Monday, February 24, 2014
Power Shift In Italy Very Unfavorable To Anyone So Stupid As To Thumb Their Noses At Italian Justice
Posted by Peter Quennell
Meet 39-year-old Matteo Renzi
Mr Renzi was sworn in by the President of the Italian Republic on Saturday as the new Prime Minister of Italy. As a top German newssite remarks, he is looking like a much-needed breath of fresh air.
Mr Renzi is colorful and dynamic and very popular, and may become one of the most effective leaders in recent Italian history and a major player on the world stage. Mr Renzi comes from FLORENCE where he was the popular and effective mayor.
Unlike the Berlusconi faction in parliament (which once included Giulia Bongiorno) Mr Renzi is a big friend of law and order, police, and justice. In the image at bottom you can see him opening the huge Palace of Justice in Florence with all the top officers of the court who just organized the appeal.
This is very bad news for Sollecito and Knox and their foolish gangs, as Mr Renzi will be very unlikely to look kindly on that same Florence court - and any court in Italy including, especially, Cassation - being flouted by convicted perps and made to look weak.
If the new Minister of Justice sends an extradition request to his desk, you can bet that he’ll send it on to the United States. And the US, very keen to stay on good terms with Italy as one of its 2-3 most reliable allies, will exhibit little if any resistance to the extradition of Knox.
More bad news for Sollecito and Knox
The sardonic Italian media is paying very close attention to the ongoing game of each of them pushing the other closer to the flames, and the almost-certain prospect of the two of them and Rudy Guede explosively flying apart.
The Italian media is picking up on signs that Sollecito has become highly resentful at his on-again off-again rejection by Knox, especially as many or most in Italy believe it was Knox who wielded the big knife that killed Meredith to which the other two had maybe not signed on in advance.
There are additional pressures headed down the pike. First, Rudy Guede will be given brief study leaves soon, and under Italy’s new “clear the over-crowded prisons (somewhat)” law Guede could even soon see himself released and free to talk.
Plus the investigators examining the criminal defamation of the justice system and officers of the court by Knox and Sollecito in their exceptionally foolish books are believed very close to announcing that a case against them has been made.
Sollecito’s father on national TV has already admitted that Raffaele lied about a deal to get him off, and this on Knox seems an open & shut case. Knox and Sollecito might face additional sentences of 3 to 7 years if they keep provoking a hard line.
Here are two articles translated by Miriam which summarise (not perfectly in our terms but good enough) the signs of the growing divide and the evidence that will see Knox and Sollecito back in prison.
Amanda Knox Will Return to Italy and Go to Jail, as Will Raffaele Sollecito, While Rudy Guede Will Be Freed
This scenario is not only plausible, but seems to be the natural outcome of the last sentencing of the Mez case. Few believe that the Corte di Cassazione could overturn, again, the verdict of the Corte d’Assise d’Appello of Florence.
So Amanda Knox will return to Italy and go to jail. For Amanda Knox, “her extradition is quite possible” Christopher Blakesely say without equivocation. He is one of the main experts on such penal proceeding in the United States.
The day after the verdict of the Corte d’Assise d’Appello of Florence, Giovanna Botteri, the RAI correspondent in the USA, reported something similar, underlining that Amanda rushed to CNN to cry all her tears didnt help.
Knox uses even the social networks to scream again her innocence, but the law says something different.
Even Italian popular opinion seems not in Amanda’s favor : Perugia, through the social networks, has literally screamed its disagreement and displeasure against Amanda (read: L’Urlo di Perugia: a Facebook page against Knox: from the people of Perugia)....
Rudy is at the moment the only one sentenced in jail…. How does Rudy reconstruct that night? Rudy swears to having consensual sex with Mez.
After the intimate relation Guede went to the bathroom and from there he heard her scream, rushing to her room he found her in a pool of blood, and tried to help her. Realizing that Meredith was dead, in shock he ran away.
On the plausibility of this reconstruction, the judges had numerous doubts, to the point of finding Guede guilty and sentencing him.
This reconstruction, according to his lawyers, explains not only the biological traces of Rudy all over the crime scene but also his flight.
How does Amanda reconstruct that night?
Amanda continues to sustain that she did not wield the knife that killed Mez, that she heard her scream while she was in the kitchen and that she covered her ears like a scared child.
The “whys” are many and heavy. Why did Amanda accused Patrick Lumumba, incarcerated for 14 days while innocent, due to her ignominious accusations? Why on the knife used for the murder are there traces of Mez and Amanda?
Knox DNA was on the handle of the knife that killed Meredith: only because she used it to cut potatoes? The alibi of the potato has always been used by Knox and her lawyers, but it is plausible?
And Raffaele Sollecito?
One of the most decisive evidence against Sollecito in the first trial was the bloody foot print on the bathroom math. In the appeal process that footprint was challenged, it was said that it could be not Sollecito’s and was ascribed to Guede with benefit of doubt .
Now it seems certain that Rudy was wearing shoes ,as is demonstrated by other prints at the scene of the crime, thus the bloody footprint goes back to being ascribed to Sollecito.
Why is Rudy Guede in jail while Amanda and Raffaele are on the loose?
