Category: 28 Not at house hoax

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Precise Reasons For Arrests Of Sollecito, Lumumba And Knox On 6 Nov 2007

Posted by Our Main Posters

From the east. Foreground, Perugia’s main courts, background judges & prosecutors’ offices

1. The Warrant For Three Arrests

This key document has now been obtained and translated and included in the Wiki casefile. Some context is offered in Part 2.

The arrest warrant was drafted and signed by Dr Mignini. He did so in the prosecutors’ offices in Perugia’s central courthouse (image at top) at 8:40 am.

Note that, critically, it includes reference to Knox’s spontaneous chatter and her knowledge of the dynamics of the crime.

PUBLIC PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE, COURT OF PERUGIA

N. 19738/07 R.G. Mod. 44

DETENTION ORDER ISSUED BY THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

(artt. 384, comma 1 c.p.p)

TO THE JUDGE OF PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF THE COURT OF PERUGIA

The public prosecutor Dr. Giuliano Mignini

Based on the records of the above-mentioned proceeding;

Having found that there are serious indications of the crimes of complicity in aggravated murder Article 576 n.5 c.p.e. and sexual assault for which we are proceeding, against DIYA Lumumba, born in Kindu (Zaire) on 5.05.1969, KNOX Amanda Marie and SOLLECITO Raffaele, already identified, for the following reasons:

Regarding KNOX and DIYA, the first made glaringly contradictory and not credible statements during the investigation. In particular KNOX claimed to have spent the night between November 1st and 2nd in the company of SOLLECITO Raffaele whom she met a few days before the event while he, after initially confirming the statements made by KNOX, confessed to have lied instructed by KNOX and made clear that he separated from KNOX at 21.30 of November 1st 2007, remaining at his house where he received a phone call from his father on the land line at 23:30.

Furthermore from the data relating to the phone traffic of the number 3484673590 in use by KNOX there emerges a lack of phone traffic from 20:35 of November 1st to 12:00 November 2nd. Same lack of phone traffic from 20:42 of November 1st to 06:02 of November 2nd is found in the phone traffic of 3403574303 in use by SOLLECITO Raffaele.

At 20:35 of November 1st was found an outgoing text message from the number 3484673509 belonging to KNOX sent to 3387195723 belonging to the co-defendant PATRICK to whom she communicates “see you later” which confirms that in the following hours KNOX was together with DIYA in the apartment where the victim was.

KNOX, in the statement made today has, in the end, confessed the dynamics of the committed crimes against KERCHER: the accused, in fact, first claimed to have met with DIYA, as communicated to him with the text message found in the phone memory of her cell phone by the operating Postal Police, text message sent at 20:35 in reply to a text message from DIYA sent at 20:18, detected thanks to the analysis of the phone traffic related to KNOX.

This last text message is not present in the cell phone memory.

KNOX in her witness statement from today has then confessed that, meeting DIYA in the basketball court of Piazza Grimana, she went together with DIYA to Meredith’s house, where DIYA, after having sex with the victim, killed her.

The sexual intercourse must be deemed violent in nature considering the particularly threatening context in which it took place and in which KNOX has surely aided DIYA.

In addition to this it should be pointed out that KNOX, in her spontaneous declarations from today, has consistently confirmed to have contacted DIYA, to have met with him on the night between November 1st and 2nd and to have gone with him to the apartment where the victim lived. She then said that she stayed outside of Meredith’s room while DIYA set apart with her and also added that she heard the girl’s screams.

KNOX reported details that confirm her own and Sollecito Raffaele’s involvement in the events, like the fact that after the events she woke up in the bed of the latter.

As far as the essential facts against SOLLECITO there are numerous verifiable inconsistencies in his first declarations, in respect to the last ones and the fact that, from a first inspection, the print of the shoe found on SOLLECITO appears to be compatible in its shape with the one found on the crime scene.

Moreover, there is the fact that KNOX claimed to not remember what happened between the victim’s screams up until she woke up in the morning in SOLLECITO’s bed, who was also found in possession of a flick knife that could abstractly be compatible for dimension and type (general length of 18cm, of which 8,5 blade), with the object that must have produced the most serious injury to the victim’s neck.

Having considered all the elements described and all converging findings of the intense and detailed investigations conducted after the discovery of Kercher’s body and culminating with the confession and indicated complicity of DIYA, also known as “Patrick” by KNOX, there is substantial serious evidence of the crimes for which we are proceeding to allow the detention, given the limits of the sentence.

Likewise there must be considered a founded and valid danger of flight especially for DIYA since he is a non-EU citizen and in consideration of the specific seriousness and brutality of the crimes, especially that of sexual violence and the possibility of the infliction of a particularly heavy sentence.

In regards to KNOX she has shown a particular ruthlessness in lying repeatedly to the investigators and in involving in such a serious event the young SOLLECITO.

Having regard to Art.384 comma 1 c.p.p.

ORDERS

The detention of DIYA Lumumba, KNOX Amanda Marie and SOLLECITO Raffaele, already identified, and to be taken to the local District Prison.

We proceed to request validation of the detention in the separate document.

