Category: Hoaxes Sollecito etc

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Interview Part 1 With Kelsey Kay About Her Sad Experience With Serial Exploiter Sollecito

Posted by Ergon

1. An Overview

We’ve been following for many years how the friends of Amanda Knox had been encouraging Frank Sforza and Raffaele Sollecito to obtain green cards by any means necessary.

That was in the mistaken belief it would somehow grant them immunity from criminal prosecution and extradition for their crimes. They certainly seemed to believe that, and it is especially ironic considering the recent news of Knox’s most recent “engagement”.

Just a year ago Radar Online broke the story of Kelsey Kaypernick, the young American woman who was pursued for a while by Raffaele Sollecito with offers of marriage.

When this came out she was attacked by the usual suspects, with harassment continuing until recently. Ironically, she was told NOT to speak to Ergon 😊

I spoke to her then and offered a voice. That I was more interested in the human side. She was intrigued except she had to wait for her contractual obligation to end, then was affected by concerns for her safety.

I held off on writing anything for that reason, but kept in touch with her for a year. Having spoken to her by phone and through e-mails, I found her very intelligent and believable. She contacted me recently, agreeing to do the interview. It is presented here, in its entirety.

2. Part One Of The Interview

E: How are you? Have you been able to put this behind you? Why have you agreed to speak with us now?

KK: “I’m doing great, thank you so much for asking. After doing much research and watching the chips fall where they may with Raffaele post my article with Radar I realized a lot. I was truly a small amount of collateral damage. I think it would be stupid of me to continue to be hurt by someone like him.

Especially when I’m equally responsible for allowing him into my life in the first place. I’ve agreed to speak to you now because I am no longer afraid. It took me some time to realize that all the threats being made towards me were unfounded. I’m a mother, so I had much more than myself to consider. However, by allowing those threats to control me, I was letting him win. I’m done with that now.”

E: Many of Raffaele and Amanda Knox’s supporters have questioned your motives, and posted personal information about your past. Do you have anything to say to them?

KK:  “You know my name, not my story. Choose to fill in the blanks in whatever way is pleasing to you.”

E: Veronica Drake (in Australia) was told Raffaele Sollecito would be suing her. Have you ever been told legal action would be taken against you for speaking out?

KK: “Oh yes. Michelle Moore and Eve Applebaum made direct contact to threaten me. I also read threats made through his father and his lawyer. I had lots of contact with Noel Dalberth. She was mostly kind to me however.”

E: How did Michelle Moore and Eve Applebaum contact you and what threats did they make?

KK: “Eve emailed me directly, clearly she had gotten my personal email from Raffaele as I don’t hand it out. I give out my work email only. Michelle tweeted at me and I suspect called me from a blocked number.”

E: What is your impression of Raffaele’s relationship with Amanda Knox now?

KK: “What relationship? It seems non-existent to me.”

E: He did meet Amanda Knox in Seattle (in 2012). So, too, did his father and sister? Was it about their books only, for the publicity, or was their relationship soured already? Do you know why?

KK: “Sorry, I know nothing about that instance unfortunately.”

E: Have you ever met or spoken with a member of the Knox/Mellas family? Amanda Knox herself?”

KK: “I suspect I have had a conversation with Chris Mellas. I say suspect because my attacker hid behind a fake twitter. I was not allowed to speak with Amanda. Raffaele must have had his reasoning.”

E: What ID was used on Twitter by the person you suspect is Chris Mellas? What specific threat? Embarrassment, your past history, or?

KK: “@guilterwatchin or something along those lines. He threatened me in every way he could think of. Intimidation tactics, petulance, foul language and threats via twitter came my way for a few days after the article was published until someone advised me to block him. I have to say though, of all the people who have attacked me I found @guilterwatchin laughable. I mean really? A twitter attack.”

E: Were you surprised when you heard the news Raffaele Sollecito had been picked up by police close to the Austrian border?

KK: “Not at all. After all I found out firsthand that his intentions were to flee Italy. This goes right back to your inquiry about people questioning my motives. I’ve read some entertaining tales. In some of them I’m 17. In some of them I’m already married. In some of them I’m a money hungry whore. In some of them I was fat before my plastic surgery that I clearly got. I just laugh. You want to know my motives?

Well… ask yourself a few questions and infer what you want from the answers. Did any other women come out that the same thing had happened to them? Is it possible other women were spared the same fate? Did he get his passport taken away? Was he able to leave Italy? Well, there you go. I’ve said what I wanted. People can draw their own conclusions on my motives…. as is their right.”

E: Do you know why Raffaele Sollecito didn’t attend Amanda Knox’s big Vashon Island get together on July 26, 2013? Was he invited?

KK: “I have no knowledge of why. I do know that around that time their relationship had soured. He flew to Seattle when I called off the marriage and she refused to respond to his requests to see him. That’s what he told me anyways. I was extremely irritated when the first thing he did when I was having doubts was to flee to where Amanda lived but he assured me they were not on good terms and that she had refused to see him and was doing him an injustice. He described her as selfish. It’s actually comical to compare the relationship the media and their books paint that they have compared to what little I saw.”

E: Have you read the available court documents and pro-guilt arguments, and if yes, when and where?

KK: “I’ve read so many blogs on both sides I couldn’t begin to start telling you all the sources.”

E: After meeting Raffaele do you feel he could have written the book or was it mostly written by his co-writer?

KK: “There is no way Raffaele mostly wrote that book. He spends too much of his time contradicting it in reality. He was coached and took a back seat. In my opinion.”

E: After all you’ve learned about Raffaele, do you still believe him to be innocent?”

KK: “I’ve come to know Raffaele as a wolf disguised as a sheep. A liar. A fraud. A master manipulator with powerful resources. So do I still think he’s innocent? No. I wanted to believe he was. I no longer feel that way. I’ve been able to separate my emotions from common sense.”

E: After all you’ve learned about Amanda, do you still believe her to be innocent?

KK: “Again, No. But I didn’t get to know her like I did Raffaele. All I know is that it seems both of their stories are quite contradictory. There can only be one truth. If I was fighting for my life and I hadn’t committed the crime I was accused of I would remember everything like it had happened only a second ago. Neither of them seem to be on the same page. So therefore neither of them are believable to me.”

[Part two will follow in the next post]

See The Amazing Shrinking Raffaele Sollecito Live On National Italian TV

Posted by Peter Quennell

In this post of 7 February we quoted Italian sources on how Sollecito had yet again sold out Knox.

Now ericparoissien of PMF dot Org has added English subtitles for the full one hour. They show Sollecito progressively making things worse and worse for himself as well.

Clander has embedded six videos here (sign in) and (vital to read) a number of gotcha comments down below.

Months ago Knox was incriminating herself live on national TV as well. She has not appeared since. Maybe this is the last time we see Sollecito live as well.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Sollecito v Italy & Guede: My Subtitled YouTubes Of Rudy Guede’s Interview with Leosini

Posted by Eric Paroissien

Friday, February 13, 2015

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #7:  Why It Also Threatens Amanda Knox

Posted by Peter Quennell

Cover of the New York Post (owned by a probably gleeful Rupert Murdoch) this week


We will soon be posting several hundred easy-to-disprove lies we have identified by Knox. 

Late March Cassation will probably rule that Knox needs to go back and serve her time, and if so between then and late-year there will probably be an attempt at a big media fuss.

But lying to the US media and public in the next few months is going to be a more-than-normally dangerous game.

Brian Williams is the news anchor for the NBC network’s nightly news, who was often a guest on late-night comedy TV, where he made himself look super-sized.

William was just outed by soldiers who had complained that he lied when he said a helicopter he was in in Iraq took shots and was forced down. That was another helicopter in a companion group out of sight.

He’s now suspended, without pay, and his contract does not let him talk. Death by 1000 cuts and (like Sollecito and Gumbel) without making things worse he cannot talk back.

Williams was long suspected of lying about his experiences when Hurricane Katrina hit new Orleans in 2005.

Williams had made several questionable claims in interviews and a documentary: He witnessed a suicide at the Superdome in New Orleans, saw a body floating by his hotel in the French Quarter and had contracted dysentery from accidentally ingesting floodwater.

Throughout Thursday, Williams was pounded by bloggers and newspaper columnists, who noted that he hadn’t reported the suicide when he was on assignment in New Orleans, that the French Quarter had largely remained dry during the hurricane and that there were no reported outbreaks of dysentery.

Today the reports get worse: it seems Williams also lied about being on a flight with some Navy SEALS as well. And there is said to be worse to come.

And who is entangled in this bad news? Bob Barnett, Williams’ lawyer, who brokered Williams’ $10 million a year contract a few weeks ago.  He also brokered Amanda Knox’s book full of lies to the US.

Bob Barnett will not want to see Knox and her dishonest team draw attention to this by telling the US media and public yet more easy-to-disprove lies. Defending one big-time liar will be more than enough.

By the way, the big expose of Gumbel’s lies is still ahead. Those by Preston, Heavey, Fischer, Moore, etc, too. Knox should maybe dump them all, and give up her foolish fight.

When one is in a deep hole, the best advice is to stop digging, right now.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #6: Examining Gumbel’s Role In Biasing The Book

Posted by Our Main Posters

Andrew Gumbel seen in a shrill 2014 CNN report, perhaps the least balanced so far 

1. Bringing The News Up To Date

On 5 March the Florence court will replace the prosecution’s translation of the target claims in the book with its own translation.

And Sollecito and Gumbel will probably be ordered to stand public trial then.

Both the prosecution and the guiding magistrate have as usual in Italy played immensely fair in this case. Each gave Sollecito and Gumbel numerous opportunities over more than a year to try to explain and justify certain target passages in a way that gets them off the hook. In further fairness the hearings have all been closed.

What leaked out after the last hearing in Florence a couple of weeks ago suggested that Sollecito has yet to come up with any justification at all. He was said to look dazed and depressed.

Gumbel was not in court. But his lawyer apparently claimed that Gumbel was merely a sort of well-meaning sheep: Sollecito’s ghost writer, nothing more, who faithfully took down only what he heard from his client.

This has apparently not gone down at all well in the Sollecito camp.

The Sollecito family and legal team has long hinted rather publicly that Gumbel did a number on them, an end-run. Francesco Sollecito and the family and Sollecito’s lawyers Giula Bongiorno and Luca Maori had all claimed within several weeks of the book coming out that numerous passages in the book were malicious and untrue. Sollecito himself denied that he put them in.

The Sollecito family and legal team have also hinted ever since that Gumbel and some American Knox cronies with self-serving agendas (suggested on pro-Knox websites to have been Steve and Michele Moore, Frank Sforza, Bruce Fischer, maybe some more) had recklessly put dangerous unfounded claims in the final draft of the book.

Those claims (now the main subjects of the Florence trial) were seemingly never put into Italian and run carefully by them. No proper due diligence was done, and as a result they have been left holding the can. And all this under the cold eyes of the Supreme Court, which must rule in six weeks whether Sollecito makes things up. 

2. Smart Rules For Ghost Writers To Avoid Trouble

This is hardly the first time a ghost writer and their client have fallen out. It is a touchy trouble-prone profession not governed by formalised training or an established code of ethics, where getting sued or not getting paid is quite a frequent thing.

Some of those who do it full-time and have had their share of trouble and want no more of it and want to alert others have posted their own suggested groundrules online.

For example, both client and ghost writer are well served by spending a few days checking out each other. Then they make a contract where literally everything needs to be spelled out.

Ghost writers need to take extreme care with clients in legal trouble who might drag them in or who they might drag in further. They need to be clear whether they are to research on their own, and to whom they are permitted to talk.

They need to know whether their name will be on the cover or anywhere inside the book. They need to know whether they have a licence from the client to do related TV and print articles, especially if those pay a separate fee, and what they are allowed to say.

They need to try to capture honestly the client’s voice and not turn them into someone they are not. They need to know what facts to put in and to be clear what facts are consciously left out. They need to do due diligence on the drafts with the agent and publisher and lawyers, and if allowed check out dynamite claims with “the other side”.

And if any accusations of crimes are to be made they REALLY need to check those legal hot potatoes with the client and the lawyers and the publishers, line by line. 

Gumbel seems to have ignored pretty well all of these groundrules, and dug Sollecito in much deeper.

Knox’s ghost writer Linda Kulman (more experienced than Gumbel at this and with no axe to grind) seems to have followed some but not all of these guidelines. Her name is only in the Knox book once, in a short thankyou note by Knox at the back, and she remained low-key and made no separate statements.

Nevertheless, Linda Kulman had the Sollecito book as a (then) largely unchallenged model. She included in the book a number of false accusation of crimes and malicious ridicules of others, none of them properly checked out, which will have Knox in court for sure before too long. (Oggi is already in court for repeating some of her claims.)

Linda Kulman also included an entire chapter about Knox’s “interrogation” where every detail is made up. She included a lengthy claim that Mignini did an illegal interrogation of Knox, when in fact he wasn’t even there. And she left out numerous key facts, such as that Knox was having sex with a major drug dealer almost to the day of her arrest, and most of the evidence.

Linda Kulman certainly dd not capture Knox’s real voice or mode of behavior, which are notoriously brash and possibly the root cause of Meredith’s murder.

3. Flashing Warning Lights In Italy In 2012

If the Sollecito family and team did not know all of the above, it would seem to be Sharlene Martin’s fiduciary duty as book agent for Sollecito to make sure both they and any ghost writer they hired did know.

For their part, the Sollecito team should have done their own due diligence in Italy, and perhaps looked around for an experienced ghost writer in Italy who could converse with all of them and show them in Italian what would be in the book. And in particular known about and been respectful of this which was in our first post.

On 3 October 2011 Judge Hellmann told RS and AK they were free to go, despite the fact that no legal process for murder and some other crimes is considered final in Italy until no party pursues any further appeals or the Supreme Court signs off. Most still accused of serious crimes (as in the UK and US) remain locked up. Hellmann, pathetically trying to justify this fiasco ever since, was firmly edged out and still the target of a possible charge.

Other flashing warnings should have made Sollecito’s family and legal team and book writers very wary. They included the immediate strong warning of a tough prosecution appeal to the Supreme Court. They also included the pending calunnia trials of Knox and her parents, the pending trial of the Sollecitos for attempting to use politics to subvert justice, the pending trials of Spezi, Aviello, and Sforza, and so on. 

A major flashing warning was right there in Italian law. Trials are meant to be conducted in the courtroom and attempts to poison public opinion are illegal. They can be illegal in the US and UK too but, for historical reasons to do with the mafias and crooked politicians, Italian laws in this area are among the world’s toughest. So mid-process, normally no books are ever published

4. Warning Lights About A Hasty Gumbel Contract

Many of the problems in the book are associated with a strident anti-Italy tone.  Well over half the false claims taken apart in this May 2014 post are FACTUALLY wrong in areas where Sollecito has no known knowledge or point of view.

For example, it was claimed that the Italian justice institutions are both very unpopular and corrupt. Neither is true, and almost no Italians believe that.

Sharlene Martin was first mentioned as Sollecito’s agent in the NY Times on 5 December 2011 when Sollecito had been swanning around the US west coast in an apparent attempt to, well, get her back in the sack. He was in a weak mode.

On 10 January 2012 Francesco Sollecito was reported in the Journal of Umbria as saying this about the purpose of the book 

“I have not done the math [the lawyers etc costs]. For good luck. I will do it after the ruling of the Supreme Court. It will be painful because the figure of one million euro of which one speaks is not far from reality.” This was stated to the weekly Today, on newsstands tomorrow, by Francesco Sollecito, father of Raffaele.

According to [Francesco] Sollecito, in case of confirmation of absolution, then there will be 250-300,000 euro compensation provided for the unjust detention of his son, this money will be enough only to pay the fees of the 12 consultants “that we had to appoint to succeed to refute the allegations.”

In the interview with the weekly, Francesco Sollecito denies that Raffaele has a girlfriend, as reported after the publishing of photos while kissing a girl: “Annie, the girl who appears with him in photos on Facebook is just a friend, in fact a sorta of cousin… “The priorities of my son right now are otherise.” What? “Raffaele has signed a contract with the American literary manager Sharlene Martin for a book, it is a definite undertaking “.

Apparently at this point Sharlene Martin had not been to Italy or spoken face-to-face with Francesco or the legal team. Whether she had briefed herself on the warning lights described above so that she could properly warn the US team of writer, editors, publishers and publicists is not known. 

5. Gumbel’s Shrill Record Of Sliming Italy

On 12 February 2012 Andrew Gumbel is reported in the NY Times as having got the co-writer job. During that period due diligence (if any) on his background would have been done, seemingly mainly by Sharlene Martin (if any) as a complaint of Sollecito’s team is that they could not look him over before he came on board.

Andrew Gumbel is not a lawyer, and in fact our own lawyers have repeatedly found silly his pretentious and inaccurate legal claims. Nor as far as we know does he have a track record as a ghost writer. His main claim to the job seems to have been based on his having been based in Italy with the UK Independent for nearly five years in the 1990s.

The 1990s were a pretty good time in Italy.

There was okay growth and jobs availability, record tourism, relative political calm before Berlusconi grabbed political and media power, many successful farms and firms, and a really push against the mafias - for which many brave judges and prosecutors had died.  The Italian food and wine were great, the cars and luxury goods were great, and Italy was home to about half of the finest medieval art in the world.

We checked it out: foreign reporters in Italy at the time did a fair and balanced job reflecting all of this. With seemingly only one notorious exception: the British reporter Andrew Gumbel for the UK Independent.

Apparently Gumbel could find almost nothing to like about Italy. In 5 years almost nothing to write a positive report on.

Brits relying only on his shrill reporting in the Independent may have thought Italy to be a very corrupt, lawless, politically and economically dysfunctional place, with nothing about it to like and no reason to visit. If they were bigoted, this could have made them more-so. Nasty stuff, and for foreign reporters in any country anywhere very unusual.

Below are the headers for most or all of Andrew Gumbel’s shrill reports from Italy.

Fair and balanced? The right guy for a delicate project with his client in a delicate legal bind? You decide.  We have highlighted in yellow all the reports with a negative bias, maybe true, maybe not. Of the total of 62 reports only 4 seem to us neutral or nice. Were the Sollecitos or their Italian lawyers or HarperCollins made aware by Gumbel or Sharlene Martin of Gumbel’s emotional negative bias?

1. Gumbel Articles On Italy’s Government + History (25)

• A sick economy shakes out the fake invalids. (growing economic problems in Italy make corruption less acceptable)
• Bickering while Venice sinks.
• Can Italy survive Dini’s fall? (prime minister Lamberto Dini)
• Chirac consigns Italy to Europe’s second division. (French president Jacques Chirac)
• Corruption on an Olympian scale.(Rome, Italy, seeks to host Olympic Games)
• Facing up to Italy’s crisis. (Italy’s economic problems)
• Glitz takes a back seat on road to Rome. (Romano Prodi begins electoral campaign in Italy) (Interview)
• How the kidnap and rape of Dario Fo’s wife was ordered by Italy’s right-wing rulers.
• Illegal migrants reach EU havens via Italy.
• Italy waits for the gravy train to be derailed. (problems facing Italian railway system)
• Italy ready for mission impossible: intervention in Albania could bring instability to Rome.
• Italy heads back into a political void.
• Italy struggles to shake off the legacy of Mussolini.
• Italy’s Olive Tree fails to bear fruit.
• Italy’s rich city prays for fall of nation state. (citizens of Bologna, Italy, strongly in favour of European Union)
• New wave of state corruption stuns the Italians.
• Past demons threaten Italy’s bid for change. (Italy fails to move towards a SEcond Republic)
• Prodi’s dilemma: let the left win or surrender Italy’s drive towards Emu. (Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi)
• Rome’s magic circle. (deterioration of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy)
• Scholars in a spin over Churchill link to the death of Mussolini. (claims that Mussolini was shot by British secret services)
• Shouting could drown out Italian democracy. (serious political clashes damage reputation of Italian parliament)
• So, were there offers he should have refused? (trial of Giulio Andreotti)
• The Nazi and the protection racket. (controversy over trial of former Nazi Erich Priebke in Italy)
• Venice’s grand opera descends to farce. (dispute hampers rebuilding of La Fenice opera house)
• Why Italy cannot bring war criminals to justice.

2. Gumbel Articles On Italy’s Scenery, Art, Music, Fashion, Culture (2)

• Il Papa brings on Dylan for a taste of the devil’s rhythms. (Bob Dylan to perform for Pope)
• Inside the Assisi basilica, a sight to make saints weep. (challenges involved in restoration of art treasures from Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, Italy)

3. Gumbel Articles On Italy’s Economy + Business (8)

• A nation that brings its style to the track. (many changes to Italian rail network)
• All is not bene among the united colours. (problems facing Benetton)
• Berlusconi consolidates his rule over the Italian air waves. (former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi)
• Ciao Gianni, but now what? (Gianni Agnelli resigns as chairman of Fiat)
• Climax of Italy’s TV war. (referendum on whether Silvio Berlusconi should sell his television channels)
• Italy’s new crop stifled in the shadow of a paradise lost.(problems affecting the Italian motion picture industry)
• Murdoch pursues Italian television. (News Corp seeks stake in Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire).
• The dark world behind Versace’s life of glamour. (murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace)

4. Gumbel Articles On Italy’s Justice, Crime, Corruption,  Mafias (24)

• Accidental death of an anarchist comes back to scandalise Italy. (three men convicted of murder of police commissioner Luigi Calabresi in 1972)
• A fashion label that really is to die for .... (murder of fashion designer Maurizio Gucci may have been instigated by his former wife)(Column)
• After the suicide, a wall of silence. (new type of Mafia activity in Sicily)
• Amnesty offers Italy chance to forget its years of terror. (Italian government pardons six people involved in Red Brigades terrorist group in 1970s)
• Andreotti to face trial on Mob links. (former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti to stand trial for consorting with the Mafia)
• Another black mark against Italy’s judges. (Italy’s anti-corruption magistrates lose their credibility)
• Arrest us, but we’ll be back next week. (three Italians with Aids use legal loophole to rob banks)
• Backlash threatens to silence informers. (controversy in Italy over Mafia informers)
• Bloody end of a fashionable affair. (murder of Maurizio Gucci)
• Fake invalids at heart of Italy’s postal scandal. (postal service employs many invalids, but some are fakes)
• Fear and loathing in the Alto Adige. (serial killer murders six people in Merano, Italy)
• Godfather’ village baffled by murders. (Sicilian town of Corleone)
• God’s Banker: ‘He was given Mafia money and he made poor use of it.’ (investigation into death of Italian banker Roberto Calvi in 1982 may soon be concluded)
• Gucci: hell for leather. (Patrizia Gucci convicted for contract killing of former husband Maurizio Gucci)
• How Cosa Nostra’s cunning outfoxed the Italian state. (Mafia’s criminal network still operating in Italy)
• How Italy failed to trap its Monster. (failure to bring serial killer in Florence, Italy, to justice)
• Italy’s men of violence throw off the state’s chains. (revival of the Mafia in Italy)(includes details of murder of magistrate Giovanni Falcone)
• Mafia trawls Venice’s dark lagoon. (organised crime in Venice, Italy)
• Mysteries unravel as mafiosi spill secrets. (Italian gangsters make confessions)
• One woman’s dangerous and lonely battle to break the Cosa Nostra. (challenges facing Maria Maniscalco, mayor of San Giuseppe Jato, Italy)
• Rome turns a blind eye to Mafia’s killing spree.
• Secret of why the Mafia has never shot a soul. (code of silence about Mafia in Sicily)
• Street wars in Italy’s wild south. (high crime levels in Naples, Italy)
• Who killed Pasolini? (new film about the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini)

5. Gumbel Articles On Italy’s Physical Disasters (3)

• After the deluge (eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy will create chaos)
• Assisi in mourning as quake shatters Basilica of St Francis.
• Umbria shows the civilised way to cope with calamity. (effects of series of earthquakes in Italy)

6. Conclusion And Next Posts

This list was checked out with half a dozen posters resident in Italy at the time. All of their reactions were to the effect that, in lying by omission, Gumbel did not play fair with Italy back then. A trivial mind. One which should have been fought off with a stick.

The next posts seek to identify what Gumbel and the Knox misrepresenters (said to be primarily the Moores, Sforza and Fischer) were responsible for putting in the Sollecito book, and to describe Andrew Gumbel’s vigorous public media campaign. Whether authorized or not authorized, he made around 20 shrill damaging interventions.

Saturday, February 07, 2015

Sollecito On Italian TV: Seems RS And AK Selling Out One Another Is Gravitating To A Whole New Plane

Posted by Our Main Posters

Nearly 30 instances of Knox and Sollecito selling out one another since 2007 were described here.

In addition to those,  their two books also took some subtle whacks, and also there have been some other media instances since. Sollecito took several more whacks at Knox on the national crime show Porta a Porta last night.

That and his bland evasive, nervous manner seems to have done himself harm too. Italy has watched this tired show too often now, and it was Porta a Porta back in 2012 which first surfaced false accusations of crimes in his book for which he is now on trial in a Florence court.

Amazingly, Sollecito admits to stalking and harassing Meredith’s family, which under Italian law (and UK law and US law) for the protection of victims and their families is itself a felony crime. There should be no attempts at communication with them at all. Knox too has been harassing and stalking the family, and dangerously encouraging the more unstable of her followers to follow suit.

Our main poster Jools kindly translated this from the newspaper for Sollecito’s home town. Note the passages in bold.

Raffaele’s Truth

Sollecito guest of “Porta a Porta” told his side of the story about the murder of Meredith Kercher

“Yes, I have thought I could be going to prison, for me this is astonishing. I done nothing, I have nothing to do with it and there is nothing that places me on the crime scene in a factual manner.” Words pronounced by Raffaele Sollecito during the Rai 1 program “Porta a Porta”, hosted by Bruno Vespa. The computer engineer from Giovinazzo is accused of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, which occurred in Perugia the night between 1 and 2 November 2007.

In seven years there have been four trials. Convicted in first instance trial with Amanda Knox, Sollecito was acquitted on appeal court. But that appeal court decision has been annulled at the Court of Cassation, leading to a new conviction sentence of 25-years. In March, exactly on the 25th, Raffaele Sollecito will face the final instance of the process. In prison for the time being there is only the Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede, who is serving a definitive 16-year sentence. “My life did not changed on the night of the 1st and 2nd November ““ said Sollecito pressed by Bruno Vespa - but when the investigators took me to jail. Knowing, meeting, making the acquaintance of Amanda fatally brought me into this hell.”

Raffaele’s life is suspended pending the final verdict, while Amanda Knox lives in the United States where she works writing theater reviews for a local newspaper in Seattle and is considered a victim of the Italian judicial system. “I can not answer for Amanda,” Sollecito reminded Vespa and then retraced the events of that night: “From around the hours of 20:30/21:00 I was home - said the accused - and I did not go out to Via della Pergola with Amanda when she went back. I stayed behind sleeping. At that time of my life I was smoking a joint every now and then, especially if I was in company - he admitted - and that night I smoked a very small amount present in my drawer. In fact, the investigators did not find anything because it was a little amount totally smoked.”

This would justify the sketchy memories in relation to those hours. Raffaele Sollecito does not remember when Amanda came back to the apartment but he is certain, “Amanda did not sleep at my place” [Ed note: mistake here, he said Knox did sleep at his place.] About the strange way the American woman behaved in the hours immediately after the murder, Sollecito reiterated that, “Amanda explained during the court hearings of being frightened during the interrogation.”

Just like the American student at the time, Sollecito wanted to stress of having suffered “relentless pressure from the investigators. They told me I would never be released from prison. They kept me 15 hours under interrogation. I fell into contradiction for not understanding what day they referred. They took off my shoes, leaving me barefoot, thinking that those shoes were the ones I was wearing during the murder. Then they admitted my consultant was right after eight months ““ he stressed - about the shoeprint found in Meredith’s room, while we had already provided that proof after 2 months. It was my consultant to find the inconsistencies of the prosecution.”

The morning the body of the poor British girl was found, Sollecito recounts, “Amanda told me that she saw the shattered window [panes] and the door to her house wide open and that she thought her roommates had gone to take out the garbage. There were a few drops of blood when I arrived. Meredith’s door was key locked and I told Amanda to call her roommates and Meredith.” In any case, following a question by Vespa he specified, “I don’t think Amanda killed her. It doesn’t seem possible. I would have noticed something. This argument seems to me unlikely. But she must respond herself to these allegations, not me.”

Things did not go well and then came the judicial ordeal that still continues and that rather involves him personally. Raffaele is certainly different, now an IT graduate who struggles to find work, but who still wants to shout to the world his innocence after 7 years. He watched the images of his fellow citizens and friends defending him during a broadcast report and recounts of having tried to contact the victim’s family, “I have tried several times to talk to Meredith’s parents - he said -. If the facts are looked at in an impersonal way one understands that a lot of mistakes were made. I sent a letter to Dr. Maresca their legal representative, with not getting any replies. Even my family has tried to contact them, without them ever coming to approach.”

The question mark with which Sollecito will be arriving on March 25, the date of the trial before the Supreme Court, remains the same for a long time: “What motive did I have to hurt Meredith? This is about having justice on what is the truth.” One truth and a justice that now are in the hands of the Roman judges.

In fact as most Italians know Sollecito was interrogated quite briefly that night and the only pressure was from his own phone records, showing he had lied. Knox was not formally interrogated at all. Her ONLY pressure came directly from him.

Our main poster Yummi suggests that what was going on here could be this:

The purpose of his show seems to me to be to point out the “difference of positions” between Sollecito and Knox. I think it is obvious that this is the main “message” of the Porta a Porta show; and I talk not just about the content of his interview, but also the whole setting, the framework including the journalist’s report on the show about the Florence trials in which the “main points” of his defence were described..

Sollecito does not make explicit statements to put more distance between him and Amanda, not more than he already had. But the theme of “difference of positions” is highlighted, and he even draws attention to some known inconsistencies such as the open/closed Filomena’s door.

