Headsup: Unsurprisingly, Knox chickens out of presenting her "proof" on 10 April of being forced to frame Patrick for Meredith's murder when actually under no stress. She's not a good liar. She could face Patrick's tiger of a lawyer and many officers she has slimed. Trial is closed to the press, like the most damning parts of the 2009 trial; a pity that. And see links here for Knox's false framing #2: Rudy Guede as sole killer.
Category: Trials 2008 & 2009

Saturday, November 29, 2014

The PMF/TJMK Master Evidence List: First Of Our Projects To Make The Final Picture Whole

Posted by Our Main Posters



High-achiever Meredith Kercher was born less than one mile south of this famous London landmark

Building An Evidence Mountain

There are really three pictures, not just the one, still to be fully made whole.

  • That of Meredith. We believe a family site will soon add to the fine book published by Meredith’s dad.

  • That of all of the evidence the court acquired in 2009, which is the sole picture the Italian citizenry takes seriously.

  • That of the misleading campaign by the Knox and Sollecito PR shills, leaving some in the UK and US misled.

The Master Evidence List is a key part of the second picture and there are several other media-friendly pages still to come.

Please click here for more

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Knox Interrogation Hoax #16: Fourth Opportunity Knox Flunked: Gemelli Supreme Court Appeal

Posted by Our Main Posters



Media outside the Cassation back entrance waiting for news of the ruling

1. Where This Series Stands

Dozens of people have very aggressively gone to bat for Knox over her “interrogation” and still do.

They trust that one or other of her versions of the 5-6 November 2007 police-station session is right.

We have been demonstrating the rock-solid evidence that Knox and her supporters have lied and lied and there will be more evidence of this to come.

We’ve shown in this series that Knox insisted on being there; she was merely helping to build a list; she was treated kindly and taken for refreshments; she was the only one overheard by anyone to raise her voice, when she screamed about Lumumba “He did it!”; it was Sollecito not the police saying that she had been lying and had made him lie; and there is documentary evidence that the police investigators who sat with Knox told the truth.

Coming soon, we are going to post hundreds of false claims made by Knox shills, all sparked by and never reigned in by Knox.

2. The Pre-Trial Hurdles Knox Failed

Do you know how many major opportunities before her 2009 trial started Knox was given to get the murder charges dropped? This is not something Knox supporters trumpet about, if they even know.

In fact there were six, and Knox dismally failed them all.

In 2007 there were (1) the Matteini hearing and (2) the Ricciarelli hearing in November and (3) the Mignini interview in December.  And in 2008 there were (4) the separate Knox appeal and Sollecito appeal to the Supreme Court in April, and (5) the first Micheli hearings in September, and (6) the second Micheli hearings in October, which dispatched Knox and Sollecito for trial.

In all six instances Knox’s team also had the opportunity to get the charges against Knox for calunnia against Lumumba dropped.

As you will have seen in previous posts, Knox’s team pussyfooted about without conviction in the few brief instances when the 5-6 November session was discussed. In the Mignini hearing of 17 December 2007 they eventually advised her it would be in her best interests to shut up.

This post covers the third hurdle, specifically why in April 2008 the First Criminal Section of the Supreme Court ruled that for reasons of evidence and psychology Knox and Sollecito should remain locked up and the judicial process against them should go forward.

Please consider this meticulous (and for the pair, damning) statement, which denied their release, in light of a couple of explanations which follow in Part 4 below.

3. Catnip Translation: Gemelli Report On Knox

Shown in bold in the statement on Knox below are:

(1) the defense appeal against the use of Knox’s 5-6 November statements framing Lumumba (reason given was ONLY no lawyer being present - a need which Knox herself had shrugged off when she herself insisted on writing out the 1:45 am and 5:45 am and noon statements) and there is zero mention of abuse;

(2) Cassation’s reasoning why the first 2 Knox statements (the 1:45 and 5:45) can indeed be used, in the “sub-trial” addressing the calunnia against Patrick, and the third (scribbled around noon) can be used in the main trial.

In neither statement is there any ruling of “illegal” regarding any actions by any interrogators. The Knox shills often falsely claim there was.

The Judgment

REPUBLIC OF ITALY
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE SUPREME COURT OF CASSATION
FIRST CRIMINAL DIVISION

Comprised of the Most Honorable Justices
Dr Torquato GEMELLI ““ President
Dr Emilio Giovanni GIRONI ““ Member
Dr Maria Cristina SIOTTO ““ Member
Dr Umberto Zampetti ““ Member
Dr Margherita CASSANO ““ Member

has pronounced the following

JUDGMENT

on the appeal lodged by AMK born on X

against the Order of 30/11/2007 Liberty Tribunal of Perugia

having heard the relation [legal analysis] made by the Counsellor [Judge] Margherita Cassano

having heard the conclusions of the Prosecutor-General Dr S Consolo who has prayed the rejection of the appeal

HAVING FOUND IN FACT

1. With the order of 30 November 2007 the Perugia Court, as constituted under Article 309 Criminal Procedure Code, rejected the submission to review lodged by AMK and, as a consequence, confirmed the precautionary prison custody measures disposed in her matter on the 9th November 2007 by the GIP of the same Court in relation to the offences of aggravated wilful homicide in company and in sexual assault by a group, committed on the day of 1 November 2007 against MSCK.

2. According to the reconstruction put forward by the judges of merit, on the 2nd November 2007, around 12:35, the State Police, to whom had been signalled the discovery in the garden of a house of two mobile phones, both resulting to be in the service of the American [sic] citizen MSCK, intervened at an apartment in Via della Pergola in use by Ms K and AMK and two Italian women. At the place were found AMK and her boyfriend RS, the which declared they were expecting the arrival of the Carabinieri, called by them after having discovered that the window of one of the rooms of the habitation presented with broken glass.

The crime scene inspection immediately carried out inside the apartment led to the discovery in the bedroom occupied by Ms K, locked under key, of the body of the woman, which, at the level of the head, was immersed in a lake of blood, was dressed only in two tops pulled above the breast and was covered with a blanket. Beneath this latter was found the print of a shoe in haematic material, collected, besides in the room of the offence, also in a small bathroom adjacent to the same. In a second bathroom, used by the two Italian lessees of the apartment, were found faeces and other natural biological residues. The autopsy immediately carried out permitted the establishment of the cause of death, collocatable around 22 hours of the day of 1st November 2007, to have been due to a haemorrhagic shock from vascular lesions to the neck from an edged blade and that the instrument used to restrain her was constituted of a pointed instrument capable of penetration and with a sharpened profile capable of cutting tissue.

The victim’s body did not present unequivocal signs of sexual assault even though there were found things of some medico-legal interest, in the sense of the observed anal dilation of two-three centimetres, the discovery of minute ecchimoses on the posterior part of the anal ring (otherwise compatible with situations of constipation) and, above all, mauvish marks on the inner face of the labia minore, suggestive of a sexual rapport carried out with haste and occurring a little before the death.

3. The Court had found that grave indicia of guilt as against the suspect were constituted by the following elements:

(a) the autopsy results and the medico-legal report;

(b) the discovery of a knife with dimensions of 14cm for the handle and of about 17 for the blade, seized from inside a drawer of cutlery located in the kitchen of the home of S, carrying, on the handle, traces of DNA referable to Ms K and, on the blade, traces of DNA ascribable to the victim;

(c) statements made by persons informed of the facts, FR and LM, housemates of the victim, who without contradiction excluded that the seized knife were part of the their apartment’s endowment and made mention that Ms K, on the day of the fact, was wearing a top, which has not yet been found;

(d) outcome of the technical tests carried out on a pair of shoes, N brand, size 42.5, property of S, evidencing a perfect correspondence between the aforesaid footwear and the print found at the location of the homicide, as well as on the door of the Via della P apartment which did not present signs of forced entry;

(e) results of technical tests carried out on the palm print found on the pillow on which the victim had been placed and resulting as belonging to RHG, a citizen of the Ivory Coast, nicknamed “˜the Baron’, known to AMK;

(f) presence of RHG’s DNA on the vaginal swab taken from the cadaver during the autopsy and on the fragment of toilet paper taken from inside the larger bathroom of the apartment, where faeces had been found, resulting as being from G;

(g) outcome of biological tests carried out on the blood found in the apartment’s small bathroom, in use by the victim and Ms K, which permitted the establishment that to the victim were attributable the bloodstains present on the mat, to Ms K those found on the washbasin, and to both of the women the blood traces found on the bidet;

(h) statements made by the American [sic] citizen RCB, the which, having returned home to her country a few days after the fact, referred to the Authorities that Ms K, while waiting to be interviewed by the Police on the morning of the 2nd November 2007, had told her of having seen M’s body on a wardrobe (or reflected on a wardrobe) with a blanket on top of her and of having seen her friend’s foot after a police officer had opened the door, circumstances conflicting with the modality of intervention at the apartment;

(i) statements made by the friends of MSCK, the which without contradiction said that the woman had spent the afternoon of the 1st November 2007 in their company and had left their house in the company of SP, who, reaching her own domicile in Via del L around 20:55, had parted from the victim, whose apartment in Via della P was less than 10 minutes’ distance from Via del L;

(l) statements made by FR and PG, contacted by A after ascertaining that the front door of their house was open, that there were blood stains and that the window of MSCK’s room presented with broken glass

(m) statements made by S on the 2nd, 5th and 6th November regarding his movements both alone and with AMK between the day of 1 November 2007 and the following 2 November, in regards to what was found inside the Via della P apartment, to the call for help to law enforcement, not to mention the reference to the search for strong emotion contained in various of his writings posted on his blog;

(n) statements made on 6 November 2007 at 1:45 by Ms K which indicated L, entranced by M, as the author of the murder after a sexual relation with the victim;

(o) spontaneous statements made by Ms K on 6 November 2007 at 5:45 from which it emerged that L and M had gone to her room, that, at a certain point, M had started to scream, such that A, so as not to hear, had put her hands on her ears, that maybe S was also present in the house;

(p) contents of the account written by Ms K which repeated having heard M scream, to having removed herself into the kitchen and of having blocked her ears with her hands so as not to hear her friend’s scream and of having seen blood on S’s hand during the dinner that had taken place around 23:00 hours on the day of 1 November 2007 in S’s apartment;

(q) contents of a recorded conversation in prison on 17 November 2007 relating to a discussion between Ms K and her parents in the course of which the woman, amongst other things, said “It’s stupid, because I can’t say anything different, I was there and I can’t lie about this, there is no reason to do it”;

(r) tests carried out on the computer and on the mobile phone used by S, from which it emerged that, contrary to the defensive stance of the suspect, his computer had not been used during the night and had been activated only at 5:32 on 2 November 2007 and that, likewise, his mobile phone also had been off during the night and had been first used at dawn on 2 November 2007.

The Re-examination judges concluded recognizing, for continuing the precautionary custody measure, the continuance of all the typologies of precautionary requirements mentioned under Article 274 Criminal Procedure Code.

4. Against the cited order there has been submitted an appeal to Cassation, through her lawyers, by AMK, the which, also by means of a defence memorandum, alleges:

(a) violation of Article 309 paragraph five Criminal Procedure Code with reference to the omitted transmission to the Re-examination Court of the statements made by the suspect RHG arrested in Germany in the execution of a European Arrest Warrant, constituting, contrary to what was adopted by the Re-examination Court, an element favourable to the suspect, relevant for the indication of the author of the offence, identified as an individual of the male gender and, contrary to what as held by the Court, fully usable, given the basis of their acquisition into evidence under Articles 22 and 28 of the law on international judicial representation in criminal matters of 23 December 1982;

(b) Violation of Article 250 paragraph seven, and 357 paragraph two, Criminal Procedure Code, being placed at the foundation of the custody order and of the subsequent provisioning by the Re-examination Court, which indicative elements, the statements made by Ms K on 6 November at 1:45, without defence safeguards, the “spontaneous statements” made at the time of 5:45 hours, are not classifiable as such, given the procedural status invested on her in the meantime, all acts fully non-usable inasmuch acquired in patent violation of Article 63 Criminal Procedure Code;

(c) Violation of law, deficiency and manifest lack of logic in the reasoning with reference to the picture of circumstantial gravity, having regard: (a) to the personality of the suspect, a young foreigner with unblemished record, with a perception of reality altered by cannabis use, a substance which also may have been influencing her excessive and dreamlike behaviours; (b) to the seriously lacunose character of the translation of passages of the suspect’s hand-written account, analysed in a partial manner; (c) to the not unambiguous reading of the contents of the recorded conversation of 17 November 2007 between the suspect and her parents in prison; (d) to the non-probative nature of the DNA traces found on the seized knife, of the suspect’s blood stains on the mat and basin in the small bathroom of the apartment occupied by, amongst others, the victim and Ms K;

(d) Lack and manifest illogicality in the reasoning with reference to the considered circumstantial value, as against the suspect, of the results of tests carried out on the vaginal swab and on the knife in custody, with an un-reasoned devaluation of the considerations put forward by the defence;

(e) lack and manifest illogicality of the reasoning, distortion of the fact with reference to the considered presence of the suspect on the location of the fact and to her contribution purportedly made to the consummation of the offence;

(f) violation of law, deficiency and illogicality of reasoning as to the configurability of the precautionary requirements, given: (1) the absence of a specific danger in evidentiary acquisition even in the light of investigative developments which have evidenced Ms K’s extraneity to the commission of the offence and have allowed the acquisition of statements by fellow-suspect G; (2) the lack of an objective risk of flight in the light of international cooperation between Italy and the USA which would permit, once the suspect’s responsibility has been definitively ascertained, full judicial cooperation; (3) the lack of danger of repetition of the offences.

Observes as of law.
The Appeal Is Unfounded.

1. With reference to the deduced violation of Article 308 paragraph five for omitted transmission to the Re-examination Court of elements appearing favourable to the person placed under investigation (in the type of statements made by G to the German Judicial Authority in the ambit of European Arrest Warrant procedure), this Bench observes as follows.

For “elements in favour of the person placed under investigation” must be understood to mean those objective results, of probative value, suitable for being of positive influence in the evaluative complex of the custody picture (Cass., Sez. IV, 22 giugno 2005, rv. 231749) and in the concrete usable for exculpating the suspect (Cass., Sez. I, 26 settembre 2000, Corrente, rv. 217611) and not information that resolves itself into mere reformulations of the prosecutorial hypothesis or in the advancing of alternative hypotheses (Cass., Sez. Un. 26 settembre 2000, Mennuni).

In line with this interpretative stage there are to be excluded from the enumerated elements appearing favourable and as a consequence obligated to be transmitted to the Re-examination Court, under Article 309 paragraph five Criminal Procedure Code, statements made, as in the case under examination, in the ambit of an extradition procedure against the fellow-suspect who limits himself to giving his own defensive version and to affirm his own extraneity to the facts, without however releasing the other accused subjects from the same crime. It is, therefore, under this profile that the defence petition does not merit granting, it is rejected, rather, by the Re-examination Court on the basis of the erroneous assumption that RHG’s statements were unusable through omission with respect to due process, in reality assured by the German Judicial Authority, which ““ in conformity with the principles contained in the decision-framework of the Council of Ministers of the Union of 13 June 2002, relating to European arrest warrants and the handover procedure between member States (2002/584/GAI) ““ have, amongst other things, pre-emptively made the suspect informed: (1) of the European arrest warrant and its contents, even to the ends of allowing him to consent, if necessary, to the handover; (2) of the right to legal and interpretive assistance during the procedure.

2. With reference to the second appeal ground by the defence, the Court observes that circumstantial statements are characterized by a different usability regime under a subjective aspect. In the case in which these originate from a person against whom there already is sustained circumstantial evidence as regards the same crime, that is to a crime connected with or tied to the one attributed to a third party, the same cannot be used not only against themselves, but neither in relation to co-accused in the same crime (or of those accused of connected or related crimes).

The regime of absolute unusability under Article 63 paragraph two Criminal Procedure Code is, instead, to be excluded in the case in which the declarant, whether called to respond, in the same or another matter, for a crime or for crimes attributed to others, which have no procedural ties with the one for which they are being proceeded against, with respect to which the person assumes the character of witness.