Forward to the Secretary area of authority with regard to recognition of Diya Lumumba and Amanda Marie Knox, born in Washington (USA) on 07/09/1987, based in Perugia, Via della Pergola 7, and Raffaele Sollecito, also already identified.

Perugia, November 6th 2007, h.8,40

PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

(DR. GIULIANO MIGNINI)

2. The Context Of The Arrests

Knox had turned up at the central police station unannounced, apparently to keep tabs on RS. After a delay in finding something for her to do, and in getting the interpreter by her side, she sat with Rita Ficarra building a list of possible perps with phone numbers and residences on maps.

Having been told in a rather low-key way that Sollecito had just said she was not with him on the fateful night for several hours, and she had made him lie (see the post just below), there was a tension-filled pregnant pause while Knox apparently racked her brains for a Plan B.

By 1.45 AM, having explosively fingered Patrick when a message to him fortuitously showed up on her mobile phone, and after considerable spontaneous chatter, she had insisted on writing and signing this statement.

Three hours later Dr Mignini had arrived and discussed this development with others. Then he advised Knox of her rights, including the right to have her lawyer there.

Heedless of that advice, after more spontaneous chatter (actually referred to in the arrest warrant below), Knox insisted on writing and signing this statement while all the court officers sat idly by.

Monday, March 09, 2015

The Meredith Case Wiki Now Has The Key Sollecito Statement 6 Nov 2007 In Full

Posted by Our Main Posters

Perugia’s central police station where Sollecito made the statement posted here


The ever-expanding Wiki can of course be found here.

A post follows soon with guidance to the numerous new documents it contains. This was an extremely well documented case with discussions carefully recorded and decisions explained every step of the way.

We have frequently noted for example that RS and AK were provided with an extraordinary total of SIX opportunities in 2007 and 2008 to head off a trial and to be released.

Each opportunity is very well documented (Matteini hearings, Ricciarelli hearings, Mignini hearings, Supreme Court rulings, and the two Micheli rulings) and the transcripts and reports make very clear why RS and AK failed each time.

Not one of those transcripts or rulings has been “explained” or rebutted by the RS and AK apologists. It is very clear now that their falsifying efforts are being left way back there in the dust.

Document after document after document proving the case is going live in English for which they have been able to create no response.  For example, the “brutal” Knox “interrogation” on 6 November is absolutely vital to their body of claims.

But document after document has shown that to be simply a huge hoax.  Dumb silence is the only response.

This new translation of Sollecito’s statement of 6 November 2007 in the central police station, complete for the first time, has just gone live on the Wiki here. As always, we sure appreciate the translation help.

Note: Many of the claims here were proved wrong by phone and computer records and those dropping Knox in the soup contradict claims by Knox.

Sollecito never agreed to testify or be cross-examined on this or many other statements . Smart move, from his point of view. At the same time from 20007 to 2016 Sollecito NEVER testified that Knox was simply at his home all of the 5 November 2007 night. 

Perugia Police Headquarters
Flying Squad
General Affairs Area.

SUBJECT: Witness statement of person informed of the facts given by SOLLECITO Raffaele, already identified.

On November 5th 2007 at 22:40 in the offices of the Flying Squad of the Perugia Police Headquarters. Before the undersigned of the Criminal Investigation Dept. Deputy Commissioner MONICA NAPOLEONI, Chief Inspector Antonio FACCHINI Vice Superintendent of Police Daniele MOSCATELLI, Assistant Chief Ettore FUOCO is present the above-mentioned who, to supplement the declarations made [November] in these Offices, in regards to the facts being investigated, declares as follows: [*A.D.R. = Question Answer = QA]

QA I have known Amanda for about two weeks. From the night that I met her she started sleeping at my house. On November 1st, I woke up at around 11, I had breakfast with Amanda then she went out and I went back to bed. Then around 13:00-14:00 I met her at her house again. Meredith was there too. Amanda and I had lunch while Meredith did not have lunch with us.

QA Around 16:00 Meredith left in a hurry without saying where she was going. Amanda and I stayed home until about 17:30-18:00.

QA We left the house, we went into town, but I don’t remember what we did.
QA We stayed there from 18:00 until 20:30/21:00. At 21:00 I went home alone because Amanda told me that she was going to go to the pub Le Chic because she wanted to meet some friends.

QA At this point we said goodbye and I headed home while she headed towards the center.

QA I went home alone, sat at the computer and rolled myself a spliff. Surely I had dinner but I don’t remember what I ate. Around 23:00 my father called at my home number 075.9660789. During that time I remember Amanda had not come back yet.

QA I browsed at my computer for another two hours after my father’s phone call and only stopped when Amanda came back presumably around 1:00.

QA I don’t remember how she was dressed and if she was dressed the same way as when we said goodbye before dinner.

QA I don’t remember if we had sex that night.

QA The following morning around 10:00 we woke up, she told me she wanted to go home and take a shower and change clothes.

QA In fact at around 10:30 she went out and I went back to sleep. When she went out that morning to go to her house, Amanda also took an empty bag telling me she needed it for dirty clothes.

