Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Twice Today Amanda Knox’s Long-Running Interrogation Hoax Turns On Her To Bite Her In The Tail

Posted by Peter Quennell


1. Today’s Sollecito Claims

Take a look at this Knox statement and this Knox statement and this Knox statement.

If you think Knox was in a planned police interrogation, and her framing of Patrick was forced, over some hours, by tag-teams of cops, with no food, no drinks, no interpreter, and no lawyer, then the cops look bad and Knox is maybe home free.

But in fact voluminous testimony at trial by a whole host of those present in Perugia’s central police station on the night of 5-6 November 2007 confirm that absolutely none of that is true.

In fact Knox rolled over on Patrick in a heartbeat, and it happened during a quiet session of name-listing of possible perps, a task in which Knox was pretty eager - perhaps so eager because none of them were herself and one of them was Rudy Guede. 

Knox had turned up late at the police station, unwanted and grumpy, was advised to go and sleep, refused, agreed to build that list of possible perps (she listed seven), spontaneously broke into a wailing conniption over a message she sent to Patrick, was semi-calmed-down and repeatedly provided refreshments, and insisted on writing three statements without a lawyer all of which said she went out on the night of the attack, all framing Patrick, one even pointing at Sollecito.

Knox’s erratic claims of pressure were of course disbelieved by the Massei trial court, she was convicted of calunnia, her appeals failed both at the Hellmann appeal court and the Supreme Court, and she served three years in Capanne Prison. Knox still owes Patrick a major payment and she herself continues to propagate the interrogation hoax repeatedly - in her book, on TV, in her email to Judge Nencini, and in her appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Sollico is now taking advantage of those three statements, and a claim that Knox’s text message to Patrick was sent from outside Sollecito’s apartment, to hint that Knox told the truth there, and he was not with her at the time when Meredith was killed.

2. Why This Might Resonate In Italy

This might lead to some review of “new evidence” though it cannot happen before Cassation confirms conviction. 

Not so much because of the hard facts, which belie him, but because of the growing recognition of the enormous damage done to Italy’s reputation by Curt Knox, Chris Mellas, and the paid thugs of their campaign.

And the threats to fight extradition, and the appallingly large sums of blood-money.

3. The Curt & Edda Defamation Trial

In a double whammy, a judge ruled in Perugia that Curt Knox and Edda Mellas must go on trial in the hard-line Florence court for their role in propagating that same interrogation hoax.

That is the same court that is already staging felony trials against Frank Sforza and Luciano Aviello and will soon stage defamation trials for the ironically titled Honor Bound against Raffaele Sollecito and Andrew Gumbel.

This is from Andrea Vogt’s latest website report (Update June 30, 2014) which as usual leaves in the dust all other non-Italian reporting except Barbie Nadeau’s and John Follain’s (though that is sadly behind the UK Times pay-wall). 

Amanda Knox’s biological parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, faced a trial hearing in Perugia Monday on charges of defaming the local police with allegations in the international media (and reported in Italy) that their daughter was abused during questioning during the 2007 investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher.

The case Monday came before Perugia Judge Noviello, who opted not to hear witness testimony, but instead moved the case to Florence. This because the judge reportedly noted that the Perugia prosecutor was also defamed, even though he did not make any official complaints, therefore it is a case that should be handled outside the sphere of Umbrian influence.

Amanda Knox was convicted on appeal in January in Florence, but still faces another trial there ““ that of allegedly slandering the police (calumny) with false accusations on the stand, which in Italy is a more serious charge than just defamation\libel. Knox and her parents now both face decisions by Florentine courts about the outstanding charges

The claims being targeted for trial were made in 2010 so the Florence court has another three-plus years before the statute of limitations cuts in. 

And this (tick tick) is from a TJMK post by Jools in January 2012.

The name of Amanda Knox was included in the list of trial witnesses that the defence for Kurt Knox and Edda Mellas, lawyers Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga intend to call to testify in court.

So Amanda Knox could want to testify under oath on the interrogation hoax - either that or see her parents go down.  (Knox will probably also face trial in Bergamo for extensive defamation in her book. Amanda Knox could again want to testify under oath on the interrogation hoax - either that or see herself go down.)

We understand it was Knox lawyer Dalla Vedova who first asked for the Knox-Mellas trial to be moved to Florence. That was when Dr Mignini was the subject of a phony prosecution in Florence and Dalla Vedova seemed intent on embarrassing him.

