Tuesday, March 01, 2022

Correcting NY Times 24: No It Was Not TABLOIDS That So Misrepresented The Case

Posted by Our Main Posters

Pisa among those who reported objectively and fast

This is a repeat of a Nov 2016 post showing that “the tabloids” actually turned up in court, unlike the NY Times, and typically got their reporting 100% correct - unlike the NY Times. You can find Jessica Bennett’s several smears of “the tabloids” in this list and our earlier rebuttals in Part 5 of the mafia/p-r playbook list.

1. Context Of This Post

The Netflix report “Amanda Knox” showed British reporter Nick Pisa relishing some early headlines, and a scene where the solving of the crime by the national and Perugia police is announced to the press.

From those seemingly damning episodes, the audience is encouraged to make the vast extrapolation that it was a voracious media and an overzealous police that drove the whole case.

Also that this was fundamentally unfair to a self-effacing, publicity-shy Knox, and that it caused the verdicts to go the “wrong” way - twice, first in the 2009 Massei trial, and second in the 2013-14 Nencini appeal.

2. The Real Police “Slant”

The police announcement - typical of such announcements in the US and UK when the local population is freaked out - was NOT made simply to win points for the police or to isolate and slam Knox (Sollecito and at that point Patrick were also described as suspects in the crime).

There had not been a single murder in Perugia for many years. This murder was reported (rightly) as singularly depraved and (rightly) as a pack attack with knives.

Many people could not sleep at night. The immediate effect upon Perugia and in particular its huge student population (over 20,000) of Meredith’s death was that many men and women, especially women as a sex crime was (rightly) described, did indeed become freaked out.

Literally thousands began to leave town.

Both the town managers and the university managers were quite desperately demanding an early break or major assurances to stem this tide. The police announcement did in fact do that.

Thereafter the investigators went on about their work for the better part of a year, and the documentation is huge - it was put at 10,000 pages early on but is now substantially larger than that.

Here is one example of just how much work was done after the police calmed things down.

At the infamous “interrogation” of Knox on 5-6 November 2007 she in fact worked on a list of seven names of people who might be able to help the police. The police took that list and they tracked down all seven, and the cross-checking of their accounts went on for months.

Complicated, of course, because Knox most heavily pointed at Patrick, and used the list to point away from herself. Her drug dealer, which police soon found out about, did not appear on the list though he had repeatedly been at her house.

3. The Real Media “Slant”

In the next post, we shall show how there really was a huge slant - but not what Netflix depicts.

All of the Netflix’s global demonization of the media flows from Nick Pisa’s few deprecating words. No extensive checking of his reports is seen.

No Italian media disposition was examined at all - the Italian media was by far the most likely to have an effect on a jury of Italian speakers who are encouraged by the system to do some research.

Netflix maybe omitted this for their own convenience - there was little or no slant to point to at all.

Italian media reported methodically before and during trial and long thereafter on what the US and UK media mostly did not - all the crucial process steps pre-trial were reported in Italy but largely ignored by the UK and US press.

You can read about the remorselessly building evidence in this eye-opening series here.

The Netflix team dont appear to have read even one official document on the case.

The key two documents here would be the report on the Massei guilty verdict in 2009 and the report on the Nencini guilty verdict in 2014. That was respectively two years and over seven years after the early “damning” media reports. 

Take a look.

In fact try to find even ONE instance where a UK reporter writing in English for an English audience in late 2007 got inside an entire panel of Italian judges’ heads late in 2009, and again in 2014, which is what Netflix would like you to believe.

4. Nick Pisa’s Real Reporting On The Case

Fortunately for the hard truth, what we often called the “Rome pool” of foreign correspondents included nearly a dozen exceptionally talented reporters (those posted in other countries usually are the cream of the crop).

Thanks to their very hard work and their incessant costly travel to Perugia, we were able to repost on the 2008 and 2009 developments with a scope far beyond what any one “man on the spot” could do (we did have several of those too).

Free-lancer Nick Pisa in fact reported from the court for a lot of media outlets in the UK, not simply one. He was the only non-Italian reporter to pretty consistently have a cameraman along, for his reports for Sky News, and some of his good video reports still show.

This kind of fast, comprehensive coverage badly rattled the Knoxes and Mellases and their camps and especially diminished their PR, and they openly displayed angry aggression at times.

We’ll describe in the next post their desperate attempts to demonize all of the few reporters they did not have on a chain as coming straight from hell. 

We have carried a total of 43 of Nick Pisa’s reports, in whole or in part. Check them all out below. Do you see ANY bias here?