In fact, in the first case, due to the close connection and interdependence between the fact itself and the other one, there arises the necessity to also safeguard the declarant’s right to silence; in the second case, the declarant’s extraneity and indifference with respect to the facts in cause renders them immune to possible sanctions carried out by the investigative bodies (Cass., Sez. Un. 13 febbraio 1997, Carpanelli).

On a par with these principles, the statements made by AMK at 1:45 on 6 November 2007, ““ at the end of which the interview was suspended and the woman was placed at the disposition of the relevant judicial Authority, revealing circumstantial evidence against herself ““, are usable only contra alios, while the “spontaneous statements” from 5:45 are not usable, neither against the suspect nor against other subjects accused of participation in the same crime, inasmuch as they were made without due process safeguards by a person who had formally assumed the status of suspect.

On the contrary, the account written in English by Ms K and translated into Italian is fully usable, under Article 237 Criminal Procedure Code, since it is a document originating from the suspect, who had been its spontaneous material author for a defence purpose. The disposition under examination allows attribution of probative relevance to the document not only as regards it and its representative contents, but also in the strength of its particular ties, which tie it to the suspect (or accused), thereby illuminating the review of admissibility which the judge had held to be in operation.

3. The fourth, fifth and sixth grounds of the petition also lack merit. The circumstantial evidence picture specifically concerning AMK is based, in the first place, on the autopsy results, evidencing multiple contusions and ecchimotic areas on various parts of the body (nose, lip, oral cavity, cheek, mandibular and sub-mandibular region, upper and lower limbs, inner face of labia minore, abdomen, dextral latero-cervical region), an ample dilation, in the order of two to three centimetres, of the anal ring with the presence of small ecchimoses, a large wound, disposed obliquely, in the caudal-lateral sense, fully diastased, with sections of underlying tissue right to the cartiliginous layer in the left latero-cervical region, the complete sectioning of the upper right thyroidal artery, the fracture of the hyoid bone in proximity of the left median. The medico-legal tests, carried out after the necroscopic examination of the body of the victim, permitted the confirmation that the cause of death, around 22:00 hours on 1 November 2007, is ascribable to meta-haemorrhagic shock from the vascular lesion on the neck from an edged blade, occasioned by a pointed implement, capable of penetration, and with a sharpened edge able to cut tissues. The anal dilation, the observation of minute ecchimoses on the posterior part of the anal ring and, above all, the mauvish marks on the inner face of the labia minore, are suggestive of a sexual rapport carried out hastily, before the victim had had time to produce adequate lubrication, occurring in a time period proximate to that of the observation, but in any case before death, by reason of the ecchimotic lesions and their colour.

The impugned provision highlights that the complex of these medico-legal conclusions assumes a particular evidential value, in the event that place in correlation with other elements: (a) the statements made by the friends of MSCK, who without contradiction stated that the woman had spent the evening of [1] November 2007 in their company, had started to dine with them from 18:00 hours onwards and had left the house in company with SP, who, reaching her home in Via del L around 20:55, had parted from the victim, whose apartment in Via della P was less than ten minutes’ walk from Via del L; (b) the outcome of the search effected at the house of RS, romantically linked to AMK, which permitted the discovery and seizure in the apartment’s kitchen, from the cutlery drawer, of a knife, having an approx. 14cm long blade and 17cm handle. The knife, not forming part of the inventory of the house occupied by AMK, MSCK and two Italian women (cf on the matter, the statements made, as persons informed of the facts, by FR and LM), presented traces of DNA on the handle attributable to AMK and on the blade traces of DNA ascribable to the victim.

Weighing against the suspect, in the opinion of the judges, there are, in addition, even in their mutability, statements by RS, who, after firstly having claimed to have remained home all evening and night with his girlfriend, stated, afterwards (cf. Interviews of 5 and 6 November 2007) that, at a certain time, Ms K had left and had come back to his house at only around one in the morning.

The judges of merit have underlined the strict correlation found between the interviews given by S on 5 and 6 November 2007, and the following further elements: (a) statements made by citizen RCB, who, returning to her country of origin, referred to the relevant Authorities the confidence received on 2 November 2007 from AMK regarding the position of the victim’s body and its condition, circumstances that, contrary to the stance of the suspect, she could not have been able to perceive on the occasion of the intervention by the police at the apartment, an intervention that unfolded in a way irreconcilable with the version furnished by Ms K to the friend; (b) statements made by persons informed of the facts FR and LM, who said that Ms K, the day of the fact, was wearing a top, which has not been found since.

The impugned provision, with logically reasoned argumentation, observes that the content of these declarative acts appears even more significant when evaluated also in the light of the written account produced by the suspect, containing relevant references to M’s scream on the night of the fact, to her reactions, consisting of huddling in the kitchen with her hands over her ears, to the presence of a man, to traces of blood noted by her on RS’s hand during the dinner that took placed at 23:00 on 1 November 2007.

Under the same lens appearing imbued with unequivocal circumstantial value is the contents of the recording, effected on 17 November 2007 inside the prison where Ms K found herself restricted to and between the woman and her parents, in the course of which there was pronounced by the accused the following words: “It’s stupid, because I cannot say anything else, I was there and I cannot lie about this, there is no reason to do so”;

These elements must, in their turn, be inserted into a larger circumstantial evidence context, cross-correlated by the identification of a print left in haematic matter present on the scene of the crime from a sports shoe, held to be compatible, by its dimensions and configuration of the sole, with the type of footwear brand “N” used by the suspect and by the failure of the alibi put forward by the young man, being demolished by the technical investigations that were carried out, by which, as he asserted, he had interacted with his computer in the hours in which, according the medico-legal reconstruction, the criminal fact would have occurred, just as also remained demolished that the young man had received a phone call from his father at 23:00, it resulting, instead, said call had occurred at 20:40.

From the same perspective, light has been shone, with precise and logical reasoning, on the circumstance that in the course of the evening of 1 November 2007, almost at the same time, telephonic traffic for AMK and RS ceased, after the latter had received a call on his mobile phone from his father at 20:40, of which reference has been made earlier and, in addition, that S, contrary to what was by him stated, did not spend the night of 1 and 2 November 2007 sleeping, it having been ascertained that the computer and mobile phone at his disposal were reactivated at dawn on 2 November 2007.

The judgment reasons, further, on the concourse aspect of the consummation of the homicide and sexual assault, on the basis: (1) of the outcome of the technical tests carried out on the palm print found on the pillow on which the victim had been placed, and it results as belonging to RHG, known to AMK; (b) of the presence of RHG’s DNA on the vaginal swab taken from the cadaver during the autopsy and on the fragment of toilet paper collected from inside the larger bathroom in the apartment, where there had been found faeces, resulting to have been G’s; (c) of the outcome of biological tests carried out on the blood found in the smaller bathroom of the apartment in use by the victim and by Ms K, which permitted the finding that the blood stains on the mat were referable to the victim, those found on the basin to Ms K, and to both the women the blood traces found in the bidet.

The Court, with thorough and logical reasoning, has illustrated, with full reference to the factual circumstances ““ inasmuch such are unreviewable in this seat of legitimacy ““ the reasons for the attribution of pregnant circumstantial value to the elements above recalled, proving the presence on the scene of the consummation of the homicide and sexual assault of AMK, RS, RHG (these last two both known to Ms K), has explained, with articulate and logically correct reasoning, the reasons for which they cannot find agreement with the defence deductions in terms of erroneous interpretation and reading of the recorded conversation of 17 November 2007, of the account written by Ms K on 6 November 2007, of the results of biological and medico-legal tests, of the unreliability of the technical investigations carried out on the computer and mobile phone belonging to S, and has at length examined, including in the light of aspects formulated by the defence, the entire case file, explaining the reasons of its unequivocal value.

So, the argumentative development of the judgment reasoning is founded on a coherent critical analysis of the circumstantial evidence and on its cohesion in an organic interpretative framework, in the light of which the attribution to said elements of the requisite of gravity appears supplied with adequate logical and judicial plausibility, in the sense that they have been considered drivers, with a high level of probability, with respect to the theme of investigations concerning the responsibility, amongst others, of AMK, as to the crimes put against her.

From which, given the evaluation carried out the Re-examination Court on the level of inference of the circumstantial evidence and, therefore, on the more or less demonstrative character of the same in terms of probabilistic qualification of guilt even if not of certainty, it has to be highlighted that the impugned order exceeds the threshold of legitimacy demanded by this Court, whose bench cannot hold itself back from a checking of the respect of rules of logic and of conformity with legal canons which govern the appreciation of grave indicia of guilt, as prescribed by Article 273 Criminal Procedure Code for the ordering of provisions restricting personal liberty, without being able to draw on the intrinsic consistency of the evaluations reserved to the judges of merit.

4. Unfounded, finally, are the censures formulated by AMK’s defence, on the matter of custody requirements, the Re-examination Court having correctly evaluated them, with reference to the parameters to which letters (a), (b), (c) of Article 274 Criminal Procedure Code apply the extreme gravity of the crimes carried out, having had regard to their nature and their method of consummation, the negative personality of the suspect, which emerges from the outcomes of the investigations and from the served case conduct, the specific and binding requirements relevant to the investigations in relation to the clear and present danger for [evidence] acquisition and probative genuineness, considering the necessity for completing the testing and of proceeding with the gathering of other means of declarative proof, the outcome of the handover to Italian authorities, of RHG, as well as allowing corroborations to be made, also permeates the current contrast between the different versions so far furnished of what happened, the clear danger of flight, taking into account the foreign citizenship aspect of the suspect and of the penalty of more than two years’ imprisonment, impacting on the outcome of the recognition of her criminal responsibility.

5. Refusal of the appeal leads in law to the appellant ordered to pay procedural costs.

The Registry will provide for its carrying out as prescribed by Article 94 paragraph 1-ter, and actuating provisions Criminal Procedure Code.

FOR THESE REASONS

Rejects the appeal and orders the appellant to pay procedural costs. Disposes transmission via the Registry a copy of the provision to the Director of the penitentiary institution per Article 94 paragraph 1-ter, and actuating provisions Criminal Procedure Code.

So decided in Rome, in Chambers, 1 April 2008.

DEPOSITED IN THE REGISTRY 21 APRIL 2008


4. Catnip Translation: Gemelli Report On Sollecito

Summary

Held: the decision to continue pre-trial prison detention for the suspect was reasonable.


THE REPUBLIC OF ITALY

IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE

THE SUPREME COURT OF CASSATION

SECTION 1 CRIMINAL DIVISION


Comprised of the most Honourable Justices:

Dr Torquato GEMELLI - President -

Dr Emilio Giovanni GIRONI - Member -

Dr Maria Cristina SIOTTO - Member -

Dr Umberto ZAMPETTI - Member -

Dr Margherita CASSANO - Member -

have pronounced the following


JUDGMENT

on the appeal lodged by:

(1) RS, born on X, against Order of 30/11/2007 Liberty Court of Perugia;

having heard the relation made by Member Emilio Giovanni Gironi;

having heard the conclusions of the Prosecutor-General Dr Consolo for its rejection;

having heard the defence advocates G and T (substituting for advocate M).


REASONS FOR THE DECISION


The order referred to in opening confirmed, at the Re-examination stage, the one by which the GIP [the Preliminary Investigation Magistrate] had applied pre-trial prison detention of RS for participation in the murder of MSCK, the which occurring in Perugia on the evening of the 1st of November 2007 by means of a cutting weapon, in an alleged context of sexual assault by a group, in which there would have taken part, in addition to S, his girlfriend AK and a RHG, who had left behind a palm print on the bloodied pillow on which the victim’s body was resting and whose DNA was found on the vaginal swab taken from the body of the same and on faecal traces found in a bathroom of the house that the victim was sharing with Ms AK and two Italian students.

The picture of circumstantial evidence specifically concerning S consists of the identification of a print left in haematic material present at the scene of the crime of a sports shoe held to be compatible, because its dimensions and configuration of the sole, with the type of footwear, “N” brand size 42.5, used by the suspect; of the recovery ““ in the kitchen of his house ““ of a kitchen knife bearing traces of Ms AK’s DNA on the handle and on the blade traces of Ms MK’s DNA; and of the collapse of the alibi put up by the young man (having been disproven by technical investigations carried out), in which, as asserted by him, he had interacted with his computer during the hours in which, according to the forensic pathologist’s reconstruction, the criminal fact would have occurred, that is between 22:00 and 23:00 of the 1st November 2007; from the investigations carried out up until now it would appear, in fact, that the last interaction with the machine on 1 November occurred at 21:10 and that the subsequent one took place at 5:32 the day after, when S also reactivated his mobile phone, acts witnessing thereby an agitated and sleepless night. Equally disproven was that the young man had received a phone call from his father at 23:00 on the night of the murder, it resulting, instead, that said call had happened at 20:40.

Against S, caught at the time of arrest with a switchblade initially considered compatible with the wounds found on the neck of the victim, would line up, in addition, the mutability of the stories given to the investigators by the same and by his girlfriend, having initially maintained they had remained the whole evening and night in the young man’s house, later to state, instead, that at a certain point Ms AK would have left to meet the Ivorian [sic] citizen PDL, manager of a pub in which Ms AK was undertaking casual employment, she making a returning to her boyfriend’s house only around one in the morning.

It must, finally, be added that the same Ms AK had, amongst other things, initially referred (not confirming, in any case, the thesis in confused and contradictory subsequent versions) to having taken herself to her own house with L, where this latter (he also was struck with a custody order, later revoked after the previously mentioned identification of G’s DNA) had had sexual relations with Ms MK, and to having, while she herself was in the kitchen, heard her friend scream, without, further, remembering anything else of the subsequent events, up until the occurrences of the day after, marked by the discovery of traces of blood in the small bathroom next to Ms MK’s room and culminating in the discovery of the body, after the intervention of the forces of law and order (the police appear, in particular, to have intervened prior to the call to 112 effected by S); in particular, the young woman was specifically pointing out not being able to remember whether S were also present in the victim’s house on the occasion of the events just described.

The Re-examination Court concluded recognizing, for the purposes of maintaining pre-trial detention, the persistence of all the types of pre-trial exigencies mentioned by Article 274 Criminal Procedure Code.

The S defence has indicated an appeal, on the grounds of, with new reasons as well:

  reference to Ms AK alone of the circumstantial evidence constituted by the presence of biological traces from her and from the victim on the knife found at S’s house;

  absence, at the scene of the crime, of biological traces attributable to the suspect [ndr: note, this was before the bra-clasp tests had been done];

  arbitrary transference onto S of the weighty circumstantial evidence against Ms AK, on the unfounded assumption that the pair could not have been anything but together at the moment of the homicidal fact;

  inexistent evidential value of the phases relative to the discovery of the body;

  absence of blood traces from the soles of the “N” shoes worn by the suspect even at the moment of his arrest;

  absence of any evidential value of merit, alleged failure of the alibi, constituting the use of his computer, of which the falsity has not in any case been ascertained, of the lack of interaction by the subject with the machine after the last operation at 21:10 not permitting the inference that the computer was not, however, engaged in downloading files (being, to be specific, films);

  irrelevancy of the mistake revealed between the indicated time of the phone call to the father furnished by S and the actual time of the call, given the uncertainty of the time of death of the victim, depending on the time, otherwise uncertain, of the consumption of the dinner (according to various witness statements coinciding with 18:00), it being well able, therefore, for the time indicated by the forensic pathologist (23:00) to be revised backwards to 21:00, a little before which time the witness P had referred to having made a visit to S, finding him at home and not on the verge of going out;

  interpretability of the so-called unlikelihood of the versions supplied by the suspect as attempts to cover for (aid and abet) another subject;

  attribution of the victim’s biological traces found on the knife seized at S’s house to chance contamination not related to the homicidal fact;

  insufficiency of the pre-trial exigencies, having diminished in a probative sense after the return to Italy of G; those relating to risk of flight lacking in specificity and concreteness; and with reference to the conventional content of blogs posted on the internet by the suspect, those relating to danger to society illogically reasoned;

  missing appearance of the young man’s walk, via security cameras installed along the route that the aforesaid would have had to traverse to go from his house to that of the victim’s.

The appeal is unfounded.

As regards what this Court is permitted to appreciate, not being able here to proceed with a re-reading of the investigative results nor with an alternative interpretation of the factual data referred to in the custody order, the appellant defence substantially contests the recognition, as against S, of the necessary requisite of grave indicia of culpability. The question thus posed and submitted for scrutiny by this bench of the well-known limits of the competence of the court of merit, it must be held that the finding expressed by the Re-examination judges concerning the gravity of the frame of circumstantial evidence is not susceptible to censure.