Indeed he himself makes a declaration contradicting his own statements to the police and to Judge Matteini, and in his own diaries (in the show he says “socchiusa”, but he wrote “spalancata” in his prison diary and this is what he stated to the investigators too); but what he tries to do in the show is to point out himself the inconsistency as something that is responsibility of Amanda, one of the things “she should explain”.

The report - to which his attorneys may well have contributed - points out that the “main defence points” at the Florence trial were:

1) that “Raffaele is not Amanda” (he happens to be implicated because of evidence against Amanda), and

2) that Amanda herself does not place Raffaele Sollecito on the scene of crime in her statements; it is remarkable that Sollecito highlights the content of Knox’s statements from Nov. 5-7 rather than her subsequent claims; and the same defence arguments even imply that Knox does not place herself in the company of Sollecito at all..

Another point that I found remarkable, was when Sollecito points out how it was “a judges’ finding” that he was a “collateral effect” [sic]; I mean it is glaring that he quotes the courts as a source that adds credibility to his theory.

So by the end I thought the setting of this show included “help” given to the journalist Vanni by Sollecito’s attorneys, and I think the purpose is obvious, if we want to see it as a kind of message-in-a-bottle to the Supreme Court on approaching the March 25th hearing.

It is basically a point of law, that is that the evidence against Amanda Knox should not be transferred onto him. This is the aspect he really wants the Supreme Court to review. Amanda Knox has “things to explain” and he should not be demanded to answer for them.

As Knox might now want to point out, there is of course very extensive evidence tying Sollecito to the crime. Consider this and in particular this.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #4: Chimera Examines The Most Inflammatory Angles

Posted by Our Main Posters

[A far from joyful dad once again tries to knock sense into his loose-cannon offspring]

1. Overview Of This Series And Post

Tomorrow is the day when the wraps come off the prosecutions’ targets in the book.

This is also when Sollecito & Gumbel might try to justify themselves though they have a tough task ahead of them. For Sollecito and Gumbel (and also Knox and Kulman) their books actually constitute four kinds of problems;

(1) their defamations of the Italian courts and justice system;
(2) their defamations of many police, investigators and prosecutors who work within it,
(3) their numerous lies by omission, the pesky facts they never mention; and
(4) the unwitting truths and half-truths pointing to guilt, which the court may especially zero in on.

As mentioned in the previous post, a separate new TJMK pasge will soon take the book apart definitively. To this many posters have contributed.

Also we will have a new TJMK page on all of the lies of omission and who tends to avoid what area of evidence. .

2. Examination By Chimera Of Sollecito Book

In Part 1 Chimera addrresses problem (4) the truths and half-truths.

In Part 2 Chimera comes up with an alternative synopsis of the book.

In Part 3 Chimera Suggests why there could have been pre-meditation.

1. Examination Of RS’s Truthfulness

[page xv] ‘’....Often, they are more interested in constructing compelling narratives than in building up the evidence piece by piece, a task considered too prosaic and painstaking to be really interesting….’‘

A main criticism by the Supreme Court of Judge Hellmann was that he looked at the evidence piece by piece, rather than trying to make a story of all the evidence as a whole.

[page xvi] ‘’....She was Amanda the heartless when she didn’t cry over Meredith’s death and Amanda the hysterical manipulator when she did. Whatever she did””practice yoga, play Beatles songs, buy underwear””it was held against her.

Well, when someone does not seem upset that their ‘friend’ is murdered, and then behaves in this fashion, would police not at least have their curiosity piqued?

[page 20] ‘’... First, Guede could reasonably assume that the occupants of the house were either out for the night or away for the long weekend. Second, he had previously stayed over in the boys’ apartment downstairs””he fell asleep on the toilet one night in early October and ended up sprawled on the couch””so he knew the lay of the land. He had even met Meredith and Amanda briefly. And, third, since it was the first of the month, chances were good that the accumulated rent money for November was sitting in a pile somewhere in the house.

In the upstairs apartment, Filomena took responsibility for gathering everyone’s cash and handing it over to the landlady. And it was Filomena’s bedroom window that would soon be smashed with a large rock…’‘

This only makes sense if and only if:

(a) Rudy knew the schedules of all 8 people in the house
(b) Rudy may have slept downstairs, but implies he must have been upstairs at some point
(c) Rudy knew that Filomena had all the money (that she took charge of it)
(d) That rent would be paid in cash, not a cheque or bank automatic withdrawl. Which suggests…

A failure on those parameters points to an inside job.

[page 22] ‘’... My father took her advice, but because my cell phone was turned off, I didn’t receive the message until six the next morning.

It was a desperately unlucky combination of circumstances. If my father had tried my cell and then called me on the home line””which he would have done, because he’s persistent that way””I would have had incontrovertible proof from the phone records that I was home that night. And the nightmare that was about to engulf me might never have begun.’‘

First, it is an admission that the cell phone was turned off

Second, it is an admission that had Francesco called him, he would have an alibi, suggesting he did not…

[page 24] ‘’ ... Many Italians, including most of my family, could not fathom how she could go ahead with her shower after finding blood on the tap, much less put her wet feet on the bath mat, which was also stained, and drag it across the floor.’‘

So, Amanda showered, even with blood on the tap and on the bathmat, and no one, not even Raffaele, can make sense of it. Perhaps it is just an odd way of being quirky.

[page 26] ‘’... Then I pushed open Filomena’s door, which had been left slightly ajar, and saw that the place was trashed. Clothes and belongings were strewn everywhere. The window had a large, roundish hole, and broken glass was spread all over the floor.

Okay, we thought, so there’s been a break-in. What we couldn’t understand was why Filomena’s laptop was still propped upright in its case on the floor, or why her digital camera was still sitting out in the kitchen. As far as we could tell, nothing of value was missing anywhere….’‘

And this would be found to be suspicious by the police. An apparent break in, but nothing seems to be missing. And we haven’t even gotten to the spiderman climb yet.

[page 27] ‘’... Amanda went into the Italian women’s bathroom alone, only to run back out and grab on to me as though she had seen a ghost. “The shit’s not in the toilet anymore!” she said. “What if the intruder’s still here and he’s locked himself in Meredith’s room?”

Interesting. Perhaps Raffaele instinctively leaves poop in the toilet as well. Why would he not flush to make sure?

[page 27 contains the following lines:]

‘’ ....Don’t do anything stupid.’‘
‘’ ....Now what do we do?’‘
‘’ ....My sister is in the Carabinieri.’‘

These were supposedly in reference to the frantic attempts to see in Meredith’s room. Does anyone think there is some innuendo/hidden meaning?

[page 29] ‘’... “No, nothing’s been taken.” I didn’t know that for sure, of course, and I should have been more careful about my choice of words. At the time, though, I thought I was just performing my civic duty by passing the information along. The only reason I was on the line was because Amanda’s Italian was not good enough for her to make the call herself.’‘

This sounds innocuous enough, with the qualifiers, but without them:  ‘‘No, nothing’s been taken… I should have been more careful about my choice of words.”

[page 33] ‘’.... As things spiraled out of control over the next several days, a senior investigator with the carabinieri in Perugia took it upon himself to call my sister and apologize, colleague to colleague. “If we had arrived ten minutes earlier,” he told Vanessa, “the case would have been ours. And things would have gone very differently.”

This sounds eerily like an admission that things could have been tampered with, or ‘saved’, if only the ‘right’ people had been there in time.

[page 35] ‘’... Amanda didn’t understand the question, so I answered for her, explaining that she’d taken a shower and then come back to my house. “Really, you took a shower?” Paola said. She was incredulous…’‘

However, the book does not clarify why Paola was incredulous. Take your pick.

(a) Amanda didn’t look or smell like she had a shower
(b) Amanda showered in a blood soaked bathroom
(c) Both ‘a’ and ‘b’

[page 39] ‘’... In the moment, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make Amanda feel worse. The whole purpose of my being there was to comfort her. So I defended her, even beyond the point where I felt comfortable or could be said to be looking out for my own interests.’‘

This is arguably the most true part of the book. He does have to comfort her, so she doesn’t talk. And it probably was uncomfortable.

And ‘‘beyond the point where ... I could be said to be looking out for my own interests.’’ Notice that Raffaele does not say ‘‘beyond that point where I WAS looking out for my own interests. It only ‘looks’ like it, because it is very much in his interest - at that time - to pacify Amanda.

[page 40] ‘’.... Italian newspapers reporting ‘Amanda could kill for a pizza’.’‘

To most people, Raffaele could mean this signifies that killing and death did not affect her greatly, or that she is simply immature.

It could also be an admission: Meredith’s death was over something extremely trivial, and Raffaele knew it.

[page 40] ‘’...Why focus on her, and not on Meredith’s other friends? I wondered. She and Amanda were new acquaintances…’‘

Exactly. Compared to what has been portrayed, they were not close friends, or even friends

[page 41] ‘’... Amanda noticed the police’s sex obsession right away; they couldn’t stop asking her about the Vaseline pot and a vibrator they had found in the bathroom. The vibrator was a joke item, a little rubber bunny rabbit shaped to look like a vibrator and fashioned into a pendant, but the police seemed to find this difficult to accept. What about Meredith’s sex life? Amanda knew only that Meredith had left a boyfriend in England and was now involved with one of the men who lived downstairs, a twenty-two-year-old telecommunications student with a carefully sculpted beard and outsize earrings named Giacomo Silenzi. Amanda had helped Meredith out a couple times by giving her a condom from her supply. But Amanda had no idea how, or how often, Meredith had sex and didn’t feel comfortable fielding questions about it.’‘

This is creepily ‘Knoxian’ in that Raffaele is deliberately leaking extremely personal details about Meredith. Is this a desire they share: to humiliate her deeper, in the public domain, far beyond what they already have done.

[page 42] ‘’... A few days later, this episode would be distorted in the newspapers to make it seem as if the first thing we did after the murder was to buy sexy lingerie””specifically, a G-string””and tell each other how we couldn’t wait to try it out. The store owner, who did not speak English, corroborated the story in pursuit of his own brief moment in the spotlight. True, the surveillance video in the store showed us touching and kissing, but that was hardly a crime. I wasn’t making out with her in some vulgar or inappropriate way, just comforting her and letting her know I was there for her. Besides, there was nothing remotely sexy about Bubble. A much sexier underwear store was next door, and we didn’t set foot in…’‘

Interesting. Raffaele says that this was blown out of proportion, yet his defense is that we didn’t do anything sexual, but if we did, it is not a crime, and besides, there was a better place next door.

[page 43] ‘’... I realized I had not properly acknowledged my own discomfort with Amanda. I was not scandalized by her, in the way that so many others later said they were, but I shouldn’t have allowed her to climb all over me in the Questura, and I should have counseled her quietly not to complain so much. I understood the gallant side of being her boyfriend, but I could have given her better advice and protected myself in the process.’‘

Translation: Amanda, quit whining so much. And while boning you in the police station may be fun, it is seriously jeopardizing my interests.

[page 44] ‘’... She told them, quite openly, about a guy from Rome she went to bed with a few days before meeting me. She had no problem being open about her sex life, and that made her interrogators suspicious. How many men, they wondered, did she plan on getting through during her year in Perugia?

Probably true, except for the conclusion. More likely they wondered: Why does she have to bring this up now?

[page 46]’‘... My sister, Vanessa, made her own separate inquiries and felt much less reassured. The first time she called the Questura, they left her waiting on the line, even though she announced herself as a lieutenant in the carabinieri, and never took her call.
The second time, she had herself put through from the carabinieri’s regional switchboard, to make it more official. This time she got through, but only to a junior policeman clearly her inferior. (In Italian law enforcement, protocol on such matters is followed scrupulously.) “Listen,” the man told her impatiently, “everything is fine.”

“Is there someone I can talk to who is in charge of this case?” Vanessa insisted.

This sounds like a very detailed (if true) attempt at subverting justice. Way to drop Vanessa in it, Raffy.

[page 47] ‘’... The truth, though, was that the authorities were still clueless.’‘

Don’t worry, they will get a clue soon enough.

[page 48] ‘’... What did they have on us? Nothing of substance. But they did find our behavior odd, and we had no real alibi for the night of November 1 except each other, and we did not have lawyers to protect us, and we seemed to have a propensity for saying things without thinking them through. In other words, we were the lowest-hanging fruit, and the police simply reached out and grabbed us.’‘

So, what does Sollecito list in just this paragraph?

(a) Odd behaviour
(b) No real alibi except each other
(c) Saying things without thinking them through

Can’t see why this would attract police attention…

[page 49] ‘’... Not only did they have no physical evidence, they saw no need for any.’‘

Well, odd behaviour, no real alibi,conflicting stories, and saying things through without thinking them through… oh, right, and that very detailed account of Patrik murdering Meredith, Sollecito ‘might’ be there, and Raffaele telling a pack of lies.

I guess physical evidence would be overkill (pardon the pun). Sounds very Knoxian in the ‘there is no evidence’ denials.

[page 50] ‘’... Carrying a small knife had been a habit of mine since I was a teenager””not for self-defense, mind you, just as an ornamental thing. I’d use one occasionally to peel apples or carve my name on tree trunks, but mostly I carried them around for the sake of it. Having a knife on me had become automatic, like carrying my wallet or my keys.’‘

So the rumours of having a knife fetish are true? Thanks for confirming it.

[page 50] ‘’... Besides, what kind of idiot killer would bring the murder weapon to the police station?’‘

Wow - how to begin with this one…  Although, on a more manipulative level, was it not the other knife that actually delivered the fatal blow?

[page 51] ‘’... My words in Italian””stai tranquillo””were the last my father would hear from me as a free man.’‘

It could mean physically free. Could also mean not free as in forced to confront his actions.

[page 51]  “You need to tell us what happened that night,” they began.

“Which night?” I asked wearily. I was getting tired of the endless questioning. I don’t think they appreciated my attitude.

“The night of November first.”

I don’t think this is a drug haze. More just being arrogant and callous.

[page 56] ‘’... I had been brought up to think the police were honest defenders of public safety. My sister was a member of the carabinieri, no less! Now it seemed to me they were behaving more like gangsters.’‘

Another sign of entitlement showing. Surely, the little brother of a carabinieri officer should not have to be subjected to this nonsense.

[page 56] ‘’... Something was exciting the police more than my pocketknife, and that was the pattern they had detected on the bottom of my shoes. By sheer bad luck, I was wearing Nikes that night, and the pattern of concentric circles on the soles instantly reminded my interrogators of the bloody shoe prints at the scene of the crime, which were made by Nikes too.

I had no idea of any of this. All I knew was, the rest of the interrogation team piled back into the room and told me to take off my shoes.’‘

Shoeprints placing a person at a crime scene? Why would that possibly be considered evidence?

[page 59] ‘’... Then, at some point after midnight, an interpreter arrived. Amanda’s mood only worsened. She hadn’t remembered texting Patrick at all, so she was in no position to parse over the contents of her message. When it was suggested to her she had not only written to him but arranged a meeting, her composure crumbled; she burst into uncontrollable tears, and held her hands up to her ears as if to say, I don’t want to hear any more of this.’‘

Depending on whether or not you believe Amanda’s ‘version’ of events, this could either be corroboration of her events, or corroboration she faked her fit.

Minor detail: Sollecito was in a totally different part of the Questera, but hey, it’s just semantics.

[page 61] ‘’...When I first found out what Amanda had signed her name to, I was furious. Okay, she was under a lot of pressure, as I had been, but how could she just invent stuff out of nowhere? Why would she drag me into something I had no part of? It soon transpired, of course, that she felt similarly about me. “What I don’t understand,” she wrote, as soon as she began to retract her statements, “is why Raffaele, who has always been so caring and gentle with me, would lie. . . . What does he have to hide?”

It took us both a long time to understand how we had been manipulated and played against each other. It took me even longer to appreciate that the circumstances of our interrogations were designed expressly to extract statements we would otherwise never have made, and that I shouldn’t blame Amanda for going crazy and spouting dangerous nonsense…’‘

-If Amanda got me locked up, I would be mad too
-Yes, she did make stuff (about Patrik) out of nowhere
-I was angry when Amanda asked ‘what I have to hide’
-Yes, police tend to play suspects off each other
-Yes, suspects try to avoid implicating each other
-Yes, Amanda only spouted dangerous nonsense after you took her alibi

This section is almost 100% true

[page 62] ‘’... Even before dawn broke on November 6, the authorities had us where they wanted us. True, neither of us had confessed to murder. But what they had””a web of contradictions, witnesses pitted against each other, and a third suspect on whom to pin the crime””was an acceptable second best.’‘

Also true, and great police work.

[page 63] ‘’... I asked to talk to my family again. I said I needed at least to inform my thesis director where I was. “Where you’re going, a degree’s not going to do you any good,” came the answer.’‘

Curious, he has just been arrested for murder and sexual assault, and among his first thoughts is his thesis. And didn’t he end up doing his Master’s thesis ... on himself?

[page 64] ‘’... As soon as we walked into my apartment, a policeman named Armando Finzi said loudly that the place stank of bleach. That wasn’t correct. My cleaning lady had been through the day before and cleaned the tile floor with Lysoform, not bleach. Still, he insisted on mentioning the bleach a couple more times””the clear implication being that I’d needed something powerful to clean up a compromising mess.’‘

Perhaps overanalysing this, but could Raffaele be flippantly thinking to himself: Nope, the cleaning lady used lysoform to clean up the mess. Wasn’t bleach, dudes.

[page 77] ‘’... Even before Judge Matteini had finished reading the complaint against me, I blurted out that I didn’t know Patrick Lumumba and that any prints from my shoes found at Via della Pergola could only have been made before November 1. Immediately I ran into trouble because I had in fact met Patrick at his bar, on the night Amanda and I first got together. And I had no idea that the shoe prints in question were made in blood. In no time, I was flailing and suggesting, in response to the judge’s pointed questions, that maybe I picked up some of the blood on the floor when I walked around the house on November 2, the day the body was discovered. Even more unwisely, I speculated that someone might have stolen my shoes and committed the murder in them. It just did not occur to me that the shoe print evidence was wrong.

At Raffaele’s first hearing:

-He claims not to have met Patrick, (his co-accused), but admits later, that he has
-He suggests that he may have picked up blood on the floor
-He claims the shoes were stolen

Why would Judge Matteini have reason to doubt his story?

[page 78] ‘’... I felt like a fool describing my extensive knife collection and even described myself as a testa di cazzo, a dickhead, for having so many. My judgment and my self-confidence were sinking fast.

“Perhaps the worst moment came when I was asked, for the umpteenth time, if Amanda had gone out on the night of the murder. I still had no clarity on this and could not answer the judge’s repeated questions without sounding evasive.”

[page 80] ‘’... Matteini swallowed the prosecution’s story whole. The break-in was staged after the fact, she asserted””just as Mignini had. The murderer or murderers must therefore have got into the house with a set of keys, and Amanda was the only keyholder without a solid alibi for the night in question. Patrick Lumumba had the hots for.

Meredith, Matteini theorized, and Amanda and I tagged along to experience something new and different. From my testimony at the hearing, Matteini concluded I was “bored by the same old evenings” and wanted to experience some “strong emotions.” (She moved my blog entry from October 2006, the date marked on the document, to October 2007, just weeks before the murder, which bolstered the argument.) She didn’t ascribe a specific motive to Amanda, assuming only that she must have felt the same way I did. The bloody footprints “proved” I was present at the scene of the murder, and my three-inch flick knife was “compatible with the possible murder weapon.” The house, she wrote, was “smeared with blood everywhere.”

Substitute in Rudy Guede for Patrick, and this sounds somewhat plausible.

[page 83] ‘’... Amanda recovered her lucidity faster than I did. The day we were arrested, she wrote a statement in English that all but retracted what she had signed the night before. “In regards to this “˜confession,’ “ she wrote, “I want to make 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.” She was still conjuring up images of Patrick as the murderer, but she added, “These things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or just dreams in my head.”

The next day, she wrote a second, more confident statement: “I DID NOT KILL MY FRIEND . . . But I’m very confused, because the police tell me that they know I was at my house when she was murdered, which I don’t remember. They tell me a lot of things I don’t remember.” Then she gave a substantially more accurate account of the night of November 1 than I was coming up with at the time.’‘

All this does is confirm that much of the confusing, manipulative statements from Amanda exist. Gee thanks Raffaele.

[page 86] ‘’... short story about date rape that Amanda had submitted to a University of Washington creative-writing class was held up as evidence of her warped criminal mind. A Myspace video of her boasting about the number of shots she had downed at a party became an excuse to depict her as an alcohol-fueled harpy. I was described as “crazy,” based on a line I’d written in a blog entry, and held up to ridicule for a photograph, taken during a high-spirited moment of fun in my first year in Perugia, in which I was wrapped from head to foot in toilet paper, brandishing a machete in one hand and a bottle of pink alcohol in the other.’‘

“Amanda does lots of alcohol, write rape stories, and I dress in toilet paper, wielding a machete. Nothing to see here, people.”

[page 87] ‘’... I knew a lot of the coverage of the case itself was flawed. It was reported, for example, that the police had found bleach receipts at my house, strongly suggesting I had purchased materials to clean up the crime scene. But my cleaning lady didn’t use bleach, and the only receipts the police found from November 1 onward were for pizza. I wouldn’t have needed to buy bleach, anyway, because I had some left over from my previous cleaning lady. It had sat untouched for months.’‘

“Nope, I didn’t need to buy bleach for the cleanup, I already had it.”

[page 88] ‘’... Then came Maori. He told me that he too carried pocketknives from time to time. But he didn’t seem too interested in connecting with me beyond such superficial niceties. I felt he didn’t entirely trust me. His game plan, which became clear over a series of meetings, was to dissociate me as much as possible from Amanda. And that was it. He did not have a clear strategy to undermine the prosecution’s evidence on the knife and the shoe print, because””as he indicated to me””he believed there might be something to it. ‘’

Which means: “I don’t really believe you are innocent, the evidence seems too strong. But for your sake, separate yourself from this mentally unstable woman.”

Sounds very likely.

[page 90] ‘’... I even allowed myself a little optimism: my computer, I decided, would show if I was connected to the Internet that night and, if so, when, and how often. Unless Amanda and I had somehow made love all night long, pausing only to make ourselves dinner and nod off to sleep, the full proof of our innocence would soon be out in the open.

According to the police, it showed no activity from the time we finished watching Amélie at 9:10 p.m. until 5:30 the next morning.

That sounded all wrong to me, and my defense team’s technical experts would later find reasons to doubt the reliability of this finding. But there would be no easy way out of the mess Amanda and I were now in.’‘

Wishful thinking to form a coherent alibi or defense. Indeed, if only it was that simple.

[page 91] ‘’...Still, there was something I could not fathom. How did Meredith’s DNA end up on my knife when she’d never visited my house? I was feeling so panicky I imagined for a moment that I had used the knife to cook lunch at Via della Pergola and accidentally jabbed Meredith in the hand. Something like that had in fact happened in the week before the murder. My hand slipped and the knife I was using made contact with her skin for the briefest of moments. Meredith was not hurt, I apologized, and that was that. But of course I wasn’t using my own knife at the time. There was no possible connection.’

I imagined this happened? Is amnesia or hallucinating contagious? I’m surprised he did not have a vision that he saw Patrik attacking Meredith.

On another note: giving a blatantly false account of how a victim’s DNA ended up on your knife seems a bit suspicious.

[page 93] ‘’... The nuts and bolts of the investigation, the hard evidence, kept yielding good things for us. We were told that my Nikes had tested negative for blood and for Meredith’s DNA. So had my car, and everything else I had touched around the time of the murder. Even the mop Amanda and I carried back and forth on the morning of November 2, an object of particular suspicion, was reported to be clean.

Well, I have no doubt that the AMERICAN media reported this to be the case….

And ‘the mop Amanda and I carried back and forth…?’

[page 94] ‘’... During a conversation with her mother in prison, they reported, Amanda had blurted out, “I was there, I cannot lie about that.” She seemed not to realize the conversation was being recorded, and the police picked up on it right away.’‘

Amanda again places herself at the scene, but again, there is a simple explanation. Amanda being Amanda?

[page 94] ‘’... his time the papers quoted what they said was an extract fromher diary. “I don’t remember anything,” the passage read, “but maybe Raffaele went to Meredith’s house, raped and killed her, and then put my fingerprints on the knife back at his house while I was asleep.”

Of course, Amanda writes that someone planted her fingerprints. Odd, as I think that no one ever claimed her prints were on the knife. Why would she think they were?

This needs to be said: What the hell is U of W teaching in their ‘creative writing’ program?

[page 97] ‘’... I remember watching the news of Guede’s arrest on the small-screen TV in my cell and seeing the Perugia police all puffed up with pride about catching him. If anything, I felt happier than they did, because Guede was a complete stranger to me. The relief was palpable. All along I had worried the murderer would turn out to be someone I knew and that I’d be dragged into the plot by association. Now I had one less thing to worry about. Not that I wasn’t still wary: so much invented nonsense had been laid at my door I was still half-expecting the authorities to produce more.’

The ‘real’ killer is caught, and you are worried more things may be invented? Interesting.

[page 98] ‘’...Lumumba had every right to be angry; he had spent two weeks in lockup for no reason. He had been able to prove that Le Chic stayed open throughout the evening of November 1, producing an eyewitness, a Swiss university professor, who vouched for his presence that night. One would expect his anger to be directed as much toward Mignini, who threw him in prison without checking the facts, as it was toward Amanda. But Lumumba and his strikingly aggressive lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, could find only vicious things to say about Amanda from the moment he got out of jail””even though he had not, in fact, fired her and remained friendly with her for several days after the murder.’‘

True, except why be mad at Mignini? It is Amanda who falsely accused him, not Mignini. But again, minor details.

[page 107] ‘’... Papà  was spinning like a dervish to clear my name, but not everyone he hired was as helpful as he hoped. One consultant whom he asked to monitor the Polizia Scientifica demanded eight thousand euros up front, only to prove reluctant to make overt criticisms of the police’s work, the very thing for which he’d been hired. A forensic expert who also seemed a little too close to the police charged four thousand euros for his retainer with the boast, “I’m expensive, but I’m good.” He wasn’t. A computer expert recommended by Luca Maori didn’t know anything about Macs, only PC’s.’‘

That first line is a bit disturbing. ‘Not everyone he hired was as helpful as he hoped.’ This can be easily interpretted as shopping around for an expert of ‘hired gun’.

[page 110] ‘’... Amanda and I came in for what was by now a familiar drubbing. The judges said my account of events was “unpardonably implausible.” Indeed, I had a “rather complex and worrying personality” prone to all sorts of impulses. Amanda, for her part, was not shy about having “multiple sex partners” and had a “multifaceted personality, detached from reality.” Over and above the flight risk if we were released from prison, the judges foresaw a significant danger that we would make up new fantastical scenarios to throw off the investigation. In Amanda’s case, they said she might take advantage of her liberty to kill again.’‘

Most rational people would come to the same conclusions.

[page 112] ‘’... Since I had no such testimony to offer, I did the Italian equivalent of taking the Fifth: I availed myself, as we say, of the right not to respond.

I found some satisfaction in that, but also frustration, because I had at last worked out why Amanda did not leave””could not have left””my house on the night of the murder. She didn’t have her own key, so if she’d gone out alone, she would have had to ring the doorbell and ask me to buzz her back in. Even if I’d been stoned or asleep when she rang, I would have remembered that. And it didn’t happen.’‘

Hmm… I swear I am innocent, but plead the fifth ammendment. And I am not positive Amanda did not leave, but ad hoc have worked out that she must not have.

[page 112] ‘’...Obviously, I wanted to shout the news to the world. But I also understood that telling Mignini now would have been a gift to him; it would only have bought him time to figure out a way around it.’‘

“I could tell a certain version of events to the prosecutor, but if I did that now, he would only have time to discover the holes in that story.”

[page 113] ‘’... I knew the Kerchers had hired an Italian lawyer, Francesco Maresca, whom they picked off a short list provided by the British embassy. I addressed my letter to him, saying how sorry I was for everything that had happened and expressing a wish that the full truth would soon come out.

I was naive enough to believe that Maresca would be sympathetic.’‘

Knox was criticised for fake attempts to reach out to the victim’s family, and had been told to act more like a defendant. Interesting that it started so much earlier.

[page 115] ‘’... Regrettably, Guede’s shoes were not available, presumably because he ditched them; they were not at his apartment and they were not among his possessions when he was arrested in Germany.’‘

Very interesting. Raffaele believes that the ‘murderer’s shoes’ were not available, and may have been ditched. This seems to be more than just speculation on his part.

[page 117] ‘’... Mignini questioned Amanda again on December 17, and she, unlike me, agreed to answer his questions in the presence of her lawyers. She was more composed now and gave him nothing new to work with. She couldn’t have been present at the murder, she insisted, because she’d spent all night with me.’‘

How does this not sound incredibly incriminating? I refused to talk, though Amanda agreed to, but only with lawyers. And does this not sound like Amanda was better able to stonewall the investigation?

[page 121] ‘’... Instead, he tried to control the damage and talked to every reporter who called him. “The most plausible explanation,” he said to most of them, “is that the bra had been worn by Amanda as well, and Raffaele touched it when she was wearing it.”

There were two problems with this statement. First, it was so speculative and far-fetched it did nothing to diminish the perception that I was guilty. And, second, it showed that my father””my dear, straight-arrow, ever-optimistic, overtrusting father””still couldn’t stop assuming that if the police or the prosecutor’s office was saying something, it must be so.

There are 3 possibilities here, all bad.

(a) This entire scenario was made up, and like the ‘my shoes were stolen’, only leaves everyone shaking their heads in disbelief.

(b) Amanda actually had worn the bra BEFORE and returned it without washing it. Remember what this woman tends to think when she sees blood. Ew.

(c) Amanda wore the bra AFTER Meredith was murdered, and that she and Raffaele fooled around after. Not too farfetched when you remember that Raffaele kept the murder weapon as a souvenir.

