Category: 17 Fake memory hoax

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

The Amanda Knox Calunnia Trial In Florence: What It Is All About #1

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above: Florence Prosecutor Dr Leopoldo Di Girolamo. Quick route to Comments here.

1. Arrangements For Knox Trial In Florence

Knox’s second trial for aggravated calunnia will take place later this week and early next week in Florence.

For the record the sentence for a repeat calunnia offense can be six years and the statute of limitations cuts in at 11 year and three months which in this case will be late in AD 2020.

The real drama if any will be next week, when witnesses are to be called starting on Monday. We should have some court reporting from Main Poster Machiavelli. There is the possibility of a closed court and a verdict on Tuesday.

We believe the judge will be Dr Giampaolo Boninsegna. We presume that Knox will not attend (perhaps a weak move, perhaps not).

Two prosecutors have developed the case which was sparked by complaints from investigators in the Perugia central police station. They are Dr Leopoldo Di Girolamo (image above) and Dr Angela Pietroiusti. We could see either or both of them in action.

It appears now that knox’s lawyers will again be Ghirga and Dalla Vedova, who some lawyers criticise for dropping her in it at trial with an ill-judged stint on the stand after 20 months of trying to stop Knox dropping herself in it.

2. Why Knox Was On The Stand in 2009

Knox’s team primarily primarily intended that Knox’s two days on the stand should serve to explain why she framed Patrick and then allowed him to languish in prison.

Both publicly to the media and at the Micheli hearings in late 2008 Knox’s lawyers had denied she was ill-treated or forced into a “confession”. So why was Knox put on the stand?

Probably in part because Knox absolutely insisted on it, given her considerable track record of written and spoken explanations and her interrogation in December 2007 by Dr Mignini. Each time a fail, but perhaps she had in mind the movie Groundhog Day.

And probably in part because the prosecution portion of the trial had been pretty damning. There had been stacks of evidence and numerous witnesses whose testimony fitted together pretty seamlessly.

Contrast this with the defense portion of the trial, from late summer onward, which was often awkward and hesitant, often did not fill complete court days, and really gained no ground back.

3. The Knox Defense Team’s Uphill Task Here

Bizarrely, Knox AND her lawyers AND her family had already sat through days and days of testimony earlier in the trial from various investigators who were present on 5-6 November when Knox explosively fingered Patrick.

Knox’s testimony was like night and day compared to that, as if none of that previous testimony had even happened. This was probably unique in Italian legal history and quite possibly in US legal history also.

Our ongoing Interrogation Hoax series, still far from complete, which has included a lot of new translation, showed what a very consistent picture of events on 5-6 Nov all these witnesses testified to.

Testimony led by Knox’s team (see below) was quite extensive but it tellingly wandered far from the main point and was very pussyfooting about 5-6 Nov even though Knox was not under oath and prosecutor cross-examination was circumscribed. It really won no points for Knox at all and didnt avoid her serving three years.

To consider the target testimony below against the picture the court had already developed, please read at least Part One of the series.

Look below as you read for all the numerous claims by Knox of illegal pressure and illegal abuse and illegal insistence of scenarios and names given to her by the cops.

According to the prior testimony of all those officers Knox is impugning, none of these claims of illegality seemingly designed to hurt careers had any truth at all to them.

4. Day One of Knox’s Testimony

Day two’s testimony will follow in our next post. Excerpts in both posts are from the full transcript on the Case Wiki, and all transcription and translation into English (a massive task) was by the PMF Team.

Relevant Questions By Lumumba Lawyer Pacelli

Here AK is Knox, CP is Pacelli, and GCM is Judge Massei.

CP:  Listen, let’s get to the evening of November 1. On the evening of November 1, 2007, did you have an appointment with Patrick near the basketball court?
GCM:  (Interrupting the interpreter who is putting this question into English for Amanda) Excuse me, excuse me. Also for the interpreter, also the English translation, everything is for everyone, this is not a dialogue between two people.
CP:  I’ll ask a simpler question, Presidente.
GCM:  No no, we heard it. Please, go ahead. (The interpreter translates the question)
AK:  No, I didn’t.
CP:  So, on the evening of November 1, you didn’t meet Patrick?
AK:  No.
CP:  You didn’t meet him at the basketball court?
AK:  No.
CP:  Then why did you say you met him at the basketball court during your interrogation of November 6, 2007, at 1:45 in the morning in front of the judicial police?
AK:  It was a complicated situation. I can explain it if you want me to go into it.
CP:  Yes, yes, later.
AK:  Okay.
CP:  You had the keys of the apartment in via della Pergola?
GCM:  Excuse me, avvocato, she was saying something.
CP:  Sorry. Please, go ahead.
GCM:  She was adding something. Please go ahead. You can answer…
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  ...with all the time and the precision that you need.
AK:  Okay.
GCM:  (addressing the interpreter) Tell her that if she wants to add something, as it seemed she did, she can do it, and we will listen. (Interpreter puts this into English)
AK:  Yes. Um, the interrogation process was very long and difficult. Arriving in the police office, I didn’t expect to be interrogated at all. When I got there, I was sitting on my own doing my homework, when a couple of police officers came to sit with me. They began to ask me the same questions that they had been asking me days…all these days ever since it happened. For instance, who could I imagine could be the person who killed Meredith, and I said I still didn’t know, and so what they did is, they brought me into another interrogation room. Once I was in there, they asked me to repeat everything that I had said before, for instance what I did that night. They asked me to see my phone, which I gave to them, and they were looking through my phone, which is when they found the message. When they found the message, they asked me if I had sent a message back, which I didn’t remember doing. That’s when they started being very hard with me. They called me a stupid liar, and they said that I was trying to protect someone. (Sigh) So I was there, and they told me that I was trying to protect someone, but I wasn’t trying to protect anyone, and so I didn’t know how to respond to them. They said that I had left Raffaele’s house, which wasn’t true, which I denied, but they continued to call me a stupid liar. They were putting this telephone in front of my face going “Look, look, your message, you were going to meet someone”. And when I denied that, they continued to call me a stupid liar. And then, from that point on, I was very very scared, because they were treating me so badly and I didn’t understand why. (Sigh) While I was there, there was an interpreter who explained to me an experience of hers, where she had gone through a traumatic experience that she could not remember at all, and she suggested that I was traumatized, and that I couldn’t remember the truth. This at first seemed ridiculous to me, because I remembered being at Raffaele’s house. For sure. I remembered doing things at Raffaele’s house. I checked my e-mails before, then we watched a movie. We had eaten dinner together, we had talked together, and during that time I hadn’t left his apartment. But they were insisting upon putting everything into hourly segments, and since I never look at the clock, I wasn’t able to tell them what time exactly I did everything. They insisted that I had left the apartment for a certain period of time to meet somebody, which for me I didn’t remember, but the interpreter said I probably had forgotten. (Sigh)...
AK:  So what ended up happening was, that they told me to try to remember what I apparently, according to them, had forgotten. Under the amount of pressure of everyone yelling at me, and having them tell me that they were going to put me in prison for protecting somebody, that I wasn’t protecting, that I couldn’t remember, I tried to imagine that in some way they must have had…it was very difficult, because when I was there, at a certain point, I just…I couldn’t understand (Start of 15:19 minute video segment) why they were so sure that I was the one who knew everything. And so, in my confusion, I started to imagine that maybe I was traumatized, like what they said. They continued to say that I had met somebody, and they continued to put so much emphasis on this message that I had received from Patrick, and so I almost was convinced that I had met him. But I was confused.
CP:  But—did you really meet him at the basketball court?
AK:  No.
CP:  Then how could you be convinced that you had met him?
AK:  I was confused.
CP:  When you said this, how many police inspectors were present?
AK:  I don’t know how many were police officers or inspectors, but there were lots.
CP:  Listen, but you were accompanied to the bar, they offered you a cappuccino over the night? They assisted you through the night?
AK:  I was offered tea after I had made declarations.
CP:  So they treated you well.
AK:  No!

On November 6, 2007, at 1:45, you said that you went to the house in via della Pergola with Patrick. Did you go?
AK:  The declarations were taken against my will. And so, everything that I said, was said in confusion and under pressure, and, because they were suggested by the public minister.
CP:  Excuse me, but at 1:45, the pubblico ministero was not there, there was only the judicial police.
AK:  Ha. They also were pressuring me.
CP:  I understand, but were they telling you to say that, too, or did you say it of your own free will.
AK:  They were suggesting paths of thought. They were suggesting the path of thought. They suggested the journey. So the first thing I said, “Okay, Patrick”. And then they said “Okay, where did you meet him? Did you meet him at your house? Did you meet him near your house?” “Euh, near my house, I don’t know.” Then my memories got mixed up. From other days, I remembered having met Patrick, at Piazza Grimana, so I said “Okay, Piazza Grimana.” It wasn’t as if I said “Oh, this is how it went.”

GCM:  Please go ahead, avvocato.
CP: —which is the object of both declarations, the one at 1:45 and the one at 5:45. (Crossing voices.)
GCM:  It was about facts, though?
CP:  All right, I’ll reformulate the question. Meredith, before she was killed, did she have sex?
AK:  I don’t know.
CP:  Then why, in the interrogation of Nov 6 at 1:45, did you say that Meredith had sex before she died?
AK:  Under pressure, I imagined lots of different things, also because during the days that I was being questioned by the police, they suggested to me that she had been raped.
CP:  And the police suggested to you to say this?
AK:  Yes.
CP:  And to make you say this, did they hit you?
AK:  Yes.

CP:  When you wrote the memorandum, were you hit by police?
AK:  When?
CP:  When you wrote the memorandum. Were you hit by police?
AK:  No.
CP:  Mistreated?
AK:  No.
CP:  Did the police suggest the contents?
AK:  No.
CP:  You gave it to them freely?
AK:  Yes.
CP:  Voluntarily?
AK:  Yes.
CP:  Listen, in this memorandum, you say that you confirm the declarations you made the night before about what might have happened at your house with Patrick. Why did you freely and spontaneously confirm these declarations?
AK:  Because I was no longer sure what was my imagination and what was real. So I wanted to say that I was confused, and that I couldn’t know. But at the same time, I knew I had signed those declarations. So I wanted to say that I knew I had made those declarations, but I was confused and not sure.
CP:  But in fact, you were sure that Patrick was innocent?
AK:  No, I wasn’t sure.
CP:  Why?
AK:  Because I was confused! I imagined that it might have happened. I was confused.

CP:  Did you see Patrick on November 1, yes or no?
AK:  No.
CP:  Did you meet him?
AK:  No.
CP:  Then why did you say that you saw him, met him, and walked home with him?
AK:  Because the police and the interpreter told me that maybe I just wasn’t remembering these things, but I had to try to remember. It didn’t matter if I thought I was imagining it. I would remember it with time. So, the fact that I actually remembered something else was confusing to me. Because I remembered one thing, but under the pressure of the police, I forced myself to imagine another. I was confused. I was trying to explain this confusion, because they were making me accuse someone I didn’t want to accuse.

Relevant Questions By Knox Lawyer Ghirga

CP:  I’ll repeat my question. On the 10th, you said to your mother: “It’s my fault that he’s here. I feel terrible.” Why didn’t you say this to the pubblico ministero?
LG?:  I object! He’s already asked this question. And it was answered.
GCM:  Yes. It was already asked.
CP:  Yes, but she hasn’t answered!
LG?:  Yes, she HAS answered!
CP:  Can she answer? I didn’t understand.
GCM:  Excuse me, excuse me. Please.
CP:  I didn’t understand her answer, President. Can you explain?
GCM:  So, the question was asked and has been asked again because—
CP:  (speaking over him) Because I didn’t understand the answer!
GCM: —the defense lawyer has not understood why—in what regards the police, the accused has said that when they came to bring her paper, they said “Oh, another truth,” so her relations with them were such that she did not feel that she could tell them this circumstance. It remains to ask why she did not tell the pubblico ministero. This is what the lawyer is asking. For what concerns the police, we have heard her position and her answer. We’re talking about the period after the 10th of November, when this conversation with the mother was recorded. In what concerns the pubblico ministero, the lawyer is asking you why you didn’t feel the necessity, like with your mother, of telling him that Patrick Lumumba, as far as you were concerned, had nothing to do with all this.
AK:  We are talking about when I was in front of the judge?
GCM:  After the 10th of November.
AK:  Frankly, I didn’t have good relations with the police after that period, nor with the pubblico ministero, because he also had suggested declarations that got written down in the declarations. I didn’t know where to turn. I felt better talking to my defense than to the police.

LG:  All right, I’ve exhausted this topic. Now, I said we were just coming to the evening when you were called in, or rather when Raffaele was called in to the Questura on Nov 5. Where did you come from? Were you having dinner somewhere? Do you remember?
AK:  We were at the apartment of a friend of his, who lived near his house, and we were having dinner with them, trying, I don’t know, to feel a bit of normality, when Raffaele was called by the police.
LG:  Okay. So you went with him in the car, and you came in and they settled you somewhere, and later you were heard.
AK:  Yes. What happened is that they weren’t expecting me to come. I went somewhere a bit outside near the elevator, and I had taken my homework with me, so I started to do my homework, and then I needed to do some “stretching”, so I did some “stretching”, and that’s when one policeman said something about my flexibility. A comment.
LG:  Okay. Then you were interrogated, let’s say interrogated, it was just for information. So you were interrogated.
AK:  Mm.
LG:  During the interrogation, there were several people in the room, did someone come who was involved in Raffaele Sollecito’s interrogation? He was being interrogated in one place, you in another.
AK:  So, there were lots and lots of people who came in and went out, and after one had come in and gone out, another policewoman told me that Raffaele said that I went out of the apartment—at least, Raffaele apparently said that I (stammering) had gone out of his house.
LG:  Okay. And the episode of the text message came later? After this person came in and said that? You don’t remember?
AK:  Yes, yes. I think it happened after they told me that.
LG:  Now what interests me is that you should be precise about the term “hit”, because being hit is something…was it a cuff on the head, two cuffs on the head? How precise can you be about this “hitting”?
AK:  So, during the interrogation, people were standing all around me, in front of me, behind me, one person was screaming at me from here, another person was shouting “No no no, maybe you just don’t remember” from over there, other people were yelling other things, and a policewoman behind me did this to me (you hear the sound of her giving two very little whacks).
LG:  Once, twice?
AK:  Twice. The first time I did this, I turned around to her, and she did it again.
LG:  I wanted to know this precise detail.
AK:  Yes.
LG:  After all that, that whole conversation, that you told us about, and you had a crying crisis, did they bring you some tea, coffee, some cakes, something? When was that exactly?
AK:  They brought me things only after I had made some declarations. So, I was there, they were all screaming at me, I only wanted to leave because I was thinking that my mother was arriving, and I said look, can I have my telephone, because I want to call my mom. They said no, and there was this big mess with them shouting at me, threatening me, and it was only after I made declarations that they started saying “No, no, don’t worry, we’ll protect you,” and that’s how it happened.
LG:  Then you stayed in the Questura?
AK:  Yes.
LG:  Then, at midday, or one o’clock, we don’t know exactly, they brought you a paper called an arrest warrant. When they served you this warrant, it must have been around twelve, one o’clock. Do you remember?
AK:  So, all papers they brought me to sign, at that point, they were all the same to me, so I can’t even say what I had to sign, arrest warrant, declarations, whatever, because at a certain point, I just wanted to sign and go home.
LG:  Right. But instead?
AK:  Instead, no. After a while they told me I had to stay in the Questura, so I had to stay, and I rolled up in a fetal position to try to sleep, on a chair, and I fell asleep, then I woke up, and I was there thinking and some people were going in and out, and during this period of time, I was telling them: “Look, I am really confused, these things don’t seem like what I remember, I remember something else.” And they said “No no no no no, you just stay quiet, you will remember it all later. So just stay quiet and wait, wait, wait, because we have to check some things.” And at that point I just didn’t understand anything. I even lost my sense of time.
LG:  And I wanted to ask you after how long they took you to prison. At some point there was a car, a police wagon that took you to prison. After how much time was that? You don’t know?
AK:  Well, I can’t say, but what I can say is that I stayed a while in the Questura, and during that time I kept trying to explain to the police that what I had said was not certain, and they took my shoes during that time and they took some pictures, they undressed me to take the pictures, and so it seemed like a long time.
LG:  So it was between this time and the time you went to prison that you wrote the memorial?
AK:  Yes. I wrote it there because, I asked to do it because I was telling them “Listen, you’re not hearing me, give me a piece of paper, and I’ll write this down in English to be sure you understand what I’m saying.” But I couldn’t really say that. I just said “Look, I’ll give you a present.” (Laughs.) It was because I wasn’t really able to speak or understand then. So I wrote that, but after I wrote the first pages, I was in the middle of writing this memorandum, they suddenly said “Hurry up, hurry up, finish because we have to take you to prison.” I stayed there like…I didn’t expect to go to prison, I thought maybe I hadn’t understood. I asked the policemen, the people who were around me, there, “But Why? I haven’t done anything.” And they said “No, it’s just bureaucracy. At least that’s what I understood.
LG:  All right Amanda, okay. Thank you. So you went to prison and spent the night. When did you write the second memorial?
AK:  So in prison I again asked for paper, because that’s how I’m used to expressing myself, the way I succeed best, also to organize my thoughts, I needed to write them down. I needed to reorganize all my thoughts, because at that point I was still confused, I still had these images in my memory that finally I understood were a mixture of real images in my memory from other days mixed with imagination. So I needed those pieces of paper, so I could take everything and put it in order.
LG:  All right, I’ve finished the subject of the night in the Questura. When you made your first declaration, it was without the pubblico ministero. Then he came. Can you tell us if there was some discussion about a lawyer? If you remember, and whatever you remember.
AK:  So, before they asked me to make further declarations—I really can’t tell you what time it was, I was lost after hours and hours of the same thing—but at one point I asked if I shouldn’t have a lawyer? I thought that, well, I didn’t know, but I’ve seen things like this on television. When people do things like this they have lawyer. They told me, at least one of them told me that it would be worse for me because it would prove that I didn’t want to collaborate with the police. So they told me no.

Amanda Knox’s first letter of Nov 9, 2007

This letter was entered in testimony by Knox’s lawyers on the first day. It was written by Knox to her lawyers around noon on Friday, Nov., 9, three days after her arrest and one day after the Matteini Hearing. Words that are missing from the scan are shown in square brackets.

Presumably intended to help Knox, it has now become part of her problem.

Per I Miei Avvocati

- Amanda Knox (Friday, Nov. 9, 2007)

Buon giorno Signore Ghirga e Signore Vedova. I’m sorry, but I must write in english to make sure I express myself (cl)early. Please excuse my handicap. I trust you are well, though probably very busy with my case and for this I thank you. What I want to provide for you now is help, because I know my position (is) a little confusing. I want to write for you everything I know as best I can and I especially want to tell you about this so-called “confession” that the police received from me. I want to begin with this “confession” because I know it is the most confusing, and so I will begin with that night.

The night of Monday, November 5th, 2007, and the following early morning of Tuesday, November 6th, 2007, was one of the worst experiences of my life, perhaps the worst. Around 10:30pm or 11pm Raffaele and I arrived at the police station after eating dinner at the apartment of one of Raffaele’s friends. It was Raffaele who the police called, not me, but I came with him to the Questura anyway while he was to be questioned for support, as he had done for me many times. When we arrived he was taken inside and I waited by the elevator and looked through my books while I waited. Not long aftwerward one of the police came and sat by me, wanting to talk with me, supposedly to pass the time. He didn’t tell me he was a police officer. In fact, he said I could tell him whatever I wanted because it wouldn’t matter. At the time I was frustrated and told him so. I thought it was ridiculaous that the police called us in at ridiculous hours of the night and kept us at the police station for hours on end with only vending maschine (sic) food to sustain us, especially since we (wer)e all doing our best to help the police. I had been asked twice to reenter the home of my neighbors and mine, first to witness the blood in the neighbors’ apartment and then to look through (k)nives in mine. I really feared the place. Inside my own home I broke down crying because I couldn’t stand to be inside. These were the reasons for my frustration and I told him so.

He then wanted to discuss who I thought the murderer could be, but as I had already told them before, since I wasn’t there at my home, I couldn’t have any idea, but (deleted words) he wasn’t satisfied with my answer. Who did I think it was? How would I know? I didn’t know anyone dangerous. Soon I was joined by other police people who only wanted to “talk” but who interrogated me again with the same questions. What males had ever been in my house? Who knew Meredith? Did I have any phone numbers? I gave them all the information I could. Names, phone numbers, descriptions. But it was all giving me a headache. I had already answered these questions before and I was confused as to why the police wanted so much to talk to me. Why me? Why did they keep asking me who I thought the murderer was when I already told them I had no idea?