Not upheld, in the first place, is the defence submission according to which the knife bearing the genetic prints of Ms AK and of Ms MK found in S’s house would constitute a piece of evidence relevant solely as against the young woman, even if privy of traces attributable to the suspect, the utensil has as always been found in the young man’s house, and the testimony acquired up until now has led to the exclusion that it formed part of the inventory of the house inhabited by the victim, and which, at the time, and until proved to the contrary, must be held to be the same available for use by the suspect and which had been used in MK’s house, there being contested no access by her to S’s house.

Given the multitude of group contributive possibilities, the fact is not significative, then, in itself being a neutral element, that on the scene of the crime there are no biological traces attributable to S, to which, in any case, is attributable the “N” brand shoe print considered compatible, by dimensions and sole configuration, with the footwear worn by the suspect at the time of arrest. Although having the same impugned order excluded, at the time, the certainty of the identification constitutes as, in any case, a certain datum that the print in question had been made in haematic material found in Ms MK’s room by a shoe of the kind and of the dimensions of those possessed by the appellant, while it remains to be excluded that this could have originated from G’s shoe, who wore a size 45 and, therefore, dimensions notably larger. The revealed coincidence, notwithstanding the residual uncertainty on the identification, assumes particular valency in relation to the restricted circle of subjects gravitating to the scene of the homicide, with not even Ms AK, who made admissions about her presence on site at the same time as the execution of the offence, excluding the presence of her boyfriend in the victim’s house in the same circumstance; nor can it be held that the print could have been left by S the following morning, he never having claimed to have entered into the room wherein the body was lying.

It does not answer, therefore, to verity that, as against the young man, there had been recognized, by a phenomenon of transference, items of circumstantial evidence in reality pointing solely to Ms AK.

The last finding held unfavourable to S is constituted by the failed proof of the alibi constituted by the argument of the suspect as having remained at home on the computer until late at night; it being a matter of, properly speaking, an alibi failing up till now and not of a false alibi and the defence, correctly, does not refute the technico-judicial valency of the circumstantial evidence, but it remains, in any case, acquired into the case file that the accused had not been able to prove his absence from the locus of the crime at the same time. An item up until now assumed as certain is, instead, the fact that S had interacted with his computer at 5:32 the morning following the murder, at around the same time reactivating his own mobile phone, a contradiction of the assumption of a waking up only at 10:00 and a symptomatic tell-tale of a more or less sleepless night; likewise as symptomatic was held to be the nearly simultaneous cessation of telephonic traffic as much by Ms AK, in his company the evening of 1 November 2007.

The proof of a permanent stay in his house by the suspect can, all told, be considered as acquired up until 20:40 ““ coincident with P’s visit ““ who confirmed his presence, or up until 21:10, the last interaction time on the computer, but this does not cover the time of the homicide, located between 22:00 and 23:00.

As for the proposed argument that S’s conduct were interpreted as aiding and abetting, this does not result, in the event, as being supported by anything emerging from the investigations and its plausibility cannot be verified by the judges of merit.

In conclusion, the Re-examination Court’s evaluation as to the gravity of the circumstantial evidence picture are removed from the audit of this court.

There remains, finally, the finding that for what concerns the pre-trial exigencies, those of a probative nature are not able to be considered as ceasing from the sole fact of G’s re-entry into Italy (amongst other things significantly never invoked in the statements by the suspect and by his girlfriend, who instead co-involved L in the proceedings), given the existence of an investigative picture in continual evolution, in which the positions of the various protagonists so far remain unclear, the changing versions of which are marked by reticence and mendaciousness (the same suspect had, in truth, admitted to having, at least initially, told “˜a load of balls’); but the permanence of pre-trial exigencies had been held reasonablely even under the aspect of flight risk, in relation to the gravity of the charges and of the potential sanctions, not to mention danger to society, given the revealed fragility of character and the specific personal traits of the subject, ““ which would narrowly evaluate as innocuous youthful stereotypes ““, in a context the more connoted by the noted habitual use of drugs.

FOR THESE REASONS

Rejects the appeal and sentences the appellant to payment of costs of the proceedings. Article 94 para 1 ter, and activating provisions, Criminal Procedure Code, applies.

Rome, 1.4.2008.

DEPOSITED IN THE REGISTRY ON 21 APRIL 2008


Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Status Of The Various Computers In The Case #2 New Developments

Posted by Sallyoo





Please first see my previous post and my several updates in the Comments thread.

There has been a new flurry of interest in Raffaele’s computers following the publication, on iip, of a report prepared by Prof. Alfredo Milani. It is available in both in Italian and English, (translation prepared by iip.)

The report isn’t dated, but it was prepared after the Massei report had been published, and it was taken into evidence at the Hellmann appeal. Milani credits another defence computer expert, D’Ambrosio, with a lot of the content.

There have been (to my knowledge) three “˜defence computer expert reports’ prepared. The first, signed by Angelucci in March 2008, is concerned primarily with the damaged hard disks of the Asus of Sollecito, and the computers of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. This report was commissioned by Dalla Vedova and has not (as far as I can determine) ever been taken into evidence, or even mentioned in court.

The salient point in this document is that the data was recovered from the disks of Sollecito’s Asus and Meredith Kercher’s computer.

Then we have D’Ambrosio testifying at Massei (available), accompanied by a report written by D’Ambrosio and Gigli taken into evidence (not available).

At Hellmann we have the Milani report. Raffaele mentions Alfredo Milani in his book as one of his professors.

There isn’t a lot of (strictly computer) information in it which goes beyond D’Ambrosio’s testimony, although the tone is very different. While D’Ambrosio was relatively generous to the police computer analysts, appreciating the procedural retrictions which they worked under, Milani gets close to being offensively insulting to those tehnicians. (Compare with the Conti/Vecchiotti tactics”¦)

Milani attempts to make us believe that two “˜grave methodological errors’ committed by the postal police have concealed data which would provide an alibi.

Firstly he spends much time outlining the MacOS, in every release, and tells us that because the postal police used an “˜analogous but not identical’ MacBook a tiny difference in the release number of the operating system renders their analysis unreliable. This is impossible to acept for two reasons - firstly that the OS employed resided on the cloned disk from Sollecito’s own MacBook, but more importantly the precise OS release would not affect in any way the reading of the log files.

Secondly, he unwisely reminds us of inodes (log files). These files are regularly archived, in compressed form, and this archive is not overwritten. The archive isn’t very simple for an ordinary user to search, but such a search is certainly within the capabilities of an “˜expert computer consultant’. If Milani had discovered anything - such as a use of the Samba utility via the Asus which would have been recorded - he would have told us about it.

He also includes some gratuitous comments - which are rather fun - so we can move onto those now!

Milani has trawled up a keyboard interaction (on Sollecito’s Mac), at 22.04 on November 5, when he assures us that Sollecito was in the questura. Well, every other piece of evidence has Sollecito not arriving at the questura that evening until at least 22.30 - but Raffaele has always claimed to have been eating with a friend when he received the phone call at 21.30 asking him to attend the questura. Was Sollecito at Riccardo’s? Did he nip home (why) before going to the questura? We shall never know, but Milani has given us reason to speculate.

He also offers us the playlist of the music tracks both listened to and skipped between 05.40 and 06.20 (approx) on the morning of Nov 2 - which for some reason he erroneously asserts that the postal police failed to identify as an interaction. You can form your own opinion on the musical taste of the listeners, Nirvana and Bon Jovi feature.

Additionally we learn that one of the films “˜recently viewed’ was Suicide Club, a Japanese cult movie, which can charitably be described as Extreme Fantasy. We also discover that in the CD drive was music from Blind Guardian - a German heavy metal band who used fiction/fantasy themes in their lyrics. (I am left with the impression that Sollecito and Knox were determined not to live in the real world during this period).

A further couple of snippets, the first from an intercepted conversation in prison between Raffaele, his father and his stepmother, Marisa Papigni:

FS:....have nothing to do with [rude in italian] ... and they understood ... now this morning or Monday there will be also the checking of your computer ... they have already cloned the hard disk .. “

RS: “”¦ my concern of the computer is basically that if I came ...”

Marisa Papagni: “Hey ... there is a monster on your computer ... there is a monster ... “

RS: “Forget it ... the fact about the computer is if I have spent much time with Amanda ... there is not all this time I have spent with the computer ...”

FS: “If Amanda was home ... if she was out, wtf were you doing? ... were you at the computer?” .....

And from Honor Bound:

Papà  told him about the data from my computer”¦.but still Maori was skeptical. “Why don’t you let me see it?” he asked.

My father didn’t have the data with him, but he said his brother, Giuseppe, could fax it over.



Below: Professor Milani; Perugia University School of Mathematics & Computers


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Analysis #3 Of Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera, Organized Crime Section: Contradictions Between RS & AK

Posted by Cardiol MD




1. Overview Of This Series

In 2007 Dr Chiacchiera was the Director of the Organized Crime Section and the Deputy Director of the Flying Squad.

He was one of the most senior and experienced law enforcement officers to testify at the trial. His testimony and his cross examination by the defenses occupied a lot of time of the court late in February 2009. He covered the following ground.

(1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.

(2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the “break-In” to Romanelli’s room was faked.

(3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.

(4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito’s house.

(5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito’s and the evidence that it is the murder knife.

Dr Chiacchiera was submitted to cross-examination on the above 5 items by 4 Attorneys for the Defence of Knox and Sollecito, by 2 Civil Party Attorneys, and to Re-examination by the Prosecution. He had a gruelling time as a witness.

All the translation is by the ever-dedicated main poster ZiaK. This series is highlighting some key portions. Here is the full 50-page transcript which will be posted in the trial testimony area of McCall’s great Wiki.

(GCM=Giancarlo Massei; MC=Manuela Comodi; MaCh=Marco Chiacchiera; GB=Giulia Bongiorno; DD=Donatella Donati; CP=Carlo Pacelli; LG=Luciano Ghirga; CDV=Carlo Dalla Vedova; FM=Francesco Maresca)

Continuation of Dr Chiacchiera’s Evidence-in-Chief:

MaCh: It emerged that normally Sollecito kept his cellphones, and also Amanda Knox, they kept their cellphones on until a late hour, evening, [sic] there is no telephone traffic from 20:40 hours. A thing of this “¦

{Witness begins Testimony re cellphones and is interrupted}

MC: But did this emerge from the declarations or did it emerge from the analysis of the [phone] records in the preceding days?

{Examiner interrupts witness with good Q re source of telephone-usage information}

MaCh: It emerged from the analysis of the [phone] records in the preceding days.

{Witness answers clearly}

GCM: Excuse me. Let me understand. In other words you say: the cellphone was switched off and there was no telephone traffic, these are two different things.

{Court asks good clarifying Q}

MaCh: I’m saying, Mr President. Two things. The first, normally Sollecito’s telephone and the telephone of Amanda, were switched on until the late hours. The fatal evening, they were switched off from 20:42 hours until “¦ one [of the phones] from 20:42 onwards and the other from about 20:50 onwards. One. Two, the traffic “¦

{Witness is Answering Court's Q in 2 parts. When he gets to his part #2, Court interrupts}

GCM: Before going on to “Two”, excuse me: “normally” ““ what does that mean? You had “¦

{Court is asking good Q re witness's Part #1, but is interrupted}

MaCh: We had done a comparative analysis of the telephone traffic of that evening with the telephone traffic of the preceding evenings. Shall we say the habits ...

{Witness interrupts Court with narrative response, and is also interrupted}

GCM: And so the “normally” emerges from this?

{Court interrupts witness's response with good Q}

MC: How many evenings? If you recall, or not?

{Examiner asks witness relevant Q, adding redundant Q}

MaCh: Months, no “¦ honestly, I don’t remember how many [evenings], but months.

{Witness stumbles, seeming uncertain re 'evenings' vs 'months'}

MC: I mean to say, not “¦

{Examiner preambles re her redundant Q but is interrupted}

MaCh: Not three days, no. The telephone traffic habits were evaluated. [This is point] one. [Point] Two, the element that emerged, that contradicted the declarations, I can’t report on the declarations but I can report on the element that contradicted [sic. i.e. provided the contradiction], that in effect no telephone call had arrived at 23:00 hours, as had been declared: on the phone line that was declared to have received that “¦ the recipient of that very phone-call. Another element: no interaction with the computer emerged, unlike what was declared. So there were a few objective elements of comparison from the analysis and from the technical checks that contradicted what had previously been revealed.

{Witness interrupts Examiner with narrative response to Examiner's Q, witness indicating contradiction between suspects' declarations and objective records of telephone and computer activity}

MC: For Amanda Knox, were there incongruities of this type?

{Examiner asks if incongruities/contradictions existed for Amanda Knox}

MaCh: Yes, there were incongruities because Amanda Knox was, how to say, contradicted by Sollectio, and then she contradicted herself, if I may “¦

{Witness answers affirmatively, amplifying applicability both to Sollecito & Knox, but is interrupted}

GB: President, if we continue in this way, then we might as well do the old [trial] procedure.

{Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito's lawyer interjects, objecting-subjectively to Court, but submitting no legal basis for her objection}

GCM: Excuse me, please.

{Court seems to politely rule GB out-of-order}

MaCh: The elements, these are [sic], Mr President, I don’t know how to do.

{Witness communicates uncertainty to Court}

MC: But it is so difficult, however.

{Examiner chimes-in apparently commiserating with her witness's uncertainty}

MaCh: Mr President, I really don’t know what to do.

{Witness seems to repeat statement addressed to Court, who possibly interrupts}}

GCM: Excuse me”¦

{Court seems to begin response to Witness, but is possibly interrupted}

MaCh: If I have to describe the investigation activity “¦

{Witness may be interrupting Court or is continuing Witness's unfinished statement to Court}

MC: He’s not referring to declarations.

{Examiner chimes-in with his opinion re Witness's reference to Defendants' contradictions/incongruities - GB's interjection seems to have side-tracked court procedure}

GCM: Regarding these declarations, you can report on this [sic. i.e. in this instance?], and with regard to Raffaele Sollecito, you reported ““ citing the telephone traffic and citing the use of the computer. There now, and this is one point. With regard to Amanda Knox, you cannot report the declarations. But you may, however, say ““ following these declarations ““ what type of investigations you carried out, and the outcome of these. So, following the declarations given by Amanda Knox, did you do similar investigations, as [those you did] for Sollecito Raffaele on the [phone] records? Or was there nothing to do, except to “¦?

{Court rules on subject of testimony re Defendants' declarations, seeming to rule admissibility of Sollecito's declarations re telephone traffic and computer usage, but inadmissibility of Knox's declarations. Court does seem to permit description of investigations that followed Knox's declarations, without describing Knox's actual declarations, and Court asks whether phone-record investigations similar to those done for Sollecito were done for Knox.}

MaCh: Mr President, all the necessary checks were made, but in that immediate moment the most important element “¦ that is to say, in [this] place [NdT: i.e. “in this Court”], in this moment, in this place, that is to say, when they were “¦ I said [that] when the arrests were made, I don’t, I don’t know how to do, however, the incongruity of the declarations with the facts that we had found, and with the declarations that Sollecito had previously given us, [this] was the most important element. I don’t know if I have managed to “¦

{Witness seemingly responding to Court that he doesn't know how to deal with the declarations, is interrupted.}

GCM: No, excuse me (overlapping voices). So, with regard to Raffaele Sollecito, we have
understood these checking activities were carried out on the declarations made, the verification activities carried out, and [that’s all] very well. With regard to Amanda Knox, if you also carried out “¦ maybe there were no objective elements for possible checking, there were no “¦ or else, there were activities carried out of “¦

{Court, interrupting over witness's testimony, seems to be explaining his Q to witness, but is interrupted by witness}

MaCh: Later, there emerged a series of further elements.

{Witness interrupts with statement re unspecified further elements}

GCM: Not evaluations on the congruity, incongruity, likelihood, these are evaluations and will be done, there you go, comparably. I’m thinking of the [phone] records, of the use, if she had given indications on the basis of which [you] could carry out investigative activity “¦

{Court seems to want evidence in Knox's phone records justifying further investigation.}

Here ends the Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera covering the relevant Phone Records, elicited by the Prosecution.

