Sollecito Book - Chapter 3 The Protected System
Posted by Peter Quennell
1. “Pellero, an effortlessly brilliant telecommunications expert from Genoa, figured it out by matching up the phone records with the cell transmission towers where the signal for the cells had been picked up. He made his way from the house on Villa della Pergola to the spot where it seemed most likely that the phones were tossed into Elisabetta Lana’s Garden, stopping every few seconds and testing to see which transmission tower area he was in.”
“He discovered that the odd calls around 10.00pm were almost certainly not made at the murder house, but rather in the Parco San Angelo, an open area right across the street from Lana’s garden wall. Pelero talked to Elisabetta Lana and conducted a thorough inspection of her garden to try to pinpoint the exact spot from which the phones had been thrown.”
“To his surprise, she told him the Squadra Mobile had done exactly the same thing in the first few weeks after the murder. They had even tossed oranges from the street to simulate the trajectory of the discarded phones. It was quite likely, in other words, that they too understood that the cell tower transmission for the 10.00pm phone calls did not match the house on Villa della Pergola.”
“This aspect of the Squadra Mobile’s work was not in the case records. If they had found what Pellero and my family thought they had, it would have contradicted Mignini’s evolving theory of the crime. But their work, if it existed, simply vanished”.
Sorry for the length of this quote, but it shows really how Gumbel/Sollecito distort the evidence - that is, largely by omitting it.
1. What vanished? Certainly not the work of Chief Inspector Latella of the Polizia di Stato, which was very exhaustive and detailed, and discussed at length in Massei.
2. We need only look at what Massei says (as below) for the simple reason that Hellmann did not dispute Chief Inspector Latella’s findings in this respect either.
3. We need only consider Meredith’s English phone. The other, Filomena’s, had no traffic at all over the relevant period. Meredith’s English phone had Wind cell coverage whilst used in Italy and Latella made his tests on this basis.
4. For our purposes Meredith’s English phone made two relevant connections
At 22.13.19 to cell 30064
At 00.31.21 to cell 25622
5. “...at 22.13.19, the phone (Meredith’s english phone) connected to the 30064..cell, the base radio station which Chief Inspector Latella referred to as the same one that was detected by their measurements near Meredith’s bedroom (in addition to having reception in the courtyard of the cottage)..”
6. “In Via Sperandio - close to the Parco di Sant’Angelo - the police investigators verified, using technical equipment, that none of the cell signals covering Via della Pergola is present; in particular, there was no signal in the garden of the house from cell 30064 that one can get at the cottage and surrounding area.”
7. “Conversely the signal from cell 25622 does not reach Via della Pergola 7.”
8. “Meredith’s English phone that connected to cell 25622 could not have been in the cottage and surrounding area at the moment of making and receiving a call. At the same time, the connection to cell 30064 by the same phone would have meant that it was not located in the garden of the Lana-Biscarini house, where certainly, as of a precise moment in time, the mobile phone ended up being placed.”
9. Get it Raffaele? Note how Pellero is “effortlessly brilliant” whilst all the police can do is throw oranges around! It is Gumbel/Sollecito who are the derisory buffoons.
Posted by James Raper on 09/29/12 at 10:07 AM | #
2. In his book, Raffaele describes his (extremely tall) lawyer Delfo Berretti’s attempt to climb up to Filomena’s window: “As photos taken that day show, Berretti had no trouble maneuvering himself into a position where he could have reached into Filomena’s broken window, opened it, and swung himself up to climb in. An iron nail was in the brick wall halfway between the two windows “” the prosecution would later make a big deal of this “” but Berretti didn’t even need it to pull himself up.”
Untrue. In fact, (1) photos of that event show Delfo hanging on to that nail for dear life, and (2) Delfo could touch the window sill from below, but made no attempt to actually haul himself up to the window and enter Filomena’s room.
*******
Added by Vivianna
It’s an absolute, shameless lie. Here is anotherr picture, from the PMF files (you may have to be a member to see it), showing Beretti hanging by the window sill:
http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/gallery/image.php?mode=medium&album_id=42&image_id=3495
Beretti never managed to hoist himself up. He hung from the window sill, but that’s a long cry from swinging himself over the sill and actually opening the window.
The nail is visible in the picture and it’s at lower chest/stomach level. For him to put his foot on that nail, he would have had to bend himself at a very sharp angle while still clinging to the edge - something that maybe a gymnast might pull off, but neither Beretti nor Guede were tiny girls trained to twist themselves into pretzels.