5. Reports We Used As Trusted Valuable Source

Click here for post:  Trial: The Proceedings Commence: The UK’s Daily Mail Reports First

Click here for post:  Trial: Friday Morning Not A Good Start For The Knox Team

Click here for post:  Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Of On-The-Ball Sky News Reports Early Testimony

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Of On-The-Ball Sky News Reports On Saturday Morning

Click here for post:  Guede’s Grounds For Appeal Sound None Too Convincing

Click here for post:  Trial: Sky News Video Report On Friday’s Court Session

Click here for post:  Confirmed: Neither Knox’s Father Nor Stepfather Were So Solicitous In Seattle

Click here for post:  Trial: Prosecution Witnesses Present Many More Reports On Odd Behavior Of Knox

Click here for post:  Sollecito Gets A Birthday Card From His Co-Defendant

Click here for post:  Trial: Witness Emulates A Loud Scream She Heard On The Night

Click here for post:  Trial: Sky News’s Report On Today’s Eyewitnesses

Click here for post:  Trial: The Closed Court Sees Graphic Photos And Video Footage Of The Autopsy

Click here for post:  Trial: One Busy Day On The Court Agenda For The Judges And Jury

Click here for post:  Owner Says The House Will Be Available For Rent

Click here for post:  Trial: The Trial Agenda For Today And Tomorrow Is Physical And Forensic Evidence

Click here for post:  Trial: At Saturday Morning Session Bloody Footprints Said To Match The Defendants

Click here for post:  Trial: The Morning Report By Sky New’s Nick Pisa

Click here for post:  Trial: Court Hears Of Enormous Cruelty Of The Crime

Click here for post:  Trial: Meredith’s Family Recounts The Terrible Pain Of Her Loss

Click here for post:  Trial: Richard Owen Reports First Knox Testimony With Nick Pisa Video

Click here for post:  The Letters Between The Women’s And Men’s Wings In Capanne

Click here for post:  Trial: Dr Sollecito Testifies About The Human Qualities Of His Son

Click here for post:  Trial: Nick Pisa Reports Knox Sisters’ Macabre Posing Where Meredith Was Killed

Click here for post:  Trial: Early Report By Nick Pisa On What Was Expected To Be Heard Today

Click here for post:  Trial: Defense Witnesses Testify On Cannabis Effects And Meredith’s Mobile Phone

Click here for post:  Trial: Further Expert Examinations Denied - The Report From Nick Pisa

Click here for post:  The Summations: Nick Pisa In Daily Mail Has A Late-Morning Report

Click here for post:  The Summations: Defendant Leaves Court As Prosecutor Proposes What Meredith Was Subjected To

Click here for post:  The Summations: Patrick Lumumba’s Lawyer Describes Defamation By Knox As Ruthless

Click here for post:  Could The Italian Authorities Be Starting A Wave Of Libel + Slander Investigations?

Click here for post:  The Summations: Lawyer Luca Maori Sums Up All Day Today In Sollecito’s Defense

Click here for post:  The Summations: The Two Defendants Make Their Final Pleas To The Court

Click here for post:  US Overreaction: Amanda Knox’s Own Lawyer Groans “That’s All We Need, Hillary Clinton

Click here for post:  The Controversy Over The Lifetime Movie Seems To Be Stirring Some Needed Changes

Click here for post:  Kercher Family Lawyer Walks Out As Amanda Knox Engages In What Looks Like Yet Another Stunt

Click here for post:  UK’s Sky News Carries A Pre-Session Report from Nick Pisa In Perugia This Morning

Click here for post:  A Belated Attempt To Do A U-Turn On The Misconceived Loser Of A PR Campaign?

Click here for post:  The Fourth Appeal Hearing Today Saturday: The Main Items On The Court’s Agenda

Click here for post:  Fourteenth Appeal Session: Judge Hellmann Consults Jury And Concludes They Have Enough To Wrap Up

Click here for post:  Conspicuous By Their Absence Now: Legal Commentators For Sollecito And Knox

Click here for post:  Lord Justice Leveson: In Fact MANY Press Errors Were Made In The Reporting On Meredith’s Case

Click here for post:  A Smug Killer Who Thought Perhaps He’d Escaped Justice Was Brought Down In The UK Today

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty On Most Charges Of Severe Damage To Young Women

Posted by Peter Quennell

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

2011 Hellman Appeal Verdict Annulled Misrepresentations Fog Reality Still

Posted by James Raper

Hellman Misrepresentations Explained

Here’s an interesting vignette on Hellmann’s modus operandi in his Motivation.

In the quote below he pins Guede with sole responsibility and provides Knox and Sollecito with an alibi.