[page 122] ‘’... Along with the Albanian, we had to contend with a seventy-six-year-old woman by the name of Nara Capezzali, who claimed she had heard a bloodcurdling scream coming from Meredith’s house at about 11:00 p.m. on the night of the murder, followed by sounds of people running through the streets.’‘

Yes, this confirms at least part of Amanda’s account that night. Yes, she seemed to vaguely remember Patrik killing Meredith, and wasn’t sure if Raffaele was there, but the scream detail is corroborated.

[page 125] ‘’... As my time alone stretched out into weeks and then months, I had to let go of everything that was happening and hold on to other, more permanent, more consoling thoughts: my family and friends, the memory of my mother, the simple pleasures I’d enjoyed with Amanda, the peace that came from knowing that neither of us had done anything wrong.

If they want to kill me this way, I remember thinking, let them go ahead. I’m happy to have lived life as I did, and to have made the choices I made.’‘

Hmm… so he finds peace being locked away for things he did not do?

More likely, Raffaele is coming to terms with the inevitable consequences of life in prison.

[page 129] ‘’... The one victory we eked out was a finding that we should have been told we were under criminal investigation before our long night of interrogations in the Questura. The statements we produced would not be admissible at trial.’‘

Do I really need to explain this one?

[page 150] ‘’... I talked about Amanda with Filippo, my cellmate, and he listened, just as I had listened to his problems. One day, though, he told me he was bisexual, and his eyes started to brighten visibly when he looked at me. Then he burst into tears and tried to caress my face.’‘

Given the overlap between Waiting to be Heard and Honor Bound, did the ‘authors’ collaborate?

[page 151] ‘’... My father hired a telecommunications expert to help resolve a few other mysteries from the night of the murder. The prosecution had given no adequate explanation for a series of calls registered on Meredith’s English cell phone after she’d returned from her friends’ house around 9:00 p.m., and many of them seemed baffling, assuming they were made””as the prosecution argued””by Meredith herself. We believed Meredith was dead by the time of the last two calls, and our expert Bruno Pellero intended to help us prove that.’‘

This sounds disturbingly like another attempt to subvert justice.

[page 154] ‘’... She also acknowledged that a contaminated or improperly analyzed DNA sample could, in theory, lead to an incorrect identification.’‘

Wait, weren’t those same people involved in the finding the evidence against Guede? Right, that evidence is clean.

[page 156] ‘’... Judge Micheli issued his ruling at the end of October. On the plus side, he found Guede guilty of murder and sentenced him to thirty years behind bars in an accelerated trial requested by Guede himself. Judge Micheli also accepted our evidence that it wouldn’t have been that difficult to throw a rock through Filomena’s window and climb the wall.

But, Spider-Man or no Spider-Man, he still didn’t believe Guede got into the house that way. He argued that Filomena’s window was too exposed and that any intruder would have run too great a risk of discovery by climbing through it. Therefore, he concluded, Amanda and I must have let him in. There seemed to be no shaking the authorities out of their conviction that the break-in was staged.’‘

So, Judge Micheli is a fine judge who saw Rudy Guede for who he is and convicted him, yet he is so poor a judge he ruled that Amanda and I had to be involved?

Didn’t Knox say very similar things in her December 2013 email to Appeal Court Judge Nencini?

[page 160] ‘’... Still, the prosecution jumped all over [Quintavalle] and later put him on the stand to bolster the argument that Amanda and I had spent that morning wiping the murder scene clean of our traces””but not, curiously, Guede’s. It was one of their more dishonest, not to mention absurd, arguments, because any forensics expert could have told them such a thing was physically impossible. Still, it was all they had, and they single-mindedly stuck to it.’‘

Depending on how you view this, it could be an ad hoc admission that yes, selectively cleaning up wasn’t really possible, as the evidence was all intermingled.

[page 167] ‘’... I was pushing for another sort of change, a single trial team to defend Amanda and me together. I was told right away that this was out of the question, but I don’t think my logic was wrong. The only way either of us would get out of this situation, I reasoned, was if we stuck together. If the prosecution drove a wedge between us, we would more than likely both be doomed.’‘

This seems to justify Guede’s suspicions that his co-defendants would team up on him.

[page 169] ‘’... Stefanoni and Mignini were holding out on that information, and we needed to pry it from them quickly before more damage was done. The shots would ultimately be called by the judge, and we hadn’t had a lot of luck with judges so far.’‘

Why would you need ‘luck’ from a judge?

[page 173] ‘’... No matter how much we demanded to be heard, no matter how much we sought to refute the grotesque cartoon images of ourselves and give calm, reasoned presentations of the truth, we never escaped the feeling that our words were tolerated rather than listened to; that the court was fundamentally uninterested in what we had to say.’‘

That is probably true. No one cares why Amanda’s vibrator is on full display.

And yes, you did demand to be heard. Perhaps, if you had agreed to full cross examination, you would know what the judges and prosecutors would be interested in hearing.

[page 173] ‘’... A week later, Meredith’s English friends took the stand and testified with such uniform consistency it was hard to think of them as distinct individuals. Robyn Butterworth, Amy Frost, and Sophie Purton all said that Meredith had been unhappy with Amanda’s standards of hygiene, particularly her forgetfulness about flushing the toilet. It sounded almost as if they were reading from a prepared script. Meredith, they agreed, had found Amanda a little too forward for keeping her condoms and what looked like a vibrator in their shared bathroom. And, they said, Amanda had acted weirdly in the Questura.

That was it. They mentioned nothing positive about the relationship. No word on Meredith and Amanda’s socializing together, or attending Perugia’s annual chocolate festival, or going to the concert on the night Amanda and I met.’‘

Yes, the prosecution case does seem stronger when their witnesses are consistent. Absolutely right.

Strangely, Meredith’s English friends also did not talk about how compassionate Amanda was at the memorial. Wait a minute….

[page 174] ‘’... Amanda arrived in court wearing a T-shirt with the words ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE emblazoned in huge pink letters, to mark Valentine’s Day. It seemed she wanted to find a way to defuse the English girls’ ill will toward her, but it didn’t work.’‘

No kidding.

[page 186] ‘’... Meanwhile, we had to worry about Amanda taking the stand. Her lawyers decided that the best way to refute the stories about her wayward personality was to have the court take a good, hard look at her up close. But my lawyers were deeply concerned she would put her foot in her mouth, in ways that might prove enduringly harmful to both of us. If she deviated even one iota from the version of events we now broadly agreed on, it could mean a life sentence for both of us.’‘

Amanda puts her foot in her mouth? Yup.

“The truth we agreed on”?? Come on, you actually put this in the book?

[page 193] ‘’... My father was all over the place. He knew exactly how bad the news was, but he wanted to shield me as best he could. “Whatever happens, don’t worry,” he told me. “There’s always the appeal. The work we’ve done won’t go to waste.”

And indeed, the first (now annulled) appeal did ‘save’ them.

[page 195] ‘’... Mignini had to scrabble around to explain how Amanda, Guede, and I could have formulated a murder plan together without any obvious indication that we knew each other. Guede, he postulated, could have offered himself as our drug pusher.’‘

“I can explain that. Amanda and I are admitted drug users. We smeared Guede as a drug dealer. Reasonable people might believe that there is some connection to drugs.”

[page 204] ‘’... The next piece of bad news came down within three weeks of our being found guilty. Rudy Guede’s sentence, we learned, had been cut down on appeal from thirty years to sixteen. The thinking of the appeals court was that if Amanda and I were guilty, then Guede couldn’t serve a sentence greater than ours. If I had supplied the knife and Amanda had wielded it, as Mignini and Comodi postulated and Judge Massei and his colleagues apparently accepted, we needed to receive the stiffer punishment.’‘

Yes, the thinking of the courts, and those pesky short-form trial sentence deductions that are mandatory.

‘’[page 204] ...I didn’t think I could feel any worse, but this was an extra slap in the face and it knocked me flat. Not only were Amanda and I the victims of a grotesque miscarriage of justice, but Meredith’s real killer, the person everybody should have been afraid of, was inching closer to freedom. It wasn’t just outrageous; it was a menace to public safety.’‘

Yes, it was a miscarriage in that Amanda and I didn’t get the life sentences Mignini called for, and that Meredith’s real killer, Amanda, would soon get her freedom via Hellmann.

[page 219] ‘’... My family was not beating up on Amanda entirely without cause. What I did not know at the time, because they preferred not to fill me in, was that they were exploring what it would take for the prosecution to soften or drop the case against me. The advice they received was almost unanimous:’‘

Although the deal itself is illegal, I have no doubt that the Sollecito family at least explored the option.

[page 258] ‘’... Judge Hellmann’s sentencing report was magnificent: 143 pages of close argument that knocked down every piece of evidence against us and sided with our experts on just about every technical issue.’‘

That is true, with one huge omission: the defense only cherry picked a few small pieces of evidence. Yes, it ‘knocked down every piece of evidence we chose to contest.’

2. Synopsis Of “Honor Bound”

(20) The robbery that night was perfect, assuming the perp had the inside info.

(22) My cellphone was turned off.

(22) If my father called the land line I would have an alibi.

(24) I cannot make sense of showering in a bloody bathroom.

(26) Despite the break in, nothing had been taken.

(27) Someone did not flush the toilet, and I won’t either.

(27) The following dialogue:

‘’ ....Don’t do anything stupid.’‘

‘’ ....Now what do we do?’‘

‘’ ....My sister is in the Carabinieri.’‘

(29) I should have been more careful about my choice of words when I said

‘’ .... Nothing has been taken.’‘

(35) The police were shocked/disbelieving Amanda just took a shower.

(39) Things would be okay if my Carabinieri sister had helped.

(40) I defended Amanda, beyond the point of looking after my own interests.

(40) Amanda could kill for something minimal, even a pizza.

(40) Amanda and Meredith were not friends, despite living together.

(41) Amanda and I share embarrassing sexual information about the victim.

(42) We weren’t misbehaving in the lingerie shop, but if we were, it was taken out of context.

(43) Amanda whined, and we fooled around in the police station. Maybe not a good idea.

(44) Amanda does not shut up about her sex life.

(46) Vanessa made inquiries on my behalf.

(47) Prior to our arrest, the authorities were clueless.

(48) We behaved oddly, had no real alibi, and said things without thinking.

(49) We are not guilty only because there is no physical evidence.

(50) I like to carry knives.

(51) I had trouble remembering the date Meredith was killed.

(56) My sister works for the carabinieri. Why am I even here?

(56) My shoes are similar to ones found at the crime scene

(59/60) Amanda gave the false statement regarding Patrik.

(61) The police got Amanda and I to say things against each other.

(62) Amanda and I spun a web of contradictions.

(63) This is going to mess up my graduation.

(64) The smell wasn’t bleach, it was lysoform

(77) I never met Patrik, my co-accused (or did I)? 

The shoes might have dragged blood, or might have been stolen.

(78) I collect a lot of knives, and don’t remember if Amanda left.

(83) Amanda made admissions she tried to retract.

(86) Amanda and I engage in alarming behaviour, such as writing rape stories, and taking photos with weapons

(87) I had access to bleach, receipts or not.

(88) My lawyer thinks the evidence is strong, and wants me away from Amanda.

(90) I hope there is evidence on my computer that clears me.

(91) I imagined that the DNA on the knife came from a cooking accident.

(93) Amanda and I carried a mop back and forth for some reason.

(94) Amanda, in a jail recorded call, places herself at the scene.

(94) Amanda writes that I may have planted her fingerprints on the knife.

(97) Rudy Guede is caught, but I fear I may get named in other things.

(98) Lumumba is released, angry at Amanda for false accusation.

(107) Dad tried to cherrypick experts who would get me out.

(110) The courts saw us as unstable and potential flight risks.

(112) I decline to answer.

(112) I don’t want the prosecutor checking my story

(113) I creepily tried to reach out to the Kerchers, despite being accused, just like Amanda.

(115) Rudy should have kept his shoes in order to exonerate Amanda and I.

(117) I still refused to talk.  Amanda did, with lawyers.

(121) Amanda has been wearing Meredith’s underwear and without washing it.

(122) A witness heard Meredith scream, just as Amanda described.

(125) I am at peace with everything.

(129) The courts threw out our statements at the police station.

(150) I had a memorable encounter with a bisexual inmate (same as Amanda)

(151) My dad tried to find an alternate explanation for the phone evidence.

(154) The evidence against Rudy Guede is rock solid. The evidence against me is contaminated.

(156) Micheli is a great judge. He convicted Guede.

(156) Micheli is an idiot judge.  He believes Amanda and I were involved.

(160) It was foolish to think we could selectively clean the crime scene.

(167) In order to save ourselves, Amanda and I teamed up against Rudy.

(169) We weren’t getting the judges we wanted.

(173) We did not shut up, but had nothing helpful to say.

(173) Meredith’s English friends gave consistent testimony that did not help us.

(174) the ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE t-shirt was a bad idea.

(186) I worried about Amanda testifying, saying dumb things, and deviating from our ‘version’

(193) We knew the trial was doomed, but there was the appeal. (Hellmann)?

(195) For all the ‘drug dealer’ and ‘drug user’ name calling, prosecutors seemed to think this might be about drugs.

(204) Guede’s sentence was cut from 30 years to 16.  What an injustice for us… I mean Meredith.

(219) Legally speaking, it would be better to split from Amanda.

(258) Hellmann’s report knocked down the evidence we chose to present.

3. Premeditation And Why RS Goes No Further

The real reason Sollecito goes no further could be in as in the title ‘‘Honor Bound’‘.  Many altruistic people may interpret this as behaving, or conducting themselves honourably. 

But take a more shallow and selfish view.  It could just refer to being SEEN as honourable.  I think everyone here would agree that RS and AK are quite narcissistic and arrogrant.  And how manly to be protecting the women in your life.

The truth does set you free - except only when the truth is much worse than what the assumptions are. I repeat, the truth sets you free, except when it is actually worse.

What could be worse? Premeditation. Far beyond what has been suggested.

1) Raffaele himself suggests that doing a robbery at the house at that time would be ideal.

This makes sense if:

(a) Rudy knew that Filomena had all the money (that she took charge of it)
(b) That rent would be paid in cash, not a cheque or bank automatic withdrawl.

So, by this reasoning, there would be over 1000 Euros in cash at that time. Of course, the average household does not carry that much, and normally, there would be no reason to think so. The date had to be planned. It also lends credence to the theory that this really was about money, and he had help.

2) The fact that Laura and Filomena were gone, as were the men downstairs. Really, how often does it happen, and how would an outsider know?

3) The trip to Gubbio. Does anyone know if either AK or RS were heavily into travel, or was this a one time thing? My point being that it could have been to establish an alibi, they just didn’t expect to still be there when the police showed up.

4) The fact that Rudy Guede was brought in, when he had no legitimate reason to be upstairs. RS could explain away DNA or prints, but not RG. Even if it really was just about stealing money, would there not be some trace of him left when the theft was reported.

And if murder was the plan all along, there would still be some trace of him.

5) Purchasing bleach. Everyone had assumed that it was done after the fact to clean up, but there is another thought. What if there already was bleach available in the home, and this purchase was merely a replacement as an afterthought?

6) The knife in Raffaele’s home. What if Amanda chose to bring a knife that Raffaele would not be able to ditch, simply so that should suspicion fall on them, there would be a knife to implicate Raffy? Remember, Amanda already made statements that point to him. Maybe those weren’t her first attempts.

Of course, I did make the suggestion that they were keeping the knives for trophies.

7) The ‘alibi’ email home. Sure, it could have been written on the spot. However, it seems too long and detailed for that. Yes, some details would need to be added (like the poop), but who is to say she didn’t start working on it BEFORE the murder?

8) Keeping the text to Patrik to say ‘see you later’. Amanda says she doesn’t keep messages on her phone, but she had this one, and several days after the murder. Could this have been saved as a ‘backup plan’ in case naming Rudy does not work for some reason. Besides, don’t all black guys look the same? (sarcasm).

9) Yes, there was a bloody shoeprint (believed to be AK), but I don’t recall anyone saying her shoes were missing, or any other clothes she had. And she supposedly did not have many clothes. So, did she have ‘extras’ for that night?

10) Wiping down the home (even if it was botched), would take time, and ‘supplies’. A chronic slob just happens to have all these cleaning supplies on hand, or were they acquired before?

So, I suspect the real refusal to talk is that the full truth is a lot worse than any game or drugged up prank. The time and location is chosen, no clothes are ‘noticed’ missing, and Amanda has at least 3 potential patzies: Rudy, Raffaele, and Patrik. Remember, Guede and Lumumba are on ‘the list’ Knox ended up writing for Rita Ficarra. And AK and RS are scheduled to go on a trip that would take them away with a plausible alibi. Cleaning supplies may already be there.

Call me cynical: but I see all the signs of staging, and premeditation. Yes, the act itself was messy, but there are very obvious marks of forethought.

So. What will the judges of Cassation be seeing?

Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #3: Targeted Claims On Which Sollecito & Gumbel May Fold

Posted by Our Main Posters

Dr Giuliano Bartolomei of the chief prosecutor’s office of the Florence court brings the case

1. The Court Contenders

Judge Dolores Limongi will preside over Sollecito’s new trial in Florence this thursday and Dr Giuliano Bartolomei will prosecute.

No word about whether the hapless bungler Andrew Gumbel will attend, but Sollecito has said he will be there.  Sollecito’s defense team seems rather weak. After Sollecito’s own lawyers for his murder trial publicly renounced the most damaging claims in his book (see below) his family turned to Alfredo Brizioli for help.

Brizioli is a Perugia lawyer who was accused of being one of those trying to disguise the murdered Narducci’s involvement in the Monster of Florence killings. That shadowy group has just taken another hit in Italian eyes - a Milan court has ruled that Narducci, the probable murderer in the Monster of Florence crimes, was indeed himself murdered and there exists powerful evidence for this.

2. The Specific Charges

Charges against Sollecito are of two kinds: criminal defamation of both the justice system itself and of some of those who work within it. In US and UK terms criminal contempt of court comes close.

Criminal contempt charges become separate charges from the underlying case. Unlike civil contempt sanctions, criminal contempt charges may live on after resolution of the underlying case.

One charged with criminal contempt generally gets the constitutional rights guaranteed to criminal defendants, including the right to counsel, right to put on a defense, and the right to a jury trial in certain cases. Charges of criminal contempt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, incarceration for contempt may begin immediately, before the contempt charge is adjudicated and the sentence decided. Depending on the jurisdiction and the case, the same judge who decided to charge a person with contempt may end up presiding over the contempt proceedings.

Criminal contempt can bring punishment including jail time and/or a fine.

 

In this case a guilty verdict can open the tidal gates to criminal prosecutions and civil suits against Sharlene Martin and the Simon & Schuster team and all those many who repeated ANY of Sollecito’s and Gumbel’s false claims as gospel in their own books and online in the US and UK.

3. Nature Of The Claims

Typically the modus operandi of Knox and Sollecito and their factions in their US campaign (this falls flat in Italy) is to make some very damaging core claims, while leaving hundreds of pesky truths ignored.

Pesky truths helpfully ignored by most of the US and UK media too who apart from freelance Andrea Vogt have still done almost zero translation of their own. The previous post below shows a good example of this. Sollecito makes 20 false claims in a few pages. Dozens of facts that would belie those claims are simply left out.

The false claims continue (with considerable duplication for emphasis) throughout the 250-plus pages of the book.

Sollecito’s claims were published only in English. That was in the apparent hope that things would be reversed by political pressure from the US. Perhaps the US would let Sollecito come and live and stiff the Italian courts.

The Italian flagship crime show Porta a Porta wrecked that unusual and in-itself damaging strategy only 10 days out - with Francesco Sollecito’s and Luca Maori’s help.

The three worst-case examples quoted here and some others became public when Andrea Vogt and Italian reporters pointed to them after an October hearing. Page numbers are for the hard-cover book. 

Raffaele Sollecito retained Alfredo Brizioli after he burned his trial lawyers in his book

4. Example Claim One

Our brief response to this for now is that this felony attempt to frame the prosecutor for a serious crime was entirely made up. His own father and both his trial lawyers publicly said so. There was never a police or prosecution bias against Knox or toward Sollecito. As was very obvious at trial in 2009 the case against both was equally strong (an example of a key fact left out). Knox herself would seem to have a reason to get mad with Sollecito for this shafting - and in fact she did.

[ Page 219-222] My family was not beating up on Amanda entirely without cause. What I did not know at the time, because they preferred not to fill me in, was that they were exploring what it would take for the prosecution to soften or drop the case against me. The advice they received was almost unanimous: the more I distanced myself from Amanda, the better. The legal community in Perugia was full of holes and leaks, and my family learned all sorts of things about the opinions being bandied about behind the scenes, including discussions within the prosecutor’s office. The bottom line: Mignini, they were told, was not all that interested in me except as a gateway to Amanda. He might indeed be willing to acknowledge I was innocent, but only if I gave him something in exchange, either by incriminating Amanda directly or by no longer vouching for her.

I’m glad my family did not include me in these discussions because I would have lost it completely. First, my uncle Giuseppe approached a lawyer in private practice in Perugia - with half an idea in his head that this new attorney could replace Maori - and asked what I could do to mitigate my dauntingly long sentence. The lawyer said I should accept a plea deal and confess to some of the lesser charges. I could, for instance, agree that I had helped clean up the murder scene but otherwise played no part in it. “He’d get a sentence of six to twelve years,”Â the lawyer said, “but because he has no priors the sentence would be suspended and he’d serve no more jail time.”Â

To their credit, my family knew I would never go for this. It made even them uncomfortable to contemplate me pleading guilty to something I had not done. It was, as my sister, Vanessa, put it, “not morally possible.”

The next line of inquiry was through a different lawyer, who was on close terms with Mignini and was even invited to the baptism of Mignini’s youngest child that summer. (Among the other guests at the baptism was Francesco Maresca, the Kerchers’ lawyer, who had long since aligned himself with Mignini in court.) This lawyer said he believed I was innocent, but he was also convinced that Amanda was guilty. He gave my family the strong impression that Mignini felt the same way. If true - and there was no way to confirm that - it was a clamorous revelation. How could a prosecutor believe in the innocence of a defendant and at the same time ask the courts to sentence him to life imprisonment? The lawyer offered to intercede with Mignini, but made no firm promises. He wasn’t willing to plead my cause, he said, but he would listen to anything the prosecutor had to offer.

Over the late spring and summer of 2010, my father used this lawyer as a back channel and maneuvered negotiations to a point where they believed Mignini and Comodi would be willing to meet with Giulia Bongiorno and hear what she had to say. When Papà   presented this to Bongiorno, however, she was horrified and said she might have to drop the case altogether because the back channel was a serious violation of the rules of procedure. A private lawyer has no business talking to a prosecutor about a case, she explained, unless he is acting with the express permission of the defendant. It would be bad enough if the lawyer doing this was on my defense team; for an outside party to undertake such discussions not only risked landing me in deeper legal trouble, it also warranted disciplinary action from the Ordine degli Avvocati, the Italian equivalent of the Bar Association.

My father was mortified. He had no idea how dangerous a game he had been playing and wrote a letter to Bongiorno begging her to forgive him and stay on the case. He was at fault, he said, and it would be wrong to punish her client by withdrawing her services when I didn’t even know about the back channel, much less approve it. To his relief, Bongiorno relented.

My family, though, did not. Whenever they came to visit they would suggest some form of compromise with the truth. Mostly they asked why I couldn’t say I was asleep on the night of the murder and had no idea what Amanda got up to.

5. Example Claim 2

Our brief response to this for now is that the case against Sollecito was being driven by Judge Matteini and Judge Ricciarelli and Judge Micheli, not Dr Mignini (an example of a key fact left out) and they got their information directly from the police. More than a year prior to Sollecito’s book coming out, a Florence appeal court had totally annulled a vengeance conviction against Dr Mignini [“there is no evidence”] and the Supreme Court had endorsed the result (an example of a key fact left out).

[2. Page 176-177] One of the reasons our hearings were so spread out was that Mignini was fighting his own, separate legal battle to fend off criminal charges of prosecutorial misconduct. He and a police inspector working on the Monster of Florence case stood accused of intimidating public officials and journalists by opening legal proceedings against them and tapping their phones without proper justification.

To Mignini, the case smacked of professional jealousy because the prosecutors in Florence resented his intrusion on a murder mystery they had struggled for so long to resolve. But Mignini’s behavior had already attracted international condemnation, never more so than when he threw the journalist most indefatigably devoted to following the Monster case, Mario Spezi, into jail for three weeks.

Spezi had ridiculed Mignini’s theories about Francesco Narducci, the Perugian doctor whom Mignini suspected of being part of a satanic cult connected to the killings. In response, Mignini accused Spezi himself of involvement in Narducci’s murder - even though the death had been ruled a suicide. It was a staggering power play, and the international Committee to Protect Journalists was soon on the case. Spezi was not initially told why he was being arrested and, like me, was denied access to a lawyer for days. Even Mignini, though, could not press murder charges without proving first that a murder had taken place, and Spezi was eventually let out.

I firmly believe that our trial was, among other things, a grand diversion intended to keep media attention away from Mignini’s legal battle in Florence and to provide him with the high-profile court victory he desperately needed to restore his reputation. Already in the pretrial hearing, Mignini had shown signs of hypersensitivity about his critics, in particular the handful of English-speaking investigators and reporters who had questioned his case against us early on. He issued an explicit warning that anyone hoping he would back off the Meredith Kercher case or resign should think again. “Nobody has left their post, and nobody will,”Â he said. “Let that be clear, in Perugia and beyond.”Â

Just as he had in the Monster of Florence case, Mignini used every tool at his disposal against his critics and adversaries. He spied on my family and tapped their phones. He went after Amanda not just for murder, but also for defaming Patrick Lumumba - whom she had implicated under duress and at the police’s suggestion. He opened or threatened about a dozen other legal cases against his critics in Italy and beyond. He charged Amanda’s parents with criminal defamation for repeating the accusation that she had been hit in the head while in custody. And he sued or threatened to sue an assortment of reporters, writers, and newspapers, either because they said negative things about him or the police directly or because they quoted others saying such things.

Mignini’s volley of lawsuits had an unmistakable chilling effect, especially on the Italian press, and played a clear role in tipping public opinion against us. We weren’t the only ones mounting the fight of our lives in court, and it was difficult not to interpret this legal onslaught as part of Mignini’s campaign to beat back the abuse-of-office charges. His approach seemed singularly vindictive. Not only did we have to sit in prison while the murder trial dragged on; it seemed he wanted to throw our friends and supporters - anyone who voiced a sympathetic opinion in public - into prison right alongside us.

6. Example Claim 3

Our brief response to this for now is that this was long ago revealed to be a hoax (an example of a key fact left out). Neither the police nor the prosecution were in any way involved. A fake positive for HIV turned up, Knox was warned not to be concerned, and she was soon told that a new test showed her fine. Her list of recent sex partners was her idea, and its leaking to the media was demonstrably a family and defense-team thing (an example of a key fact left out).

[Page 101-102] The prosecution’s tactics grew nastier, never more so than when Amanda was taken to the prison infirmary the day after Patrick’s release and told she had tested positive for HIV.

She was devastated. She wrote in her diary, “I don’t want to die. I want to get married and have children. I want to create something good. I want to get old. I want my time. I want my life. Why why why? I can’t believe this.”Â

For a week she was tormented with the idea that she would contract AIDS in prison, serving time for a crime she did not commit. But the whole thing was a ruse, designed to frighten her into admitting how many men she had slept with. When asked, she provided a list of her sexual partners, and the contraceptive method she had used with each. Only then was she told the test was a false positive

To the prosecution, the information must have been a disappointment: seven partners in all, of whom four were boyfriends she had never made a secret of, and three she qualified as one-night stands. Rudy Guede was not on the list, and neither was anyone else who might prove useful in the case. She hadn’t been handing herself around like candy at Le Chic, as Patrick now alleged. She’d fooled around with two guys soon after arriving in Italy, neither of them at Patrick’s bar, and then she had been with me. Okay, so she was no Mother Teresa. But neither was she the whore of Babylon.

To compound the nastiness, the list was eventually leaked to the media, with the erroneous twist that the seven partners on the list were just the men she’d had since arriving in Perugia. Whatever one thought of Amanda and her free-spirited American attitude toward sex, this callous disregard for her privacy and her feelings was the behavior of savages.

7. Looking Forward

More posts to come.  We are going to open the floodgates on our own analysis of the book if the court on thursday takes a significant step forward.

Note that Sollecito has to contend with negative Italian public opinion as his claims bitterly disparaging to Italy itself (see the post below) are finally repeated in translation by the media and so become better known - at a disastrous time for him and Knox, two months before Cassation decides on their failed appeal.

In late 2012 after the book came out the TV crime show Porta a Porta gave Dr Sollecito quite a roasting on the first claim here and anger continued for some days more. He and Sollecito’s sister may be in court but no surprises if they are not. Knox could also react - the second and third claims above also appear in her book.

Friday, January 16, 2015

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #2: False Accusations From The First Few Pages

Posted by Our Main Posters

Suggested cover for a followup book due to multiple attempted malicious framings in first books

Examples: 20 False Claims In Seven Pages

We count several hundred malicious claims throughout that can easily be proved wrong. These twenty examples all appear in the book’s preface, which is only seven pages long.

Such claims continue throughout the book at approximately the same rate. Many sharp eyes here set about identifying them and are credited in the TJMK Liewatch page for Sollecito which will be switched on again when the secrecy requirement described in Part #12 below is relaxed by the court next week. 

1. That Italian justice authorities took the easy way out

This is the story of two ordinary people who stumbled upon an extraordinary circumstance, the brutal murder of a British student in Italy. Neither Amanda Knox nor I had anything to do with the crime, but we came perilously close to spending the rest of our lives in prison because the authorities found it easier, and more convenient, to take advantage of our youth and inexperience than to mount a proper investigation.  It’s that simple. And that absurd.

