Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Kauffer]

The Questura

And this:



The Knoxians just make things up and then discuss among themselves as if the things they've made up, are actually facts.

The Kevin Lowe account has proof that Knox was taped that evening, that the tapes were lost, and that Mignini acknowledges that the tapes were lost.

For the Kevin Lowe account, these are facts.

Well, why do you think the tapes are not available? We have hours and hours of recordings from interview sessions and from phone taps from the time before the interrogations of the 5th/6th November when Ms Knox 'wasn't a suspect' and afterwards - nothing incriminating. Fast forward to the interrogations leading to the arrests and astonishingly, there is nothing available on tape, despite these interrogations being planned, according to Giobbi. Is this not the teensiest bit suspicious? Could the police have something to hide, do you FEEL? How difficult would it have been to press the record button at the highly modern questura? How expensive would it have been? What would be better evidence to place before a court - these recordings or an 82,000 euro cartoon, do you FEEL?

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, why do you think the tapes are not available? We have hours and hours of recordings from interview sessions and from phone taps from the time before the interrogations of the 5th/6th November when Ms Knox 'wasn't a suspect' and afterwards - nothing incriminating. Fast forward to the interrogations leading to the arrests and astonishingly, there is nothing available on tape, despite these interrogations being planned, according to Giobbi. Is this not the teensiest bit suspicious? Could the police have something to hide, do you FEEL?

Actually, I'm inclined to wonder whether the 5th/6th overnight interrogations were deliberately not electronically recorded.

Firstly, it can be beyond all doubt that the area in which Sollecito and Knox were interrogated that night was equipped with proper audio recording facilities, and I suspect they had video facilities too. This was, after all, the modern HQ building of the Perugia police. And this was perhaps the highest-profile criminal investigation in which the Perugia state police had ever been involved. It's therefore (in my view) inconceivable that the police/PM might have wanted to record the interrogations but had not been able to do so.

So I think that the police and PM were possibly employing a well-practised tactic by choosing not to record these interrogations. I think they almost certainly decided that their tactics were to systematically "break" first Sollecito and then Knox, and I think they already knew they were going to need to employ questionable (being charitable) methods to do so. I think the police already "knew" how the murder had gone down: Knox had met up with a (possibly as-yet unknown, possibly already known as Lumumba) man and gone to the cottage where the sexual assault and murder had taken place, and Sollecito was lying about spending the whole evening/night with Knox out of misguided loyalty to her.

Therefore the police's plan was simply to force Knox and Sollecito to reveal this "truth" and fess up. The plan was to squeeze Sollecito first until he admitted Knox had left his apartment on the murder night, then to confront Knox with Sollecito's abandonment of her alibi and the text message exchange and squeeze her until she too "buckled" and confessed all. I think they knew very well in advance that they were likely to have to use improper methods to gain these confessions, and therefore they couldn't possibly risk recording the interrogations.

I also think that the whole "spontaneous declaration" nonsense with Mignini was very probably all planned out in advance, and was another trick that was well-known to the police and PMs: once the suspect is broken and has already confessed to the police, the PM comes in and acts sort of avuncularly and gently prompts the broken suspect to repeat the confession, then the PM mendaciously tries to finesse the law by saying that this repeated confession is admissible in evidence since it was made "spontaneously" and not as part of any interrogation etc.

It's my very strong feeling that the tactics employed by the police and PM in this case on the night of 5th/6th November 2007 were a) deliberate; b) planned in advance; c) a choreographed attempt to strong-arm the suspects into confession (which is why there was deliberately no recording) followed by a conscious (and probably well-practised) deception of having the PM prod the broken suspect into repeating the confession, which could then be presented as a "spontaneous declaration". I think the police and PM probably knew exactly what they were doing that night, and that they knew in advance what they were going to do. And that's why I think they possibly deliberately chose not to record these interrogations, since they knew in advance that a recording of their interrogation "techniques" would definitely not look good in court.

 

[Bill Williams]

And this:



The Knoxians just make things up and then discuss among themselves as if the things they've made up, are actually facts.

The Kevin Lowe account has proof that Knox was taped that evening, that the tapes were lost, and that Mignini acknowledges that the tapes were lost.

For the Kevin Lowe account, these are facts.

And your accounting of this is.......?

 

[Draca]

And this:



The Knoxians just make things up and then discuss among themselves as if the things they've made up, are actually facts.

The Kevin Lowe account has proof that Knox was taped that evening, that the tapes were lost, and that Mignini acknowledges that the tapes were lost.

For the Kevin Lowe account, these are facts.