Here’s what Hellmann wrote -

“In that chat, furthermore, [ed : Hellmann is referring to the 2nd Skype chat with Giocamo Benedetti] Rudy Guede states that he was in Via della Pergola between 9 and 9.30 pm; and this fact which significantly brings forward the time of death of Meredith Kercher, in respect of that held in the sentence under appeal, does not reconcile with the prosecution hypothesis in regard to the present accused who, even with the desire to recognize as credible some elements held by the prosecution in support of it’s own hypothesis, at the time were certainly at the house of Raffaele Sollecito and not at Via della Pergola.”

There are three basic elements to this argument.

1. Time Of Death (TOD) between 9.00 and 9.30 pm
2. Guede was in the cottage with Meredith between these times
3. Neither Knox nor Sollecito were.

Ergo, it was Guede, or perhaps, at a push, Guede and others but not including Knox and Sollecito, who murdered Meredith.

This is important because it appears towards the beginning of the report and, reading on through it, we can see that virtually the whole report, and the ludicrous waiving away of all the other evidence, is predicated on it.

However, what’s the evidence for these propositions - and is it reliable?

Although TOD could have been between these times there is no evidence that it was other than, as we shall see in a moment, Guede’s own words.

So, if an appeal judge can hold Guede to be reliable in this respect do the little angels have an alibi? However just check the record of that skype chat.

In Italian -

Guede - “allora siamo entrati, e penso che saranno state le otto e mezza così, le otto e venti, è stato, è stato detto che lei aveva detto alle sue amiche che era stanca che sarebbe andata a casa. Invece no, ci dovevamo vedere, ci eravamo dati puntamento la sera prima nella festa di Halloween, che abbiamo passato a casa di questi ragazzi spagnoli e posso dire anche dove, non so la via ma posso indicare dove.”

Translation -

Guede - “So we went in, and I think it was about eight‐thirty, or eight‐twenty, they’re saying that she told her friends she was tired and wanted to go home. But in fact no, we were supposed to see each other, we had made an appointment the evening before during the Halloween party, at the Spanish kids’ house, and I can also say, well I don’t know the street but I can say where it was.”

Although this does not exclude Hellmann’s time frame of 9.00 to 9.30 there is a manifest problem with Guede’s account.

Guede has himself and Meredith meeting up at the cottage by prior appointment at a time when Meredith could not possibly have been there, because she was still at the house of her english friends and she and Sophie Purton did not part ways until they were near the cottage at 9 pm.

Given what is certainly a falsehood why give credence to any of Guede’s times? But Hellmann does. It is true that in the Skype chat Guede goes on to say the following.

“R. I was in the bathroom, in the bathroom maybe five minutes. So, I really had to take this shit, but then I heard a scream, but let me tell you, a really loud scream, so loud that according to me, if anyone was passing by, nearby, they would have heard this scream, because she screamed so loud…and then, then, I got a bit worried and I got out of the bathroom right away, without even putting my pants back on, they were practically falling down, I was wearing just my underwear and my pants were falling around my…
G. But if I understand, I mean like where was this…I mean, what time do you think this happened, I don’t know…
R. Around nine, nine twenty or so, because in the meantime we had gotten to talking and all.
G. I see.
R. I think nine‐twenty, nine‐thirty, around then, and then, when I heard the scream…………”

This is where Hellmann gets his time frame for Time of Death. Hellmann does not give us the full context and details of Guede’s remark. But if one is going to give credence to these times then the context in which they arise has to be evaluated and given some credence too. This would also have to involve evaluating the impact on Guede’s account of the fact that Meredith was not at the cottage until 9 pm. Instead, what he writes is as follows -

“In fact Rudy Guede, while confiding to his friend in a moment when he did not know that the police was also listening in, and while talking about a point (the time of the assault) which he had no reason to lie about, given that he stated he was present at the time in the house of via della Pergola 7 albeit denying his responsibility, he indicates a time between 9 PM and 9:30 PM.”

However even if any of the foregoing were to be true it does not give Knox and Sollecito a complete alibi. It can not be held to be certain that Knox and Sollecito were at the latter’s flat for all of that time. The last alibi corroboration is the manual interaction with Sollecito’s computer at 9.10 pm and Guede’s “nine-twenty, nine-thirty” looks the more definite time in it’s context and given that Meredith was only in the process of arriving at 9 pm. He could perhaps seek some tenuous assistance from Curatolo’s testimony but he has already held that witness as unreliable.

So, putting his two quotes together Hellmann conveniently has Guede in the cottage between 9 and 9.30, with the same time frame for TOD. Given the verdict it is obvious why he would want to do this but equally it is obvious why Hellmann shirks from quoting what Guede had actually said, as to his time of arrival with Meredith, because of the obvious difficulty as to his credibility that causes, and as to what he was doing when he heard the scream, because if the scream (and hence TOD, if in fact the two are related) was between, say, 9 and 9.10, thus giving probably at least Sollecito an alibi, that gives us the added unlikely scenario of Guede arriving with Meredith (no earlier than 9.00 pm it now has to be) and then immediately excusing himself from the presence of his attractive date, and diving in to the toilet for a crap. But that is not how Guede has it and in that respect he is probably right.