And then they brought me inside, because it was “warmer”. I (asked) where Raffaele was and they told me he would be done soon (but) in the meantime they wanted to talk to me. The interrogation process started rather quickley (sic). One minute I was just (tal?)king and the next they were asking me where I was between (?):30pm and 1:30am between November (1st) and 2nd. I told them I was with my boyfriend, like I had already said. They asked me what I had done during this time period and I found that I couldn’t remember a lot. I told them (we) watched the movie Amelie together, that we ate dinner (tog)ether, that after dinner Raffaele washed the dishes and spilled water on the floor when the pipes came loose. I told them that (we) smoked hash somewhere in that time but I couldn’t remember (mo)re. They told me I was lying. They told me they knew I had (not) been with Raffaele. They told me they knew I met someone that night. They told me they had proof I was at my house that night. This really confused me. I told them I wasn’t lying and (the)y began to get angry. Stop telling lies, they told me. We know (you) were there! But this didn’t make sense. I was frightened, because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I did during the time (the)y were asking me. What were you doing?! Where did you go?! We (kno)w you were at your house!! Who did you meet?! But this all (did)n’t make any sense. How could they have proof that I was at my (hou)se when I wasn’t? Why did they think these things? Why me? They told me Raffaele had finally told the truth and that he had no (rea)son to lie. They told me that they knew I had told Raffaele to (lie?) and I told them this wasn’t true. I had never told him any (suc)h thing. We talked about the message I received from Patrik (and) I told them yes, I received a message from Patrik, he told me (not) to go into work that night because there was no one there. I (did)n’t remember if I had sent a message back, so I said no, but they (had) taken my phone and showed me the message I forgot I sent: (ending?) with the words, “Ci vediamo. Buona serata.” They called me a (stu)pid lier. They said I was protecting someone, who was it?! (The)y stuck pieces of paper in front of me, to write down the name (of) the murder, but I didn’t know. And I still couldn’t remember (wha)t me and Raffaele had been doing at his house. I had nothing to (say?) to answer their questions and it was terrifying me. Why couldn’t (I r)emember. The interpretor told me that one time she experienced (a ho)rrible car accident and couldn’t remember what had happened (unt)il a year later. She told me perhaps I had seen something (horr)ible and I couldn’t remember. Since I couldn’t remember (wha)t I had been doing at Raffaele’s house I started to think what (...?) was true? What if I had seen something and I didn’t (rem)ember? But it didn’t make sense. I remembered being (at) Raffaele’s the whole night. But in the meantime the police were (...?) or they were going to put me in jail for (...?) (p)rotecting the killer. They told me they had already caught the killer (a)nd they just wanted me to say his name, but I knew nothing. My (m)ind was a blank slate. Now, now, now!!! They were yelling at me. One (p)olice officer hit me on the back of my head twice. My head was (s)earching for any answer. I was really confused. I thought I was at my boyfriend’s house, but what if it wasn’t true? What if I couldn’t remember? I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn’t remember anything until all of the police officers left the room except one. He (to)ld me he was the only one who could save me from spending the (n)ext 30 years in jail and I told him I couldn’t remember. I asked to see the message on my phone to see if I remembered sending that (an)d when I saw the message my mind thought of Patrik. It was all I could think of, Patrik. I imagined meeting him by the basketball (cou)rts, I imagined him in front of my house, I imagined covering my ears to stop the sound of Meredith’s screaming, and so I said (Pa)trik. I said Patrik and I regret every second of it because now I (k)now that what I have said has done someone harm that I have no idea whether he was involved or not.

After I said his name I was hysterical. I was weeping, (s)cared of what could have happened to me. I honestly thought (t)his could have been the answer. I was so confused. They told me that they had to write all of this down but I told them I wasn’t (s)ure. So they told me just to say what I had said, that I had seen (Pat)rik. That I had heard Meredith screaming. I told them I was (c)onfused, unsure, but they weren’t interested. While they were writing my so-called “confession”, which the didn’t call it (t)o me, they asked me to say if it was okay to write certain things. I (d)dn’t explain, but just said yes or no according to what these (im)ages of Patrik were showing me, but I always told them I wasn’t (su)re, these things didn’t seem real. They asked me why he had done (thi)s and I didn’t know why. Why would anyone kill another person? I told them he must be crazy. They asked me if I feared him and I (sa)id yes. I was so confused and the idea that he would kill someone (fr)ightened me. But I had never been frightened of him before, he has (al)ways been kind to me. After all of this I was allowed to sleep, (fi)nally. The whole thing was going through my head and I felt (aw)ful, to even think I could have been involved. But the more (confu)sed I became, the more sure I was that these ideas about Patrik (w)eren’t true, but I still couldn’t remember what I had been (do)ing at my boyfriend’s house after dinner.

I seriously started to doubt when the police told me what my boyfriend had said. (1) First, that when I received the message from (Pat)rik, that I had told him I had to leave to go to work. This I (k)new, even then, wasn’t true. I remembered and still do specifically (th)at I had told him I _didn’t_ have to work and I kissed him and (...)

(...) said, “Yay!” (2) I also never told him to lie for me. Why would he lie? Could he have lied about me not being there too? I was especially troubled by this because even though I had thought of Patrik, I still remembered being at Raffaele’s house. I told the police of my doubts but they said not to worry, little by little, I would remember. So I waited.

I tried writing what I could remember for the police, because I’ve always been better at thinking when I was writing. They gave me time to do this. In this message I wrote about my doubts, my questions, and what I knew to be true.

(Deleted words) During this time I was checked out by medics (and?) had my picture taken as well as more copies of my fingerprints. They took my shoes and my phone. I wanted to go home but they told me to wait and then eventually that I was to be arrested. Then I was taken here, to the prison, in the last car of three who carried Patrik, then Raffaele, and then me to prison.

I hope this clears up some confusion for you and I’m sorry again that it is in English. I hope you are in contact with my mother and if you are, could you please tell her I love her, that I miss her, that I’m okay, and that I hope to see her soon.

I also just received the order of arrest and it says I must remain here in prison for one year. I’m assuming this means only if they can prove I did it or not. So I’m not sad, I just have to wait until they prove I’m not guilty, and that I wasn’t there.

I want to write another message for you which describes my version of events that at this time I remember very well. This I will do on a different piece of paper and a little later because I’m very tired.

Good luck and thanks,
Amanda Knox
quasi mezzogiorno
Venerdi, Novembre 9, 2007

Part 2 (Day Two) in our next post.

Friday, June 26, 2015

What No-Show Amanda Knox SHOULD Have Emailed Judge Nencini As Truthful Testimony in December 2013

Posted by Chimera

As the real thing really didnt work any better for Knox…


As is well known, Amanda Knox refused to attend her own appeal in Florence in 2013/2014.

This was a defence appeal by Knox herself and Sollecito against the 2009 conviction by Judge Giancarlo Massei’s trial court.  It was not a new trial, or a retrial, or even a prosecution appeal. It was an appeal DEMANDED by Knox and Sollecito.

While Knox refused to attend, she did send a long, rambling email to Lead Judge Nencini.  Judge Nencini tartly read out the email in court, and remarked that she could have delivered this in person and answered questions if she wanted it credibly on the record - after all, Sollecito was sitting right there and not scared out of his wits.

Kudos to fellow main posters Finn MacCool and SeekingUnderstanding for their original and well done posts on this ‘‘submission’‘

With a bit of fact checking, Knox’s email could have looked to the court and the media more like this.  Enjoy.

Court of Appeals of Florence section II Assise Proc. Pen, 11113

Letter sent to attorneys Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga via email Seattle, 15 December 2013

Attn: Honorable Court of Appeals of Florence

1. I have no doubt that my lawyers have explained and demonstrated the important facts of this case that prove my innocence and discredit the unjustified accusations of the prosecution and civil parties. I seek not to supplant their work; rather, even though I am not present to take part in this current phase of the judicial process, I feel compelled to share my own perspective as a six””year-long defendant and causation of Meredith’s injustice.

2. The Court has access to my previous declarations, and please disregard that whole ‘‘aggravated calunnia’’ in which Cassation says i framed Patrick to divert attention, or that pending calunnia charge claiming I falsely accused the police to sabotage the court proceedings.  I trust you will not be blinded by these things to come to this verdict.  I must repeat: I am innocent.  Because repeating it will help dissuade you from studying my lies too carefully.

3. According to my lawyers: I am not a murderer, I am not a rapist, I am not a thief or a plotter or an instigator, at least not until Cassation signs off on it. I did not kill Meredith or take part in her murder or have any prior or special knowledge of what occurred that night, (other than screaming, slit throat, and that the body was moved). I was not there for part of the time, and had nothing to do with it.

4. I am not present in the courtroom because I am afraid. Frederico Martini is probably still pissed that I gave him up; the court and jail officials don’t like my book; and I think there is still an open warrant on me for calunnia.  Also, without any employment or housing references, staying here may be tricky.  I have faith in your judgement, but am worried you are so poor a judge you will be blinded my the Prosecution’s vehemence.  I remember Judge Micheli: he was the wise Judge who found Guede guilty; he was the idiot Judge who ordered Raffaele and I to stand trial as accomplices.

5. My life being on the line, at least until I get parole, and having with others already suffered too much, I’ve rehearsed this story and attentively followed this process and gleaned the following facts that have emerged from the development of this case that I beg you not to dismiss when making your judgement:

6. No physical evidence places me in Meredith “˜s bedroom, the scene of the crime, because I define only that as the crime scene.  My DNA mixed with Meredith’s was in the bathroom and Filomena’s room, not Meredith’s.  Those bloody footprints cleaned away were in the hallway, not Meredith’s room.  Raffaele had one knife, and this other was at his flat, neither of which is Meredith’s room.  My lamp on Meredith’s floor had no fingerprints on it, and does not implicate me.  That DNA on Merdith’s bra, and bloody footprint on the bathmat only implicates my alibi witness (who refuses to be questioned), not me.  Those false alibis, false accusations, details I know about the crime, and phone records are not physical evidence, and did not happen in Meredith’s bedroom. Those ‘‘eyewitnesses’’ the Prosecution produced are not forensic evidence, and do not place me in Meredith’s room.

7. Meredith’s murderer left ample evidence of his presence in the brutal scenario, we made sure of that.  Heck, the police couldn’t even find my fingerprints in my own bedroom.

8. No evidence places me in the same brutal scenario, again, which I restrict to Meredith’s bedroom, and only actual physical evidence.  The prosecution has failed to explain how—with these restrictions—I could have participated in the aggression and murder””to have been the one to fatally wound Meredith””without leaving any genetic trace of myself. Just because i spend a lot of time talking about it, and am a C.S.I. fan, doesn’t mean I know how to remove evidence.  That is because it is impossible. It is impossible to identify and destroy all genetic traces of myself in a crime scene and retain all genetic traces of another individual, or so C.S.I. has taught me. Either I was there, or I wasn’t. My analysis of the crime scene answers this question: I wasn’t there.

9. My interrogation was illegal and produced a false “confession” that demonstrated my non-knowledge of the crime- The subsequent memoriali, for which I was wrongfully found guilty of slander, did not further accuse but rather recanted that false “confession.” Yes, I wrote out a false ‘‘confession’’ that accuses someone else.  Just as I testified to the prosecutor in prison and to my family members in prison when our conversations were being recorded without my knowledge. Dammit, give me some privacy.

10. My behavior after the discovery of the murder indicates my innocence, if you think creatively enough. I did not flee Italy when I had the chance, because (in my November 4th email), the police wouldn’t let me leave.  I stayed in Perugia and was at the police’s beck and call trying to think of answers for over 50 hours in four days, convinced that I could help them find the murderer, or at least someone who was ‘‘close enough’‘.  I never thought or imagined that repeatedly changing my story would fuel their suspicions. I did not hide myself or my feelings: when I needed sex, Rafael ‘‘embraced’’ me; when I was scared of being exposed, I cried; when I was angry that it wasn’t working, I swore and made insensitive remarks; when I was shocked, I paced or sat in silence, at least until I could find a new ‘‘best truth’‘; when I was trying to help, I evaded questions, consoled Meredith’s friends, especially her male friends, and tried to keep a positive attitude that this would blow over.

11. Upon entering the questura I had no understanding of my legal position, accompanying Raffaele to a witness summary session which I was not invited to. 20””years old and alone in a foreign country, I was, legally speaking, innocent and never expected to be suspected and subjugated to torture, and I wasn’t. I was told I was a witness, then after I placed myself at the crime scene I was told I was a suspect. I was questioned for a prolonged period in the middle of the night and in Italian, a language I barely knew, and that questioning includes the time I was sleeping or getting tea.  I denied legal counsel- still The Court of Cassation deemed the interrogation and the statements produced from it was inadmissible. In my memoir, WTBH; I was lied to, yelled at, threatened, slapped twice on the back of the head. I told myself I had witnessed the murder and was suffering from amnesia. I told myself that if I didn’t succeed in ‘‘remembering’’ what happened to Meredith that night, I would never see my family again. I browbeat myself into confusion and despair, to sell to the media at a later date. When you berate, intimidate, lie to, threaten, confuse, and coerce someone in believing they are wrong, you are not going to find the truth, but again, that is not what happened here.

12. The police used tea and kindness to coerce me into signing a false “confession” that was without sense and should never have been considered a legitimate investigative lead. In this fragmentary and confused statement the police identified Patrick Lumumba as the murderer because we had exchanged text messages, the meaning of which I let the police wrongfully interpret (”˜Civediamo piu tardi. Buona serata’). The statement lacked a clear sequence of events, corroboration with any physical evidence, and fundamental information like: how and why the murder took place, if anyone else was present or involved, what happened afterward””it supplied partial, contradictory information and as the investigators would discover a little later, when Patrick Lumumba’s defense lawyer produced proof of him incontestable alibi, it was obviously inaccurate and unreliable.  After over 50 hours of rehearsing the questioning over four days, I was mentally exhausted and I was confused.

13. This coerced and illegitimate statement, which I dreamed up, was used by the police to arrest and detain a clearly innocent man with an iron-clad alibi with whom I had a friendly professional relationship, (at least until I destroyed his life). This coerced and illegitimate statement was used to convict me of slander.  Judge Hellmann saw that this statement was coerced, and threw out my calunnia conviction .... I mean he increased the sentence .... never mind.The prosecution and civil parties are accusing and blaming me, a result of their own overreaching.

14. Experience, case studies, and the law recognize that one may be coerced into giving a false"confession” because of torture.  I’m not sure why this applies to my case, but damn, it sure sounds impressive.

15. This is a universal problem. According to the National Registry of Exoneration, in the United States 78% of wrongful murder convictions that are eventually overturned because of exonerating forensic evidence involved false “confessions.” Almost 8 in 10 wrongfully convicted persons were coerced by police into implicating themselves and others in murder. I am not alone: Susan Smith and Casey Anthony ‘‘falsely confessed’’ that other people did it too.  And exonerating forensic evidence is often as simple as no trace of the wrongfully convicted person at the scene of the crime, but rather the genetic and forensic traces of a different guilty party””just like every piece of forensic evidence identifies not me, but Rudy Guide.

16. In the brief time Meredith and I were roommates and friends we never fought.  Roommates, not friends.

17. Meredith was my friend, not that I was her friend. She was kind to me, helpful, generous, fun, and in retrospect, I should have been more of the same.  She never criticized me. She never gave me so much as a dirty look, even as I left the place a mess, and even when I flirted with her boyfriend, or she took my job at the bar.

18. But the prosecution claims that a rift was created between Meredith and I because of cleanliness. This is a distortion of the facts. Please refer to the testimonies of my housemaster and Meredith’s British friends. None of them ever witnessed or heard about Meredith and I fighting, arguing, disliking each other. None of them ever claimed Meredith was a confrontational clean-freak, or I a confrontational slob. Laura Masotho testified that both Meredith and I only occasionally cleaned, whereas she and Filomena Romanelli were more concerned with cleanliness. Meredith’s British friends testified that Meredith had once told them that she felt a little uncomfortable about finding the right words to kindly talk tome, her new roommate, about cleanliness in the bathroom we shared. The prosecution would have you believe this is motivation for murder. But this is a terrifying distortion of the facts, as proving motive it not necessary—anywhere.

19. I did not carry around Rafael’s kitchen knife.  That’s what men are for, to do the lifting for me.

20. This claim by the prosecution, crucial to their theory, is uncorroborated by any physical evidence or witness testimony. I didn’t fear the streets of Perugia and didn’t need to carry around with me a large, cumbersome weapon which would have ripped my cloth book bag to shreds. My book bag showed no signs of having carried a bloody weapon. The claim that he would have insisted I carry a large chef’s knife is not just senseless, but a disturbing indication of how willing the prosecution is to defy objectivity and reason in order to sustain a mistaken and disproven theory.  Yes, i can positively disprove a theory I know nothing about.

21. It is yet another piece of invented “evidence”, another circumstance of theory fabricated to order, because having discovered nothing else, the prosecution could only invent: phone records, false alibis, false statements, false accusations.

22. I had no Contact with Rudy Guide, even though I mention in my book having seen him twice, and a third time in the next paragraph.

23. Like many youth in Perugia, I had once crossed paths with Rudy Guide. He played basketball with the young men who lived in the apartment below us. Meredith and I had been introduced to him together. Perhaps I had seen him amongst the swarms of students who crowded the Perugian streets and pubs in the evenings, but that was it. We didn’t have each other’s phone number, we didn’t meet in private, we weren’t acquaintances. I never bought drugs from Rudy Guide or anyone else. I was having sex with Federico for drugs, which isn’t the same thing.  The phone records show no connection. There are no witnesses who place us together, except my statement here. The prosecution claims I convinced Rudy Guide to commit rape and murder, completely ignoring the fact that we didn’t even speak the same language. He has lived in Perguia for 15 years, and I am a student of Italian. Once again, the prosecution is relying upon a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of distortion of the objective evidence.

24. I am not a psychopath.  That evaluation in 2008 was unfair, as I didn’t get a chance to prepare my spontaneous answers.

25. There is no short list to the malicious and unfounded slanders I have enjoyed over the course of this legal process. In trial, in the media I have been called no less than:

“Conniving; manipulating; man””eater; narcissist; enchantress; duplicitous; adulterer; drug addict; an explosive mix of drugs, sex, and alcohol; dirty; witch; murderer; slanderer; demon; depraved; imposter; promiscuous; succubus; evil; dead inside; pervert; dissolute; a wolf in sheep’s clothing; rapist; thief; reeking of sex; Judas; she-devil;

26. I have never demonstrated anti-social, aggressive, violent, or behavior. Throwing rocks at cars, writing rape stories, and staging break ins are not violent or anti-social.  I am not addicted to sex or drugs.  In fact, Federico Martini hasn’t given me any since I was arrested.  Upon my arrest I was tested for drugs and the results were negative. I am not a split-personality One does not adopt behavior spontaneously.

27. This is a fantasy. This is uncorroborated by any objective evidence or testimony. The prosecution and civil parties created and pursued this character assassination because they have nothing else to show you. They have neither proof, nor logic, nor the facts on their side. They only have their ‘‘evidence’’ against me, and my personal opinions about them. They want you to think I’m a monster because I am telling you they think I am a monster.  it is easy to condemn a monster. It is easy to dismiss a monster’s defense as deception. But the prosecution and civil parties think I’m both severely mistaken and wrong. I have condemned them without proof of wrongdoing, and I seek to convince you to condemn them without proof of wrongdoing.

28. If the prosecution truly had a case against me, there would be no need for these theatrics. Never mind that this is my own appeal, and I ‘‘should’’ be demonstrating why the 2009 trial verdict is unjust.  If I had a case, there would be no need for smoke and mirrors to distract you from the mountains of physical evidence against me. But because this evidence exists that proves my guilt, I would seek to deceive you with these impassioned, but completely inaccurate and unjustified pronouncements. Because I am not a murderer (yet), I would seek to mislead you into convicting me by charging your emotions, by painting me as an innocent until proven guilty, but not as a monster.

29. The prosecution and civil parties are committing injustices against the Kerchers because they cannot bring themselves to admit, even to themselves, that they’ve made a terrible mistake, namely, that the murder was premeditated. Again, it is my own appeal, but they are persecuting me.

30. The Court has seen that the prosecution and civil parties will not hear criticism of their mistakes, by people who won’t attend their appeal.

31. The Court has seen that the prosecution jumped to conclusions at the very start of their investigation: they interrogated and arrested innocent people and claimed “Case Closed"before any evidence could be analyzed, before bothering to check alibis.  As proof of this, they called Raffaele to the police station (at his leisure), to clear up discrepencies in his alibi.  Then when he claimed I lied, Rita Ficarra then asked me for an explanation.  Those brutes!  Then they hauled in Patrick just because in ‘‘confessed’’ several times that he did it.

32. The prosecutor and investigators were under tremendous pressure to solve the mystery of what happened to Meredith as soon as possible. The local and International media was breathing down the necks of these detectives. Their reputations and careers were to be made or broken. In spite of that, they still saw my mistakes. Under pressure, they admitted to as few mistakes as possible and committed themselves to a theory founded upon disproving my mistakes.

33. Had they not jumped to conclusions based on nothing but Raffaele’s changing alibi and my false accusations, they would have discovered definitive and undeniable evidence of not Patrick Lumumba, but of Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito, and Amanda Knox. We would not be here over six years later debating clues my lawyers claim are inconclusive and unreliable.  Had we plead guilty we would have been spared the cost, anguish and suffering, not only of Raffaele’s and my family, but especially of Meredith’s family as well.

34. My accusations are unworthy of judicial or public confidence. In over six years I have failed to provide a consistent, evidence-driven, corroborated theory of the crime, but would nevertheless argue that you should not take my life away. I beg you to see through the ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘reason’’ of what I say. I am innocent. Raffaele is innocent. Meredith and her family deserve the ‘‘truth’‘. Please put an end to this great and prolonged injustice for them.

in faith,

Amanda Marie Knox

 

Monday, September 01, 2014

Knox Interrogation Hoax #12: Hard Proof That In 5-6 Nov Session Knox Merely Built Visitors List

Posted by Our Main Posters

1. What Really Happened on 5-6 November

The introduction to Hoax Post #1 explains what really happened at Knox’s recap/summary session on 5-6 November 2007.