Mignini said they didn't tape the interrogation:

13’00’’ Mignini:
"The interrogations of Amanda in prison were taped, and then transcribed, and we have the transcripts of… But in a police station, at the very moment of the investigation it isn’t done, not in the confrontations with Amanda or with anyone else. Also because, I can tell you, today, even then, but today in particular, we have budget problems, budget problems that are not insignificant, which do not allow us to transcribe."

 

[Bill Williams]

Besides Amanda Marie Knox's writtings and memorandum while in jail, RS diary too: no surprise, shock or bewilderment about bar owner Lumumba being the murder of Knox's best friend and flatmate.

(How could the bastard do such a thing!!!!)

How can one argue with this drivel? The police told her Patrick was involved and for a while she believed them while clearly being confused. It's not hard to understand. It helps if you stop sneering so much. Then you will see better. She also had good reason to be preoccupied with her own desperate situation.

No doubt we're heading back to this guilter nonsense about her not telling the cops Lumumba was innocent (a fact she could not know). How wearisome.

In fact, Giuliano Mignini told CNN's Drew Griffin in 2010, that when he first encountered Knox in the Questura, without so much as asking her a single question, and without her saying anything it was obvious:

- that she just had a giant weight off her shoulders by signing the 1:45 am memorandum
- that she was afraid of Patrick- that she wanted to continue making spontaneous statements​

I now have trouble reconciling your account, Vibio, of Knox's journey through hell on that night with what Mignini tells the world.

Which is it?

 

[Bill Williams]

And isn't is strange: as Lumumba is sitting in jail where are the statements one would naturally expect:

"I'm innocent but you mean to say Lumumba murdered Meredith? Why in the world would my boss want to murder her? WTF!!!! "I was working for a killer!!!!" "He's never been to our house! Did he have a date with Meredith? "Oh my God....somebody tell me what happened???!!!!"

More disingenuous nonsense. She said that she was not there and could not know what had happened. Once you are in custody, you should talk to your lawyer and let your lawyer talk to the authorities. That is what they are paid to do. If anything Amanda and Raffaele should have said less, not more, during the month of November. MOO.

Connected to all this is a short account related in John Follain's book, "A Death in Italy."

Follian relates how darkly-philosophical Mignini got when he saw Knox with her lawyers. Mignini, acc. to Follain, regretted seeing her with lawyers because he then thought that the truth would now never come out.

If anyone wants the cite, I'll look it up.

 

[Desert Fox]

Actually, I'm inclined to wonder whether the 5th/6th overnight interrogations were deliberately not electronically recorded.

I am not "inclined to wonder" but I am almost positive that they were deliberately not recorded or the recordings were lost on purpose.

We are talking about a case where the LCN on a bra clasp is suppose to be super important but the possible 9Maybe even probable) semen just is not important.

 

[Dan O.]

Well, why do you think the tapes are not available?

It's not just the audio and video recordings of that evening that are missing. And I agree with LondonJohn that such official recording may have deliberately been left out. But that wouldn't prevent individuals from making their own CYA recordings.

There is also the contemporaneous written recording of Amanda's interrogation for which we have oral testimony concerning it's existence. Where are the written notes from that evening?

 

[Numbers]

More Google Translation of RS's CSC appeal

For Raffaele's appeal to CSC, I attempted to Google translate some of the first paragraphs. I edited some myself, where Google Translate (GT) left the words in Italian, not because I know Italian, but because I have a sense of what this may be saying in English. My edits are marked with (?), and GT words I think don't fit are struck out. Here it is:


REQUEST FOR ASSIGNMENT TO UNITED CRIMINAL SECTIONS
In view of the fact that some of the issues addressed in the present action, appear special importance or which, however, could give rise to a conflict of case law, it asks whether Articles. 610, paragraph 2, and 618 Code of Criminal Procedure the assignment of the use of the United Criminal Sections [Penalty].

1) Scientific Evidence
The first question that requires a ruling of the United Sections regards
the probative value of the scientific evidence or circumstantial, allor when both in the presence of an investigation involving a high technical difficulty, but it was done disregarding international recommendations regarding treatment of evidence (?) and data interpretation.
In this respect, it is necessary to assess whether this controversial result (?) [figure], taken in violation of methods strongly recommended by the Community international scientific (eg. those issued by the International Society Forensic Genetics as regards the analysis of traces of DNA) has probative value (?) [relief] or is not probative.

The profile in question assumes a decisive importance in the present case, since the judgment under appeal considered fully reliable and, therefore, convincing the conclusions reached by Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni (Pol. Scient.) In order to trace DNA on the clasp bra (rep. 165 B - pp. 240-250 and 320 sent.); on the other hand, compared to the results of the analysis on track 36B (blade kitchen knife), the Court of reference considered that they could take seriously value circumstantial evidence (p. 321 sent.).
In this respect, it should be emphasized that the expertise ordered on appeal, signed by Profs. Vecchiotti and Conti, concerning the reliability of the results conducted by Dr. Stefanoni on these two findings (36, 165 B), had led to a substantial unreliability of such investigations, because of the failure to follow procedures of inspection and repertazione [treatment of evidence?], and of failure to respect international recommendations concerning the interpretation of the data.
However, the requirement of controllability marks the boundary between scientific theories and unscientific; on the other hand, it is known that a scientific law can be considered as such only after being subjected to repeated {testing?}, overcome forgery {misleading results?} and after receiving repeated confirmations.