No advantage was taken of them. The two stood themselves out very sharply from all the others of similar age, and of similar inexperience (whatever that means). They did and said dozens of things in the early days that set them sharply apart.

They were questioned quite fairly, the Italian media was not especially hard, Dr Mignini never ever leaked, and they had lawyers and family handy at every turn after they were arrested. They each gave the authorities less than zero help - they tried to lead them off on wild goose chases, for example the false claim AK made against Patrick and dozens of other false claims, and apparently tried to finger yet another north African, Hicham Khiri, in a conversation they clearly knew was being recorded.

A “proper” investigation was indeed done. Simply read through all the posts on the trial here in the first half of 2009, and the prosecutor’s excellent summations, and you will see what a smooth comprehensive job was done. And the Supreme Court concluded that THREE had to have been involved, from the recreation of the attack and all the wounds on Meredith’s body. Subsequent to Patrick, AK and RS and their lawyers never came within light-years of throwing real suspicion on anyone else.

2. That the preventive custody was very harsh

On November 1, 2007, Amanda and I were carefree students at the beginning of a cross-cultural love affair in a beautiful Umbrian hill town. Within days, we were thrown into solitary confinement in a filthy prison, without access to lawyers or loved ones, accused of acts so heinous and disturbing we may never be able to banish them from our thoughts, or our nightmares.

Raffaele was sent to preventative prison on Tuesday November 6. Capanne Prison was almost brand-new then, and far from crowded. Cells contain TVs and private bathrooms.

All questioning had been stopped early on 6 November until Sollecito could have a lawyer present. He himself wrote to his father in his “prison diary” on November 7:  “I may see you tomorrow, at least that is what I was told by Tiziano [Tiziano Tedeschi, his lawyer at the time], who I saw today and who defended me before the judge.”

Mr Tedeschi made no complaint about any delay in the first meeting with his new client. In Italy, a judge must determine within 48 hours whether to hold or release detained suspects. Judge Matteini did so meticulously with Tedeschi present and refused Sollecito’s release.

3. That the prosecution and Italian media demonized the pair

In the newspapers and on the nightly news, we were turned into monsters, grotesque distortions of our true selves. It did not matter how thin the evidence was, or how quickly it became apparent that the culprit was someone else entirely. Our guilt was presumed, and everything the prosecution did and fed to the media stemmed from that false premise.

In the real world, the prosecution fed nothing at all secretly to the media and publicly very little, none of it self-servingly biased. Italian reporting was sporadic and very mild compared to anything one can see said daily about possible perps in the US and UK newspapers and on US TV. Besides, any coverage, which was in part deliberate in the situation as dozens of students were fleeing Perugia, had no influence on anything, neither on the investigation nor the trial.

The Italian system is set up so media can have less influence than almost any other media on any other justice system in the world. The Micheli and Massei sentencing reports show the judges were not unduly influenced even by the lawyers right in front of them, let alone by mild media reports 1 or 2 years before that.

4. That four years were wasted showing where the prosecution went wrong.

By the time we had dismantled the case and demonstrated its breathtaking absurdity [in the bent and annulled Hellmann appeal] we had spent four of what should have been the best years of our lives behind bars.

“We” meaning the defense lawyers did very little in the bent and annulled Hellmann appeal that they hadn’t flailed uselessly against in the trial. Except of course shopping for an inexperienced and pliable business judge, and for DNA consultants who they could then spoon-feed.

The list of lies by omission is extremely long. Much of the hard evidence they simply kept well away from, both in the trial and annulled appeal. Such as the extensive evidence in the corridor and bathroom and Filomena’s room, which were all considered parts of the crime scene.

On the other hand, RS’s claim could well apply to what Dr Galati and Cassation did for the Hellman sentencing report. Dismantled the appeal verdict, and demonstrated its breathtaking absurdity.

5. That Knox was made a target because timid Italy was scared of her.

Amanda and I certainly made our share of mistakes. At the beginning we were too trusting, spoke too frivolously and too soon, and remained oblivious to the danger we were courting even after the judicial noose began to tighten. Amanda behaved in ways that were culturally baffling to many Italians and attracted a torrent of gossip and criticism.

An inaccurate and xenophobic remark originated by the American Nina Burleigh, who was having severe culture shock of her own and surrounded only by other foreigners with similar mindsets.

What EXACTLY was so baffling about Knox to the very hip Italians? That Knox was pushy, obnoxious, humorless, rather lazy, rather grubby, and not especially funny or pretty or bright?  That she slept with a drug wholesaler up to the day of her arrest and cost him a stint in prison? That she put off Patrick, Meredith, her other flatmates, the boys downstairs, the customers in the bar, and just about everybody else except for the distasteful druggie loner Sollecito?

Read this post by the Italian-American Nicki in Milan. To quote from it “As many of us were expecting, Amanda’s testimony has backfired. She came across not as confident but arrogant, not as sweet but testy, not as true but a fake who has memorized a script, an actress who is playing a part but not well enough to fool the public….. Amanda Knox is not on trial because she is American and therefore too “emancipated”....Italians don’t much like Amanda primarily because they perceive her as a manipulative liar, who is suspected of having committed a heinous crime for which there is a whole stack of evidence.”

6. That Knox and Meredith were really great, great friends.

We were young and naive, unthinking and a little reckless. Of that much we were guilty.  But what we did not do””and could not have done, as the evidence clearly showed””was murder Meredith Kercher.

Meredith was Amanda’s friend, a fellow English speaker in the house they shared with two Italian women just outside Perugia’s ancient city walls. She was twenty-one years old, intelligent, and beautiful. She and Amanda knew each other for a little over three weeks, long enough to feel their way into their new surroundings and appreciate each other’s interests and temperaments. I never heard about a single tense moment between them.

Plenty of other people did know of tensions. Meredith’s family and friends all knew Meredith was finding the noisy dirty lazy loud unfocused Knox and her one-night-stands hard to take.  Her other flatmates found her hard to take. Her employer Patrick found her hard to take. His customers in the bar found her hard to take.  The Lifetime movie got this strident angle of Knox pretty straight.

Remember, Meredith had enrolled for a full academic load at the main university. Knox in sharp contrast took only one undemanding language course - which anyone could walk into - requiring maybe 10 hours of study a week.  They increasingly did less together. In fact after several weeks, nobody was lining up to have anything to do with Amanda Knox.

Seemingly unable to reverse herself, Knox was headed to being among the least popular of students (or part-time students) in Perugia.  It should be recalled that the callous remarks by Amanda Knox about the death of her so-called friend Meredith included “Shit happens”, “She fucking bled to death”, and “‘I want to get on with the rest of my life”.

7. That an intruder knew about the rent money and so murder ensued.

Meredith, of course, suffered infinitely worse luck than we did: she came home, alone, on an ordinary Thursday night and had her throat slit by an intruder hoping to steal the household rent money.

There is zero evidence that this was the case. Knox herself ended up with a similar amount of cash that she has never been able to explain. There is zero possibility that Guede would know that any money was lying around - or not lying around, as it was concealed in Meredith’s drawer.

And take a look at the many images of the brightly lit house at night around 8:00 pm. There are several dozen other houses behind it in the dark which any smart burglar would have chosen first and entered hours later.  In 2008 two real break-ins occurred at the house - both were in the dark behind the house, which is by far the easiest place to break in.

So much for the spurious lone-wolf theory, which Judge Micheli first ruled out even before trial.

8. That the media got hysterical and portrayed heartless killers.

But the roles could easily have been reversed. If Meredith’s Italian boyfriend had not gone away for the weekend and if Amanda had not started sleeping over at my house, she””not Meredith””might have been the one found in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor. That reality was quickly lost amid the hysteria of the media coverage. But it continued to hover over both of us””Amanda especially””as we sank into the legal quagmire and struggled in vain to overcome the public image of us as heartless killers.

There was zero media hysteria. This silly claim was addressed above. Watch the Porta a Porta YouTubes and dozens of other Italian reports and try to find ONE that is not fair and cautious and mature.

How precisely did the two struggle in vain to overcome their public image? By coming up repeatedly with stories which didnt even tally with others of their own, let alone with one another’s? They never between them made even one helpful statement which actually helped the police.  And even their respective parents strongly suspected or knew of their guilt and were all caught incriminatingly on tape.

9. That Rudy Guede did it alone; ignore vast evidence that proves not.

This should not have been a complicated case. The intruder was quickly identified as Rudy Guede, an African immigrant living in Perugia with a history of break-ins and petty crimes. His DNA was found all over Meredith’s room, and footprints made in her blood were found to match his shoes. Everything at the crime scene pointed to a lone assailant, and a single weapon. Guede repeatedly broke into houses by throwing a rock through a window, as happened here, and he had been caught by the authorities in the past with a knife similar to the one that inflicted Meredith’s fatal wounds.

This is laughable. The room itself could not be checked for DNA as the choice was to fingerprint-check it instead. Sollecito’s footprint on the bathroom mat is a smoking gun all by itself. Crack national investigators demonstrated in numerous ways that the attack involved multiple assailants and this was endorsed by the Supreme Court.

Sollecito’s own lawyers never forcefully argued this. They produced two non-credible witnesses in the appeal trial (Alessi and Aviello) to actually prove that Guede had some other accomplices or that several others did it. Amanda Knox if anything diverted attention AWAY from Guede as he did in turn from her. He wasn’t quickly identified precisely because Knox had extremely credibly again and again on 5-6 Nov fingered Patrick.

There is no proof Guede intruded anywhere. The trial court concluded Knox invited him in. Guede had zero proven history of break-ins or petty crimes or drug-dealing, and late in 2008 at his trial Judge Micheli became angry at such claims. Guede had no prior criminal record at all. He had only been back in Perugia for a few weeks, after an extended stay up north.  His DNA was not found “all over” Meredith’s room. A major surprise, in fact, was how few traces of him were found.

The recreation of the crime scene and the autopsy both pointed AWAY FROM a lone assailant, not toward.  From Meredith’s wounds, it was quite evident that two and perhaps three knives had been used, and not a single weapon. What lone intruder carries or uses two or three knives?  And footprints in blood outside the door matched the feet of both RS and AK. This is why the Supreme Court confirmed Guede’s guilt only “in concorso” (with others).

10. That the cops could have caught Guede fast, despite Knox’s frame

Guede did not call the police, as Amanda and I did, or volunteer information, or agree to hours of questioning whenever asked. Rather, he fled to Germany as soon as the investigation began and stayed there until his arrest two and a half weeks later.

Guede’s apprehension and eventual conviction on murder charges should have been the end of the story. But by the time Guede was identified, the police and the public prosecutor’s office had convinced themselves that the murder was, incredibly, the result of a sexual orgy gone wrong, in which Amanda and I had played leading roles. Their speculations ignited a media firestorm, inspiring sensationalist headlines across the world about the evil lurking behind our seemingly innocent faces.

The authorities had no shred of evidence to substantiate this story line, only erroneous suppositions and wild imaginings. We had an alibi for the most likely time of death, and none of the initial forensic evidence tied us to the scene of the crime. Nothing in our backgrounds gave any hint of a propensity for violence or criminality. We were both accomplished, hardworking students known to our friends and families for our gentleness and even tempers.

Four more untrue claims. All three were convicted of a murder with a sex-crime element, and nobody was wrongly “convinced”. Which alibi is Sollecito talking about now? He himself admits in chapter 1 (Love and Death) that they had no “real alibi”. They still have no alibis at all for the second half of the evening, neither of them, when Meredith’s murder indisputably occurred.

Extensive forensic evidence within days tied them both to the scene. Not a single element of it has been discredited in the eyes of the Massei trial and Nencini appeal court. Not even one. Nothing was proven falsified, no item at all.

Neither of their backgrounds was squeaky clean. Both had long been into illegal drugs, the loner Sollecito had to be watched by his father and teachers, the increasingly disliked Knox had a history of doing and saying crass off-putting things. Both were lagging behind their brighter peers in their studies and Knox was in reality taking a year off.

11. That the prosecution fed the media a huge number of false claims.

Yet the authorities stuck to their guns. They fed the media a steady diet of sensationalist stories of how Amanda, the promiscuous American she-devil, and I, her sex-and-drug-addled Italian helpmeet, had tried without success to drag Meredith into our depravity and punished her by plunging an outsize kitchen knife into her neck.

Complete fiction. Again, in the real world, as the media reporters all confirm, the prosecution fed nothing at all secretly to the media, and publicly very little, none of it self-servingly biased.  Italian reporting was sporadic and very mild compared to anything one can see daily on possible perps in the US and UK newspapers and on US TV crime shows. There is zero sign this mild coverage mattered to the courts. As the media reporters all confirm, they were fed next to nothing by the police or prosecution on the case,

But whereas Mr Mignini famously never leaks, the defenses are widely claimed to have leaked throughout like sieves. So did Sollecito’s own family - they leaked an evidence video to Telenorba TV, for which they were considered for trial. Even we at TJMK and PMF received several offers of juicy leaks. Here is one example of where the Knox forces leaked - wrongly in fact - and then nastily slimed the prosecution and defenseless prison staff.

12. That the authorities had lots and lots and lots of scenarios.

It might have been funny if the consequences had not been so devastating. Listening to the tortured language of the prosecution””“one can hypothesize that . . . ,” “it is possible that . . . ,” “one can imagine that . . . ,” “this scenario is not incompatible with . . .”””it became clear that the authorities, like the media, were treating our case with the bizarre levity of an after-dinner game of Clue, or an Agatha Christie mystery. Everyone, even the judges in their black robes, had theories they were itching to air.

Have Sollecito and Gumbel ever before been in any other court in Italy or the UK or the US?  Every judge and/or jury seeks to zero in on a viable scenario on lines not unlike this. That is the whole POINT of having courts - to weight the probabilities in what happened in the crime.  The only difference in Italy is that the judges have to think their verdict through for weeks, and then write it all out, and then see it scrutinized by a higher court. Hardly a requirement to be sneered at.

Gumbel and Sollecito should have studied how US and UK juries arrive at their own scenarios. Very few US and UK lawyers think they do a better job. Ask those who watched the OJ Simpson and Casey Anthony trials and bitterly criticised the outcomes of those. And Italy has a vastly lower rate of false imprisonment than the US does, less than 1/6 of the US rate.

13. That Italy is a medieval country with a primitive justice system.

It could have been Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the revolver; instead it was Amanda and Raffaele in the bedroom with the kitchen knife. How was it conceivable that a democratic country known for its style and beauty and effortless charm””the Italy of the Renaissance and la dolce vita””could allow two young people to be catapulted to international notoriety and convicted of a horrific crime on the basis of nothing at all?

This is not remotely what happened. There was very far from nothing at all. Convictions in the US and UK regularly result based on evidence 1/10 or 1/100 of that here - sometimes from one single evidence point. Any one or several of maybe 100 evidence points here could have convicted them in a US or UK court.

Italy gives defendants every possible break, and the justice system has become seriously loaded against victims and their families. Read here and here.

14. That the prosecutors office and media were in a grim embrace.

The answer has something to do with the grim embrace that developed between the prosecutor’s office and the sensationalist media. Like addicts constantly looking for the next fix, each fed the other’s insatiable appetite for titillation and attention. The casual cruelty of “Foxy Knoxy” and her Italian lover became too good a story line to abandon, even when it became apparent it was overheated and unsustainable. Our suffering was the price to be paid for the world’s continuing entertainment.

WHAT grim embrace? WHAT addicts? WHAT fix? WHAT insatiable appetite? WHAT titillation and attention? This is clearly defamatory if it can’t be proven, and we can turn up no evidence that any of it is true. It has to be one of the most foolish lies in the entire book, it is so easy to disprove. These who are being accused of crimes here are career police and prosecutors secure in their jobs, and perhaps some in the media, and none have the slightest gain to make from convictions arrived at through a hoax.

15. That in the justice system speculation and hearsay run rampant

The meandering complexities of the Italian legal system, where speculation and hearsay are allowed to run rampant and time invariably slows to a maddening trickle, did little to help our cause.

Total mischaracterization. First note that by comparison with any country in the world THERE IS NOT MUCH CRIME IN ITALY.  There is some minor corruption and still some minor mafia action, but thefts and burglaries and assaults are few and murders even fewer. The main crime if you can call it such is citizens not lining up to pay taxes.  Italy’s murder rate is 1/6 that of the United States and its prison system size is 1/30 that of the United States, so where IS all this crime about which the claimed speculation and hearsay are running rampant?

The legal process would have been fully over by the end of 2009 if (1) there was not the entitlement to two automatic appeals; in UK and US terms there was very little to appeal about;  and (2) the Hellmann appeal court had not been fixed to produce a corrupt outcome, as the displaced judge Sergio Matteini Chiari and Cassation and the Council of Magistrates have all made plain.

And compared to American police and prosecutors, their Italian counterparts are famously taciturn under their unusually firm rules. There is media interest, for sure, as there should be when there are crimes, but that also is comparatively restrained. Watch the various Porta a Porta shows on YouTube and you will see how sedate crime discussion tends to be.

The Constitution and the judicial code set out to achieve the exact opposite of speculation and hearsay affecting justice, and they do so.  Creating this restraint is a primary reason for the judges’ sentencing reports, and for all the magistrates’ checks of investigations along the way.

This whole series of dishonest claims about the the Italian system in the preface of the book and a later chapter have clearly not been read through or okayed by even one Italian lawyer. They would all know it is wrong.

16. That in Italy proof beyond a reasonable doubt scarcely exists

For reasons deeply embedded in the country’s history, the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt scarcely exists in Italy, and the very notion of undisputed fact is viewed with suspicion, if not outright aversion.

So Gumbel and Sollecito are historians and legal experts now? It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if either were able to explain the remark. This may be an ignorant swipe at the Napoleonic Code on which the law of a lot of continental Europe is based. Ignored is that Italy carried out its own reforms to the Code in 1990 and more subsequently. Much of that reform, it should be pointed out, was procedural or structural rather than substantive law.

There are two things wrong with “..the concept of reasonable doubt scarcely exists in Italy.”

1. It is factually wrong. Italian jurists, the courts, and so on, are well acquainted with the concept as it has been a fundamental aspect of criminal proceedings in Italy as elsewhere for many decades if not centuries.

2. It suggests that Italians are not intelligent enough to understand the concept anyway. That of course is an insult to Italians.  Actually they are no less intelligent than the rest of us elsewhere who strive to understand it.

Until the 1990 Reforms the relationship between criminal and civil proceedings in Italy were governed by the principles of unity of jurisdiction and the prevailing status of criminal proceedings. Hence, if the facts were the same then criminal proceedings (to punish the guilty) and civil proceedings (to render liable the guilty for damages) were heard at the same time and still sometimes are, as in the Meredith Kercher case.

What has changed (relevant to the above quote) is that civil cases can be and are more likely to be heard independently from the related criminal cases and, where not, the standard of proof in civil cases (the preponderance of evidence or, as we usually refer to it, the balance of probabilities) is to be applied to the civil case, and the civil case only, rather than be confused with or overriden by the criminal standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt).

Not an easy task, admittedly, to apply different standards to different tasks, based on the same facts, in the same proceedings, but Italian judges are trained to do this because that is their system. No judge would EVER confuse “beyond reasonable doubt” with “the balance of probabilities” when the issue at stake is depriving an individual of his freedom.

17. That the Italian judiciary has vast, unfettered powers

Few in Italian society wield as much unfettered power as the robed members of the judiciary, whose independence makes them answerable to nobody but themselves.

Radically the opposite of the truth. The paranoid claim reads like it came from ex PM Berlusconi fearful of his own conviction or one of his parliamentary lackeys such as Girlanda.

The checks and balances on judges in the Italian system are enormous, perhaps the toughest checks and balances in the world. Read here and here about them.

All of the best judges in the world are independent and they all follow a demanding career path, not elected (as ex-Judge Heavey was) under zero criteria, or appointed under the political sway of politicians. We wonder if Gumbel and Sollecito have ever heard of the US Supreme Court? Do those judges answer to anybody? No? How unfettered. 

18. That the courts are the most reviled institution in Italy.

Many Italians retain a healthy skepticism about the reliability of their procedures and rulings. The courts””tainted by politics, clubbishness, pomposity, and excruciating delays””are the most reviled institution in the country.

As our Sollecito Book pages make clear again and again and again, the Italian system is remarkably NOT tainted by politics, as even the most surperficial watcher of the trials of ex Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi would know.

And on the issue of popularity we have previously posted this and this and also this.

Our Italian poster Machiavelli (Yummi), who posted our deep analysis of the appeal to the Supreme Court by Dr Galati, has provided these hard facts:

For comparison, in 2011 the percentage of Italians who declared they trust the justice system “a lot” or “enough” was 53.3%. By comparison, the percentage of Italians who declared they trust the government “a lot” or “enough”  were 14.7%, and those who trust the parliament were only 15%.

In 2012, the percentage of Italians who trust the parliament is now only 9.5%, and those who trust the Mario Monti administration are only 21.1%.

Over the eight years from 2004 to 2012 the percentage of Italians who trust the justice system was always bigger than those who trust parliament or government by at least ten points, and in some years we can see a spread of 20, 30, even 39 percentage points achieved by the judiciary over the parliament and government.

However, some cases of corruption (such as our Hellmann-Zanetti case, but also several others indicated by the Rapporto Italia 2012) do hamper trust.

The most trusted institutions in Italy above all are the Carabinieri (74% of Italians trust them) and the Polizia di Stato (71%).

Which means the most trusted institutions are precisely those law enforcement instruments which are deployed to enforce the orders of prosecutors.

19. That prosecutors can spin their cases into any shape they please.

Because the Italian legal system is almost completely blind to precedent and relies on a tangle of impenetrable codes and procedures, prosecutors and judges have almost boundless freedom to spin their cases into any shape they please and create legal justifications on the fly. Often, they are more interested in constructing compelling narratives than in building up the evidence piece by piece, a task considered too prosaic and painstaking to be really interesting.

Whoever wrote this either wasnt an Italian or a lawyer, and either way didnt have much of a clue. The entire Italian system under the post WWII constitution was designed to PREVENT what Sollecito & Gumbel claim it allows here.

There are checks and balances and reviews every step of the way. Magistrates (initially Matteini here) determine what a prosecutor may do in developing and presenting a case. Parties may appeal to the Supreme Court AT ANY TIME as Knox’s lawyers did over her second written confession - which she herself had demanded to make in front of Dr Mignini after he finished warning her of her rights.

Hard for Sollecito & Gumbel to believe, perhaps, but the defense is actually present in the same courtroom. They can raise points of order at any time. So can the defendants themselves, at any time, something maybe unique in the world.

And judges actually have minds of their own. And then there are the unique written sentencing reports, and the two automatic appeals if any parties want to pursue them.

Sollecito & Gumbel should have read the 2012 Galati appeal more closely. The Prosecution’s Appeal To The Supreme Court is available in English here.  Precedent has a section to itself - “The non-observance of the principles of law dictated by the Cassation Court in the matter of circumstantial cases (Article 606(b)) in relation to Article 192 paragraph 2 Criminal Procedure Code.”

Well, that’s precedent, via the Court of Cassation no less! How surprising from Gumbel/Sollecito that they should make that claim about ignoring precedent when in fact there it is, going right to the heart of the flawed Hellmann/Zanetti judgement on circumstantial evidence!  What else is a Code but in effect a codification, a gathering together, a rationalisation, of best law - and precedent? 

There is an absurd irony here, were they aware of it. Perhaps they are. Surely it is Hellmann and Zanetti who have displayed “a boundless freedom” in spinning the case “into any shape they please”, and who have “created legal justifications on the fly”?  As for prosecutors doing this, at least Dr Mignini followed the evidence, and American readers may recall the infamous Jim Garrison, the DA hero of Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK” but who in reality, unlike Dr Mignini, was a total and utter crackpot.

And what issue exploded the Porta a Porta TV show in Italy in September 2012? It was Sollecito’s false claim that the prosecution had secretly tried to offer him a deal if he would roll over on Knox.  NOBODY including his own father and his own lawyers confirmed him. Evidence against both was overwhelming. Nobody needed such a deal, and Italian prosecutors are highly rules-bound against ever offering such deals.

Sollecito was in effect accusing Dr Mignini of a felony with this much-repeated false claim in his book. (In her book Knox also accused Dr Mignini of a felony.)

20. That the prosecutors and judges in Italy are far too close.

Prosecutors and judges are not independent of each other, as they are in Britain or the United States, but belong to the same professional body of magistrates. So a certain coziness between them is inevitable, especially in smaller jurisdictions like Perugia.

Yes, prosecutors and judges in Italy belong to the same professional body of magistrates. But then so does the defense lawyer Ms Bongiorno. The claim that there is no independence between prosecutors and judges in Italy, in fact a coziness between them, is a bit rich.

Consider, say, the UK. It is true cases are prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service, a government body, but in serious cases the CPS will employ barristers from the Inns of Court. There is scarcely a judge in the UK, even up to the highest level, who was not and who is not still a member of one of the Inns of Court from whence barristers, for the prosecution or for the defence, ply their trade.

You can’t walk past an Inn without seeing the names of judges on the roll call on the plaques outside. A judge is still a barrister, just fulfilling a different function, although, of course, now paid by the State.  The old school boy tie? Corruption? No, the fulfilling of different roles by members of the same body is called professionalism. 

Judges and lawyers all belong to the American Bar Association in the US and attend the same conferences. No sign that this lack of “independence” ever affects trials.  This claimed excess of coziness is often ranted about online by the Knoxophile David Anderson who lives near Perugia. Nobody who pays him any attention can get where he derives this from. Maybe he heard it from Hellman?

Perugia prosecutors and magistrates are all known to do a fine job, and the national Olympics & earthquake relief cases involving powerful Rome politicians were assigned for competent handling to where? To Perugia… Defense lawyer Ghirga and Prosecutor Mignini have the reputation of being good friends. And Mignini and Massei would both draw their salaries from the State. But so what? Do not judges and DAs in the the USA do likewise? Are Gumbel and Sollecito impugning the professionalism of the counterparts of Mignini and Massei all over the world? It sure reads like it.

The Sollecito Trial For “Honor Bound” #1: History Of How This Ill-Fated Saga Began

Posted by Our Main Posters

The “supertanker” the PR forces worked hard to turn has become a Titanic for them now

1. The Latest Legal Developments

A new phase of the Florence trial of Raffaele Sollecito and Andrew Gumbel is scheduled to start on Thursday of next week.

Why is this the iceberg in the Titanic’s path? Because Sollecito and later Knox made numerous demonstrably false and damaging claims that so many others then made, most usually worse.

See Sollecito go down here, or withdraw his claims, for lack of any proof, and the legal liabilities of all those others stretch to the horizon and beyond.

This trial puts Knox herself and her parents with her wild book and their wild claims at more risk. 

For reasons explained below, the investigation of the myriad claims by an Italian, beamed only at Americans, of official crimes and alternative “facts” couched in a jeering, sneering anti-Italy tone was taken behind the scenes by the Florence prosecution early in 2013.

The charges and target defamatory passages selected out of numerous passages falsely describing facts of the case and falsely accusing officials of crimes have not been formally reported even in Italy yet, except for a website update last October by the indefatigable journalist Andrea Vogt.

2. Chronology 2009-2011: The Trial And Appeal

In 2011 what is widely known in Italy to have been a bent Hellmann appeal court ran a cartoonish and illegal retrial of Sollecito and AK.

This illegal retrial, mostly annulled by the Supreme Court in March 2013, was lacking a few things. Such as most evidence, most witnesses, and all of the 2009 prosecution case and the compelling prosecution summations at the end. An illegal DNA consultancy which should never have occurred at appeal is also believed to have been bent.

3. Various Flashing Warning Lights

On 3 October 2011 Judge Hellmann told RS and AK they were free to go, despite the fact that no legal process for murder and some other crimes is considered final in Italy until no party pursues any further appeals or the Supreme Court signs off. Most still accused of serious crimes (as in the UK and US) remain locked up. Hellmann, pathetically trying to justify this fiasco ever since, was firmly edged out and still the target of a possible charge.

Other flashing warnings should have made Sollecito’s family and legal team and book writers very wary. They included the immediate strong warning of a tough prosecution appeal to the Supreme Court. They also included the pending calunnia trials of Knox and her parents, the pending trial of the Sollecitos for attempting to use politics to subvert justice, the pending trials of Spezi, Aviello, and Sforza, and so on. 

A major flashing warning was right there in Italian law. Trials are meant to be conducted in the courtroom and attempts to poison public opinion are illegal. They can be illegal in the US and UK too but, for historical reasons to do with the mafias and crooked politicians, Italian laws in this area are among the world’s toughest. So mid-process, normally no books are ever published

4. Chronology 2012-2013 The United States Track

Knox quickly headed back to the US West Coast and Sollecito soon came after her there.

After three-plus years of Sollecito and his camp being very iffy about Knox he suddenly - to his father’s open frustration - could not get enough of her.

Very quickly Sollecito found a book agent, Sharlene Martin,  who lives just a couple of miles from the Mellases and Knoxes, and she lined up a shadow writer, Andrew Gumbel, who lives in LA and had been based in Italy in the 1990s.

Both Sharlene Martin and Andrew Gumbel soon revealed that their “knowledge” of the case was paper-thin and dangerously biased.

Sollecito’s Italian lawyers seemingly did not have a clue what was going on on this book front - lately an angry Giulia Bongiorno made that plain enough.

Sollecito’s father and sister did have growing concerns (among much fallout in Italy of their own such as Vanessa losing a plum Carabinieri job) and in March they hopped on a flight to Seattle to try to ditch Knox and presumably the book and drag Sollecito home.

Even Knox at times seemed to want the clingy nuisance gone, and she produced a claimed new love-interest to help to keep him at bay.

Throughout 2012 the hubris of the Knox camp within which Sollecito had embedded himself was immense. David Marriott and Bruce Fischer both posted that it was their efforts that had got the two released, making no mention of a court the defenses had bent.

