the US Congress in Washington DC (not, obviously, David Wu’s chief of staff) has sent us this request.

He would like to get every possible example of the sliming of Italy and the Italian officials on Meredith’s case, including the sliming of Giuliano Mignini.

Please could our readers email or post here below any examples you may know of? We may create a new TJMK page just for them.

This may factor into political races in November, and there may be a political motion in the US Congress to stop this vile anti-Italy campaign dead.

 

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Anne Bremner Arrested, Locked Up, Now Complaining (Surprise, Surprise) The Cops Got It Wrong

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seattle lawyer Anne Bremner was arrested and locked up for apparent drunk-driving and now seems to be scrambling for arcane excuses.

What a surprise. Here is the report by Sara Jean Green of the Seattle Times with some very beleagured PR spin among the generally pretty sarcastic and hostile comments. 

Bremner is a showboating Seattle lawyer who injected herself into Amanda Knox’s case nearly three years ago.  She created a notoriously inaccurate website on the case and more than anyone set the Friends Of Amanda alive.

Ever since the FOA have made their mainstay in commentary on the case disingenuous misstatements of the evidence and the contemptuous sliming of Prosecutor Mignini and seemingly pretty well all things Italian.

Bremner herself was featured in a TV network rant about Italian cops disturbing the crime-scene (the upstairs apartment where Meredith and Knox lived) when in fact they were filmed clearing the way into the downstairs apartment (where Meredith and Knox did not lived).

Her claims and smears over the past three years have been immensely hurtful to a very large number of people in Italy and the UK, and the general thrust of the FOA campaign was thoroughly disliked by Knox’s own lawyers in Perugia. .

It is hard to see how her muddled and often very nasty claims ever did Amanda Knox any good. This sounds like poetic justice for sure.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Could Judge Heavey’s Muddled Stance Be Facilitating Future Killers?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Judge Heavey presumably doesn’t think so.

Read this post on TJMK and this post on The Examiner and you will see that Judge Heavey is STILL framing this as a case of an Italian justice system intent on railroading Amanda Knox and he as the White Knight that rides to her rescue.

But let Judge Heavey read Lilly’s post below and the comment thread directly underneath, about psychologically troubled potential killers, and the ways in which they can be detected and even prevented.

Then let Judge Heavey tell us if he still feels he got the framing of the problem just right.

The real framing of the case should be as follows. MEREDITH’S DEATH WAS TOTALLY PREVENTABLE. People KNEW Knox was a loose canon. Meredith Kercher did NOT have to die.

Amanda Knox was for many years putting out warning signals in Seattle that all was not well in her hard wiring. Maybe it was something Amanda was born with, or maybe, as the first symptoms seemed to surface right after, it was something to do with the extreme family trauma of her parents’ ugly divorce and the ugly aftermath that followed.

Imagine if Knox’s family and her friends and her teaching faculty in Seattle had more forcefully stepped in to HELP her whenever she acted peculiar. And had prevented her from getting more and more into hard drugs. And had not sent her off to Perugia unstructured, unsupervised, under-funded, and still on drugs.

Would Meredith be in her grave and Amanda Knox in prison right now?

Amanda Knox is far from alone in putting out psychological warning signals. Each time there is a mass killing in the US we hear more about this. If the books on charming psychopaths and the clinical psychologists have this right, there are literally millions in the US alone that have the defective hard wiring to kill in the “right” circumstances.

Many of them put out warning signs, often for many years. In their own way, perhaps, cries for help.

The Virginia Tech case reported in these videos is a lot more extreme than Meredith’s, and in fact there 32 people died. But the two cases have this one thing in common. In each case, responsible people KNEW there were ominous symptoms in the one who turned to killing.

They did not act sufficiently. And Meredith and 32 other people about her own age died. 

Court officers like Judge Heavey should presumably be encouraging universal consciousness of such warning signals, and protecting the wider public from future killers above all.

Not deflecting public attention from that vital need, and onto to a rampaging Italian justice system that exists only in his own mind.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Judge Heavey Now Explains Why he Sent His Highly-Misinformed Open Letter To Italy

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for Judge Heavey’s attempt at an explanation to the panel considering disciplining him.

Good luck with that one. One of our posters said it reads to him as if one of Amanda Knox’s sisters had actually written it.

In his open letter to Italy (included in this document) Michael Heavey appeared to disrespect the competence and motivations of a huge number of people in the justice system. As it was on official letterhead, he appeared to be writing officially. And he put out in the public arena many “facts” that were simply not accurate.