After the verdict of the Corte d’Assise d’Appello of Florence the appeal to the Cassazione, was announced, while waiting for the Cassazione, the guilty Raffaele Sollecito had to hand over his passport in order to make it impossible for him to leave Italy.
Right after the sentence Sollecito was stopped in Udine about 60km from the Italy/Austrian border and about 40km from the Slovenian border.
Before the verdict of Corte D’Assise d’Appello of Florence Sollecito was a free man, and therefore legally in possession of a passport and the right to cross the border.
Sollecito, instead of waiting for the verdict in the court room, around 12 o’clock that day left with his new girlfriend and arrived in Udine [in north-east Ital]..
Around night time during a snow storm the two of them took refuge in an hotel , and the owner recognizing Sollecito by name, alerted the police that promptly arrived in order to confiscate Sollecito’s passport as decided by the Court.
Sollecito told the media that he had no intention of fleeing the Country.
One can ask what Sollecito was doing in Udine then, a few hours after his guilty verdict. To excuse Sollecito one can perhaps say that the young man was overpowered by anguish and fear, in fact up to today
Sollecito had never seemed to want to evade justice, instead he was usually in the Courtroom.
Amanda in contrast was not sanctioned with any precautionary measures. She arrived in America as a free citizen after the not guilty verdict.
Now, if and when the Cassazione confirms the verdict of the last proceeding, America needs to extradite Amanda and remit her in the hands of the Italian Justice…
America is tied to Italy by sanction accords by name of international laws, thus if the Cassazione upholds the guilty verdict, Amanda must return to Italy. Nothing makes one think that America could oppose an extradition.
Rudy Guede is the only guilty one in jail at the moment. His detention was confirmed after a fast track trial, decided by his layers, and his detention was 16 years in jail. (with time off for the fast track trial)
Not many know that while the doors of the prison may soon open for Amanda and Raffaele,, for Rudy instead “freedom” may be close by.
Thanks to the new decree passed last December by the Parliament, Rudy could leave the prison where he is detained. Guede is one of 3 thousand detainees who could benefit from the “empty the prisons” decree.
Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox are close to a break up after the sentencing..
Raffaele wrote Amanda a letter saying: “Amanda I am tired. I don’t want to be punished, neither do I want to continue to give justifications for matters that concern you and not me”.
Amanda says “I understand him but: I want to say that Raffaele is not my slave and I am not his oppressor. Raffaele has many reasons to be resentful, but not with me.”
The bond between the two, accused of the homicide of Meredith Kercher, is cracking. A bond that lasted from that horrible night of November1st 2007, when in a house in Perugia, via della Pergola, their English friend was savagely killed.
Looking at a concrete possibility that the Judges of the Cassazione will confirm the sentencing which condemned Amanda and Raffaele to 28 years of jail for her and 26 for him, the two ex-lovers are starting to distance themselves from each other.
Amanda took a picture of herself holding a sign that read “we are innocent” so as to underline a common faith, from which Raffaele can’t dissociate. Not anymore.
Raffaele after six years may be starting to understand that being Amanda’s “fiancé” did not help him at all. He said this to Giulio, in an interview a few months ago, and now in an interview to CNN:
In the Judges head I must be guilty because I was Amanda’s boy-friend. It does not make any sense for me. According to the Judges because in some way I supported Amanda, I must be implicated. According to me this is aberrant. My standing has not been just ignored, but completely forgotten. In all the proceedings I was not part of them unless for the scientific investigations.
For many, many hearings the topic was my DNA, but nobody said nothing of the reason why I was accused of the homicide except the fact that I was Amanda’s boy-friend and because I was with her very often and spent many nights with her, I had to be in some way connected with the homicide.
Is Raffaele’s defense thinking of ditching the girl? Is Raffaele ready to tell the truth of what happened that night? Now Raffaele is in Bari, and is thinking over what happened to him. He reveals:
I discussed with my friends and family the possibility of going abroad a year ago, but I cannot accept the fact of leaving all the people who are dear to me for a theory. I had no motive to hurt Meredith Kercher.
Now I have no light in my future. They took away my passport and I.D. card, and I do not know if I can realize my dreams, or anything I want to do. I do not accept that my future is destroyed.
Too often, though, Amanda and Raffaele forget to mention that Meredith’s life really was destroyed.
Against Amanda and Raffaele there are scientific evidence, bloody footprints on the floor, DNA on the bra clasp and knife, and the many contradictions in their alibis.
From the beginning their behavior caused the carabinieri to be suspicious of them.
Without forgetting the spontaneous confession of Amanda of being in the house while her friend was being murdered. “I have a vision of being in the kitchen, covering my ears while they kill her.” She even gave the name of the killer Patrick Lumumba, her boss, who was then discovered to be innocent.
The attempt to divert the investigation, pointing the finger against an innocent man, is evidence of the quilt of Amanda.
Even Raffaele changed versions more than once. In one of the interrogations he said Amanda was not with him that night and arrived at his apartment in the early hours of the morning. He then said he smoked too much marijuana and could not recall what happened that night.
In the meantime Rudy Guede, 27 years old, condemned to 16 years for the murder of Meredith Kercher, with others, writes:
Now that my verdict is definite, for too long the judicial reasoning have been subjected to a continuous and willful manipulation and alteration of the data of the proceedings… I would like to point out that I do not accept being labeled as a homeless man, drifter, and a thief; when instead I had a splendid family and precious and clean friendships in Perugia.