Posted by Kermit on 09/29/12 at 10:34 AM | #
3. “I was struck by how capricious the courts had been. Judge Ricciarelli was so sure the wall was unscaleable he used it as a reason to keep me in solitary confinement, when a little elementary checking would have told him his assumption was wrong. How many months or years of my life would his nonchalance end up costing?”
How my heart bleeds for this wronged boy! But Raffaele, just think how much your freedom now is due to Hellmann’s nonchalance in not bothering to do any elementary checking, such as visiting the cottage himself as Massei had done!
Have a look at Kermit’s Powerpoint on Spiderman, linked to in the comment above.
Posted by James Raper on 09/29/12 at 11:06 AM | #
4. About his previous drug use, he says “The one time I was caught, by an undercover Carabiniere in a nightclub, I wasn’t even the one with marijuana. My friend Gabriele had it. I was worried he was over the legal limit for personal use, so I talked our other friend Gennaro into claiming joint responsibility with him. The policeman realized what I was doing and wrote me up mostly because he was angry that I was making it harder to take punitive action against Gabriele”
Why doesn’t this guy just go ahead and declare himself a saint? For god’s sake, accept responsibility for something already. Nothing is his fault, everything is either his friends’ fault or the prosecutors cooking up stories.
Animal porn ““ my friends got it for me. Horror manga ““ my friend gifted it to me. Weird pictures ““ my friends were fooling around. Caught with marijuana ““ it was my friend’s, I was trying to protect him.
It’s not even the actual incidents that are annoying. It’s his constant refusal to accept responsibility for anything and everything and blame it on others. Makes him look childish, immature and that much harder to take anything he says seriously.
Posted by Sara on 10/04/12 at 07:59 AM | #
5. About the postal police’s arrival “If I’d had something to hide or had been caught unawares, I would never have let him enter”
Yeah right, because that would have been considered a really wise move when the murder was eventually discovered.
Unawares or not, even these two were not stupid enough not to realize that sending the postal police back would have looked really suspicious later on.
He keeps making such stupid arguments and then wonders why the court did not take him seriously and release him straight away.
Posted by Sara on 10/04/12 at 07:59 AM | #
6. About Amanda and Meredith’s friendship “If either Meredith’s or Amanda’s computer had survived the police examination. There might have been photographs, emails and other evidence to point to a more meaningful interaction”
The defense claimed ONLY Sollecito’s MacBook might contain exculpatory material. That was cloned and a copy of the hard drive exists. The defense just didnt want to go there.
And Raffaele Sollecito has made many stupid claims in his book, but perhaps none is so obvious and more idiotic than his repeated claims about the “lost” emails.
What is it with this guy and the emails? He seems to think (or perhaps, thinks that the readers are stupid enough to believe) that if a computer or a hard drive is destroyed, all the emails in it are lost as well. Come on already, surely they taught him the workings of email in his computer classes. They are retained on the server.
Look at his statements regarding emails. In chapter 2 (Love and Death) of his book, he describes the morning after the murder ““ “I’d been up several times in the night””listening to music, answering e-mail, making love””and wanted only to go back to sleep”
Right, so he got up many times in the night to answer e-mails. You’d think that this would be his biggest alibi for the night of the murder, right? No, wrong. Raffaele could not prove his alibi because, in his own words - “I did not yet know that the Polizia Postale””supposedly experts in handling technology issues””had seized two of my computers along with Amanda’s and Meredith’s and somehow wrecked three of the four hard disks while trying to decipher them. The bottom line was that the damaged disks were now deemed unreadable. That left just my MacBook Pro to provide an alibi for the night of the murder.”
Is he really as stupid as this makes him sound or does he think everyone else is stupid? To repeat ALL emails would be retained and traceable on the server. But there were none.
Again, in this chapter (The Protected System), when he talks about Amanda and Meredith’s friendship, he says “If either Meredith’s or Amanda’s computer had survived the police examination, there might have been photographs, emails and other evidence to point to a more meaningful interaction”
Here we go with the elusive emails again. Will someone explain the point of email to this guy? What difference would the computers surviving or not surviving make to the emails on the server?
He actually has the nerve to criticize the Polizia Postale’s technical competence after making a statement to the effect that he and Amanda could not retrieve their emails as the hard disks were damaged. Whether the hard disks were destroyed or not, whether it was the Polizia Postale’s fault or not though unclear is hardly important here.