Our lawyers on the team indicate that the standard practice if a judge has something to say about a case that is not his own is to (1) write privately (2) on his own letterhead and (3) make quite certain to get NONE of the facts wrong.

Otherwise there is the possibility of serious interference - of the subversion of justice rather than its furthering. In this case, of justice for Meredith.

No American - not one, in the course of the past two and a half years - seems to have so mis-characterized the evidence TO ITALY. Or so impugned the motives and competence of the Italian police and Italian judicial authorities TO ITALY.

That post we just linked to was written back then of course. Subsequently, both the Micheli and Massei sentencing reports have been released. They show even more dramatically just how off-base the judge’s attempted interference really was.

Perhaps we might see him apologizing to Meredith’s family, for seeking to deny their justice. Nice if the discipline panel makes this a requirement.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Looks Like a Prominent Seattle Sock Puppet Might Be About To Take A Fall

Posted by Peter Quennell

Judge Heavey was the Washington State judge who wrote a nasty letter riddled with innuendo to judicial authorities in Italy late in 2008.

He was seemingly universally ignored in Italy, and he soon piped down and disappeared. But now he is back in the limelight. A complaint has been lodged about his actions.

This was our post at the end of 2008 when Judge Heavey tried to interfere in the Italian judicial process on behalf of Amanda Knox. We pointed out some of the things that the judge had managed to get wrong.

This is the complaint lodged by the Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct about his allegedly appearing to interfere “officially” which is a contravention of the oath of office and so pretty serious.

The Washington Commission on Judicial Conduct has filed a complaint against King County Superior Court Judge Michael Heavey, alleging he violated the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct for his support of Amanda Knox, who was convicted of killing her British roommate in Italy.

The alleged violations include writing letters on official court stationery to Italian judicial system officials on behalf of Knox, utilizing King County court staff to type the letters, and speaking publicly on the case “in an attempt to influence the proceeding,” according to the commission.

Judges may not, under the Code of Judicial Conduct, lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of others, the commission notes.

According to the commission, Heavey is required to file an answer with the commission within 21 days, unless the time is extended by the commission. Once the commission receives the judge’s response it will set up a public hearing on the allegations….

The 11-member commission is an independent agency created under the state Constitution to assure the integrity and independence of the judiciary. Members are appointed by the governor, judicial associations and the Washington State Bar Association.

This has to be rather chilling for other sock puppets, if any, considering whether they too should interfere. 

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Seattle Parks Commissioner Who Angered Perugia Resigns - Amid Plenty Of Anger In Seattle

Posted by Peter Quennell

So the controversial Seattle parks commissioner Tim Gallagher bites the dust.

He seems to have shot himself in, well, three feet.

• He espoused a clearcut-and-rebuild policy (video above) when Seattelites are increasingly seeing the natural beauty of their city as a resource


• He made an expensive trip to Australia to look at some parks just when Seattle’s park system is financially tanking - very likely because of his style of management.


• He was very quick to blink and put a heavy-handed stop to the naming of a small city park “Perugia Park” when Seattle’s (very small) anti-Perugia faction howled.

Mr Gallagher’s last action was widely noted in Perugia (Seatle’s twin city), the Mayor of Perugia made an angry statement, and a Facebook-based movement was created, to lobby to end the twin-city arrangement.

Comments about his short reign as parks commissioner on the West Seattle Blog (scroll down) seem almost uniformly negative.

The Mayor and many others he irritated in Perugia might be pleased to take note…

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

CBS Producer of Most Biased Perugia-Case Reports Pleads Guilty To An Unrelated Crime

Posted by The Machine

CBS 48 Hours producer Joe Halderman plead not guilty just a few months ago to a blackmail attempt against a popular late-night comedian.

Yesterday, as the report above shows, Joe Halderman really changed his tune.

He now pleads guilty as charged - and he is apparently very relieved to be receiving only 4 to 6 months behind bars, a fine, and community service.

Slimy ethics at play. Not to mention criminal behavior, and a nasty intent to hurt others.

Unsurprising, really, that he worked for 48 Hours.

The CBS production team of Halderman, Longhini and Ely Hulse have tried very hard for two years to sell the American public on the fiction of an innocent Amercian girl being railroaded by corrupt and incompetent foreigners.

The CBS documentaries on Perugia have been exceptionally biased and xenophobic, worse even than those of ABC, highly one-sided, pandering to the Knox family, ignoring of Meredith as the real victim, and absolutely riddled with factual errors.