Amanda Knox’s defense team wants to pass him off as a habitual thief. Rudy adds: ” “Meredith’s house was turned upside down, someone simulated a break in. I was not condemned for this simulated break-in.”
If it was not Rudy, then who?
Comments
I believe Mr Guede was not part of the plan for murder. He was not taken into confidence and what he has told is approximately 50% correct. It is the job of the prosecution to filter the truth.
Guede was scared: he still is. He knows the power of money and what money can do. He certainly could not have killed one innocent girl he knew. I also think he was actually attracted to Ms Knox and she did use him. He is also a victim in some sense.
RS and AK made the pack with the devil.
It may be worth noting once again that Guede had no police record at all, unlike the other two.
There were no proven break-ins, no proven knife attacks, and no proven drug-dealing. Judge Micheli, hardly his friend, was quite irritated at such smears.
And whatever one thinks of his study-leave release or even full release under the new decree, his lack of a record and his attempt to be a model citizen (when up north) unlike the other two may sway a deciding judge to give him another chance.
He’s probably more likely to talk freely squirreled away somewhere than in a prison wing where he was already beaten up.
@chami, we know that Knox’s mobile was pinged in Via Ulisse Rocchi when Patrick called her. That’s also where Rudy had just eaten his ‘bad kebab’.
Who knows, when Rudy said he had a ‘date’ with Meredith, he was talking about Knox? Of course she met him there, and arrived in the cottage with him and Sollecito.
@ergon
Rudy does not have a degree in creative writing and he cannot spin truth like his far more lucky friends. That he tried to stop the blood flow using towels appears convincing. That is an evidence, certainly not a proof, that he did not handle the knife.
He went to the other toilet (I cannot guess why; I think he was asked not to use the other one) and something happened in that time. This too suggests that he was not in the loop.
He visited toilet because he was suddenly nervous. Bad kebab will show its effect only after 12-18 hours. Did he really own an i-pod?
Obviously he meant a date with Knox. He just switched the name.
I think he was not told of the master plan by knox.
Breaking news, apparently. Sollecito has questions for Knox about a shower she took…
Hi, Chami. While I am willing to agree with you as far as RG being a possible patsy in the attack ( having no prior knowledge of AK ‘s animosity toward Meredith/ believing he was being set up for a double date, rather than being set up to take the fall?) he is hardly a model citizen. Following the loss of his last legitimate job, he had entered a downward spiral which included some ” drifting” to Milan and paying someone for a tip about/ key to the kindergarten where he was discovered in possession of some stolen items. He claimed the school’ s knife to be borrowed for his protection (paranoia?) . He had fallen behind in rent on his bedsit. His prospects were not looking particularly hopeful, but he did have friends, at least one of whom seemed interested in helping him get help ( or was it just in aiding the carabinieri in pulling him in?) he comes across to me as rather more hapless than dangerous by nature, but then again, there is the influence of narcotics. What would he be like ” coked up” and rebuffed by a beautiful woman he’ d been led to believe was hot for him?
A ” bad kebab” , were it truly tainted with bacteria, would not need 12-18 hours to leave the building. I have had food poisoning more times than is fair for any one individual. Trust me, I have had a toilet emergency within an hour of eating a bad lamb roast, an evil corned beef hash, a nasty BLT, and a wicked hot cocoa. The last one put me in Casualty. (Never order machine-made cocoa in August; orders are apparently infrequent enough for horrid things to grow inside the works.)
Of course, I suffer from chronic colitis, and my diet in the past 5 or 6 years has become extremely restricted. But in my teens, even the stress of sitting an exam could send me into cramps.
Witnessing a murder would set off a mad dash for the loo!
Perhaps Guede did not actually inflict any of the wounds. No matter. He failed to get her aid, and therefore is answerable for her death.
@Chami, I would not call Guede “Mr. Guede”, and it’s not the prosecution’s job to filter out the truth from the crock of BS Guede provided.
If only 50% (in your estimation) of what he said is true, I think that’s pretty damn low, and if he could find it in his heart to go dancing after he saw a poor woman getting murdered, he has a long way to go to be called human.
In the *best* case scenario he’s an accessory to murder, and I would not sanctify him just because he’s selling a different brand of innocence elyxir.
“Saint” Rudy in all likelihood is a piece of human garbage who deserves to be in jail for the rest of his life—if he squeals on Knox and Sollecito, someone should be taking notes and act on it, but I don’t think the streets are safer with the likes of him out and about.
There recently was a piece on the assassination of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, his assassin (already in custody a number of years) confessed to having killed him—after 183 waterboardings!!! What we have here is not that different in terms of how hardened the perpetrators are, each day that passes brings another layer of lying and/or undeserved forgiveness through mental speculation around the terrible truth, which becomes harder and harder to undo, and at some point torture will be the only (unofficial and unspeakable) answer.
Matteo Renzi does look very open and honest - and anyway he’d have to go some to beat Berlusconi in the corrupt/depraved league.
I can well believe he’ll be a breath of fresh air and very good for Italy. We could do with someone equally uncynical in the U.K.