Next comes the Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera elicited by the Prosecution, covering Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito’s house, Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito’s and the evidence that it is the murder knife


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Knox, Tied In Knots By Her Own Tongue: Translation Of The 17 Dec 2007 Interview With Dr Mignini #4

Posted by Machiavelli, Catnip, Kristeva



Inmate-chefs at Capanne Prison, from which Knox was making a bid for release

1. Getting Up To Speed On This Fourth Post

How much serious questioning was Knox subjected to prior to this voluntary interview six weeks after her arrest?

In fact, none. In the early days of November, after Meredith was found dead, she had several less-formal “recap/summary” sessions with investigators on possible leads (as did many others), which the defenses conceded without argument at trial were simply that and no more.

So these were the first serious questions put to Knox - politely, and Knox is essentially not argumentative throughout

The transcript was in the evidence pile and all judges except Hellmann seem to have studied it hard. This was also the first-ever interview of Knox by Dr Mignini, as prosecutor appointed to the case. He had seen her twice at the house and heard her at her strong insistence early on 6 November.

But they had never before really talked.

Prior to this, Knox had already emanated over a dozen differing versions of what she wanted to claim took place and the police and prosecutors and Supervising Magistrate Claudia Matteini had tried to make sense of those. 

2. Our Translation Of Approximately The Fourth 40 Minutes

This is the fourth 40 minutes of the voluntary interview which lasted in total about three hours. For a full understanding it would really be best to read (1) our first post and comment thread and (2) our second post and comment thread. and (3) third post and comment thread.

Transcript of Interview 17 December 2007: Statement of Interview Of Ms Amanda Knox (cont)

PM Mignini: After having talked, after you were heard at the Questura, did you go away or did you wait?

Knox: The first day I was questioned I was there for hours”¦ maybe 14”¦

Interpreter: The first time it seems to her that she had been there a very long time, 14 hours

PM Mignini: But questioned

Knox: No, maybe they questioned me for 6 hours but I stayed at the Questura a very long time”¦

Interpreter: It must have been more or less 6 hours that Amanda was questioned but staying in the Questura must have been about”¦

PM Mignini: But was there”¦ were you in the waiting room?

Knox: Yes the whole time together with everyone else we were there in the waiting room”¦

Interpreter Yes, yes together with the other ones

PM Mignini: And who were the other people?

[82]

Knox: The housemates, and later others arrived”¦ After quite a long time our neighbors arrived, after a while some people Meredith knew arrived, her friends

Interpreter: Her housemates and then other people who arrived later, the neighbors after a while”¦ and after, Meredith’s friends arrived, the people Meredith knew”¦

PM Mignini: But did you speak to them? Did you exchange any confidences?

Knox: Yes we were all there and I said “it appears that Meredith’s body was found in a closet”

PM Mignini: Who said that?

Knox: I remember talking to her friends and I remember telling them that it appeared the body had been found inside a closet”¦

Interpreter: She remembers having said it to Meredith’s friends

PM Mignini: But friends, who? You must tell us the name”¦ a name even just the name”¦

Knox: I remember having talked to Sophie”¦ But I don’t know the name of the other friends

PM Mignini: A certain Natalie? From London

Knox: The name sounds familiar but I don’t think I could recognize her face

Interpreter: She can’t tie the name to her face but”¦

PM Mignini: And what were you saying? What kind of comments were you making?

[83]

Knox: I told them what I knew, I told them that I had arrived home and found the door open, and told them what I knew”¦

Interpreter: She told what she knew that she had arrived home and found the door open

PM Mignini: Did you ever see, did you see in those moments the wound on Meredith’s neck?

Interpreter: Up to the moment?

PM Mignini: In that moment.

Knox: I never saw Meredith dead, I never saw her dead body”¦

Interpreter: No, she never saw her dead

PM Mignini: Ok, but was there anyone that night who said, anyone who said that she had died quickly? Did someone else say that she must have suffered for a long time”¦ was there anyone who said this?

Knox: Nobody of the people I talked to knew what had happened”¦

Interpreter: No, none of the people she talked to said something”¦ knew what had happened

PM Mignini: Did you come to know, did you ever come to know, and if yes, when, in what moment, Meredith had died”¦ that is, if Meredith’s death was immediate or if it was prolonged, if there was a death agony”¦ if yes, when did you find that out?

Knox: The only time when I heard of this was when Luciano [Ghirga] was describing the wound and how deep it was”¦ What kind of wound it was and he said “maybe she died slowly because no big vein had been struck”

Interpreter: So, the first time you had heard talking about the wound and how she died”¦ when was it with Luciano?

Lawyer: The morning of the 8th

[84]

PM Mignini: So, after the 6th…

Lawyer: The morning of the 8th

PM Mignini: The morning of November 8th

Lawyer: After the arrest validation [hearing]

Interpreter: And there she found out that no vital vein was directly struck and therefore”¦

PM Mignini: You say that she came to know on the 8th from the lawyer.

Lawyer: From the lawyers.

PM Mignini: From the lawyers, sorry.

Lawyer: We always came all together

PM Mignini: Either one or the other [of you] could have told her”¦ so”¦ [talking to Knox] I formally notify [for the record, a contradiction] that an Erasmus student and a colleague of this student, they said, on this past December 10th that on the night of the second in the Questura, while having”¦ a girl called Natalie, I won’t tell you her last name but she”¦ she was a friend of Meredith, she had noticed that you were talking at length with Sollecito, and at a certain point, in response to a comment made by one of these girls that they hoped Meredith had died without suffering, you instead said ” with those kind of wounds the death would not have come fast and that therefore Meredith must have died after a certain period of time”. I’ll reread it to you if you’d like, ok?

Knox: The police told me that her throat was cut, and what I know about that topic, I mean when they cut your throat, it is terrible and I heard that it’s a horrible way to die”¦

Interpreter: Yes the police had told her that Meredith’s throat was cut and what Amanda knew is that it’s an agonizing way to die”¦

[85]

PM Mignini: But this is something we found out after, we too found it out only later”¦ not right away”¦

Knox: The police told me that her throat had been cut.

Interpreter: The police had told her that her throat had been cut.

PM Mignini: Who from the police? Excuse me I’d like to know”¦ cutting the neck, it can happen in many ways, vital veins can be struck and might also not be struck, therefore one thing is about cutting the throat, and another is about the way how to cut it and therefore make it so that the death occurs instantaneously, or cause a death with agony. On the evening of the second, if it’s true, according to these results, on the evening of the second you knew that, with those kind of wounds, she must have suffered an agony”¦ and the police didn’t know that”¦

Knox: I thought that a death by cutting the throat was always slow and terrible”¦

PM Mignini: The autopsy was made on the fourth, two days later

Interpreter: What she thought was that cutting the throat was always a slow death in general

PM Mignini: It’s not like that”¦not necessarily”¦ anyway, who from the police told you about the neck wound? Tell us.

Knox: It was probably the interpreter”¦the first interpreter was the person I talked to the most”¦ all information I had came more or less from him”¦

Interpreter: Probably the translator/interpreter

PM Mignini: Therefore, therefore he told you while you were being heard”¦

Lawyer: She was in there 12 hours

[86]

Knox: When I was in there I was talking to the police and they told me that her throat was cut”¦ the whole conversation was between me and the interpreter. It was him who must have told me, a long time has passed but I think it was like that”¦

Interpreter: Directly from the interpreter, indirectly from the police

PM Mignini: So [it was] when you were questioned. Not before.

Interpreter: No, before she was questioned she didn’t know how she was”¦

Knox: No, when I was home the way she died”¦

PM Mignini: Before being questioned”¦ you were questioned until 15:30, until what time have you been heard? You were being heard since 15:30, until what time were you being heard?

Knox: I don’t know it was a long questioning”¦

Lawyer: She had been heard in the presence of an interpreter, maybe the interpreter”¦

PM Mignini: It was D’Astolto”¦ Fabio D’Astolto

Lawyer: The interpreter was present from the beginning or only from the questioning onwards?

PM Mignini: Yes, well he was a policeman acting as an interpreter, translating. Fabio D’Astolto. Assistant D’Astolto. When and how, in what terms did D’Astolto express himself, this translator what did he tell you?

Lawyer: When?

PM Mignini: When and what did he tell you

Knox: I don’t remember when but I asked him how she died

Interpreter: She doesn’t remember when but she asked him how she was killed”¦

PM Mignini: And he pointed out to you the wound on the neck. The wound on the neck and that’s all. Fine. This translator.

[87]

Lawyer: [to the Prosecutor] You referred to an Erasmus student who had said that on December 10th.  Ms. Natalie would have said this.

PM Mignini: Yes

Lawyer: And is the Erasmus student indicated [in the records]?

PM Mignini: It is indicated

Lawyer: Do we have a name?

PM Mignini: Capruzzi, Filippo and the other one is a certain, a colleague of his, Chiara, Maioli.

Lawyer: So it was two Erasmus students

PM Mignini: Two Erasmus students who confirmed this confidentiality from this English girl. Some”¦ this is the December 10th hearing report”¦ ok

Lawyer G. She clarified if she had talked with the interpreter, with someone before”¦

Lawyer C. We have clarified that the interpreter was not an interpreter but was a police officer who speaks English and that apparently was present from the beginning and therefore at this point…

PM Mignini: Wait.. one moment”¦ did you, did you”¦ did you see this person who was translating at the house?

Knox: No

Interpreter: No

PM Mignini: Perfect

Lawyer: She was approximately 12 hours in the Questura and at some time she heard the first… let’s call it questioning but it was a long time, and before the questioning she heard of this wound on the neck, is that right?

[88]

PM Mignini: During the questioning, you said before, during the questioning so much as this policeman translator was present, therefore”¦ no I’m very sorry, who did you hear this from? The translator? The policeman

Interpreter: About the wound? The first time?

PM Mignini: The wound

Knox: I think so

Knox: The first time?

PM Mignini: Yeah

Interpreter: I think the interpreter the first time

PM Mignini: And it would be this D’Astolto”¦ so this D’Astolto told you, please excuse me you told me this “it was D’Astolto” now”¦ therefore this D’Astolto told you this during the course of the questioning?

Knox: I think so”¦

Interpreter: Yes, she thinks so

PM Mignini: Ok, one more thing, so the”¦ you did, the morning of the”¦ actually no, the night between the fifth and the sixth of November, you did, let’s say partially modify your previous declarations, so then you modified your previous declarations and you made a specific accusation against Patrick Dia Lumumba known as Patrick. You said that you were supposed to meet with Patrick, that you met with Patrick at the basketball court of Piazza Grimana, that you went to Meredith’s house, to your house, and then he had sex with Meredith, then you heard a scream and you accused him even if in terms you say “confusedly” of killing Meredith. Isn’t that so? Why did you make this accusation? “¦ Now remember, I was hearing you, I was present, you were crying, you were

[89]

profoundly upset, and you were as if relieved when you made this statement.

Lawyer: Maybe she was stressed?

PM Mignini: Well, stressed or not, in any case she was very   she made these declarations

Lawyer: You asked her a question “Why did you make these declarations”?

PM Mignini: Well I also have to”¦

Lawyer: Eh these are opinions

PM Mignini: I am saying that you made a declaration not in a detached way, in other words in a very involved manner, why did you make these statements?

Knox: I was scared, I was confused, it had been hours that the police that I thought were protecting me, and instead they were putting me under pressure and were threatening me.

Interpreter: She was scared, she was confused, it had been hours that the police were threatening and pressuring her.

PM Mignini: Yes, tell me, go on

Knox: The reason why I thought of Patrick was because the police were yelling at me about Patrick”¦ they kept saying about this message, that I had sent a message to Patrick”¦

Interpreter: The reason why she thought of Patrick was because the police was asking her who was this Patrick to whom she sent, with whom there was this exchange of messages, they were asking her insistently.

Knox: That was the worse experience of my life

Interpreter: The worse experience of her life

[90]

Knox: I had never been more confused than then

Interpreter: She had been so confused or scared

PM Mignini: But in the following memoriale [spontaneous statement around noon 6 November] that you wrote before going to prison, basically you don’t retract this accusation. Even if in terms, still in terms let’s say of uncertainty, between dream and reality, in other words in such a way “¦ still you didn’t “¦ I believe that in this memoriale you say “I still see this image in front of me” and then you see yourself while hearing it, you say that in that first memoriale you wrote “you hear Meredith’s screams and you put your hands over your ears”. Why do you have this image? Your ears”¦ the scream”¦ it’s not like it’s changing much after all isn’t that so?

Lawyer: No, but she says she was very confused”¦ she was under a lot of stress

PM Mignini: Yes, but why does it basically remain the same, this one”¦

Knox: Yes, I imagined these things”¦

Interpreter: Imagined this scene

Knox: I was so scared and confused

Interpreter: I was so scared and confused

Knox: that I tried to imagine what could have happened. The police told me that I was probably not remembering well. So I thought of what could be another answer and therefore I imagined it”¦

Interpreter: She tried to think of what could have happened since the police was saying that probably she didn’t remember well. And therefore she imagined this scene, trying to think how it could have happened

PM Mignini: Well, you, I just tell you, I tell you only that this Dia Lumumba, this Patrick, only comes up in your statements, he wasn’t, he has never been indicated previously in the slightest, I mean why did you, why did you almost feel…

[91]

...forced to, so you say, to give this name? While this name had never been, you had never mentioned him previously”¦ in the statements of the 2nd, the 3rd”¦. Why only at a certain point di this Patrick pop up? I’m telling you, do you realize”¦ excuse me, eh? “¦ excuse me”¦.

Knox: They were telling me “why did you send this message to Patrick, this message to Patrick!”

Interpreter: Because they were always insisting about this message to Patrick and because”¦

PM Mignini: Well because there’s the message so [it’s] the message but it’s just that, it’s not that there was an attitude, I mean it’s not like there was any reference to a message according to what emerges from the statements. In fact there was a message that you”¦ since there had been an exchange of messages right before the time of the murder between you and this person it’s normal that the police would want to know why, what this message meant, this”¦ therefore it’s not something”¦ why did you threw yourself in this kind of”¦ ? While you had, you had the possibility to”¦?

Knox: Because I thought that it could have been true

Interpreter: Because she thought it could have been true”¦

PM Mignini: It could have been true?

Lawyer: Why?

Knox: When I was there, I was confused”¦

PM Mignini: [to the lawyers, ed.] No, no, excuse me, at this point no, I’m sorry. Not the lawyers. The defense can intervene against me but against the person investigated…?

Lawyer Ghirga: But there was no question”¦ Prosecutor there was no question

PM Mignini: It could be true. What does it mean?

[92]

Lawyer Ghirga: There was no question

PM Mignini: What? I am asking the question.

Lawyer Ghirga: Then ask it.

PM Mignini: What does it mean, how “˜could it be true’? What?

Lawyer Ghirga: What could be true?

PM Mignini: Excuse me, lawyer

Lawyer Ghirga: It’s like the phone call with her parents

PM Mignini: What could be true

Lawyer Ghirga: It’s like the phone call with her parents

PM Mignini: “¦Lawyer Ghirga”¦ what”¦?

Lawyer Ghirga: [seems to Knox] What do you want to say then? Let’s ask her”¦

PM Mignini: Excuse me, I am asking the questions, I am asking them now

Lawyer Ghirga Yes of course

PM Mignini: Then after you can”¦ I am asking her”¦

Lawyer Ghirga: Yes of course, we will ask them too”¦

PM Mignini: Lawyer”¦ she is saying “it could have been true””¦

Lawyer: What?

PM Mignini: “it could have been true”. She was telling me why did she accuse Lumumba of this fact? “It could have been true” is what she answered. Gentlemen, here”¦

Knox: I said it because I imagined it and I thought that it could have been true”¦

Interpreter: She said because she had imagined it and therefore she thought it could have been true.

[93]

PM Mignini: Look, listen”¦ listen, why did you imagine it?

Knox Why?... Because I was stressed

PM Mignini: Why didn’t you imagine”¦

Lawyer: No she was answering

PM Mignini: Yes; what did you want to say?

Interpreter: Because she was under stress”¦

Knox: Knox: Why? I was stressed, I was scared, it was after long hours in the middle of the night, I was innocent and they were telling me that I was guilty

Interpreter: Because they were saying that she was guilty

PM Mignini: Who was saying it? Guilty who’”¦.

