Friday, February 20, 2009

Daily Mail’s Jan Moir Wants Due Process Respected By Parents

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for influential Jan Moir’s full column.

It is mainly about UK cases of parents not respecting the process, but the Knox campaign also gets a mention.

When Amanda Knox was arrested in Italy in connection with the murder of Meredith Kercher, her family began an incantation of her innocence and a blaring defence of her character that continues to this day

The defense PR campaign here seems to be unique in recent United States legal history. Also TV networks paying out very big bucks for exclusives with defendants’ relatives, as was just reported about ABC, seems something of a first here.

Typically the situation is that it is the victim and their relatives who get all the attention. Often on steroids. So it’s perhaps not surprising that Jan Moir is surprised.

The name of the victim here is Meredith, of course.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Trial: A Heavyweight American News-Site Reports Well On The Case

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for the report in Tina Brown’s new Daily Beast

The Beast is an innovative and very-fast-growing New-York based site (like our own!) which launched about the same time we did (no connection).

We see this piece is by the same Rome-based American reporter who filed the Newsweek report below. There are only three or four American reporters close to this case, so it seems they’re in real demand now.

Less than we would have liked on Meredith. Almost no mention. But there are points here of special interest:

1) Knox seems to be enjoying the assigned role

Sollecito comes in shortly after, but most people remain fixated on Knox, who does not look at all like the girl in TV footage taken the day after the crime, cuddling with Sollecito. She is older, thinner, and much prettier, and she has an aura about her. She looks comfortable in the courtroom, almost as if she is playing a role rather than facing charges of cutting Meredith’s throat while Sollecito held back her arms and Guede sexually assaulted her.

2) Sollecito has a new journalism career

Sollecito, who comes from a wealthy and connected family in Puglia, in the south of Italy, has been recruited to write a regular column from prison for his hometown paper in Bari. In it he recently claimed that he was a 23-year-old virgin when he met Knox. Interest in Sollecito has not been as ardent as that lavished on the pretty American coed, but it is growing.

3) The aggressive PR campaign is discouraging digging

An aggressive PR machine out of Seattle that runs under the moniker “Friends of Amanda” speaks out quickly and authoritatively in Knox’s defense, effectively discouraging US media from digging deeper into this mysterious crime. Family spokesman David Marriott arranges regular TV appearances for Knox’s parents and confirmed in an email that ABC’s 20/20 “paid for [Amanda’s mother] Edda to travel to Perugia and back. As a result, the family feels obligated to speak with ABC first.”

We hear other rumors of American networks paying big bucks for the attention of the biological parents. No-one, of course, is paying the Kerchers anything at all - they apparently insist on paying all their own bills.

4) TJMK and Perugia Murder File get highlighted

Meanwhile, the case has taken on a bizarre life of its own in the blogosphere, where a number of partisan websites, in both English and Italian, wage fierce battle. Among the most notable are the New York-based True Justice for Meredith Kercher and the Perugia Murder File, which both believe that Knox is guilty and defend the court proceedings in Perugia, translating critical court documents and creating impressive Powerpoint presentations to help readers decipher the evidence.

Hmmm. Vey nice, but a correction, if we may, Beast?  These sites don’t ever claim guilt. They point to very hard evidence to address, and a very fair process under way. And to the once-fading-fast notion that justice for Meredith, the only real victim here, really matters.

The impressive Powerpoints created for us by Kermit and Nicki (with more to come) are all here. And why the defendants were sent to trial can be read here.

5) The fratricide on some amateur websites now in meltdown

The blogs in defense of Knox include Italian Woman at the Table, which is run by a Seattle-based reporter writing a book on the case, and Perugia Shock. Comment sections in the blogs are rife with threats and accusations””not against Knox and Sollecito, mind you, but against other bloggers. Some have taken to exposing the actual names and addresses of people posting under screen names or threatening physical harm to those with opposing views of the case.

6) And how the case coverage is tracked in Perugia

The blogs are taken very seriously in Perugia, where prosecutors have assigned someone to follow the postings.

So how is it going there, guys? Getting paid to read us? That must be a first…

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Trial: Newsweek Reports On The Perugia Progress So Far

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click above to start the video]

A good report now online from Newsweek’s Italy correspondent Barbie Nadeau.

Newsweek’s piece has more detail on the testimony from Meredith’s sad friends than previously reported in English. It concludes that the case continues to be stranger than fiction.

By the way, Newsweek is the only US weekly devoting resources to the case so far - strange to us, as the growth in our own readership suggests a very big potential audience.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Trial: One Very Peculiar Witness Gets Even More Interesting

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger image]

Hekuran Kokomani. AKA the Albanian.

Scathingly dismissed by Judge Micheli at Rudy Guede’s trial for being REALLY confusing… And yet, still on the witness list for the present trial.

He may or may not have seen strange happenings on the street outside the house on the night in question. Or on the previous night. Or on both nights.

He may or may not have seen the present defendants running around in costume and one of them brandishing a knife. He may or may not have knocked Sollecito down and broken his glasses. And he may or may not have had a cash offer from Rudy Guede for the short-term use of his car.

Kokomani has a continuing modicum of credibility, because he seems to have reported accurately a breakdown at the junction near the house on the night of the crime.

Maybe he’d make a nice witness - if he’d only get his head straight. Clearly (see above) scared out of his freaking mind about something.

Now arrested for possession of eight grams of cocaine.