On 18 September Honor Bound hit the shelves. If Sharlene Martin or Andrew Gumbel or Simon & Schuster had done any due diligence on the book, such as reading court documents, or even run it in final draft in Italian past Sollecito’s lawyers in Italy, that due diligence sure did not show. (A legal case for the Sollecito family to pursue?)

Seemingly irresponsible or incompetent and not caring who in Italy they hurt, Sharlene Martin and Andrew Gumbel then assisted Sollecito in a triumphalist but mostly unconvincing sweep of the US crime shows.

The flagship interview was with Katie Couric on ABC right before the book came out. It really hurt. She had an advance copy and had done her homework. See our suggested questions and report and posts and Kermit’s great spoof here , here , here , here , and here.  The book promotion tour ended in Seattle thus..

Late April 2013 Knox’s book came out. Strong differences with Sollecito emerged both in the books and publicly in the media as described here and here.

Sharlene Martin later set up a panel of the useful idiots Michael Heavey and John Douglas and Steve Moore in a Congressional room for hire, an odd role for an agent of a book, which nobody of importance attended. Just as well. Truth was scarce.

Sollecito repeatedly visited the United States (and the Caribbean) though he was provisionally a convicted felon, not least in a desperate, cynical and hurtful attempt, after the sharp rebuff by Amanda Knox, to find an American wife.

You can read the rest of Sollecito’s US saga in the top posts here. His last visit to the United States was in late 2013.

5. Chronology 2012-2013 The Italy Track

The book was written and published only in English; Francesco Sollecito said no Italian publisher would touch it (surprise, surprise).

In Italy, from our post of 27 September 2012, this media explosion is what happened next.

In Italy Sollecito’s wildly inaccurate and hyper-aggressive book has already set himself up for two kinds of trouble

The Gumbel and Sollecito book was released in English on 18 September 2012 and within ten days all of Italy knew that the book was a crock.

Sollecito’s own father and own lawyer Maori have already been forced to admit the book contains serious lies. Prosecutors are considering whether there should be new charges

Sollecito’s own father Francesco was made to concede by the host and all other guests on the popular Porta a Porta TV show last week that Sollecito lied in claiming that the prosecution had sought a deal under which Sollecito would frame Amanda.

Such a deal would be illegal so Sollecito was falsely accusing prosecutors of a very serious crime. Francesco Sollecito backed down even more in some interviews later. One of Sollecito’s own lawyers, Luca Maori, also had to deny in frustration that the offer of any deal either way ever happened.

Now the prosecution has announced that they are weighing whether there should be new charges lodged against Sollecito.

Sollecito has suddenly claimed in the book, nearly five years after he said it happened, in face of vast evidence including his own writings to the contrary, that police interrogated him over 10 hours, and abused and threatened him.

But he was demonstrably not ever interrogated over 10 hours, and he folded fast when they showed him his phone records, which contradicted his earlier alibis, and so he promptly laid the blame on Amanda.

Prosecutors and police have all already stated that he simply lied here too, and again prosecutors are considering whether there should be new charges

Thereafter we posted a number of times about false claims others and we ourselves identified in the book -  one of three (with Preston’s and Knox’s) probably the most defamatory ever written about any justice system or justice officials anywhere. Our next posts will pick up that thread.

5. Italy Officially Reacts

Finally for now, we posted on 18 February 2013 on a formal move against the book by the Florence Courts, with a Breaking News addendum that (very unusually) the prosecution and supervising magistrate had taken the investigation behind closed doors.

That secrecy order to counter the toxic PR still persists, right up to now, and it will only be next Thursday that the results of the investigation and the charges against Sollecito and Gumbel become widely know.

Next post: selected examples of Sollecito’s and Gumbel’s false claims.

Friday, January 02, 2015

Rudy Guede As Serial Burglar: Pure Innuendo,  Court Testimony Provides ZERO Proof

Posted by Peter Quennell

Maria Del Prato in the inner courtyard in Milan from which her pre-school opens off

1. Summary Of The Hoax

For the defense teams and especially the army of PR tricksters a lot hangs on proving:

(1) Guede was a break-and-enter thief around Perugia (although he had only recently returned from a paying job in a failed restaurant north of Milan);

(2) Who chose to break into Meredith’s house (well before 9:00 pm? In intense light from up above? Via an impossible route? Not knowing if any of the four girls was home? And not knowing if there was anything of value?);

(3) Who had a history of violence or sexual depravity (though he was the only one of the three with no police record? and not even a single past accuser?);

(4) Who had a prior history of similar break-ins with three proven instances; had in fact been a serial burglar. 

Many TJMK posts debunk claims (1) to (3). In this post we will debunk the fourth one.

Up to the present day, no UK or US media seems to have ever reported in English the key segments of Guede’s 2008 trial or Knox’s and Sollecito’s 2009 trial that relate to this. Had they ever done so, the now-pervasive notion of Guede as sole perp - lone wolf - would never have gained the ground that it has.

All UK and US followers would readily understand why ALL courts said THREE attackers were at the scene and the breakin was faked. 

2. 2009 Trial Attempts To Incriminate Guede

All the testimony about supposed break-ins by Guede was presented by the defense on 26 July and 27 July 2009.  These were two lackluster half-days for the defense. 

3. Summary Of What It Amounted To

That trial testimony fell far short of providing the numerous Rudy Guede demonizers with all they now claim. Here are the witnesses the defenses called. 

1. Pre-school principal Maria Del Prato

She came across as understanding and fair. Maria Del Prato conceded that Guede probably had a key loaned to him by one of her staff which explained why no break-in charges were lodged.  Milan police did not just let him go, they checked his record with Perugia police (he had none and police knew little or nothing of him) and knew where he was for a possible later charge.

2. Christian Tramontano

Tramontano was a security guard and bouncer. There is a noted tendencies in those occupations to claim acts of bravery which in many cases never happened. This looked to cops like one such instance. His one-page police report filed late said he called the cops; there is no record.

He had claimed someone threatened him in his house in the dark with a knife who he much later said looked like a shot of Guede in the papers.He was never called to court. At a hearing in October 2008 Judge Micheli sharply denounced him in his absence as having made things up and wasted police and court time.

3. Lawyers Matteo Palazzoli and Brocchi

Matteo Palazzoli had first encountered the break-in scene during a Sunday night visit to his office and found his computer gone. He did not elaborate very much, and seemed glad to be gone.

His colleague Lawyer Brocchi who had the least involvement talked the most - but he could be read as pointing a finger away from what he believed really happened for brownie points with the court.

Here courtesy of Miriam’s translations is the key 2009 trial testimony

Click for Post:  Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #1 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede

Click for Post:  Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #2 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede

4. A Major Unfairness To Guede

We have knocked chips off Guede in the past, but how this testimony (albeit mild) opened the gates to a wave of innuendo was simply unfair. HE WAS NOT EVEN IN COURT.

Neither he nor his lawyers were there to cross-examine the witnesses or call more witnesses of their own and the prosecution did not ask even one question. Nobody asked what legal documents may have been involved.

This has allowed supposition to grow unchallenged, though it looked like a red-herring by the defenses at the time.

5. What Guede’s Team Could Have Brought Out

Note what Guede if his team had been present could have brought out:

1. Nobody in Italy is given precautionary custody simply for possessing several items none of which were reported as stolen which conceivably could have been passed to him by another perp. When those were later proven stolen Guede was charged and he was recently sentenced in Milan to another 16 months.

2. The French window one floor above the ground in the dark around the back would have been easy to break into on a Saturday night according to Matteo Palazzoli by simply climbing up the grill over the French window below and then using the balcony to break through.

This is very far from the supposed scenario for Guede breaking into Filomena’s window

(1) during Perugia’s late rush-hour on a weekday evening with a lot of cars and people still around,

(2) under a great deal of light both from the street lights and the carpark lights above,

(3) bypassing several other much easier entrances all of them in deep dark,

(4) while leaving no prints and no DNA anywhere outside the window or in the room,

(5) on a day when as far as he knew all four girls were in town (in fact three of them still were).

3. Zero fingerprints were found in the lawyers’ offices though a great many items had been touched.

4. What appear to be the tools of a habitual burglar were left at the scene.

5. The burglar alarm dial-out had been disabled by someone who knew the special trick to doing that.

6. The copier was switched on and some quantity of copy paper and several USB drives with legal data were gone.

7. A front window had been opened and then not fully closed, seemingly to pass things through to someone waiting with a car.

Payback or warning by a legal opponent? Such things are not unknown. Neither lawyer ever systematically reported a theft to the police. No comprehensive investigation was ever begun.

Paolo Brocchi claimed he didnt even know that one of his cellphones was gone. Matteo Palazzoli never gave the serial number of his computer to the police. Palazzoli could only weakly testify that Guede came by - to say he was not the real thief.

Each seemed embarrassed to be put on the stand by a flailing defense and simply anxious to move on.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #2 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede

Posted by Peter Quennell

Exit route was via one of those windows; weeks later, Guede would come knocking at that door.

1. Overview Of The Post

This post provides the translated testimony of lawyer Matteo Palazzoli.

He was the owner of a Sony Vaio computer stolen from his office, which was possibly the same one that Guede was found in possession of. The previous posts on this aspect of the Guede hoax showed:

• How similar to the back balcony route to a forced break-in of Meredith’s house was the supposed route into the Perugia lawyers’ offices.


• How the testimony from the lawyer Paolo Briocchi on the office break-in pointed as much away from Rudy Guede as it did toward him.

There will be an overall assessment in the next post.

2. Testimony Of Matteo Palazzoli

Translation of the difficult language here and in previous posts was kindly provided by Miriam. MP stands for Matteo Palazzoli, the lawyer whose office was broken into. GCM stands for Judge Giancarlo Massei. LM stands for Sollecito defense lawyer Luca Maori. MDG stands for Knox defense lawyer Maria Del Grosso.

The witness, admonished pursuant to Article 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code, reads the oath.

General information: Matteo Palazzoli, born in Umbertide, province of Perugia, October 9 1974, resident of Perugia.

GCM:  Please proceed.

LM:  Lawyer Maori, for the defense of Sollecito.  What is your profession?

MP:  Lawyer.

LM:  Where is your legal office?

MP:  At via del Roscetto no. 3, from Febuary 2007, if I am not mistaken.

LM:  Together with lawyer Brocchi.

MP:  Together with lawyer Brocchi.

LM:  Before you, Lawyer Brocchi told us of this theft you were subject to on the night between the 13th and 14th of October 2007.

MP:  Yes.

LM:  Can you give us information of what happened in that situation?

MP:  I was coming back on Sunday October 14, after being away from Perugia for 2 days, and before coming back”¦ because I live close to the office, I keep the car parked with a subscription at the parking lot of Sant’Antonio [opposite Meredith’s house], therefore I walk down via del Roscetto regularly to return home, which is in via Imbriani [further down the hill behind the law offices]. In these circumstances, I sincerely don’t reacll the reason, I stopped at the office before returning home. I think it was 6:30, 7.00 pm, of Sunday afternoon, I don’t recall the exact time.

I went to the office, and upon entering the office, I noticed right away that something was not right, because to begin with it was October, and it was rather warm, I remember, and strangely the heaters were turned on and it was rather hot inside the office. The heaters were turned on and I immediately noticed upon turning on the light that the bathroom light was on, the restroom of the office. At that moment I didn’t notice anything else.

Then I turned my head to the right in respect to the office entrance , and I immediately noticed my jacket, a black jacket, and a jacket of Lawyer Brocchi’s laid out on the floor. Honestly I asked myself the reason for this. I went to the French window of the office that gives out to an inner courtyard of the building, and opening the inner shutters, I noticed the glass had been broken, and that the jackets had probably been laid on the floor to cover the broken glass.

At this point I ran to my office, that is in front of Lawyer Brocchi’s , and I immediately noticed, cautiously, that the only thing that was missing”¦ besides the binders being completely opened, and the dossiers, in there turn, also were opened with papers strewn throughout the office, I noticed that my computer was no longer there, it was not where it should have been, and that the window of my office that gives out to via del Roscetto [a window in the image at top] that at first glance appeared to be closed, in reality was open. Therefore, it had been reclosed but not completely closed, probably,  don’t know why.. whoever entered, exited through my window, not closing it completely on the way out, I honestly don’t know the reason.

I did another round of the legal office, and I noticed again upon entering the restroom, the light on in the restroom. I went into the office of Lawyer Brocchi, and I remember that inside his office, on the desk of Lawyer Brocchi, there was a suitcase of his and on top were positioned, with a certain precision, certain objects, that I seem to remember were screwdrivers, I am frankly not sure if there were screwdrivers.

After having gone into Lawyer Brocchi’s office I turned and went into the waiting room that is there close to the conference room, and I noticed that there was a small pile of glass, that I don’t know where it came from, because the window of the waiting room”¦ that is, no other window, if I remember correctly,  of the office was broken, in the office the only window that had been broken was the French window that gives onto the inner courtyard.

The window of the waiting room had not been broken and yet still, there was this small pile of glass, furthermore well arranged, in the waiting room. The copying machine was turned on, I don’t know for what reason,  several reams of paper of the copying machine were missing.

LM:  The person who entered had drunk beverages that were in the legal office?

MP:  Yes, I remember that it was a bottle of orange drink, if I am not in error, it was left in the waiting room.

LM:  Listen, you spoke of this computer that was taken on this occasion. Can you tell us what type of computer it was?

MP:  It was a Vaio, the outside cover was white. The distinctive trait is that differently”¦ the distinctive feature of that computer is that it has a 16:9 screen that is high resolution.

LM:  It’s a Sony.

MP:  It is a Sony Vaio, that is a brand of Sony. It has a particular graphics, it is only one of a few computer that doesn’t change the type of color depending on how one roatates the screen. It was a laptop, in any case.

LM:  This laptop did you have any news of where it was”¦ was it ever found? Was it given back to you?

MP:  In these days I have had ways to reconstruct, in my mind, the events and the only thing I have not had a way to”¦ it happened in the succeeding days, I don’t remember exactly when, that while I was coming back from a client outside the legal office, Lawyer Brocchi called me to tell me that the police or carabinieri called from Milan saying that they had found our things, commenting: “you are always lucky, you lose everything, they steal everything, but you always recover everything”, “Okay”, I said.

I arrived back at the office and he told me about the call in detail, that it was”¦ the police station, I sincerely don’t remember, of Milan anyway, they had called and they had found us because on the cellphone of Lawyer Brocchi”¦ which in the immediacy of the event, we had not noticed had been taken because it was an out of commission cellphone and not used by Lawyer Brocchi, thus probably he did not remember in the immediacy of the event it had been taken, he did not realize at that moment.

Opening the cellphone, the message, if I am not in error,  “welcome Lawyer Brocchi” had appeared. Thus they were able to find us, and substantially tell Lawyer Brocchi that they had found his cellphone and my computer. Now, I said before, in these days before today’s judicial hearing I was able to gather my thoughts and furthermore I was never able to verify that the cellphone [note: he presumably means his laptop] that was found was effectively mine, because when Lawyer Brocchi and I went to the police station of Perugia to do the report, I did not have at hand, because my accountant had not given it to me, the invoice that indicated the specific model of the commuter. Thus, today I would not be able to say, if not”¦

LM:  Anyway the computer was not given back to you?

MP:  No.

LM:  Before you spoke of this telephone call by the Milan police station.

MP:  Made to Lawyer Brocchi.

LM:  Do you know if those [investigators] attached to the police station in Milan had discovered the perpetrator of the theft?

MP:  I sincerely don’t know, they certainly did not tell us. That is, we were told only that our things had been found, or rather, Lawyer Brocchi related to me that the police station of Milan had told him that the things we reported stolen had been found.

LM:  Lawyer, do you know Rudy Hermann Guede?

MP:  No.

LM:  Have you heard of him?

MP:  I have heard of him in relation to the renowned incident of this proceeding.

LM: Do you know that Hermann Rudy Guede was found by the police station of Milan, a few days before these matters, with your computer?

MP:  I don’t know that he was found with”¦ or rather, at the time that Lawyer Brocchi related to me that the police station of Milan had called him, the police station did not specify the individual that was found with the computer. I think that in that circumstance they had specified that it was found on a boy that was committing a similar crime, if I am not in error, in a kindergarten in Milan.

LM:  Was it related to you by your assistant Doctor Morini, I believe that is his name, and by Lawyer Brocchi of an encounter that took place on October 29 with this Rudy Guede?

MP:  Yes, it was related”¦ somehow in this case”¦when these things happen, unfortunately I am never there.

LM:  You were not present, it was only related to you.

MP:  It was related to me that a boy had come to the legal office, and a conversation had intervened between”¦

LM:  What kind of boy?

MP:  A colored boy, I gathered, had come to the legal office and held a conversation with Doctor Morini and probably even with Lawyer Brocchi, and declared himself absolutely extraneous to the matter and declared that he bought my computer legally , if I am not in error at the train station of Milan, I sincerely don’t know. This was related to me by my colleagues.

LM:  In any case, you exclude having had your computer returned?

MP:  No, absolutely.

LM:  That, by your knowledge, is in Perugia?

MP:  I think I remember having done a request of release [to Milan] that unfortunately was rejected.

LM:  If you do it here in Perugia, probably you will have a better result. Another question, before you spoke of the fact that when you entered the legal office on the evening of October 14th you saw lights on. The light that was on, where was it situated?

MP:  At the instant I entered the legal office, it was dark obviously, inside the office, and I had not yet turned on the light, I noticed the shining of the bathroom light on.

LM:  Had the bathroom been used?

MP:  The bathroom”¦ honestly this I can’t tell you, that is I can’t know if it was used, from evident signs I think not, but, that is a simple supposition on my part , that does not have much value.

LM:  Thank you.

GCM:  There were no signs of it having been used.

MP:  Yes, no signs of use, no odor.

GCM:  This is what the lawyer was asking. Other questions? For the prosecution? There are no questions. Excuse me, probably just a peculiarity, the window that was broken, if you can give us a description? Are there inner shutters, outer shutters?

MP:  It is a French window that gives out to a small terrace that overlooks an inner courtyard of the building, and below our window, right in alignment, there is a door covered with a metal mesh, so much so that we supposed that whoever entered inside the legal office, one of the possible hypothesis, climbed that metal mesh, because it is a mesh, with squares not more than fifteen centimeters, thus perfectly usable for this purpose. It is a French window that has inner shutters. It doesn’t have”¦I don’t remember, I think it has”¦ because there was a period when our legal office, for reasons of restoration, eliminated all the outer shutters. So I don’t remember if in that moment it had or not the outer shutters, I think not, but I would say something I don’t remember exactly.

GCM:  I also wanted to ask you, there were only the two jackets on the glass? Where there other items of clothing that indicated a search in wardrobes, or only these two jackets? 

MP:  Honestly I would not be able to remember.

GCM:  You remember of these two jackets, that one was yours.

MP:  Yes because I don’t think there were other clothingsd in the office. I don’t remember if there were others”¦ besides the toga of Lawyer Brocchi, but it was left”¦

GCM:  I wanted to ask you, these jackets where [normally] were they? On a coat rack?

MP:  They were on a coat rack that is to the right of the entrance to the legal office, they were on a coat rack, a bluish jacket of Lawyer”¦

GCM:  Not in a wardrobe?

MP:  No, no, not in a wardrobe, on a coatrack.

GCM:  A coatrack.

MP:  A coatrack, yes.

GCM:  I also wanted to ask you, you spoke of a small pile of glass.

MP:  Yes.

GCM:  That is, what was it, a small gathered pile or scattered?

MP:  A small gathered pile of glass.

GCM:  Purposely put there?

MP:  I don’t know that.

GCM:  A little gathered pile, not scattered..

MP:  Not scattered glass as the ones”¦

GCM:  Not scattered glass but a small pile.

MP:  A small pile of glass.

GCM:  Originating from the broken window?

MP:  Probably yes even because there was no other broken window if not that one and there were no other bottle or other things inside the legal office.

GCM:  The computer, can you describe it? Seen as you said: “you gathered your thoughts” you remember something”¦

MP:  If I can see it, I will be able to say if it is mine..

GCM:  It’s not that the invoice has”¦

MP:  No, my computer is a Sony Vaio with a white cover, but the model is not”¦

GCM:  Okay.

LM:  With regard to the question by the President”¦

GCM:  Please proceed.

LM:  In connection to the glass, the glass of the broken window, was this glass scattered?

MP:  In part scattered, I gather, seeing as there weren’t others”¦that the others clustered inside the waiting room were from that glass, but not”¦

LM:  So there was glass scattered both inside the room where the window was broken, and in adjacent rooms?

MP:  Let’s agree that the scattered glass, covered by the jackets, was in the corridor that leads to the administrative office, which is to the right of the entrance and is in front of the French window from where the individuals had”¦

LM:  So, in conclusion, there was a scattering of glass”¦

MP:  Yes.

LM:  “¦ let’s say with enough range”¦

MP:  More than where the jackets were located.

LM:  Thank you.

MDG:  May I, President, just one question?

GCM:  Yes, please proceed, Lawyer.

MDG:  Do you remember if you had inserted a password on your computer.

GCM:  Okay, maybe the last questions, on the computer.

MDG:  On the computer model, President.

MP:  No.

MDG:  It was not inserted?

MP:  No.

MDG:  Thank you.

GCM:  The witness is excused.

There are no other questions; the witness is dismissed.

 

Friday, December 26, 2014

Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #1 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede

Posted by Peter Quennell

Balcony and the French doors broken into - an easy climb for most

1. Post Overview

Guede got no breaks, ever, contrary to myriad claims.

For evidentiary reasons exclusively, Rudy Guede has never been charged with breaking and entering. The one questionable location where he was found was the nursery school in Milan.

As he apparently used a key from one of the staff, any break-in trial would have been dead on arrival.

No law required that he be detained. (He was however later charged with being in possession of stolen property, and just a few days ago his sentence was extended by 16 months.)

The previous post in this three-part series showed how similar to the BACK BALCONY route to a forced break-in of Meredith’s house was the supposed route into the Perugia lawyers’ offices.

It had nothing in common with Filomena’s window, contrary to myriad claims.

This post and the next in this series show how the evidentiary proof that it was Guede (and not someone with a grudge or a trial opponent) who broke into the Perugia lawyers’ office is ambiguous and contradictory. Some signs point away from Guede, not least that photocopies apparently made of legal documentation (the copier was on and copy paper missing) would have required the use of a car.

This post is on the testimony of the lawyer Brocchi (owner of the cellphone) and the third post is on the testimony of the lawyer Palazolli (owner of the Sony Vaio computer). Brocchi was quite talkative, despite his minor role, and so we will hold our highlights and interpretation for the next post.

The extensive translation of the difficult language here and in the post still to come was kindly provided by Miriam.

2. Lawyer Testimony In Court #1

The witness, admonished pursuant to Article 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code, reads the oath.

General Information: Paolo Brocchi born in Rome, March 2, 1968

GCM: Please proceed.

LM:  Good Morning, lawyer Maori, for the defense of Sollecito.

PB: Good morning.

LM: It is an unnecessary question, but I must ask it. The first question is this: what profession do you hold?

PB: Lawyer.

LM: Where is your legal office?

PB: In via del Roscetto no.3 in Perugia.

LM: Did your office undergo a burglary in 2007, in October 2007?

PB: Yes.

LM: Can you tell us how this burglary took place, how the thieves got in, and what was taken?

PB: Certainly, the burglary was discovered by my colleague lawyer Palazzoli, the owner of the office, he told me about it on a Sunday afternoon, because the theft took place….. It was done between the night of 13th and 14th of October 2007, a night between Saturday and Sunday. The burglary was discovered by my colleague, the lawyer Palazzoli, on Sunday afternoon, because he entered the office to look for a professional file, and upon entering he discovered the burglary. The person or persons that entered inside the office, from what we were able to reconstruct together with members of the Squadra Mobile that intervened for us at the office, they entered through a window situated in the secretary’s office that was subjected to broken glass, the glass of this window was broken with the aid of a piece of porphyry, a big rock that we found there at the spot. The window was broken, then these persons or person turned the handle. The glass clearly was spread everywhere, because it was a rather thick glass. After which, on top of these pieces of glass we found our clothes. For the most part the glass was scattered on the floor and on top of the glass were our jackets, mine and my colleague’s Palazzoli, that had been hanging on the clothes hanger in the corridor right in front of the window.

LM: Excuse me if I interrupt you, to reconstruct the dynamics of the event exactly . It would seem   that the 13th of October was a Saturday.

PB:  From what I remember, yes.

LM: Your colleague had remained in the office until….........

PB: No, I stayed in the office. Saturday I remained in the office because I had a client on Saturday   afternoon, that was something anomalous, but it was for an urgent discussion. I called for a meeting that Saturday morning, then he arrived in the afternoon, and I left the office at 8.30 pm that Saturday.

LM: 8.30 pm that Saturday and after, the following Sunday, the evening…...

PB: The day after, Sunday, I was called on the telephone by lawyer Palazzoli, who told me “Look somebody came into the office, I have already called the Carabinieri”, who then because of the jurisdiction of the old town center, as we found out, alerted the Squadra Mobile of the State Police.

LM: Does your office have an alarm?

PB:  The office was fitted out with an alarm, but that evening it was not activated, because, as I reconstruct the event, it had just been installed. That evening I left at 8.30 pm. I remember perfectly that I did not activate the alarm system. The strange thing that I can highlight in connection here is that I noticed the alarm system the next day, when we entered, was not damaged, the bright light was functioning even if it was dis-activated, and the person or persons that entered did not damage the alarm, they only dis-activated the telephonic combination, thus with this they manifested a minimum confidence, a certain competence in the subject matter of alarms, of electronics, because to dis-activate a telephonic combination without damaging the alarm, I would not be capable, even being the owner, thus I would not have this competence.

LM:  One other thing. You spoke then about a window that “¦..

PB:  Yes, apparently

LM:  Was that the only break in?

BB:  Yes

LM:  Is it a window that gives onto the main street or onto a private court yard?

PB:  No, this window gives out to a private court yard that is than protected from the public street by an exterior gate. So it is probable…. I don’t know if can be possible…. because close to that window there are other windows of other apartments, there are… there is a window that is about one meter from the balcony of my office, so everything is possible. But this person or persons if they came from the public street would have to open a gate that gives on private property and then, with the help of I don’t know which tools, climb up for three, four meters on a vertical wall to then arrive to the terrace ,where was located my office, where it is still located, first up to this window and then through this window enter inside my office, if this was the way in.

LM:  However this break in took place in this window, three/four meters high.

PB:  More or less

LM:  Did you find a ladder close by?

PB:  No

LM:  Did you find other tools?

PB:  No. I remember that we inspected with the Squadra Mobile crew. I should say that the property below us has a door, an armored mesh and a particularly able person could have climbed up. Could have, I don’t know, this is just an assumption.

LM:  Anyhow it was not easy to climb up.

PB:  Absolutely not.

LM:  Before, you spoke about this rock, this porphyry..

PB:  Yes

LM:  Where was it found, inside or outside?

PB:  Strangely, right on the little terrace, evidently the person or persons that entered with the help of this very heavy porphyry because a double glass had to be broken, it was not a thin glass, but it was that type of glass utilized mainly for thermal insulation, certainly not for security reasons, evidently it needed a heavy impact in order to somehow succeed in the intent, otherwise a small piece of rock would evidently have been sufficient.

LM:  What was taken from inside the office?

PB:  So, at first we noticed that the office was in a state of general disarray : all the archive was turned upside down, all the files of the offices were piled up in a heap. But from the first inventory that we did there at the moment, this was missing: a new computer belonging to the lawyer Palazzoli, a note book the brand of which I absolutely do not remember [actually a Sony], a USB flash drive used to save data, a portable Canon printer which was mine, and then a few days later, when I was contacted by a crew of the Police of Milan, agent Spesi Rita, I realized that they had also stolen a cell phone, that anyhow was not working properly, that furthermore was included in the process of investigation (SDI) of the Police Force. Therefore there was also this cell phone, that beforehad I had quit using and didn’t even remember about, that was in the drawer of my desk.

LM:  Lawyer, were money and checks stolen too?

PB: No, there were none.

LM: On this I have to challenge, that you on the complaint of the burglary indicated also checks from the Banca delle Marche [were stolen].

PB: No I will explain the reasoning. Those checks at the first moment appeared to us not present. There was a block that was finished, but then after checking with the bank, those checks had been annulled, so in reality they hadn’t been stolen. The verification that we did at the bank the Monday after, highlighted that I had annulled those checks and the bank had trace of it, so nobody took anything.

LM:  Another thing before speaking of the recovery of the computer, you told us of the small havoc done inside your office.

PB:  Yes.

LM:  You spoke of the ransacking, in addition to, as you said before, of the broken glass with your clothes on top. Was also the photo-copy machine utilized?

PB:  I am not able to say that. It was easily usable because it was not code protected, but this I am not able to…

LM:  Did they turn on the heating?

PB:  Yes, when we entered the heating system was on, as matter of fact there was a torrid temperature inside the office, because it remained on, I think, more than 24 hours, in a month, October, that was not particularly cold. Furthermore I noticed that this person or persons that entered inside my office even made use of drinks that were in a cabinet, leaving…. they even opened the cabinet of the first aid meticulously looking for everything that was inside, but more than anything else disinfectants and blood pressure gauge, this type of things, but they really did an accurate selection of the material present inside the first aid cabinet.

LM: Returning to the computer, the property of…..

PB: Of the lawyer Palazzoli, yes.

LM: Was it discovered at a later date?