QA At around 11:30 she came back home and I remember she had changed clothes; she had her usual bag with her.

QA I don’t know the contents of her bag.

QA I remember we immediately went to the kitchen, we sat down and talked for a while, perhaps we had breakfast. In that circumstance Amanda told me that when she got to her house she found the entrance door wide open and some traces of blood in the small bathroom and she asked me if it sounded strange. I answered that it did and I also advised her to call her housemates. She said she had called Filomena but that Meredith was not answering.

QA At around 12:00 we left the house; passing through Corso Garibaldi we arrived in Piazza Grimana, then we went through the Sant’ Antonio parking lot and reached Amanda’s house. To walk there it took us about 10 minutes.

QA As soon as we got there she opened the door with her keys, I went in and I noticed that Filomena’s door was wide open with some glass on the floor and her room was in a complete mess. The door to Amanda’s room was open and I noticed that it was tidy. Then I went towards Meredith’s door and saw that it was locked. Before this I looked to see if it was true what Amanda had told me about the blood in the bathroom and I noticed drops of blood in the sink, while on the mat there was something strange - a mixture of blood and water, while the rest of the bathroom was clean.

QA I went to the kitchen and saw that everything was in order, then went around the rest of the house, I went to Laura’s room and noticed it was tidy. In that moment Amanda went inside the big bathroom, next to the kitchen and came out frightened and hugging me tight telling me that earlier, when she took the shower, she had seen feces inside the toilet, while now the toilet was clean. QA I just took a rapid glance at the bathroom trusting what Amanda had told me.

QA At that point I was asking myself what could have happened and I went out to find Meredith’s window to see if I could climb to it. I went outside with Amanda and she tried to climb to it, I immediately stopped her telling her to not do it because it was dangerous. I then told Amanda that the best solution was to break down the door, I tried to kick it and shoulder it open but I didn’t manage to open it. Then I called my sister on her cellphone and asked her what I should do since she is a Carabinieri lieutenant. My sister told me to call the Carabinieri (112, the Italian emergency number), which I did, but in the meantime the Postal Police showed up.

QA 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. I heard the first statements that she made to the Postal Police who intervened at the place.

QA She always carried a big bag that she also had the night of November 1st.

The investigating officials acknowledge that the deposition ends at 3:30 (AM) of November 6th 2007.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

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.

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.

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” #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.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Sollecito Suddenly Remembers He Wasnt There But Cannot Speak For Knox Who (As She Said) Went Out

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. The State Of Play

Sollecito is becoming intent again on digging himself out (really). But he and his own team have created definite problems.

Consider for example the last two public performances by Raffaele Sollecito’s defense, both in Florence. They consisted of:

1. Giulia Bongiorno in her summation back in January, in Florence, at the tail-end of RS’s and AK’s appeal, ranting on foolishly about Perugia and Rome justice officials, in an apparent attempt to outdo even the nastiness of Amanda Knox’s earlier email to Judge Nencini which also ranted on foolishly about those officials.

2. Giulia Bongiorno fooishly taking strong offense to Judge Nencini wondering why Sollecito remained soomewhat bound to Knox and so little forthcoming, and then Bongiorno foolishly having her political allies advance a complaint to the Supreme Council of Magistrates, dropped after a brief investigation.

Yes that is the same Judge Nencini who already reacted firmly to abrasive pressure from the Knox camp.  And the same Judge Nencini to whom Cassation MUST refer the case back down if there is to be any hope of adjustment of the outcome of the appeal.

Bongiorno’s were not exactly the smartest of moves.

3. Today’s New Development

An apparent u-turn, or at least a blink and slight deviation, in the suicidal game of chicken the Knox and Sollecito camps have long thought to be so smart.

Bongiorno or others very close to Sollecito, probably including his father and an aunt, seem to be again shooting for an additional degree of separation.

This familiar loosening of bonds with Amanda Knox was apparently explicit in his appeal to Cassation and today it is made slightly more explicit by Sollecito in a magazine interview.

And next Tuesday the Sollecito team will stage a press conference.

2. Fraught With Problems

The Sollecitos would be wise to bump up their plea to Cassation about 100-fold.  Substantial evidence that Sollecito was at the house still looms like an 80,000 pound gorilla - see a listing of it in one of our next posts.

And one key thing about the Italian system: it has immense capacity to hit back very hard in response to out-of-court pressure and attempts to poison public opinion.

As we have explained previously, these strong powers originate in the endless fight against the mafias, which have long used defamation of justice officials as a way of seeking some relief for their guys.

The reason why Knox is sentenced to 28 and a half years on top of her three years served for calunnia doesnt yet seem to have sunk into the slow minds of Knox or her family or her vigilantes..

But Sollecito is increasingly alive to the ability of Italian justice to hit back very hard when the justice system and its officials are impugned.

Yesterday Sollecito and his lawyer Alfredo Brizioli were being interviewed for the multiple false charges of crimes in Honor Bound The book is pretty horrific and new charges seem certain.

The foolish shadow-writer Andrew Gumbel has surfaced, and appointed a lawyer, and is expected to join him.

