Thursday, May 31, 2012
A Smug Killer Who Thought Perhaps He’d Escaped Justice Was Brought Down In The UK Today
Posted by The Machine
[Above and below: Arlene Fraser and husband Nat who today was again convicted for her murder]
Today at the High Court in Edinburgh Nat Fraser has been been found guilty for the second time of murdering his estranged wife Arlene in 1998.
He was originally was found guilty in 2003 and sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. However, after a long appeal process, his conviction was quashed last year by five judges at the Supreme Court in London.
They sent the case back to the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal, where the jurors have just taken approximately five hours to reach a majority verdict after a six-week trial.
It’s not the first time this year that someone in Britain has been finally found guilty of murder after initially escaping justice.
In January, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of murdering Stephen Lawrence in 1993 by a jury at the Old Bailey. Dobson had been acquitted of Stephen Lawrence’s murder in 1996 but the Court of Appeal quashed the acquittal. (The case against David Norris collapsed before it reached court.)
David Harvie the director of serious casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal, said:
The Crown is absolutely determined to ensuring that criminals are brought to justice for crimes they have committed, no matter the passage of time nor the legal complexities involved.
I have no doubts that Chief Prosecutor of Perugia, Giovanni Galati and the Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Giancarlo Costagliola are just as determined to ensuring that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are brought to justice.
The cases above are a reality check for anyone who assumes that Knox and Sollecito are innocent simply because they were provisionally acquitted. It’s a fact of life that killers are sometimes acquitted. It’s also a fact of life that for them things often come full circle.
And if anyone thinks that cases of people being convicted of murder after escaping justice don’t happen in Italy, they are seriously mistaken. Barbie Nadeau outlined the case of Angela Birikova, who was convicted of murder after being acquitted at her first trial, in a November 2010 article for the Daily Beast:
In the meantime, the Seattle native’s lawyers say she is anxious to get back to court. She has reportedly been getting to know a new cellmate, Moldovian native Angela Biriukova, herself a celebrity criminal in Italy. Dubbed the Black Widow by the Italian press, Biriukova was tried for murdering her wealthy older husband by stabbing him 16 times.
Her DNA was found on a cigarette butt near the corpse, but nowhere else at the murder scene. Unlike Knox, however, Biriukova was acquitted during her first trial. Knox might take comfort in what happened next: The prosecutors appealed and Biriukova’s acquittal was reversed”ā€¯after being set free, she was convicted during the appellate process. Should Knox’s appellate trial yield the same dramatic reversal, it will be a stunning conclusion to a trial whose narrative has often sharply turned on twists of fate.
It should noted that there is considerably more undisputed evidence against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito than there is against the various convicted killers that are mentioned above.
Apologist journalists like Nick Pisa and Nick Squires, and especially Michael Day, would do well to remember this, before glibly dismissing the case against the still-accused pair.
[Below: convicted killer Angela Biriukova who Knox reportedly made a friend of in Capanne]
Comments
5/31/12
justice…“no matter the passage of time nor the legal complexities involved.” The Machine’s words ring true.
Craft and Cunning Keep the Fox Running
There was once a fox
Who tried to think outside the box.
He had been to the School of Hard Knocks,
So he wanted to lash out with hard knocks.
He was later caught
Despite a fellow fox
stepping on rugs not wearing socks
And changing all the clocks
On the time
Of the crime,
And giving the wrong keys to a friend’s locks,
Then sending gifts to police from cellblocks,
This fox was sly.
My my my
But to freedom one day he had to say
Goodbye.
Run with it, just lean with it
He said, he switched his tail
Said, “Read my book.
My my my
How that fox could lie.
The End
But I say, go tell that fox, time doesn’t count, justice will reach its goal, maybe not on day one or day two but there’s day three, nobody can derail Destiny. Justice keeps going.
6/2/12
Hi,aethelred. You were in England when I was. Good times!
Celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee today! 60 years on her throne, she equals Queen Victoria now!
Meredith would be partying on the Thames.
As for the HarperCollins and Simon&Schuster; books coming out in fall 2012 and Amanda’s in 2013, I welcome them as further roadmaps of twisted minds who will reveal their guilt in every line, and even more by what they refuse to say. As for big money made from books, riches have wings and fly away when gained by wrongdoing. “The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just”. Italy needs every dime with all the refugees on their doorstep who are fleeing Arab spring, the cruise ship disasters, and now earthquakes. Frank Sfarzo claims Perugia got so bad recently with crime the mayor called in military help? Maybe Meredith enjoyed her dreamy Italian town in its 11th hour splendor. Will it still be a safe place for men like Toto to sleep on benches in a merciful land?
Hi Hopeful, Queen Victoria was actually on the throne for 63yrs and 7 months so lizzie still has a few years to go yet 😊
Hi, distemper! Thank you for the correct dates! Queen Elizabeth, let’s hope she makes it to Victoria’s heights! What a goal. She has been a valiant monarch, staunch and unwavering in duty. Prince Charles had gracious things to say about her in recent interview.
God Save the Queen!!!
To remember her Diamond Jubilee 2012 I bought a diamond tiara (fake, of course) in Penzance. For my daughters I bought Audrey Hepburn diamond mini-tiaras like Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in long black gloves, cigarette holder, dark hair in beehive. Diamonds? The Queen has the real thing! Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. The Queen deserves all her royal jewels, she has worked tirelessly for her kingdom.
I also found a Silver Jubilee cup with the Queen on it (1952-1977?) at a little antique shop in Marazion, Cornwall. I drank tea and coffee out of that at my cottage by the sea, made the instant coffee left by previous tenant taste even better.
Where next:
Click here to return to The Top Of The Front PageOr to next entry A Case In Which The Accused’s Team Used A Psychological Condition Maybe Similar To AK’s Or RS’s
Or to previous entry Italy Works With Australia On A Complex And Possibly Precedent Setting Case