@Bjorn
“...and if he could find it in his heart to go dancing after he saw a poor woman getting murdered, he has a long way to go to be called human.”
Well said. His (very) relative honesty compared to the other two pathological liars doesn’t exonerate him at all.
“Ill met by moonlight” sums up the dreadful meeting of these three lost souls, somewhere en route to Via Della Pergola 7.
In that Daily Mail article there’s a quote from Knox that gave me deja vu. She’s speaking abut RS:
‘He is collateral damage in the unreasonable, irresponsible and unrelenting scapegoating of the prosecution’s grotesque caricature that is “Foxy Knoxy”.’
Sounds very similar to that random poster on here a week or so ago, I think they called themselves Macthomas…
“Mr. Renzi is a good friend of law and order….” Then he’s got my vote. Congrats to Italy on their new Prime Minister.
Hi Spencer
“‘He is collateral damage in the unreasonable, irresponsible and unrelenting scapegoating of the prosecution’s grotesque caricature that is “Foxy Knoxyâ€.’”
I paused at that too. The prosecution has rarely characterized Knox any way at all. The two judges’ panels who found her guilty were not influenced by negative stereotype. You are thinking Macthomas = David Mariott or Macthomas = Chris Mellas? Could be.
Mind you, the sharper, nastier tone if not the language could be coming from Knox herself. We’re noticing that she seems increasingly rattled that fewer and fewer are being swayed by her absurd claims.
Here’s one which Sollecito repeats: “She said her front door had been broken into… ” Really? She did? Maybe RS was subtly dropping her in it, as she soon after had breakfast back at his place, unconcerned.
In general, the Daily Mail report seems to show Knox trying to do Sollecito favors, and Sollecito not doing the same in reverse.
Funny you should say that, Peter. I think the style of writing on Knox’s obknoxious blog, with posts allegedly written by Knox herself, is very similar to the style of a certain Fischer person.
Could be coincidence, of course… but it’s pretty amusing when her acolytes purr about what a ‘great writer’ she is, and how she has ‘nailed it’, etc.
@Janus
Nails are basically temporary fasteners. Screws are far more permanent. But nothing can beat the performance of a nut and bolt securely tightened with a wrench.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, though. She nailed it, did she? We can unnail it!
I am no enthusiast about Matteo Renzi at all.
However, one thing I can tell you for certain, is this government won’t be able to obstruct justice for Meredith in any way, won’t be able to object to extradition requests, nor they will even attempt to.
Most times in a crime the simplest explanation is probably the best one. For example it is possible that this was a simple robbery gone wrong? There has been very little said about the missing money which seems to have been lost in the hubbub of everything else.
ie Knox steals Merediths rent money which she later deposited. Meredith discovers it’s missing and accuses Knox knowing full well that Knox was the only one who had reason to steal in the first place given her predilection towards drugs and the fact she was broke.
From there it escalates. Sollecito was there to threaten Meredith into keeping quiet about it.
If that was the case then this would explain how Knox can stipulate that it was not a sex game… ergo in her mind she is innocent. This kind of ploy is paramount in the misdirection play of denial even to ones self.
Of course this is conjecture on my part but in my efforts to leave no stone unturned it could perhaps be useful.
Once again though the missing money and the fact Knox deposited when she didn’t have any left is to me paramount and indicative of a simple robbery gone wrong and the accusation which degenerated into all the other things that made Knox unbearable to live with. The unwashed strange men in for casual sex. The smell, (because Knox didn’t wash and the taking of drugs such as speed produces a terrible body stink anyway.) Then there is the obvious jealousy concerning Le Chic and the fact that Knox had lost her job to Meredith.
A simple robbery might have been the beginning. What do you think?
Hi, Grahame, you’re probably right, but in their minds I think their ultimate excuse is that they were on drugs.
I have seen bullies using the excuse “I was furious” for beating someone up, and morons saying “I was drunk” as an explanation for pushing (“gently, I swear”) a perfectly sober, trained cop after smashing a phone booth on a quiet evening in the center of town.
They think they’re not accountable because it wasn’t them committing the murder, it was the drugs, so, they’re innocent (siamo innocenti, my foot).
Speaking of drugs, though, to FOAKers who say that marijuana doesn’t make you violent (though it probably was something more powerful, as Peter aptly noted), here’s evidence to the contrary in the case of Ronald Poppo, ferociously mutilated by the ballistic Rudy Eugene, who had *only* marijuana in his system at the time of the attack, and *no* other traces of drugs:
Welcome Mr Renzi.
Heavy crumbing of RS on IIP. It looks like battle lines are being drawn..
4Meredith.
Phones off simultaneously when not their pattern of usage. That’s one of the best pieces of evidence. cicumstantial is valid, in the US & Italia, & likely most other countries. 2 words: drew peterson.
I think Doctor Sollecito had strong generalizations, like:
“My son lives in a “drugs world”.
It’s all “drugs in Perugia”.
All those “from abroad druggies”. (Incl. Mez, why not)
My son and I fight against it, every day (I call him every day)
When my son has a fight, it is in fact against drugs.”
I’ve never used drugs or cigarettes even, but in my youth I’ve been fearly observed by parents, whose “kids” did.