In a sentence: Knox was there unwanted and grumpy, was advised by Inspector Rita Ficarra to go and sleep, refused, agreed to build a list of possible perps (she listed seven, including Guede), spontaneously had a wailing conniption over a mundane text she sent to Patrick, was semi-calmed-down, repeatedly provided refreshments, and insisted on writing three statements without a lawyer; all said she went out on the night of the attack, all framed Patrick, and one even pointed at Sollecito.

2. Hard Proof Knox Worked On The List

This memo above (click on it for the full version) records the main outcome of Rita Ficarra’s 75-minute summary/recap session (defenses conceded it was not an interrogation session) with Knox, with an interpreter and two others present.

Rita Ficarra wrote the memo some hours later, on the evening of 6 November, after she had caught up on some sleep. It is based on a handwritten version Knox painstakingly evolved on a page of her notebook, which she then tore out and handed to Inspector Ficarra. That handwritten page is in evidence too.

The timing here is key.

According to the testimony of Rita Ficarra and the interpreter Anna Donnino, the real work on the list only began around 12:30 after Anna Donnino arrived. It took all or most of the next hour.  Knox obtained all the phone numbers from her mobile phone which she handed over to the others present at several points (those phone numbers are long disused.)

Kristeva kindly did the translation below.

Annotation By Rita Ficarra

On 6 November 2007, at 20.00, in the offices of the Flying Squad of the Questura of Perugia. The undersigned Officer of P.G. [Attorney General], Chief Inspector of the State Police FICARRA Rita, notes that, as part of the investigation of the murder of British citizen Meredith KERCHER,

On the night of November 5th c.a. [current year], at approximately 23.00, while in the Offices of the Questura of Perugia, along with Amanda KNOX, waiting for the same to be heard in regard to the fact for which we are proceeding,

Learned, informally. news related to some male subjects who certainly knew MEREDITH and of whom Amanda gave indications on their respective residences—drawing roads and landmarks in her notebook ““ as well as their mobile phone numbers.

The same [Amanda] extracted these phone numbers from her mobile phone contacts and copied them on a piece of paper torn from her notebook and handed it to the undersigned.

The subjects indicated by Amanda were described as being:

PJ - Peter, a Swiss young man of Swiss nationality who certainly frequented Meredith and who would have surely been several times to their home; this young man dwelled in Via della Pergola, precisely in front of the “Contrappunto” club and close to the stairs and parking lot; mobile phone: 3891531078;

Patrik, owner of the pub “Le chic” where [the same] Amanda works. He too certainly knew Meredith. She was not able to provide an address but indicated that she had often seen him near the “rotonda [roundabout] of Porta Pesa, next to the Laundromat. Mobile phone number: 338719523;

Ardak, North African citizen of whom she gave no other indications other than his mobile phone: 3887972380;

Yuve, Algerian citizen who occasionally worked at “Le Chic” and would have dwelled in Via del Roscetto (near the residence of Sophie) phone; 3203758112

Spyros, young man of Greek nationality of whom Amanda does not give any indications other than the mobile phone: 3293473230

Shaky, Moroccan citizen who would have been working in a “pizzeria” and who frequented the pubs and discotheques frequented by Meredith’s group of friends with whom they met at the pub or discotheque, friend of Sophie;

Lastly she informed of another South African young man, black, short, who plays basketball in the Piazza Grimana court, who would have, in one occasion, frequented the house.

On this occasion, Giacomo-Stefano, Riccardo and Marco (neighbours) were allegedly present, as well as Meredith.  She referred to the fact that Yuve probably knew him, but gave no further information, as she herself, didn’t associate with him.

Amanda, who was also present on this exact occasion, confirmed that she used hashish type drugs with her boyfriend Raffaele, despite what she had said previously.

She claimed that he had previously confessed to taking cocaine and acid in the past, but currently only used “pot”.  In addition, she hinted that Raffaele was experiencing problems with “depression-sadness”.

Furthermore, to get hold of her supply of “pot”, she claimed to have asked her flatmate Laura, who, allegedly, acted as intermediary between her and third parties.

It is noteworthy that the same afternoon, following her detention order and prior to her transfer to Capanne prison, Amanda KNOX asked for some blank paper with the intention of writing a written declaration. This she intended to deliver to the undersigned, before she was moved to prison, and requested that every policeman read it.

Hence, the undersigned received the attached manuscript written in English, by KNOX, and informed her that the manuscript, after being translated into Italian, would be forwarded to the appropriate judicial authority.

3. Subsequent TJMK Reporting On Next Steps

Nest in the list of posts in our interrogation hoax overview these reports should be read.

1. Click for Post: #15: Knox Is Told Her Rights And Repeats Fake Murder Charge

2. Click for Post: #13: The First Two Pre-Trial Opportunities Which Knox Flunked

They cover the first two formal opportunities for Knox to modify or to withdraw her accusation. At the second opportunity, Knox had legal counsel.

It is mandatory in Italy for lawyers to report any claimed abuse of their clients.

It affected Knox’s prospects for years down the road that not only did her lawyers never make such a report; they even announced publicly, in face of incessant further claims by Knox which her family took public, that they had never confirmed she had been abused.

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Knox Interrogation Hoax #5: Key Witness Monica Napoleoni Confirms Knox Self-Imploded 5-6 Nov

Posted by Our Main Posters

[Above: Deputy Police Commissioner Monica Napoleoni as a witness at trial in 2009]

1. Overview of our series on the Knox interrogation hoax

This is a brief summary. Please read the full series here.

Approximately 10 posts will be devoted to the 2009 trial testimony, including Amanda Knox’s, which did her no good, and then another 10 posts to the escalating hoax propagated by Knox and the conspiracy nuts.

Here is a new example just posted by fervid new conspiracy nut Lisa Marie Basile in the Huffington Post.

We should remember that Knox was interrogated for many hours without food or water. She was slapped and screamed at in Italian—a language she barely understood at the time. When the police found her text message (which said the English equivalent of “goodnight, see you another time”) with Lumumba, they psychologically tortured her and coerced her into confessing that he was involved in the murder.

If her text message was sent to anyone else of any race, the same would have occurred. She named him because they named him. More so, false confessions aren’t rare. According to the Innocence Project, “In about 25 percent of DNA exoneration cases, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.”

What total nonsense. None of Lisa Marie Basile’s “facts” here are correct. That leaves nothing of her absurd “she’s innocent but beautiful” theory still standing. This is what actually took place.

2. How Knox helped police with recap/summary 5-6 Nov

Late on 5 November 2007 Senior Inspector Rita Ficarra arrives back at the police station, to find her way blocked by a cartwheeling Knox. She mildly remonstrates. Knox testily responds that she has become sick and tired of the investigation, though she has really been little put-out.

Rita Ficarra suggests she go home and get some sleep. Knox refuses, and stays put.

After a short while Rita Ficarra suggests to Knox that if she really wants to help, she could add to the list of who Meredith knew and who might have visited the house. Knox happily agrees. So they begin on the list.

The entire official team is three often-commiserating ladies, and one man, who holds Knox’s hand.  As the defenses fully acknowledged, this was merely a recap/summary, a simple checking of facts with someone who might be helpful which could have been done on a street corner. It was not a witness or suspect interrogation. Claims that it was are a key part of the great hoax.

During the session, Inspector Napoleoni and a couple of colleagues are seeking facts from Sollecito in a separate wing. Shown conflicts between what he has said and what his phone records show, Sollecito backtracks in a heartbeat and throws Knox under the bus.

Meanwhile Knox calmly produces seven names. No voices were raised until, to the considerable surprise of all others present, Knox has a yelling, head-clutching conniption (the first of three that night). This happens when they come across a text she had sent to someone though she had said she sent no texts. This text said she would see this unnamed person later, at an indefinite time.

Knox in turn throws Patrick under the bus, and later Sollecito. A torrent of accusations against Patrick explodes. The discussion is brought to a halt. Several hours later, Dr Mignini arrives at the police station, and in a second session presides over a reading of Knox’s rights.

At both sessions Knox herself insists on keeping everyone captive while she writes it all out. See the first statement here and the second statement here.  Both times, she is warned she should have a lawyer by her side first. Both times she declines.

In the noon statement Knox included this without any mention of having been coerced: “The questions that need answering, at least for how I’m thinking are… 2. Why did I think of Patrik?”

Here is the relevant part of Inspector Monica Napoleoni’s testimony at the 2009 trial. It was kindly translated by ZiaK. GCM is Judge Massei, who often ensures focus and clarity.

Prosecutor Dr Giuliano Mignini

Dr Mignini [GM]: There, so 6 November, the house was therefore subjected to sequestration, so there were ...

Monica Napoleoni [MN}: Yes, the house, after it was subjected to sequestration, there was Amanda in the Questura when we got back, since the material that was sequestered/confiscated, a lot of it was hers, apart from the keys to the house of the boys on the floor below, that the boyfriend left with Meredith the keys to below, we notified the sequestration to Amanda, at any rate we sequestered the whole building.

GM: There we go; the night between 5 and 6 November. You remember, no?

MN: Certainly.

GM: There now, can you tell us what happened?

MN: We went ahead with the checks. Obviously, of all the depositions [of various witnesses], as I said. No indications of responsibility appeared against [any] others. We took photos from the Internet of the party, for example, of 31 October. We identified the people who we saw in the photos with Amanda. We had begun a series of activities also of telephone interception, obviously.

GCM: Excuse me, in photos with Amanda

MN: Pardon me, yes, with Meredith, yes. We had begun an activity of phone interceptions, in short, against numerous people, also to understand what had happened that night. We had also known, through the consultation of the phone read-outs, for example, that Amanda and Sollecito had had their cellphones inactive that evening. One from 20:35, perhaps Amanda from 20:35 and Sollecito from 20:42. And there was, shall we say, this void of telephone traffic [for] Raffaele Sollecito until 06:02 of the morning.

GM: Of the 2nd [November], therefore?

MN: Of the 2nd. And Amanda, on the contrary, until 12:03, 04 or 07 [PM], I don’t remember [exactly], at any rate when she began trying, shall we say, to catch sight of [sic] or to seek to call Meredith. I don’t know what the first call was. And that, honestly, it seemed strange to us, because Sollecito had always declared that he had woken in the morning, that he had been awoken by Amanda ...

GB: President, excuse me, we are again starting the usual”¦

GCM: Report the declarations only, where they are ...

MN: Well, how should I do, then?

GCM: ... indispensible to do them for the subsequent investigations.

MN: I wanted to say that if Raffaele had slept until ten-thirty or eleven in the morning, how on earth had his telephone been switched on at 06:02?

GCM: So you carried out these investigative activities on the telephone printouts?

MN: That’s why, in the meantime, we had ...

GCM: On the printouts, in relation to these declarations.

MN: Certainly, but on kind of a lot of people, also, obviously, with respect to these declarations, so for that reason even this fact did not add up. Obviously, during those days,  we were always there, we were continuously calling witnesses. That is to say, the English girls, we called them many times. The flatmates, we called them continuously, because [for] every detail we wanted to have a crosscheck, that is, bit by bit, as we advanced with the investigations, it’s normal that we need to re-hear/re-question the witnesses and see if we can manage, in short, to understand/grasp something.

GM: The evening of the 5th [November].

MN: Ah, indeed. In fact, we had decided to call Raffaele Sollecito this time. We had telephoned a colleague from the SCO, it seems to me he called him. Raffaele said he was out to dinner with Amanda, and that he would come to the office after dinner. In fact, he arrived after 22:00 hours, I don’t recall the exact time.

Amanda also came that evening, the evening of the 5th. We said to Amanda that she could go home to rest. Since, during those days, she was always saying, always complaining that she wanted to rest, wanted to eat, we said: “Look, you’ve eaten, you can go and rest yourself. If there’s a need, we’ll call you”.

Instead, she was very nervous, and insisted on staying there, and we kept her ... well, not even in the waiting room, [but] in the entry-hall of the Flying Squad [offices], that is to say, before entering the Flying Squad [offices], outside the lifts, there are some chairs there. The girl sat herself down there.

And I began to examine Raffaele in an S.I.T. [NdT: “sommarie informazione testimone” or brief witness questioning/recap, not full interrogation], together with two colleagues from the SCO in Rome. Then, I remember for example one fact, the same that had struck me [then], that I think I went to get a little bottle of water, something, [and] while I was going out I found Amanda who was doing the splits and cartwheels, in the Questura offices. It’s obvious that all these behaviours, all the contradictions, that is to say, we re-called “¦

GCM: So she was doing”¦

GM: What time was this?

MN: Well, it would be about 11:00 [p.m.]

GM: There you go. And then?

MN: Then we ...

GM: Behaviour of Amanda and Raffaele, but especially of Amanda, the night of 5 to 6 [November] in that period?

MN: For one thing, I point out that it wasn’t me who heard her for the minutes/written record, but it was other colleagues [Rita Ficarra plus several] who heard/questioned her. However, it’s obvious that we”¦ some [of us] left, some entered, some were walking by, that is to say. This is normal. She [Amanda] always had an exaggerated manner.

GCM: In this manner, you said, she was doing the splits, cartwheels, there you go.

MN: She was doing the splits, doing cartwheels.

GCM: Others…?

MN: That is to say, she was laughing. She didn’t have the behaviour of a person ...

GCM: Please.

GM: But this behaviour, did it then change? How did it change, and when did it change?

MN: No, that, however ... Afterwards, I again say…  that is to say, I saw her at intervals, however I was not there while they were taking her minutes/written record. A few times, I maybe went in to get, to bring a coffee, to bring something, however it was not me who was present there the whole time.

GM: However you saw that at a certain point she had begun to cry, you said?

MN: It was already almost at the morning.

GM: Towards what time did that happen?

MN: Well, Raffaele Sollecito’s minutes/written record, I think ““ because we also gave him quite a lot of causes [sic: should be pauses/breaks?] ““ I think we finished with him around three-thirty, three-forty. [With] Amanda, on the contrary, it finished much later. Yes, I also saw that she was crying in the anti-theft office, in effect, where they were examining/questioning her.

GM: Do you remember how she was treated by the staff, whether there were “¦?

MN: Amanda was treated very well. Amanda, she was “¦

GM: ... violence, of ...

MN: But absolutely not! Amanda was given something to drink several times. She was brought hot chamomile, she was taken to the bar of the Questura to eat. First she was given brioches from the little [vending] machine. That is all to say, Amanda was treated well.

GM: So, you, later, you continued the investigations, and never returned to Via della Pergola, no?

MN: No, I ...

Civil Party Attorney Pacelli

CP: Lumumba defence. Listen, I’m referring to the evening of 5 November, precisely, when Amanda came to the offices of the Questura. At what time did she arrive?

MN: They had been out to dinner, she and Raffaele, so for that reason they arrived around 22:15, 22:20 ““ after ten o’clock for sure.

CP: After 22:00.

MN: Yes. Certainly.

CP: She remained, therefore, the whole evening, the whole night of the 5th obviously”¦

MN: Yes, yes.

CP: Also the morning of the 6th. During that period of time, does it seem to you that Miss Amanda was beaten/struck?

MN: Absolutely not. I already explained that earlier.

CP: Yes, no, but I however am in cross-examination. I am asking detailed, precise questions, and I have very few.

MN: No, absolutely not.

CP: Was she, by any chance, therefore, manhandled/beaten up, threatened or insulted?

MN: No, she was treated well. Obviously with firmness, because it’s not as though we were at the cinema, in short, or at the circus ““ even if someone else might think that, we don’t.  With firmness, but with courtesy she was “¦

CP: These methods of treatment, how did they translate into practice? With what behaviour/actions [were they carried out] in actual fact? Earlier, you recalled that they actually brought her something to eat”¦

MN: It’s true. That morning, I remember that Inspector Ficarra actually took her to the bar to eat as soon as it opened. But before [that], we have little [vending] machines on the ground floor, and she was brought water, she was brought hot drinks, she was brought a snack. But also Raffaele, he was given something to drink, it’s not as though they were kept “¦ absolutely.

CP: Yes, yes. But thus we have a firm manner, but with great regard and respect?

MN: Absolutely, yes. Because at any rate we were dealing still with young folk of twenty years of age, that is to say, we never forgot this.

CP: Thank you. Thank you, Doctor [NdT: “Doctor” refers also to graduates, and is a term of respect, not necessarily implying a medical or PhD degree]. I have no other questions, President.

Defence Attorney Bongiorno

GB: You said, precisely, that Amanda was treated very well, taken to the bar, chamomile, etc.

MN: It’s true.

GB: During these interrogations in the Questura, I wanted to know, as regards Sollecito, who had these extremely long interrogations: was Sollecito also taken to the bar? Did he eat?

MN: Sollecito was not taken to the bar, because I did not take him to the bar. However, Sollecito was given “¦ he requested water, [and] he was brought water. He was given numerous pauses/breaks.

GB: Was it said to Sollecito, at a certain point, when you challenged/impugned/questioned him… obviously the interrogation, as we know, went on an extremely long time ... that he could have recourse to a lawyer?

MN: I took him in for the recaps/summary information, and I did not suspend/interrupt the minutes/written record against him.

GB: You didn’t think that a lawyer was necessary?

MN: In that moment, no.

GB: How long did this interrogation last?

MN: We started at 10:40 until three-forty approximately.

GB: Were there objections [NdT: “contestazione” can also mean “formal notice”, e.g. of a charge] in the course of the interrogation?

MN: No, I did not make any objections/[formal notices]. We asked him simply to tell us what had happened that day.

GCM: Excuse me. When you say “10:40”, do you mean 22:40?

MN: 22:40, yes.

GB: So during the course of the interrogation, he did not ... reach/join [the status of] suspect by clues/evidence?

MN: He was not?

GB: You did not make any objections/formal notices?

MN: When we hear someone for recaps/summary information, that is to say, it is normal that we ask them questions, it’s normal, that is to say “¦

GB: Questions, yes. I was asking you if you had made any objections/formal notices.

MN: I asked why on earth he had told us up to that point things that did not correspond to the truth.

GB: And after you asked this question, did you not consider that for Raffaele it would “¦ it was necessary to call a lawyer for Raffaele?

MN: Well, Raffaele Sollecito, already from when he came to the Questura at any rate, no-one ever prevented him from telephoning or from doing what he wanted.

GB: I’m not asking you if he was prevented. You know that it is provided ...

MN: No, I no ...

GB: Excuse me. Let me finish. You know that it is provided by law that when there are objections/formal notices or [if] recaps/summary informations turn into interrogations, the minutes/written record must be halted. The subject must be given the possibility, especially if it is the middle of the night, to have the possibility [sic] to call a lawyer and to have a consultation. You are telling me that there were objections/formal notices made, but you did not consider [it necessary/expedient] to stop the minutes/written records.

MN: I am telling you that I took Raffaele Sollecito for minutes/written records [NdT: the witness often uses the term “verbale”, which is literally “minutes/written record”, in the sense of “to question/questioning”] without making any objections/formal notices to him, or asking him things, as one normally does to all the witnesses, and I closed the minutes/written record, concluding the SIT [“sommarie informazione testimoniale”]. That is to say, in that moment I did not object/make a formal notice of anything to him.

GB: However, you asked him the question that you told me earlier, if he was saying things that were not true?

MN: But one asks this of everyone. That is to say, it’s not that it was asked only of him. I don’t understand.

GB: How much later after this interrogation was Raffaele’s detention/provisional arrest made?

MN: It was made the same morning.

GB: What new elements were there with respect to those interrogations?

MN: In the meantime Amanda Knox was being examined for minutes/written records over there, and there are “¦ the contradictions between them were too [far] out.

GB: And these contradictions ... on the basis of these contradictions, you never called the lawyer, neither for the one, nor for the other? Is this correct?

MN: I was not with Amanda Knox, but I don’t believe that she was prevented from calling the lawyer. You must ask this of Inspector Ficarra, not of me, because I was not there in that moment.

GB: The objective elements, starting from the declarations, on the basis of which Raffaele Sollecito was arrested: do you recall that there was a print [footprint] amongst these elements?

MN: He was subjected to provisional arrest/detention by the Public Prosecutor, not arrested.

GB: Provisional arrest/detention by the Public Prosecutor. Do you remember the print?

MN: For me, the objective elements are all the contradictions and, shall we say, the false alibis that Raffaele, together with Amanda, gave us until they were separated.

GCM: The Attorney is asking: was there, at any rate, a print?

MN: There was a print that was held to be compatible with Raffaele Sollecito by the Laboratory of Forensic Police of Foligno.

GCM: Yes. That’s what you asked, no?

GB: Yes, and I also wanted to know: these contradictions that you’ve talked so much about, so were they contradictions that were given during these minutes/written records that we are talking about, these minutes/written records when there was no lawyer”¦

MN: Taken from the first second when we had begun to hear/question them, and going onwards from there. Because it was scarcely believable all the stories that they told us, and Raffaele knows very well that he told me things, spontaneously, without me having requested/pressed him, for that matter.

GB: On the basis of all [sic]... You are talking to me of contradictions. I am asking you: since there were these contradictions, that you actually hold to be so important that they then led to the provisional arrest/detention, because this “¦

MN: But the decree of detention/provisional arrest does not come from the Judicial Police.

GB: You are telling me of contradictions from the beginning to the end.

MN: It’s true.

GB: Since you are not talking about a contradiction at the very last hour, that is to say at five in the morning, but from the beginning to the end, I am asking myself why a lawyer was not called.

MN: I repeat that the provisional arrest/detention was from the Public Prosecutor, and not the Judicial Police.

GB: No, I’m asking you why the lawyer was not called during the minutes/written record.