If the scream was between 9 and 9.10, and Guede did not in fact go immediately to the toilet, then we have him turning violently upon his date within a very short space of time and then going for a crap after the murder. No, I don’t think so.

It could be speculated that Guede was already at the cottage, having broken in earlier, and being surprised by Meredith’s arrival, but a genuine break in is a dead duck topic on any rational evaluation of the evidence, not that Hellmann shirks from bringing the same MOD to that topic as well.

Before I go on there are some observations to make about a genuine break in based on what Guede said. Guede, one can reasonably surmise, would have been keeping abreast of developments in the media about the case and so would have known about the reports of a break in, none of which suggested, at the time, that it had been staged. By placing his arrival at the cottage with Meredith at 8.30 he can therefore disassociate himself from responsibility for that and, furthermore, imply that the break in was not what it seemed.

On the other hand had he broken in earlier then obviously he knew that Meredith was not there. He was taking a risk by running with a story that he and Meredith had met at the cottage at 8.30 pm when he would know, as a consequence of the foregoing, that there was at least the chance that others could vouchsafe for Meredith’s whereabouts elsewhere at the time. His state of mind on the subject may be confused by the Catch 22 situation he was putting himself in but would surely be different if he knew there had been no such break in. He would still be taking a chance but not, in his mind, such an obvious one.

But Hellmann should not go unchallenged when he states that Guede had no reason to lie.

That we know of no reason for Guede to lie about these times does not mean that he was not making it up or simply making a hash of the times (and looking at the excerpt he does seem rather unprepared for Benedetti’s question) or that he did not have a good reason to lie, especially if TOD was much later. He could have been anticipating more witnesses coming forward, like Alessandra Formica who, with her friend Lucio Minciotti, were walking down the stairs towards the cottage at around 10.40 pm when they were bumped into by a dark man rushing up the stairs. Or Nara Capezalli and Antonella Monacchia who had heard the ear splitting scream much later.

There is, of course, another obvious motive for placing himself at the cottage at 8.30 pm. He has already, in the 1st Skype chat, explicitly denied that Knox was at the cottage. Needless to say Hellmann picked up on that and accepts Guede’s word for it. However, in Guede’s account he is on the toilet when a man and a woman, whom he either did not see or was unable to identify, arrive and commit the murder. So, given that it was only the male that he actually encountered, why so positive that Knox was not there?

What he is suggesting is that others, but who could be Knox and Sollecito, did it. What benefit does Guede derive from this?  The answer, again, is the obvious one that by being more specific he would be running the risk of a counter allegation from Knox and Sollecito as to his precise involvement in the murder.

Also, just in case his explanation were not to be considered all that convincing he gives the duo, and himself, the added protection of having himself arrive at the cottage without them at 8.30 pm. That is at a time when he might well have known (from his own personal knowledge) that they would be able to put together an alibi.

In any event perhaps, as to the scream, it was not so much a question of lying as just a matter (even if only in his own mind and, we have to remember, he was just chatting with a friend, not giving a deposition) of making it seem likely with his own account. After all he has himself there with Meredith at about 8.30. Did Guede have a watch? Was he checking times? Are we supposed to believe that Guede would check on the time when he went to the toilet, and when he heard a loud scream outside and rushed out of the toilet with his trousers round his ankles. He did not say, and no-one seems to know.

Then we have the chatting, petting, searching for Meredith’s missing rent money, and then he’s off to the toilet. Perhaps he thinks an hour for that looks right and indeed most of that makes him look like the irresistible and OK kind of guy any gal would find good company and later after she finds her money missing, a good listener. Of course, Meredith did not come to the cottage until 9 pm but Guede does not factor that in. How would anyone, maybe even himself, know that anyway? So, we are actually up to 10 pm, not the 9.30 pm, when in his story he says he hears a scream.

Now we are moving towards the territory occupied by the witnesses Capezalli, Monacchia, and Formica.

Hellmann’s original hypothesis was that the murder had occurred no later than 10.13 pm.

“… it is more consistent…. to hypothesize that in fact the attack, and hence the death shortly thereafter, occurred much earlier than the time held by the Court of first instance, certainly not later than 10.13 pm”.

Here Hellmann refers to the time of the last interaction on Meredith’s English phone on the 1st November, before it rang again and the ringing was noticed by Mrs Lana’s daughter the next morning.