So, my experience.
Hm, not “fearly” (with fear, I thought), but “anxious”.
All those generalizations are incestious. (“We” and the “no friends inside world”) Of course your sister and I will pay for you)
8 November 2007
When the hearing began, Amanda simply declared she was innocent and refused to answer questions.
Unlike Amanda, Raffaelle agreed to answer questions, when he appeared before Judge Matteini, shortly after her.
He began by turning against his former girlfriend. ‘I DON’T WANT TO SEE AMANDA ANY MORE,’ Raffaelle said when asked about their relationship. (John Follain)
post
Another media view of Sollecito seemingly changing tack, perhaps preparing to drop Knox in it:
so Raffaele sees his last chance to distance himself from Amanda? is this where we come to the he said, she said part of this mess?
Sollecito’s latest distancing attempts are also detailed on the Mirror:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/meredith-kercher-raffaele-sollecito-claims-3180933
Bjorn, it probably would not take 183 waterboardings for me to confess to anything. I probably would not even last past 10 of them. Torture is not the way to get real information.
mojo, if what Sollecito says matches with what Guede says, without meeting up and conspiring together, then we don’t need to know what Knox says.
4 February 2014 - CNN
“I don’t know what to think, because objectively, there’s nothing against me and nothing very strong against Amanda,” Sollecito said.
Nothing means nothing.
Nothing very strong means something.
What I have said has been really misunderstood.
In retrospect, we now know quite a bit about the two actors. They would not like to play a game, any game, with a black man, except with a purpose. Both have consistently denied knowing him. What the black man was doing then in the flat?
I have never said that he is a saint, but every saint has a past and every sinner has a future (Oscar Wilde).
It is relatively easy to figure out the truth when it is known that someone always tells the truth or always tells a lie. It is a real tricky business when someone tells lies sprinkled with truths here and there. The case file must be enormous and we do know that we do not know all the details. In the early days, we depended on the IIP to release the evidences they found convenient. For example, we now know the details about the money transactions of Ms Knoxy courtesy IIP!
Why did Ms Knoxy blamed PL? In my understanding, she wanted Mr Guede to get away and the best way is to create a temporary diversion. And it worked but RG was caught. It is impossible to stay in Europe and run away from justice.
That RG was attacked in the prison clearly indicates that he is still a threat to someone. Who is that?
Finally, I believe that no one is born a criminal. All criminals are creations of the society we have made for ourselves. We have to live in this system.
I hope I have not offended anybody.
Sollecito appears to be trying to “thread the needle” by still denying he was there at all but implying that Knox might have been there—he’s suggested many times, even in the title of his book, that his alibi as to her is false, and now he’s raised the ante ever so slightly. How can he raise the ante next time to maintain interest? The next step would be to state that she did leave his apartment in the middle of the night. I predict that that’s what he’ll say next. Knox’s defense is being subjected to Chinese water torture.
Not at all Chami
Although I know there are violent people from birth since I’ve met them. I know this from personal experience. There was one David Brooks I was in the Army with who was just violent to the extreme. The Army loved him. He is now in a British jail for life for killing his girlfriend. There are many many others in my experience and my survival was in no part the lessons learned then that helped me survive.
As to RG being attacked in jail. Well to me (And given her psychological need to win at all costs) this has Bongiorno written all over it, and why not since it would be ever so easy given her Mafia connections to set up. Either that or RS sister who was privy to prison documents, but that’s a stretch on my part. I believe that RG was got at to keep his mouth shut that’s obvious.
I have maintained all along that race has a lot to do with this given the view of the Knox’s and their ilk. After all, if you come from a place where you are at the bottom end of society then such people tend to look around for someone worse off than themselves in order to feel superior. Here I am speaking of Curt Knox and company since he has exhibited this persona by his demeanor and actions since the beginning. This is the lower strata that the Knox clan and their supporters come from. Not in every case of course but I believe it has it’s basis in superiority versus inferiority. That is why she blamed PL who to her was not only just another black man and therefore inferior, but someone who had the gall to fire her. Given that I believe she saw Meredith in the same light.
“How dare she criticize me when I am a superior white person who can do what she likes.”
I have been called on this before when it was misinterpreted that I was criticizing all of Seattle for being racist. Not so. The photos of the RS book launch and anywhere else you look at all you will not see a single person of colour (English spelling)
Knox gave a video interview for her university newspaper, “The Daily of the UW”. It was published on Feb. 24, 2014. I’ve only seen Part One.
She narrates the events of Nov. 2, 2007 when Meredith’s body was discovered. She says Raffaele was out in the yard of the cottage trying to comfort her. After they were run out of the cottage by police, she claims she slumped down by the front door, “trying to make sense of it”. She calls her mom and tells Edda, “I need to figure out what’s going on.” She says she was shocked. “You never expect to come home to something like that. I never thought that (murder) was ever the worst possibility of what was happening.”
Once outside Raf rather ineffectively according to her now, tried to explain to her what had occurred in the cottage. Due to crime scene emotions and confusion of a language barrier, she was hearing about a body wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in a cupboard. She hears the victim’s throat was slit. Here we see a heavy swallow as Knox thinks about this, then says “I…I…I couldn’t picture it. It seemed so strange,” and says how different it is to see things like this on CSI tv shows versus having it happen to “a living person you just talked to yesterday”.