Now Dr Mignini is riding high nationally, and is maybe having a few grins at Dalla Vedova’s predicament.

Comments

Hmmm. Sollecito accuses Knox of telling the truth… except where he accuses her of hallucinating.

Judge Hellmann released those two serial whiners, and there are lawyers in Italy who say he had no right to do that.  There are several quotes on today’s whining at bottom here.

On the self-inflicted Knox-Mellas predicament, does anyone in those two families not have tin ears and sharp elbows?

Curt Knox and Edda Mellas and Chris Mellas between them sat right though the trial in 2009. They didnt speak much if any Italian, but at the end of the sessions they would have received translations.

So they would KNOW what Rita Ficcara etc testified to in February 2009 about Knox’s session on 6-7 Nov 2007 - that her conniption and framing of Patrick was spontaneous and unprovoked - and they would KNOW that when she was on the stand in July Knox convinced no-one.

And yet, here they were in 2010 making claims (to John Follain) about Perugia cops abusing Amanda - accusing them of serious crimes - that they KNEW were untrue.

Some American lawyers say “Whats the big deal? US perps and relatives claim police brutality repeatedly”. The big deal is that these are career police and prosecutors, who are required under the rules to confront false accusations.

We have explained this before, and such rules were brought in because mafioso were wrecking havoc with false accusations. In Italy, the battles have to be fought in the courtroom, and as we have know for years prosecutors and police have almost no latitude to make statements or explain themselves elsewhere.

Compare that with often-elected American prosecutors, chiefs of police and judges, who can get out there and explain themselves AND have powers to fight back if false accusations against them are serious.

Here are several quotes from the English-language reporting.

Barbie Nadeau Daily Beast

There was plenty of reason to believe that Sollecito would throw Knox under the bus, starting with the fact that Sollecito’s aunt Sara Achille has taken to the Italian airwaves in recent months to say just that.  Then there was the carefully leaked “scoop” given to gossip weekly Gente, attributed to and later denied by the Sollecito family, that even laid out just under what terms Sollecito would make his big break from Knox.  He has supposedly “just remembered” that Knox had not stayed in his Perugia apartment the night Kercher was murdered, which would strip the American of her alibi.

Instead, Sollecito…  hemmed and hawed about certain aspects of his new appellate case, including the fact that, as he had stated before, he could not remember in any detail whether Knox was in his apartment during the early part of the night that Kercher was killed.

His lawyer Giulia Bongiorno went on to clarify that the now infamous text message that Knox sent to her pub boss Patrick Lumumba, who she later accused of Kercher’s murder, was, in fact, not sent from Sollecito’s apartment as had been earlier implied. [emphasis added]

He stated strongly that he did support Knox’s innocence, obviously together with his own, but that “there are certain anomalies” in Knox’s testimony that have nothing to do with him. Bongiorno added, “we ask that the court to not extend the anomalies of Amanda’s testimony to Raffaele.”  In short, they want to be considered as separate entities, not as “the inseparable twins they make us out to be,” according to Sollecito. “I am not a crazy person. I am not a criminal. I am innocent,” he said before adding.  “But my name is Raffaele Sollecito, not Amanda Marie Knox.”

At issue going forward in what is clearly an 11th hour appeal for freedom is a prison diary and declaration that Knox made after an interrogation in which she admitted she was in the house when Kercher was killed, and in which she subsequently accused Lumumba of the murder. The so-called confession led to her arrest, along with Lumumba’s. Knox was ultimately convicted by Italy’s supreme court and ordered to pay Lumumba damages for defamation associated with the false accusation.

She has no appeals left against that conviction. She has not yet paid Lumumba the court-ordered damages.  Sollecito said the statements made in her interrogation and written statements are hers and hers alone.  “Her statement may be fantasy and hallucination,” he said.  “But if you are going to hold it as the truth, what do I have to do with it?”

Tom Kington in the Daily Telegraph

Raffaele Sollecito, who was found guilty alongside Amanda Knox of murdering Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007, has claimed he cannot recall if Knox spent the entire evening of the murder at his flat, as he prepares a last ditch defence before Italy’s top appeals court.

Sollecito’s lawyers on Tuesday outlined their tactics for separating their client’s plight from Knox’s, in the belief that much of the evidence against her has been unfairly used to convict Mr Sollecito….

