Category: The prosecutors

Why Does Knox Book So Stridently Smear Italian Officials?

Posted by Peter Quennell



HarperCollin’s Jonathan Burnham and Claire Wachtell who edited and published Knox’s book

1. Reminder For Knox Book Team

Presumably your team remembers this jubilant (and to Italy pretty insulting) book announcement.

It was made on the day when you agreed to pay Amanda Knox a rumored $4 million, for a “full and unflinching”  account” of “her struggle to cope with a nightmarish ordeal” and you set out your hopes and intentions.

NEW YORK (AP)—Amanda Knox has a book deal.

The young exchange student whose conviction in Italy and eventual acquittal on murder charges made headlines worldwide has an agreement with HarperCollins to tell her story. The 24-year-old Seattle resident, imprisoned for four years in Perugia, Italy, has not publicly discussed her ordeal beyond a brief expression of gratitude upon her release last October.

Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,” HarperCollins said in a statement Thursday.

“Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates. She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life.”

The book, currently untitled, is tentatively scheduled for early 2013.

“Many accounts have been written of the Amanda Knox case, and countless writers and reporters have speculated on what role, if any, was played by Knox in that tragic and terrifying sequence of events,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said in a statement.

“No one has yet heard Amanda Knox’s own account of what happened, and this book will give Knox an opportunity to tell the story in full detail, for the first time. It will be the story of a crime and a trial, but also a moving account of a young woman’s struggle to cope with a nightmarish ordeal that placed her at the center of a media storm, and led to her imprisonment.


2. So Why Multiple False Accusations Like This One?

May we ask? Was truth too was in the contract, as Knox had just served three years for lying? Was due diligence on Knox’s claims done before the book deal was done and the book shadow-written? What was expurgated at the last moment and why were UK and Italian editions halted?

Did your shadow-writer Linda Kulman and your editor Claire Wachtell got in touch with at least some of the mentioned people in Perugia?  And where there were multiple accusations of crimes against Italian officials, did you give all the targets, or at least some of them, any chance at all to explain their side?

The Knox book has been out for nearly 18 months now. You have paperback and Kindle and audio editions. This very serious accusation of Dr Mignini in the box below has gone globally viral.

It is unique in the ferocity of an accusation that could wreck a prosecutor’s career, even send him to prison. And it could cost Knox serious additional prison time if proved wrong - as it already has been. See below the quote for the truth. Not only was Knox not interrogated at all - Dr Mignini was not even there.

[This is from pages 90 to 92 on the voluntary recap/summary session.

Eventually they told me the pubblico ministero would be coming in.

I didn’t know this translated as prosecutor, or that this was the magistrate that Rita Ficarra had been referring to a few days earlier when she said they’d have to wait to see what he said, to see if I could go to Germany.

I thought the “public minister” was the mayor or someone in a similarly high “public” position in the town and that somehow he would help me.

They said, “You need to talk to the pubblico ministero about what you remember.”

I told them, “I don’t feel like this is remembering. I’m really confused right now.” I even told them, “I don’t remember this. I can imagine this happening, and I’m not sure if it’s a memory or if I’m making this up, but this is what’s coming to mind and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

They said, “Your memories will come back. It’s the truth. Just wait and your memories will come back.”

The pubblico ministero came in.

Before he started questioning me, I said, “Look, I’m really confused, and I don’t know what I’m remembering, and it doesn’t seem right.”

One of the other police officers said, “We’ll work through it.”

Despite the emotional sieve I’d just been squeezed through, it occurred to me that I was a witness and this was official testimony, that maybe I should have a lawyer. “Do I need a lawyer?” I asked.

He said, “No, no, that will only make it worse. It will make it seem like you don’t want to help us.”

It was a much more solemn, official affair than my earlier questioning had been, though the pubblico ministero was asking me the same questions as before: “What happened? What did you see?”

I said, “I didn’t see anything.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see anything? When did you meet him?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Where did you meet him?”

“I think by the basketball court.” I had imagined the basketball court in Piazza Grimana, just across the street from the University for Foreigners.

“I have an image of the basketball court in Piazza Grimana near my house.”

“What was he wearing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he wearing a jacket?”

“I think so.”

“What color was it?”

“I think it was brown.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’m confused!”

“Are you scared of him?”

“I guess.”

I felt as if I were almost in a trance. The pubblico ministero led me through the scenario, and I meekly agreed to his suggestions.

“This is what happened, right? You met him?”

“I guess so.”

“Where did you meet?”

“I don’t know. I guess at the basketball court.”

“You went to the house?”

“I guess so.”

“Was Meredith in the house?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did Patrick go in there?”

“I don’t know, I guess so.”

“Where were you?”

“I don’t know. I guess in the kitchen.”

“Did you hear Meredith screaming?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you not hear Meredith screaming?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I covered my ears. I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m just imagining this. I’m trying to remember, and you’re telling me I need to remember, but I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.”

He said, “No, remember. Remember what happened.”

“I don’t know.”

At that moment, with the pubblico ministero raining questions down on me, I covered my ears so I could drown him out.

He said, “Did you hear her scream?”

I said, “I think so.”

My account was written up in Italian and he said, “This is what we wrote down. Sign it.”


This False Accusation In Knox’s Book, Challenged

In multiple pages of testimony at trial four years prior to the book it was made crystal-clear that Dr Mignini was not even there then at the central police station.

See the hard facts summarised below. He was only called in later, after Knox insisted in writing her first false accusation, and his only roles were to warn Knox she needed a lawyer and to observe while she insisted on writing a second accusation.

    (1) Amanda Knox turned up at the Perugia central police station late at night, unwanted and grumpy, and was advised to go home and get some sleep.

    (2) Inspector Ficarra later said if she really wanted, she could help, she could build a list of possible perps, in a recap/summary session (not an interrogation).

    (3) For maybe 45 minutes, starting at 12:30 am (when the interpreter arrived), Knox quite calmly listed seven names along with maps drawn.

    (4) Knox had a wailing conniption, which really startled the four others present, when Knox saw an outgoing text to her boss she had just said wasnt there.

    (5) Police did what they could to calm her down, and she insisted on writing out three statements in supposed elaboration in less than 12 hours.

    (6) She was warned she should have a lawyer each time, the second warning by Dr Mignini, but each time she shrugged off this advice and pressed on.

    (7) Cassation ruled the first two statements could not be used to indict Knox at the murder trial, but all three could be used to argue her framing of Patrick.

Who believes this? The defense teams! Do read the numerous court transcripts of testimony describing events on that night. Not one defense lawyer challenged even one word of the above.

Legal Prospects For HarperCollins Of The False Accusations

Have you ever had any book out, ever, which slimes an American prosecutor? Which contains malicious lies long pointed out? Which you still heedlessly propagate?

Your prospects and Knox’s are not pretty. This is what some of our own lawyers are suggesting.  Italian obstruction-of-justice laws could be applied to HarperCollins and those party to it - note the legal fate of Andrew Gumbel the equivalent of Linda Kulman for Raffaele Sollecito.

So could the federal and state American Son of Sam laws requiring the forfeiting of all of that world-record $4 million in bloodmoney plus any fees paid to helpers like Linda Kulman and profits for HarperCollins.

Also there could be the invoking of Italian and American laws against the harassment of victims’ families, a horrific ongoing crime against the Kerchers perpetrated by many (Knox included) which the misleading book certainly helps to stir up.