Notice that Hellmann makes an assertion and a linkage for which there is no corroborative evidence – “the attack, and hence the death shortly thereafter”, linking this to the last interaction on Meredith’s phone at 10.13 pm. But there could have been a non fatal attack at 10.13 ( e.g a wresting of her phones away from her) followed by the fatal one a little later.

Hellmann seems to think his supposition is the more consistent. Perhaps so. We do not really know, nor do we know for how long Meredith lived after the fatal blow.

But then, dispensing with consistency, he has the TOD come forward by at least another 45 minutes. Hellmann is more than ready to brand Guede as an out and out liar, but then, making a lone exception to his (and our) distrust of everything Guede has had to say, and without any other evidence to back it up, and as if there was any credence to be given to the exercise, he asserts, without ambivalence, Time of Death as between 9 – 9.30 pm, purely as a consequence of his own uncritical thinking, deceptions, agile skipping around the evidence, and cherry picking on a liar’s say so as to when he was there, and whether Knox was, and this despite Guede’s own stated time of his and Meredith’s arrival at the cottage being demonstrably unreliable, and in Meredith’s case untrue.

Hellmann has had to leap through a number of hoops in order to stick with his own pre-formulated premise that Guede was the sole perpetrator in this murder. And indeed Guede was already definitively convicted of the murder by this time, but in “complicity with others”. Hence the attempt to posit an alibi in the argument he put forward.

Not even the 5th Chambers was prepared to countenance that.

The quotes do nothing to establish TOD or provide Knox and Sollecito with an alibi but they are an example (among many one could give) of Hellmann’s bias toward the defendants and unwillingness, or inability, as a result, to evaluate the evidence rigorously and properly, a trait which was manifest throughout his Motivation.

That was the reason why his acquittal verdicts were annulled. Surprisingly though none of the foregoing even got a mention in the appeal recourse and annulment. Perhaps because there were more egregious defects in the Motivation.

It’s not surprising that he got a backlash from his professional colleagues and resigned from the judiciary shortly thereafter. But the damage to justice had been done.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Raffaele Sollecito, Once Again Being His Usual Muddled Self…

Posted by James Raper

Terrifying. Terrifying!

Corriere has published on the Internet Raffaele’s Sollecito’s latest outburst by social media video against the real media in Italy.

Here is what Corriere wrote -

“Raffaele Sollecito publishes on his social channels an outburst entitled “[Guede] found guilty in complicity with others is an invention of the media” against him by some of those he calls “newsagents” who, says Sollecito, continue to report “stupidities and falsehoods “. And he adds: “Below this video I will post the excerpt from the judgment with which Rudy Guede is sentenced. If one day I again observe that there are newsagents who write, or insinuate, that Guede has been convicted in complicity with others, and that therefore it remains necessary to find out who is this other culprit, I will be forced to file a complaint for defamation against me. Because it is thus being suggested that Amanda Knox and I [accused and then acquitted in the Perugia trial for the crime of Meredith Kercher, which took place in 2007, ed.] were acquitted either by luck or by chance.”

Below the video is Sollecito’s text.

“Sottolineo il tentativo della difesa di Rudy Guede di coinvolgere la responsabilità mia e di Amanda Knox ... tale tentativo miseramente fallito. In qualsiasi momento la Corte che ha giudicato Rudy Guede poteva chiamarci a deporre se qualcuno avesse mai dato fondamento a questo fantomatico concorso. Ciò non è mai avvenuto. D’altronde, nel processo contro di me e Amanda Knox, abbiamo chiesto di far deporre Rudy Guede che si è avvalso della facoltà di non rispondere.

I giornalai (giornalisti che hanno inventato la favola del concorso), non desiderano la verità ma vogliono soltanto arricchirsi alle spalle della vita di persone innocent.”

Translation -

“I emphasize there was an attempt by the defense of Rudy Guede to assign to myself and Amanda Knox responsibility ... this attempt failed miserably. At any time the Court that judged Rudy Guede could call us to testify if anyone had ever given grounds to this phantom competition. This never happened. But on the other hand, in the trial against me and Amanda Knox, we asked for Rudy Guede to testify, but he made use of the right not to answer.

Journalists (journalists who invented the story of the contest) do not want the truth but only want to enrich themselves at the expense of innocent people.”

What on earth is Sollecito talking about?! What attempt by “the defense of Rudy Guede”? What contest or competition? What judge could have called on them but didn’t? Micheli?

It was Judge Micheli who committed the pair to trial!

I do not think that Guede ever did try to directly implicate Knox or Sollecito before or at trial, not by name, not as a witness who saw them there at the time, not by stating what he saw them do.