The team pounced on an text message that Knox sent at 8.35pm of the night of the murder to Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a local bar where she was waiting tables.

Sentencing the pair, the Florence court noted that Knox had said she sent the text from Mr Sollecito’s house, whereas cell phone records showed she had sent it from the street, suggesting she was lying about her location. [emphasis added]

“We are drawing attention to the text,” said Ms Bongiorno. “It shows Amanda was out, but has been used to prove the guilt of both Knox and Sollecito. Why?” The murder, Ms Bongiorno added, had taken place at around 9.30pm. [disputed claim]

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/01/14 at 08:03 PM | #

the Machine posted this on the previous thread:

“Sollecito has damaged Knox by pointing out that she lied and that she wasn’t at his apartment the entire evening. This has been picked up by many mainstream media organisations in Britain and America.”

Not only picked up but its the stronger version telegraphed days in advance that doesnt hedge on Knox’s guilt that is the one English-language media are running with.

DID she go out? Or not? DID she defame the police over her “interrogation”? Or not? There’s been no PR response poked out for several news cycles now, and it looks like they could be terminally stuck.

Sollecito could do this on a weekly basis from now on, and not stop until Knox is back in an Italian cell. Actually Sollecito began telegraphing his threats and frustration months ago. Eight weeks ago we posted this:

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/as_knox_and_sollecito_try_to_separate_themselves/

And 16 weeks ago the YouTube below went up.

Over the years, the foolish Knox camp have consistently closed their eyes and ears to hard facts, and maintained “Just a little more defamation will do”.  In the past several months alone, many condescending attacks on Judge Nencini have been launched.

And now the Sollecito camp are quite determined that it is not their boy (or not only their boy) that will be locked up, and he just might have a longshot at getting a little time off.

The Knox camp’s campaign of abuse has left them with zero useful friends in high places in the US.

The Sollecitos think of them as trailer-trash, and it is hard to argue with that.  In contrast, Dr Sollecito’s group has friends in high places in Italy, and what can be made to seem like a nobler cause.

Plus their US lawyer John Q Kelly (to which Knox has no equivalent) will be hitting Washington power brokers and the TV networks here.

This disaster is the angry Curt Knox’s doing above all or it would have been nice to say the hopeless Marriott should give back all he has gained.


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Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/02/14 at 02:40 AM | #

“I don’t know where she was” Raffaele says about Amanda, referring to the night of the crime. He doesn’t know where she was!

Raffaele says he can’t guarantee anything about Amanda Knox.

{A guarantor is someone who agrees to pay the debt for another should that person abscond.}

Raf says he is not Amanda Knox, he is not her twin.

Raf tries to parse “evening” hours from night, to pretend he was telling the truth in his book about Amanda being with him all night when Meredith was killed. Now he says the equivalent of “I have no clue where the Fox was”.

Then while talking out of both sides of his mouth like Knox always did, he claims that his new statement of “I know nothing of her whereabouts” is the same as an entire book he wrote that says Knox is innocent because she was with him on the murder night. Hey, it can’t be both, not with his tiny apartment unless he was in a total drug blackout, in which case he wouldn’t have the pseudo-alibi of being on his computer and cooking dinner.

As wiser poster on PMF.net said his little tiny apartment is so small that if Amanda had been present, he would not have been unaware of it. I add, as noisy as that girl is, with her cat- pacing ways, he’d have noticed her there. If she’d crashed in his bed, he wouldn’t have been long joining her there, either.

So this mumbo jumbo about “I don’t know where she was, I can’t tell if she was in my little house” is as idiotic as saying, “Well, she mighta been in my tiny space but I just can’t say, or don’t wanna say. She might have gone outside and walked across town and done evil—it’s the judges’ guess. I’m no idiot so I’ll just leave it all in a muddle as usual and clarify nothing. She probably was committing the crime, but my family and I wanna state for the media that we think she is innocent.”

He bookends his press conference with hollow avowals that he and the people around him and his entire family always did think Knox was innocent and maintain that view.

Fake fake fake, Dr. Sollecito said he cursed the day his son met Knox. He had begged him to separate his son’s legal efforts from hers at the beginning.

Raf also states clearly for the Rome media that when he first entered the fateful cottage to see what had alarmed Knox, he saw a roommate’s door wide open with clothes tossed and a broken window. Knox had lied about this and said Molly’s door was closed, that she saw no broken window. They’ve both airbrushed that story since.