Our guess? Sollecito will need to tell all, and make a major plea for forgiveness from the Kerchers, if any adults with real powers are to give him any break.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Incriminating Bathroom Evidence: Visual Analysis shows the Footprint IS Sollecito’s

Posted by Machiavelli

[Please click on each image for a larger and more high-resolution version]

The sheer depth and width of the hard evidence

The defenses really don’t want you to know this: in both width and depth, the full panoply of the evidence against Knox and Sollecito is absolutely overwhelming.

As we remarked in our post below there are far more and far stronger evidence points than UK and US courts normally require for conviction. But only the trial panel of judges observed anything like their full array.

The 2010 Massei Trial Report (which the Nencini Appeal court validated this past January) is a SUMMARY of what was presented to the judges in the courtroom.  Those presentations in court were in turn something of a SUMMARY of the hard evidence buried in all the evidence files and the minds of witnesses.

Italian media SUMMARISED for Italians what was to be seen in the courtroom and to be read in the Massei Report. They were barely able to do even summaries for the 1/4 of all the trial hearings that were not open to the media or the public. 

UK and US media for the most part didn’t even bother to provide comprehensive summaries (the very fine on-the-spot reportings of Andrea Vogt, Barbie Nadeau and Ann Wise were the main exceptions).

So in effect people in the UK and US attempting to follow the story didnt for the most part receive even a summary of a summary of a summary!

Not one US or UK newspaper or TV network translated the Micheli Report, or the vital Massei Report, or the Supreme Court appeal, or the Supreme Court outcome - only the (mostly professional) translators on PMF dot Org did all that translation.

This post is another example of how far down - beyond even Massei - it’s possible to drill into the evidence, and see it still hold up.

Some past posts on TJMK drilled down to similar depths, on the knives, on the DNA, on the mixed-blood traces, on the phone-events, on the motives and psychologies, and so on. All that evidence too all held up.

Visual analysis of the bathroom-mat footprint

This post mainly consists of high-resolution pictures and measurements. Presented like this, the pictures and measurements largely speak for themselves, and show the real strength of the bathroom-mat footprint evidence.

You will see that as SomeAlibi previously concluded using other methods, this footprint was quite undeniably Sollecito’s.  It bears no similarity at all to Rudy Guede’s.

Please click on all images for larger versions in scalable PDF format

1 .  [Below] the bathmat and the print, with measurement reference

2 . The bathmat print and the surrounding area

3 . The bathmat print (photo from Polizia Scientifica).

4 . The bathmat print, with vertical and horizontal sizes, from Rinaldi’s report

5. The bathmat print, photo with enhanced contrast.

The photo above was modified by highly enhancing contrast.

6 . Enhanced contrast helps to spot some features

Contrast may help to highlight especially some parts of the print outline.

For example the area on the left labeled as “important area” in the picture (which was “forgotten” in the notorious photo elaborations disseminated by the ‘Friends of Amanda’ group), shows the actual left outline of the “˜big toe’ of the bathmat print.

The toe includes the area indicated in this picture (here the picture is shown again in its original colours).

7. The bathmat, with enhanced contrast

The contrasted image is showing the presence of other stains

There are other stains on the carpet (about another 10, factually situated in one half of the mat area), and also there shows a second diluted footprint (apparently from a foot of smaller size).

8. The selection of a set of red colour shades, outlined by an automatic outline generator

Shows the shape and the possible “˜outline’ of the stain

Reference measurements indicate the width of the “˜big toe’ in millimetres.

 

9 . A hand drawing of the outline (detail).

The photography above was modified

The modifications are: +28% contrast, -8% luminosity, + 20% colour saturation, from the original.

An outline has been drawn manually on the photoshop image, trying to be as faithful as possible to the actual stain.

You can notice that, apart from some minor “˜disputable’ very faint areas (such as the area between the toe and the metatarsus) there are only minimal differences between an automatically generated outline and a manually drawn one.

The shapes of the “˜big toe’ are extremely similar in both contours (images 8 and 9), in fact all meaningful features are basically identical.

We consider this manually drawn outline as good for comparison.     

10 . The complete hand-drawn outline

11 . Minor detail: small dots separated from the main stain

Observe the small red ‘dots’ in the picture above

Although we can’t draw any conclusion about their possible significance, we note the existence of these very small “˜spots’ of a faint red colour shade, separated from the big stain.

They are detected by the computer generated outline above, and that we also see as distinguishable with the naked eye thus we considered them in drawing manually the outline.

We don’t draw any conclusion about them; but because of their sensitive position (they may suggest a “˜small toe’ mark) we take note of them.

The green arrows in the picture point out their position (green circles).

12 . An image in electronically modified colours

Distribution and intensity of the colouration

As a part of the preliminary study of the stain, we also produced this image above where the computer assigned an artificial colour to an array of shades of ‘red’, thus allowing to further isolate the stain from the background for further assessments about its shape.

This picture shows the distribution and intensity of the colouration. (note: the existence of some above mentioned tiny marks is recorded by this technique too)

13 . The bathmat has a spiral-shaped relief decoration

The footprint’s toe obviously balancing on top of the relief decoration. 