Well… okay, so in his statements to the police he did do a bit of insinuating and implying. Presumably Judge Micheli at his 2008 trial had read those, but he still committed the pair to trial in 2009 in front of a different judge, Judge Massei.

No Guede statements were placed in evidence at their 2009 trial because Guede refused to testify for the prosecution fearing perjury charges (not for the defense, who did not even call him) rendering them inadmissable.

Despite not calling him, the pair’s own lawyers tried to have a field-day throughout the 2009 trial on the absent Guede. Recall the unproven drug-dealer nonsense, and the unproven serial-burglar nonsense.

Sollecito’s text continues, quoting from the Giordano Motivation dismissing Guede’s final Supreme Court appeal in 2011.

Incidentally I have re-read the Giordano Motivation and there is nothing there that states or implies that Guede acted alone or was responsible alone, in Meredith’s murder, as Sollecito apparently believes it says.

“8 - Il ricorso non ha fondamento e, pertanto, va rigettato.
Per intanto occorre da subito sfuggire al tentativo, perseguito dall’impostazione tutta della difesa, ma fuori luogo nel contesto della decisione, di coinvolgere il collegio nell’avallo della tesi di una responsabilità di altri, che sono S.R. ed K.A., per l’omicidio aggravato dalla violenza sessuale, di Ke.Me.. La decisione a cui è chiamata questa Corte concerne, e solo, la responsabilità del G. in ordine al fatto contestato e dell’eventuale partecipazione di altri al delitto si dovrà tener conto solo nella misura in cui una tale circostanza valga ad incidere sul tema che costituisce l’impegno esclusivo in punto di riforma o conferma della declaratoria di responsabilità dell’imputato, quest’ultima del tutto condivisa dai giudici di primo e secondo grado.”

Translation -

“8 – The appeal has no basis and therefore must be rejected.

In the meantime it is now necessary to escape the attempt, pursued by the overall setting of the defence, but out of place in the context of this decision, to involve the Court in supporting the thesis of the responsibility of others, namely Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, for the murder aggravated by the sexual assault of Meredith Kercher. The decision to which this court is called concerns uniquely the responsibility of Guede regarding the deed with which he is charged, and the possible participation of others in the crime should be taken into account only to the extent to which such a circumstance would have an impact on the exclusive commitment of the Court to either modifying or confirming the verdict of guilt of the defendant, which was entirely shared by the courts of first and second instance.”

So? Will this cause Italian media to be shaking in their boots!

Even the Supreme Court, in its bent final ruling on the case against Knox and Sollecito, found that Meredith had been attacked by more than one assailant.

Maybe is this an indirect attempt by Sollecito to warn Guede away from further involvement? Who knows? Isn’t the media already speculating on what might happen when Guede has finally served his sentence in December 2023?

Sollecito does appear to be feeling some heat, and this all really looks as if he is once again losing it a bit.

Thursday, July 01, 2021

Yet ANOTHER Nail In The Coffin Of The Faked Break-In

Posted by James Raper

Scuri is white object at left

Again, Things Just Don’t Add Up

I was looking at a Powerpoint by our former main poster Brmull debunking Hellmann’s take on the rock apparently thrown at Filomena’s window.

According to Hellmann there was a genuine break-in, but if not, then there was no reason to think that Knox and Sollecito were the stagers. That guff apart, Brmull made some good points and displayed a close up of the crush-mark on the scuri (inner shutter) which I found interesting.

Unfortunately I cannot use my snipping tool on a Powerpoint so I am not able to re-produce that picture. You will just have to take my word for what I say next.

First up, of course the rock could easily have been thrown or tossed from the corner of the residents’ car park, breaking the glass. Amusingly Hellmann refers to the defence expert’s report for this blindingly obvious clarification. The trajectory of a rock so cast is on a 90 degree angle with Filomena’s window, i.e straight at it, so no problem.

There are, however, some problems with this.

The crush mark is full on the upper edge, and inside this edge, of a recess on the scuri. Assuming that the crush mark was caused by the rock then this suggests that the impact was from a trajectory that was on a different angle from that of a rock thrown from the car park.

There are a couple of points to flow from this, both by way of confirmation but which also debunk another point raised in defence.

First, the very existence of the crush mark (and there was a fragment of glass embedded in the scuri close by) confirms that the scuri was in position behind the window. Filomena had said it was, even if she could not be sure that it had been clipped firmly into place.

Short of throwing a heavy rock at the window to find out, how would the intruder have known that it was not so latched into place? And if it was, throwing the rock would not have made any difference, just a lot of noise. The intruder could not have been unaware of the existence of the scuri.

Secondly, the only mark on the scuri was that crush mark. I am surprised that there is no other damage that I can see to the scuri i.e dents or chipped paint, which is what I would expect to see, from a rock weighing 4 kilos tossed full on at the window from just several feet away.

