Knox Calunnia Trial #2: Testimony In Florence Court Today By Some Accused By Amanda Knox Of Crimes

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Not that this will swing the trial, which as usual will be based on hard facts with Knox herself presumably most welcome to testify (right Ghirga and DV?) as she is her only witness here.

But this is Knox’s ongoing context/brand problem in a nutshell: Italy knows the real Knox brand better than almost everyone in the US, and it is not because of Italian media, Italians again and again got to hear directly from Knox herself.

The Knox brand the US saw courtesy of a million-dollar PR campaign: Smart, diligent, loyal, very naive, very hard working, achieves a lot, avoids drugs and sex, a good friend to everyone, wouldnt hurt a fly.

The Knox brand that Italy saw and still sees, courtesy of Knox herself: Lazy, brash, often dishonest, a self-absorbed narcissist, a druggie and sexaholic, often smelly and unhygienic, callous, flippant, wears out welcomes fast.

Knox’s own family seems to have pressured her into <a href=“http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C821/”>broadcasting her brand<a> against good legal advice to basically shut up, and like a train on tracks, brand two won out.

Napoleoni was mostly with Sollecito elsewhere on 5-6 Nov and did not talk to or hear from Knox direct.

Zugarini sat with Knox throughout the list-building session with Rita Ficarra, even longer than interpreter Anna Donnino.

Her translated testimony is here:

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/the_knox_interrogation_hoax_7_zugarini/

Article today in the Guardian (UK) re the legal reasoning behind the aqcuittals of Knox and Sollecito.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/07/amanda-knox-acquitted-because-of-stunning-flaws-in-investigation

Thanks gabster1971

Very similar to the Italian media report linked to at top which also said something about the ECHR. No mention of the calunnia trial or any explanation of all this:

http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmkmasterevidencelist

Interestingly, Inspector Zugarini states in the prior testimony, as you referenced in the comment above:

LZ:  I went down[stairs]. In the meantime, however, I noted that Amanda, while she was there, was an extremely relaxed person, and I even felt very upset/ill because at a certain point she suddenly did the splits there in the corridor.

Being laid back is a typical sociopath trait.  Most people would have been respectful in a questura, even slightly nervous.

Her witnessed condition of being “very relaxed”, contradicts her own claim of being intimidated and confused.

This in an email from Yummi seems to suggest muchos trouble down the road as numerous prosecutors and past judges react.

According to news, Cassazione says there’s reasonable doubt, but no doubt on Knox’s guilt of calunnia, says the calunnia conviction is safe even in the (remote) event that ECHR finds a violation of Knox’s rights.

The Cassazione puts the blame for doubt on the investigators, but the shocking thing seems that it appears to link to false allegations from the defence recourse, not to facts.

Says the computer HD were not recoverable, for example, which is false. It is also false that Knox’s computer could be decisive evidence.

Another incredible fact is that it links it to the Hellmann acquittal, which mat be a very disruptive to defence if Hellmann is investigated for corruption.

For our record the Breaking News box at noon NYC time reads thus:

Breaking news: the Fifth Chamber sentencing report is published. Still breaks two laws. Fifth Chambers does not normally handle murder cases, this organized by defence. Report contains obvious errors of fact, eg on hard drives. Links approvingly to disproven Hellmann and defense claims.  Blames Guede, media and police. Talks about lack of evidence in the room, no mention of all this. May have been rushed out to beat guilty verdict in Knox calunnia trial, cause of which is ignored.

I was disappointed with the Guardian article, although curious about the report and the reasoning acrobatics it must include.  But then I saw it was written by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, who seems to cover little else and has systematically demonstrated a poor understanding of this case.

I have no idea why the Guardian is still accepting her contributions when they have a number of young reporters who have proven themselves time and time again covering Europe stories and providing some excellent insights at the same time.

“Nelle motivazioni della Cassazione si fa riferimento anche a come è stata trattata la vicenda sui media: “L’inusitato clamore mediatico” del delitto Kercher e i “riflessi internazionali” non hanno “certamente giovato alla ricerca della verità” provocando una “improvvisa accelerazione” delle indagini “nella spasmodica ricerca” di colpevoli “da consegnare all’opinione pubblica internazionale”

I find the above absolutely shocking by the ISC. The report looks to have been written by Bruce Fischer and his cohorts. It basically translates as that the pressure from the media made it so that there was an insistence in finding them guilty at all costs

I guess Boner Hound is licking his chops.  Wrongful conviction; false imprisonment.