MN: Because I did not consider [it necessary] to do so because I closed [the session] as recaps/summary information. The gravity of the fact emerged when Amanda Knox was also heard/questioned, who was examined up to 01:45, it seems to me, of the morning. It’s obvious that afterwards my colleagues reported to me what was happening over there.

GB: Very well. Listen, is there a report in which you speak of Amanda’s cartwheel?

MN: No, me personally, no.

GB: Did someone make a report with this cartwheel of Amanda’s?

MN: The report on the cartwheel, in short, it did not seem necessary to me to make one. However, regarding strange and suspect behaviours there is always “¦

GB: Since, in one of the preliminary hearings you reported it as one of the most significant elements.

MN: It did not seem normal to us.

GCM: Excuse me. Yes, at any rate, there was no annotation.

MN: No.

GCM: We are only doing questions and the answers. Please.

Defence Attorney Ghirga

GCM: Please Attorney.

LG: One very last question: at the same time you say that the night of the 6th, between the 5th and the 6th, “Amanda was treated well, at 4 in the morning ““ [as] this timetable shows ““ she was even, shall we say, quote-unquote refreshed, she began to cry””¦

MN: No, I didn’t indicate that at 4, at any rate.

LG: She began to cry at 4. If you want, I ...

MN: However I have never indicated a timetable.

LG: Nonetheless, when you pinpoint the time, shall we say, [of] this “¦ You report about Amanda and say that, at a certain point, I have it written, at 4 in the morning it indicates, she was calm”¦.

GCM: Yes, please, please.

LG: And that she was nonetheless treated well, when [you] place [this], and then this “treated well” emerges with a tea, it seems to me. Can you place this [event] in time?

MN: Yesterday, at the Public Prosecutor’s request, I answered this, however I also specified that Inspector Ficarra dealt with this matter. I recall exactly how Amanda was treated because we were going in and out, however I can’t give you times of [her] collapse/breakdown, of when she started to cry. I saw her cry, but I don’t recall having been able to give this timetable yesterday. At 4, I don’t remember.

LG: You said that Amanda was in an antitheft room.

MN: She was in the antitheft office.

LG: And that is on which floor? I don’t know this.

MN: Still on our floor, the Flying Squad is the only one. There is a main door, and then there are various offices.

LG: On the same floor where shortly before, shortly afterwards, we shall see, Raffaele Sollecito was also interrogated?

MN: Yes, in a different wing, in effect.

LG: It is in the antitheft room - but perhaps I’m wrong, so don’t get mad straight away ““ that you saw either the splits or the cartwheel and “¦

MN: No, it was in the entry-hall before coming into the Flying Squad [offices], at the exit from the lifts.

LG: So at the lower floor?

MN: No, on the third floor one comes out of the lift, on the left there’s the entry to the Flying Squad. Before that there’s a pre-entry, with little armchairs.

LG: So we’re at the entry-hall of the third floor, where the Flying Squad is.

MN: Yes, but not inside the Flying Squad. There’s another door.

LG: Is this the anti-theft room?

MN: No, the antitheft office is an office where the antitheft squad is, and then advancing there’s the Flying Squad on the left.

LG: But when you, I believe in order to get a bottle of water, go into a place where Amanda is, you see”¦

MN: No, I was passing to go get the water, yes…

LG: If you could clarify this for us better.

MN: I was passing to go get a little bottle of water from the little [vending] machines, by necessity I must exit from the Flying Squad, and I tell you again that she was in the entry-hall, there by the lifts.

LG: Alone?

MN: No, there were colleagues.

LG: Your colleagues?

MN: Colleagues, it seems to me, from the Rome SCO.

LG: She was with policemen, and she was doing a movement, which movements were different, a cartwheel and a split are not two things, so if you remember you were this precise.

MN: I remember.

LG: What was she doing?

MN: For sure it struck me: she did both a splits and a cartwheel.

LG: Both of them. She was doing gymnastics.

MN: Eh.

LG: Thank you.

GCM: There are no further questions.

Defence Attorney Maria del Grosso

MDG: With reference to the night of 5 November, do you remember at what time Dr Mignini arrived?

MN: No, I don’t remember.

MDG: And how long did the gathering of information from Amanda Knox by your colleagues go on? How much time?

MN: Look in the minutes, I did not do it.

MDG: And there is no minutes, there is no time of closing.

MN: So then why are you asking this of me…

GCM: If you remember.

MDG: If you remember, Doctor?

MN: No, I don’t remember.

MDG: If you remember. If you don’t remember, not ...

MN: No.

Prosecutor Dr Giuliano Mignini

GM: Listen, do you recall Amanda’s “memoriali” [NdT: written notes (plural)], do you recall the first “memorial”?

MN: I remember that Inspector Ficarra said to me, after the execution of the detention/provisional arrest, that Amanda had asked her for blank sheets [of paper] because, word for word, she wanted to give a gift, wanted to write things. And I remember too that she was given these blank sheets [of paper], she wrote for some time, so much [time] that I even requested Inspector Ficarra to go [away/home?] because we had to accompany the detainees to jail. At any rate, Amanda was made to finish writing, and she gave to the Inspector this “¦

GM: Were other “memoriali” sequestered?

MN: Yes, later in jail.

GM: At what times?

MN: It seems to me that with the report of 29 November [there were] diaries and manuscripts of Amanda’s [that were] sequestered in jail.

Monday, May 26, 2014

The Nencini Email: Why This May Be The Last Time Knox Emails Such Obvious Lies To A Judge

Posted by SeekingUnderstanding

Above at the Florence appeal court is the defence table.

This was Amanda Knox’s own first appeal. It was not a prosecution appeal, or a second or third trial by “˜Italy’.  This appeal only happened because Knox and Sollecito demanded it.

At maybe 99.999 percent of all appeals worldwide, the person doing the appealing would be sitting there at that table. But instead of heading-up and guiding her team and even addressing the court, as a generally very confident Sollecito did, Amanda Knox hung back, issuing insulting and misleading commentaries from Seattle.

Culminating in this email.

Pure genius. Or maybe not. Knox sent it via her hapless defense to the judge, loaded with nasty aspersions and false claims about the hard facts, on the same lines - only more-so - as her book Waiting To Be Heard of the previous April.

And guess what? Knox had her prison sentence increased by Judge Nencini. She appeals; she arrogantly taunts from afar; she ends up with more time behind bars.

Pure genius. Or maybe not. That too doesn’t happen in 99.999 percent of all appeals.

In other posts here on TJMK starting with FinnMacCool’s linked-to above, we examine the veracity of the actual content of the email. How did it match up to the hard facts already in evidence and mostly not even in dispute at this appeal?

We have already begun to show that the email sustains and substantially worsens the great Interrogation Hoax which has already cost Amanda Knox four years in prison.

Here we look at what the text would reveal to trained Italian officials (the original was in Italian) about the state of mind of the person who signed it. .

First, one cannot help but be struck by an atmosphere of fear emanating from the author. When we are consumed by our fears, and motivated by our adrenal glands, our cognitive abilities diminish, and, if we are prone to psychological projections, this is when they will burst out and frame others.

As I read this logically inconsistent and highly irregular email, it became vividly clear that this is what had probably happened here.  It mirrors and portrays a fearful, unrealistic state of mind, underscored with defiant but very foolish psychological projections.

In this sense, the email has some pathos: it seems quite amazing that Amanda Knox’s lawyers, family and advisors saw fit to allow this to have been sent even though Knox might have been determined to have the last word.

It does, however, provide an opportunity to see psychological projection at work.

Because the entire writing is framed in the mode of ill-concealed psychological projections, we have a window into the constructs of projecting onto others.

Paragraphs 1 to 10

Court of Appeals of Florence section II Assise Proc. Pen, 11113

Letter sent to attorneys Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga via email Seattle, 15 December 2013

Attn: Honorable Court of Appeals of Florence

I have no doubt that my lawyers have explained and demonstrated the important facts of this case that prove my innocence and discredit the unjustified…

Note “˜discredit’ and “˜unjustified’. They are inappropriate words, and highly presumptive. The whole purpose of a court of law is to carefully distinguish (according to thousands of years of learning) precisely what is just and justified and what is not.

The judiciary do not merely accept the explanations of the prosecution or defence lawyers: obviously this would render a court of law and all trials superfluous!

So, an inauspicious beginning.

Very often, an opening statement by someone - spoken or written - will be one of significance - from a psychological point of view. It would certainly be worth giving attention to, as it will frequently “˜map out’ the essential position of the author. Or, in a more usual phrase, “˜say where they are coming from’.

The position given away in Knox’s opening statement is that of a complete denial of and disdain for the purpose and function of a court of law, as well as disrespect for its need to follow due process, and for this to be complied with by all parties involved - including herself!

She is not exempt from the law, nor due process. Yet, the style of writing simultaneously illustrates a faux respect, something verging upon flattery towards Nencini. One can then observe these two distinct tones throughout the email.

accusations of the prosecution and civil parties. I seek not to supplant their work; rather, because I am not present to take part in this current phase of the judicial process, I feel compelled to share my own perspective as a six-year- long defendant and victim of injustice.

Note “˜feel compelled’, and “˜victim of injustice’: “˜feel compelled’ reveals an inner compulsion. It suggests that the email is other than a logical and rational consideration. Thus it speaks of a drive driven by fear, and adrenalin-led states. The second phrase, “˜victim of injustice’ is too assertive. It is asserted as a given truth, when in fact it is for the court to arrive at this conclusion. What is so odd, though, is that this appears not to be understood. There seems to be almost breathtaking disrespect and disregard, oddly dressed up in pseudo-respect.

The Court has access to my previous declarations

Note “˜my declarations’ - this seems to attribute to herself and her utterances a self-importance, which is out of kilter, given that her word has been proven to be founded on lies, on more than one occasion. An unrealistic self-confidence.

and I trust will review them before coming to a verdict. I must repeat: I am innocent.

Note “˜I must repeat:’  Why must she? This also appears overly-assertive, as in: “˜Methinks thou dost protest too much’.

‘I am not a murderer. I am not a rapist. I am not a thief or a plotter or an instigator.’

Note the “˜I am not… I am not… I am not’. This sentence is very indicative of the obsession with the label and the image. “˜I am…’ or “˜I am not…’ this or that PERSON.

The point in question is not Amanda’s own self-absorption with the definition of her own personality, but whether she is culpable for a specific, named event, at one moment in time, viz, on November 1st 2007.

The court is only deciding about this single date. It is beyond its jurisdiction to decide whether she is “˜a murderer’ in an indelible, permanent sense. This matter is for her and her conscience.

I did not kill Meredith or take part in her murder or have any prior or special knowledge of what occurred that night. I was not there and had nothing to do with it.

Note this “˜I did not… I was not’. This reads as if inserted on the advice of lawyers.

‘I am not present in the courtroom because I am afraid.’

Note “˜I am afraid’. This, alone of the subsequent paragraphs, is true. She is indeed afraid. But, of what? This is actually a profound question.

I am afraid that the prosecution’s vehemence will leave an impression on you, that their smoke and mirrors will blind you. I’m afraid of the universal problem of wrongful conviction. This is not for lack of faith in your powers of discernment, but because the prosecution has succeeded before in convincing a perfectly sound court of concerned and discerning adults to convict innocent people - Raffael and me.

Note this very contradictory statement. It is attempting to flatter Judge Nencini… “˜your (great) powers of discernment….perfectly sound ...concerned and discerning adults ...’  whilst simultaneously saying that he is so poor a judge that he will be “˜blinded’ and that he will hand her a “˜wrongful conviction’.

She cannot have it both ways, - which is something she has tried so often for before, (as in : “˜I vaguely remember Patrick killed her’....‘this may be true, or I may have imagined it…’ etc.

This flattery-cum-put-down is confused and confusing, as well as showing circumlocution and insincerity.

‘My life being on the line’

Note “˜MY life…’. This is a melodramatic statement, and one that is insulting to Meredith - whose life was indeed on and over the line. Amanda’s life has never been on the line. Her fears are speaking here.

and having with others “˜already suffered too much’

Note “˜suffered’. Self-centred in the extreme, given the tragic circumstances, as well as debatable. Some might say Knox appears to revel in having so much attention.

I’ve attentively followed this process and “˜gleaned the following’...

Note “˜gleaned’ - a very odd word to use. Almost suggesting, “˜these are the areas I have sifted out as being my best areas to stir up doubts’ etc. Seems to suggest a manipulative mind at work.

...facts that have emerged from the development of this case that I beg you not to dismiss when making your judgment:

No physical evidence places me in Meredith “˜s bedroom, the scene of the crime, because I was not there and didn’t take part in the crime.

Meredith’s murderer left ample evidence of his presence in the brutal scenario: handprints, footprints, shoe prints in Meredith’s blood; DNA in her purse, on her clothing, in her body.

No evidence places me in the same brutal scenario. The prosecution has failed to explain how I could have participated in the aggression and murder””to have been the one to fatally wound Meredith””without leaving any genetic trace of myself. That is because it is impossible. It is impossible to identify and destroy all genetic traces of myself in a crime scene and retain all genetic traces of another individual.

Note the “˜no physical evidence…’.  This is the most sweeping scientific fallacy (which we deal with extensively elsewhere). That she has the audacity to proclaim it in these terms, towards a senior judge, does display arrogance, and, again, total disregard for due process, as if it just floats by her, not existing.  After this she includes, in a surreal way, ‘Meredith’s murderer left ample evidence of (his) presence’. ‘Murderer’ is placed in the possessive, as in ‘Margaret’s gardener’, or ‘Sarah’s secretary’ - and as such denotes a personal relationship. Odd and eerie, and as all the email, consistently inconsistent.

Either I was there, or I wasn’t. The analysis of “˜the crime scene’

Note the “˜I was… or I wasnt’.  Simple and blatant obfuscation. It is obvious to all but the most stupid that the crime scene is the whole house.

Therefore, since Ms. Knox is not stupid, to persist with this usage of the term is either stubbornly recalcitrant, or extremely misguided, - possibly both.

Again, her own unawareness of how others will read this insistence of hers, is very, very sad.

...answers this question: I wasn’t there.

My interrogation was illegal and produced a false “˜confession’ that demonstrated my non-knowledge of the crime- The subsequent memoriali, for which I was wrongfully found guilty of slander, did not further accuse but rather recanted that false “˜confession.’ Just as I testified to the prosecutor in prison and to my family members in prison when our conversations were being recorded without my knowledge.

Note “˜illegal interrogation’ and “˜false confession’. Our Intteroagtion Hoax series is addressing exactly this. The fact that knox can put forward a statement that is demonstrably untrue, on multiple levels, shows someone almost dangerously out of touch with reality, on an emotional level, (and equally out of touch with due process in law.)

The comment about conversations being recorded “˜without my knowledge’ shows irritation and annoyance, as if she wishes to control the investigation herself.

As if the authorities should have asked her permission first, so that she could tailor her comments to suit! “˜How dare they interfere with my manipulation of the evidence?’ Maybe this is an uncharitable inference - but one that is strongly suggested.

My behavior after the discovery of the murder indicates my innocence. I did not flee Italy when I had the chance. I stayed in Perugia and was at the police’s beck and call for over 50 hours in four days, convinced that I could help them find the murderer. I never thought or imagined that they would have used my openness and trust to fuel their suspicions.

Note “˜used my openness’. Again, demonstrably untrue. I am not able to find a single example of her “˜openness’ and trustworthiness in the days of her being a witness and the interrogations, from within the actual transcripts.

Her behaviour was however noted to have been inappropriate, unrestrained, possibly “˜spaced out’, irritated, melodramatic, angry, verbose, contradictory, and unpredictable. If she genuinely believes her state of mind at that time could be best described as “˜openness and trust’, then this suggests a worrying gulf between her own perception of herself, and how she comes across to others.

I did not hide myself or my feelings:

Note “˜I did not hide my feelings’ Indeed she didn’t. However, this is stated with the inference that this is a good thing, something she should be praised for. Some people believe in restraining the expression of their feelings - in case someone else is hurt by them. This would appear to be something she is ill acquainted with.

when I needed comfort, Rafael embraced me; when I was sad and scared, I cried; when I was angry, I swore and made insensitive remarks; when I was shocked, I paced or sat in silence; when I was trying to help, I answered questions, consoled Meredith’s friends and tried to keep a positive attitude.

Note “˜postive attitude’. Towards what? That she could positively “˜win’ in her attempt to cover up the truth? We do not know what she is being positive about. Self-absorption is again displayed. And as Judge Nencini said, “˜I do not know her. I have not met her.’ Towards what is her positivity directed?

Paragraphs 11 to 20

Upon entering the questura I had no understanding of my legal position. Twenty-years old and alone in a foreign country, I was innocent and never expected to be suspected and “˜subjugated to torture.’

Note “˜no understanding’ and “˜Subjugated to torture’. What an assertion, and more melodrama. Such a statement is foolish if she wishes to be taken seriously by a senior judge. In fact, although she appears not to know this, the statement was self-sabotage.

Also, twenty years old is adult - or should be. Any adult should know and obey the law, and co-operate automatically with law-enforcers with no back-patting.

I was interrogated as a suspect, but told I was a witness. I was questioned for a prolonged period in the middle of the night and in Italian, a language I barely knew. I was denied legal counsel- The Court of Cassation deemed the interrogation and the statements produced from it illegal. I was lied to, yelled at, threatened, slapped twice on the back of the head. I was told I had witnessed the murder and was suffering from amnesia. I was told that if I didn’t succeed in remembering what happened to Meredith that night I would never see my family again.

Note, well all of it. Complete fiction. Trial transcripts are very clear. She knew this was shot down by multiple witnesses and failed to avert a prison sentence.

Is this a (misguided) attempt to appeal to Judge Nencini’s heart strings as a father, from a baby twenty year old needing protection?

I was browbeaten into confusion and despair. When you berate, intimidate, lie to, threaten, confuse, and coerce someone in believing they are wrong, you are not going to find the truth.

Note the accusations. The last sentence could be inverted, and an inverse meaning found. What is Knox’s attitude towards the judiciary that have re-instated her guilt? Perhaps, some would say, she is attempting to “˜berate, threaten, lie to, confuse, and coerce’..the court ...into believing they are wrong (to say she is guilty.)

And no, this way, we are not going to find the truth. She is actually right there.

However, it is the duty of a court of justice not to yield to coercion, confusion, threats etc, and if there was more respect and adult understanding for the Italian judiciary, the defendants would know this, and not engage in what is clearly a waste of time.

Judge Nencini’s disdainful dismissal of the “˜highly irregular “˜ email showed he was fully aware of all implications. There are solid reasons for protocols.

The police coerced me into signing a false “˜confession’ that was without sense and should never have been considered a legitimate investigative lead. In this fragmentary and confused statement the police identified Patrick Lumumba as the murderer because we had exchanged text messages, the meaning of which the police wrongfully interpreted (”˜Civediamo piu tardi. Buona serata’). The statement lacked a clear sequence of events, corroboration with any physical evidence, and fundamental information like: how and why the murder took place, if anyone else was present or involved, what happened afterward””it supplied partial, contradictory information and as the investigators would discover a little later, when Patrick Lumumba’s defense lawyer produced proof of him incontestable alibi, it was obviously inaccurate and unreliable. I simply didn’t know what they were demanding me to know. After over 50 hours of questioning over four days, I was mentally exhausted and I was confused.

This coerced and illegitimate statement was used by the police to arrest and detain a clearly innocent man with an iron-clad alibi with whom I had a friendly professional relationship. This coerced and illegitimate statement was used to convict me of slander. The prosecution and civil parties would have you believe that this coerced and illegitimate statement is proof of my involvement in the murder. “˜They are accusing and blaming me, a result of their own overreaching.

Note “˜50 hours of questioning’ which was actually less than half a dozen. Another statement that could be usefully inverted, and betrays itself as a psychological projection.

Knox over-reached herself in inventing the Patrick scenario, which was only blown open two weeks later by a reputable businessman. What is she doing, (in this whole paragraph about “˜the coerced false confession’) other than accusing and blaming (the police) as a result of (her own) overreaching?

We can see, from this and other examples, the unpleasant process of a person projecting what they themselves are doing, onto others. A projection attempts to transfer their own responsibility - either for character or deed - onto others, who can then be blamed or framed for the projector’s own wrong-doing, or wrong-being.

This process of projection, as well as projective identification, underlie so much cruelty and injustice in life, as well as the erosion of others’ identity, and the interference and/ or destruction in others’ lives.

Projection, for the most part, diminishes. It can be mild to vicious. In its milder forms, it can sometimes be used as a source for cutting humour : in its worst forms, which become pathological, it can and does lead to demonization, aggression, and even murder.

Yet again, in her unrestrained and exaggerated verbosity, Knox has demonstrated foolishness, and also under-estimation of the knowledge and wisdom of professionals. In a more colloquial phrase, she has dug herself in deeper.

Perhaps she is indeed a victim - but only of her own nature, which appears to be a nature she cannot neither alter nor control, and also one that demonstrates frequently a lack of boundaries. There isn’t a clarity regarding what is herself and what is other people. The result is confusion and hurt.

When people are projected upon, repeatedly, they naturally feel hurt and offended. “˜That isn’t me, how dare s/he !’ is the natural reaction to a projection. If the projecting person then pulls back, there is damage limitation,...but if they don’t, and projection escalates, it is always a slippery slope to negativity.

Experience, case studies, and the law recognize that one may be coerced into giving a false’confession’ because of torture.

This is a universal problem. According to the National Registry of Exoneration, in the United States 78% of wrongful murder convictions that are eventually overturned because of exonerating forensic evidence involved false “˜confessions.’