We think the outline of the “˜toe’ mark of the bloody footprint is affected by the shape of the decoration, in particular the missing part of the toe on the right side, which is remarkably coincident with the margin of the decoration. 

So that on that side there is a striking correspondence between the outline of the “˜negative area’ ““ the fabric surface around the spiral, which is lower ““ and the big toe’s outline

This indicates that the outline of that mark on that side was affected by the decoration margin, thus the print there has a “˜missing part’. So the “˜crooked’ bloody area in fact follows the margin of a larger toe.

Because of such coincidence, we can logically assume that the actual shape of the big toe mark appears to be part of a big toe, with larger surface which left its print only partly because part of its surface did not have contact with the fabric, in correspondence of the “˜negative area’. 

14. The “negative area”

15. Mat decoration in relief and the toe mark

Observe above one single, unitary stain

The remarkable coincidence between the outlines of the decoration in relief and of the toe mark is shown in the picture above.

The rough contour of the print obtained through a smooth curve highlights the shape of the big toe.

Part of the relief decoration outline coincides with the toe mark outline, which shows, highlights and explains how all parts of the red toe mark, that you can see left of the relief decoration, they all belong to one single, unitary stain. 

Thus we can deduce that the “missing” area on the right of the toe is determined by the decoration, and coincides with the negative area.

16. Picture (by Kermit) showing a rough shape of the stain

Observe shape, curvature and size

This drawing by Kermit above highlights the rough shape, curvature of left margin and overall size of the big toe.

17. Rudy Guede’s sample print

Take note of this image

A copy of this picture together with one of Sollecito’s print at the same scale will be used for comparisons. 

18 . Raffaele Sollecito’s sample print

Take note of this image

A copy of this picture together with one of Guede’s print at the same scale will be used for comparisons.

19. Part of Rudy Guede’s sample print with Rinaldi’s reference measurements

20. Part of Sollecito’s sample print, with Rinaldi’s reference measurements:

21. Bringing all photographs down to the same scale

An accurate exercise of scaling was done

This was based on Rinaldi’s referenced pictures. Each one of the Rinaldi’s sample pictures has multiple measurements on several points of reference which allow a high precision determination of their scale and sizes, and thus comparison at the same scale.

In order to further increase scaling precision, the scale was calculated previously and separately for each comparative measurement in the three photos; this was done multiple times for each measurement and the average was picked in order to reduce error as for statistical measurement method.

The resulting final error in the scale is extremely small, far below a threshold of significance that could affect comparison (which was set arbitrarily at 1%, but it’s probably significantly higher, while the actual error is much lower).

In other words, the scale error that may affect your screen pictures will be definitely smaller than any possible perceivable (either significant or tolerated) difference that would be noticed or that may affect the attribution of the stain, when this is compared to the sample.     

22. The hand drawn outline is shown again here

23 . The outline (matched scale) overlapped on Sollecito’s sample footprint

The array of compatibilities with Sollecito

The bathmat stain does not seem to have major incompatibilities with Sollecito’s print; it shows rather an array of compatibilities that can be perceived visually.

One interesting feature is the shape, size and position of a ‘big toe’, that appears as a remarkable coincidence; the toe also has a kind of cleft (see 28 below) on the curvature of its left margin. Another outstanding coincidence is the curvature of the plantar arch on the left.   

24 . The same outline overlapped on Guede’s footprint

Compare with Guede’s - matched scale.

If you look at the overlapping of the stain outline (see pic 22.) with the sample of Guede’s print (see pics 17. 19.), you may notice 7 major differences, showing a failure of compatibility. Those differences are indicated by numbers (1-7) in the picture .

Each one indicates an area of major difference between the outline of the bathmat stain and the outline of Guede’s sample print. Those measurement differences are remarkably larger than those that can be detected on the overlapping with Sollecito’s sample print.

On the other hand, the compatibility between Sollecito’s print and some very peculiar aspects of the bathmat print (such as a 30mm wide and short toe) were absolutely remarkable.   

The differences between the bathmat stain and Guede’s print are :

1) Toe mark of stain is significantly SHORTER than the big toe in Guede’s sample print (a difference of about 7 millimetres). Some people may want to attempt an objection, by suggesting that such a difference may be just a consequence of the position chosen for the overlapping, that maybe the bathmat print was just positioned too low in the picture, the problem may be solved by shifting it up about 7 millimeters so as to make the tip of the bathmat toe ‘coincide’ with the tip of Guede’s print toe.

However, such objection wouldn’t work; it’s a wrong argument. In fact the only possibly correct position for overlapping the bathmat stain outline is determined by the left curvature of the ball of feet and plantar arch (the area of the picture near number 6), which is by the way the most clearly outlined part of the bathmat stain. If you shift the bathmat stain upwards, the outline will miss the match with the curvature of the left margin of the ball of the feet. You will notice that the plantar arch in this area is already very incompatible with Guede’s plantar arch. It tends to become even more incompatible the more you shift the bathmat stain outline towards the toe.