 

[Kauffer]

Money

Mignini said they didn't tape the interrogation:

13’00’’ Mignini:
"The interrogations of Amanda in prison were taped, and then transcribed, and we have the transcripts of… But in a police station, at the very moment of the investigation it isn’t done, not in the confrontations with Amanda or with anyone else. Also because, I can tell you, today, even then, but today in particular, we have budget problems, budget problems that are not insignificant, which do not allow us to transcribe."

....budget problems, which were not so problematic that they could afford to spend 82,000 euros making a cartoon of the prosecutor's imagined fantasy of how the murder took place together with substantial sums on phone taps and translations of phone taps? And the biggest night in Perugian law enforcement history? They couldn't afford to pay for that? How very strange!

 

[platonov]

Real world stuff

Such unadulterated fictional nonsense.

Raffaele Sollecito's explanation of his whereabouts and the whereabouts of Ms Knox are comprehensively laid out on pages 16-22 of his book, "Honour Bound".
There is no question whatsoever that each provides the other with an alibi for the entire range of time even the PLE thugs can dream up and stretch to accommodate the murder.

No.

My post was directed at Mach & if he or ch or any of the couple of posters who deal with the reality of the case wish to respond on a real world legal issue I will reply.
However I have no intention of confusing that conversation with the CT Cartwheel world stuff.

This is an entirely separate issue.

 

[platonov]

Where to start.

Furthermore - on the ‘issue’ that you raise.

If you propose that a ghostwritten english language book, published is the US and elements of which were stated to be untrue on Italian TV by RS’s own father somehow has a standing (any standing) comparable to the submissions made by the defendants defence team to the Italian courts...
Well I simply don’t know where to begin with that one

It stands as its own refutation.
It’s in the same ballpark as the Watergate conspiracy stuff posted directly upthread.

 

[Kauffer]

Fantasy

Furthermore - on the ‘issue’ that you raise.

If you propose that a ghostwritten english language book, published is the US and elements of which were stated to be untrue on Italian TV by RS’s own father somehow has a standing (any standing) comparable to the submissions made by the defendants defence team to the Italian courts...
Well I simply don’t know where to begin with that one

It stands as its own refutation.
It’s in the same ballpark as the Watergate conspiracy stuff posted directly upthread.

Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito both state unequivocally that they were in each other's company at his flat for the entire duration of the evening of the 1st November to the morning of the 2nd November. That is their position. I have no idea why you cannot understand that. You might not believe it but that is another matter.

 

[Bill Williams]

Yet Amanda never told the police the truth that Lumumba wasn't invlved at any time. I know, she was confused and pressured, villified and scapegoated. But during her victimhood, she never once told the truth about Lumumba. I guess she remained confused until well after he was released.

This demonstrates a series of logical fallacies resulting from an assumption of guilt.

1) The problem is you do not know that. You do not know that because there is no recording. Knox may have repeated multiple times that Lumumba was not there, but eventually said what 'the police knew to be true', which is the only statement they recorded.

2) What you can say is that the police never recorded Knox saying Lumumba was not involved.

3) As has been said if Knox was not there she could not know that Lumumba was not involved. So an innocent Knox could not be expected to make this statement.

So your argument is; If Knox was innocent she would have said that Lumumba was not there. The only way she could not know Lumumba was not there was if she was guilty. If she says Lumumba was there then she is guilty.

Is the logical error clear?

This.

And to add to these logical errors, there's Machiavelli's boner from three pages ago which his account has not addressed:

Sollecito testified before Matteini and Ricciarelli. On those occasions he did not provide an alibi to Amanda Knox. That one is his last position before a judicial organ.
Then, on December 22. 2007 he refused to answer the questions before Mignini.
He never testified in the trial.

I am sure Raffaele did not do/say a lot of things during those initial hearings. Aside from the guarantee that whenever a suspect decides to remain silent, the silence cannot be inferred to mean anything.....

Machiavelli is making the silence in three narrow instances somehow determinative.

Then again, if Raffaele HAD given an alibi, Machiavelli would have said he was lying- so Machiavelli has covered off all the rhetorical escape routes anyway.

Panigale - here's a tip. Never hold the pro-guilt lobby to account for errors in simple logic. Without those errors, they simply would not have a case.