Almost 8 in 10 wrongfully convicted persons were coerced by police into implicating themselves and others in murder. I am not alone. And exonerating forensic evidence is often as simple as no trace of the wrongfully convicted person at the scene of the crime, but rather the genetic and forensic traces of a different guilty party - just like every piece of forensic evidence identifies not me, but Rudy Guide.

Note again the false confession claim. No confession at all has been advanced in this case. 

In the brief time Meredith and I were roommates and friends we never fought.

Meredith was my friend. She was kind to me, helpful, generous, fun. She never criticized me. She never gave me so much as a dirty look.

But the prosecution claims that a rift was created between Meredith and I because of cleanliness. This is a distortion of the facts. Please refer to the testimonies of my housemaster and Meredith’s British friends. None of them ever witnessed or heard about Meredith and I fighting, arguing, disliking each other. None of them ever claimed Meredith was a confrontational clean-freak, or I a confrontational slob. Laura Masotho testified that both Meredith and I only occasionally cleaned, whereas she and Filomena Romanelli were more concerned with cleanliness. Meredith’s British friends testified that Meredith had once told them that she felt a little uncomfortable about finding the right words to kindly talk to me, her new roommate, about cleanliness in the bathroom we shared. The prosecution would have you believe this is motivation for murder. But this is a “˜terrifying distortion of the facts.’

Note “˜terrifying distortion of the facts.’  It is not, of course, a distortion of the facts. I have frequently observed that Amanda says, “˜Meredith was my friend’, but I have never, curiously, heard this followed up by, “˜I was Meredith’s friend’. What act of friendship did she carry out for Meredith? On this there has been an eerie silence. (And if said now, this would be way too late in the day).

But here, what is of particular interest is the choice of the word “˜terrifying’ regarding “˜distortion of the facts’.

There has been a gross and widespread distortion of the facts of this case, encouraged by a paid PR campaign by her father. It is something that has snowballed (especially with new technology: Twitter etc), and has had an influence.

One wonders, have there been times when she wished she could “˜stop the world and get off’? Has she, in fact, found the explosion of media comment “˜terrifying’? Does she now feel to be on quicksand?

I think, at the very least, the use of this word shows that the way things have escalated - so that she does not control outcomes - is something she does not like at all.

Over and over again - through her self-exposure on TV - she has shown flashes of anger and contempt when she is displeased, and this sentiment is also perceptible as an undercurrent in this email. An innocent person might very well be angry, but they wouldn’t ever show contempt.

I did not carry around Rafael’s kitchen knife.

This claim by the prosecution, crucial to their theory, is uncorroborated by any physical evidence or witness testimony. I didn’t fear the streets of Perugia and didn’t need to carry around with me a large, cumbersome weapon which would have ripped my cloth book bag to shreds. My book bag showed no signs of having carried a bloody weapon. The claim that he would have insisted I carry a large chef’s knife is not just senseless, but a disturbing indication of “˜how willing the prosecution is to defy objectivity and reason in order to sustain a mistaken and disproven theory.

Note “˜how willing the prosecution… disproven theory’. This last part of her sentence is another example of herself describing what she is actually doing, whilst accusing someone else of it.

She is here describing herself, and what she does. The word “˜prosecution’ can be substituted. So one has : how far is “˜she’ willing to go, “˜to defy objectivity and reason in order to sustain a mistaken and disproven position’?

Sometimes, people slip into an error of making one major projection. We all are more prone to project when pressure becomes unbearable. We can all think of someone under stress who has lashed out and pinned the blame on someone else - doing this is a way of releasing a pressure valve for stress. But an emotionally balanced person is able to “˜pull themselves back’ and re-centre themselves.

It is of great concern that the very fabric of this email would seem to be so intertwined or riddled with psychological projections that it is actually woven from them - they form its substance. This strongly suggests Knox is without genuine insight into her own psyche, or processes, and also is in an very unstable state where she is far away from her own centre.

Paragraphs 21 to 30

It is yet another piece of invented “˜evidence’, another circumstance of theory fabricated to order, because having discovered nothing else, the prosecution could only invent.

Note “˜invent… invent’. This indicates another disturbing trait - a barely suppressed glee, that the prosecution “˜have discovered nothing else’. Is she proud of the lack of more evidence? Why is there not more? Who successfully concealed it, as is the case?

I had no Contact with Rudy Guide.

Like many youth in Perugia, I had once crossed paths with Rudy Guide. He played basketball with the young men who lived in the apartment below us. Meredith and I had been introduced to him together. Perhaps I had seen him amongst the swarms of students who crowded the Perugian streets and pubs in the evenings, but that was it. We didn’t have each other’s phone number, we didn’t meet in private, we weren’t acquaintances. I never bought drugs from Rudy Guide or anyone else. The phone records show no connection. There are no witnesses who place us together. The prosecution claims I convinced Rudy Guide to commit rape and murder, completely ignoring the fact that we didn’t even speak the same language. Once again, the prosecution is relying upon a disturbing and unacceptable pattern of distortion of the objective evidence.

I am not a psychopath.

Note “˜I am not a psychopath’. First of all, it needs to be said, that this is not for her to announce. It is not her province. She is not qualified to make such a statement, quite apart from the fact that it would be self-diagnosis.

It is also totally inappropriate to say so to Judge Nencini. The fact that she is unaware of this is astounding.

There is no short list to the malicious and unfounded slanders I have suffered over the course of this legal process. In trial I have been called no less than:

“˜Conniving; manipulating; man””eater; narcissist; enchantress; duplicitous; adulterer; drug addict; an explosive mix of drugs, sex, and alcohol; dirty; witch; murderer; slanderer; demon; depraved; imposter; promiscuous; succubus; evil; dead inside; pervert; dissolute; a wolf in sheep’s clothing; rapist; thief; reeking of sex; Judas; she-devil;

Note “˜in the course of this legal process’. Here she appears to be totally muddled about what has been said in the papers and social media, confusing them with serious assessments from the court. However, obviously the media reports and inventions have penetrated her mind, and blown up out of all proportion.

The fact that she (or her family) laregly brought this on herself doesn’t seem to register.

There is an answer though, or would have been : Be honest; be modest; be quiet. Let the truth speak for itself. It usually does. The media coverage is highly regrettable, but, as every celebrity finds, there is always a heavy price for “˜playing the media’.

I have never demonstrated anti-social, aggressive, violent, or behavior. I am not addicted to sex or drugs. Upon my arrest I was tested for drugs and the results were negative. I am not a split-personality

Note “˜I am not a split personality.’ Is this for her to say? Someone with a personality disorder, or indeed mental illness, would often be the last person to admit to it, or even know. Once more, there is a breathtaking dismissal of, in effect, the value of scholarship.

One does not adopt behavior spontaneously.

Note “˜adopt’. Regarding Knox’s behaviour patterns, there is much to suggest that these were neither unusual nor spontaneously adopted. They may not have been as extreme before the crime, but the indications of them are proven.

However, as an actual statement from psychology, this is untrue.

Again, AK is out of her depth, and strangely unaware of it. There are many known instances, which can be detailed, where normally uncharacteristic behaviour does in fact break out abruptly, spontaneously, and without warning. Precisely the kind of behaviour that can and does have terrible consequences. Perhaps this needs to be understood and taken on board?

This is a fantasy.

Note “˜fantasy’. Who is given to fantasy? Who wrote she “˜had a vision’ of what had happened?

This is uncorroborated by any objective evidence or testimony. The prosecution and civil parties created and pursued this character assassination because they have nothing else to show you. They have neither proof, nor logic, nor the facts on their side.

Note “˜character assassination’ Who doesn’t have logic nor facts, or indeed proof of her alibi, on her side?

They only have their slanders against me, their personal opinions about me.

Note “˜slanders’. Who has slandered? Who has aired personal opinions and false claims, for instance about a senior prosecutor?

They want you to think I’m a monster because it is easy to condemn a monster. It is easy to dismiss a monster’s defense as deception. But the prosecution and civil parties are both severely mistaken and wrong. They have condemned me without proof of guilt, and they seek to convince you to condemn me without proof of guilt.

If the prosecution truly had a case against me, there would be no need for these theatrics.

Note “˜theatrics’. There were none from the prosecution. So whose theatrics?

“˜Monster’ is Amanda’s own word - it hasn’t come from anyone else. It must be her nemesis - the word which she dreads to hear in her conscious mind, yet can’t escape from.

There would be no need for smoke and mirrors to distract you from the lack of physical evidence against me.

Note “˜smoke and mirrors’. Whose smoke and mirrors?  Again, we have a description of her own behaviour, which is being projected outwards.

quote - ‘But because no evidence exists that proves my guilt, the prosecution would seek to deceive you with these impassioned, but completely inaccurate and unjustified pronouncements.’

Note “˜the prosecution would seek to deceive you’. Who really has sought to deceive? Who has demonstrated passion in her pronouncements?

Because I am not a murderer, they would seek to mislead you into convicting me by charging your emotions, by painting me not as an innocent until proven guilty, but as a monster.

Note “˜mislead you’. Yet again, the image of her person as “˜a murderer’ and “˜a monster’ are shown to be her preoccupation. The court has not tried to define her as such. They have tried her for a crime, for what she did on one day.

She is the one who gives permanent labels to herself. They are labels she cannot bear, and cannot accept. But she needs to understand that it is not the judiciary, nor many others seeking justice, who are labelling her person or personality.

The prosecution and civil parties are committing injustices against me because they cannot bring themselves to admit, even to themselves, that they’ve made a terrible mistake.

Note “˜they cannot’. Amongst a statement peppered with almost pitiful projections, this seems to be the most direct projection of them all. Substitute “˜they’ for “˜I’ and we get this:

“˜I cannot bring myself to admit, even to myself, that I’ve made a terrible mistake…’

Paragraphs 31 to 34

The Court has seen that the prosecution and civil parties will not hear criticism of their mistakes.

Note “˜will not hear’. Who will not hear criticism of their mistakes?

Not by the experts of the defense, nor by the experts of the Court.

The Court has seen that the prosecution jumped to conclusions at the very start of their investigation: they interrogated and arrested innocent people and claimed “˜Case Closed’before any evidence could be analyzed, before bothering to check alibis.

Note “˜jumped to conclusions’ and “˜before bothering’. Why is she saying any of this to Judge Nencini and the other judges? It is insulting to their intelligence. Can she be unaware of this?

The prosecutor and investigators were under tremendous pressure to solve the mystery of what happened to Meredith as soon as possible. The local and International media was breathing down the necks of these detectives. Their reputations and careers were to be made or broken. In their haste, they made mistakes. Under pressure, they admitted to as few mistakes as possible and committed themselves to a theory founded upon mistakes.

Note “˜founded upon mistakes’.  Here there was a young woman who herself “˜under pressure, admitted to as few mistakes as possible , and committed themselves to a theory founded upon mistakes’ (the mistake of admitting to being at the scene of the crime, hearing a scream etc., and then found herself committed to continue to incriminate Patrick, and all the stories consequent to this move.)

One is reminded of a game of chess, where early moves commit one to the rest of the play and end game.

Had they not jumped to conclusions based on nothing but their personal and highly subjective feeling, they would have discovered definitive and undeniable evidence of not Patrick Lumumba, not Rafael Sollecito, not Amanda Knox, but of Rudy Guide. We would not be here over six years later debating inconclusive and unreliable “˜clues.’ We would have been spared the cost, anguish and suffering, not only of Raffaele’s and my family, but especially of Meredith’s family as well.

Note “˜Meredith’s family’.  A belated attempt to remember the true victim, but in a way that couldn’t be more hurtful. What would really have spared Meredith’s family anguish and suffering?

It is highly objectionable that the stress and pressure Knox and Sollecito have been under should in any way at all be conflated with the deep suffering and tragic position of the Kercher family. Knox indicates that she is unable to know when she is hurting someone.

The prosecution’s accusations are unworthy of judicial or public confidence.

Note “˜unworthy of public confidence’. Then, if so, as Judge Nencini said, the person who brought the appeal should attend her own appeal, and seek to prove or disprove the worthiness of her case in the court. A basic premise the defendant showed she was oblivious to, when she resorted to the email.

In over six years they have failed to provide a consistent, evidence-driven, corroborated theory of the crime,

Note “˜failed to provide’.  The prosecution in fact have patiently, thoroughly, albeit slowly, worked their way towards the most probable truth of that fated night.

They have been grossly and deliberately impeded in their task by the defendant, who moreover has shown no contriteness, no remorse whatsoever for her lack of co-operation or worse.

And, of course, “˜in over six years,’ the defendants “˜have failed to provide a consistent, evidence-driven, corroborated explanation of the crime’ they have been proven to have been involved with. Once more, a statement can be seen to apply more to the speaker herself than to those she is accusing.

but would nevertheless argue that you should take my life away.

Note “˜take my life away’. More unfeeling melodrama.

I beg you to see the facts and reason of what I say. I am innocent. Rafael is innocent.

Meredith and her family deserve the truth. Please put an end to this great and prolonged injustice.

Note “˜deserve the truth’. These last two sentences are true. However, the very last sentence seems to have two missing words from the end, viz, “˜for them’, or “˜for the Kerchers’.

With a correction it reads: “˜Please put an end to this great and prolonged injustice for the Kerchers’  - which with no help from Knox does nevertheless seem to be happening.
The wheels of justice turn, and stories, versions, delusions, projections, deceptions, - even manipulations, will eventually fade away.


[It looked like Knox lawyer Ghirga could not drop this turd in the judge’s lap quickly enough]

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Knox Interrogation Hoax #1: Masterlist Of Posts Re Pre-Trial Events And Hoax Overview

Posted by Our Main Posters

Perugia Central Police Station at night (left-center)

1. Masterlist Of Posts In The Series

The Interrogation Hoax series will consist of a total of 24 posts.

These posts quote from a large number of transcripts only recently acquired and translated. There are no serious conflicts, no gray areas. One can assume with total certainty that this is the real thing (see Part 3 below), and that any other versions (see Part 4 below) are fabricated.

Numbering of posts 1-24 is not chronological, it represents the original order of postings.

1. What Happened At AK & RS Q&A Prior To 6 Nov

Click for Post: #19: ALL Knox Q&A Sessions 2-6 November 2007 WERE Recorded #1

Click for Post: #20: ALL Knox Q&A Sessions 2-6 November 2007 WERE Recorded #2

2. What Happened At Knox Q&A 6 Nov Ending 1:45 AM

Click for Post: #2: Trial Testimony From Rita Ficcara On Realities 5-6 Nov

Click for Post: #3: More Defense Pussyfooting Toward Rita Ficcara, Key Witness

Click for Post: #4: More Hard Realities From Rita Ficcara, More Nervousness From Defense

Click for Post: #12: Ficarra & Knox Notes PROVE Knox Merely Worked On Visitors Names List

Click for Post: #5: Key Witness Monica Napoleoni Confirms Knox Self-Imploded 5-6 Nov

Click for Post: #7: Testimony Of Witness Lorena Zugarini On The Knox Conniption 5-6 Nov

Click for Post: #8: Testimony Of Interpreter Donnino On Events Night Of 5 November

3. What Happened At Sollecito Q&A 6 Nov Ending 3:30 AM

Click for Post: #6: Sollecito Transcript & Actions Further Damage Knox Version

Click for Post: #9: Officer Moscatelli’s Recap/Summary Session With Sollecito 5-6 Nov

4. What Happened At Knox-Rights Session Ending 5:45am

Click for Post: #15: Knox Is Told Her Rights And Repeats Fake Murder Charge

5. What Of Relevance Happened In Ensuing Months

Click for Post: #13: The First Two Pre-Trial Opportunities Which Knox Flunked

Click for Post: #14: The Third Pre-Trial Opportunitty Which Knox Flunked

Click for Post: #16: The Fourth Pre-Trial Opportunity Which Knox Flunked

Click for Post: #17: Sollecito April 2008 Before Supreme Court Again Coldshoulders Knox

Click for Post:#18: The Final Pre-Trial Opportunities Which Knox Flunked

Click for Post: #21: Illustrating How Batshit Crazy The Interrogation Hoax Has Become

6. Why Investigators’ Version Won Hands-Down At Trial

Click for Post: #10: Why Prosecution And Defenses Never Believed Knox’s Version #1

Click for Post: #11: Why Prosecution And Defenses Never Believed Knox’s Version #2

2. Explaining Overall Arc Of Events

Much of the testimony listed above was about events at the central police station pre-arrest in early November 2007 and subsequent court attempts to achieve some believability and relief.

Early in 2009 at trial Knox and Sollecito sat glumly through all of the investigators’ pre-arrest testimony and cross-examination at trial. They were downhearted and apprehensive, and there were no smiles and few interruptions.

Subsequently Sollecito chose not to get on the stand, so from his team there really was never a rebuttal.

But Knox HAD to get on the stand, in July, for two days. She had no other way to defend herself against the serious felony crime of falsely framing Patrick for murder.

It was her word against theirs. It contradicted in many places what she had heard months earlier in sworn testimony from many investigators.

Knox’s version inevitably weakened a lot under cross-examination, and was ultimately a fail at trial and several appeals, even the annulled one.

Knox ended up serving three years. While on the stand she confirmed that she had been treated well, stiffing thousands of supporters duped into believing she had not been.

3. Explaining Court-Accepted Narrative For 6 Nov

This is an overview of Knox’s so-called “interrogation” at Perugia’s central police station, the subject of the first ten posts.

It led to her arrest and three years served. To make this picture really firm we will quote a lot of the testimony at trial. The Case Wiki carries all of these transcripts, many in English translation, and more. 

Senior Inspector Rita Ficarra testified that she arrived back at the police station late on 5 November, and finds her way blocked by a cartwheeling Knox.

She rebukes Knox, who testily responds that she is tired of the investigation. Rita Ficarra tells Knox to go home and get some sleep. Knox testily refuses, and remains there.

Shortly after, Ficarra suggests to Knox that if she really wants to help, she could add to the list of possible perps - men who Meredith knew and who might have visited the house.

This was a recap/summary, a simple checking of facts with someone who might or might not be of help. This could have been done on a street corner or in a house by a single officer. It was not a witness or suspect interrogation. From the transcript:

Ghirga: “While this interrogation - let’s call it thus - was in progress, some colleagues arrive…”  Ficarra: “It was not an interrogation, Attorney.” Ghirga: “They are called recaps/summaries.

Knox eagerly agrees. So they begin on the list.

This goes slowly because of language problems, until an interpreter, Anna Donnino, arrives. In total only Knox and four others (three of them women) are present.

Knox builds a list of seven people and adds maps and phone numbers (placed in evidence) in a calm proceeding. These were the names: Peter Svizzero, Patrick, Ardak, Juve, Spiros, Shaki and “a South African [Guede]” who played basketball near the house.

At several points in the evening Knox is provided with refreshments. No voices are ever raised, no bathroom breaks are refused.

In a separate wing Inspector Napoleoni and a couple of colleagues are seeking facts from Sollecito. Shown conflicts between what he has said and what his phone records show, Sollecito backtracks, and declares that Knox went out alone on the night, and made him lie.

Napoleoni moves through the questura to suggest to Ficarra to discuss the night of the attack with Knox in more detail and clarify who might have been present. Knox is not informed of Sollecito’s backtrack. She is asked for more names and spontaneously shares her phone. There is an outgoing to Patrick but no prior incoming. Knox is asked who Patrick is.

Suddenly, to the considerable surprise of others present, Knox has a yelling, head-clutching conniption (the first of several that night) and says “It’s him, it’s him, it was him, he killed her”. The session is halted.

Despite warnings she should not do so without a lawyer, Knox insists on a recorded statement which says she headed out to meet Patrick that night after he texted her. She accuses Patrick of killing Meredith. 

Efforts are made throughout the next several hours to try to help Knox to calm down. Knox is put on hold, given more refreshments, and made comfortable on some chairs so she might try to get some sleep.

A second session ending at 5:45 is intended as merely a formal reading of Knox’s legal status and her right to a lawyer, with Dr Mignini presiding. She is to be held as a material witness and for her own protection.

Again warned that she should not speak without a lawyer, and no questions can be asked, Knox still insists on a second spontaneous accusation culminating in a second recorded statement.

This also says she went out to meet Patrick that night, also accuses Patrick of killing Meredith, and now also hints that Sollecito may have been there. 

Just before noon, now under arrest and about to be taken to Capanne Prison, Knox insists on writing out at length a third statement this time in English.

She gleefully hands it to Rita Ficcara who cannot read it as she as no English. In the statement, Knox included this damning remark, without any mention of having been coerced: “The questions that need answering, at least for how I’m thinking are… 2. Why did I think of Patrik?”

Knox’s lawyers never ever substantially challenge this version, and never lodge any complaint. At trial in 2009 they accept on the record that there was no interrogation, and leave standing that Knox insisted on all three statements, and dont ever pursue Knox’s claims that she was coerced.

Courts all noted that there is no mention in that third note of Knox having been coerced, although this note was her idea and she could put in it anything she liked. From this there never was any going back.

In July 2009 at trial, in face of days and days of prior investigator testimony, Knox brashly tried to substitute this scenario above with the one below. Of course she was disbelieved.

For the calunnia framing of Patrick Lumumba Judge Massei in 2009 sentenced her to a year more than Sollecito, amended by Judge Hellmann in 2011 to three years served.

The Supreme Court definitively overruled her calunnia appeal so for her false framing of Patrick she is a felon for life.

4. Explaining Knox Family & PR Alternative

Knox’s Italian lawyers were not a part of this; in contrast the American PR lawyer Ted Simon sought to introduce major confusion.