Interpreter: After hours”¦

Lawyer: Excuse me, prosecutor, if we can correctly compile this translation, these words that were said in English at the right moment

PM Mignini: She is crying, we acknowledge, I’m sorry, we acknowledge that the”¦ investigated is crying.

Interpreter: Because she was stressed, scared under pressure after many hours, she was”¦ in the middle of the night, they had reached the middle of the night and because they were saying that Amanda was guilty.

PM Mignini: Who was saying that she was guilty?

Interpreter: The police

Lawyer: The police was accusing her

Interpreter: The police was accusing Amanda

[94]

PM Mignini: Why”¦ why did you accuse Lumumba and not others? How many people did you know who could”¦

Knox: Because they were yelling Patrick’s name”¦

Interpreter: She accused Patrick and not others because they were always talking about Patrick, suggesting”¦

PM Mignini: The police, the police couldn’t suggest…

Interpreter: Yelling Patrick’s name

PM Mignini: Excuse me, what was the police saying?

Interpreter: What did the police tell you?

Knox: The police were telling me that “˜we know that you were at the house, we know that you left the house’, and the moment before I said Patrick’s name they put.. someone was showing me the message that I had sent on the phone

Interpreter: The police said that they knew that Amanda was inside the house, and when she went in, when she went out, that she was inside the house, and while they were asking her this someone showed her Patrick’s message on the phone.

PM Mignini: But this is”¦ But this is normal. You”¦ there was this message”¦ I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. There’s a murder here. There’s a girl whose throat is slit, there was a phone number, there was a call that had been made, you were being heard. There was a call that had been made to you on the night of the murder from this person, you replied to this call in a way that could have been interpreted, according to the meaning in Italian “will see you”. Eh, so what is more normal than to insist? The police are doing their job. They insist to know, what did that mean, what was the, what relationship was there between you and Lumumba. This is normal.

[95]

Knox: I didn’t understand why they were insisting that I was lying”¦ they kept telling me that I was lying”¦

Interpreter: She didn’t understand why they were insisting that she was lying.

PM Mignini: Why are you”¦?

Interpreter: The police was insisting that she was lying.

PM Mignini: But why did you accuse, then if it was like this….  Again you are, you are crying again, for a long while since you started, I put in the record, I put in the record that”¦ it’s been ten minutes that you have been crying. Why did you accuse a person that, today, you’re telling us he is innocent, but earlier you just told us “it could be true” what does “it could be true” mean? You have told me “it could be true”.

Lawyer: The subject is missing

PM Mignini: No the subject is there, because I asked the question. Why did you accuse Lumumba?

Lawyer: Can we suspend a moment please?

PM Mignini: What reason?

Knox: It means that in the moment when I told Patrick’s name, I thought that it could have been true.

Interpreter: In the moment in which she said Patrick’s name, in that moment, she thought it could have been true.

Lawyer Ghirga: We ask for a suspension”¦ she is calm, you say she is crying, and we think she’s not.

PM Mignini: I put that in the record it because I could see the tears, she was crying and I could hear her too.

[96]

Lawyer: It was not ten minutes long

PM Mignini: Well, even more, maybe

Lawyer: maybe, no less

PM Mignini: Let’s interrupt, break off.

Lawyer: You asked her six times”¦

PM Mignini: For Heaven’s sake, let’s interrupt, break off.

(interruption)

[from this point on Amanda declares her right to remain silent]

PM Mignini: So, at 15:12 lawyer Luciano Ghirga resumes the interrogation

Lawyer Ghirga: In the name of the defensive collegium we submit a reason to confer personally, privately, we mean alone together with our client, for a time not longer than ten minutes.

PM Mignini: So, the Public Prosecutor is pointing out that the interrogation had already been suspended and it’s 15: 13 now, pointing out that the interrogation was suspended several times, and the last time for, how long? Ten minutes on request of the defence, and the defence will be allowed to fully have counsel with the person under investigation at the end of the interrogation. [The Public Prosecutor] orders to proceed, orders to go forward with the investigation procedure. So now I would like”¦

Lawyer Ghirga: If you may, ask to the suspect, to the person under investigation, whether she intends to go on or to invoke her right not to answer”¦?

PM Mignini: This is a”¦ it’s a”¦ it’s a”¦ she decided to answer questions at the beginning. Now if she decides to make a statement where she says “I don’t want to answer any more” she’ll be the one who says it, and it’s not that I must ask now, that question was done at the beginning of the interrogation. If now she wants to say”¦

Knox: I prefer not to answer any more”¦

[97]

Lawyer Ghirga: What did she say?

Interpreter: She doesn’t want to answer anymore.

PM Mignini: So, at this point, at 15: 15, on a question asked by the defence lawyers, about whether the person under investigation intends to go on answering or not”¦

Lawyer Ghirga: To your questions

PM Mignini: To a question by lawyer Ghirga”¦ yes, well, Lawyer Ghirga asked her that

Lawyer: He didn’t first ask the question

Lawyer Ghirga: But what question did I ask?

Lawyer: We told you to ask her…

PM Mignini: Yes, you asked me, and I did follow the request. But”¦

Lawyer Ghirga: She made a declaration, and we took note, unfortunately, about forbidden suggestions”¦ but on what request”¦?

PM Mignini: Now at this point, at 15: 15 the defence lawyers… Let’s put like this, the defence lawyers ask this Prosecutor about whether he intends to ask the person under investigation if she intends to go on answering questions, but then, after my decision, Lawyer Ghirga said”¦

Lawyer Ghirga: Who said? You said

PM Mignini: You asked her, I put in the record what happened, it’s recorded anyway, this is what I perceived you asked her, and she answered “I do not intend to answer”, she said, and then the interpreter…

Lawyer Ghirga: I asked whether she intended to make a statement, and she made a statement

PM Mignini: You indicated that to her, it changes nothing, doesn’t change”¦ I must only put in the record what happened. The public prosecutor points out that…

[98]

...the warning about the right not to answer was explained to the person under investigation at the beginning of the interrogation, as provided by the Code, and that same [person under investigation] declared she wanted to answer. It is not possible now to invoke the duty to inform the suspect about her right, because such requirement has been already fulfilled. Anyway the person under investigation can, if she decides to, declare that she doesn’t want to answer any more. Such option has been shown to the person under investigation by lawyer Ghirga.

Lawyer: ...by the defence lawyers

PM Mignini: By the defence lawyers, to the person under investigation. What do you want to do?

Lawyer: What do you mean by “It was shown?”

PM Mignini: It was shown, because you said”¦ I need to put in the record what happened. The lawyer… Facing my warrant which I described, the notice was provided at the beginning of the interrogation as the code requires. She said “I want to answer, I do not intend to invoke my right not to answer”. That answer had been given already, I informed her, and she answered. Now to this, at this point, however, I said nothing prevents her from wanting, from declaring “at this point I do not intend to answer any more”. I put it in the record and I don’t ask why, at that point, at that point.

Lawyer: You should not put in the record “the defence lawyers have shown”¦”

PM Mignini: “at that point”

Lawyer: We did not show anything, we asked to be allowed to, well”¦ and you said no.

PM Mignini: So”¦ lawyer, lawyer?

Lawyer: And you said no, and we didn’t have the possibility to show her…

[99]

PM Mignini: Lawyer Ghirga”¦ Lawyer Ghirga”¦

Lawyer: that she might invoke her right to not answer. It’s not that it’s we who’ve shown this possibility this is what I want to explain”¦

PM Mignini: Lawyer Ghirga told her something, so…?

Lawyer Ghirga: No, no, I only said, if you could give us a ten minutes suspension

PM Mignini: You told her something, now come on”¦ I need to put that on record

Lawyer Ghirga: what did I say”¦

PM Mignini: You have shown, I don’t know if the other lawyer did too, you told, Lawyer Ghirga, you told the person under investigation about… You said, if you can, if I remember correctly,  we’ll hear her again”¦

Lawyer Costa: It was me who told her, Mr. Prosecutor

PM Mignini: So I understood Lawyer Ghirga… Lawyer Giancarlo Costa declares he explained that, I didn’t say anything else

Lawyer Costa: ... To Ms. Amanda Knox to use her right to invoke her right not to answer

PM Mignini: ... And she herself declares so, she is supposed to declare what she wants

Lawyer: She has already said that

PM Mignini: Let’s repeat it since with this superimposition of voices”¦ the interpreter will translate faithfully word-by-word what you say.

Knox: At this point I don’t want to answer any more

Interpreter: At this point she doesn’t want to answer any more

PM Mignini: So “at this point I don’t want to answer any more”. We put on record that the current transcript was recorded entirely.

[100]

Lawyer Costa: Mr Public Prosecutor, we lawyers may renounce to our own time terms of deposit if Your Honour would give us a copy

PM Mignini: Yes, no problem”¦ at 15: 22. The parties demand a transcription, I mean the defence lawyers request the transcription of the recording.


Sunday, October 05, 2014

Knox Interrogation Hoax #14: Third Opportunity Knox Flunked: Requested Interrogation By Dr Mignini

Posted by Machiavelli, Catnip, Kristeva




1. Our Translation Of Knox’s Key Interview

At her request Dr Mignini interrogated Amanda Knox, her first true interrogation under Italian law, on 17 Dec 2007.

This was about six weeks after her arrest. If Knox had explained away the charges against her, she could have been on her way home.

Read our translations for how it finally emerged. There is some context in Part 2 below.

Knox, Tied In Knots By Her Own Tongue: Translation Of The 17 Dec 2007 Interview With Dr Mignini #1

Knox, Tied In Knots By Her Own Tongue: Translation Of The 17 Dec 2007 Interview With Dr Mignini #2

Knox, Tied In Knots By Her Own Tongue: Translation Of The 17 Dec 2007 Interview With Dr Mignini #3

Knox, Tied In Knots By Her Own Tongue: Translation Of The 17 Dec 2007 Interview With Dr Mignini #4

Part 2: Context Of The Interview

Dozens of people have very aggressively gone to bat for Knox over her “interrogation” and still do. They trust that one or other of her versions of the 5-6 November 2007 police-station session finally stands up.

This interview was sought-after by Knox, seeing this as her last best chance to get herself off the hook before trial and to avoid remaining locked up.  This lasted about three hours, until Knox’s lawyers interrupted to got her to clam up.

All of the trial judges and appeal judges and lay judges had clearly studied this document hard. Also prosecutors and the Knox and Sollecito defense counsel periodically refer to it.

As you will have seen in previous posts, Knox’s team pussyfooted about without conviction in the few brief instances when the 5-6 November session was discussed.

In this Mignini hearing of 17 December 2007 they eventually in effect advised her it would be in her best interests to shut up.


Thursday, September 25, 2014

Analysis #2 Of Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera, Organized Crime Section: Discounting Any Lone Wolf

Posted by Cardiol MD



Dr Chiacchiera (talking) with his team explaining reason for charges in another case

Overview Of This Series

In 2007 Dr Chiacchiera was the Director of the Organized Crime Section and the Deputy Director of the Flying Squad.

He was one of the most senior and experienced law enforcement officers to testify at the trial.  His testimony and his cross examination by the defenses occupied a lot of time of the court late in February 2009. He covered the following ground.

    (1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.

    (2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the “break-In” to Romanelli’s room was faked.

    (3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.

    (4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito’s house.

    (5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito’s and the evidence that it is the murder knife.

All the translation is by the ever-dedicated main poster ZiaK. This series is highlighting some key portions. Here is the full 50-page transcript which will be posted in the trial testimony area of McCall’s great Wiki.

This post continues analysis of the evidence that the lone burglar/lone wolf theory was not credible to those that were first on the crime scene and that the “break-In” to Filomena Romanelli’s room was to them obviously faked.

(GCM=Giancarlo Massei; MC=Manuela Comodi; MaCh=Marco Chiacchiera; GB=Giulia Bongiorno; DD=Donatella Donati; CP=Carlo Pacelli; LG=Luciano Ghirga; CDV=Carlo Dalla Vedova; FM=Francesco Maresca)

Public Prosecutor Comodi [MC] Leads Testimony

Judge Massei [GCM}:  Excuse me a moment, just to give some guidelines, but of the evaluations that the witness is expressing, obviously it’s not that they can be taken account of, however we will acquire them [for the trial files] in order to understand the investigation activities, the appropriateness of the investigations that were carried out, directed in one way or in another, there you go. However, maybe, “¦ there you go, yes, maybe if we can manage to keep with the bare essentials this will help everybody.

{Court proceedings seem to have been diverted into a free-for-all colloquy, with multiple participants chiming-in, and creating confusion. Court-President, GCM, now politely intervenes, apparently trying to restore order, ruling that the professional evaluations made by the witness, testified-to by the witness, should be admitted for the trial files. The appropriateness of the witness's evaluations can be dealt with separately and later.}

Manuela Comodi [MC}:  Well, in short, they were called “¦ they are the only ones who can describe the whole progression of the investigations - Dr Profazio and Dr Chiacciera ““ because they are directors, they are the only ones who will come to describe for me, thus, what was the progression of the investigations. Clearly, in order to pass from one investigative act to another rather than “¦ and the choice of the subsequent investigative acts. It’s clear that they have to describe, in order to make a complete reasoning, even the lines of thought that, as Dr Chiacchiera said, it sometimes happens that they make. However, one point: apart from the break-in, apart from the broken window, there are “¦ did you acquire further elements that corroborated the idea that there had been a burglary? Nothing from Romanelli’s room had been carried off? Valuable things had been taken?

{Examiner acknowledges Court's admonition, argues importance of her witness's testimony, and segués into triple-Q addressed to witness re elements corroborating idea of burglary.}

Dr Chiacchiera [MaCh]:  This ... in fact, in the progress ...

{Witness begins to answer, but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:  Was a declaration/complaint of theft made then, with a list of the things taken?

{Examiner interrupts witness with new double-Q}

MaCh:  In the logical progression, if I may in some way still, in summary, say what “¦.

{Witness begins narrative response but is interrupted by Court}

GCM:  Say the objective facts, if you have “¦.

{Court interrupts witness, beginning to admonish him to respond by testifying to objective facts, but is itself interrupted by witness}

MaCh:  Nothing disappeared, so a burglar would have had difficulty “¦

{Witness answers 3rd Q of Examiner's above triple Q, but then launches into a narrative beginning: "so…", but Court interrupts}

GCM:  Excuse me, nothing had disappeared? Before all else, what thing .... you knew what things were in that room that did not disappear?

{Court interrupts, questioning basis for witness's statement that "Nothing disappeared"}

MaCh:  Yes, because, shall we say, the investigation elements that then subsequently emerged, allowed us to deduce that from Romanelli’s room absolutely nothing disappeared. There was a complete mess/chaos, but nothing disappeared from Romanelli’s room. And this is another element to [lead us] to obviously deduce that the desired hypothesis of a burglar and of a theft was objectively “¦ But then the burglar does not [sic] close the door and throw away the key. The burglar does not cover the victim. The burglar “¦

{Witness answers Court's Q, with narrative explanation including reference to "the key", and Court interrupts}

GCM:  Excuse me. They key. What is this detail about the key? What is it?

{Court asks Q simple Q re "the key" - with apparent transcriptional error: "They key"}

MaCh:  There was no key.

{Witness answers Court's Q}

GCM:  There was no key where?

{Court asks simple Q}

MaCh:  Those who entered into the inside of the house first found the door closed. A closed door that then aroused the suspicions and that then gave concern and then it was decided to “¦ to break [it] down.

{Witness responds to Court's Q with narrative explanation}

GCM:  Excuse me, on [sic] Romanelli’s room there was no key?

{Court asks another simple Q}

MaCh:  No, I’m talking of Meredith’s room, Mr President; Meredith’s room was locked by key.
This is another “¦ how to say, the investigative deductions that we drew from these details that emerged, also from the declarations that we gathered.

{Witness responds to Court's Q, and informatively amplifies A}

MC:  Was it normal that Meredith closed herself [sic. i.e. her room] by key?

{Examiner asks witness a simple Q}

MaCh:  No.

{Witness gives simple A}

MC:  And did you find the key of Meredith’s room?

{Examiner asks witness a simple Q}

MaCh:  No.

{Witness gives simple A}

MC:  So it was closed by key, but there was no key inside?