Hi whatswisdom

He may jeer but Bongiorno will know this is a sloppy easy-to-shoot-down report which wont paint him lily-white, or head off future days in court, or stop the mafia angle continuing to emerge.

Thanks for the (I hope) reality check, Peter.  The Guardian piece reads like tabloid throwaway junk.  Oh what I’d give for an NYT in depth investigative.  I’ve tried contacting them with links to here to no avail.

“And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,  And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,  Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d   As, buried once, Men want dug up again”

Omar Khyyam

Money is a wonderful thing- who invented money?

Machiavelli—am I reading this right?

SC says (1) Knox was in the house; that (2) Knox did commit calunnia; that (3) Strong suspicions remain about AK/RS .... yet they not only cancel Nencini, but throw the case out entirely?  Quite right, this makes absolutely no sense.

Thanks for the court postings.

Barbie Nadeau has written an article about the Supreme Court report: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/07/italian-court-explains-not-guilty-verdict-for-amanda-knox.html

“In the opinion of the Supreme Court, if it were not for the weak investigation and if the investigation had not been affected by guilty omissions, the court would, in all likelihood, be allowed right now to outline a framework, if not on absolute certainty at least of tranquil reliability, in view of the guilt of Knox and Sollecito for the charge of killing the British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia on Nov. 1, 2007.”

In other words, the Supreme Court judges think Knox and Sollecito are guilty, but they can’t find them guilty because the police made errors in their investigation.

Just stunned by this “blurb” on the BBC.  Wow!  Where do we go from here?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34177293

I thought Cassazione were not supposed to decide on the evidence, but on process? And I don’t think anyone can say that the judicial process was “rushed”.

Otherwise, they seem to have used soundbites from the FOA playbook.

If Carlo Dalla Vedova is right about the verdict “great censure, a note of solemn censure of all the investigators”, I can see a lot of people involved in the process will not be at all happy about that. It effectively says most of the lower courts, the police, and prosecutors were all incompetent.

Certain criminal groups will be quite happy about that - serious repercussions from this?

“A panel of judges at the court of cassation in Rome found that the state’s case against the pair, who were definitively cleared of murder in March, lacked enough evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, and cited a complete lack of “biological traces” in connection to the crime.”

So, Judge Bruno, and the other 5 members of the Marasca SCC-Panel, have finally pronounced their “Reasoning”.

No “biological traces”?

Their’s is the very model of “expert” cherry picking by non-experts:

Not Sollecito’s DNA on Meredith’s bra-strap 40 days after it was cut-off?

How come the English experts could identify Richard III’s DNA 400 Years after his life was cut-off?

Not Meredith’s DNA on a knife found at a location in-which-Meredith-had-never-been-according-to-AK?

Not Meredith’s DNA on that knife?

That knife is not the killing-knife?

Whew!

The issue is that there are [at least] two Supreme Courts - the one which prevailed in the trial, the one in First Chambers and the one in Appeal 1:2.

Against this was Appeal 1:1 and the Fifth Chambers. There are two different bodies of Supreme Court people and are diametrically opposed to each other.

Therefore, for the media to say: “The Supreme Court said,” the immediate question is: “Which Supreme Court?”  The media who do not explore these things, happy to just take the media line, might be excused for thinking there is one unified voice of the SC.

By definition, this thing is far from over and I’m surprised by the dismayed tone of some of the good people commenting here.  There is only one way this thing can go.

Did you see Macchiavelli’s little comment which the SC opened with? Yesterday was the start, a guilty in the calumny will add to that but let’s say it does not go that way.

The illegality of Fifth Chambers still stands and must be resolved.

Hi James

Vital insight. Thanks a lot. The overarching issue.

Its far more important than how the Fifth Chambers placed bets on individual items of evidence which was not its business.

According to its own codes (530 and 628) the Fifth Chambers has overstepped in two ways.

It cannot overrule the Florence appeal court (2013-2014) on substance, and it cannot overrule the First Chambers at all.