Admittedly, Amanda is not a “technical genius” (After all, she does not know how to delete messages from her sent items). But what is stopping this resident technical genius from simply accessing his mail box from some other computer or iphone and printing out a copy from his sent items?
Or why doesn’t he ask one of the happy recipients of his emails to forward it back to him?
Similarly, if any emails that proved the “close friendship” between Amanda and Meredith existed wouldn’t they be in Amanda’s mailbox? She could have printed a copy anytime.
Did she go around deleting all of Meredith’s mails the minute they arrived as well as her own replies to them and clearing her trash box as well, just to be doubly sure they can’t be retrieved?.
Ok, let’s say the emails were deleted. What about the photographs? If there had been any photographs that would establish their “close” friendship, wouldn’t they be there on the camera or phone from which they were taken? Or wouldn’t either Meredith or Amanda have sent them to someone or posted them on their Facebook?
How did everything vanish absolutely without a trace? If neither of them sent the photos to anyone or posted them anywhere, or even kept them, you really have to wonder what was the point of taking them at all?
Besides no-one is claiming that Amanda and Meredith were at loggerheads all the time, they might even have gotten along initially. Meredith was not a person who judged people harshly. By all accounts, she did try her best to get along with Amanda, trying to include her in outings and defending her when she got into trouble.
It was Amanda who pulled away saying she wanted to socialize only with Italians. But the fact is that there were clashes and there were differences between them. Trying to make out that they were the best of friends by claiming the destruction of non-existent proofs is not only unbelievable but also utterly stupid.
This computer genius has never even been able to prove he sent even one email? Ludicrous.
Posted by Sara on 10/04/12 at 07:59 AM | #
7. About Dr.Stefanoni’s testimony in the initial trial “Stefanoni’s testimony was an unmitigated disaster for the prosecution, in this and every other respect”.
Not only completely untrue and disrespectful, but stupid too. If it was such a disaster, why does he think they were convicted?
As such, John Follain classifies the same testimony as a complete success in his book on the case. He says that Stefanoni answered the questions confidently, authoritatively and knowledgably.
This is yet another case of seeing things the way you want, rather than how they actually are.
Posted by Sara on 10/04/12 at 07:59 AM | #
8.“Mignini’s office announced in late June that the investigation was formally over, and almost immediately the newspapers were filled with a barrage of negative stories about my family. Even before we’d had time to look over the newly available documents, we were fending off accusations that we’d tried to exploit our political connections to push for my freedom. Some of the stories said we’d begged Sara’s highly placed friends in Rome to apply pressure to the Corte di Cassazione before our hearing in April, or to exploit Bongiorno’s prominent position.” (p.77)
This comes right after several pages in which he describes at length his aunt Sara’s political activity, and talks about some of her more prominent connections (he even calls her “a political animal”).
He boasts that once Alleaza Nazionale started gaining political ground, Sara “suddenly had a lot of influential friends,” including Giuseppe Tatarella (deputy PM and “an important vote-wrangler”).
He also notes that Bongiorno was a member of the same political party as Sara, adding that they had “plenty of connections,” and that the Sollecitos were “steered” to Bongiorno’s office by Domenico Nania, another Alleanza Nazionale member. All of this information can be found on pages 74-75.
Thus, according to Sollecito himself, his family DID have political connections which they used in conjunction with this case, and they did reach Bongiorno via some of these connections. In light of this freely provided information, it is incredibly stupid to try and pretend, just a couple of pages later, that the newspapers were spreading false stories about this subject.
Posted by Vivianna on 10/13/12 at 04:30 PM | #
9. On page 79: “When my defense team examined the official paperwork, they noticed that the analysis of the footprints””including extensive inquiry into the length and shape of the foot likely to have produced them””had been conducted by two members of the Polizia Scientifica in Rome, working not in their official capacity but as private consultants charging thousands of euros to Mignini’s office.
One of the analysts, Lorenzo Rinaldi, was a physicist, not a specialist in anatomy, and the other, Pietro Boemia, was a fingerprint technician with no further scientific credentials. That begged the question: if Mignini’s office felt it needed to contract the job out to private consultants, why wouldn’t it go to people with more pertinent qualifications? The whole thing stank.”
The reality, according to Judge Massei, is quite different:
- Dr Lorenzo Rinaldi (Engineer, Principal Technical Director of the State Police, director of the three sections which compose the Identity Division of the ERT - Esperti Ricerca Tracce)
- Chief Inspector Pietro Boemia of the ERT in Rome
- their tasks involved analyzing both shoeprints and footprints
Sollecito forgets to mention that their first consultancy report, with regard to a footprint left by a Nike shoe, was actually favorable to him. Unlike a previous analysis which attributed the shoeprint to him, this team of experts correctly attributed it to Guede.