She says the police came and asked questions. “I remember being very focused on trying to piece together” the bits of information she had supposedly learned by broken Italian comments at the cottage, such as Filomena’s hysterical “a foot” and “blood”.
Says she relied on Raffaele to tell her what was being learned by police. It was “really confusing”.
“A lot of it was just standing there,” she says to UW Daily, sounding a bit impatient at the long wait she had in the front yard of the cottage.
She repeats over and over with hardly submerged irritation how Filomena was screaming, hysterically screaming. It’s obvious Knox abhors Filomena, maybe it was taking attention away from her, or showing true grief for the deceased whom she had loathed.
Early in the interview as she says the first cops arrived “to look for Filomena” her body language and tone show irritation that the cops are there for Filomena. She tells them Filomena is on the way. She soon arrives with 3 friends. When that occurs, Knox says “the pressure was off of me” because Filomena was a resident of the household and could speak fluent Italian.
But Knox mocks the sudden urgent communication between Filomena and the police, almost as if to say blah blah blah or yada yada yada, to imply that it was a welter of Italian that didn’t please her. This is certainly an odd attitude to take if you’re innocent and want police to help resolve things in your own home after you’ve found window smashed.
Student Knox also goes into great detail about how beautifully clean Laura’s bedroom was, the bedspread pulled tight like a fine hotel, “Laura was the clean one”. Then “although my room wasn’t as medicinally clean as Laura’s” she laughs but excuses herself, her bedroom is mentioned as not having been touched by the phantom burglar, then she speaks of the ransacked room of Filomena all torn up, and finally Meredith’s room where we know the really terrible and tragic disorder would be discovered. It’s like she is ranking the people in the cottage, setting Laura as the best, herself second, Filomena a messy third, and Meredith last and least. I believe these are like layers in her mind, the surface is dreams of being like Laura, then there’s her real self, and the stuff she’s repressing gets worse and worse.
She also pretends to show a lot of concern to the police for the atypical break-in, as if she was confused that the thieves had taken nothing.
When she talks about trying Meredith’s door, she says she gently knocked, then knocked a little harder, then she raises her fist to show she banged on the door. When she tells of her attempt “to see into her window from the terrace” Knox actually rolls her eyes until only the whites show, as if in total self-disgust or lamenting a bad decision and trying to block it out.
After she and Raf tried to open Meredith’s door but failed, she says “maybe something happened” and to illustrate this raises her hand up near her head and waves it around all squiggly, almost a comical effect. Certainly an odd gesture.
Later out in the yard with police on scene, Knox says she had fluctuations of extreme emotion and then torpor where she got quiet and merely observed the reactions of others around her, zombie like. (these are my words to explain what she said, and I believe her about this, although the cause of her emotions would be guilt, fear, sudden realizations of the awfulness of her actions the night before, etc.) Her words in interview are: “spaced out” and “waves of really high emotion and then feeling completely overwhelmed by the greatness of it that was inconceivable, not wanting to think…like…hoping that the person in the room wasn’t actually Meredith.”
I take issue with her use of the word “greatness of it”.
She pretends to mean great horror of it or the vastness of its implications which she hadn’t appreciated until the police and all the Italian friends arrived to bear witness to the carnage.
It seems she wants us to fill in the blanks and assume she meant the enormity of the crime but she never says a word about the horror or the dreadfulness of it, but rather “the greatness of it”. This smacks of secret delight that she is involved in something big or has caused something big.
She shows real alarm when remembering when the police forced her to go through the knife drawers.
MAJOR POINT (sorry, I tend to bury the lead:)
I believe she was terrified that they were going to force her to pick up the knives which would place her fingerprints on the knives. She feared the police were setting her up, planting evidence, after she had destroyed evidence. She lost control at the irony and the fear was real.
She faked the crying jag to buy time to think and they escorted her to the couch. She attributes the breakdown to sudden overwhelming pity for Meredith.
Yet only moments before in the interview she laughed at the thought of a severed foot in Meredith’s room, and nearly guffaws at the police questions to her about the blood on the downstairs bed.
“Is this normal?” they asked her, about the boys’ bedroom. “Of course it’s not normal,” she had responded.
This was said during her first trip back to the downstairs boys’ apartment. She considered the questions an absurd folly on the part of police, yet how could she laugh about blood on a bed in the same house as a vicious murder, and even in retrospect during a 2014 interview?
My visceral reaction to her self-serving monologue:
Hidden realities that AMANDA KNOX shows:
+Hate and disgust for Filomena’s hysterics
+Contempt for police
+Confusion at Monica Napoleoni’s anger when she first approached Napoleoni about toilet
+Continual joking demeanor about a possible severed foot in Meredith’s room
++Focus mainly on the workings of her own mind and her attempts to “make sense” out of things in the immediate aftermath of crime while still in front yard of cottage
++Immense anger at herself for not seeing through the police ruse to take her back to the cottage twice, the first time simply to fox her and throw her off the scent of what they would do on the 2nd visit (the knife drawer). An ah ha moment, when police gotcha. Says she “flipped out”.