The problem has no solution, since the more you shift the stain outline upwards (in the direction of the toe) in an attempt to make it look more ‘compatible’ with the length of Guede’s toe (or with an upper margin) the more it will become incompatible with the plantar arch. In order to limit the incompatibility of the plantar arch, and in order to keep an overlapping of at least the left margin of the ball of the feet, you need to place it as shown in the picture, this is the position of ‘maximum’ compatibility between the bathmat stain and Guede’s print. Conclusion: the bathmat toe is too short.     

2) Toe mark of stain is TOO WIDE (30 mm). It is much wider (30 mm) than Guede’s toe.  The number 2. indicates the protruding mark at the upper right, the mark which Giulia Bongiorno desperately insisted on calling a “second toe” mark. In fact, not only would the mark miss completely any hypothetical Guede’s ‘second toe’ in any possible position of the print; also you may notice (highlighted by pics 8. and 9.) how it is not a “mark” itself, but actually it just part of the same area which is entirely continuous in shape and coloration with the rest of the toe mark, and - the most remarkable feature - its right outline is coincident with the outline of the spiral-shaped relief decoration, so that you can reasonably conclude that it is determined by that (the missing area at the lower right of the ‘big toe’ is determined by the existence of the “negative area” of the bathmat decoration).

Conclusion: the bathmat stain has a wider toe mark, however one likes to call it (“big toe”, or “big toe + second toe”) that fails to match any possible part of Guede’s print. The bathmat print is clearly different and incompatible with Guede’s print. It simply cannot be overlapped to any part of Guede’s sample print. Such area is a very significant difference that points outright to incompatibility between the stain and Guede’s print.

3) The toe mark is larger also in the area located at the lower portion of the toe. The toe of the bathmat print in fact has a ‘right margin’ which actually has some additional small marks, small drops protruding towards the right, like droplets maybe produced by the wet cotton fibres of the part in relief which protrude towards the right. This tends to suggest the toe area of the stain may in fact be considered wider: the object that produced it was definitely wider than 22mm, in this area of the toe as well. So also a look at this area confirms that the bathmat stain is wider than 22-23 mm (more towards 30 mm) not just when measured at the upper corner (number 2.) but also at its “lower” parts; here, the small marks caused by the liquid suggest that a larger surface has squeezed liquid from some fabric threads leaving some trace also on the lower area.

4) Bigger incompatibility of Guede on the metatarsus front outline. This area is the front outline of metatarsus: the stain is almost 1cm shorter than Guede’s metatarsus. This happens when you chose the overlapping so as to make the left outline and plantar arch (6.) of metatarsus coincide, as in the picture. Sollecito’s sample print also shows some difference from the stain in this area (pic. 23.) but the difference between the stain and Sollecito’s print is significantly smaller than what you can see in Guede’s print.   

5) There are NO SMALL TOES in the bathmat stain. Small toes are completely absent from the bathmat stain (while the tiny blood marks around the stain don’t coincide with their expected position if it was Guede’s print). Such lack of small toes is a peculiarity of the bathmat print. This is a remarkable difference from Guede’s print, and at the same time, a considerable analogy with Sollecito’s print. In fact one outstanding feature of Guede’s print is the evidence that Guede places a big load of weight on his small toes while instead Sollecito has a posture with a weight distribution with the contrary tendency, and obviously he almost does not touch the ground with his small toes.

Thus, Guede’s small toes are all very well pressed on the ground and thus, we can reasonably infer they are somehow naturally likely to get wet if he steps on any wet surface, and anyway they should get wet for sure if the foot is immersed in water or washed (the foot that left the bathmat print must have been immersed in bloody water). The murderer supposedly washed his foot then stepped on the bathmat. In order to attribute the print to Guede we should assume that Guede “forgot” to touch the carpet with his small toes (while instead he puts a lot of weight on them) or that he managed to not rinse them.

6) The outline of the stain has a PLANTAR ARCH that COINCIDES, by curvature and angle, with the plantar arch in Sollecito’s print, while instead it is very different from the plantar arch of Guede’s print. 

7) The stain is larger than Guede’s print metatarsus as visible in the right area of the stain. The difference is rather significant, almost half a centimetre, that is bigger than the difference with Sollecito’s print which instead coincides for a trait. This difference cannot be “solved” in any way since, even if one wanted to claim that the scale is wrong and that the stain should be sized down, this would make the toe, already too short (as in 1.) become even shorter.

If instead the toe length is adjusted the metatarsus becomes even less compatible with Guede. We recall that Massei found that Guede’s feet had a print overall more slender than Sollecito’s. 

25 . Other features:

Curvatures of plantar arch are very different

The plantar arch curvature, highlighted in two different drawings (the second highlights also the upper outline “hunches”);  the plantar arches in the two sample prints of Sollecito and Guede are shown below. The curvatures of plantar arch are very different.

26. The outline curvature generates different angles

Sollecito’s and Guede’s plantar arch curvatures have very different angles. Also the left outline of metatarsus maintains a different curvature. Sollecito’s outline has an angle (see outline tangent) intersecting the toe (the metatarsus has a “bunion”); in Guede’s print there is basically no intersection, the outline and the toe form almost a straight line.