Bongiorno appealed, and the (misguided) result was to stop the Florence outcome going back to the First Chambers.

So here we are. Posting more on this later today.

Hi BobC

“I thought Cassazione were not supposed to decide on the evidence, but on process?”

Yes. That is what Articles 530 and 628 clearly say.

Excellent post Machiavelli, many thanks.

The flame of hope begins to burn brightly and I’d imagine the sleep patterns of Knox and Sollecito are becoming more disturbed by the day. This is a very good thing.

Let’s see what happens when lawyers representing Guede enter the fray also as they surely must when all this dust has settled.

Oh what a tangled web we weave and all that….........

Posted for Machiavelli.

No Knox calunnia session required today as last Friday and yesterday both sides completed their witness list.

Amanda Knox and Curt Knox chose not to testify.

Now Judge Boninsegna has ordered each side to prepare their arguments within three months.

The verdict is likely to arrive in the New Year.

I looked aghast at today’s Daily Mail headline which says Italian Supreme Court slammed the investigation. No biological proof of Knox or Sollecito at the murder, Cassation concludes.

This is mindboggling. After all the years of expert testimony about the bra clasp DNA of Raffaele, plus the knife from his kitchen that for some reason had Meredith’s DNA on it. Goodness knows the DNA formed only the tip of an iceberg of proof.

I guess several witnesses didn’t count, mixed DNA from Amanda in blood didn’t count, David Balding from Oxford didn’t count, General Garofano didn’t count.

The washed away footprints that showed a cleanup didn’t count. Knox’s selective forgetting about her lamp didn’t count, her pretense that fantasy seems to her the same as reality and her uncertainty as to where her own body was located on night of the murder, that obvious smokescreen didn’t count.

Raffaele’s words to police that he was lying for Knox didn’t count, his hammertoe bloody footprint didn’t count.

A staged burglary to throw off suspicion from a resident of the cottage didn’t count. Amanda’s mop and bucket tales, the inconsistent times of pipes leaking didn’t count. The computer activity that proved Knox and Raffaele lied about sleeping late after the murder didn’t count,  etc. etc. etc. The only important thing was that a knife was placed in a clean cardboard box by police. 

What a shambles, this reasoning with its vague lament that nothing firm was ever proven. Nencini found that guilt had been proven. He doesn’t count.

Perhaps this is Fifth Chambers going beyond its remit into the evidence minutiae and overriding all previous findings.

The motivations report seems to hint that investigators were pressured to color their results to satisfy prosecutors and that investigators were driven to sloppiness by media pressure, leaving Cassation no option but to assume the worst of the justice people and the best of the defendants. 

But hope springs eternal since some commenters speculate that this extremely cockeyed decision may spell its own doom, that the case is not necessarily fixed in cement even now.

One truth remains: Knox’s alibi has as many holes in it as a screen door.

Beautifully summed up @Hopeful.

@ John Q - I can’t put this on the Post you referred from: “What is it All About #2” so I have to put it here.

The first “gurgling” ref. I can find was in Nina Burleigh’s - Fatal Gift of Beauty
Page 294 - Kindle Location 4870:

“... Listening to her (AK) make gurgling death sounds during her trial testimony was chilling….”

The second is in “What It Feels Like To Be Wrongly Accused” Could This Be Amanda Knox’s More Truthful First Draft?
Posted by Chimera on 05/18/15 at 12:10 AM:

“I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.  But people take things out of context.  Saying someone had their f***ing throat slit is a way of explaining how a person died (even if I didn’t ‘‘officially’’ know it).  That person was my friend.  People can’t admit they were wrong when I make gurgling sounds and call blood ‘‘yucky’‘.  The can’t admit their mistakes when I say I only knew someone for a month, and want to get on with my life.  That person was my friend.  They find fault with everything when I say ‘‘shit happens’‘, and miss the memorial, because someone else made the decision for me.  That person was my friend.  They come up with speculation, and twist things around, and they are haters, when they complain about me wearing Beatles T-shirts in court.”

Where next:

Or to next entry Supreme Court Final: All 3 At Murder Scene; All Lied; Verdict Vacated; No Exoneration

Or to previous entry The Amanda Knox Calunnia Trial In Florence: What It Is All About #2