“That really freaked me out,” she said about the knife drawer. “It really hit me at that moment because they were asking me if I could recognize that the murder weapon was missing.” (here she gives a little laugh of contempt) “I think it was one of the first times when I really really realized that…that…like…the extent to what had happened.”
Another point
I see yesterday that Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman better known as ‘El Chapo’ the most wanted drug lord by by the USA was captured by Mexican troops.
The US wants him extradited in the worst way since he responsible for literally tons and tons of narcotics smuggled into the US.
This is bad news for Knox since it would appear that the Mexican government wants first crack at Guzman so the consensus is that there will be a refusal on behalf of the Mexicans to extradite.
Therefore If the US baulks or delays sending Knox back then that will set a further precedent for other countries not to extradite to the US, Snowden, Assange. Lady etc; Then there is the Mafia/Camorra crime syndicate extradition treaty. I have read extensively the arguments for why she should not be sent back which are laughable in the extreme since the posters of those comments only regurgitate the information they have been spoon fed which, unlike this site, only skim the surface of the evidence and in some cases are so off the wall as to be simply mad. Best example of this madness was the idea that it was Mignini all along who had killed Meredith. Knox and her acolytes are for the most part just wishful thnking. Then there are the others, such as that famous crime fighter Steve Moore and his oh so strange wife who, not only live in La-la land but are in it for the money and nothing else, since they couldn’t care less about Knox anyway.
The Knox camp’s description of Sollecito is “collateral damage” is pretty funny. In their twisted mind-set, the prosecution is so bent on convicting an “innocent” American woman that they couldn’t care less that they’re throwing an “innocent” Italian citizen under the bus. The whole argument that this is an “anti-American” prosecution is so ludicrous it defies belief that it’s gained so much traction.
7 November 2007 - Raffaelle’s diary
‘The judge questioned me today and he told me that I gave three different statements. The only difference that I find is that I said that Amanda persuaded me to talk crap in the second version.
I do not remember exactly whether she went out (to the bar where she worked, Le Chic) or not, and as a consequence, I do not remember how long she was gone for.
What is the big problem? I do not remember this, for them, important detail, therefore THEY SHOULD STOP BOTHERING ME, AND START INVESTIGATING HER.’
CNN viewers are very pro-Knox. Please go to CNN to debate them there: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/26/world/europe/italy-knox-ex-boyfriend/
@ Hopeful:
Very good analysis and interpretation. Thanks very much for putting the time in to do this. I think that everything AK says is “loaded” in some way. Her psychological disfunction can’t help the narcissistic urge to express itself ... “Hidden Realities” as you say ...
@Patrizio, thank you. I have just finished watching Part 2 of Knox’s UW interview. Here are my observations.
In Part 2 Knox begins to dwindle in energy, she seems wrung out and tired of talking. She reminisces about her first days in prison, gets tearful recalling the sexual harassment by a jailer, has to use a tissue. She says she felt like “a zoo animal” as she was observable at all times and could find nowhere private to curl up into a ball and cry. (I honestly believe her on this.)
She got relief by watching the small children who walked past her bars. She says they were a familiar sight and became a highlight of her day. She says “I know children” and mentions the many many children among her relatives. This seems like a genuine attachment.
Knox discusses in a tired and beleaguered voice the many delays that broke her spirits in prison. Her lawyers would promise she would be free after certain forensic results came back, but then she would be disappointed. They would suggest freedom to some kind of “community” living arrangement, but that never developed.
She continues in this UW interview to assert her innocence. She puts forth the reactions of an innocent person incarcerated, saying that every second that passed in the early days of Capanne she as an innocent person hoped the giant misunderstanding would be cleared up and she would be released.
She never mentions the trials nor the flight home, nor any of her lawyers by name.
It’s interesting that in Part 2 she talks about her family supporting her while she was in prison, but she mentions nobody by name except Edda.
When she does discuss her parents trying to emotionally support her by telling her that everything would turn out all right, that all would be well, she says, “But what the hell did they know?” Her point seems to be that they were as naïve as she was in 2007.
She reveals anxiety that she could not meet Edda at the train station on Edda’s first trip to Italy after Amanda’s roommate was murdered. Amanda was afraid her mom would be frightened that maybe Amanda had been murdered too when she was “unavailable” by phone. She feared for her mother’s distress, and seems also to imply worry that her mom is a control freak about Amanda answering the telephone (shades of Dr. Sollecito harassing Raffaele ?).
By the end of the interview Amanda tells about a joke that Edda made after Amanda returned to Seattle after being freed on appeal.
Amanda said the joke made her very mad, mad at her mother, then mad at herself and mad at the system.
Edda’s joke was that during Amanda’s long prison term, “Valium was my best friend.” This enraged Amanda because she felt that her mom was using drugs to comfort herself while Amanda although in misery in prison refused drugs on principle despite the sufferings of adjusting. Amanda said she didn’t like to hear anybody calling Valium a best friend.
So the interview for UW ends with thoughts of drugs, with a tired and lethargic Amanda in short hair and gray and white sweater.
Let us consider the irony: Knox the speaker who was so much in a fog from drugs on the night of a murder, a fog she freely admitted to police, is now fishing for a compliment that she eschewed drugs in prison and trying to laud it over her own supportive mom whose distress and need for drugs Amanda herself caused.