In particular the CBS team went to town on Prosecutor Mignini, having Doug Preston in his predictably shrill and cowardly manner rant on at great length about him.

This has all been documented here on TJMK.

CBS have never apologized for their anti-victim bias, or their sliming of Italy and the official participants, or their misrepresenting of even the most basic of facts. And now in an example of real poetic justice, one of their lead producers is a convicted criminal, and he has to spend 4 to 6 months behind bars.

We hope that Halderman reflects on his crimes against the trusting American public while inside, as well as his bizarre crime against a CBS colleague.

Thursday, February 04, 2010

True Justice Is Rendered For Patrick Lumumba (Sort Of)

Posted by Tiziano

Above and below: Patrick Lumumba’s Le Chic Bar which Amanda Knox managed to drive out of business.

More images here including several shots through the glass.

And Terni In Rete confirms his government compensation for his several weeks in Capanne and some damaging badmouthing.

CASSATION:  EIGHT THOUSAND EUROS FAIR COMPENSATION FOR PATRICK LUMUMBA

February 4th, 2010

By Adriano Lorenzoni

The fourth criminal session of the Court of Cassation has established that the sum of eight thousand Euros is fair compensation for Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese involved in spite of himself in the murder of the English student, Meredith Kercher.

Lumumba was dragged into involvement by Amanda Knox, and precisely because of her statements spent 14 days in prison.  Then the elements gathered by the investigators completely exonerated him. For that unjust imprisonment Lumumba had requested damages of 516 thousand Euros.
In the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox was condemned to 26 years imprisonment, her ex-fiancé, Raffaele Sollecito to 25.

Knox, precisely for her false accusations against Lumumba, was condemned to the payment of damages of the sum of 50 thousand Euros with an interim award, immediately applicable, of ten thousand Euros.  Neither Lumumba nor his lawyer wished to comment on the decision of the Court of Cassation.

Knox took the stand for two days during her trial, of course, trying to explain why she did what she did to her kindly former employer.

She only seemed to dig herself in deeper.

Friday, November 27, 2009

The Summations: Patrick Lumumba’s Lawyer Describes Defamation By Knox As Ruthless

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click here for Nick Pisa’s noon report from the courtroom. Some excerpts:

Today the lawyer acting for bar owner Patrick Lumumba, who Knox blamed for the murder, was harsh in his judgement of the American student.

Lawyer Carlo Pacelli described Knox as a ‘talented and calculated liar, who had deliberately gone out of her way to frame Patrick.’

Mr Pacelli recalled how Knox had told police she ‘covered her ears as Patrick murdered Meredith. This was all a lie, his destiny at that moment was marked.

‘It was a ruthless defamation that destroyed Patrick as a man, husband and father. By naming him she hoodwinked the officer in charge of the murder investigation.’

Mr Lumumba was held for two weeks in custody before being released without charge after witnesses came forward to say he was at his Le Chic bar the night Meredith was murdered.

Mr Pacelli added: ‘Who is the real Amanda Knox ? Is it the one we see before us her, simple water and soap, the angelic St Maria Goretti (a teenager made a saint by the Catholic Church after she was murdered by an attempted rapist)?

‘Or is she really a she devil, a diabolical person focused on sex, drugs and alcohol, living life to the extreme and borderline -is this the Amanda Knox of November 1st 2007 (night Meredith was murdered).’

As he spoke, Knox could be seen writing notes to herself on the pad before her.

‘Conclusions drawn before knowing anything,’ she wrote, before adding: ‘In prison you don’t become a better person you become worse unless you have a inner light that guides you.’

Monday, November 23, 2009

Yet More Collateral Damage? Sollecito’s Sister Seems To Have Lost Her Police Job

Posted by Jools

[Above left: Vanessa Sollecito attends her brother’s trial on November 20]

This thing seems to roar on like a tsunami. The Sollecito family were already getting hit by the wave.

This below is a translation of an interview which Vanessa Sollecito and her father gave to Il Messagero during a break in the court proceedings last Friday.

Ex-Carabinieri-Lieutenant Vanessa seems to have been bugged while seeking a political favor for brother Raff.

*Raffaele’s sister discloses: “I have lost my job as carabiniere because of my surname.”

“I do not make statements about the characters in the sequence of the process, and also as an ex-officer of the Carabinieri, I remain in my heart a policewoman, and I stick to the facts,” says Vanessa Sollecito, Raffaele Sollecito’s sister, during a pause in the long and detailed indictment of Giuliano Mignini, to our questions on her reaction to the words of the magistrate.