“I want nothing to do with Knox” is the melody of the entire presser.

hidden gist: you judges figure it out by giving me a fresh appeal all on my lonesome with Knox out of my way, and remember I’m not covering her anymore. Buh-bye Foxy, hasta la vista baby, Sayonara

Sorry but it’s so over Seattle slewfoot.

He asks question after question: what his participation in the crime was? What was his involvement? What was his motive? as if to say the judges have by no means proven any of this by merely equating his guilt with the Knox evidence.

He basically challenges the court to figure out his own defense, rather than giving them one!

Another howler: he claims he is not changing his girlfriend’s alibi, that he is not changing his story, that he is saying nothing, but then what is the presser all about?

He claims to be arguing from the Nencini judgement and deducing from the court’s own findings that Amanda said little about his whereabouts.

Raffaele pretends to be bowing to the luminous findings of the court while mocking them as inadequate, as in ‘her stuff has nothing to do with me’ hint hint, guilt by association is a false leap.

He says that only a criminal or an idiot would change an alibi or a story, and that he is neither.

He’s right about that, because he is both. He IS changing his story and add to that lying about it. Somebody get the neon markers and highlight the passages in his book that say or imply Amanda was with him, yes, with him at his apartment when Meredith was killed.

He has surely changed his stance.

He now does not want to guarantee Amanda’s alibi so in essence he is saying she’s on her own, he knows nothing of her whereabouts, nor can he vouch for her—which the last 7 years of his life that was “stolen from me” have been an effort to establish.

That’s what his whole book was about.

He said he was honour bound to give her an alibi. Now he trashes that.

The lovely murals behind the speakers’ table did double entendre as Raffaele stood alone in front of them. They depict ancient ruins and a cage with 2 birds. The cage door was open just like Molly’s room door at the cottage was open or like the prison door he wants to remain open for himself and former lovebird.

I think he is the blue bird in the mural, the blue bird of happiness getting to at last throw a few Ninja stars at his ex-lover. Bongiorno wore a pretty blue linen jacket for the conference. She belittled 7 years of focus on DNA alone.

Maybe Amanda is the green bird who in the mural faces the bird who has turned his blue back to her. Amanda wore the green coat and French braided hair when she was found guilty in Perugia. The green bird is nearer the open door of the cage, as Amanda is nearer freedom than Raf by virtue of geography.

Maya Angelou’s poem, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” echoes a bit.

Sollecito sings a new song in Rome about Knox’s completely unknown whereabouts.

He’s sure about himself. Knox, not so much, which insinuates she could have been out killing her roommate.

He can’t guarantee otherwise nor does he want to anymore.

He’s tired of being her insurance or guarantor or her alibi. He refuses to be a co-signer on the big loan she took out forcing his signature for her own grievous debts. Even the subtext is a lie probably.

He claims again to have not known Rudy Guede at all. That’s not what Kokomani saw.

Sollecito is lying his head off surrounded by support, all of whom gain by his surgical removal from an evil Siamese twin. Or from a giant tumor in his life, more like it.

Raffaele looks well. He doesn’t flutter an eyelid as he continues the charade of falsehoods and dissimulation. The stage lost a good actor.

Posted by Hopeful on 07/02/14 at 03:58 AM | #

Whatever happened to Honor Bound? He couldn’t lie straight in a bed.

Posted by pensky on 07/02/14 at 08:00 AM | #

Hopeful’s searing analysis… Florence prosecutors will confront him with all of that, at his book trial in Florence coming up. THAT didnt come up yesterday.

Those books are like mighty millstones around each of their necks and his book flies in the face of his keep-Kox-at-arms length over seven years.

“I wish to not see Amanda ever again” was the first words of RS to the supervising magistrate Matteini on 8 Nov 2007 two days after he and Knox had been arrested and separated. They remained separated for four years, and for much of the time Knox was trying to catch his eye.

Posted by Peter Quennell on 07/02/14 at 10:51 AM | #

I agree with Peter. Hopeful you are uniquely insightful.

Posted by pensky on 07/02/14 at 11:10 AM | #
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Where next:

Click here to return to The Top Of The Front Page

Or to next entry Amanda Knox Left Sollecito’s House By Herself? Both Claimed It But Neither Of Their Books Back It Up

Or to previous entry Apart From Cassation’s Unyielding Mandate, More Problems With The Belated Sollecito/Bongiorno U-Turn