 

[Bill Williams]

Furthermore - on the ‘issue’ that you raise.

If you propose that a ghostwritten english language book, published is the US and elements of which were stated to be untrue on Italian TV by RS’s own father somehow has a standing (any standing) comparable to the submissions made by the defendants defence team to the Italian courts...
Well I simply don’t know where to begin with that one

It stands as its own refutation.
It’s in the same ballpark as the Watergate conspiracy stuff posted directly upthread.

Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito both state unequivocally that they were in each other's company at his flat for the entire duration of the evening of the 1st November to the morning of the 2nd November. That is their position. I have no idea why you cannot understand that. You might not believe it but that is another matter.

This is what I mean by folk like platonov covering off rhetorical escape routes. Platonov simply will not take a step back and analyze something on its own merits.

If Raffaele says, "Amanda was out when I was at home," (which he didn't, by the way) platonov believes it. If Raffaele writes in his book that Amanda had to have been at his place all night, because she'd have had to have rung the bell to get back in, platonov calls him a liar, in a lie-plagued book.

How much of this stuff does one need read in this thread before one gets the feeling that the conclusion is driving the analysis of each item?

 

[Kauffer]

Alibis

This.

And to add to these logical errors, there's Machiavelli's boner from three pages ago which his account has not addressed:



I am sure Raffaele did not do/say a lot of things during those initial hearings. Aside from the guarantee that whenever a suspect decides to remain silent, the silence cannot be inferred to mean anything.....

Machiavelli is making the silence in three narrow instances somehow determinative.

Then again, if Raffaele HAD given an alibi, Machiavelli would have said he was lying- so Machiavelli has covered off all the rhetorical escape routes anyway.

Panigale - here's a tip. Never hold the pro-guilt lobby to account for errors in simple logic. Without those errors, they simply would not have a case.

The plain fact of the matter is that neither Ms Knox nor Mr Sollecito have any juice to extract from the fact that they maintain they were in each other's company at the time of the murder. When your alibi witness gets arrested, charged, tried and convicted for the same crime as you, then you have no alibi witness anymore. Things then move on to trial.

The whole PG community simply doesn't understand how these matters play out at trial. Mr Sollecito faces a very peculiar problem - the rubbish evidence used against Ms Knox has been grafted on to the case against him. He must look to his best tactical defence.

 

[platonov]

The race is hotting up!

This.

And to add to these logical errors, there's Machiavelli's boner from three pages ago which his account has not addressed:



I am sure Raffaele did not do/say a lot of things during those initial hearings. Aside from the guarantee that whenever a suspect decides to remain silent, the silence cannot be inferred to mean anything.....

Machiavelli is making the silence in three narrow instances somehow determinative.

Then again, if Raffaele HAD given an alibi, Machiavelli would have said he was lying- so Machiavelli has covered off all the rhetorical escape routes anyway.

Panigale - here's a tip. Never hold the pro-guilt lobby to account for errors in simple logic. Without those errors, they simply would not have a case.

Wow.

You argue that what 'Machiavelli would have said' has some bearing on the fact that RS never provided AK with an alibi.

Kauffer that’s better than the book stuff.
You [and Woodward & Bernstein] are off the hook
(for the moment)

 

[platonov]

This is what I mean by folk like platonov covering off rhetorical escape routes. Platonov simply will not take a step back and analyze something on its own merits.

If Raffaele says, "Amanda was out when I was at home," (which he didn't, by the way) platonov believes it. If Raffaele writes in his book that Amanda had to have been at his place all night, because she'd have had to have rung the bell to get back in, platonov calls him a liar, in a lie-plagued book.

How much of this stuff does one need read in this thread before one gets the feeling that the conclusion is driving the analysis of each item?

Obviously I didn't get the point across with sufficient clarity

But it's the best I can (or will) do.

 

[Kauffer]

Dogs barking in the moonlight

Wow.

You argue that what 'Machiavelli would have said' has some bearing on the fact that RS never provided AK with an alibi.

Kauffer that’s better than the book stuff.
You [and Woodward & Bernstein] are off the hook
(for the moment)

Are you under the impression that Mr Sollecito's position is that Ms Knox went out the night of the murder? Is that what you believe?

 

[Bill Williams]

Obviously I didn't get the point across with sufficient clarity

But it's the best I can (or will) do.

Thanks for the admission. You need to know, though, that in theory I am persuadable.

What would really help would be things put in such a way as to not depend on strawmen, or assuming the conclusion.

Also, I note that seldom, if ever, do pro-guilt lobbyists cite Nencini or Massei...... often substituting their own theories which even the convicting judges reject.

Maybe you can do a kindness by answering.... why does the pro-guilt side think even the convicting judges still need that kind of help?