She seems in the interview to distance herself from the “kid” she was at the time of her arrest, and sees herself as much more mature today. In this new frame of mind she says she tries to understand what her parents must have gone through trying to support her in prison.
However, despite this small incursion into empathy, it seems to me she is angry that Edda didn’t suffer quite as much as Amanda would have liked. The very thought of Mom having a good time while Amanda languished, definitely rubs her the wrong way. Yet we all know that a young woman like Amanda Knox with no children, no husband, no life experience other than playtime in school and flings abroad, could possibly have a clue to the agony Edda and Curt both endured on her behalf.
Once lodged in Capanne Prison, Knox had her cushy little 3 hots and a cot, no bills, no work demands, no assignments with deadlines. She was sleeping at State expense every night, with others buying her food and linens and hot water. So in some ways, she had less stress than someone on the outside trying to make a living and worrying about money. Yes absolutely Knox had the stress of prison but we were told she slept like a baby at night without medication. Although prison made her unhappy and pouting at the bruises to her ego, she probably suffered much less in some ways than her mortified and destroyed parents who had to contend with ego loss and the death of all their dreams for their smartest child, not to mention the harrowing expenses that lay ahead for them to pay long before they knew Knox could sell a book and repay them. Their jobs were in jeopardy as they boarded planes and made long thankless flights to Perugia over and over, trying to assure themselves it was for an innocent daughter when their hearts had doubts. Marriages were strained, Knox even said her mom lost a lot of weight “because she couldn’t eat” due to stress.
This recital by Knox of Edda’s joke as a way of telling on poor Mom and casting the evil Knox as a paragon of strength and self-discipline is ludicrous and ungrateful.
She is jealous of Edda’s happiness, which might have been yet another unseen cause of why Amanda acted out so badly in Italy rather than rise to her own responsibilities,study hard and obtain a degree as a means to a decent job earning money to pay her parents back for their sacrifices in rearing her. The moment she had this opportunity, she failed them. Poor Meredith has paid for them all.
In the interview Knox did mention PTSD, and the way her mind seemed to slow down as if her blood sugar uptake was on the wane by Part 2 of the interview, suggest Knox now suffers from PTSD. Perhaps it’s caused from the trauma of the original crime followed by years of inner conflict and unrelenting anxiety. If this is the case, Knox is probably now on some sort of medication herself for nerves, which makes her resentment of Edda’s Valium use even more ridiculous and hypocritical.
Tremendously interesting Knox interview and analysis by Hopeful above. We should get the video link and run the posts on the front page.
In her book Knox pretty well manages to find a bad word for everyone she ever knew. She sure has a nasty tongue. That she hints resentment at first Filomena and then her own mother I guess comes as no surprise.
Is there any hint of any majority University of Washington position on Knox’s plight?
The student newspaper paper long supported her in articles as shallow as a saucer of milk and as nasty toward Italy and the prosecution as the more rabid of the FOA.
In contrast in the couple of years after the crime the UW administration distanced themselves from her irresponsible lack of preparation for a year in Europe and made sure no student could officially take that route again.
If and when Cassation confirms her conviction for serious felonies UW will under law require that she be booted out. This even before the Interpol Red Notice, which will make her envy those back in Capanne.
Americans are being misled by Amanda Knox the same way they have been misled by George W. Bush concerning Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Please tell them that on this CNN discussion forum: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/26/world/europe/italy-knox-ex-boyfriend/
24 February 2014
‘Certainly I asked her questions,’ Sollecito said in the interview. ‘Why did you take a shower?’
Amanda answered this question 6 years ago.
8 November 2007 - Raffaele to Judge Matteini
‘Amanda woke up before me, she woke me up telling me that she wanted to take a shower at her house, because SHE DID NOT LIKE MY SHOWER.’
@Peter Quennell, thank you. Knox’s UW interview was long and revealing. Main thing as you say is how UW will deal with her, not their powerless student newspaper.
The Daily didn’t help her by broadcasting an uncensored interview. Even with the book she had time to think and use white-out. With The Daily she let down her guard.
It must be exhausting for Knox keeping up a false front all the time, bluffing at poker with a bad hand and high stakes. The Italians have all the aces.
Will UW Daily run a Part 3? I’m sure Knox is itching to get some message to Raffaele.
Thanks again and take care, I’ll be out of town for a few days.
More about the shower story
Claiming that Amanda did not like his shower, was Raffaele’s desperate attempt to explain Amanda’s peculiar choice to take her morning shower in her ice cold cottage, instead of Raffaele’s warm flat.
Raffaele was aware that this would be difficult to justify, however he had to stick to the agreed story line, according to which: one of Amanda’s reasons to visit the cottage that morning was to have a shower there.
Amanda had no problem whatsoever with Raffaele’s shower the previous night, the night of the murder, which they - allegedly – spent together.
‘One thing I do remember is that I took a shower with Raffaele, and this might explain how we passed the time. We had a shower and we washed ourselves for a long time. He cleaned my ears, he dried and combed my hair.’
(From Amanda Knox’s Handwritten Statement to the Police on the Evening of November 6, the Day She Was Arrested)
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