{Examiner summarises witness's testimony re key and poses a simple Q}

MaCh:  But there was no key inside, so that it was necessary to break down the door in order to enter. Also the almost inexplicable detail of the presence of two cellphones in a garden of a house, doesn’t tend to favour the thesis of someone who enters and who accidentally, so to speak, finds a person and then kills them, because [he] is forced to kill them because they have seen [his] face.

{Witness responds to Q in form of confirming-repetition and amplifies A in expanded narrative-form}

MC:  But is via Sperandio far from via della Pergola?

{Examiner poses vague Q re proximity of 2 streets}

MaCh:  No. And there we tried to deduce. And via Sperandio, as I said earlier, Doctoressa, is not far from the house. We discussed [this] to understand why these telephones went and ended up there “¦

{Witness answers simply, and respectfully, introducing " the house" on one of the streets, seguéing into subject of the mobile telephones and is interrupted by the Court}

GCM:  Excuse me. When you say it is not far from the house, can you specify at what distance? How one reaches it?

{The Court's interruption is also vague, with double-Q, referring to an unspecified "it"}

MaCh:  Not far from the house means that, by following a route that any Perugian knows, Mr President, one passes through a park and one arrives, let’s say, near the gateway of Porta Sant’Angelo. So for this reason, as the crow flies, how much would it be, but less [sic] “¦ three hundred, four hundred metres. But to reach it by foot from via della Pergola to via Sperandio I think that it doesn’t take more than 5, [or] 7 minutes.

{Witness responds to Court in explanatory narrative form

MC: But do you have to pass by via Garibaldi?

{Examiner asks simple Q}

MaCh:  Yes. But you can also pass through the park ““ there’s a park that then comes out right in front.

{Witness answers Q, and amplifies his response}

MC:  Of the villa?

{Examiner seeks clarification of witness's response}

MaCh:  In front of the villa, at the entry to the villa. Looking from the street that crosses with the provincial [road], the one that, shall we say, borders the villa, whoever is looking at it, I repeat, I ““ who am 44 years old, am Perugian ““ I did not know that there was a garden behind there.

{Witness clarifies his response, amplifying further}

MC:  And how far away is via Sperandio from via Garibaldi, corso Garibaldi?

{Examiner asks apparently simple Q}

MaCh:  it’s parallel. It’s very close, very very close. It’s 200 metres away, as the crow flies. I think even much less, because they are almost parallel, let’s say. Even that is something that in some way made us understand that there was an interest in getting rid of those cellphones, clearly, by whoever did that thing there.

{Witness gives detailed response;
See: "Just seeing police could panic the killers into instant dumping of the telephones, without even needing to know why the police were where the police were (There is no need to invoke any awareness by the phone-dumper[s] of the reason the Police were near Mrs. Lana's place - the hoax-call.). So if the killers saw flashing police-lights, or any other sign of police near Mrs. Lana's place, that sign could be enough to explain panic phone-dumping - then and there (not considering whether the phones were switched-on or switched-off)." In TJMK: "Updating Our Scenarios And Timelines #2: An Integrated Comparison Of The Timing of the Phone-Events." 6/28/2013}

MC:  When you arrived for the first time in via della Pergola, did you enter the room of the crime?

{Examiner asks simple Q}

MaCh:  Immediately, no. I went in afterwards, when Dr Mignini also arrived; and later with Dr Lalli. Then I had, how to say, occasionally entered when the crime-scene inspection of the Forensic Police, of the colleagues arrived from Rome, was already begun, so late. I didn’t stop long inside the house, I say the truth, also because the measures/orders that I issued immediately were those, yes, of deducing, [of] drawing out all the investigative elements that might emerge in the immediate surroundings [and/or immediately after the facts] to seek to immediately direct the investigation activity, but also to “freeze” [sic. i.e. to solidify, or to make concrete] another aspect, which was that of hearing/questioning all the people who might tell us details on Meredith’s stay in Perugia, in general, but above all on her final hours, on her visits/visitors, everything about those who Meredith had known in some way and “¦ This was the thing that we considered logical to do precisely in relation to this, to these first investigative deductions that we drew from the [above]-described crime-scene.

{Witness gives detailed narrative reply}

MC:  And so that same day you were present when they began to hear/question…

{Examiner begins preamble to presumed Q, but is interrupted}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness interrupts Examiner with witness's answer to assumed Q}

MC:  “¦ the people [who were] acquainted with the facts.

{Examiner completes interrupted Q-in-the-form-of-a-statement, which omits Q-mark}

MaCh:  I was present. I did not participate personally in the examination [of witnesses], but I was present, in the sense that both with [my] colleague Profazio and with [my] other colleague from the central operative service”¦

{Witness responds with narrative description of circumstances, but is interrupted}

MC:  from Rome.

{Examiner interrupts with her assumed next part of witness's response}

MaCh:  from Rome. We began to put the pieces together, excuse my [use of] the expression; that is to say all the “¦ all the elements that emerged from the examination of witnesses, were checked, were gradually verified/cross-checked.  Both with cross-checks that enlarged the group of witnesses, of the people to be heard/questioned, and with the checking of the alibis of many people, [as well as] with a technical activity that was carried out.

{Witness confirms Examiner's assumption, and completes his narrative description of circumstances}

MC:  That is to say?

{Examiner enquires as to witness's reference to indefinite "technical activity"}

MaCh:  A technical activity. A bugging activity was carried out. There was also an activity carried out also for the cross-checking of the phone [activity] printouts. There was an activity to understand also the cross-checking of the [phone] cells. There was a very wide-range activity carried out. Without excluding, I repeat, all also [sic] ... shall we say, the minor hypotheses. For example, the news arrived of a Maghrebi who had been in a rush to wash his own clothes in a launderette, not too far from the scene of the crime. This piece of information was excluded for a very simple reason, because from the first results of the investigative inquiries, he had arrived there in the early afternoon, but instead, in the early afternoon of the day before her death, Meredith was still alive [sic]. Because from the witness examinations we had determined that the last person who had seen her alive, saw her in the late afternoon. After which, we also did another series of checks relative to the one [sic] that there was a strange telephone call that the people who found the cellphones in the famous villa, the beautiful one on via Sperandio, had received in the evening. However, we had, how to say, understood that it was a case of a boy who had made a call from Terni and of a strange coincidence, but absolutely irrelevant for the investigation activity. Indeed, we made checks on all the hospitals in order to evaluate, to check, whether maybe there were [patients] who had presented blade/cutting wounds that in some way might have been compatible with a wound, let’s say, or at any rate with a reaction by the victim. Only one had presented, it was a [person] from Foligno who, [while] cutting salami, had cut their hand during the trip back from an away-game with Foligno ““ he was a football fan. Nothing else. So no investigative hypothesis was rejected. It was, obviously, because this is how it is done, and thus I believe that it is logic, we began to discuss/think in a certain way, because we had deduced from all this scen, another series of further elements, that is to say that the person “¦.

{Witness responds with prolonged narrative re "technical activity" and seems to pause}

MC:  Speak. Don’t be afraid to say it.

{Examiner urges witness to continue}

MaCh:  No, no. I’m not afraid.

{Witness argues with Examiner}

MC:  That is, let’s say, when was it that the investigations turned to, [started] to focus on today’s defendants?

{Examiner asks simple Q}

MaCh:  When on the evening of “¦ they did not focus on today’s defendants, that is to say, progressively the analysis of the investigative elements made us “¦ made us start, even us, to suspect. Because going into a house, finding a [sic] door of Meredith’s room closed, a [sic] door of the apartment opened, faeces in the toilet [bowl], while I take a shower, a series of bloody prints”¦

{Witness responds in narrative form and is interrupted}

MC:  However the faeces were in which of the two bathrooms?

{Examiner interrupts witness with clarifying Q}

MaCh:  Of the bathrooms. Me, if I take a shower in a bathroom where there are faeces, instinctively I flush the toilet, in short.

{Witness makes non-responsive subjective statement and is interrupted}

MC:  Yes, but the faeces were in the other bathroom.

{Examiner engages witness in argument}

MaCh:  Yes, yes, I understood. However, in short, in some way it comes instinctively, no?, to flush the toilet? The fact is that “¦.

{Witness joins argument and is interrupted}

GCM:  Excuse me, do you know how many bathrooms there were in the house?

{Court interrupts argument with simple Q}

MaCh:  Two.

{Witness ignores actual Q and responds with answer to assumed follow-up Q}

GCM:  Two bathrooms. Excuse me, please. Do you know that a shower was taken?

{Court asks another simple Q, using vernacular ref. to whether a person used the shower, rather than that the the shower device was taken away.}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness answers Court's actual Q}

GCM:  How do you know?

{Court asks simple follow-on Q}

MaCh:  I know because it is a thing that I cannot, I believe, report because it was “¦.

{Witness seems to answer in non-responsive, subjective narrative form, and is interrupted}

GCM:  But you checked”¦?

{Court seeks objective answer to his simple Q}

MaCh:  I am trying to be very very careful.

{Witness hints that he has reasons for apparent evasion}

Giulia Bongiorno [GB]:  Mr President, we are talking of nothing.

{Sollecito's lawyer chimes in with distracting comment}

GCM:  Excuse me, Attorney.

{Court appears to admonish GCM not to chime-in without specified legal-objection}

MaCh:  Well, the main point [is] that very slowly we began to understand that there were strong inconsistencies in the revelations that were made. And there were behaviours that on the part of above all, indeed exclusively, of Sollecito and Knox, appeared to us as [being], at the very least, particular. Behaviours both immediately after the event ““ a sort of impatience/irritability shown [with regard to] the investigation activity that we were carrying out, and obviously we could not but ask [NdT: i.e. “we had to ask”] those who were close to Meredith [about] elements that we considered useful, even necessary, in order to continue the investigation activity.

{Witness launches into apparent justification for his evasiveness}

MC:  Excuse me if I interrupt you. I’ll just make a few precise questions, thus: you checked, let’s say, let’s call them alibis, even if it’s a term that’s very so [sic] from American TV films, but in any case [it’s] understandable”¦ Did you check the alibis of the people closest, let’s say, to Meredith?

{Examiner, after preamble, asks relatively simple Q}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness answers Q as phrased}

MC:  In particular, did you check the alibis of the young men from the [apartment on] the floor below?

{Examiner asks simple Q}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness answers Q as phrased}

MC:  Results?

{Examiner poses Q in casual form}

MaCh:  Positive for them, in the sense that they were at home, in their own home, that is to say their respective houses, because they were here for reasons of study, so they were not present in Perugia during the days when “¦

{Witness responds with allusive casual A, begins to amplify, but is interrupted}

MC:  Because they had left for “¦

{Examiner interrupts with suggestion for next part of witness's response}

MaCh:  Yes, for the All Souls’ Day long-weekend, let’s call it that.

{Withess reacts to Examiner's suggestion by stating reason for upcoming week-end absence, but not stating week-end destination}

MC:  Did you check the alibi of Mezzetti and of Romanelli?

{Examiner asks double Q}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness answers for both Qs}

MC:  Results?

{Examiner poses Q in casual form}

MaCh:  The result in this case also [is that] Mezzetti and Romanelli were not there, so “¦

{Witness gives clear Answer, apparently begins explanation, but is interrupted}

GCM:  Excuse me, can you say what checks you did?

{Court interrupts witness's testimony to ask Q re witness's method}

MaCh:  We carried out a whole series of checks that brought us to evaluate, establish, that these persons were not present in the premises that evening.

{Witness ignores Court's Q as phrased and answers anticipated next Q}

MC:  Let’s say, I imagine that you heard/questioned them.

{Examiner makes statement-in-form-of-Q with ?-mark omitted}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness answers presumed Q}

MC:  Did they tell you where they were that evening, what they did that evening”¦?

{Examiner seems to interrupt and asks double-Q}

MaCh:  And in effect, we assessed/considered that “¦

{Witness ignores Q-as-phrased and is apparently interrupted}

MC:  And you ascertained that in effect “¦

{Examiner apparently interrupts A and continues his interrupted multiple Q}

MaCh:  That it was true what they had told us. I can report on the circumstance.

{Witness seems to continue his interrupted answer and offers to expand his narrative.
Q &A cycle is confused and confusing because of repeated multiple Qs, instead of orderly single Q & A}

MC:  Did you check the alibi of Amanda Knox and of Raffaele Sollecito? Was there a comparison between the declarations of Amanda Knox and of Raffaele Sollecito with regard to the night of the murder, and what you were able to compare, shall we say, objectively, through the other declarations, through the phone records?

{Examiner asks multiple Qs}

MaCh:  Through the phone records and through the checks [that were], shall we say, objective, it was found that what Sollecito had declared was not truthful because there was a phone call that was never received [i.e. answered] by Sollecito at 23:00 hours. Because it turned out that there was no interaction with the computer, but I believe that this “¦ as declared [sic]. But above all there was an absolute incongruity of the “¦.

{Witness summarizing findings wrt phone records, is interrupted}

GCM:  There now. Excuse me. Maybe we will not ask the question in these terms: following the declarations, on which you cannot report, that you got from and that were given by Amanda Knox and Sollecito Raffaele, what type of investigations you carried out”¦

{Court interrupts to restrict Qs but is interrupted}

MaCh:  We carried out ...

{Witness interrupts Court's interruption and is interrupted}

GCM:  ... and the outcome of these investigations. There now. This is where we’re at.

{Court completes it's interruption, seeming to believe he has made himself clear, but confusion still reigns}

MaCh:  Well, in summary ...

{Witness begins a summary, but is interrupted}

GCM:  Following the declarations given by them, you had “¦ With regard to Sollecito Raffaele, what did you do and what [information] emerged?

{Court interrupts witness with double-Q}

MaCh:  It emerged that, unlike “¦

{Witness begins to answer Court's 2nd Q, but Court interrupts}

GCM:  What did you do, first?

{Court repeats1st Q}

MaCh:  We did an analysis of the telephone traffic, and from the analysis of the telephone traffic it emerged that Sollecito had absolutely not received/answered the 23:00 hours phone call as he had declared. From the analysis of the telephone traffic, there then emerged a very strange detail, in the sense that the cellphones “¦

{Witness answers 1st Q, begins answering 2nd Q, and is interrupted by Sollecito's lawyer}

GB:  (overlapping voices) “¦ continue with the opinions/judgements, with all the opinions/judgements.

{Sollecito's lawyer seems to demand comprehensive testimony}

GCM:  That which emerged.

{Court makes seemingly cryptic statement which is probably a Q relating to witness's interrupted A to Court's 2nd Q above: "It emerged that, unlike "¦" }

MaCh:  A detail/particular emerged ... unlike what “¦. (overlapped voices).

{Witness resumes testimony but is interrupted, multiple voices are heard}

GCM:  Excuse me. What emerged?

{Court asks witness to clarify what witness was saying}
_____________________________________________

Here ends the Analysis of the Evidence #2, discussing that the lone burglar theory is not credible, and that “Break-In” to Romanelli’s room was faked.

The next Post:  Analysis of the Evidence #3, will Analyse the Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.

 


Monday, September 15, 2014

Analysis #1 Of Testimony Of Marco Chiacchiera, Director, Organized Crime Section, Flying Squad

Posted by Cardiol MD



Dr Chiacchiera with Dr Comodi explaining reason for charges in another case

Overview Of This Series

Yet another vital translation which will be posted in the trial testimony areaof McCall’s great Wiki. This again is translated by the ever-dedicated main posterr ZiaK.

Although I graduated as a medical doctor I also graduated as a lawyer, and was often in courtrooms. For this post and the rest of the Chiacchiera series I am wearing my lawyer’s hat to point out what strikes me in Prosecutor Comodi’s questions,  Marco Chiacchiera’s testimony, and the cross-examinations by defense lawyers.

Prior Preparations And Procedures

Under the Italian Code, before the beginning of the trial phase in Italy, the parties file a brief, detailing all evidence they want to present ““ the parties have to indicate by name every witness and precisely what these will be asked. The aims include creation of a Record of Admissible Facts.

Also under the Italian Code, both the defendant and the prosecutor can cross-examine each other’s witnesses. The Judge may choose not to admit any testimony that appears patently superfluous, reject irrelevant or improper or irregular questions ““ such as leading questions, and Inadmissible Hearsay ““ and also ask questions to the witnesses and experts.