27 . Plantar arch curvature angle differs between Sollecito and Guede

If you consider the vertical axis of the sample footprint, and its orthogonal line, you may notice how the plantar arch curvatures of the two prints accomplish different angles: the two angles are VERY different, not just three or four degrees.

The (too) narrow angle of Sollecito’s plantar arch probably has a relation with the protruding outline and angle seen in pic 26., and seems related to a hallux valgus (which Guede does not have). 

28 . The “cleft” on the left side of the stain

The “cleft” on the left side

This has a correspondence with one sample print, not so with the other.

29 . Table of metric comparison (by SomeAlibi)

SomeAlibi’s post of a year ago

Comparison of measurements and analysis of correspondence degree of bathmat print, with both Guede’s and Sollecito’s sample prints.

Monday, March 03, 2014

As Knox & Sollecito Try To Separate Themselves, Each Is Digging The Other In Deeper

Posted by willsavive

1. Sollecito Blabs Yet Again

One of an increasingly long list of “gotchas” for the prosecution, flowing from their tendencies to talk way, way too much. 

In a recent exclusive interview on an Italian TV news broadcast, Sollecito said he has several “unanswered questions” for his former girlfriend, Amanda Knox.

“You all know that the focus was only through Amanda to her behavior, to her peculiar behaviour, but whatever it is, I’m not guilty for it. “Why do they convict me? Why do put me on the corner and say that I’m guilty just because in their minds I have to be guilty because I was her boyfriend. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

This adds yet another waiver to the many different explanations Sollecito provided over the years about the same details.

In their “official” story, in the part that remained consistent, Knox and Sollecito both claimed that Knox left his flat the morning after Kercher’s murder and returned home, where she noticed the door left wide open and witnessed blood spots in the bathroom.

Knox claimed that she found it odd and just assumed that one of her roommates was menstruating and left blood behind. She proceeded to take a shower and returned to Sollecito’s flat and ate breakfast.

2. Telling Narrative Change

“Certainly I asked her questions,” Sollecito explained in his latest interview. “Why did she take a shower? Why did she spend so much time there?” When asked what responses he had for these question Sollecito replied, “I don’t have answers.”

In the interview, Sollecito said Knox left his apartment to take a shower, then returned hours later looking “very agitated.”

Yet, in an interview with Kate Mansey on 4 November 2007 just two days after the murder, and two days prior to arrest, Sollecito said:

But when she went into the bathroom she saw spots of blood all over the bath and sink. That’s when she started getting really afraid and ran back to my place because she didn’t want to go into the house alone.

3. RS Differs Sharply From Knox

This is a far cry from what Knox said in her email also dated 4 November 2007 to friends and family, Knox wrote:

I returned to raffael’s place. after we had used the mop to clean up the kitchen i told raffael about what i had seen in the house over breakfast. the strange blood in the bathroom, the door wide open, the shit left in the toilet. he suggested i call one of my roommates, so I called filomena.” (6th paragraph).

The discrepancies between Knox’s version and Sollecito’s version is strikingly different.

• Raffele claims Knox was visibly distraught when she returned and that this was the focus of discussion (i.e. being the first thing they discussed).


• Knox claims that she did not even bring up the bizarre circumstances back at her apartment until “after” they finished mopping the kitchen floor.

4. My Analysis Of The Above

In his latest statement, Sollecito is clearly trying to distance himself from Knox, believing that there is far more evidence against her than against him. But:

• Sollecito forgets to mention the bloody barefoot prints at Knox’s apartment, found to be in Kercher’s blood attributed to him.


• Also the knife found in his apartment that scientists say was the murder weapon.


• Also his DNA found on Meredith Kercher’s bra that was found in her room, even though Sollecito claims that he was never ever in that room.


• Also his own strange behavior, which includes providing a false alibi (saying he and Knox were at a party with a friend on the night of the murder).

Also several conflicting other versions.

But what’s there to question if you [Raffaele] were with Knox the whole day and night of Meredith Kercher’s murder?

It appears as though Sollecito is alluding to the notion that he knows something far more than he is saying; yet, he is being very careful with his words””only providing us with a hint of this.

His latest statement is a clear attempt to distance himself from Knox.

5. Sollecito Freaks Out On Twitter

Sollecito appeared on Twitter recently, for what he claimed was to answer questions and clear his name.

He was very outspoken of his innocence and had no problem in his witty, sarcastic responses to those who questioned his innocence.

However, when I asked him about the Mansey interview he denied claiming that he was with Knox at a friend’s party on the night of the murder [huh?!].

Sollecito disappeared for a couple of days, came back to Twitter writing only in Italian, and ceased responding to any more questions.

Is it possible that Sollecito will turn on Knox altogether at some point when the pressure mounts over the next year? Guess we’ll have to wait and see”¦

Cross-posted from Savive’s Corner

Friday, February 14, 2014

Hard Questions By Italian Journalist Giuseppe Castellini For Sollecito

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: Giuseppe Castellini of Giornale dell Umbria has long exposed the Knox/Sollecito lies]

1. Overview Of Italian Media Takes

The fast-growing satires of Knox and Sollecito in Italy described in our previous post are not just emerging in a vacuum. 