PB: Well, we never saw it. I say, that the 27th of October 2007, around noon, it was a Saturday, I was in the office in a anomalous way because generally I had the first 3 hours at school and the last 3 hours are normally always….. making 6 hours Saturday morning. But that morning I left early and I was in the office. A telephone call came in on the land line, a call from the police station Venezia Garibaldi from the Milan Police, the agent Rita Spesi, who told me that they had found an individual, of whom I was not given general information, nor the gender, I was only told that certain goods were on this individual, that if I remember correctly they were found inside a kindergarten, a school, an institute of learning, and in this instance, among goods that were in possession of this individual or better held by this individual, this person also had this cellphone. Turning it on, my name appeared, and from here the police officer by way of a search of the SDI system of investigation, saw my complaint of theft of October 15th 2007, and so she asked me if proveably those goods were my property.

LM:  Therefore the telephone and computer?

PB:  Telephone without doubt, the computer was described to me, it was not mine, I manifested doubts in the sense that…... well I had never seen it, or used it, because it was my colleague’s, who had just bought it, a short time ago he had just bought it. On the computer I manifested doubts. On the telephone, on the telephone however by way of the names of the address menu, the clients and friends of mine, I was able to confirm with certainty that at least my SIM card was on that phone.

LM:  It is a Sony model…..no excuse me…..

PB: No, the telephone is a Nokia.

LM: It is a Nokia, model 6310.

PB: Nokia, for sure, the model now not….....

LM: Like this one, so to….....

PB: Yes, exactly.

LM: 6310.

PB: It is the same color, if I remember correctly.

LM: However this is not yours, it is mine.

PB: No, fine.

LM:  Was the name of the person that was stopped given to you by agent Rita Spessi?

PB:  No, absolutely not.

LM:  Did you then find out the name of this person?

PB:  No, this happened on October 27th when the police officer calls me. All ends with this telephone call in which I stated I recognized at least the cell phone. On October 29th, a Monday afternoon I am in the office and on the phone with some clients. October 29th, I may be mistaken, but I believe I mentally reconstructed the facts in this way, I did not take notes, I must be honest. October 29th my attention - I was on the phone - my attention was drawn by a commotion in the lobby, the common reception area outside the office. I hear voices in the corridor, I am still on the phone, afterward I get closer to see that an assistant of the office, Dott. Luciano Morini, is speaking with someone. Before I can realize what is happening, he tells me “Look Paolo, here is a person that says that he was found with merchandise, goods, objects that were reported stolen by you and your colleague Palazzoli, but that he bought them in Milan close to the train station in central Milan”. At which I go to the corridor and I see, at the entrance of the lobby, a colored person that has a basketball in his hands and is dressed in sport clothes. These things surprised me, because we were at the end of October and it was kind of cold, it struck me quite a bit seeing this person in sport clothes, a tank top like those used by basketball players, and a basketball. I recognized the basketball because I played basketball for twenty years, so I know how to recognize one.  At that point I say: “Look I don’t know who you are”, he answered: “I don’t know who you are either”, I replied: ” Look we are only interested in having our belongings returned” and that was all. At that point I went back to the office. I don’t know if the person stayed in front of the office, and anyhow I close the door and there it ended. A few weeks later, may be a month later, I’m not sure, some time later I see on the newspapers photographs of a person that was associated with the matters of this proceeding, from which I recognized the person that presented himself that afternoon on October 29th, before the matters that brought to this proceeding, at the office to say that, yes he was found at that location in Milan by the crew of the Squadra Mobile, of the police station Venezia Garibaldi, that he did not…. tell me but tell to my colleague Morini, that he did not take anything from anybody but those things he obtained by purchasing them.

LM:  Who is this person? Can you give us a name and surname?

PB: Doctor Luciano Morini that…....

LM: No, no, I say…....you told us of your assistant. You said that this colored person that you did not know, that you saw for the first time October 29th 2007, then at a later stage had the means to see by the newspaper who it was.

PB: Yes.

LM:  Can you give us the name and surname of this person?

PB: I believe that I recognized in that person this Mr. Rudy Hermann Guede, that is not a defendant   in this proceeding, but is involved in the other one…..

LM: Always in reference to October 29th , at the moment this person came to your studio, you said : “This person arrived , and spoke with my colleague Morini”.

PB:  Yes.

LM: And he told you: “I do not know you”. These are the exact words that you said before?

PB: When I was on the landing, I said….....

LM: That which Guede said to you.

PB: That which I said to him, because I spoke first and said: “Look I do not know who you are”. He responds: ” I don’t know who you are either”, furthermore in a perfect Italian, with a Perugian accent, something that surprised me, because been a person”¦”¦ but everything is possible. To which I told him, “look let’s cut it short we are not interested. We are only interested in getting our goods back “, end.

LM:  But naturally you knew the subject of the discussion between”¦.

PB:  Because a moment before Dr. Morini related to me “look there is a person outside that says that he bought goods that you and your colleague reported stolen, he bought them in Milan”.

LM:  One last thing. Concerning the computer of your colleague Pazzoli, do you remember the brand, the model?

PB:  No, I’m not able to answer.

LM:  Thank you.

GCM:  Please proceed.

LG:  Excuse me Lawyer Brocchi, I am Ghirga. Your office is on which street?

PB:  Via del Roscetto, 3.

LG:  First”¦. You already told us the height, can you repeat it?

PB:  The office is on a raised floor, technically, it is not a first floor, is a raised ground floor, that means that from the entrance of the building you go up ten steps to enter the condominium, then on the left end side there is the entrance to the office.

LG:  An what about this terrace window?

PB:  It is on the other side of the building.

LG:  From the outside how much can it”¦

PB:  Let’s say that are a few meters, may be three, four, but I am not able “¦..because I never measured it.

LG:  But you were speaking of an access from another street that intersects Via del Roscetto?

PB:  Exactly there is an intersection, Via del Lupo, going downhill.

LG:  Via del Lupo

PB:  Via del Lupo, if I remember correctly, it goes down till you reach a dead end, it comes to a courtyard behind the building and then there is another courtyard that is private property enclosed by a gate. If these person or persons entered through here they would have had to open that gate to get inside to what I described before to get into the office.

LG:  Thank you, I wanted to clarify that.

GCM:  Mr. Prosecutor, please proceed.

PM:  (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

PB:  In effect I don’t know. Seeing as I was alerted to these happenings by agent Rita Spessi of the police station Venezia Garibaldi, sometime later, together with my colleague, we filed an application for the repossession of these goods at the central penal record office of the Procura di Milano, via Manara. After 24 hours an agent, an operator, or a clerk of the central penal record office, calls me on the telephone and tells me: “Look, Lawyer, we saw the application of release, but to us form 21, does not result in any procedure”. To which I said: “How can it be that no form 21 procedure shows up ? The agents would have done a CNR, or not? At least by the end of their duty, having found a person in possession of stolen goods should have reported”¦”, “Look , there are no results of this procedure”

PM:  (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

PB:  Form 21, subject known, in the sense that in the Procura della Repubblica there are various forms, 21, 45, 44, relative documents, etc.

PM:  (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

PB:  No, I looked for it as a form 21, but even then they”¦..I even asked: “Be patient, I will look for it on the other forms”, to which he said: “We cannot find it”. Given that some time had passed this caused me some surprise. That’s it.

PM:  But they notified you (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

PB:  No, never.

PM:  So then this procedure in any case is not a charge (inaudible - outside the microphone)?

PB:  This I don’t know. I only say that the application of release, I filed it, and that the central penal record office of the Procura called telling me that they could not find the application filed by me and my colleague as the offended parties and no other relative documents regarding this procedure.

PM:  When did this happen?

PB:  2008, last year in the spring, months and months after”¦..

PM:  Did you by any chance verify if there was (unintelligible audible-outside the microphone)?

PB:  No, no.

PM:  (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

LM:  I oppose this question by the Public Prosecutor because I would like to make it known to the court that we know that there is a penal proceeding, the Public Prosecutor D’Amico in Milan even has it. We asked for the acquisition, and we have right here”¦”¦

GCM:  Excuse me lawyer, what is the motive for your opposition?

LM:  Because the Public Prosecutor is asking if there is a penal proceeding, when in reality”¦”¦

GMC:  Excuse me Lawyer, but the Public prosecutor is asking questions to the witness on what he knows. That if evidences comes out from other sources, they will be acquired. The objection is rejected. Please Public Prosecutor.

PM:  (unintelligible - no microphone) ?

PB:  Yes, it is a palace of the 15 century

PM:  Do you know, by chance, which was the path (unintelligible ““ no microphone)?

PB:  I can presume it, having found the glasses in the inside, that”¦.

Note: in this moment the PM microphone is turned on

PM:  Therefore before I could not be heard.

GCM:  The answers have been”¦

PM:  The answers were”¦

GCM:  Yes.

PM:  I understand.

GCM:  The other questions”¦ excuse me, the Public Prosecutor was asking if something to you results”¦

PM:  If there is a proceeding, and you say there is not one.

PB:  No, I don’t say there isn’t one, It does not result from me because the the central penal record office of the Procura di Milan, calling me on the telephone, referred to me the day after, that up to that date there was no registration. Now, everything is possible, that they it registered it later, I don’t know.

PM:  You did not have any news, in any case”¦

PB:  Never, never.

PM:  Did you receive an extension of the investigation?

PB:  Never, never.

PM:  Let’s go back to the position of this”¦ then this office is on the ground floor”¦

PB:  Raised ground floor.

PM:  “¦ raised ground floor. From what point do you arrive?

PB:  On via della Roscetto there are 2 windows on the raised ground floor, on the street front, that are the rooms of my colleague Palazzoli and mine. Then there are”¦

PM:  What is the distance from the ground?

PB:  From via della Roscetto it is minimum 3 meters, yes 3 meters, because I am tall”¦ well it’s 2 or 3 meters. Then going down via del Lupo, there is a slope, until this public courtyard, because via del Lupo is a dead end. Thereafter, from this side the height increases, let’s say, it increases slightly after this small slope, therefore the ground goes up and there is an internal court yard that is accessible from the public courtyard through an iron gate. Going through this gate you arrive at this private courtyard, than there is an armored door with a mesh, so that one with the mesh is on the ground floor, looking up you see this balcony, this little terrace that is outside is my office, that is situated “¦.. more than three meters, between three and four meters from ground level.

PM:  So, this door with the mesh is a door and not a window.

PB:  No, it is a door

PM:  Therefore all the way to the ground.

PB:  Yes

PM:  How high is it?

PB:  More than two meters for sure.

PM:  So after this door, there is another meter to arrive”¦ or a meter and a half, two meters?

PB:  I presume at least another meter.

PM:  Another meter to arrive to the balcony.

PB:  At least.

PM:  Where was the porphyry rock found?

PB:  On the balcony, on the outside.

PM:  You said that inside “¦ can you describe what you found? How was the”¦..

PB:  The situation.

PM:  So the rock was outside.

PB:  The rock was outside, the glass was inside, the glass of the window in part on the corridor and they were covered with our clothes, mine and those of Lawyer Palazzoli, placed right on top of the glass.

PM:  They were on top of the glass.

PB:  On top of the glass, and the thing surprised us, “maybe” we said “to not make noise passing over them”, I don’t know, it is only a supposition. After which they were in the room of the photocopier other pieces of fragments of glass always coming from that window, the only one broken, they were situated on a small rug that was right in front of a workplace, a computer. Then right in front of this there were drinks, real close, open, partially consumed. Then we went into the other room, where the filing cabinet is, it was completely turned upside down. All the drawers were open, all the files were taken and the papers all mixed up on the floor, there were a mountain of paper, an entire archive practically mixed up, that many things we were never able to find, some later, some first, others later. Therefore this was the situation. Then inside my room, on my desk, there was a leather suitcase belonging to me, on top of this suitcase in a very orderly way were placed some screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, facing the window, all perfectly aligned and facing the window. Even here all the papers in disarray. A chest of drawers was opened, inside were files, all the records of the law practice funds, all the annual quotas of the inscriptions, all things that we found eventually with a lot of effort, mixed one on top of the other. Even here was another filing cabinet of my dossiers that was opened and all the papers mixed up. Then inside of the administrative office there were, there are all the folders with the contracts of the intensity bills, with the deed to the office, all upside down. There was the placement of the [printer] that was”¦ let’s say there had been activity, because we found receipts scattered close to the machine, so there had been”¦at the least this person or persons had gone to satisfy themselves of what that instrument was. This was”¦

PM:  Listen, was the cell phone given back to you?

PB:  No, I asked for the release, I deposited “¦

PM:  So it is in possession of the police or the procura?

PB:  Office of the body of evidence, I presume.

PM:  Fine. I don’t have any other questions.

GCM:  Questions from the civil parties? None, President. The defense can complete it’s questioning.

LM:  I would like to deposit a record that naturally is in the dossier of the Public Prosecutor and on the basis of this record then ask questions of the witness.

GCM:  Maybe put this record at”¦

LM:  It’s about.. this can be useful to the lawyer because the number of the penal procedure that charges Rudy Guede is indicated and a warning effected on February 1, 2008 by the Procuratore della Repubblica, the assistant D’Amico, that is carrying out the investigation with regard on Rudy Guede for the crime of theft, receiving stolen good, and for the crime of carrying an illegal weapon, law 110 of ‘75. This information was also given to the Procura della Repubblica of Peruga, to Dr Mignini, with communication via fax.

PB:  When was the procedure registered? Ah excuse me,I can’t”¦

GCM:  Let’s see the document. So the parties have seen this document?

LM:  There is an error in the writing of Dr Mignini (“Dr Minnini”) but it can be understood that it is his fax and and it was even addressed “¦

GCM:  Even the defense of Knox knows this”¦?

LG:  (unintelligible no microphone) ?

GCM:  The question in relation to this document?

LM:  The question is this, Doctor D’ Amico makes aware that all of the confiscated material and thus the computer and the Nokia cell phone, had already on the date of February 1, 2008, prior to February 1, 2008, been passed on to the police station of Perugia.

PB:  So it is in Perugia.

LM:  The question is this, I would like to know, did you request in the first days of the year 2008 to the police station the return of”¦

PB:  No, I did so to the Procura di Milan, believing that it was held in the body of evidence of the Procura di Milano, because those people told me they were found in Milan and that it was probable evidence of a criminal activity. Therefore, I thought to make a request of release to the Procura di Milano.

LM:  Reading the letter sent by Dr D’ Amico , for the Procura di Perugia, both the computer and the cell phone are indicated. Can you recognize the computer, property of your colleague?

PB:  I say that the cell phone without doubt was a Nokia; the 27th of October 2007 is true because it was Saturday; the Sony Vaio I cannot be certain of the brand, because I absolutely don’t remember it, because it was not even mine, , therefore I don’t know. The attempted aggravated theft, 56, 624, 625, 648”¦

GCM:  Only on the objects.

PB:  Yes. No, the objects”¦ I can only say about the cell phone.

GCM:  So only the cell phone.

LM:  I ask for the acquisition so as to demonstrate that, indeed, there is a penal proceeding.

GCM:  Agreed. Other questions?

PB:  So it is pending in Milan. The strange thing that I can say to the president is this”¦  I see that it includes the form 21/2007. So I don’t understand why the Penal Central Record Office told me that it was not pending”¦

GCM:  Excuse me layer, let’s go back to the testimonial questioning, therefore on the circumstantial facts.

LM:  Let’s go back to the reconstruction of the entry path in your office by the thief. To the question by the Public prosecutor you explained, as you explained to me, that this window is at the height of about 3/4meters from the ground floor.

PB:  From via del Lupo, yes

LM:  Then you refer to a door, an iron door which is close”¦

PB:  Yes, I confirm.

LM:  And this iron door at what distance is from the window?

PB:  It is perpendicular just under the window.

LM:  So therefore there were, let’s say, coarseness on this door that could allow an eventual”¦

PB:  A fit person, not I; a fit person, not someone like me, could have climbed up with the risk of plummeting to the ground, because there is clearly no protection, there is nothing but a vertical wall.

LM:  I do understand. One last thing, the window from which the thieves entered as you indicated, is higher than the other windows?

PB:  No, because the office is on the same level and it is exactly”¦you mean compared to the office or as per the window height?

LM:  Compared to the street level and the other windows.

PB:  No, at this point, when you get to little terrace you are practically at the level of the other windows.

LM:  One last thing, when that man on the 29th of October that man, Rudy Guede, came to your office”¦

PB:  No, not in the office, he was on”¦

LM:  On the landing?

PB:  Not even, he was in the entrance”¦ on the steps between the street and the entrance of the office”¦part of the lobby. He did not enter the office.

LM:  His intention was to come inside the office, to come to you?

PB:  I don’t know. As a matter of fact he didn’t know who I was, because, when he rang he rang on Legal Office, because evidently somebody had told him that those goods had been”¦ but I repeat, I did not speak with him, therefore no”¦ they are all things told to me by Dott. Morini, so they are not of my direct knowledge.

LM:  Thank you.

GCM:  When did this take place?

PB:  This happened Monday afternoon around 5, late afternoon on October 29th 2007

GCM:  So how many days after the theft?

PB:  The theft was October 13th, this on the 29th .

GCM:  If there no other question the witness is excused.

There are no other questions; the witness is dismissed.

GCM:  The communication from the Procura della Repubblica, Tribunale Ordinario of Milano dated the 1st of February 2008 is acquired in order to be used. Who is next?

LM:  Lawyer Palazzoli

Saturday, November 29, 2014

The PMF/TJMK Master Evidence List: First Of Our Projects To Make The Final Picture Whole

Posted by Our Main Posters

High-achiever Meredith Kercher was born less than one mile south of this famous London landmark

Building An Evidence Mountain

There are really three pictures, not just the one, still to be fully made whole.

• That of Meredith. We believe a family site will soon add to the fine book published by Meredith’s dad.


• That of all of the evidence the court acquired in 2009, which is the sole picture the Italian citizenry takes seriously.


• That of the misleading campaign by the Knox and Sollecito PR shills, leaving some in the UK and US misled.

The Master Evidence List is a key part of the second picture and there are several other media-friendly pages still to come.

Please click here for more

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The Hundreds Of DNA Samples Taken And Analyses Done, Shown In Table Form

Posted by Olleosnep

1. Even Excluding DNA, There’s Massive Evidence

The DNA Spreadsheet will open using Microsoft Excel or alternatives such as the free OpenOffice. Please note the table is very wide.

Contrary to foolish claims elsewhere, there’s a great deal of evidence implicating not only Guede but also Knox and Sollecito in the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher. 

The bulk of the evidence is circumstantial, and encompasses different categories of evidence, such as: wounds sustained by Ms. Kercher;  ear and eye witnesses;  footprints; shoeprints; fingerprints and lack thereof; blood patterns; evidence that Ms. Kercher was moved after she died; misplaced items in her room and in the cottage; evidence of partial clean-up; cellphone records; computer evidence; evidence of staged break-in; lack of evidence of actual break-in; statements by all three defendants; lack of alibis; lies by Knox and Sollecito; etc.

A lot of the most critical evidence has been repeatedly reviewed by many different judges involved in the case, from Judge Micheli to Judge Nencini, and led to the unanimous verdict at trial now confirmed by Appeal Judge Nencini. 

2. The Massive DNA Evidence Is Equally Conclusive

We have carried nearly five dozen DNA posts previously on the Scientific Labs work in 2007-09, the discredited judges’ consultants work in 2011, and the Carabinieri Labs work in 2013.

They go to prove that some of the most damning evidence comes from the DNA traces found on hundreds of samples tested by the Forensic Genetics department of the Italian Scientific Police squadron in Rome. The department was presided over by the biologist Dr. Stefanoni at the time [seen above left with Prosecutor Comodi] who acted as the department’s principal technical director.

The results of Dr. Stefanoni’s work were collected in several reports issued by her lab during the 2008-2009 investigation and trial phases. Of these reports, two reports in particular comprise a “˜survey’ of the work performed by her lab at the time: the “Genetic Tests” report (GT), and the “Stato Avanzamento Laboratorio” report (SAL). Both reports are available on the Meredith Kercher Wiki.

These two reports are notable for highlighting the large quantity of testing done and the significant number of objects and items sampled. In addition, the reports not only look at items with blood traces, but also traces of skin cells, feces, semen, and above all, hair traces, an aspect of the evidence that has been largely glossed over in the testimony and in the motivation reports.

3. For The First Time A Complete DNA Roadmap

In order to better understand the extent of the work and types of the tests performed, I have taken the data that can be gleaned from these two reports and placed them into a single spreadsheet, in order to create a kind of “˜database’ of the testing and analyses done.

This spreadsheet uses the GT report as a basis, followed by additional information obtainable from the SAL report.

The spreadsheet is basically a list of each sample, object and/or test done by Dr. Stefanoni’s team. These include tests done for DNA analysis, testing done for Y haplotype analysis and hair sample analysis. In the SAL report, it is shown that a few samples were tested multiple times. The list also includes some objects which were not analyzed at all, or were only analyzed up to a point.

It should be noted that there are a few difficulties with the reports. The GT report references an associated photographic report that has not been made available. The GT report is also missing a couple of pages and the descriptions of the results are at times inconsistent. Other times it can be tricky to follow exactly what tests were done. Because the report is a black and white scan of an original likely printed in color, some of the information in the tables is difficult or impossible to read. And some traces are missing result tables altogether.

The SAL report is also incomplete. The luminol samples at the cottage and all the samples taken at Guede’s apartment are missing, as are other samples. The scanned pages in the PDF are out of order, making cross-checking with the GT report tedious. The SAL report does not have all the test data indicated in the GT report. For instance, the human antibody tests noted in the GT report are not indicated in the SAL report. The data in the SAL report is often not as complete as one might think. As an example, all hair samples were logged and assigned a sample number. But those hairs that had no DNA extracted, do not have a date of when they were analyzed. Presumably they were all analyzed as a set for each item, given that the sample number is frequently numerically sequential (i.e. 47084, 47085, 47086, etc.). But it’s not possible to say with certainty when the hairs were reviewed from the report.

Nevertheless the GT and SAL reports do have significant information that is of interest to the case. Hence the spreadsheet.

4. Some Guidance For The Use Of The Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets can be useful for presenting various pieces of data together “˜at a glance’. But the real power of spreadsheets for this type of data is that rows can be sorted in order to group similar pieces of data together, allowing one to get a overview of subsets of data.

So, for instance, if one wanted to order all the rows by “˜sample number’ to see the sequence of how they were processed in the lab, one need only highlight all the rows (done by clicking on row number 5, holding down the “˜Shift key’ and paging down to the bottommost row), then go to menu option “˜Data’ and then “˜Sort’ and select the column or columns to sort by- “˜AF’ in the case.

Or perhaps one wants to sort by “˜DNA yielded’ and “˜building’ to see where someone’s DNA was found. Simply select all the rows again, select the menu option “˜Data’ and then “˜Sort’, and select the first column as “˜DNA yielded’ (or column AD), then select as the second column as “˜building (or column F).

To return to the original order, select all rows again and sort on column A.

Note that the first four rows in the spreadsheet are “˜locked’, in order to allow the column headers to be always visible.  If one wants to unlock these rows, select the whole spreadsheet by clicking on the upper left corner of the window where the column header labels and row numbers meet. Once the whole spreadsheet is selected, go to “˜View’ option and select “˜Unfreeze panes’. For Excel version 2007 and higher, click on the little arrow to the right of “˜freeze panes’ button on the menu bar, and there will be the option to unfreeze panes.

If one is handy with Access, or any other database program, it should be possible to import the spreadsheet into that database program, allowing one to perform more powerful “˜queries’.

The Rome headquarters of the Scientific Police which work closely with the FBI

5. Explanations Of Some Of The DNA Data

The data in each column was obtained directly or indirectly obtainable from the two reports by Dr. Stefanoni’s team.

1) Column “˜A’ allows one to resort rows to their original order, which is based on the order of the “˜item number’ noted in the GT report.

2) “˜Item number’ refers to the actual piece of evidence, whether an object sampled onsite or an object that was bagged and taken to the lab, as noted in the GT report.

3) “˜Original item label’ is data provided in the first pages of the GT report, as a way to tie the evidence item back to evidence markers used at the crime scene, and visible in some of the crime scene photos.

4) “˜Page in attached photo report’ indicates that there is an adjunct “˜photo report’ Dr. Stefanoni provided that has not yet been released, and likely has photos of the evidence items “˜in situ’. This information is also noted in the beginning item lists in the GT report.

5) “˜Sample date’ is based on the dates noted in the beginning list in the GT report, indicating when the evidence item was sampled or taken from the crime scene. This is sometimes difficult to read, due to the fact that the report was apparently printed in color and the black and white scan hides or obscures some text and graphics.

6) Columns F-K are location and object data, obtainable from the descriptions in the GT report, especially the first pages that provide a list of where evidence samples were obtained. I broke this data down into various categories to allow different possibilities of grouping the data.

7) “˜Sample obtained’ indicates the type of biological substance that was assumed to contain DNA. This was first obtained from the GT report, and later corrected with the data from the SAL report, which has a more consistent description of what the sample was assumed to be.

8) Columns M through AC list data either directly reported in the GT and SAL reports, or interpretable from them. Column M notes if an item was analyzed or not. In the GT report, unanalyzed items are noted in the beginning list as “˜not analyzed’ though not consistently. In the SAL report, they are noted as having 0 samples.

9) “˜Trace number’ was obtained from GT report, though on a few occasions, the actual number is not clear. Note that the number “˜starts over’ for each evidence item. Sometimes the trace number is sequential, independent of whether it is blood or hair or skin cells. Items having the most traces are those that were “˜heavily’ sampled, including Sollecito’s sneakers, the duvet, Ms. Kercher’s sweat jacket, her jeans, the kitchen knife, the kitchen sponge, etc.

10) “˜Additional trace info’ is additional information noted from both reports about a specific sample.

11) Column P “˜revealed in luminol?’ indicates with a “˜yes’ those samples obtained during luminol analysis. What often gets overlooked is that luminol analysis was performed not only at the cottage, but in Sollecito’s car, Sollecito’s apartment and Guede’s apartment. Notable here is that 14 different samples were obtained from luminol analysis at Sollecito’s apartment. While the DNA data yielded was meager, what is important is not the actual data yielded, but the number and location of samples investigated, including samples from door handles, and different locations like the bathroom, bedroom and kitchen. There was certainly a suspicious amount of blood, bleach or turnip juice at Sollecito’s place!

12) “˜Date of extraction’ comes from the SAL report, though, as mentioned above, it is not consistently reported for every trace or sample analyzed. This indicates when DNA processing occurred on a sample. This column is important to look at when discussing the issue of lab contamination. If one performs a sort on this column and on the “˜sample number’ column, one can clearly see that samples were processed in batches, often a week or two weeks apart. So for instance, claims that the sample 36B happened due to contamination at the lab is really not possible, given that Ms. Kercher’s DNA was analyzed one week earlier (11/5/07 and 11/6/07) and sample 36B is the only sample to contain Ms. Kercher’s DNA from all the samples analyzed on 11/13/07. Similarly, Sollecito’s DNA and Guede’s DNA are only found once each of all the items analyzed on 12/29/07, yet the last time Sollecito’s DNA had been analyzed was on 12/17/07, 12 days earlier. So the likelihood of lab contamination seems extraordinarily small, just from the dates of when samples were analyzed.

13) “˜TMB test positive’ was originally obtained from the GT report. Again because that report is likely in color, a number of tables have either missing graphics or are missing tables altogether. Fortunately the SAL report has duplicated this data consistently.

14) “˜Human antibody test positive?’ is obtained from other tables in the GT report, almost always paired with the TMB table. In some cases where the table data is illegible, I’ve placed a “?” in front of an assumed result. Curiously, this test is not shown in the SAL report.

15) “˜Cat antibody positive?’ is from the GT report, shows that the basement apartment blood samples were all made a by cat, which Dr. Stefanoni comments on in her Massei testimony.

16) Apparently they also ran “˜dog antibody’ testing as well, as is noted in the GT report.

17) “˜DNA extraction done?’ indicates if a decision was made to extract DNA. This was inferred from the GT report. Notable here is that even with samples having cat antibodies, Dr. Stefanoni does the DNA extraction anyway to make sure no human DNA is in the sample.

18) “˜Quantity extracted’ comes from the SAL report. This refers not to the amount of DNA extracted, but specifically to the amount of liquid (50, 100 or 150 microliters) filtered through the Qiagen Bio Robot EZ1 machine. This machine actually filters or purifies the sample, removing all other biological materials like cells, bacteria, etc. leaving only actual DNA molecules which can then be processed. This extraction process is also the quantification process, where from a 50 microliter sample a certain amount of DNA is found and quantified.

19) “˜Human DNA found during quantification’ was inferred from the GT report. It should be noted that for Dr. Stefanoni’s team, DNA analysis involved finding DNA useful for comparison. This means that Dr. Stefanoni was not looking for a sample of any human DNA, but a sample sufficiently “˜complete’ to be able to compare it with others samples. So it was likely often the case that a trace might have snippets and pieces of DNA, but these pieces were either too small or too fragmented to be useful for any profile comparisons. So “˜No’ in this column means not so much that no DNA was found at all, but that no DNA was found that could be useful for comparison.

20) “˜Decision to amplify and analyze’ was obtained from the GT report. Sometimes it is explicitly mentioned in the description of the results in the GT report. Other times, it can be inferred from the lack of tables.

21) “˜Concentrate sample with Speed VAC 110’ means that where “no human DNA was found” (i.e. when no DNA was found sufficiently complete or in sufficient amounts useful for comparison), Dr. Stefanoni decided to process the sample further in an effort to “˜bring out’ whatever DNA there might be. This was done using a “˜concentrator’, which dries the samples and vacuums them, thereby reducing sample fluid to make any DNA present more easily found by the subsequent DNA processing equipment.

22) “˜STR amplification’ is the DNA copying process whereby any DNA found is copied millions of times to obtain samples that can be adequately rendered by capillary electrophoresis. The process Dr. Stefanoni used is described specifically in the GT report for evidence items 12 and 13.

23) In some cases “˜Y chromosome amplification’ is also done. While this may be done at the same time by the same machine, I took any Y chromosome amplification to be a separate test, since per the GT report, it sometimes yielded different results. In a few cases, it is not clear from the GT report if Y chromosome amplification was done on only one sample, or on all the samples of an evidence item. In those cases, I assumed all the samples.