However, since the second consultancy task resulted in an identification of a footprint with Sollecito’s, the experts are clearly “out to get him” like everyone else involved in the investigation. It doesn’t seem to occur to Sollecito that if that had been the case, they wouldn’t have bothered to correct the previous consultant’s work on the shoeprints.
Posted by Vivianna on 10/13/12 at 04:32 PM | #
10. Regarding the jailbird witness Aviello: “But I do know he did one interesting thing seemingly designed to get the Squadra Mobile off his back once and for all: he came out with a manifestly ridiculous story that his brother Antonio had come home one night covered in blood and admitted he had killed Meredith Kercher.
This story came as a total surprise to me; Aviello and I never discussed it. I would have loved to thank him in person for the way he threw the police effort into confusion, but our relationship ended rather abruptly”¦.. Much later, I sent him a present, an embroidered handkerchief, to express my gratitude.” (page 98)
In other words, Sollecito was grateful that Aviello lied on the stand and attempted to interfere with the investigation. I don’t know if Raffaele is aware of this, but “throwing the police effort into confusion” is a crime.
Also, why would an innocent be happy that someone attempted to confuse the police? After all, the police had the power to help exonerate Sollecito, should there have been evidence pointing clearly to a different scenario and culprit. Only someone who has something to hide and is absolutely terrified of what the investigation is uncovering would be glad about the perjury and false information.
Posted by Vivianna on 10/13/12 at 04:43 PM | #
11. Regarding Amanda’s testimony: “Meanwhile, we had to worry about Amanda taking the stand. Her lawyers decided that the best way to refute the stories about her wayward personality was to have the court take a good, hard look at her up close. But my lawyers were deeply concerned she would put her foot in her mouth, in ways that might prove enduringly harmful to both of us. If she deviated even one iota from the version of events we now broadly agreed on, it could mean a life sentence for both of us.” (99)
Clear admission that a narrative had been constructed and agreed on. I talked about this in a different comment, but the gist is that the phrasing, “the version of events we now broadly agreed on” indicates that the story they told was not true.
For one, because the truth doesn’t have different versions; and secondly, because if they had both been telling the truth from the beginning, they wouldn’t have disagreed about anything major (perhaps minor details at most).
Also it shows how terrified Sollecito’s side was that Amanda would deviate from the script and make both of them vulnerable to further inquiry.
“In fact, she performed magnificently,” he goes on to say. Not really, as the videos show, and especially since both of them were convicted during that first trial.
It’s important to note that during that hearing, Amanda lied about the police brutalizing her and she and her family are still awaiting their defamation trials.
Posted by Vivianna on 10/13/12 at 04:45 PM | #
12. “Not only had the DNA test on the kitchen knife come back “too low,” Dr. Stefanoni had overridden the machine to force it to come up with a result on a single, irreproducible sample. Recognized scientific protocols should have told her that no reliable result was possible.” (102)
What exactly are these “recognized scientific protocols”? I think all of us would be interested in knowing the exact source of this information, which hopefully doesn’t involve obscure American state police manuals.
And there was not simply the one sample. The court-appointed consultants at the annulled appeal admitted there was a second but didnt themselves have the skills or equipment to test it.
Posted by Vivianna on 10/13/12 at 04:46 PM | #
James, Kermit, Sara, Vivianna, and all you’ve done great analyses of this cryptic book where omissions create Raffaele’s new truth. You folks have exposed his magic tricks.
From the phone records where they deride Latella to the reenactment of the breakin where the defense never really broke in to reenact it (afraid of sliding glass to the ground below?), to the Sollecito’s Sister Sara with her National Alliance contacts that Raf brags about while at the same time he pooh-poohs her political connections as being of no legal or illegal use to him, you pinned it all down.
To Raf: gotcha. To you winds of truth clearing away his smokescreen: group hug. Your critiques are spot on and bringing back much to me. I did read Raffaele’s book. I sensed a lot of his magic presto change-o stunts in use but found them hard to explain to others in such clear words as yours. It’s real work, and a gift. Thanks.
The phone records dispute, the gleeful comments by Raf at Aviello mangling the truth to confuse the jury, Stefanoni’s DNA results, etc. Thank you all, very astute.
Posted by Hopeful on 10/13/12 at 07:58 PM | #
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