In Italy, lawyers are REQUIRED to report tales of abuse of their clients or face possible criminal charges. Contrariwise, if they knowingly report false charges they can face similar charges. So what they do is a strong indicator of truth. 

Amanda Knox’s lawyers not only did not ever report any abuse. They even announced publicly, in face of incessant claims of abuse by Knox, family, and PR forces, that they had seen no evidence of abuse and so would not be reporting. 

Though her precise claims vary and often contradict one another, Knox herself has on and off ever since November 2007 tried to put the investigators on trial - tried to blame the police for causing her conniption and her false accusation of Patrick for the death of Meredith.

Her fail rate has been spectacular.

Knox failed to convince (1) Supervising Magistrate Matteini and (2) the Ricciarelli review panel in November 2007, (3) failed to convince Prosecutor Mignini in December 2007, (4) failed to convince the Supreme Court in April 2008, (5) failed to convince the Micheli court in late 2008, (6) failed to convince the judges and jury at trial 2009, (7) failed at annulled appeal 2011, (8) failed at repeat appeal 2013, (9) failed to convince the Supreme Court in 2012 and (10) failed again in 2015.

As Knox’s team simply did not ever believe her, they may not have given this their hardest shot. It was not part of their largely spurious complaint to the EC HR.

And yet despite all of these failures, the huge and very nasty Knox PR effort went full-bore ahead with the abuse allegations anyway.

Read this post of 11 February 2009 which was about two weeks before the Knox “interrogators” were cross-examined at trial, and several months before Knox herself took the stand. Dozens of media reports repeated the Knox claims as if true.

Knox repeated them in her April 2013 book, and her December 2013 email to Judge Nencini, and her appeal to EHCR Strasbourg, and in some TV and newspaper interviews, including one with the Italian weekly Oggi which caused that paper legal harm.

This version has been blown up by Knox PR shills in internet posts, articles, TV interviews, and books. Among others propagating it have been Raffaele Sollecito (in his book), Doug Preston, Saul Kassin, Steve Moore (especially), John Douglas, Jim Clemente, Paul Ciolino, Michael Heavey, Greg Hampikian, Chris Halkidis, Mark Waterbury, Doug Bremner, Candace Dempsey, Nina Burleigh, Bruce Fischer, and many posters on the Knox sites and Fischer sites and on Ground Report.

Main claims included 50-plus hours of “interrogation”, numerous officers in teams, no food or drink, no sleep, no bathroom breaks, no lawyer, no recording, and much abuse and yelling and suggestions and threats. Way beyond anything even Knox herself and notably her own lawyers ever claimed. 

• Here is Steve Moore claiming that around a dozen cops in rotating tag teams of two assaulted a starving and sleepless Knox over 20/30/40 hours, threatened her, and refused her a lawyer throughout.


• Here is Saul Kassin claiming that Knox was interrogated over the entire night of 5-6 November, until she was finally broken and a coerced “confession” emerged - even though the “false confession” actually framed Patrick and was in reality a false accusation. That Kassin ignores.


• Here are several former FBI profilers blatantly embellishing the same claims in a book, with (today) 60 five-star reviews.

And yet Knox’s own Italian lawyers specifically denied her accusations! No complaint against the police was ever lodged. All courts disbelieved her. Knox served her three years. But still the PR-driven hoax keeps resounding.

Posted by Our Main Posters on 05/11/14 at 09:30 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court,  Amanda Knox,  The officially involved,  Police and CSI,  Hoaxes against Italy,  10 Mignini MOF hoax,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  16 Interrogation hoax,  17 Fake memory hoax,  Hoaxes re Guede,  33 Sole attacker hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Knox-Marriott PR,  More hoaxers,  Hoaxers from 2009,  Bruce Fischer,  Steve Moore,  Hoaxers from 2011,  John Douglas • Comments here (10)

Monday, December 16, 2013

Appeal Session #6: Case For Knox’s & Sollecito’s Guilt - The Civil Parties

Posted by Our Main Posters

[Above, today: Dr Maresca, the Florence lawyer who speaks for the victim, arrives at the court]

7. Court resumes tomorrow

Court will resume at 9:30 am Italy time with the first of the summations for the defenses. When they conclude, probably in January, the prosecution will have a chance of rebuttal.

6. Reporting in English

Andrea Vogt has posted a detailed report from the court at The Freelance Desk, Scroll down to the heading “Update Dec 1t 2013”

5. Reporting in Italian #3

Report by Gazetta del Sud

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, accused in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, were in the grip of a “murderous rage” fuelled by illegal drugs and alcohol, a lawyer for the victim’s family said Monday. Knox, Sollecito and a third person definitively convicted of the crime, Rudy Guede, had “no inhibitions” because of the drugs and alcohol they ingested before murdering Kercher in November 2007, charged Vieri Fabiani.

Only later did the “fear take over” and led to false explanations including a simulated break-in and robbery, and a false accusation against a bar owner in Perugia, where the murder occurred, added Fabiani. A Florence court is trying the case against Knox and Sollecito, who have been on trial twice before for the murder of Kercher. Both have said they are not guilty of the accusations.

Guede was convicted in a fast-track trial and is serving a 16-year sentence in the murder, but Italy’s top appeal court said it was unlikely he acted alone. Knox, who is in the United States and has not returned for this trial, and Sollecito each served two years in prison after a lower court convicted them of murder in 2009. An appeal court overturned those convictions in 2011 and in March, Italy’s highest court sent the case back to the appeals stage over aspects of the evidence it argued had not been properly examined before.

The supreme court ruled that the initial forensic evidence had been wrongly dismissed in the acquittal and a prosecution theory about a sex game that went wrong should be re-examined. Kercher, 21, was found dead on the floor of an apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007. Guede’s DNA was found inside Kercher, on her clothes, and elsewhere in the apartment.

Fabiani said that a motive for the murder was “irrelevant” because the crime was committed while the trio were abusing substances. An Italian prosecutor has requested a 26-year prison term for Knox and Sollecito for the murder, plus a further four years for Knox for allegedly slandering bar owner Patrick Lumumba, whom she initially implicated during tough police questioning before later retracting, saying she had been confused.

The new trial opened in Florence in September, and a decision is expected on January 10.

Translation by The 411

4. Reporting in Italian #2

Report by Umbria24

For the Kercher family it is “intolerable” that Amanda Knox on her website is issuing “invitations to collect donations in memory of Meredith” declared Dr Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the parents and siblings of Mez, speaking in the Assize Court of Appeal of Florence, where judicial process continues for the murder of the young British student Meredith Kercher, which occurred in Perugia on the night of November 1, 2007 .

Dr Maresca asked the Court “to forget the opposing sides and all that is foreign to the process”, meaning the media coverage of the controversy being generated in the U.S. in the legal defense of Knox, as they should also “forget the statements made in court a few weeks ago by Raffaele Sollecito, who is now returned to a “vacation” in Santo Domingo”

Dr Maresca also pointed the finger at Knox for her book, for which she signed “contracts in the millions” and also retains “a person to handle public relations”. Finally, he invited the Court to also forget “those journalists who are inspired by the freedom of delirium and not the freedom of the press.”

Many elements confirm the original verdict. “We have no doubts about the guilt of the accused - there are so many elements to confirm the sentence”.

The family of Meredith Kercher, said the lawyer, will be in Florence on the day of the judgment of the appeal for the murder of the young British student by the defendants Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito .

This was a heinous crime committed knowingly. “We ask the Court for truth and justice for a heinous crime committed with precise awareness and desire” said the lawyer Vieri Fabiani, one of the lawyers of the Kercher family… “The defendants Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede, in the process of killing Meredith Kercher, were “excited and a murderous rage was triggered” because, with the drugs and alcohol taken ” their minds were free of inhibitions”.

Fabiani focused in particular on Rudy Guede also convicted for the murder of Meredith, recalling that the judgment was delivered after the first degree trial in Perugia [in October 2008]. And on the verdict against Guede, Fabiani stated that he was sentenced in collusion with another two who “accidentally” have been identified as Sollecito and Knox, whose responsibility and presence on the scene of the crime are well documented.

Fabiani called Sollecito and Knox persons of “high criminal capacity” who have created the picture of a crime without serious motive.  Then after the murder “fear, terror, took over and they set out to simulate a theft, frame Patrick Lumumba, to mystify, however clumsily, to banish from their minds the crime they committed.”

Fabiani argued that the presence of two defendants in the house on Via della Pergola that evening, and their willingness toward murder, were strongly demonstrated.

“The motive becomes irrelevant,” even if it can be identified “in the issues between Amanda and Meredith, which evolved into a sort of punishment of the victim, in an escalation”.

3. Reporting in Italian #1

Report by Blitzquotidiano

Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede were ” excitedly and this unleashed their homicidal rage ” that tragic night between the first and November 2 of 2007. Vieri Fabiani, one of the lawyers of the Kercher family, during the appeal session in Florence about the murder of Meredith Kercher .

Because of drugs and alcohol their minds were “devoid of inhibitions ,” argued the lawyer, according to whom the defendants should be considered ” persons of a high criminal capacity .” After the murder, fear took over, then they get to simulate a theft, to accuse Lumumba, to mystify to banish from their minds the crime they committed.”

The lawyer explained that the presence of the two defendants at the crime scene and their willingness to commit murder was strongly demonstrated. “The motive becomes almost irrelevant, even though important elements can be identified” in the problems existing between Amanda and Meredith, which “evolved into a sort of punishment of the victim in an escalation”.

For the Kercher family it is “intolerable that Amanda Knox on her website makes invitations to collect donations in memory of Meredith” added the lawyer Maresca. He invited the Court ” to forget the opposing sides and all that is foreign to the process.” The court should “forget” the statements made in court a few weeks ago by ” Raffaele Sollecito who has returned to “a vacation” in Santo Domingo

Avv Maresca also pointed the finger at Amanda and her book thanks to which she ” has signed contracts making her a millionaire.”

2. Tweets from La Nazione

10. Amanda knows the mode of the crime because she was present

9. Motive is irrelevant, the presence of the accused at the scene of the crime is proven

8. Amanda and Raffaele in the grip of the excitement and this triggered the murderous rage

7. It is not sustainable that Rudy Guede is the only murderer

6. The lack of motive is irrelevant, there is evidence of homicidal intent

5. The ruling of the Supreme Court crushed the acquittal of appeal

4. Amanda knew the mode of the murder

3. On the knife found at Sollecito’s house there was the DNA of the victim

2. Contamination of the bra clasp is false (invented)

1. Meredith proceedings: hearing begins. Lawyer Vieri Adriani for the victim family to speak first

1. Tweets from Freelance Andrea Vogt

5. Courtroom nearly empty for closing args of lawyer representing meredith kercher family. Not much interest in their quiet suffering.

4. Maresca: “While we’re here in trial, Sollecito in Santo Domingo & Knox in US taking online donations for victim she’s accused of killing.”

3. Kercher attny Serena Perna: Meredith’s many wounds in many places (from bare hands,from knife, yet not defensive) = multiple attackers.

2. Kercher attny: Motive, or lack thereof, is absolutely irrelevant.1000 different problems could have led to fatal escalation of violence.

1. Right now lawyers for the civil parties (specifically Kercher family) giving closing arguments. Defense is to follow.

[Below: two images in the courtroom from previous sessions]

Posted by Our Main Posters on 12/16/13 at 02:05 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Various hypotheses,  Various scenarios,  Defendants in court,  Amanda Knox,  Raff Sollecito,  Appeals 2009-2015,  Florence 2014+,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  13 AK persona hoax,  15 Single alibi hoax,  17 Fake memory hoax,  Hoaxes Sollecito etc,  25 RS persona hoax,  27 Single alibi hoax,  28 Not at house hoax • Comments here (17)

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Amanda Knox Lies Again To Get Herself Into Another European Court “But Really, Judge, Its Only PR”

Posted by Kermit

[Amanda Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga (right): “Amanda wasn’t hit, we made no complaint”]

Introduction

This is the first of two posts on Knox’s claim to have sent an appeal to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Last Monday the main event that followers of the Meredith Kercher murder case were awaiting was the closing argument by Prosecutor Alessandro Crini in Amanda Knox’s and Raffaele Sollecito’s appeal trial.

Dr Crini’s structuring of the prosecution’s case in 16 points demolished the defendants’ efforts to present the volume of evidence against them as an incredible, long series of mistakes, coincidences and misunderstandings.

It seems, however, that Amanda Knox and her people didn’t want the public to be too fascinated by Dr Crini’s devastating argument.  They really wanted them to be distracted by what can only be seen as an ill-judged public relations move, breaking yet more laws along the way.

Knox attempted to blow smoke over the prosecution’s arguments by grandly announcing “today, my lawyers filed an appeal of my slander[sic] conviction with the European Court of Human Rights.”  That explanation of her PR ploy calls for a close review of her eligibility (here) and her so-called proof (next post).

Knox’s eligibility or otherwise

The European Court of Human Rights, is a supranational European tribunal dedicated to ““ as its name suggests - human rights.

It is not dedicated to criminal or civil proceedings on murder, sexual assault, theft, simulation of a crime, or any of the other charges that Knox faces.

In fact, to avoid the many unnecessary or spurious applications which hamper real cases getting attended to, the ECHR provides a number of online resources on who may apply and how and why.

One of the first issues that its advice underlines is that it is not a glorified appeals court:

It is strange then, that Amanda Knox claims that her lawyers have “appealed” her case to the ECHR.

Either Knox’s legal advisors are just ignorant (which ones? The Italian professionals, or the American media hacks?) or this is simply a last-ditch Hail Mary action as an extradition request moves inexorably closer.

If the ECHR makes clear that it isn’t a court of appeal, there shouldn’t be any direct correlation between the Supreme Court confirming her as a convicted criminal and her application to the ECHR.

If that is in fact the basis of their application, it will not go far before rejection. In fact, the vast majority (more than 95%) of applications get rejected:

“For a number of years now, and owing to a variety of factors, the Court has been submerged by individual applications (over 130,000 were pending as at 31 August 2010). The overwhelming majority of these applications (more than 95%) are, however, rejected without being examined on the merits for failure to satisfy one of the admissibility criteria laid down by the Convention.

This situation is frustrating on two counts.

Firstly, as the Court is required to respond to each application, it is prevented from dealing within reasonable time-limits with those cases which warrant examination on the merits, without the public deriving any real benefit.

Secondly, tens of thousands of applicants inevitably have their claims rejected, often after years of waiting.”

It would be a outrageous if other, real human rights cases were delayed due to a Public Relations ruse as part of an extra-judicial strategy to undermine a request for Knox’s extradition.

Other ECHR on-line resources help potential applicants decide if they be eligible to be heard at the Court.

Below, a work-flow chart presents the main steps, including various “Admissibility Criteria”:

[Click for larger version]

A first admissibility criterion

The first Admissibility criterion is that an applicant has exhausted “domestic remedies” in pursuing the recognition and correction of the human rights he or she feels have been abused.

Knox in her application to the ECHR directly relates the Italian Supreme Court final confirmation of her “calunnia” sentence (three years for obstruction of justice for framing her kindly boss Patrick Lumumba as the murderer of Meredith Kercher, thereby throwing off the course of the investigation) to her application to the ECHR.

But what were the supposed human rights abuses suffered? What did she do to remedy them?

The first requirement of exhausting “domestic remedies” means that the rights abuses that Knox alleges she has suffered have been pursued in Italy, and that all possible instances of reclamation in Italy have been visited.

However, as far as the public knows, Knox has not even placed a formal complaint concerning supposed civil rights abuse. Certainly her own Italian lawyers have said they havent.

The US and Italian publics would be interested in seeing her specific claims to the ECHR and whether there is any registration of such claims or complaints with the Italian police or other administrative or NGO offices.

Knox’s needling stepfather, Chris Mellas, stated in April 2008 on a precursor to the PMF discussion forum that a complaint had been filed concerning Amanda being hit during questioning.

[Click for larger version]


However, nothing more has ever been heard of this complaint, which definitely would have been a starting point for pursuing domestic Italian remedies to the claimed rights abuse.

Since it appears zero rights abuses have been pursued in Italy, and the date of Knox’s application to the ECHR is in effect unrelated to her “calunnia” sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court, the six month limit beyond national remedies related to the rights abuse for applying to the ECHR is irrelevant here.

It should be noted that when Prosecutor Crini asked this week for an addition to Knox’s confirmed sentence for “calunnia”, adding another year to the three years already served by the convicted criminal, this is not a reopening of the “calunnia” case or an example of “double jeopardy”, but rather the reassessment on appeal of a separate, pending issue related to the basic calunnia charge: whether it should include an additional year of sentence for being aggravated.

Since this aggravation addition to the charge is awaiting determination, and follows from instructions of the Italian Supreme Court (and could result in an additional year in prison), it is not part of the prior, confirmed sentence.

A second admissibility criterion

Now just in case Knox or her lawyers would like to allege any perceived human rights abuse whatsoever in their ECHR application, the Strasbourg court insists on the reclamation in question being directly related to one of the sections of the European Convention on Human Rights

I’ve gone through it and I see chapters related to illegal detention (detention permitted only following arrest) and torture, but nothing related to getting cuffed on the back of your head.

If such an event ever occurred, it shouldn’t have, but quite likely one of the other authorities or rights bodies listed by the ECHR may be better equipped to deal with it.

This is a second Admissibility Criterion that filters out many applications: one can’t simply run to the ECHR saying “my rights have been abused” ““ the issue at hand must be directly related to the European Convention on Human Rights.

I seriously doubt the “hitting” event ever occurred because Knox’s own Italian lawyer Luciano Ghirga denied it, stating to the Press on 21 October 2008:

Amanda wasn’t hit. There were pressures fom the police, sure, but we never said she was hit.

As our next post here on this same subject will show, even Knox herself admitted she was treated well. 



[Above: Amanda Knox’s Italian courtroom lawyer stating to the Press in 2008 that she had not been hit.]


If Knox hasn’t even tried to remedy being allegedly hit in Italy by suing or making formal complaints, nevertheless the Italian police certainly have acted upon such suggestions.

A number of legal processes are under way against Knox and her family members for slander and calunnia. Knox might face two more charges of aggravated calunnia. Why do I doubt that Knox has even mentioned those other legal processes in her application to the ECHR?

Those charges would of course have to be taken care of (as part of “exhausting domestic remedies”) before the ECHR would be able to consider her application, assuming it surmounted all of its other shortcomings to get to the ECHR judges’ hands.

A third admissibility criterion

Another Admissibility Criteria is the “Significant Disadvantage” filter. If an alleged rights abuse is minimal ““ compared to the very serious issues that the ECHR was created to consider ““ the application will go no further.

The only violent description of Knox’s alleged beating was given by her stepfather, Chris Mellas: “She was interrogated, and hit, and threatened,” he typed. “Tortured.  Physically and mentally”.

However, there was never any medical or forensic notification of such “torture” before or after her incarceration in Capanne Prison.

Rather, Knox spent her time in prison receiving regular visits from a lovelorn Italian politician who befriended her, and participating in prison musical and theatrical activities.

[Click for larger version]


In underlying the “significant disadvantage” requirement, the ECHR states in its examples of rejected claims, that it can’t be distracted by the French driver who lost a point on his driver’s licence, or the Romanian who claims 90 euros from the State, when the Court has real and serious Human Rights cases to deal with such as:

• El-Masri v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Article 3 of European Convention on Human Rights:  Torture and inhuman and degrading treatment during and following applicant’s extraordinary rendition to CIA)


• Hirsii Jamaa and others v. Italy (Article 4 of Protocol No. 4: Return of migrants intercepted on the high seas to country of departure)

It’s almost certain that Knox has not pursued on an Italian level any remedies to her alleged human rights abuse (whatever it was), nor is there any evidence that the investigation into Meredith Kercher’s murder and the subsequent trials of Knox, Rudy Guede and Raffaele Sollecito were affected in their outcome by the rights abuse.

This is especially the case if the limit of Knox’s human rights suffering is that described by a talky ex-FBI helicopter pilot turned ex-college security guy turned Amanda Knox groupie, Steve Moore.

Moore describes the “frightful” circumstances of Knox’s witness questioning on the night of 5 November 2007 for the couple of hours (perhaps even somewhat less) that it lasted:

No food, no coffee, no bathroom breaks ““ nothing.

Above is ex-college security man Steve Moore, right, together with PR flunkie Bruce Fischer, left, both flanking “Frank Sfarzo”, a Knox-Mellas family friend.

Francesco Sforza is currently a fugitive from the Seattle courts on two counts of Assault-Domestic Violence, who continues to support Amanda in ongoing Internet blog posts, from wherever he may be.

See below. Click for larger. In purple, my corrections to Knox’s “what-I-want-the-World-to-believe” post about applying to the ECHR.

[Click for larger version]

In conclusion

Between the manifest doubtfulness of the acceptability of Knox’s application to the European Court of Human Rights, on one hand, and the falsehoods and half-truths in her announcement, on the other, why do I get the feeling that the only reason and hope she and her team have in announcing the application (whether really filed or not) is to distract the attention of the followers of her appeal trial from the prosecution’s weighty arguments?

This will have little if any effect on the wheels of Italian Justice, and probably even less on a State Department more concerned with maintaining good relations with European allies while diplomatic challenges occur in the Middle East and Asia, than with a lobby plan to prevent Knox’s extradition.