24) “˜Capillary electrophoresis’ is where DNA is rendered through a chemical/electrical process that tags DNA particles with fluorescence. These fluoresced particles are then read by the software of the machine and mapped onto a graph that shows DNA particles as “˜peaks’, which are an indicator of quantity of DNA found. The software of the machine then produced graphs of the peaks obtained and it is these graphs that Dr. Stefanoni and her team used for profile comparison.

25) “˜DNA yielded’ is what is indicated in the GT report and is based on Dr. Stefanoni’s comparison of the DNA profile(s) shown by capillary electrophoresis to index DNA samples she had of Sollecito, Lumumba, Guede, Knox and Ms. Kercher.

26) “˜Egram number’ is taken from the GT report.

27) The “˜sample number’ was taken from the GT and further completed by the SAL report, which has the sample numbers for all samples, whether they were analyzed for DNA or not. The sample numbers are useful for indicating what was happening at the Dr. Stefanoni’s lab. As an example, if one does a sort on column Q (Date of extraction) and column AF (sample number) one can see that between 11/5/07 and 11/6/07, there is gap of 129 samples that were likely performed for another case. The last sample analyzed on 11/5/07 was 47082, and on 11/6/07, the next sample number is 47211. So presumably her lab ran 129 additional DNA tests on samples related to other cases between these two runs. Generally the sample numbers increase sequentially by date, but there are a few exceptions. One in particular is sample 47821, which appears as the last sample on 11/23/07, though samples starting on 11/26/07, three days later, start with sample number 47711. This implies that samples were probably numbered in batches (by sticking numbered labels on tubes or bags) and not necessarily right before extraction or other machine processing was done.

28) “˜Compatibility notes’ are extra comments noted by Dr. Stefanoni in the GT report.

29) “˜Likely substance containing DNA’ is interpretable from the GT and SAL report and the results of the testing done.

30) Finally there are columns related to hair analysis. “˜Type of hair’ comes from the SAL report, and it is sometimes, but not consistently or legibly, noted in the GT report.

31) “˜Hair color’ provides a description of the hair color. Notable is that the hair description is quite consistent, with black, blonde, chestnut, light chestnut, red chestnut being the more significant categories. This is available in both the GT and SAL report and both reports match.

32) “˜Hair length;’ is obviously the length of hair analyzed. I’m not sure how this was done since the machinery used is not indicated in either report. Again, this is in both reports, and again the data matches in both reports.

33) “˜Hair width’ is the diameter of the hair in micrometers, and is available in both reports.

34) “˜Hair marrow’ is found only in the SAL report, and presumably describes the condition of the very core of the hair.

35) “˜Hair end condition’ indicates whether the end of the hair is “˜cut’, a “˜point’, frayed or otherwise.  This is found in both reports.

36) “˜Bulb phase’ relates to the particular phase of hair growth, with DNA apparently present in the hair bulb only during the initial growth phases of the hair. This too is found in both reports.

37) “˜Hair remarks’ are any comments related to hair samples.

38) Lastly, the “˜remarks’ column contains my notes on a particular sample or test, indicating discrepancies or explanations of what I was able to understand.

As noted above, the SAL report does not contain data for all the samples. Per Dr. Gino’s testimony in the Massei trial on 9/26/09, additional SAL sheets were apparently released that indicate that TMB tests were done on the luminol samples at the cottage and that these tests were negative. However it should be noted that TMB is less sensitive than luminol, so it is possible that a luminol sample could be in blood, which however is too diluted to be registered by a TMB test.

6. More Commentary On the DNA Extracted From Blood

1) DNA is only found in white blood cells, not red blood cells

2) The luminol reacts with the iron in red blood cells, not white blood cells

3) Red blood cells outnumber white blood cells by roughly 600 to 1

4) Even if DNA is found it may be not usable for comparison

So just because there is a positive luminol or TMB result does not mean that DNA can be found.

7. More Commentary On The Resulting Statistics

At the bottom of the spreadsheet are some interesting statistics, which I won’t reiterate here, except to note a few things.

a) 227 different objects or site objects were sampled/ obtained for analysis. 30 of these were not analyzed at all. From the remaining 197 objects and site objects sampled, 484 separate tests were set up for analysis, with 93 of these consisting of hair analysis. Of these 484 tests, 193 of them yield DNA data useful for comparison (40%).

b) Of the 193 tests that were “˜successful’, 100 tests yielded DNA compatible only with Ms. Kercher’s DNA (over 50%- again keep in mind their may have been other DNA but it may have been too small or too fragmented to be useful for comparison). Nine additional tests (comprising seven samples) yielded DNA compatible with Ms. Kercher’s DNA mixed with either Knox’s, Guede’s or Sollecito’s DNA. 27 tests had DNA compatible with Guede’s DNA; 18 tests had DNA compatible with Knox’s DNA; 11 more tests had DNA compatible with Sollecito’s DNA. Nine other tests yielded DNA compatible with a mixture of Knox’s and Sollecito’s DNA. 17 tests yielded DNA of unknown men and women (i.e. unmatchable by Dr. Stefanoni), and two tests were of samples obtained from Lumumba.

c) Of the nine tests yielding Ms. Kercher’s DNA mixed with others, five of these yielded DNA compatible with a mixture of Kercher’s and Knox’s DNA. They were all samples found in blood or potential blood- notably: three in the bathroom, one on the corridor floor in a luminol revealed bloody footprint, one in a luminol revealed blood stain in Romanelli’s room.

d) Returning to the discussions about contamination, it is notable that, whether the contamination occurred during site collection or in the lab, one might expect to find bits of contamination occurring here and there over 193 tests. Yet nearly all the arguments involve contamination about two samples, out of 193 tests. Over 50% of the tests that had useful DNA yielded Ms. Kercher’s DNA. If site collection, transport and/or lab procedures were so poor, one would expect to find Ms. Kercher’s DNA in other places as well. Yet very few samples have her DNA mixed with others, and conversely, very few other samples have other mixed DNA. Only nine samples have mixes of Sollecito and Knox’s DNA, eight of which were all obtained at Sollecito’s apartment or from Sollecito’s things (including a pocket knife), and one was obtained from a cigarette butt at the cottage. If contamination was so rampant, why does it occur on only two samples out of 193, (and curiously only on the two most damning samples)?

e) Continuing along the same lines, 118 samples were obtained from Sollecito’s apartment. Of these, 49 were not analyzed, (many were hairs not having bulbs in the right phase). Of the remaining 66 samples that were analyzed, only one, the one the blade of the kitchen knife, had Ms. Kercher’s DNA. And 41 yielded no usable DNA. So if there was contamination, or worse, direct framing of evidence by the lab, certainly there would be more of Ms. Kercher’s DNA amongst those 66 samples, in order to achieve an ironclad case. Yet there is only one sample out of 66 that had Ms. Kercher’s DNA.

f) Similarly, 224 tests were done on objects taken from the upper apartment. Of these 56 were not analyzed for DNA and an additional 61 that were analyzed, did not yield anything useful. Of the remaining 107 tests, only 3 had Sollecito’s DNA (a trace on the cigarette butt, and a trace on the bra clasp having Sollecito’s DNA as well as his Y chromosome.) Surely if there was rampant contamination or worse, direct framing of evidence, one would expect to find more of Sollecito’s DNA in Ms. Kercher’s room. Yet only one sample had his DNA and Y chromosome- the bra clasp.

g) Conversely, it is rather odd that Sollecito’s car was sampled in 16 locations (actually 19 samples were taken but only 16 analyzed), and none of those samples revealed his DNA. Did he ever drive his car?

8. And Finally More Commentary About The Hairs

Guede had black hair. From photos of Nov 2, 2007, Knox had blonde hair and Sollecito had chestnut to light chestnut hair. Meredith Kercher had chestnut to reddish chestnut hair.

93 hairs were found and analyzed. Seven of these were either animal hair or fibers. The remaining 86 hairs were, per the SAL report, all human. Seven of these hairs were black in color. Of the seven, six were short (4 cm or less) and one was long. Of the six short black hairs, four were found on the duvet covering Ms. Kercher, one was found on her mattress cover, and one was found on a sponge (containing fourteen other hairs) at Sollecito’s apartment. It is very likely these short black hairs were Guede’s, and if so, how it one of his hairs get on a sponge at Sollecito’s apartment.

Similarly, 21 blonde hairs were found, ranging from 4 cm to 20 cm. Of these, fifteen were found at Sollecito’s apartment, either on a sponge in the kitchen, or on a sweater. The other six were found at the cottage, with three being found on the duvet, one found inside the small bathroom sink, one found on a mop, one found on Ms. Kercher’s purse and one found on Ms. Kercher’s mattress cover.

Assuming the blonde hairs were Knox’s hair, it is difficult to imagine how they might wind up on Ms. Kercher’s purse and mattress cover.

There were four light chestnut hairs found. One, measuring 9 cm, was found on the kitchen sponge at Sollecito’s apartment. The other three light chestnut hairs were found on Ms. Kercher’s bra (2 cm), sweat jacket (7.5 cm) and the towel found under Ms. Kercher’s body (20 cm).

35 chestnut colored hairs were found, ranging from 1.5 to 30 cm in length. The vast majority were in Ms. Kercher’s bedroom. Two chestnut colored hairs (5 cm and 8 cm) were on the kitchen sponge at Sollecito’s house. It should be noted that three chestnut colored hairs yielded Ms. Kercher’s DNA, measuring 15, 18 and 23 cms.

So even from the hair evidence, it seems that hair having Knox and Sollecito’s color were on Ms. Kercher’s more intimate objects, while Guede’s and Ms. Kercher’s hair apparently were on a sponge in the kitchen at Sollecito’s apartment. In other words, an object used in a clean-up, and in a room that also had five luminol revealed samples.

Even the hair evidence points to Guede, Sollecito and Knox having acted together in the murder of Ms. Kercher.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Analysis #1 Of Testimony Of Marco Chiacchiera, Director, Organized Crime Section, Flying Squad

Posted by Cardiol MD

Dr Chiacchiera with Dr Comodi explaining reason for charges in another case

Overview Of This Series

Yet another vital translation which will be posted in the trial testimony areaof McCall’s great Wiki. This again is translated by the ever-dedicated main posterr ZiaK.

Although I graduated as a medical doctor I also graduated as a lawyer, and was often in courtrooms. For this post and the rest of the Chiacchiera series I am wearing my lawyer’s hat to point out what strikes me in Prosecutor Comodi’s questions,  Marco Chiacchiera’s testimony, and the cross-examinations by defense lawyers.

Prior Preparations And Procedures

Under the Italian Code, before the beginning of the trial phase in Italy, the parties file a brief, detailing all evidence they want to present ““ the parties have to indicate by name every witness and precisely what these will be asked. The aims include creation of a Record of Admissible Facts.

Also under the Italian Code, both the defendant and the prosecutor can cross-examine each other’s witnesses. The Judge may choose not to admit any testimony that appears patently superfluous, reject irrelevant or improper or irregular questions ““ such as leading questions, and Inadmissible Hearsay ““ and also ask questions to the witnesses and experts.

Ground Covered In Dr Chiacchiera’s Testimony

(1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.

(2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the “break-In” to Romanelli’s room was faked.

(3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.

(4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito’s house.

(5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito’s and the evidence that it is the murder knife.

My Assessment Of This Court Exchange

It is immediately obvious to me that this witness is a skilled witness; as such, and given his deep hands-on involvement in the immediate investigation this witness’s testimony is credible.  My assessment therefore is that this was a very good and unflinching witness and that Dr Comodi shows no signs of leading the witness or seeking other than a truthful record.

I have seen prosecutors examine witnesses differently but dont believe the resultant record would have been superior. This would have stood up well in any American court.

(GCM=Giancarlo Massei; MC=Manuela Comodi; MaCh=Marco Chiacchiera; GB=Giulia Bongiorno; DD=Donatella Donati; CP=Carlo Pacelli; LG=Luciano Ghirga; CDV=Carlo Dalla Vedova; FM=Francesco Maresca)

Public Prosecutor Comodi [MC]

MC:  Dr Chiacchiera, you carried out your duties where, when, at what moment of the events?

MaCh:  I was and am the director of the Organized Crime Section of the Flying Squad and I am the vice-director of the Flying Squad. The Organized Crime Section is a branch of the Flying Squad that deals with “¦ the term, I think that in this place [i.e. the court] it is enough to say that it deals with organized crime. However, I am also the vice-director of the Flying Squad, for which [reason] I deal with, in the case of need, everything that is necessary [for] the various aspects.

{Witness supplies 5 items of relevant information that Examiner should elicit at beginning of examination.}

MC:  Can you tell the Court how you became aware of events, who called you, when you became involved?

{Examiner asks another triple-question}

MaCh:  Yes.

{Witness simply answers question as worded by Examiner}

MC:  For now, start to tell us, then maybe I will intervene [NdT: i.e. interrupt with further questions] if necessary.

{Examiner, asking no Q, instructs witness, suggesting provisional forbearance if witness does not make interruptions necessary.}

MaCh:  On the fateful day, at around 12:33, I had gone to the cemetery with my mother. The operations room called me immediately after the discovery of the body.

{Witness begins appropriate narrative response, but Examiner interrupts}

MC:  So the 113? [NdT: 113 is the Italian State Police emergency number]

{Examiner interrupts witness with a Q, suggesting witness's receipt of call from an emergency number, but suggests wrong source-number}

MaCh:  110. The operations room of the Questura called me, and informed me of the happenings in an initially obviously very summarized manner. They said to me that there was a suspicious death, a young woman who lived in via della Pergola. I rushed to the place directly in my mother’s car. I didn’t stop by at the Questura, I didn’t go to get the service [i.e. police] car. I got myself taken to via della Pergola. We took about 15 minutes from the cemetery to there, ten fifteen minutes. In the meantime, I phoned the deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, in the temporary absence of the director, Dr Profazio, who arrived later, who was “¦ he was enjoying a period of leave, and with deputy Commissioner Napoleoni we arrived almost at the same time. We arrived almost simultaneously at the premises. Forensics, too, arrived almost at the same time at the premises.

{Witness supplies correct source-number and resumes interrupted narrative response}

MC:  The Perugia Forensics?

{Examiner questions witness's correction, as if to verify and to ensure accuracy of court's record}

MaCh:  The Perugia Forensics, I highlight, yes.

{Witness emphatically agrees with Examiner's question}

MC:”‹[They were] alerted by you, or ...?

{Examiner pauses mid-Q, inviting witness to guess complete Q, or is interrupted}

MaCh:”‹Alerted by the operations room, and also alerted by me.
,
{Witness responds to invitation, or interrupts with A to assumed complete Q}

MC:”‹So you arrive, and who do you find?

{Examiner's 1st simple Q.}

MaCh: “‹I found there ... there was already deputy Commissioner Napoleoni, there were also a few of Meredith’s co-tenants. There was Amanda Knox, there was Raffaele Sollecito. There were two young men who were, I believe, the friend of the boyfriend of one of the co-tenants. In short, there were a few people who had already been inside the house. There was the Postal Police.

{Witness answers Q in reasonable detail}

MC:”‹In the person of”¦?

{Examiner seeks more detail re specific Postal Police Personnel}

MaCh: “‹Battistelli and another of Battistelli’s colleagues. Inspector Battistelli, with whom there was immediately a discussion in order to understand what were the reasons for his intervention there, because it is not normal to find the Postal [police] in a crime of this sort. And he explained to me immediately what was the reason for his intervention. The origin of the, shall we way of his intervention, was due to the discovery of a pair of cellphones in a period of time, I believe, of an hour, [or] two, I don’t recall clearly, that were one in the name of one of Meredith’s co-tenants and one in the name of, later it [sic] “¦ I mean the SIM [card], obviously, the cellphones’ SIMs, the cards, they were in the name of a co-tenant and the other in Meredith’s [name]. The co-tenant, however, then told us, we then ascertained that both of the cellphones in fact were used by Meredith. And already that was, how shall we say, a first detail on which we began to reflect because, in fact, that was an element than in some way made us [become] immediately occupied/involved from an investigative point of view.

{Witness responds to Q and includes relevant amplifying narrative, anticipating probable future Qs re cellphones}

MC: “‹So, excuse me, also if the Court already, shall we say, knows this, because others have reported it, on this point however, where were the cellphones found?

{Examiner seems to interrupt with simple Q to clarify specific relevant fact not yet reached}

MaCh:”‹Inside the garden of a villa that is in via Sperandio.

{Witness responds appropriately}

MC:”‹In via Sperandio.

{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}

MaCh: “‹A villa that ... I am Perugian, [and] honestly, I didn’t even know there was a villa there. I’m Perugian, and I swear that I would have sworn [sic] that behind there was a wood.

{Witness flounders, seems unable to be more specific}

MC:”‹A field

{Probably a Q, but implicitly inviting more specificity}

MaCh: “‹It [was] the first time that I went in behind there. Instead, I see a marvelous old mansion with an enormous garden that gives ... that is almost adjacent to the street ““ the street that leads towards Ponte Rio. Anyone from Perugia understands me maybe.

{Witness seems to be in informal conversational mode}

MC: “‹From the structure of the fencing/enclosure, could you tell, shall we say, whether it was possible to throw these cellphones from the street, or whether it was necessary to enter the garden itself?

{Examiner engages witness, and asks Q to clarify how cellphones got into that garden}

MaCh: “‹Yes, obviously, we checked that. In fact, immediately, in short, the detail that seemed, how shall we say, of great investigative interest was that [very point], besides other details that I will go [into] a bit [sic], so to speak, also to give the impression of what the immediate impact was that we saw in the moment when we found ourselves in a situation of this type. So, deputy Napoleoni immediately entered inside the house in order to check it for herself. I did it [entered] shortly afterwards, also because [as] you will imagine that in that moment whoever was there had to notify all those who [sic], amongst whom Dr Mignini who was the Public Prosecutor on duty, and immediately give orders so that the correct checks are carried out. Because it was not just a crime scene that had to be analysed immediately: there also had to be, how shall we say, correlated with the information that we had got from via Sperandio ““ because the entry of the Postal [police in the case] originated with via Sperandio. And so we immediately asked ourselves: “Ah, what are these cellphones belonging to poor Meredith doing inside the garden of a villa?” And then And then immediately after, we asked ourselves, obviously, what might be the profile of the possible, or probable, murderer, and we discussed/talked about the crime scene. The crime scene immediately seemed fairly strange to us, if you wish [NdT: literally “if we wish” in Italian, but meaning the same as “shall we say”, “if you wish”, “so to speak” etc.]

{Witness responds to Q with detailed narrative}

MC:”‹Why?

{Examiner asks ambiguous Q, probably wrt crime scene seeming "fairly strange "}

MaCh:”‹Because the door did not show”¦ the entry door to the villa did not show signs of break-in. The we checked “¦

{Witness seems to decipher ambiguity correctly, begins narrative response, but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹We are not talking about the villa on via Sperandio obviously?

{Examiner interrupts with Q, apparently not comprehending Witness's narratives}

MaCh: “‹For the love of god! It was called a “villa” “¦ (overlap of voices), let’s say the house, of the house on via della Pergola there was no forcing/break-in. We found a forcing on the window. The window is this one, on the side of the house. I don’t know if you’ve seen the house? Anyhow, it is this one on the side of the house that can be seen immediately when you come down the slope from the gate. Logically reconstructing the thing, a hypothetical prowler [NdT: literally “ill-intentioned person”] who entered the house, breaking the glass with a rock - because inside the room, which was Romanelli’s room, which was the, shall we say, hypothetical arena of the entry, was completely in utter chaos. For that reason, what should we have hypothesized? That the hypothetical prowler took a rock, managed to throw the rock; the shutters, the external ones, the external shutters were not “¦

{Witness is exasperated at Examiner's apparent incomprehension, is repeating his previous testimony, but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹The dark-green wooden ones?

{Examiner interrupts with Leading Q re colour of external shutters. Now begins a confused and confusing colloquy. The arrangement of Filomena Romanelli's window, with Outside, and Inside Shutters, the Broken-Glass-Frame in-between, and the glass-splinters on the window-sill is complicated and needs a picture-exhibit that the witness can refer-to; this is apparently not provided, leading to the confusions}

MaCh:”‹The dark-green wooden ones were half shut, for which reason [he] must have had an aim like “Pecos Bill” [NdT: a cartoon Wild West cowboy], takes aim and throws that rock, smashes the window. After, he climbs up and does a turn on the little slope, and has to clamber up towards the window on the smooth surface, it seems to me, that from the ground up to the window there are two and a half metres-three [metres]. And then would have said: “bah, in short” [sic]. Yeah, well, the thing seemed to us…. in short, the first hypothesis that the investigator normally does, finds a level of unlikelihood of this kind of happening. After which, we looked at the house and we saw that an entry of a potential prowler [ill-intentioned person], still reasoning on the hypothesis”¦

{Witness amplifies narrative response but is interrupted by Examiner}

MC:”‹Of theft.

{Examiner inappropriately interrupts, incorrectly guessing what witness was about to say}

MaCh: “‹Of theft ending badly. Of theft that then degenerates because the burglar in some way thinks that he will find no-one in the house and instead finds a person, and then it degenerates “¦ We saw that there were easier means of entry, without wishing to bore you, but behind the house there was the possibility of climbing in a much easier way, without being seen by people that might have passed in the road. Let’s remember that, in short, it was not very late; quite the contrary. Normally people passed there, for which reason, if [he] had done it, the thing would probably have been seen. That thing there, as an hypothesis, we didn’t immediately discount it, that’s clear, because it’s a good rule to never discount any hypothesis. But we immediately considered that it was not a priority.

{Witness corrects Examiner's wrong guess, amplifies and seems to end narrative response}

MC:”‹Dr Chiacchiera, I interrupt you. (The witness is shown an exhibit.)

{Examiner, seems to acknowledge her habit of interruptions without actually interrupting, while introducing an unspecified exhibit. This introduction seems very informal, because Exhibits are normally identified by an assigned title.}

MaCh:”‹Ah! I didn’t remember it as being so big.

{Witness recognizes unspecified exhibit}

MC:”‹Precisely! You saw it? This is the rock that ...

{Examiner engages witness, stating it is "the rock".}

MaCh:”‹Yes, but it has been some time I have not, how shall we say, yes, I saw it. Absolutely.
However, it’s big, it’s huge.

{Witness engages Examiner, commenting on how large the rock exhibit is}

MC:”‹Do you consider that it could be this?

{Examiner ambiguously (what are "it" & "this "?) asks witness's opinion}

MaCh:”‹I believe so.

{Witness seems to overlook ambiguity of Q with vague A)

MC:"‹I try "¦

{Examiner begins to speak but is interrupted}

Judge Massei [GCM]:”‹How?

{Court interrupts as if to ask Q how Examiner 'tries'}

MC:”‹It is this. Yes, it is this one that was collected, yes, that was found.

{Witness seems to confirm that exhibited rock is the rock found in Filomena's room}

GCM:”‹So the rock is shown. [NdT: an “aside” for the court records?]

{Court formally announces admission of rock-exhibit, seemingly trying to reduce confusion caused by informal dialogue}

MaCh:”‹Inside the room where we then found the rock…
??:”‹But what was the question about the rock?

{Witness amplifies that rock had been found in a room, but enquires re rock Q, exposing confusion caused by informal dialogue}

GCM:”‹If this was the rock. And the witness said ...

{Court begins explanation to confused witness}

MaCh:”‹I said yes. Yes.

{Witness interrupts Court - confusion reigns}

GCM:”‹You saw it? You saw the rock?

{Court asks witness 2 Qs, trying to clarify that 'it' refers to 'the rock' that witness saw.}

MaCh:”‹Yes.

{Witness confirms that witness had previously seen the rock introduced into court as an unlisted exhibit.}

GCM:”‹When you saw it, where was it?

{Court proceeds to clarify confusion re where the rock was when witness originally saw the rock}

MaCh:”‹The rock [was] in the room of Romanelli.

{Witness specifically testifies, for witness's first time, that when witness originally saw the rock, the rock was in Filomena Romanelli's room}

GCM:”‹How far from the window? Can you say?

{Court continues to seek clarification using double-Q.}

MaCh: “‹A few centimetres [NdT: “un palmo” = “a hand’s width”] from the window sill, under the window, from the wall where the window is.

{Witness testifies clearly in answer to Court's 1st Q of above double-Q.}

GCM:”‹So from the internal perimeter wall, from where the window gives onto it, a “hand’s breadth”. So 20 centimetres…

{Court apparently begins to seek verification of witness's testimony, but is interrupted}

MaCh:”‹Mr President ....

{Witness begins to Interrupt Court}

GCM:”‹... away from it approximately.

{Court finishes his interrupted statement}

MaCh:”‹Yes.

{Witness agrees with Court's completed statement}

GCM:”‹And this is the rock. You remember it.

{Court states his understanding in form of Qs.}

MaCh:”‹Yes, yes, yes, yes. That is the rock.

{Witness impatiently agrees with Court's understanding}

MC:”‹At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it corresponds thus to the one that was collected [as evidence].

{Examiner makes statements in form of Q, seeking verification of resemblance of exhibit-rock to original rock}

MaCh:”‹At least as far as size and colour [are concerned], it absolutely corresponds. If it was collected, I think that ...

{Witness begins narrative agreement with statements of Examiner, but is apparently interrupted by Examiner}

MC: “‹Very well. WITNESS [sic? Should be MaCh?] and Romanelli’s room was a complete shambles. The clothes were on the floor, the glass was strangely on top of the clothes, the [glass] shards were strangely on top of the “¦ on the windowsill, let’s put it that way.

{Apparent Transcriptional confusion attributing to interrupted witness narrative the interrupting .statement of Examiner}

MC:”‹The outside one.

{Examiner seems to amplify statement of Examiner wrt which window-shutter witness had been referring-to}

MaCh: “‹The outside one, precisely. The one that is between the shutters and the shutters [sic. NdT: “imposte” in Italian, but this can also mean shutters, or flap, as in the inner “scuri” shutters, or he may mean the window-frame itself, with the window-panes, given his following description], the green shutters and the shutters, the broken ones in short, where the glass is. The shutters ““ the wooden ones. The rock was a bit too close with regard to the wall if I [were to] throw it from least two metres. Unless it was lobbed [i.e. thrown in a high arc]. But in that case it’s rather unlikely that it would smash the glass. For that reason, I repeat, in the context of immediate likelihood, this one “¦

{Witness agrees with Examiner that he was referring to "The outside one", continuing with narrative of reasoning, but is interrupted by Examiner…}

MC:”‹Yes, it’s true. These are considerations. However they are considerations, shall we say, that refer [sic], because they are reasoning/lines of thought that are formed in the “immediacy” of the events [NdT: i.e. “in the immediate aftermath”. NOTE: throughout the text, a number of speakers use “immediatezza” (lit. “immediacy”) to convey a number of meanings, from “in the immediate aftermath”, or “in the immediate surroundings”, or “very soon after”, etc. I will translate them appropriately according to the context, without further explanation of the use of “immediatezza”], in order to proceed in one direction rather than another.

{Examiner, interrupting witness, apparently agreeing with witness's reasoning. While Examiner is apparently stating his own argumentative reservations re the possible evolution-in-time of witness's changing lines of reasoning, he is interrupted by Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito defense lawyer:}

Giulia Bongiorno [GB]: “‹I never like to interrupt an examination [of a witness], however if one wanted, between the Public Prosecutor’s hypotheses, to do that [sic] of demonstrating that from a ballistic point of view it is not possible, then the ballistic expert should be called.

{GB interrupts Examiner to comment that Witness and Examiner are expressing opinions on Ballistics that require the testimony of a Ballistic Expert.}

MC:”‹But in fact, his considerations are not the considerations of an expert: they are the considerations of an investigator who made certain deductions in the immediacy of the events.

{Examiner argues that witness's testimony is that of an investigator's temporal train of thought.}

MaCh:”‹It happens to us too, at times, to reason/think rationally “¦

{Witness joins colloquy, amplifying Examiner's argument.}

GCM:”‹These reasonings/deductions, then determined your investigative activity in one direction rather than in an “¦?

{Court seems to invite further amplification by witness}

MaCh: “‹Yes, obviously, Mr President. I was trying to ... (overlap of voices) it is a premiss/basis to be able to then, how shall we say, reach ““ I won’t say conclusions ““ but in order to try to understand what our way of broaching the thing was, there and then. We had, I reassert, reasoned immediately also on via Sperandio. So the first thing, I may say, [was] the unlikelihood, or at any rate it was not the top priority hypothesis, the one of a prowler/ill-intentioned person entering. The open door without signs of break-in. But above all, a young woman who is [sic] probably killed in her own room, nude or almost nude, with a wound of that type, in a lake of blood, covered with a duvet. I repeat, the door was not smashed/wrecked, there’s a broken “¦ a window broken with a thrown rock, how can I say, it’s obvious that we immediately found this situation as “¦ (overlap of voices).

MaCh:”‹”¦ particular.

{Witness further amplifies narrative}

GCM:”‹You formed these considerations, and what did they lead you to?

{Court asks simple Q.}

MaCh: “‹That very probably the author or authors knew the person, or at any rate that the author or authors did not enter “¦ did not enter from the window-pane of that window.

{Witness responds with his conclusion that the authors of the faked break-in did not enter from the window-pane of that window.}

GCM: “‹Excuse me a moment, just to give some guidelines, but of the evaluations that the witness is expressing, obviously it’s not that they can be taken account of, however we will acquire them [for the trial files] in order to understand the investigation activities, the appropriateness of the investigations that were carried out, directed in one way or in another, there you go. However, maybe, “¦ there you go, yes, maybe if we can manage to keep with the bare essentials this will help everybody.