Ground Covered In Dr Chiacchiera’s Testimony

    (1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.

    (2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the “break-In” to Romanelli’s room was faked.

    (3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.

    (4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito’s house.

    (5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito’s and the evidence that it is the murder knife.


My Assessment Of This Court Exchange

It is immediately obvious to me that this witness is a skilled witness; as such, and given his deep hands-on involvement in the immediate investigation this witness’s testimony is credible.  My assessment therefore is that this was a very good and unflinching witness and that Dr Comodi shows no signs of leading the witness or seeking other than a truthful record.

I have seen prosecutors examine witnesses differently but dont believe the resultant record would have been superior. This would have stood up well in any American court.

(GCM=Giancarlo Massei; MC=Manuela Comodi; MaCh=Marco Chiacchiera; GB=Giulia Bongiorno; DD=Donatella Donati; CP=Carlo Pacelli; LG=Luciano Ghirga; CDV=Carlo Dalla Vedova; FM=Francesco Maresca)

Public Prosecutor Comodi [MC]

MC:  Dr Chiacchiera, you carried out your duties where, when, at what moment of the events?

MaCh:  I was and am the director of the Organized Crime Section of the Flying Squad and I am the vice-director of the Flying Squad. The Organized Crime Section is a branch of the Flying Squad that deals with “¦ the term, I think that in this place [i.e. the court] it is enough to say that it deals with organized crime. However, I am also the vice-director of the Flying Squad, for which [reason] I deal with, in the case of need, everything that is necessary [for] the various aspects.

{Witness supplies 5 items of relevant information that Examiner should elicit at beginning of examination.}

MC:  Can you tell the Court how you became aware of events, who called you, when you became involved?

{Examiner asks another triple-question}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness simply answers question as worded by Examiner}

MC:  For now, start to tell us, then maybe I will intervene [NdT: i.e. interrupt with further questions] if necessary.

{Examiner, asking no Q, instructs witness, suggesting provisional forbearance if witness does not make interruptions necessary.}

MaCh:  On the fateful day, at around 12:33, I had gone to the cemetery with my mother. The operations room called me immediately after the discovery of the body.

{Witness begins appropriate narrative response, but Examiner interrupts}

MC:  So the 113? [NdT: 113 is the Italian State Police emergency number]

{Examiner interrupts witness with a Q, suggesting witness's receipt of call from an emergency number, but suggests wrong source-number}

MaCh:  110. The operations room of the Questura called me, and informed me of the happenings in an initially obviously very summarized manner. They said to me that there was a suspicious death, a young woman who lived in via della Pergola. I rushed to the place directly in my mother’s car. I didn’t stop by at the Questura, I didn’t go to get the service [i.e. police] car. I got myself taken to via della Pergola. We took about 15 minutes from the cemetery to there, ten fifteen minutes. In the meantime, I phoned the deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, in the temporary absence of the director, Dr Profazio, who arrived later, who was “¦ he was enjoying a period of leave, and with deputy Commissioner Napoleoni we arrived almost at the same time. We arrived almost simultaneously at the premises. Forensics, too, arrived almost at the same time at the premises.

{Witness supplies correct source-number and resumes interrupted narrative response}

MC:  The Perugia Forensics?

{Examiner questions witness's correction, as if to verify and to ensure accuracy of court's record}

MaCh:  The Perugia Forensics, I highlight, yes.

{Witness emphatically agrees with Examiner's question}

MC:”‹[They were] alerted by you, or ...?

{Examiner pauses mid-Q, inviting witness to guess complete Q, or is interrupted}

MaCh:”‹Alerted by the operations room, and also alerted by me.
,
{Witness responds to invitation, or interrupts with A to assumed complete Q}

MC:”‹So you arrive, and who do you find?

{Examiner's 1st simple Q.}

MaCh: “‹I found there ... there was already deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, there were also a few of Meredith’s co-tenants. There was Amanda Knox, there was Raffaele Sollecito. There were two young men who were, I believe, the friend of the boyfriend of one of the co-tenants. In short, there were a few people who had already been inside the house. There was the Postal Police.

{Witness answers Q in reasonable detail}

MC:”‹In the person of”¦?

{Examiner seeks more detail re specific Postal Police Personnel}

MaCh: “‹Battistelli and another of Battistelli’s colleagues. Inspector Battistelli, with whom there was immediately a discussion in order to understand what were the reasons for his intervention there, because it is not normal to find the Postal [police] in a crime of this sort. And he explained to me immediately what was the reason for his intervention. The origin of the, shall we way of his intervention, was due to the discovery of a pair of cellphones in a period of time, I believe, of an hour, [or] two, I don’t recall clearly, that were one in the name of one of Meredith’s co-tenants and one in the name of, later it [sic] “¦ I mean the SIM [card], obviously, the cellphones’ SIMs, the cards, they were in the name of a co-tenant and the other in Meredith’s [name]. The co-tenant, however, then told us, we then ascertained that both of the cellphones in fact were used by Meredith. And already that was, how shall we say, a first detail on which we began to reflect because, in fact, that was an element than in some way made us [become] immediately occupied/involved from an investigative point of view.

{Witness responds to Q and includes relevant amplifying narrative, anticipating probable future Qs re cellphones}

MC: “‹So, excuse me, also if the Court already, shall we say, knows this, because others have reported it, on this point however, where were the cellphones found?

{Examiner seems to interrupt with simple Q to clarify specific relevant fact not yet reached}

MaCh:”‹Inside the garden of a villa that is in via Sperandio.

{Witness responds appropriately}

MC:”‹In via Sperandio.

{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}

MaCh: “‹A villa that ... I am Perugian, [and] honestly, I didn’t even know there was a villa there. I’m Perugian, and I swear that I would have sworn [sic] that behind there was a wood.

{Witness flounders, seems unable to be more specific}

MC:”‹A field

{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}

MaCh: “‹It [was] the first time that I went in behind there. Instead, I see a marvelous old mansion with an enormous garden that gives ... that is almost adjacent to the street ““ the street that leads towards Ponte Rio. Anyone from Perugia understands me maybe.

{Witness seems to be in informal conversational mode}

MC: “‹From the structure of the fencing/enclosure, could you tell, shall we say, whether it was possible to throw these cellphones from the street, or whether it was necessary to enter the garden itself?

{Examiner engages witness, and asks Q to clarify how cellphones got into that garden}

MaCh: “‹Yes, obviously, we checked that. In fact, immediately, in short, the detail that seemed, how shall we say, of great investigative interest was that [very point], besides other details that I will go [into] a bit [sic], so to speak, also to give the impression of what the immediate impact was that we saw in the moment when we found ourselves in a situation of this type. So, deputy Napoleoni immediately entered inside the house in order to check it for herself. I did it [entered] shortly afterwards, also because [as] you will imagine that in that moment whoever was there had to notify all those who [sic], amongst whom Dr Mignini who was the Public Prosecutor on duty, and immediately give orders so that the correct checks are carried out. Because it was not just a crime scene that had to be analysed immediately: there also had to be, how shall we say, correlated with the information that we had got from via Sperandio ““ because the entry of the Postal [police in the case] originated with via Sperandio. And so we immediately asked ourselves: “Ah, what are these cellphones belonging to poor Meredith doing inside the garden of a villa?” And then And then immediately after, we asked ourselves, obviously, what might be the profile of the possible, or probable, murderer, and we discussed/talked about the crime scene. The crime scene immediately seemed fairly strange to us, if you wish [NdT: literally “if we wish” in Italian, but meaning the same as “shall we say”, “if you wish”, “so to speak” etc.]

{Witness responds to Q with detailed narrative}

MC:”‹Why?

{Examiner asks ambiguous Q, probably wrt crime scene seeming "fairly strange "}

MaCh:”‹Because the door did not show”¦ the entry door to the villa did not show signs of break-in. The we checked “¦

{Witness seems to decipher ambiguity correctly, begins narrative response, but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹We are not talking about the villa on via Sperandio obviously?

{Examiner interrupts with Q, apparently not comprehending Witness's narratives}

MaCh: “‹For the love of god! It was called a “villa” “¦ (overlap of voices), let’s say the house, of the house on via della Pergola there was no forcing/break-in. We found a forcing on the window. The window is this one, on the side of the house. I don’t know if you’ve seen the house? Anyhow, it is this one on the side of the house that can be seen immediately when you come down the slope from the gate. Logically reconstructing the thing, a hypothetical prowler [NdT: literally “ill-intentioned person”] who entered the house, breaking the glass with a rock - because inside the room, which was Romanelli’s room, which was the, shall we say, hypothetical arena of the entry, was completely in utter chaos. For that reason, what should we have hypothesized? That the hypothetical prowler took a rock, managed to throw the rock; the shutters, the external ones, the external shutters were not “¦

{Witness is exasperated at Examiner's apparent incomprehension, is repeating his previous testimony, but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹The dark-green wooden ones?

{Examiner interrupts with Leading Q re colour of external shutters. Now begins a confused and confusing colloquy. The arrangement of Filomena Romanelli's window, with Outside, and Inside Shutters, the Broken-Glass-Frame in-between, and the glass-splinters on the window-sill is complicated and needs a picture-exhibit that the witness can refer-to; this is apparently not provided, leading to the confusions}

MaCh:”‹The dark-green wooden ones were half shut, for which reason [he] must have had an aim like “Pecos Bill” [NdT: a cartoon Wild West cowboy], takes aim and throws that rock, smashes the window. After, he climbs up and does a turn on the little slope, and has to clamber up towards the window on the smooth surface, it seems to me, that from the ground up to the window there are two and a half metres-three [metres]. And then would have said: “bah, in short” [sic]. Yeah, well, the thing seemed to us…. in short, the first hypothesis that the investigator normally does, finds a level of unlikelihood of this kind of happening. After which, we looked at the house and we saw that an entry of a potential prowler [ill-intentioned person], still reasoning on the hypothesis”¦

{Witness amplifies narrative response but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹Of theft.

{Examiner inappropriately interrupts, incorrectly guessing what witness was about to say}

MaCh: “‹Of theft ending badly. Of theft that then degenerates because the burglar in some way thinks that he will find no-one in the house and instead finds a person, and then it degenerates “¦ We saw that there were easier means of entry, without wishing to bore you, but behind the house there was the possibility of climbing in a much easier way, without being seen by people that might have passed in the road. Let’s remember that, in short, it was not very late; quite the contrary. Normally people passed there, for which reason, if [he] had done it, the thing would probably have been seen. That thing there, as an hypothesis, we didn’t immediately discount it, that’s clear, because it’s a good rule to never discount any hypothesis. But we immediately considered that it was not a priority.

{Witness corrects Examiner's wrong guess, amplifies and seems to end narrative response}

MC:”‹Dr Chiacchiera, I interrupt you. (The witness is shown an exhibit.)

{Examiner, seems to acknowledge her habit of interruptions without actually interrupting, while introducing an unspecified exhibit. This introduction seems very informal, because Exhibits are normally identified by an assigned title.}

MaCh:”‹Ah! I didn’t remember it as being so big.

{Witness recognizes unspecified exhibit}

MC:”‹Precisely! You saw it? This is the rock that ...

{Examiner engages witness, stating it is "the rock".}

MaCh:”‹Yes, but it has been some time I have not, how shall we say, yes, I saw it. Absolutely.
However, it’s big, it’s huge.

{Witness engages Examiner, commenting on how large the rock exhibit is}

MC:”‹Do you consider that it could be this?

{Examiner ambiguously (what are "it" & "this "?) asks witness's opinion}

MaCh:”‹I believe so.

{Witness seems to overlook ambiguity of Q with vague A)

MC:"‹I try "¦

{Examiner begins to speak but is interrupted}

Judge Massei [GCM]:”‹How?

{Court interrupts as if to ask Q how Examiner 'tries'}

MC:”‹It is this. Yes, it is this one that was collected, yes, that was found.

{Witness seems to confirm that exhibited rock is the rock found in Filomena's room}

GCM:”‹So the rock is shown. [NdT: an “aside” for the court records?]

{Court formally announces admission of rock-exhibit, seemingly trying to reduce confusion caused by informal dialogue}

MaCh:”‹Inside the room where we then found the rock…
??:”‹But what was the question about the rock?

{Witness amplifies that rock had been found in a room, but enquires re rock Q, exposing confusion caused by informal dialogue}

GCM:”‹If this was the rock. And the witness said ...

{Court begins explanation to confused witness}

MaCh:”‹I said yes. Yes.

{Witness interrupts Court - confusion reigns}

GCM:”‹You saw it? You saw the rock?

{Court asks witness 2 Qs, trying to clarify that 'it' refers to 'the rock' that witness saw.}

MaCh:”‹Yes.

{Witness confirms that witness had previously seen the rock introduced into court as an unlisted exhibit.}

GCM:”‹When you saw it, where was it?

{Court proceeds to clarify confusion re where the rock was when witness originally saw the rock}

MaCh:”‹The rock [was] in the room of Romanelli.

{Witness specifically testifies, for witness's first time, that when witness originally saw the rock, the rock was in Filomena Romanelli's room}

GCM:”‹How far from the window? Can you say?

{Court continues to seek clarification using double-Q.}

MaCh: “‹A few centimetres [NdT: “un palmo” = “a hand’s width”] from the window sill, under the window, from the wall where the window is.

{Witness testifies clearly in answer to Court's 1st Q of above double-Q.}

GCM:”‹So from the internal perimeter wall, from where the window gives onto it, a “hand’s breadth”. So 20 centimetres…

{Court apparently begins to seek verification of witness's testimony, but is interrupted}

MaCh:”‹Mr President ....

{Witness begins to Interrupt Court}

GCM:”‹... away from it approximately.

{Court finishes his interrupted statement}

MaCh:”‹Yes.

{Witness agrees with Court's completed statement}

GCM:”‹And this is the rock. You remember it.

{Court states his understanding in form of Qs.}

MaCh:”‹Yes, yes, yes, yes. That is the rock.

{Witness impatiently agrees with Court's understanding}

MC:”‹At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it corresponds thus to the one that was collected [as evidence].

{Examiner makes statements in form of Q, seeking verification of resemblance of exhibit-rock to original rock}

MaCh:”‹At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it absolutely corresponds. If it was collected, I think that ...

{Witness begins narrative agreement with statements of Examiner, but is apparently interrupted by Examiner}

MC: “‹Very well. WITNESS [sic? Should be MaCh?] and Romanelli’s room was a complete shambles. The clothes were on the floor, the glass was strangely on top of the clothes, the [glass] shards were strangely on top of the “¦ on the windowsill, let’s put it that way.

{Apparent Transcriptional confusion attributing to interrupted witness narrative the interrupting .statement of Examiner}

MC:”‹The outside one.

{Examiner seems to amplify statement of Examiner wrt which window-shutter witness had been referring-to}

MaCh: “‹The outside one, precisely. The one that is between the shutters and the shutters [sic. NdT: “imposte” in Italian, but this can also mean shutters, or flap, as in the inner “scuri” shutters, or he may mean the window-frame itself, with the window-panes, given his following description], the green shutters and the shutters, the broken ones in short, where the glass is. The shutters ““ the wooden ones. The rock was a bit too close with regard to the wall if I [were to] throw it from least two metres. Unless it was lobbed [i.e. thrown in a high arc]. But in that case it’s rather unlikely that it would smash the glass. For that reason, I repeat, in the context of immediate likelihood, this one “¦

{Witness agrees with Examiner that he was referring to "The outside one", continuing with narrative of reasoning, but is interrupted by Examiner…}

MC:”‹Yes, it’s true. These are considerations. However they are considerations, shall we say, that refer [sic], because they are reasoning/lines of thought that are formed in the “immediacy” of the events [NdT: i.e. “in the immediate aftermath”. NOTE: throughout the text, a number of speakers use “immediatezza” (lit. “immediacy”) to convey a number of meanings, from “in the immediate aftermath”, or “in the immediate surroundings”, or “very soon after”, etc. I will translate them appropriately according to the context, without further explanation of the use of “immediatezza”], in order to proceed in one direction rather than another.

{Examiner, interrupting witness, apparently agreeing with witness's reasoning. While Examiner is apparently stating his own argumentative reservations re the possible evolution-in-time of witness's changing lines of reasoning, he is interrupted by Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito defense lawyer:}

Giulia Bongiorno [GB]: “‹I never like to interrupt an examination [of a witness], however if one wanted, between the Public Prosecutor’s hypotheses, to do that [sic] of demonstrating that from a ballistic point of view it is not possible, then the ballistic expert should be called.