In fact the scuri looks remarkably pristine but for the crush mark. This, for me, establishes that the crush mark was not a glancing blow past that edge. Indeed the white paint is crushed down into the dent, hardly compatible with a glancing blow.

Hence a head on crush the result of a different trajectory from a rock thrown from the car park. Both these observations support the view that it was an inside job.

Hence, a staging, it sure seems.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Van Gogh “Immersion” Show, Selling Out In Numerous Cities Worldwide, Created By…

Posted by Peter Quennell

Two Italians. The show, designed by Italian digital artist Massimiliano Siccardi with music composed by Italian Luca Longobardi, and art (of course) by the late Vincent Van Gogh, consists of some 400 images projected onto 500,000 square feet for about one hour.

It’s on now in various countries in Europe. In north America, shows have concluded in Toronto, St Petersburg and Chicago, and are opening soon in various other cities including New York.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Millions Of Conspiracy Theorists Take A Big Hit; Disillusion Reigns

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click “YouTube” when running to get to Comments

The QAnon conspiracy theory

This is one of a massive ongoing crime by political leaders. Especially though not only leaders of the US.

While Amanda Knox dishonestly smears only Italian officialdom, the purpose is no different: money, prestige, plenty of attention, to the considerable risk of those so demonized. 

Millions of gullible QAnon adherents were holding their breaths late Tuesday and early Wednesday believing that then-President Trump was about to initiate martial law, mass arrests, and mass executions.

That this didn’t actually pan out has left the cult pretty rudderless.

It could well be that millions will look twice before they leap next time - and react more strongly soon against Knox’s own malicious inventions.

Gee, thanks Q and your minions…

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Thursday, December 24, 2020

Time To Celebrate? Meredith’s Birthday (28th) And Maybe A Better New Year

Posted by Our Main Posters

Most preferred video of the season of one regular reader above!

“This is Alexandra Dovgan, a 12-year-old Russian girl playing. Her incredible talent of bringing out the beauty in this Bach’s piece is truly miraculous.”

Brilliant women musicians - of which the world now seems awash, shades of Italy when Scarlatti and Vivaldi were alive - have been a popular choice here at this time of year.

We are told Meredith talked about music a lot. She liked classical and ballet music; her first choices in final years were 80’s disco and the Rodgers-and-Hammerstein kind of musical show.

Many YouTube commenters consider this above to be the finest ever Rhapsody in Blue. Polish pianist Maja Babyszka was FIFTEEN when she recorded this. Watch her hands from 16’ 45” on. Nuts, right?!

The mandolin concerto Czardas, above, is by an Italian composer (of course!).

Wednesday, December 02, 2020

Italy, Lament: Though US Violent Crime Rate Has Dropped 75% In 30 Years, Now This

Posted by Peter Quennell

Breaking news: Guede leaving prison, doing community service during rest of term, for “social re-integration”. Decided by Rome supervisory court at request of Guede lawyer Ballarini. His “tell-all” book said to be step closer, Knox acting frantic.

1. Re the YouTube: There’s More…

After 17 years of zero executions by the Federal Government, suddenly we get this.

Click for Post:  Eighth federal execution of the year set for Thursday

Click for Post:  U.S. carries out 8th federal execution of 2020

Click for Post:  DOJ set to execute five [more] federal prisoners before Inauguration Day

Click for Post:  U.S. To Continue Executions Through Transition In Break With Precedent

2. So, A Question…

For the Knox sycophants: Where would YOU want to be tried?

Monday, October 12, 2020

Another Sollecito Fail: Court Says NO Malpractice By 20 Prosecutors & Judges

Posted by Peter Quennell

Genoa Courthouse

1. Genoa Court Smacks RS Down

Amanda Knox’s delusions of grandeur sail on, for now, but RS’s have taken a third big knock.

(1) Back in June 2017 we posted this report: “Sollecito Loses [Rome] Supreme Court Appeal Against Florence Court Ruling Refusing $0.55M Damages Claim”.

(2) And last year he and his fatuous co-writer Andrew Gumbel lost big to Dr Mignini in a Florence court for defamations in Sollecito’s book. They had to pay substantial damages and sign a document admitting they had lied in the book. 

(3) And now with Bongiorno’s and Maori’s seemingly incompetent legal help (they have yet to win in a single court that was not bent) Sollecito sued for malpractice some 20 of the prosecutors and judges in the case.

Unsurprisingly, the names of the judges in the failed 2011 first appeal and the successful 2015 Supreme Court appeal (all of whom were bent) did not appear on the list.

For these two main reasons Sollecito has lost once again:

(a) Because he (and Knox) had obstructed justice and told numerous lies to prosecutors and police in the days after Meredith’s death.