The many tough crime-show comperes and crime reporters in Italy have rarely let Knox or Sollecito get away with any of their lies. One example was when Bruno Vespa, the host of Porta a Porta, Italy’s most popular crime show, forced Francesco Sollecito to admit to Italy that his son lied extensively in Honor Bound. Another example is when Oggi published some of Knox’s lies and they were rapidly exposed. For seemingly endorsing Knox’s lies Oggi will face trial for obstruction of justice. 

There are countless other examples where Sollecito and Knox have been exposed as liars. The super-sharp editor of the Giornale dell Umbria, Giuseppe Castellini, has just published this challenge to Sollecito who had absurdly had claimed that nobody ever wanted to ask him any questions in court.

2. Giuseppe Castellini Questions RS

The translation is by Miriam. 

Murder of Meredith:  a few questions for Raffaele Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito, found guilty and condemned to 25 years by the Appeals Court of Florence, for the murder of the English student Meredith Kercher (for the same crime Amanda Knox was also found guilty and Rudy Guede is already serving a definite sentence of 16 years) has stated that he was never questioned in court, because no one ever asked him.

For the record and in order to have a complete picture at, it should be remembered that during the investigation, Sollecito twice took advantage of his right to not respond to the questions of the PM Mignini.

So if it’s true that the prosecutors, in all the trials never asked to question him in court, neither did he ask to be, limiting himself to giving several times making spontaneous statements, without being cross examined.

However, this is not the real point. The fact is that Raffaele could not or did not want to respond to the questions of the investigators.

His version was always brought forth in detail by his lawyers, obviously, but that is not the same thing.

Important questions remain to which Raffaele did not answer directly during cross examination by the Prosecutors.  Let’s try to summarize some crucial unanswered ones. Who knows if Raffaele will ever decide to respond in detail right here on these pages even though ““ at the moment ““ it seems improbable. We address him directly, sure that he reads these pages.

1. The first time that you were questioned in Questura you said that the first of November 2007 (Meredith was murdered the night between the first and the second of November) after a walk through downtown Perugia (before that you and Amanda have been in the house in via della Pergola). You came home around 08.00pm while Amanda come back much later around 01.00am, you then changed your version saying that you had always been together.  Your first statement seem like a distancing from Amanda, in those hours nobody knows what she did, while the second one has a complete different flavor.  Why did you radically changed your version?

2. It’s proved by the findings (even if your lawyers contested it) that the computer in your house was activated for about half an hour from 05.32am till little after 06.00am of the second of November.  For the experts of the Police it was certainly a human interaction.  You, instead declare that you and Amanda were sleeping.  So who was it then that was using your PC at that hour? 

3. Your and Amanda’s cell phones were turned off at the same time around 08.40pm of the first of November and they were turned on, practically at the same time, a little after 06.00am of the second of November (at that time you received the “good night” sms sent from your father the night before).  How do you explain all this? 

4. You stated that you were not in the house in via della Pergola.  How it is possible that your DNA is on the bra clasp (17 loci that shows your genetic profile, and for the father of Italian genetics, Prof. Vescovi, that with the current processes are not only enough, but more than enough to match your DNA).  And why did luminol revealed a bare right foot print compatible with yours, in addition to the one on the bathmat in the small bathroom? (the size of the big toe, just to point out one thing, is just like yours, while Rudy’s is a lot smaller).

5. Why, if Rudy was the only assassin, in the corridor would he cancel only the bare foot prints, leaving in plain sight always his, but left with the shoe print of his left foot?  Doesn’t it come to mind that whoever cleaned up the prints thought to cancel theirs (specifically the ones ascribed to you and Amanda) leaving behind those recognizable as Rudy’s?

6. You and Amanda were seen by the homeless Antonio Curatolo late the night of the murder and Amanda was seen by the shopkeeper ““ that knew you well and already saw you with Amanda ““ enter in the shop at about 07.45am to buy something and go back toward piazza Grimana.  You and Amanda say that at that hour you were sleeping in your house. Is there something that can demonstrate this, that up to now has slipped away and that would give you the missing alibi?

3. Questions For RS Of Our Own

We have advanced plenty of questions for the evasive Sollecito of our own. Here are seven examples.

• Questions For Sollecito  Do You Stand By Your Smear Of Reasonable Doubt In Italian Law?


• Questions For Sollecito Why Claim Guede Did It Alone When Vast Evidence Contradicts That?


• Questions For Sollecito Why So Many Contradictory Explanations Of How DNA Got On The Knife?


• Questions For Sollecito Did Your Father & Lawyers Pre-Approve This Crazed Rant?


• Questions For Sollecito Can You Realistically Account For The Hard Evidence On The Bathroom Mat?


• Questions For Sollecito Katie Couric, Push Back Against Sollecito’s Bluster And False Facts #2


• Questions For Sollecito Katie Couric, Push Back Against Sollecito’s Bluster And False Facts #1