Eight grams of pure cocaine in the US and Europe fetches around $1000.

That’s a lot to have on hand for just a user. It suggests he might be both a user and a dealer - he does drive a nice car (a VW Golf) and he sends money home to his family in Albania.

So let’s see now. He’d maybe make a nice witness - if he’d only get his head straight.

And where is he now? In safe custody. Getting his head straight.

Just sayin!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Trial: Defendant Noticeably Bubblier Than Meredith’s Sad Friends

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for more images from yesterday.

Here’s the story by Nick Pisa in the Daily Mail:

Amanda Knox had a Valentine’s Day message on her T-shirt when she appeared in court at her murder trial in Perugia, Italy, yesterday: All You Need is Love.

As she walked into court flanked by prison guards she smiled broadly and wore her cardigan open so the slogan ““ a Beatles classic ““ could clearly be seen.

Below: Is Raffaele Sollecito doing a double-take there? None of the shots available show anyone else smiling.

Trial: Saturday Morning, Meredith’s Other Italian Roomie Testifies

Posted by Peter Quennell

Click above for John Follain’s report in the London Times. Several highlights:

1) The strange wound on the kneck:

Amanda Knox, the American student accused of murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher, had a fresh scratch on her neck after the crime, a witness told an Italian court yesterday.

Laura Mezzetti, another housemate, said she saw the mark on November 2, 2007, a few hours after the body was discovered, while they were waiting to be questioned at a police station.

“Amanda had a wound to her neck. I noticed because it was known Meredith had been killed by a wound to her neck,” said Mezzetti. “She had a scratch to her neck. I was afraid Amanda, too, might have been injured. I was worried and I looked at it really closely.”

She told the court that the scratch, which was just under half an inch long, was bright red. She gestured to show that it was beneath Knox’s chin.

Mezzetti said she had not seen the scratch when she had eaten breakfast with Knox at their cottage two days earlier….

Asked why she had failed to mention the scratch when she had spoken to the police, Mezzetti said she thought everybody else would have noticed it.

2) Sollecito’s belated calls to the Perugia police station

The court heard recordings of two phone calls that Sollecito made to the police.

“Someone has gone into the house by breaking the window. The door is locked. There are bloodstains in the bathroom,” Sollecito said in a flat tone at 12.51pm.

In a second call three minutes later he sounded alarmed. “The door of the bedroom of one of the housemates is closed and there are traces of blood in the bathroom,” he said.

Sollecito says he made the call before officers arrived at the cottage, but the prosecution claims this is disproved by the timing of the calls.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Trial: The “Very Kind Young Man” Who Courted Meredith “Very Sweetly”

Posted by Peter Quennell

That is the description at trial last saturday of Giacomo Silenzi, by Meredith’s roomie, Filomena.

He lived downstairs from Meredith. Giacomo will testify today, along with his own roomies from downstairs

He was away from Perugia when the crime took place. His apartment was empty - and broken-into.

The explanation is not yet in the public domain. One of the many mysteries still to be unlocked.

Trial: Friday Afternoon, More Tough Testimony From Meredith’s Friends

Posted by Peter Quennell

[click for larger images]

Above left with Meredith: Sophie Purton

Above: Robyn Butterworth

Above: Amy Frost

Richard Owen of the London Times reports on the afternoon’s testimony.

1) Robyn Butterworth

Describing Ms Kercher’s last hours, Ms Butterworth said that Ms Kercher had joined her, Amy Frost and Sophie Purton to eat a pizza and watch a romantic film.

Ms Kercher had not made or received phone calls, and had not said that she was expecting anyone at the house she shared with Ms Knox.

She had returned home “about nine”. Ms Butterworth said they had all been tired after Hallowe’en the night before, when the friends had gone to a pub and a nightclub, returning home at 4.30am.

2) Amy Frost

Amy Frost, another witness who had flown in from Britain, said that [at the police station] Ms Knox was “giggling” and kissing Mr Sollecito.

“I remember Amanda sticking her tongue out at him. She had her feet on his lap,” the court was told. Ms Frost said that Ms Knox’s behaviour at the police station was “inappropriate”, as if she had “gone crazy”....

3) Natalie Hayward

Ms Hayward told the court that she remembered Ms Knox saying: “They slit her throat, Natalie, she would have died slowly and in a lot of pain.”

4) Sophie Purton

Sophie Purton, another close friend, said that she remembered hugging Ms Knox at the police station “but she did not reciprocate my hug, she seemed quite cold. She kept her arms at her side.” 

When she asked Ms Knox what happened Ms Knox replied: “What do you want to know, because I know everything.” She told Ms Purton “that Meredith was found in the wardrobe but only her foot was sticking out, and also that her throat had been cut”.

Since Ms Knox also said she was not there when the door of Ms Kercher’s bedroom was kicked in, Ms Purton said she assumed this information came from one of the Italian flatmates who was present.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Trial: UK’s Sky News Reports On The Events Friday Morning DRAFT

Posted by Peter Quennell

Seven Sad And Deprived Friends - Our Hearts Really Go Out To Them

Posted by Our Main Posters

[click for larger image]

Sophie Purton, Amy Frost, Natalie Hayworth, Jade Bidwell, Samantha Rodenhurst, Helen Powell and Robyn Butterworth..

Lifetime friendships would have formed in Perugia, as they do in such places.  Now probably sadly affected for the rest of their lives.

Shot outside the court complex today, by photographer Nick Cornish.