Messagero: Why EX carabinieri, Lieutenant Vanessa Sollecito?

“The surname was inconvenient, I was told by the Force, and I was forcibly discharged.” She says bitterly.

Messagero: Only for having the same name as in one person on trial accused? Was it not enough to have a suspension pending developments or eventually a conviction as happened in cases apparently more severe with direct involvement by members of the Force?

“One of the complexities against me came from an intercepted wiretap in which I was talking to a politician who according to my superiors I was trying to entrust the fate of my brother Raffaele with in the proceedings. But it will be enough to listen carefully to the recordings, I only spoke about a member of his family that I had as a student, never, never about Raffaele.”

“We do not speak of interceptions,” said Dr. Francesco Sollecito inserting himself (during daughters questions by the journalist) and sitting next to his wife Mara who took notes on a little notepad during Mignini’s indictment.

Messagero: Uncomfortable topic, the interceptions, Dr. Sollecito?

“Four months of interceptions have been made public making of us a family from the underworld ready to do anything to save Raphael.”

Messagero: What you say of Mignini’s (indictment) intervention?

“The prosecutor has impressed and amazed me that artfully from everything that came out in the debating stage they take only and exclusively what suits them and revise some positions such as that of Kokomani considered unreliable by Judge Micheli’s preliminary hearing and today is the object of some revaluation.”

Messagero: Any other observations

“About the window of opportunity, what is there to say? Entire tirade of simulation were done by the ‘friendly lawyer from Maori’s office’ as defined by Mignini, I just wish the mister pm would listen to Rudy’s (computer) chat.

Messagero: How you think Raffaele is during the hearing?

“I have had no opportunity to speak to him then I don’t know if he calm, I guess he is anxious like all of us.”

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Your Comments

By Sara on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Kermit, please allow me to add my deepest appreciation for this outstanding article. Do let us know if you decide to publish it, I will gladly pay for a kindle…

By Yummi on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


She writes:

“I am happy to remain in Perugia. I only know that at least I know some of the prison officers fairly well, after all this time. I…

By SeekingUnderstanding on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Hello James..I have just sent the link to the Editor.  http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-amanda-knox-guilty

It is standing at 78% now, since a few hours ago….

By Miriam on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


There are a few out (polls) here is one.  http://blogs.lawyers.com/2013/05/is-amanda-knox-poll/

By James Higham on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Seeking Understanding - can you show us this poll?

By bedelia on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Excellent post Kermit! Thank you for taking the time to do so much research to point out the shady connections between all these characters.

That these characters are supporting a…

By SeekingUnderstanding on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


@truth will out..yes, one hopes.

I have just come across an online poll (for what it’s worth) where people are asked Do they believe AK is guilty or innocent…and 77%…

By TruthWillOut on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


I have to smile at Seeking Understanding’s comment:  “I find it darkly ironic that the FOA are accusing the justice system… “

That about sums up the FOA actions from…

By Miriam on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


What Pete and all the other main posters have been saying all this time about the book.

http://www.lastampa.it/2013/05/01/esteri/il-libro-di-amanda-potrebbe-danneggiarla-xapIf0sbInXRrH7ylotaRL/pagina.html

By chami on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


I just call this the effect of the gravy train.

“Trust me”: Translation of the Latin “caveat emptor.”- Anon.

By Skeptical Bystander on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Bob Barnett is right: it does shock me to the core, but not in the way he imagines.

By Kermit on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Fast translation of part of Miriam’s link:

“I am happy to stay in Perugia,” Knox writes in an obviously imperfect Italian, “I only know that at least I know some…

By Miriam on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


Bravo Kermit, anzi Bravissimo

So much for Knox’s bad treatment in jail. Letters she wrote to a social worker, have been published by a new magazine, “Giallo”.

http://www.ilsussidiario.net/News/Cronaca/2013/5/23/Amanda-Knox-Le-lettere-dal-carcere-qui-si-sta-benissimo-leggo-poesie-e-ci-facciamo-la-manicure/396029/

By SeekingUnderstanding on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


The media has reached a pitch where it has become possible for a dishonest and/ or unintelligent person to wield such influence on other unintelligent and/ or gullible people.

That’s…

By Kermit on the post 'The Very Appropriate Casting Of Doug Preston As The Fredo Corleone Wannabe'.


@Yummi:

“Amanda knox” + “santa claus”  1.950.000 results

“Amanda knox” + “Godzilla”      1.080.000 results  
===============
  :-o…