{GB interrupts Examiner to comment that Witness and Examiner are expressing opinions on Ballistics that require the testimony of a Ballistic Expert.}

MC:”‹But in fact, his considerations are not the considerations of an expert: they are the considerations of an investigator who made certain deductions in the immediacy of the events.

{Examiner argues that witness's testimony is that of an investigator's temporal train of thought.}

MaCh:”‹It happens to us too, at times, to reason/think rationally “¦

{Witness joins colloquy, amplifying Examiner's argument.}

GCM:”‹These reasonings/deductions, then determined your investigative activity in one direction rather than in an “¦?

{Court seems to invite further amplification by witness}

MaCh: “‹Yes, obviously, Mr President. I was trying to ... (overlap of voices) it is a premiss/basis to be able to then, how shall we say, reach ““ I won’t say conclusions ““ but in order to try to understand what our way of broaching the thing was, there and then. We had, I reassert, reasoned immediately also on via Sperandio. So the first thing, I may say, [was] the unlikelihood, or at any rate it was not the top priority hypothesis, the one of a prowler/ill-intentioned person entering. The open door without signs of break-in. But above all, a young woman who is [sic] probably killed in her own room, nude or almost nude, with a wound of that type, in a lake of blood, covered with a duvet. I repeat, the door was not smashed/wrecked, there’s a broken “¦ a window broken with a thrown rock, how can I say, it’s obvious that we immediately found this situation as “¦ (overlap of voices).

MaCh:”‹”¦ particular.

{Witness further amplifies narrative}

GCM:”‹You formed these considerations, and what did they lead you to?

{Court asks simple Q.}

MaCh: “‹That very probably the author or authors knew the person, or at any rate that the author or authors did not enter “¦ did not enter from the window-pane of that window.

{Witness responds with his conclusion that the authors of the faked break-in did not enter from the window-pane of that window.}

GCM: “‹Excuse me a moment, just to give some guidelines, but of the evaluations that the witness is expressing, obviously it’s not that they can be taken account of, however we will acquire them [for the trial files] in order to understand the investigation activities, the appropriateness of the investigations that were carried out, directed in one way or in another, there you go. However, maybe, “¦ there you go, yes, maybe if we can manage to keep with the bare essentials this will help everybody.

{Court proceedings seem to have been diverted into a free-for-all colloquy, with multiple participants chiming-in, and creating confusion. Court-President, GCM, now politely intervenes, apparently trying to restore order, ruling that the professional evaluations made by the witness, testified-to by the witness, should be admitted for the trial files. The appropriateness of the witness's evaluations can be dealt with separately and later.}
_________________________________________________

This segment of Chiacchiera’s Testimony re the Crime Scene, which he believed had been remodeled by the criminals to dupe Investigators into believing that there had been a burglary, committed by a single criminal, is paused here because it is so prolonged.

Analysis of Chiacchiera’s Testimony will continue in a future post.

 


Friday, August 15, 2014

Legal Timeline Of The Main Case, On Which The Next Ruling By Supreme Court Could Be Final

Posted by catnip



Cassazione (Supreme Court of Italy) seen from the east across the Tiber River


Todays Status

The Supreme Court is due to rule, possibly in the autumn, on what might be the final appeal by Sollecito and Knox on grounds which have not been published. Main steps prior to this:

November 2007

Meredith Kercher is found violently killed in her home while studying abroad in Italy. Her housemate, Amanda Knox, and Amanda’s friend Raffaele Sollecito, as well as Amanda’s boss, Patrick Lumumba, are arrested. A fourth person, Rudy Guede, is tracked down and also arrested. Patrick Lumumba’s alibi is confirmed and he is released.

December 2007, January 2008

Due process hearings authorise the continuation of preventative custody for the suspects, on the grounds of flight risk and possibility of tampering with the evidence.

October 2008

Preliminary Hearing Court, Perugia, Micheli presiding ““ after investigations have completed, the committal hearing finds there is a case to answer and remands Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to stand trial on the charges of :

    (A) aggravated murder in company of Meredith Kercher
    (B) illegal transport of a knife from Raffaele Sollecito’s apartment
    (C) aggravated sexual assault in company of Meredith Kercher (later folded into charge (A), on the grounds of being part of the same criminal event)
    (D) illegal profiting by possession, to wit: of a sum of money approx. €300 and of credit cards belonging to the victim, and her mobile phones
    (E) simulation of a crime, to wit: staging a break-in in Filomena Romanelli’s room
    (F) Amanda Knox, in addition, calunnia, for falsely claiming, knowing him to be innocent, Diya Lumumba also called “Patrick”, of being the author of the murder

Rudy Guede is tried summarily “on the papers”, as he has requested the expedited trial procedure (“fast-track” trial) and is found guilty of charges (A) and (C), and not guilty of the theft, charge (D), and sentenced to life, automatically discounted to 30 years for choosing the expedited trial procedure.

December 2009

On appeal to the Court of Appeals, Perugia (4/2009, on 22 December 2009), his sentence is reduced to 24 years, automatically discounted to 16 years, the aggravating factors of the charges not being found by the court. His final appeal, to the Supreme Court of Cassation, First Criminal Section, is rejected (7195/11, hearing of 16 December 2010, reasons handed down 24 February 2011).

December 2009

Court of Assizes, Perugia, presided over by Massei ““ finds Amanda and Raffaele guilty of all charges (except the theft of the money and credit cards) but without the aggravating factors applying, and sentences them, with mitigating factors included, to 26 years for Amanda, and 25 years for Raffaele (the extra year for Amanda being for the calunnia).

October 2011

Court of Appeals of the Court of Assizes, Perugia, presided over by Hellmann (after a last-minute replacement) ““ trial convictions quashed, except for the calunnia charge against Amanda (charge (F)), where sentence was increased to time served (3 years); both prisoners released (4/2011, decision 3 October 2011, reasons handed down 5 December 2011).

March 2013

The Supreme Court of Cassation (25/3/2013) found the acquittals on charges A&C, B, D, and E to be unsafe, and annulled that part of the decision, remanding the matter to the Florentine jurisdiction, as per the usual cascade rules, for a fresh determination, and rejected Amanda Knox’s appeal on the charge (F) conviction and sentence.

January 2014

Court of Appeals, Second Chamber, Florence, presided over by Nencini ““ trial convictions on the non-calunnia charges upheld, therefore sentence increased to 28 years and 6 months for Amanda (11/13, decision 30 January 2014, reasons handed down 29 April 2014). All convicted parties to pay the relevant compensation to the various injured parties. Appeals to the Supreme Court of Cassation have been lodged.

Associated Timelines

See the posts here and here on the timing of events arrived at by the trial judges.


Friday, July 04, 2014

The Status Of The Various Computers In The Case And Whether Anything Nefarious Happened To Them

Posted by Sallyoo



Trial court 2009 on one of several days computer and internet activity was testified to

1. Computer use as high-stakes evidence

There have been many arguments about computers during the case.

They began at the very beginning, and there is even now, in the final appeal by Sollecito to the Court of Cassazione, one remaining somewhat fantastical theory.

The facts surrounding the computer evidence collected by the prosecution have been obfuscated and contradicted by the defence using exactly the same techniques as have been used about the DNA and other forensic evidence in the case.

Blind the court (and the public) with hypotheses which very few people can follow, and use this ignorance to spread confusion and doubt.

Let’s try to shed some light.

2. Five key computers, plus

We know that Sollecito is pretty familiar with computers, he had two at the time, a MacBook and an Asus [1],  both portables.[2]  His apartment had a decent broadband connection, supplied, (using the Telecom Italia infrastructure) by Fastweb.

We know that both of these computers were sequestered from his apartment on the morning of Nov 6 2007, when Sollecito accompanied a squad of policemen despatched to search his apartment.

We know that the police removed, (on Nov 7), from the house in Via Della Pergola (where there was no telephone nor broadband service) a MacBook belonging to Meredith, a Toshiba belonging to Knox, and a portable computer belonging to Laura Mezzetti.

The police also took an HP portable from Lumumba’s apartment.

There is even another computer which the police already had possession of, and that is a Sony portable belonging to Filomena Romanelli. This computer Filomena herself had taken away from her bedroom shortly after the discovery of the murder, and which the questura, in the evening of Nov 2, required her to hand over to them because it formed part of the ‘crime scene’.

3. The police HD analysis begins

On Nov 13 a postal police technician (Marco Trotta) received a box containing five computers (two from Sollecito, Knox, Meredith and Lumumba).

On Nov 15, in the presence of Formenti, (a consultant nominated by the defence) Trotta took them apart (removed the hard disks) and attempted to make copies of the data recorded on them.

This is the point at which it is alleged the destruction of three hard disks occurred.

It is difficult to believe that this is the case. Not only because the equipment used had never before (or since) managed to trash a hard disk (and it had no problems with Lumumba’s disk) but also because of the state of Filomena’s computer, which never got anywhere near Trotta.

All of the computers had of course been in the hands of the squadra mobile for some days before being consigned to Trotta, allowing for the possibility of some earlier interference by some malfeasant policeman.

This isn’t likely, not only because Trotta insists that the computers were complete and superficially undamaged, and the hard disks factory sealed when he dismantled the computers, but also because of Filomena’s computer.

4. Filomena’s Sony machine

It is now time to go a little deeper into the history of Filomena’s Sony.

This was a fairly new machine, which she kept in a substantial computer carrying case. It was working perfectly on Oct 30 when she last used it. She had left it in her bedroom, the case standing upright beside her bed, when she went off to spend the brief holiday with her boyfriend.

She found it, still in the carrying case, lying flat in a pile of stuff under the broken window of her disturbed bedroom. [3]

The defence commissioned a Computer Expert Report, entered during the Massei trial, which talked about the reason for the data being irrecoverable on the three computers’ disks.

Their conclusion was that the electronic circuitry controlling the hard disks had, in all three cases, suffered damage, most probably due to an electrical overtension. The circuitry had been ‘fried’.

They were unable to be certain how or when this might have occurred, or to opine on whether it was deliberate.

Filomena, in the presence of Gregori, (another communications police officer), at the Questura on the evening of Nov 2 attempted to turn on her Sony. It wouldn’t work. The hard disk would not respond properly.

When she got it back on Dec 18 and gave it to a private computer technician, he said the control circuitry on the hard disk is ‘fried’. Exactly the same fault as had occurred on the other three, which we are expected by th defense to believe was either a deliberate piece of police sabotage, or proof of police incompetence.

5. The Sollecito computers

The important computers, of course, are those owned by Sollecito because he is, even now, still trying to force an alibi out of them.

The MacBook has been accurately interrogated to death, most particularly by a defence expert named Antonio d’Ambrosio who gave very clear testimony at Massei on 26 Sept 2009.

He was even generous enough to acknowledge that the investigations carried out by the postal police were correct, and well interpreted, and that he was able to uncover a little more information simply because he wasn’t limited by forensic protocols (and could therefore reveal information not visible to the Encase software used by the police) when he examined a copy of the cloned disk from the Mac.

Basically the only ‘news’ in this interesting testimony was an interaction with the Apple website at 00.58 on Nov 2, which he did consider a human interaction with the computer. 

6. Activity on the Internet

Sollecito maintains he spent the whole evening and night in his flat. At first his story was that he was sending e-mails and surfing the web. This was quickly demolished by reference to the IP log supplied by Fastweb, the broadband supplier.

It’s necessary to get slightly technical here.

Most of what we call The Internet, and certainly everything which is called The Worldwide Web, including e-mail clients, subscribe to a protocol which (in shorthand) means everything is a Port 80 request.

The individual computer, via its router, contacts the ISP (Fastweb, in this case) and identifies itself by means of a unique IP address. The ISP then directs the communication to the IP of the website requested.

This is all recorded on the Fastweb network. It is certain that no Port 80 requests were made from Sollecito’s apartment (whichever computer he may have been using) between 18.00 on Nov 1 and 00.58 on Nov 2. 

There are parts of the international communications network which don’t use Port 80 protocols. The most ‘innocent’ of these are Peer to Peer (P2P) networks ““ in widespread use for distributing and downloading music and video files.

Sollecito certainly availed himself of these services, using a program called Amule on his Mac. He had a folder containing downloaded files, which was accessible to the program, and thus also accessible to anyone in the world who wanted a copy of something which Sollecito had in this shareable folder on his computer.

If he wished to save the file for posterity, he would move or copy it from this accessible folder into his own archive.

Video files are large, and they take a long time to download. Clearly, to download a file, or to make your publicly accessible folder available, the computer has to be turned on and connected to a router.

If you use these file sharing services extensively, it implies that you keep your computer turned on and connected all the time. It seems likely that this was Sollecito’s habit.

Clearly, you need to automate this sort of transfer ““ often a large file will be accessed in part from one remote computer, and another part will be located on another remote computer ““ so you simply instruct Amule to get you a film, or a list of films, and you can walk away from the computer.

Even D’Ambrosio is unable to be certain that a human interaction occurred at 21.26 on Nov 1, or whether a pre-requested download of Naruto commenced.

However, no IP addresses are exchanged when connecting to a P2P network, and so it is impossible (from ISP records) to trace any traffic.

It is possible though, from the hard disk, to discover what has been downloaded and saved to a computer on a P2P network, and exactly when ““ but to distinguish an automated process from a user instigated one is not possible.

7. Computers and Hellmann appeal

Now we move onto the Hellmann appeal, where a report from this same consultant D’Ambrosio was accepted into the case files. I haven’t been able to find this report, and Judge Hellman doesn’t even refer to it in his sentencing report.

However, the gist of this D’Ambrosio report is included in the current ricorso (appeal) from Sollecito to the Court of Cassazione.

8. Computers and Cassation appeal

We hear a bit about screensaver behaviour, and quite a lot about post Nov 1 interactions overwriting earlier actions.

The major ‘fresh’  theory now depends on asserting (more than four times in the ricorso) that the postal police destroyed Sollecito’s Asus, and that this action has meant that Sollecito’s alibi cannot be proved.

The lack of any signs of interaction on the Mac can be explained (so we are informed) by the Mac and the Asus being networked together, using a file sharing utility named Samba, and if the (broken) Asus could have been accessed it might have shown that it had been controlling the Mac.

So the Mac would have been doing things at the command of its owner, but because the owner was interacting with the keyboard of the Asus rather than that of the Mac, these actions are undetectable on the Mac.

This is what we are now being asked to believe.

9. Conclusion and way forward

I think this is an accurate summary of the relevant parts of ‘computer evidence’ discussed, or deposited, during the hearings and in the ricorso.  I look forward to any comments, clarifications, corrections, but above all, to any new theories about how and when the four hard disks got trashed.

From other sources there are an additional two hints at possible new or ignored evidence:

The BBC reported, on 14.03.2009, the following sentence. “A second computer belonging to Mr Sollecito also showed no activity but the suspect had himself admitted it had been broken before the crime was committed.”  [4]

And then we have Sollecito, in his prison diary of 11.11.2007, being rather more than aware that his computer is not going to be useful to him as an alibi.

I have been very anxious and nervous in the last few days, but to see my father who tells me “do not worry, we will get you out” makes me feel better. My real concerns are now two: the first one derives from the fact that, if that night Amanda remained with me all night long, we could have (and this is a very remote possibility) made love all evening and night only stopping to eat… it would be a real problem [casino] because there would be no connections from my computer to servers in those hours…

No connections in those hours? Hmmm.

10. My references

[1] This computer is sometimes referenced as an Acer. In Trotta’s testimony (he is reading from notes) it is listed as an Asus, so I have used this name. There is only one computer whether it’s an Asus or an Acer.

[2]  There is a reference to a non portable computer in Sollecito’s apartment (in the testimony of Popovic). This is the only mention of any non-portable (i.e. desktop or tower cased machine with separate monitor).  Given the position from which Popovic saw the screen (on a desk, with Knox sitting in front of it) it seems likely that she was mistaken.

[3]  Amanda Knox frequently refers to seeing Filomena’s computer on her desk after the ‘break in’. At one point in her testimony she changes her mind and corrects herself to change the computer to camera.

[4]  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7943828.stm I have not found another source for this comment.


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