{Court proceedings seem to have been diverted into a free-for-all colloquy, with multiple participants chiming-in, and creating confusion. Court-President, GCM, now politely intervenes, apparently trying to restore order, ruling that the professional evaluations made by the witness, testified-to by the witness, should be admitted for the trial files. The appropriateness of the witness's evaluations can be dealt with separately and later.}
_________________________________________________

This segment of Chiacchiera’s Testimony re the Crime Scene, which he believed had been remodeled by the criminals to dupe Investigators into believing that there had been a burglary, committed by a single criminal, is paused here because it is so prolonged.

Analysis of Chiacchiera’s Testimony will continue in a future post.

 

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Sollecito Posting Of Knox’s Diary: Is He Again Prodding Knox Closer To The Fire To Help Himself?

Posted by Peter Quennell

Above and below: interiors of Capanne Prison built about a decade ago; Knox front-row right?


Another potshot in the escalating Knox/Sollecito wars?

In November 2007 in Capanne Prison Knox wrote prolifically in English in a diary.  Sollecito has now aggressively put it online together with the official Italian translation, as spotted by the sharp eyes of main poster Nell

The diary was taken by prison authorities, apparently with no protest by Knox as she was pre-warned that her cell would need to be searched. The English original and an Italian translation were entered into evidence at trial, though the diary played no overt role of which we are aware.

Defense forces helpfully offered it around perhaps in the hope that it would make the authorities not look so good.

The diary then became the core of a 2008 book Amanda And The Others by Fiorenza Sarzanini, a prominent Italian journalist on the staff of the major newspaper Corriere.

The book was not entirely unsympathetic to the real Knox. But Knox’s lawyers were seemingly concerned that her peculiar writings as riffed-upon by Sarzanini could subvert the preferred Knox image in court - though frankly that image was pretty daffy too.

The Knox team sued the holding company of Corriere. They won an award in the first round, then that was reversed on appeal, and then last year Cassation partially reversed that verdict, and Knox was granted an award.

Italian media reported all of this, but we didnt see any jubilant report in the US. Maybe because all Knox case-related income can be clawed back under US and Italian bloodmoney laws.

However, according to the Italian reports, Corriere’s legal fault was held not to be one of copyright or of the privacy of Knox. It was in publishing passages in which Knox negatively highlighted others, such as the list of those she had had sex with, a no-no under Italian privacy laws.

The Sarzanini book is still on sale in Italy, and there was no court ruling that it had to be withdrawn. The same passages Sollecito has put online are also in Italian in that book. There seems nothing in US or UK law that would forbid publishing of an English-language version if Fiorenza Sarzanini wants to do that.

Ironically Knox with her own 2013 book seems to have run afoul of the self-same laws in her serial defaming of officials, and in due course she stands to lose much more than she had gained from that small award.

Knox’s book was apparently put into Italian, though Italian and British editions were dropped at the last minute, days after Cassation ruled against Knox, in April last year. Oggi translated and published passages from the book which will see Oggi also taken to court.

Hard to believe but Knox’s bamboozled shadow writer Linda Kulman and HarperCollins New York were reported as scrambling to remove a lot of defamatory passages from the US version before Knox’s book went out.

We have posted several excerpts, which were pure fiction, and it is still the nasty work of a troubling psyche. Presumably that is Sollecito’s point.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Seeds Of Betrayal: Multiple Examples Of How RS And AK Have Stabbed Each Other In The Back

Posted by Our Main Posters

RS in Feb 2014 after Nencini-appeal guilty verdict

1. History Of Backstabbing #1 2007-2014

The other day, a claim was posted that claimed sources had said Knox would soon accuse Sollecito.

This inspired quite an outcry, and the claim’s heavy-handed suppression. Can you believe: by legal means? That claim really rattled a few cages.

Why was the claim so dangerous?

NOT because the claim was wrong. In fact because for seven-plus years Sollecito and Knox have repeatedly cycled between very occasional chummy hugs and very numerous aggrieved stabs in the back.

And for the most part the more-aggrieved Sollecito has come out ahead. The desperate Knox PR and apologists are simply stumped at how to stop him or how to explain all of this.

2. Phases And Kinds Of Backstabbing

We are now seeing the fourth phase.

• In 2007 (see below) Sollecito really damaged Knox’s situation and both stabbed the other in the back a lot.


• From 2008 right through 2011, desperate for confirmation of an alibi, an anxious Knox beamed pleas at a sullen Sollecito, for example in public “love letters” she wrote, and a public request to have a private chat.


• From 2012 upon provisional release it was now Knox being sullen, and hard to get. Now it was Sollecito in puppy-dog mode. He might have been driven by a genuine desire for a renewed relationship, but a highly publicised bid to set himself up safely in the US maybe made Knox wonder “Is this was true love?”.


• And from mid 2013 mutual knifings have been fast and furious, many now on Twitter, and Italy in particular is closely watching the show and waits agog as the justice system applies further heat.

The backstabbings break down into two varieties: (1) many are active-aggressive (as in: they actually complain about one another); (2) others were passive-aggressive (as in: they try to help themselves but conspicuously ignore the other.) Typically Sollecito’s aggression dominates over Knox’s.

3. Incidences Year By Year

1. The year 2007

Our emerging Interrogation Hoax series quotes multiple witnesses testifying how quickly and decisively Knox and Sollecito in the blink of an eye began dropping the other in it. Posts of relevance soon to be linked-to here.

From 6 November 2007 Knox and Sollecito were kept separated, and were not allowed to talk. (That continued to late 2011.) Sollecito was pretty easy to read: he had little interest in talk. A sulky silence was his norm.

1 Click for Post:  Officer Moscatelli’s Recap/Summary Session With Sollecito 5-6 No

On 6 November Sollecito’s statement to Inspectors Moscatelli and Napoleoni included this about Knox :

I know Amanda for two weeks. From the evening I first met her she started sleeping at my house.

The first of November I woke up about 11.00, I had breakfast with Amanda, then she went out and I went back to bed. I then met up with her at her house around 13.00-14.00. In there was Meredith who left in a hurry about 16.00 without saying where she was going.

Amanda and I went to the [town] centre about 18.00 but I don’t remember what we did. We remained in the centre till 20.30 or 21.00.

I went to my house alone at 21.00, while Amanda said that she was going to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet with her friends.

At this point we said goodbye. I went home, I made a joint. Had dinner, but I don’t remember what I ate. About 23.00 my father called me on my house phone line.

I recall Amanda was not back yet.

I web surfed on the computer for two more hours after my father’s phone call and I only stopped when Amanda came back in, presumably about 01.00…

In my previous statement I told a load of rubbish because Amanda had convinced me of her version of the facts and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies.

Yikes. Knox finds her best alibi yanked.

2 Click for Post:  Summarised AK And RS Signed Statements 2-5 November 2007 

Not so long after, possibly knowing about this, Knox comes out with a statement which points at Sollecito in turn.

I don’t know for sure if Raffaele was there that night [during the attack on Meredith] but I do remember very well waking up at my boyfriend’s house, in his bed, and I went back to my house in the morning where I found the door open.

3. [Source to come] Then on 8 November 2007 Sollecito submitted a statement to Judge Matteini which began:

I never want to see Amanda again. Above all, it is her fault we are here.

4. [Source to come] There were multiple further instances throughout the rest of 2007, quotes of which will be included soon in the Knox Interrogation Hoax series.

2. The Year 2008

5. [Source to come] Knox and Sollecito each appealed Judge Matteini’s ruling to the Supreme Court. Neither helped the other at all. Both appeals failed in April and they were each kept locked up.

6. Click for Post: Sollecito Turns On Knox? This Is Extraordinary”¦

In October toward the end of Guede’s trial and RS’s and AK’s remand for trial Sollecito’s DNA expert testifies to Judge Micheli that he found Knox’s DNA on Meredith’s bra and bra-clasp.

7. Click for Post:  Sollecito Family Trial: On The Component About Their Alleged Attempt At Political Interference

Francesco Sollecito phone conversation in March 2008 with Vanessa captured by the Carabinieri in which he shows his extreme distrust and dislike of Knox who he blames for RS’s plight.

3. The Year 2009

8. Click for Post  The Letters Between The Women’s And Men’s Wings In Capanne

Letters sent from Knox to Sollecito in February are published, showing an eagerness to get together, suggesting she really needs Sollecito to speak up and confirm her latest alibi.

9. Click for Post  Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

This kind of callous, flippant behavior by Knox had the entire court backed off, not least the Sollecito team which had no desire to be chained to this seeming dangerous nut.

10. Click for Post  Sollecito Not To Be Trumped By Knox Antics In The Female Wing Of Capanne

While RS and AK didnt have access to one another they sure had access to the media and in the Italian media a competitive Sollecito posted a steady stream of stories

11. Click for Post  Trial: Knox Claimed Not To Have Been At The House On The Night

Knox suddenly claims this, despite contrary 2007 claims by both Knox & Sollecito, which messes with Sollecito’s alibi that he was at home alone on the computer.

12. Click for Post  Seems Sollecito Is Feeling Really Sorry - For Himself (So What’s New?)

Sollecito tries to give himself an edge over AK by being extra-whiny about how awful he finds prison, and the distasteful little people he was being made to mix with.

4. The Year 2010

13 Click for Post  How Each of The Three Subtly But Surely Pushed The Other Two Closer to The Fire

The Knox team avoided this popular Porta a Porta TV series, maybe too scared of hard questions, while the Sollecito lawyers and family used it to promote suspicion of AK and Guede.

14. Click for Post  Newsweek Report From Italy On Damage Shrill Campaign Is Doing To Knox’s Interests & America’s Image

The shrill Knox campaign was irritating Italians and so hurting Sollecito’s image and prospects and it was not shoring up his own story. Bongiorno especially disliked the campaign. 

15. Click for Post  Rocco Girlanda’s Strutting Manic Grinning Intrusion Seems A Major Danger To Sollecito/Knox Harmony

The strangely kinky Member of Parliament (now voted out) paid numerous visits to Knox (“monitoring conditions”) and tried some nasty (though ineffective) political tricks - but not for Sollecito.

16. Click for Post  The Knox Movie: Sollecito Reported Angry - Real Risk That His Defense Could Break Away From Knox’s

The Sollecito camp had a strong belief that the Knox camp was behind this TV movie and so they fought it, though it turned out quite even-handed and the RS role was minor.

5. The Year 2011

17. Click for Post  Sollecito Defense Team Breaking From Knox Defense Team On Legal Measures To Stop Lifetime Movie

Further differences reported here between the two camps on the Lifetime movie which until it was aired was believed to favor Knox and build a case for her innocence.

18. Click for Post  Tenth Appeal Court Session: Might Today’s Testimony Give Sollecito More Of An Advantage Than Knox?

After his team’s (attempted) discounting of the main evidence at Meredith’s house against Sollecito, Knox’s position looks way worse, as she has motives both for killing and cover-up.

19. Click for Post  Is The Raffaele Sollecito Defense Team About To Separate Him From A Radioactive Amanda Knox?

Final days. Sollecito has at least five advantages over Knox. Better lead lawyer, better family in Italian eyes with smarter campaign, not much physical evidence at the house, no obvious motive unlike Knox, and a weak and washy personality Bongiorno plays up.

6. The Year 2012

20. Click for Post  In Desperation A Council Of War? All Of The Sollecito Family Suddenly Hop On Flights To Seattle

Sollecito is the one now in puppy-dog mode, though his father has said publicly that the relationship with Knox is at an end; here the RS family sets out for Seattle to try to make it so. 

21. Click for Post  Sollecito’s Book Honor Bound Hits Italy And Already Scathing Reactions And Legal Trouble

Sollecito’s book, which subtly promotes Knox’s guilt, runs into legal trouble for false claims, which could also impact Knox’s claims and legal future. His seeming sticking with Knox damages Bongiorno’s defense strategy.

22. Click for Post  Will Sollecito Drop Amanda Knox In It Further In A Public Seattle Interview At 7:00 PM Tonight?

Sollecito’s American book promotion tour often went badly and he seemed unaware of what was in his own book; though once again he was making out Knox was guiltier. His defense team despise the book.

7. The Year 2013

23. Click for Post  Knox & Sollecito Meet - To Attempt To Bury The Hatchet Other Than In Each Other?

The second public Sollecito attempt to end up with Knox, who already had chips on her shoulders about him but went through this charade. Soon, they were back to whacking one another.

24. Click for Post  Seeds Of Betrayal: Sollecito Twice More Implies Evidence Against Knox Much Stronger Than Against Him

Sollecito sustains this steady drum-beat of putting Knox down, highlighting the evidence against her, repeatedly saying he stuck with her despite no evidence against him (no deal helping RS was ever offered).

25. Click for Post  Seeds Of Betrayal: In Interview Knox Reveals To Italy Her Considerable Irritation With Sollecito

Knox does an extended interview with Oggi (for which she and Oggi are being charged) lying about officials and the evidence, but also uttering her angriest blast yet against Sollecito.

8. The Year 2014

26. Click for Post  Rejected Yet Again By Knox, Sollecito Seems Frantic To Avoid What Might Be A Final Return To Italy

Sollecito (like Sforza) was desperately looking for someone to marry him, to keep him in the US. Kelsey Kay was briefly interested, but he dumped her; he had told her Knox had recently turned him down.

27. Click for Post  What We Might Read Into Sollecito Lawyer Giulia Bongiornos Final Arguments To The Appeal Judges

Bongiorno shows contempt for Knox; she effectively conveys the sense of the RS family that a crazed Knox dragged RS into this. She see the RS book as a pro-Knox con job by her team.

28. Click for Post  As Knox & Sollecito Try To Separate Themselves, Each Is Digging The Other In Deeper

Sollecito is clearly trying to distance himself from Knox now, claiming that there is far more evidence against her than against him. Knox’s irritation with him is growing.

29. Click for Post  Sollecito Suddenly Remembers He Wasnt There But Cannot Speak For Knox Who (As She Said) Went Out

Members of Sollecito’s family are believed to be taking their anger at Knox to Twitter and making numerous taunts while emphasizing how they believe Sollecito was dropped in it by Knox and is less to blame.

30. Click for Post  Spitting In the Wind: Sollecito News Conference Backfires On Him AND Knox - What The Media Missed

Really irritated at the US-written RS book, Bongiorno goes a long way to separating the two perps in the minds of Italians; however RS hedges a little though, after having said the evidence points only to Knox.

4. Interim Conclusion

There were also myriad instances of mutual put-downs in their two books. Public squabbles post-2014 will soon be linked-to. The war by other means also continues on Twitter. Briefly it hit the bathshit-crazy Ground Report website.

This feud is obviously driven mostly by Sollecito. Much damage to Knox is already done, and Italians adamantly want her put away. A brighter family and paid team might now be saying “It is time for a Plan B and doing something to warm up Italy”.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

On-Steroids Knox/Marriott PR Provokes Sollecito Reaction, Guarantees Long-Term Hurt To Knox

Posted by Peter Quennell

Act 1. Hubris Of The Knox Public Relations Described

A long report on Marriott’s PR appeared late in 2011 after Knox was provisionally released.

David Marriott never visited Amanda Knox during her four years in an Italian prison.  He met her this month, when she stepped off a plane in Seattle.

Yet for Knox and her family, Marriott was as important a player in her ordeal as anyone in the courtroom. As Knox’s publicist, beginning three days after her arrest, Marriott worked to convince the international public that she did not murder her British roommate while studying in Perugia.

“Hiring him was one of the smartest things we ever did,” said Curt Knox, Amanda’s father.

The article goes on to describe how family and friends were pushed into the limelight and specific big TV networks targeted.  It talks about great financial opportunities for Knox.

Marriott himself demonstrates no understanding of the case - in fact. he sounds proud of his ignorance and his reflexively anti-Italy stance. To a smarter Curt Knox those might have been red flags.

Act 2: Brutal Overkill Of A Flailing Campaign Described

In October 2013 our main poster Media Watcher laid the blame for the slow-moving Knox media cooling at David Marriott’s door.

Now The Examiner is only one of many preparing to take another retaliatory whack.

Public relations is perfectly understandable for celebrities, politicians, or executives, but murder suspects too? At first this aggressive proliferation of pro-Knox articles, tweets and commentary were justified as a defense against the European media’s negative portrayal of her. However, as time wore on, the overpowering presence of Knox’s media campaign has reached outlandish proportions.

Nowadays no blogger is safe to write a factual article about the Meredith Kercher Murder Case without contemptuous comments filling up their Disqus community. Patient webmasters at CNN.com must brace themselves for the onslaught of tens of thousands of interjections cluttering up each and every news article concerning the Meredith Kercher cum Amanda Knox murder case. Mob mentality seems to have taken over Knox’s PR initiative. Knox’s advocates have gone so far as to aim their crosshairs on the victim’s family.

The article, very well researched so far as it goes (it omits the third act below) goes on to describe how Sollecito’s camp has had to open a PR front to unchain Sollecito from Knox. 

Act 3: How Knox Herself Is Losing Big Described

Know your enemy. Dont go about attacking the king unless you can kill him dead. Italy’s Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote about it in The Prince:

If one is striking out at an opponent, one should make sure that the fatal blow is struck, successfully ending the confrontation. Machiavelli wrote that “the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

Wise words for Marriott and Curt Knox. They have remained steadfastly ignorant of the enemy. The attack has clearly failed. Wall-to-wall Italy now has the upper hand. And the PR is a millstone around Knox’s neck.

Here are seven of the ways the Knox-Marriott campaign has fallen short and has actually done real harm.

1) The real case for conviction remains rock-solid with many times the number of evidence points that a US or UK court would require for guilt.

2) No paper trail helpful to Knox exists between the American Embassy and the State Department, and the extradition agreement is precise and firm. 

3)  Knox’s bedrock claim, that she was pressured into a false accusation, not only cost her three years for calunnia but will cost her a defamation trial.

4) The defamatory Knox book that was the windfall David Marriott so jubilantly talks about is turning into an albatross around Knox’s neck.

5) The bloodmoney windfall will not remain Knox’s to keep, under Italian and American laws, and even Marriott’s fees could be at risk.

6) The PR is being unresponsive to ANY damaging claims, such as Knox’s attempted framing of Mignini, and its output is increasingly surreal junk.

7) The PR is making the Sollecito camp hostile, Italian media too; at the same time, since the failed appeal, the US media have chilled.

And so we see the slow death of a campaign built on xenophobia, racism, personal abuse, zero understanding of the details of the case, and zero understanding of the real Italy and its law.

Italy is actually rather a sucker for confession and penitence. Against a famously impervious justice system, the hard line was a terrible, terrible mistake.

Coming soon? “Firing him was one of the smartest things we ever did” says Curt Knox.


Below: From the Examiner, David Marriott and Seattle TV reporter Linda Byron

Sunday, July 06, 2014

Spitting In the Wind: Sollecito News Conference Backfires On Him AND Knox - What The Media Missed

Posted by SomeAlibi

Raffaele looks for divine inspiration? Precious little showing at press conference on Tuesday

What on earth were they thinking?

At Tuesday morning’s press conference Raffaele Sollecito’s team did at least two completely inexplicable things.

Firstly, they scored a spectacular own-goal on the facts surrounding the murder of Meredith Kercher, which has been missed by the press.

Secondly, they did it all for no legal benefit.

In the run up to the press conference it was widely trailed that Sollecito would throw Amanda under the bus by removing her alibi - that she spent the whole of the night of the 1st of November with him at his apartment. After the press conference, it was widely reported he’d done that very thing.

Wrong. Very wrong. In fact, Team Sollecito did the opposite and put a position forward entirely consistent with how the prosecution says Knox, Sollecito and Guede all come together.

Speaking in tongues

There are only a few grains of sand left in the hourglass before Cassation and confirmation of the sentence, which will see Sollecito return to jail until he is well into his forties. You would have thought that it would be “absurd” for him to do anything other than speak clearly and unequivocally.

But that is precisely what didn’t happen…

Sollecito and lead counsel Giulia Bongiorno performed a bizarre tip-toe dance, avoiding saying anything clear or direct. Instead, they made points by reference and allusion, with an unhealthy assortment of metaphorical nods, winks, heavy coughs and adjustments of the lapels at key points.

Did Raffaele say that Amanda left his apartment in the early evening? No. As Bongiorno tortuously phrased it: “Raffaele takes note of the fact the court of appeal found there was something of a lie over Amanda’s whereabouts”¦ of the fact the court [says] she was not with him in the early evening”.

Takes note? What on earth was that all about? Well, the sentence mangling was because at the final Cassation hearing next year, no fresh facts can be heard. The only arguments that can be heard are on failure of due process or failure of logic and reasoning as pmf.org Italian legal expert Popper explains extremely clearly here:

I think we should clarify a number of points after discussions of past few days:

1) Corte di Cassazione does not hear evidence and can only discuss the possible invalidation of a sentence or part of it ref the points appealed, not other points. Corte di Cassazione does not hear defendants or private parties. In public hearings only a specific category of lawyers (Cassazionisti) can speak before them

2) Corte di Cassazione therefore cannot take into account evidence now given spontaneously by the defendant RS directed against AK (eg open door of Filomena) as in Court he has never accepted cross-interrogation of AK’s lawyers, except if on some points RS’ lawyers appealed in writing for manifest illogicality of reasoning but what he says now cannot be used. Keep in mind Cassazione cannot discuss the merit of the judgement of Nencini and Massei, only invalidate it if this judgement and reasoning were based on clearly illogical arguments or neglected key evidence

3) Only if Cassazione invalidated Nencini and remanded to a further appeal a possible renovation of “istruttoria” (evidence discussion) may take place. Otherwise all RS has to say now, even if he confesses she did it and he only helped clean [unlikely IMHO], cannot be taken into account by Corte di Cassazione and would have to be the possible argument for a “revisione del giudicato” (a case in which, after a final judgement, a convicted person claims there is a clear error and brings solid evidence to prove it, it is quite rare only in case of obvious errors. Procedure can be easily denied and IMHO will be denied if he said he just helped clean as Courts have already considered that scenario and rejected it)

4) any discussion on cocaine was not taken into account to convict (even if true, no evidence they sniffed that night) and will not be taken into account by Corte di Cassazione, in theory will not be taken into account for extradition hearing in US Court as this only verifies there is a conviction and treaty respected. PR is another matter, but I think it is not correct to say that would be added to extradition request and may change legal course. Same goes for garage video.

5) The press conference of RS was useless, the panel of Corte di Cassazione judges has not even been appointed and, while not illegal, it is completely unusual for a defendant to hold a PC talking about an appeal (RS is not a public figure or administrator). What counts is the appeal document that we have read. The “great” point that AK does not talk about RS in memoriale is too stupid for me to discuss it here. We must conclude this was only publicity for Bongiorno, she knows she is likely to lose and wishes to make it seem it is a close call. She has minimal chances, approximating 0%.

6) RS has very low chances to succeed, and LG for AK even less, as Corte di Cassazione explained well what they wanted and Nencini gave it to them. Court presided by AN explained who the people concurring with RG in the murder are and gave clear logical explanation for such conclusion. Also, Nencini confirmed first instance, a trial that was perfectly valid for Cassazione after first appeal was invalidated.

There have been cases of a double iteration at Cassazione eg in very complex terrorism trials, evidence was scarce mostly based on witnesses who wanted to sidetrack other investigations. Here, as Alan Dershowitz said [he does not know much about case but this and a few other points he got absolutely right] all pieces of evidence point exactly in the same direction creating a good case [AD does not know it is overwhelming; maybe he did not read all docs].

One other thing AD said, most FOA and JREF and IIP tend to forget: Court is the judge, not them, Court has the responsibility to evaluate all evidence and issue a judgement that, as long as explained logically and legally in writing [something a US jury would not be required to do] using all available elements, will stand and be final after Cassazione.

So, Team Sollecito needed to phrase all of their “points” as things already said by the Appeal Court, which are now facts in law unless overturned due to failure of logic etc.

From there they must then try and make insinuations about these “˜facts’, all the while dressing it up as if it were procedurally in accordance with the pre-Cassation phase. Even though “¦ and here one should be allowed a Pepto Bismol given all the twisting and turning”¦ as Popper explains, it will have no effect on the outcome whatsoever.

In the real world, it was quite clear that what Sollecito was actually saying was, “Yes, she did go out in the early part of the evening, even though I’m not personally saying it, those are the Court’s words.”

He left a massive hanging dot dot dot in place of: “˜Hey everyone - Amanda went off and performed the murder with Guede, not me! No, I haven’t stated the time of her return, because it’s not me talking, it’s the court, but she was out, so figure it out for yourselves”¦’




Not with him in the early evening, which is not the night, we are told, that begins around 11:00 pm

The light at the end of the tunnel has steam billowing underneath it

Here, Team Sollecito run into a horrendous brick-wall of facts which lays Raffaele and Knox out cold. It’s not hard to work it through, but the world’s weary press are too fatigued by this case to even do some simple “if-then” calculations and draw the appropriate conclusion.

So, let’s do it for them here”¦

• Team Sollecito are saying Knox went out before she sent her SMS reply to boss Patrick Lumumba at 8.35pm. This is in accordance with the case for the prosecution from day dot. They now agree, as the prosecution have always said, that Knox is out of Sollecito’s flat sometime before 8.35pm. (In fact, we know it’s by at least 8.17pm because this is when she received Lumumba’s text to say that she didn’t need to go into work).


• Team Sollecito then pause and wink to let you do the math(s). If the murder occurred circa 9.30pm by their estimate (which it didn’t, but let’s go with this for a second) and you don’t know when she returned to Sollecito’s for the night, then he couldn’t have done it, because he was at home, but she could.

Here, the Press stop and report Amanda is under the bus. Thank heavens for that, not a stain on Raffaele’s Warren Beatty white suit and can we all go home now?

Wrong. In fact, it’s a horrendous own-goal, which ricochets in hard off the testimony of both independent witness Jovana Popovic and Raffaele’s own father Francesco.

• At 8.40pm, Popovic arrives at the front door of Raffaele’s apartment and testifies that Amanda Knox opens the front door. It has been suggested that Popovic’s self-estimated timing of 8.40pm is wrong, but this rings very hollow indeed. Popovic had done the walk from her late class ending at 8.20pm many times, and knew it took 20 minutes because she lived on the same road ““ Corso Garibaldi ““ as Raffaele himself.  Both Massei and Nencini agreed with this too. Ouch.


• So Knox, who was out previously, is already back, at least 50 minutes before even the putative time of murder put by the defence and a couple of hours plus before the real time.


• In fact, Raffaele’s father Francesco testified to the Massei court that he was certain that Amanda was with his son when he spoke to him at 8.52pm that night. And this was not contested by the defence. Double ouch.

So, even if Knox went out in the early evening, she is objectively shown to have been back at the apartment well before 9pm. And, if that is the case, both Knox and Sollecito are 100% back in the frame. And this is even before they are also seen by a third person who corroborates that they were together that night ““ Antonio Curatolo. Triple ouch.

Confirming how three became company

Worse yet, Knox has argued for 7 years that she never left the apartment. If Sollecito now “says” she did, but we know objectively that she is back at least by 8.40pm, it supports the prosecution case.

This was that Knox left for work and walked to near the cottage, in the area of the basketball court at Piazza Grimana, around where she received the text from Patrick saying not to come to work.

This is the exact time that Rudy Guede was having a kebab, only a couple of hundred yards away. This provides the opportunity for Knox and Guede to have seen each other. Knox, suddenly at a loose end, makes a plan, which involves asking for Guede’s help.

What might that help be? Well, the resurfacing story of Knox’s link with a cocaine dealer chimes nicely with the idea that Knox asked Rudy either to supply her or help her get some sort of drugs and that they arranged to meet back up once he had secured them.

Knox then returns to Raffaele’s to fetch him, is seen by Popovic and her presence acknowledged at 8.52pm by Papa Sollecito and son, before they both head out to connect with Guede back at Piazza Grimana. (Remember, this is where Knox “saw” Patrick Lumumba, when she tried to frame him).

Guede, as was his wont, managed to get himself invited back to the cottage, perhaps for a shared line. This is consistent with Knox’s prison piece “The Story of Marie Pace”, where there are at least two++ men present in a kitchen in a “party” type atmosphere taking drugs which ends up with a hospitalised victim.

It’s only one theory and there are others. However, what Team Sollecito managed to do this week was to confirm that Knox left the flat. Objective facts and witness testimony tell us the time by which she had returned.

And, in that round trip lies the entire timing, location and mechanism for how Guede became involved, which otherwise makes little sense. Now all confirmed by Team Sollecito…




One of Raffaele Sollecito’s telling grimaces when Amanda Knox’s name is mentioned

What silence gets you

So what was the point? Face-saving for Raffaele? Hoping to key up populist support? Fat chance in Italy, where the case has been properly reported.

An opportunity to allude to a “truth” (the best one he can think of for now ““ other truths are available) and say that he and his family believe Knox is innocent? Pull the other one Raffaele!

It is quite clear that several members of the Sollecito clan think that Knox absolutely is guilty and their Raffaele is still too “honourable” to tell the truth. He merely aided the clean-up perhaps. Well in that case, why hasn’t he said exactly when she came back? Was it 11pm? 1am? Was it at 5am when the music starts playing. Why won’t he or you say?

Or”¦ was it face-saving for Bongiorno, as she faces defeat and seeks to protect her valued public persona?  Well, as much as I’ve tried, I have no idea what they thought they were doing.

And to be honest with you, I honestly don’t think they were entirely sure, nor did they think through the consequences of the brick wall objectivity of Popovic + Papa Sollecito.

In the meantime, a family sits in Surrey listening and watching the weasel words and once again is insulted by this “honourable” all-in-white character who knows what “Amanda Marie Knox” did that night, but simply will not say.

Which of course he could choose to do at any moment, court proceedings or not, the way us normal human beings do it: not making allusion, not tipping a wink, but speaking the truth.

But he hasn’t and I suspect he won’t, even though it actually would now be the only thing that could mitigate the length of his inevitable prison term.

And for his acts and that silence he still won’t break - and at least here it is possible to finally speak with certainty - I believe he deserves every one of those 25 years.