(b) Because all twenty judges and prosecutors named had diligently followed the rules and there had been no malpractice at all.

The lead judge was Pietro Spera. This was only the second case to occur under the recently enacted civil liability law.

Sollecito is reported in the Italian media as owing his lawyers nearly $1 million in fees (E660,000) though he may be able to argue that they advised him badly and took the several cases on spec.

Sollecito is said to owe his father a substantial sum, and his inherited properties are reported as being mortgaged to the hilt.

Tellingly, Knox of course has initiated only one suit of her own: the “appeal” to the European Court of Human Rights, for half a million Euros or so. 

Knox was awarded E15,000 or so, but wrongly, because her appeal was laden with lies and the hard-pressed ECHR judges in Strasbourg bought some of them.

Knox has never sued Italy for damages for wrong imprisonment. Also unsurprisingly, as that would draw attention to a fact she incessantly hides: that she is a rightly convicted felon for life.

2. First Details Of RS’s Claims

This reporting by Il Giornale is among the first. There will be a written judges’ report detailing the Sollecito team charges against the 20 and why they failed.

While the Giornale reporter Rosa Scognamiglio has done quite a good job, she is wrong to imply that Guede acted alone; that was not the final ruling of the Supreme Court.

Having been jailed while innocent, Sollecito still owes over €600,000 to his lawyers

Raffaele Sollecito, convicted and then acquitted for the murder of Meredith Kercher, still owes 660,000 euros to his defense team Bongiorno and Maori.

Four years of detention, trials and appeals were not enough to mark the end of the sentences for Raffaele Sollecito, finally acquitted by the Court of Cassation in 2015 for the murder of the English student Meredith Kercher, murdered in an apartment in Perugia on November 1st 2007 by the Ivorian Rudy Guede.

Today, 13 years after the start of the judicial ordeal that first convicted him and then cleared him of the charge of complicity in murder, the computer engineer originally from Giovinazzo (Bari) still carries the waste of the troubled procedural process. “Slag” translates into debts and outstanding payments towards his lawyers Giulia Bongiorno and Luca Maori for an amount of 636,212.23 euros.

The cause of the debt is the costs of a long legal battle in which Sollecito not only had to prove his extraneousness to the events in Perugia but also to fight for compensation for “unjust detention”.

In 2017, the Court of Appeal of Florence rejected the 37-year-old’s request for a monetary refund for the sensational judicial error that had overwhelmed him ten years earlier.

“There is an unjust detention given the acquittal of the plaintive - the judges of the third criminal section explained - but he himself contributed to causing it with his own willful or grossly negligent conduct”.

His poor conduct, wrote the magistrates, “consisted in making to the judicial police, investigators, and judges, particularly in the initial stages of the investigations, contradictory or even frankly false statements, which were also found to be such in the assessment inncluded in the confirming verdict of Cassation”.

After which failure, Sollecito tried another path, in suing the judges who convicted him. He could do this in the context of the “Vassalli law” on the civil liability of magistrates for “gross negligence and/or willful misconduct”.

His lawyers, Giulia Bongiorno and Luca Maori, had asked the Genoa court for 3.6 million euros for material and non-material damages.

The process played out in a Genoa court since, as Marco Preve explains well in an article in La Repubblica, the Ligurian capital has jurisdiction over judicial matters involving Florentine magistrates, and the Florence Court of Appeal was the one that convicted Sollecito and his ex-girlfriend Amanda Knox before the final acquittal.

Sollecito’s defense team had highlighted how the client had been found guilty and locked up in prison for “multiple misrepresentations of facts and evidence”.

Nonetheless, the court of Genoa sent the request back to the sender, arguing that ‘’ such reconstructions - although they may not be agreed with and be criticized - nevertheless demonstrate that the Florence Appeal sentenced them following a fair analysis and argued process..

The claims to the Genoa court had included this: that the psychological strains of the stormy judicial affair involving the 37-year-old are still being felt. Sollecito’s claims are attached to the documents of the Genoa court judgment.

“He will have to take drugs for the rest of his life for an anxious-depressive syndrome, difficulty concentrating, sleep disturbances, hypervigidity [this may mean hypervigilance], ease of crying, despair, low self-esteem, and extensive and extreme, behavioral isolation.”

Not to mention the costs of legal fees, E400 thousand already paid by mortgaging family properties, and the balance due to the legal team: E330,189.21 to the lawyer Bongiorno and E336,022.92 to the lawyer Maori.

In short, in addition to the damage also an insult. A very barbed joke.

As with Sollecito’s failed damages claim (see point (1) above) his team could appeal the Genoa court outcome to the Supreme Court

Good luck with that.