[Below: The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg France]

Posted by Kermit on 11/27/13 at 10:10 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in The legal followups,  ECHR related,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  16 Interrogation hoax,  17 Fake memory hoax,  24 ECHR appeal hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Amanda Knox #1,  Knox-Marriott PR,  Hoaxers from 2011,  Amanda Knox #2 • Comments here (44)

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Questions For Knox: Do You Really Think “False Memories” Claim Framing Italians Yet Again Will Help?

Posted by Our Main Posters

[You say Madison Paxton found Kassin? So why did Bruce Fischer and Sarah claim to have done so??]

1. Your Real Persona, Widely Observed

Remember that Italians have seen a lot more of the real you than most Americans ever have. Italians all saw the real you described here and here.

That is why maybe 95% of all Italians long ago concluded for your guilt. At times you can come across as winning but, as there on the stand, too often as brash, sneering, sharp-elbowed, humorless, uncaring, and self-absorbed.

That is the Knox that put off many who encountered you in Seattle, it is why you had Halloween largely alone, and why you put off almost everyone you encountered in Perugia. Including everyone in your house in Perugia, and most in Patrick’s bar - and this literally in less than a month.

The “lost little girl” persona, the “chaste girl who never did sex and drugs” persona, the “diligent girl who studied so hard” persona, and the “they all want to get me because I am so fantastically cute” persona you or your agenda-driven shadow-writer put in the book have many people who have seen a lot of you in strong disbelief.

Can you name even one good friend who still stands by you in Perugia, given that even Raffaele Sollecito has placed you at the brink of a cliff?

By the way, this is not an unkind group, mostly comprised as it is of professionals, and some surprising things you yourself said in your book confirmed a suspicion about untreated root causes that we mentioned here.

2. Pages 270 to 272 Of Your Book With Your False Claims Highlighted

Let us first quote what you claim about your interrogation as “explained” by Saul Kassin who had at this point diagnosed you only long-distance and talked with not even one person who was there. False claims are shown in bold.

Thankfully Madison had researched the science on false confessions. She found Saul Kassin, a psychologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. A specialist in wrongful convictions, he took the mystery out of what had happened to me.

Before my interrogation, I believed, like many people, that if someone were falsely accused, they wouldn’t, couldn’t, be swayed from the truth while under interrogation. I never would have believed that I could be pressured into confessing to something I hadn’t done. For three years I berated myself for not having been stronger. I’m an honest person. During that interrogation, I had nothing to hide, and a stake in the truth “” I desperately wanted the police to solve Meredith’s murder. But now I know that innocent people often confess. The records kept of people convicted of a crime and later exonerated by DNA evidence show that the DNA of 25 percent of them didn’t match the DNA left at the scene. The DNA testing showed that one in four innocent people ended up confessing as I did. And experts believe that even more innocent people confess, both in cases with and without DNA evidence.

According to Kassin, there are different types of false confessions. The most common is “compliant,” which usually happens when the suspect is threatened with punishment or isolation. The encounter becomes so stressful, so unbearable, that suspects who know they’re innocent eventually give in just to make the uncomfortably harsh questioning stop. “You’ll get thirty years in prison if you don’t tell us,” says one interrogator. “I want to help you, but I can’t unless you help us,” says another.

This was exactly the good cop/bad cop routine the police had used on me.

Besides being compliant, I also showed signs of having made an “internalized” false confession. Sitting in that airless interrogation room in the questura, surrounded by people shouting at me during forty-three hours of questioning over five days, I got to the point, in the middle of the night, where I was no longer sure what the truth was. I started believing the story the police were telling me. They took me into a state where I was so fatigued and stressed that I started to wonder if I had witnessed Meredith’s murder and just didn’t remember it. I began questioning my own memory.

Kassin says that once suspects begin to distrust their own memory, they have almost no cognitive choice but to consider, possibly accept, and even mentally elaborate upon the interrogator’s narrative of what happened. That’s how beliefs are changed and false memories are formed.

That’s what had happened to me.

I was so confused that my mind made up images to correspond with the scenario the police had concocted and thrust on me. For a brief time, I was brainwashed.

Three years after my “confession,” I’d blocked out some of my interrogation. But the brain has ways of bringing up suppressed memories. My brain chooses flashbacks””sharp, painful flashes of memory that flicker, interrupting my conscious thoughts. My adrenaline responds as if it’s happening in that moment. I remember the shouting, the figures of looming police officers, their hands touching me, the feeling of panic and of being surrounded, the incoherent images my mind made up to try to explain what could have happened to Meredith and to legitimize why the police were pressuring me.

This new knowledge didn’t stop my nightmares or flashbacks, but I was so relieved to learn that what I’d been through wasn’t unique to me. It had been catalogued! It had a name! As soon as I understood that what happened during my interrogation wasn’t my fault, I started forgiving myself.

Kassin and others show that interrogations are intentionally designed to bewilder and deceive a suspect. Originally created to get highly trained, patriotic U.S. fighter pilots to sell out their country during the Korean War, one technique uses a tag team of investigators and tactics meant to induce exhaustion, agitation, and fear. It’s especially potent on young, vulnerable witnesses like me. The method was designed not to elicit information but to plant it “” specifically tailored to destroy an orderly thought process. After some hours, the subject gives the interrogators what they want “” whether it’s the truth or not.

In my case they’d put several interrogators in a room with me. For hours they yelled, screamed, kept me on edge. When they exhausted themselves, a fresh team replaced them. But I wasn’t even allowed to leave to use the bathroom.

These were strategic measures, many of which are described in Kassin’s report on police interrogation, “On the Psychology of Confessions: Does Innocence Put Innocents at Risk?” Reading it, I was flabbergasted to learn how by the book the police had been in their manipulation of me.

It had been the middle of the night. I’d already been questioned for hours at a time, days in a row. They tried to get me to contradict myself by homing in on what I’d done hour by hour, to confuse me, to cause me to lose track and get something wrong. They said I had no alibi. They lied, saying that Raffaele had told them I’d asked him to lie to the police. They wouldn’t let me call my mom. They wouldn’t let me leave the interrogation room. They were yelling at me in a language I didn’t understand. They hit me and suggested that I had trauma-induced amnesia. They encouraged me to imagine what could have happened, encouraged me to “remember” the truth because they said I had to know the truth. They threatened to imprison me for thirty years and restrict me from seeing my family. At the time, I couldn’t think of it as anything but terrifying and overwhelming.

That was exactly their point.

Highlighted in bold is another large body of your many easy-to-disprove lies as in the previous post.

Your bizarre analysis leads to many many questions.

What honest person? You served three years for felony lying. Exactly how did you ever help the police? What good cop/bad cop routine? There were only ever 2 or 3 interviewers there. What airless room? You were in a very modern building with air conditioning. What shouting? What 43 hours of interrogation? You had at most been questioned for one or two hours - and only for a few minutes on this night when you “broke”.  What story were police forcing on you? Why were you so confused and stressed - other than that Sollecito had just left you with no alibi? What did the police concoct and thrust on you, and why? Why didnt they do that to anyone else? So many others were interviewed too.

You are not even in Kassin’s “vulnerable” target group. How could you possibly be brainwashed in such a short time? What do you mean “after some hours”? What hours? Who exactly yelled and screamed and kept you on edge? What fresh tag team? Who stopped you leaving the interrogation room for a bathroom break? Why did you testify that you were given refreshments and treated well? Why did your own lawyers say you were treated well? Why did they never lodge a complaint? Why when you had an excellent interpreter did you say you couldn’t understand? Why would police threaten to imprison you for 30 years when their whole interest moved quickly to Patrick as you engineered? And why after the interview when you were left sitting in a corridor, babbling and being calmed down, did you not simply walk right out?

In fact, nobody ever accused you of anything at all in your voluntary witness interview.

You were put under no pressure to confess. Not so long after Sollecito fingered you, you spontaneously blamed Patrick for Meredith’s death. For the next several hours, you babbled on, again and again blaming Patrick. Dr Mignini then witnessed you being warned, and barely said a word.

And of course you never ever did confess that you participated in the attack on Meredith yourself. You are really claiming a false confession - when you didnt even confess? 

Sollecito similarly cracked spontaneously in an adjacent room, and he pointed the blame at you. Its very noticeable in all of the above that you essentially dont even mention his name. Nor does Kassin.

So what made Sollecito crack? You don’t explain that.

3. Saul Kassin’s Version with His False Claims Highlighted

It seems that Kassin was subjected to the toxic Misinformation Cloud conjured up by the Rank Amateurs for Knox, and Kassin very foolishly failed to check with anyone at all who had been on the spot.

Here are the relevant passages from Saul Kassin’s paper in American Psychologist with his false claims highlighted in bold.

As illustrated by the story of Amanda Knox and many others wrongfully convicted, false confessions often trump factual innocence. Focusing on consequences, recent research suggests that confessions are powerfully persuasive as a matter of logic and common sense; that many false confessions contain richly detailed narratives and accurate crime facts that appear to betray guilty knowledge; and that confessions in general can corrupt other evidence from lay witnesses and forensic experts””producing an illusion of false support. This latter phenomenon, termed “corroboration inflation,” suggests that pretrial corroboration requirements as well as the concept of “harmless error” on appeal are based on an erroneous presumption of independence among items of evidence. In addition to previously suggested reforms to police practices that are designed to curb the risk of false confessions, measures should be taken as well to minimize the rippling consequences of those confessions…. 

Meredith Kercher was found raped and murdered in Perugia, Italy. Almost immediately,  police suspected 20-year-old Amanda Knox, an American student and one of Kercher’s roommates””the only one who stayed in Perugia after the murder. Knox had no history of crime or violence and no motive. But something about her demeanor””such as an apparent lack of affect, an outburst of sobbing, or her girlish and immature behavior”” led police to believe she was involved and lying when she claimed she was with Raffaele Sollecito, her new Italian boyfriend, that night. 

Armed with a prejudgment of Knox’s guilt, several police officials interrogated the girl on and off for four days. Her final interrogation started on November 5 at 10 p.m. and lasted until November 6 at 6 a.m., during which time she was alone, without an attorney, tag-teamed by a dozen police, and did not break for food or sleep. In many ways, Knox was a vulnerable suspect””young, far from home, without family, and forced to speak in a language in which she was not fluent. Knox says she was repeatedly threatened and called a liar. She was told,  falsely, that Sollecito, her boyfriend, disavowed her alibi and that physical evidence placed her at the scene. She was encouraged to shut her eyes and imagine how the gruesome crime had occurred, a trauma, she was told, that she had obviously repressed. Eventually she broke down crying,  screaming, and hitting herself in the head. Despite a law that mandates the recording of interrogations, police and prosecutors maintain that these sessions were not recorded. 

Two “confessions” were produced in this last session,  detailing what Knox called a dreamlike “vision.” Both were typed by police””one at 1:45 a.m., the second at 5:45 a.m. She retracted the statements in a handwritten letter as soon as she was left alone (“In regards to this “˜confession’  that I made last night, I want to make it clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.”). Notably, nothing in the confessions indicated that she had guilty knowledge. In fact, the statements attributed to Knox were factually incorrect on significant core details (e.g., she named as an accomplice a man whom police had suspected but who later proved to have an ironclad alibi; she failed to name another man, unknown to police at the time, whose DNA was later identified on the victim). Nevertheless, Knox, Sollecito, and the innocent man she implicated were all immediately arrested. In a media-filled room, the chief of police announced: Caso chiuso (case closed). 

Police had failed to provide Knox with an attorney or record the interrogations, so the confessions attributed to her were ruled inadmissible in court. Still, the damage was done. The confession set into motion a hypothesis-confirming investigation, prosecution, and conviction. The man whose DNA was found on the victim, after specifically stating that Knox was not present, changed his story and implicated her while being prosecuted. Police forensic experts concluded that Knox’s DNA on the handle of a knife found in her boyfriend’s apartment also contained Kercher’s blood on the blade and that the boyfriend’s DNA was on the victim’s bra clasp. Several eyewitnesses came forward.  An elderly woman said she was awakened by a scream followed by the sound of two people running; a homeless drug addict said he saw Knox and Sollecito in the vicinity that night; a convicted drug dealer said he saw all three suspects together; a grocery store owner said he saw Knox the next morning looking for cleaning products; one witness said he saw Knox wielding a knife. 

On December 5, 2009, an eight-person jury convicted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito of murder. The two were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively. Finally, on October 3, 2011, after having been granted a new trial, they were acquitted. [Actually they still stand accused - and facing a tough fact-based prosecution appeal] Ten weeks later, the Italian appeals court released a strongly worded 143-page opinion in which it criticized the prosecution and concluded that there was no credible evidence, motive, or plausible theory of guilt. For the four years of their imprisonment, this story drew international attention (for comprehensive overviews of the case, see Dempsey, 2010, and Burleigh, 2011).1

It is now clear that the proverbial mountain of discredited evidence used to convict Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito was nothing but a house of cards built upon a false confession. The question posed by this case, and so many others like it, is this: Why do confessions so often trump innocence? ...

Third, it is important to realize that not all evidence is equally malleable or subject to corroboration inflation. Paralleling classic research indicating that expectations can color judgments of people, objects, and other stimuli that are ambiguous as opposed to those that compel a particular perception, forensic research indicates that ambiguity is a moderating condition. Asked to report on an event or make an identification decision on the basis of a memory trace that cannot be recovered, eyewitnesses are particularly malleable when confronted with evidence of a confession (Hasel & Kassin, 2009). This phenomenon was illustrated in the case against Amanda Knox. When police first interviewed Knox’s British roommates, not one reported that there was bad blood between Knox and the victim. After Knox’s highly publicized confession, however, the girls brought forth new “memories,” telling police that Kercher was uncomfortable with Knox and the boys she would bring home (Burleigh, 2011). ... 

In recent years, psychologists have been critical of the problems with accuracy, error, subjectivity, and bias in various types of criminal evidence””prominently including eyewitness identification procedures, police interrogation practices, and the so-called forensic identification sciences,  all leading Saks and Koehler (2005) to predict a “coming paradigm shift.” With regard to confessions, it now appears that this shift should encompass not only reforms that serve to minimize the risk of false confessions but measures designed to minimize the rippling consequences of those confessions””as in the case of Amanda Knox and others who are wrongfully convicted.

4. An Exposure Of Ten Of Saul Kassins’s False Claims

Our main poster the Machine exposes further how Kassin’s key claims are wrong.

False Claim 1: They brought her in for that final interrogation late at night.

No they didn’t.

Neither the police nor the prosecutors brought Amanda in for questioning on 5 November 2007. Amanda Knox herself testified in court that she wasn’t called to come to the police station on 5 November 2007.

Carlo Pacelli: “For what reason did you go to the Questura on November 5? Were you called?”

Amanda Knox: “No, I wasn’t called. I went with Raffaele because I didn’t want to be alone.”

Amanda Knox went with Raffaele Sollecito because she didn’t want to be alone. Kassin’s false claim is the first red flag that Saul Kassin is very confused or has been seriously misled when it comes to this well-documented and well-handled case.

False Claim 2: The so-called confession wasn’t until 6:00am.

No it wasn’t.

If Saul Kassin had actually read Amanda Knox’s first witness statement, he would have known that it was made at 1:45am. Knox had admitted that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed some time before this.

False Claim 3: She was interrogated from 10:00pm to 6.00am.

No she wasn’t.

According to the Daily Beast Amanda Knox’s questioning began at about 11:00pm.

Since Knox was already at the police station [in the company of Raffaele Sollecito] the head of the murder squad decided to ask her a few questions. Her interrogation started at about 11 p.m.

After Amanda Knox had made her witness statement at 1:45am, she wasn’t questioned again that evening. That was it.

However, Amanda Knox herself then wanted to make further declarations and Mr Mignini who was on duty on the night sat and watched while Knox wrote out her declarations.

Mr Mignini explained what happened in his email letter to Linda Byron, another who was factually challenged.

All I did was to apply the Italian law to the proceedings. I really cannot understand any problem.

In the usual way, Knox was first heard by the police as a witness, but when some essential elements of her involvement with the murder surfaced, the police suspended the interview, according to Article 63 of the penal proceedings code.

But Knox then decided to render spontaneous declarations, that I took up without any further questioning, which is entirely lawful.

According to Article 374 of the penal proceedings code, suspects must be assisted by a lawyer only during a formal interrogation, and when being notified of alleged crimes and questioned by a prosecutor or judge, not when they intend to render unsolicited declarations.

Since I didn’t do anything other than to apply the Italian law applicable to both matters, I am unable to understand the objections and reservations which you are talking about.

In Amanda Knox’s written witness statement, she explicitly states that she’s making a spontaneous declaration:

Amanda Knox: “I wish to relate spontaneously what happened because these events have deeply bothered me and I am really afraid of Patrick, the African boy who owns the pub called “Le Chic” located in Via Alessi where I work periodically.

False Claim 4: They banged her on the back of the head.

No they didn’t.

All the numerous witnesses who were actually present when Amanda Knox was questioned, including her interpreter, testified under oath at trial in 2009 that she wasn’t hit. She has never identified anyone who hit her and on several occasions confirmed that she was treated well.

Even one of Amanda Knox’s lawyers, Luciano Ghirga, confirmed that Amanda Knox had not been hit: “There were pressures from the police but we never said she was hit.”  He never ever lodged a complaint.

False Claim 5: All the other British roommates left town.

No they didn’t.

The police also told Sophie Purton that they needed her to stay on in Perugia on precisely the same basis as Amanda Knox. In chapter 19 of Death in Perugia, John Follain states that Sophie Purton was questioned by Mignini and Napoleoni in the prosecutor’s office on 5 November 2007.

Sophie had been counting on leaving Perugia to fly back home as soon as her parents arrived, but the police called to tell her they needed her to stay on; they would let her know when she could leave.

False Claim 6 : Amanda Knox stayed back to help the police.

No she didn’t.

This claim is flatly contradicted by Amanda Knox herself. In the e-mail she wrote to her friends in Seattle on 4 November 2007 she categorically stated she was not allowed to leave Italy.

i then bought some underwear because as it turns out i wont be able to leave italy for a while as well as enter my house

Knox actually knew on 2 November 2007 that she couldn’t leave Italy. Amy Frost reported the following conversation (The Massei report, page 37),

I remember having heard Amanda speaking on the phone, I think that she was talking to a member of her family, and I heard her say, No, they won’t let me go home, I can’t catch that flight.

It’s not the first time that the myth that Knox chose to stay behind rather than leave Italy has been claimed in the media. And incidentally, lying repeatedly to the police isn’t normally considered to be helping them.

False Claim 7: Amanda Knox had gone 8 hours without any food or drink.

No she hadn’t.

Reported by Richard Owen in The Times, 1 March 2009

Ms Napoleoni told the court that while she was at the police station Ms Knox had been ‘treated very well. She was given water, camomile tea and breakfast. She was given cakes from a vending machine and then taken to the canteen at the police station for something to eat.’

Reported by Richard Owen in The Times, 15 March 2009.

Ms Donnino said that Ms Knox had been “comforted” by police, given food and drink, and had at no stage been hit or threatened.

John Follain in his meticulous book Death in Perugia, page 134, also reports that Knox was given food and drink during her questioning:

During the questioning, detectives repeatedly went to fetch her a snack, water, and hot drinks including camomile tea.

False Claim 8: The translator was hostile towards Amanda Knox.

No she wasn’t.

Saul Kassin offers no evidence that the translator was hostile towards Amanda Knox and there is no evidence that this was the case. Nobody at the questura has claimed this. Amanda Knox’s own lawyers have not claimed this.

Even Amanda Knox herself has never ever claimed that Anna Donnino was hostile towards her although she had every opportunity to do so when being questioned on the stand.

False Claim 9: The translator was acting as an agent for the police.

No she wasn’t.

Saul Kassin offers no evidence to support this claim, which by the way in Italy is the kind of unprofessional charge that incurs calunnia suits. Do ask Curt Knox.

False Claim 10: The police lied to Amanda Knox.

No they didn’t.

The police didn’t mislead Amanda Knox. They told her quite truthfully that Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi, and that he had just claimed in the next interrogation room that she wasn’t at his apartment from around 9:00pm to about 1:00am. This also is the kind of unprofessional charge that incurs calunnia suits

Other claims by Kassin are also inaccurate. He claims that not one of your acquaintances had reported there was bad blood. That also is untrue. Even prior to the witness interrogation, law enforcement knew from multiple sources that you had been feuding with just about everyone. Acquaintances created no “new memory”. The bad blood you created was quite real. 

5. How Kassin Bends His Own Science To Make Results Come Out “Right”

Our main poster Fuji dug deeper into the science and turns up what is an obvious scientific fraud by Kassin to insert himself into the case.

Meredith’s case is absolutely riddled with fabricated false myths. 

They are now found by the hundreds on some misleading websites, and they simply make experienced law enforcement and criminal lawyers laugh. 

For example “Police had no good reason to be immediately suspicious of Knox simply because the murder occurred at her residence”.  And “The double-DNA knife is a priori to be disregarded as evidence, because no murderer would retain possession of such a murder weapon.”

One of the most strident and widespread myths is that Amanda Knox’s statements to the Perugian investigators on 5 and 6 November 2007, placing her at the scene of Meredith’s murder, are to be viewed as the products of a genuinely confused mind imbued with a naïve trust of authority figures.

The apparent certainty with which many of Amanda Knox’s most vocal supporters proclaim that Knox’s statements are actual “false confessions” as opposed to deliberate lies is not supported by even a cursory reading of the pertinent academic literature regarding false confessions.

What actually are “false confessions”?

Richard N. Kocsis in his book “Applied Criminal Psychology: A Guide to Forensic Behavioral Sciences” (2009), on pages 193-4 delineates three different kinds of false confessions:

First, a voluntary false confession is one in which a person falsely confesses to a crime absent any pressure or coercion from police investigators….

Coerced-compliant false confessions occur when a person falsely confesses to a crime for some immediate gain and in spite of the conscious knowledge that he or she is actually innocent of the crime….

The final type, identified by Kassin and Wrightsman (1985), is referred to as a coerced-internalized false confession. This occurs when a person falsely confesses to a crime and truly begins to believe that he or she is responsible for the criminal act.

The first problem facing Knox supporters wishing to pursue the false confession angle as a point speaking to her purported innocence is epistemological.

Although much research has been done on this phenomenon in recent years, academics are still struggling to come to terms with a methodology to determine their incidence rate.

The current state of knowledge does not support those making sweeping claims about the likelihood of Knox’s statements being representative of a genuine internalized false confession.

As noted by Richard A. Leo in “False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications” (Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 2009):

Although other researchers have also documented and analyzed numerous false confessions in recent years, we do not know how frequently they occur. A scientifically meaningful incidence rate cannot be determined for several reasons.

First, researchers cannot identify (and thus cannot randomly sample) the universe of false confessions, because no governmental or private organization keeps track of this information.

Second, even if one could identify a set of possibly false confessions, it is not usually possible as a practical matter to obtain the primary case materials (e.g., police reports, pretrial and trial transcripts, and electronic recordings of the interrogations) necessary to evaluate the unreliability of these confessions.

Finally, even in disputed confession cases in which researchers are able to obtain primary case materials, it may still be difficult to determine unequivocally the ground truth (i.e., what really happened) with sufficient certainty to prove the confession false.

In most alleged false-confession cases, it is therefore impossible to remove completely any possible doubts about the confessor’s innocence.

The next problem Knox supporters face is that, even allowing for an inability to establish a priori any likelihood of a given statement being a false confession, the kind of false confession which is usually attributed to Knox is in fact one of the LEAST likely of the three types (Voluntary, Compliant, and Persuaded, as Leo terms the three different categories) to be observed:

Persuaded false confessions appear to occur far less often than compliant false confessions.

Moreover, despite assertions to the contrary, Knox and her statements do not in fact satisfy many of the criteria researchers tend to observe in false confessions, particularly of the Persuaded variety:

“All other things being equal, those who are highly suggestible or compliant are more likely to confess falsely. Individuals who are highly suggestible tend to have poor memories, high levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and low assertiveness, personality factors that also make them more vulnerable to the pressures of interrogation and thus more likely to confess falsely…

Highly suggestible or compliant individuals are not the only ones who are unusually vulnerable to the pressures of police interrogation. So are the developmentally disabled or cognitively impaired, juveniles, and the mentally ill….

They also tend to occur primarily in high-profile murder cases and to be the product of unusually lengthy and psychologically intense interrogations… ordinary police interrogation is not strong enough to produce a permanent change in the suspect’s beliefs.

Most significantly, there is one essential element of a true Persuaded False Confession which in Knox’s case is highly distinctive:

To convince the suspect that it is plausible, and likely, that he committed the crime, the interrogators must supply him with a reason that satisfactorily explains how he could have done it without remembering it.

This is the second step in the psychological process that leads to a persuaded false confession.

Typically, the interrogator suggests one version or another of a “repressed” memory theory.

He or she may suggest, for example, that the suspect experienced an alcohol- or drug-induced blackout, a “dry” blackout, a multiple personality disorder, a momentary lapse in consciousness, or posttraumatic stress disorder, or, perhaps most commonly, that the suspect simply repressed his memory of committing the crime because it was a traumatic experience for him.

The suspect can only be persuaded to accept responsibility for the crime if he regards one of the interrogators’ explanations for his alleged amnesia as plausible.

Knox did not in fact claim drug or alcohol use as the source of her amnesia - rather, she claimed to have accepted the interrogators’ attribution that this was due to being traumatized by the crime itself, and she offers no other explanation for her selective amnesia:

This is from Knox’s statement to the court in pretrial on 18 October 2008 with Judge Micheli presiding.

Then they started pushing on me the idea that I must have seen something, and forgotten about it. They said that I was traumatized.

Of course, Knox’s initial statement went far beyond being that of being merely a witness to some aspect of Ms. Kercher’s murder, as the interrogators at first seemed to believe was the case.

Rather, her statement placed her at scene of the murder during its actual commission while she did nothing to avert it, which naturally made her a suspect.

In other words, in the absence of any of her other testimony which indicated that she was only a witness to the murder, her own self-admitted rationale for providing a false confession was that she was traumatized by the commission of the murder itself.

Perugia judges will be familiar with all of the above and we can be sure that they brief the lay judges on the remote circumstances and incidences of false confessions.

If I were a Knox defense attorney, I would find it to be a far more fruitful line of argumentation to argue that she was simply lying, rather than claiming the supremely unlikely provision of an actual internalized false confession.

6. Kassin’s Paper with Correct Facts and Context Now Included

Here is our main poster BR Mull describing what actually took place.

On November 2, 2007, British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found sexually attacked and murdered in Perugia, Italy. The next day, 20-year-old Amanda Knox, an American student and one of Kercher’s roommates, became a person of interest, along with Meredith’s downstairs neighbors and several of her other acquaintances. Interviewing close contacts is a cornerstone of police work. Two of Meredith’s close English friends, who were so scared they couldn’t sleep alone, left Perugia in the immediate aftermath of the murder. Everyone else stayed on.

Months before arriving in Perugia, Knox received a citation for a noise violation when a going-away party she’d thrown for herself in Seattle got out of hand. One of the officers described it as a “scene from Baghdad.” Within about three weeks of moving into the cottage in Perugia, Knox was ejected from a nightclub for pouring her glass on the head of a disc jockey.

It’s often said that Knox had no motive to kill Meredith, but it was Knox’s claim of drug use which indicated a possible motive: a drug-fuelled assault. There are various others, though a motive is not actually required for conviction. In crime scene videos from the day Meredith’s body was discovered, Knox can be seen outside the cottage glancing furtively around. Still, it was not this and other odd behavior, but rather the many conflicting witness statements by Knox and her new Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, that led police to believe Knox was involved and lying when she claimed she was with Sollecito at his home continuously on the night of November 1.

Police interviewed dozens of witnesses in the days after the murder, some more than once. All witness statements were written down and signed for, not recorded. The police interviewed Sollecito for the third time beginning at 10:40pm on November 5. Knox later testified that she voluntarily accompanied her boyfriend to the station, because she didn’t want to be alone. The police did not summon her. To the interviewers’ surprise, Sollecito repudiated his earlier alibi when shown phone records, and now said Knox had left his apartment for much of the evening. Some time after 11:00pm the police asked if they might interview Knox. An interpreter was called and by 1:45am Knox had given a signed statement that she had witnessed the sounds of her employer, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, murdering Meredith at the cottage.

In that statement she acknowledged that she had been given an interpreter, and that she herself was now officially a suspect. Knox later testified that she was treated well. She was offered snacks and drinks during the interview and afterward. Made aware that she could not be interrogated without a lawyer, but still anxious to put out as much information as possible, she then requested a chance to make a spontaneous statement without any questioning. The prosecutor on duty agreed, and she gave a statement in front of him very similar to her witness statement from hours earlier.

Knox and the police gave different accounts of how the 11:00 to 1:45 am interview was conducted. Police said Knox was told Sollecito now no longer confirmed her alibi and he had called her a liar. She now had no alibi. Sympathetic to her because Knox now had no alibi, the interpreter urged her to try to remember at least something.  Shown a text she had sent to Lumumba at 8:35pm saying “See you later. Have a good evening!” she was asked to explain this. The police say Knox started to cry and burst out, “It’s him! It’s him!”

Both Knox’s witness statement at 1:45 a.m and her voluntary suspect statement at 5:45am were written out in Italian and translated back to her before she signed. After Knox was formally taken into custody at midday on November 6, she asked for paper and wrote a slight modification of her earlier statements, adding: “In regards to this “˜confession’ that I made last night, I want to make it clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.”

Lumumba was arrested along with Knox and Sollecito. Knox and her mother held out on his non-involvement, but he was eventually determined to have a solid alibi. Another man, Rudy Guede, was identified through a hand print in Meredith’s bedroom. Knox appeared to have substituted Lumumba for Guede in her statements, and several details of the crime in her so-called confession were later corroborated by witnesses.

Because police had not needed to provide Knox with an attorney at the impromptu witness interview after 11:00, the Supreme Court ruled that statement inadmissible in the murder case against her. However both statements were ruled admissible in court for the purpose of establishing the crime of defamation against Patrick Lumumba. Knox’s November 6 letter was also ruled admissible.

Guede, the man whose DNA was found on the victim, told a friend while he was still on the run that he had found Meredith stabbed and that Knox had nothing to do with the murder. However, in the same conversation, which was recorded by police, he speculated that Knox and Sollecito might have been at the cottage. In a letter dated March 7, 2010, while his sentence was awaiting final confirmation by the Supreme Court, Guede wrote that Knox and Sollecito murdered Meredith. He reiterated this claim as a witness during Knox and Sollecito’s appeal.

Forensic police from Rome concluded that a kitchen knife found in Sollecito’s apartment had Knox’s DNA on the handle and Meredith’s DNA on the blade. Sollecito’s DNA was on the victim’s bra clasp in Meredith’s locked bedroom.

Several eyewitnesses came forward. Three neighbors testified that they heard a disturbance around 11:30pm in the vicinity of the cottage. A homeless man who at appeal admitted heroin use was reading a newsmagazine at the basketball court near the cottage. He testified that he saw Knox and Sollecito four or five times that night. An Albanian, a possible drug dealer. who the Massei court deemed unreliable after the Micheli court accepted him, said he had seen all three suspects together, and that Knox had accosted him with a knife. A grocery store owner testified he saw Knox at his shop early on the morning after the murder.

The conflicting alibis of the two were never resolved during trial. On December 4, 2009, an eight-person panel consisting of two professional judges and six lay judges found Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito guilty of murder aggravated by sexual assault, simulation of a burglary, unlawful carrying of a knife and, in Knox’s case, criminal defamation of Patrick Lumumba. The two were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively….

Knox’s mother later described her daughter as “oblivious to the dark side of the world.” Knox herself wrote that, on the night of the murder, she and Sollecito were talking about his mother’s suicide. She told him her philosophy was “life is full of choices and that these choices are not necessarily between good and evil, but between what’s better and what’s worse.”...

7. Our Concluding Advice

You simply didnt remotely fit Kassin’s own profile of those who break easily under interrogation and make things up. Your suspect interrogation was gentle, brief and considerate, as you have said, and didnt remotely fit Kassin’s claims. And of course, you never made a false confession on that night or any other.

Do you really want this guy or yourself cross-examined on the stand? Again, it may be the last good time to try to walk all of your malicious invention back.


[Saul Kassin with President Travis of John Jay College who lets the false anti-Italy allegations stand]

Posted by Our Main Posters on 06/16/13 at 04:41 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Defendants in court,  Amanda Knox,  Evidence & Witnesses,  News media & movies,  Hoaxes against Italy,  9 Mignini v Knox hoax,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  13 AK persona hoax,  15 Single alibi hoax,  16 Interrogation hoax,  17 Fake memory hoax,  Hoaxers from 2007,  Amanda Knox #1,  Knox-Marriott PR,  Hoaxers from 2009,  Saul Kassin,  Hoaxers from 2011,  Amanda Knox #2 • Comments here (61)

Monday, April 30, 2012

Does ANY Competent Lawyer Believe RS And AK Are 100% Innocent? If So See These Questions

Posted by James Raper

[Above: Knox defense legal advisor Ted Simon increasingly seems to have some explaining to do]

After 3 days and growing, unfortunately no sign that pro-innocence lawyers (if any) want to respond.  Mr Simon? Mr Barnett? Ms Nancy Grace? (Well perhaps not you)

The Italian, US and UK lawyers who guide TJMK (of which I am one) look around and wonder: why are genuinely-convinced pro-Knox lawyers (if any) still not comprehensively answering all the open questions?

I contrast this with the various media talking heads who have offered drive-by comments without a really deep understanding of the facts of the case or Italian law.

In the law of all three countries, defense lawyers don’t need to KNOW either way whether their client is guilty or innocent. They don’t have to come out with a complete scenario to account for all the facts and point to innocence that would be the counterpart to my scenario (powerpoints - wait a few seconds to load) seemingly accounting for all the facts, which is still an unchallenged case for guilt.

But a comprehensive rebuttal would do the hard-pressed Sollecito and Knox factions a big favor, and provide a much-needed framework for the media (which is posting many incorrect legal claims), and make the Cassation appeal and the book-writing by Knox and Sollecito so much easier.

Consider the ups-and-downs of the defense legal teams on the case,

It was clear in 2008 that her lawyers absolutely didnt like Knox speaking out, offering different versions that between them made her look distinctly guilty. They didnt like the anti-Mignini campaign run from Seattle and they publicly said so - when Mr Mignini was attacked by a main speaker at an event at Salty’s they actually spoke up and publicly defended him.

In December 2008 NBC TV aired an excellent Dateline report. The main legal talking head, Ted Simon, explained that this was a really tough prosecution case to beat, and that whacking down individual points of evidence would not win the case in the public eye (justice would not be seen to be done) and that only a complete alternative explanation of the crime would do.

At trial in 2009 the defense teams did what they could with a torrent of facts and two unpredictable clients. The cross-examination of Amanda Knox on the stand mid-year in the context of Patrick Lumumba’s alleged framing must have seemed a real low-point for them, as she came across as rather flippant and chilling, and she said a number of things that all defense lawyers would probably prefer that she hadn’t.

Through the publication of Judge Massei’s report the defenses seem to have been faced with an uphill battle.

In 2011 an experienced criminal-case judge was initially appointed to preside over the first appeal. But quite suddenly, to the surprise of many in Italy and the alleged unhappiness of the judge himself, he was removed from the case, and Judge Hellman was appointed in his place. 

Defence counsel would of course have had no role in that surprise change of lead judges for the first appeal, but from Day One of the appeal (spaced out to one session a week by Judge Hellman to suit one of them) the defenses seemed much happier.

The prosecution were now on occasion publicly hinting that they were now stuck with the uphill battle. The defenses now seemed the side energized and confident. But please note these three things which suggest that they knew they were not all-powerful.

1)  They appealed on very narrow grounds, essentially on some witness testimony and a small part of the forensic evidence, and they kept well away from the multiple alibis, mobile phones and computers, and forensic evidence in the hallway, bathroom, and Filomena’s room.

2) They never argued that Rudy Guede was the lone-wolf killer in the case (the surprise preference in his report of Judge Hellman) and even put their own witnesses Alessi and Aviello on the stand to in effect try to prove otherwise.

3) Knox legal advisor Ted Simon was reduced to arguing on TV that there was no evidence of Knox and Sollecito IN the bedroom, while never accounting for the mishmash of alibis or all the mixed-blood and footprint evidence just outside the door.

As Dr Galati’s appeal and public opinion in the three countries are showing, the defences may have mostly won the second battle, with Judge Hellman’s interim verdict and sentence (Knox was still sentenced to three years), but they seem to be falling far short of winning the war for the two clients.

Now the defences again face an uphill battle.

So here we go. An opportunity for any good pro-innocence lawyer to help to win the war for Knox and Sollecito. Forget the forensics for now. I offer these several dozen questions for you and/or Amanda Knox which, truthfully answered, might put many concerns to bed.

I will be happy to post here any real attempt at answering all of these questions by any qualified lawyer who is thoroughly on top of the case - or of course any attempt by Amanda Knox herself.   

1. Why did you not mention the 16 second 12.07 phonecall to Meredith’s English phone on the 2nd November in your e-mail?  When explaining why you made this call, please also explain why it was to the English phone rather than Meredith’s Italian phone which you knew Meredith used for local calls?

2. Why did you not mention this call when you phoned Filomena immediately afterwards?

3. Why did you make so little effort to contact Meredith again after being told by Filomena to do so. Remember the logged 3 and 4 second phone calls?

4. Why did you tell Filomena that you had already phoned the police when neither you, nor Raffaele, had.

5. Can you and will you explain the contradiction between your panic at the cottage (as described in the e-mail) and the testimony of all the witnesses who subsequently arrived that you appeared calm, detached and initially unconcerned as to your friend’s whereabouts or safety?

6. Why did you tell the postal police that Meredith often locked her bedroom door, even when it came to taking a shower, when this was simply not true, as Filomena testified?

7. Can you and will you explain why you did not try either of Meredith’s phones at the cottage if you were indeed in such a panic about Meredith’s locked door?

8. Can you and will you explain how you knew that Meredith’s throat had been cut when you were not, according to the witnesses’s testimony, a witness to the scene in Meredith’s bedroom after the door had been kicked in and, with the exception of probably a postal police officer or the ambulance crew, no one had looked underneath the duvet covering the body when you were there?

9. What made you think that the body was in the cupboard (wardrobe) when it was in fact to the side of the wardrobe? Were you being flippant, stupid, or what, when you said that? Do you think it just a remarkable coincidence that the remark bears close comparison to the crime scene investigators conclusions, based on the blood at the scene, that Meredith had been shoved, on all fours, and head first,  at the door of the wardrobe? She was then turned over on the floor and moved again. How did you know that there was any position prior to her final place of rest?

10. Will you ever be able to account for the 12.47 pm call to your mother in Seattle ( at 4.45 am Seattle time)? Do you remember this now because it was not mentioned in your e-mail nor were you able to remember it in your court testimony?

11. Why do you think Raffaele told the police ““ contrary to your own alibi that you had spent the whole time with Raffaele at his apartment ““ that you had gone out at 9 pm and did not return until 1 am?

12. Did you sleep through the music played for half an hour on Raffaele’s computer from 5.32 am?

13. Were you telling the truth when you told the court that you and Raffaele ate dinner some time between 9.15 and 11 pm? Can you not narrow it down a bit more? The water leak occurred, you said, whilst washing up dishes after dinner. Why then did Raffaele’s father say that Raffaele told him at 8.42 pm about the water leak whilst washing up dishes?

14. What was the problem about using the mop, rags, sponges etc already at Raffaele’s apartment, to clear up a water spill? Why was the mop from the girl’s cottage so essential and if it was, why not collect it immediately since it was just a short distance away?

15. Why, when you knew that you were going to Gubbio with Raffaele on the 2nd November, did you not take a change of clothing with you, if needed, when you left the cottage on the afternoon of the 1st?

16. Why did you need a shower at the cottage when you had already had one at Raffaele’s apartment the previous evening?

17. If you had needed one again why not have it at his apartment, in a heated apartment, before you set off, or on your return, rather than have a shower on a cold day, in a cold flat?

18. Why did you not notice the blood in the bathroom, and the bloody footprint on the bathmat, until after your shower? If the blood you then observed was already diluted and faded, how do you explain this?

19. Do not ignore your blood on the faucet. In your own testimony you said that there was no blood in the bathroom when you and Raffaele left the flat on the afternoon of the 1st.  What is your considered take on this now? Did your ear piercings bleed when having that shower or drying afterwards? If so, why were you not perfectly clear about the matter in your e-mail?  But then again you said that the blood was caked dry, didn’t you?

20. Why did Raffaele say that, on entering the flat with you, Filomena’s door was open and he saw the damage and mess inside, but you said, in your e-mail, that Filomena’s door was closed when you returned at 10.30 am? Did you subsequently look inside on that occasion, or not? It’s just that if you did, then why did you not mention the break in to Filomena prior to you and Raffaele returning to the cottage?

21. You are a creative writer so please explain. What is the point of the word “also” in the following extract from your e-mail? “Laura’s door was open which meant that she wasn’t at home, and Filomena’s door was also closed”.

22. In your trial testimony you mentioned shuffling along the corridor on the bathroom mat after your shower. From the bathroom to your room.  Because there was no towel in the bathroom. You had left it in your bedroom. Then back again. Why is this not mentioned in your e-mail?

23. In your e-mail you stated that you changed for your shower in your bedroom, and then afterwards dressed in your bedroom. That makes sense. What you don’t explain is why, if you towelled and dressed in your bedroom, there was any need to shuffle back to the bathroom on the bathmat. Why not just carry it back?

24. But why, in the same testimony, did you then change your mind as to where you had undressed for your shower? Not in your bedroom - saying so was a mistake you said - but you did not say where. Some people might think, uncharitably, that your change of mind was necessary to incorporate the double bathmat shuffle.

25. Were there any things that you disliked about Meredith? Be honest because we know from her English friends and other sources that there were things that she disliked about you.

26. Why are pages missing from your diary for October?

27. Once again, and this time so that it makes some sense, please explain why you permitted the police, on your say so, to believe that poor Patrick Lumumba was involved in Meredith’s murder.  Clearly, had you been at the cottage you would have known that he was not, and had you not been there you could not have known that he was.

There are actually over 200 open questions on this site, and I can think of others, but I consider these between them to be the core several dozen that relate to the quirks,contradictions, omissions and inconsistencies in Amanda Knox’s own account and behaviour. Answer all of these and in the public eye Amanda Knox really could be home free.

Posted by James Raper on 04/30/12 at 10:33 PM • Permalink for this post • Archived in Hoaxes against Italy,  3 No evidence hoax,  6 No staging hoax,  8 No motive hoax,  9 Mignini v Knox hoax,  Hoaxes Knox & team,  13 AK persona hoax,  15 Single alibi hoax,  16 Interrogation hoax,  17 Fake memory hoax,  20 No-PR hoax,  Amanda Knox #1 • Comments here (44)

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >