Continuation Part 13: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Bill Williams]

That was Frank's Felony Tour of America and Canada.

Of all the ad hominems aimed Frank Sfarzo's way, this is the ad hominemest.

Sfarzo has written something for the wrongful conviction website, and this is the guilt-lobby's response. It's a great way to divert from the issues he raised.

They've been doing this to Sfarzo since Mignini had the courts shut down Perugia Shock. My view is that a good way to gauge if Sfarzo is hitting something near a bullseye, is when the ad hominem starts.

When Winterbottom's film ("The Face of an Angel") is released, the ad hominem will start anew. Acc. to Winterbottom Sfarzo is the one journalist/blogger who understood what went wrong in Perugia with the wrongful prosecution of AK and RS. Ad hominem is all the pro-guilt lobby have - and it was crucial for Mignini to shut down Perugia Shock to maintain the wrongful conviction of AK and RS.

Wait until George Clooney gets "The Monster of Florence" out of development-hell! A conviction on March 25 will only speed that along. Clooney will then receive some of the ad hominem attention!

 

[Bill Williams]

I guess, then, following your logic - that when la Repubblica calls her a "former researcher" this means that la Repubblica has reason to believe her Ph.D. has been revoked!

Well played, Machiavelli.

What do you think you will achieve by trying nonsense puns?

I'm starting to believe this is your true hobby.

With all due respect, M., I do not care what you think.

The word "researcher" is a word which has meaning in the Italian system of granting of degrees. The difference between a "laurea" and a "dottore/dottoressa di ricerca" is as explained below:

The old-style "laurea" is now known as "laurea magistrale/specialistica" (ISCED Level 6). For historical reasons, even to this day, the title of "dottore/dottoressa" (abbrev. both as dott/dott.ssa or as dr./dr.ssa ) is awarded even to those who have attended a "laurea". Upper levels of degree are anyway shown in the title, as those who obtain a master's degree can be referred to as "dottore/dottoressa magistrale" (masterly doctor) while those who achieve the relatively new program of "dottorato di ricerca" (research doctorate, equivalent of a Ph.D.), carry the title of "dottore/dottoressa di ricerca" (research doctor), which can be abbreviated as "Dott. Ric.", "Dr." or "Ph.D."​

Obviously, the word "ricerca" does double duty: it can mean someone who principally does research for their work, regardless of their academic background.....

..... or when added to "dottore/dottoressa" it is a modifier which indicates the holder has attained a Ph.D.

La Repubblica calls Stefanoni a "laurea", a simple graduate of the lowest academic level there is. Upper levels have other terms associated with them, none of which anywhere are applied to Stefanoni.

You, yourself, could have taken the time it took to post your post to prove me wrong. You didn't. Good for you.

If you insist that the term "ricerca" in the la Repuibblica article modifies "laurea" to indicate some upper level degree for Stefanoni, then you also have to acknowledge that la Repubblica says this is a former position held.

It is you I am mocking, Machiavelli - you are now indicating that the reason why la Repubblica calls Stefanoni only a "laurea", is because she no longer is entitled to "ricerca" in her name.

You are the only person I can find who still tries to argue that Stefanoni has a Ph.D. No one else is doing that. If someone can find someone who will vouch for Stefanoni having a Ph.D., esp. in the period 2007-2009 which is germane to this case, I'll be the first to apologize.

Up to now, though, it is just you claiming it.

 

[Machiavelli]

With all due respect, M., I do not care what you think.

The word "researcher" is a word which has meaning in the Italian system of granting of degrees. The difference between a "laurea" and a "dottore/dottoressa di ricerca" is as explained below:

Obviously, the word "ricerca" does double duty: it can mean someone who principally does research for their work, regardless of their academic background.....

..... or when added to "dottore/dottoressa" it is a modifier which indicates the holder has attained a Ph.D.

La Repubblica calls Stefanoni a "laurea", a simple graduate of the lowest academic level there is. Upper levels have other terms associated with them, none of which anywhere are applied to Stefanoni.

No.
It's just you who refuse to accept the meaning of things in other languages and systems.

La Repubblica does not "call" Stefanoni laurea, does not at all call her a graduate of the lowest academic level. It's absolutely false. It's like your other claims like that Massei stated AK and RS are "psychopathologically normal" or that "there is no mixed blood" or that Nencini "attributes Y haplotypes to females" or that I called Guede "Knox's pimp".

In the Italian language, you cannot call a person laurea, because laurea is only a thing, not an attribute.
But something you refuse to absorb is that Italians do not use titles the way you think. For example judge would always be defined as "Dr" (title obtained by a simple laurea) even if he is a high Magistrate, maybe a lawyer and certainly has at least the titles a post graduate specialist. A person would be defined by his/her laurea, and not by their PhDs (he/she has this laurea). Or sometimes other specific titles may be used (lawyer, geometra, maestro, etc.) but only for some specific professions and profiles. A person would be called professor when he/she obtains the abilitazione (even if he/she is not actually working as professor), but sometimes researchers are called professors, especially by students, while they work as assistent professors.
So, now way La Repubblica states Stefanoni has only a laurea.

On the contrary.

La Repubblica also says "già ricercatrice in genetica", that means Stefanoni something precise, it means held the status of researcher on a specific field ("BIO 19" = Genetics), and since we know she had this status for 8 years, she must have been a confirmed researcher, who already had her PhD (you could be researcher for a maximum of 3 years before obtaining a PhD, then you need to have it in order to be confirmed further).

This is what Italian readers would infer by reading La Repubblica's article.

You want to twist it along your made up meanings - from Italian into Billwlliamsian.

La Repubblica calls Stefanoni only a "laurea", is because she no longer is entitled to "ricerca" in her name.

This is further ignorance speaking. Researcher as a term is different than professor, in that you don't hold it forever, if you leave the post you are no longer called researcher. But this doesn't change the basic fact of how the title/status of researcher works. The system works in such a way that any person who holds a status of researcher for 8 years would have a PhD. Besides the fact that in the Italian system basically all researchers obtain a PhD, you just can't hold a status or researcher for that time, and the same field, without having it.


(...)

Up to now, though, it is just you claiming it.

I re-state the self-evident, most important point: you are the person making a claim, the innocentisti brought up an argument and they have the burden to prove it. The evidence is against to ther claim. And their argument - which they brought up, not me - is a statement of a nature that carries an intrinsic burden of proof.

 

[Strozzi]

And Raffaele also.

Well, the pro-innocent supporters will lose this then. There is no way a professor of microbology and genetics with a Ph.D. and substantial publications can have better credentials than a police evidence scientist with a masters who has NEVER had a single instance of contamination in her lab!

And besides, Stefanoni is a team-player on the police team. That automatically gives her an extra 10 points.

 

[Machiavelli]

And that they only took one knife and do not have a solid chain of custody is no nevermind to you?

Actually they took two knives from the apartment and one from Sollecito's pocket (all the potential weapons he possessed in Parugia).

I think your claims about "solid chain of custody" are merely void rhetoric.

 

[carbonjam72]

I am unable to explain the details of those two issues, because the side trackings performed by some Narducci family members and a number of other folks did succeed in blocking the investigations and preventing to discover the whole truth.



I don't know almost anything about Satanism (I don't think any significant "Satanist" organization exists, actually). I think there have been some instances of "Satanism" - and "Black magic" or "exoterism" above all - meant as aspects of cultural fashion that have emerged sometimes as a hobby of upper class elites.
I point out that it seems more frequently an interest in occult, exoterism and magic, rituals that may have some devilish taste, rather than declared Satanism.

As for Masonry, I don't see any structural relation between Masonry and satanism.

Masonry had a powerful role in Italian history, it was a main motor of its unification, we can say it's among the pillars of the modern Nation in some way. Masonry is also something very "Italian" insofar as it is said to be the ideal heir of Pythagoras' secret society (established in the Calabrian town of Kroton more than five centuries b.C.), an ideal handed down through the Italian Reinassance tradition of secret societies.



No.
Nothing to do as far as I know.

Although, there might be some historical relation between Masonry and the State of Israel (mostly because of the role of some prominent actors, above all the Rothschield family). But there is otherwise no relation at all betwen Jews and Satanism (except for literature, the fact that Satan is a charachter of the Bible).

However, also Roman Catholicism is supposed to have nothing to do with Paedophilia. But we know that there have been people who used the Catholic Church for purposes that were not on the book, and they keep on covering each other.



There is nothing that prevents the defence from calling Mignini to stand cross-examination. There is no legal obstacle to that. I just guess the defence won't do that, because it's not conventient to them.

Amazing information, thank you.

So to be clear, you believe that the Narducci family, including the maid, was involved in a satanic sect, as per Mignini's case against the 20 people in Florence, (and Calamandrei)? (or is it a merely masonic sect, tinged by satan?).

You think Spezi was a mastermind behind the MOF murders as well?

And you believe Giutarri's theory that Vanni and Lotti, were assistants to pacciani in the MOF cases, and specifically, that they were obtaining female body parts for use in satanic rituals? (Or, if I understand you, 'masonic rituals tinged with satan', a not infrequent hobby of the rich)? (I understand Vanni and Lotti were convicted as accomplices to Pacciani, but motive was not addressed in their convictions, if I recall correctly).

I hadn't heard of the Pythagaras secret society before, that's news to me. Is that the same fellow of the Pythagoras intheorum, relating the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle to the square of it's hypotenuse?

 

[Machiavelli]

Well, the pro-innocent supporters will lose this then. There is no way a professor of microbology and genetics with a Ph.D. and substantial publications can have better credentials than a police evidence scientist with a masters who has NEVER had a single instance of contamination in her lab!

Vecchiotti doesn't even have a BA in biology.

You seem to allude to another "myth" misreporting Stefanoni's testimony.

 

[Bill Williams]

No.
It's just you who refuse to accept the meaning of things in other languages and systems.

La Repubblica does not "call" Stefanoni laurea, does not at all call her a graduate of the lowest academic level. It's absolutely false. It's like your other claims like that Massei stated AK and RS are "psychopathologically normal" or that "there is no mixed blood" or that Nencini "attributes Y haplotypes to females" or that I called Guede "Knox's pimp".

In the Italian language, you cannot call a person laurea, because laurea is only a thing, not an attribute.
But something you refuse to absorb is that Italians do not use titles the way you think. For example judge would always be defined as "Dr" (title obtained by a simple laurea) even if he is a high Magistrate, maybe a lawyer and certainly has at least the titles a post graduate specialist. A person would be defined by his/her laurea, and not by their PhDs (he/she has this laurea). Or sometimes other specific titles may be used (lawyer, geometra, maestro, etc.) but only for some specific professions and profiles. A person would be called professor when he/she obtains the abilitazione (even if he/she is not actually working as professor), but sometimes researchers are called professors, especially by students, while they work as assistent professors.
So, now way La Repubblica states Stefanoni has only a laurea.

On the contrary.

La Repubblica also says "già ricercatrice in genetica", that means Stefanoni something precise, it means held the status of researcher on a specific field ("BIO 19" = Genetics), and since we know she had this status for 8 years, she must have been a confirmed researcher, who already had her PhD (you could be researcher for a maximum of 3 years before obtaining a PhD, then you need to have it in order to be confirmed further).

This is what Italian readers would infer by reading La Repubblica's article.

You want to twist it along your made up meanings - from Italian into Billwlliamsian.



This is further ignorance speaking. Researcher as a term is different than professor, in that you don't hold it forever, if you leave the post you are no longer called researcher. But this doesn't change the basic fact of how the title/status of researcher works. The system works in such a way that any person who holds a status of researcher for 8 years would have a PhD. Besides the fact that in the Italian system basically all researchers obtain a PhD, you just can't hold a status or researcher for that time, and the same field, without having it.


(...)


I re-state the self-evident, most important point: you are the person making a claim, the innocentisti brought up an argument and they have the burden to prove it. The evidence is against to ther claim. And their argument - which they brought up, not me - is a statement of a nature that carries an intrinsic burden of proof.

.... yet you would rather engage me in this, than actually demonstrate what you, and you alone, are claiming.

That's your right I guess.

 

[Bill Williams]

Just so that you do not lose track of it, Machiavelli, this is what la Repubblica said.

Merito di Patrizia Stefanoni, 40 anni, laurea in Scienze Biologiche e già ricercatrice in genetica, dal 2000 in polizia e ora direttore tecnico-biologo della Sezione Genetica-Forense della Scientifica di Roma che riesce a respingere con decisione le osservazioni dei consulenti scientifici della difesa.​

About Patrizia Stefanoni, 40, a graduate in Biological Sciences and former researcher in genetics, since 2000 police and now technical director-biologist-Forensic Genetics Section of the Science of Rome who can firmly reject the observations of scientific advisors of the defense.​

I have a feeling you're about to launch into some dietrology as to what it means to "call" someone something.

No matter, la Repubblica called Stefanoni a "laurea" in Biological Sciences.

You say: "Researcher as a term is different than professor, in that you don't hold it forever, if you leave the post you are no longer called researcher"...

...... when the term "ricerca" is also one attached to "dottore/dottoressa" to produce the permanent term ""dottore/dottoressa di ricerca" which IS permanent.

The only thing remaining is why you insist on arguing the way you do.

 

[Strozzi]

Did the police even have a "search" warrant when they acquired the knife?

Raffaele wrote in his book that he explained to his interrogators in the late night interrogation that he had been on his computer the evening/night of the crime and that his computer was proof of it. He invited them to go to his flat with him to see for themselves. They did.

Of course, the police had also been tasked since the murder to find a knife. They had not been able to find one by looking around the property. On Nov 4, two days after the Nov 2 discovery of the crime, the police took Amanda to her cottage to see what was what. They showed her the kitchen knives but Knox saw nothing amiss.

Still needing a knife, when the police searched Raffaele's flat at about 2 am on Nov 6 they found one, with of course no rational expectation that it could really be the murder weapon. But police needed to break open the case that night, and since Raffaele would not actively denounce Knox, they grabbed whatever they could to tie him to the crime. They grabbed the big one and Stefanoni fabricated her analysis to claim it had Meredith's DNA on the blade.

The Carabinieri lab, working for the court, rejected Stefanoni's claim.

 

[Dougm]

Although I don't doubt it has value to understand what level of education Stefanoni has, compared to Vecchiotti and/or others called on to evaluate the evidence, it seems like it can divert from the subject of the actual methods she used and the testimony she gave.

I don't care if she has 20 PhDs, she oversaw evidence collection that went like THIS:

 

[Bill Williams]

Raffaele wrote in his book that he explained to his interrogators in the late night interrogation that he had been on his computer the evening/night of the crime and that his computer was proof of it. He invited them to go to his flat with him to see for themselves. They did.

Of course, the police had also been tasked since the murder to find a knife. They had not been able to find one by looking around the property. On Nov 4, two days after the Nov 2 discovery of the crime, the police took Amanda to her cottage to see what was what. They showed her the kitchen knives but Knox saw nothing amiss. They grabbed the big one.

Still needing a knife, when the police searched Raffaele's flat at about 2 am on Nov 6 they found one, with of course no rational expectation that it could really be the murder weapon. But police needed to break open the case that night, and since Raffaele would not actively denounce Knox, they grabbed whatever they could to tie him to the crime.

Frank Sfarzo relates in one of his earliest Perugia Shock entries one of the reasons he turned from being a guilter himself.

He went down to the cottage and talked with one of the cops guarding the place. Sfarzo said he noted that no one was searching the woods below the cottage - seemingly a perfect place to stash (heave deep into) a murder weapon.

Sfarzo said he was advised, "We already have the knife." This did not exactly answer Sfarzo's question, but he was assured that the cops knew what they were doing.

Sure enough, eventually it was discovered that the kitchen knife from Raffaele's could not account for all the wounds, and that the only wound it could be compatible with, meant that the assailant (unheard of) did not use the thing to its hilt.

Sfarzo hints that if the cops hadn't even looked "around the property" or in the woods below, at least not thoroughly. This meant they got locked into having the kitchen knife, even with all the DNA "irregularities" discussed here in this thread ad nauseum.

The lack of thoroughness of the investigation is what eventually turned Sfarzo to the innocence side, and the ad hominem against him started! This movement from Sfarzo is only hinted at in Winterbottom's film.

 

[Bill Williams]

Although I don't doubt it has value to understand what level of education Stefanoni has, compared to Vecchiotti and/or others called on to evaluate the evidence, it seems like it can divert from the subject of the actual methods she used and the testimony she gave.

I don't care if she has 20 PhDs, she oversaw evidence collection that went like THIS:

Or this:

 

[Machiavelli]

Amazing information, thank you.

So to be clear, you believe that the Narducci family, including the maid, was involved in a satanic sect, as per Mignini's case against the 20 people in Florence, (and Calamandrei)? (or is it a merely masonic sect, tinged by satan?).

I don't know in detail what the members of Narducci's family would do exactly, and I have only some ideas about what Francesco Narducci and Calamandrei used to do (Calamandrei's on "circle" and friends). I am not sure I could call it a "satanic sect". It's something sure, however, that most people involved in the MoF investigation had an interest in exoteric rituals and magic.

You think Spezi was a mastermind behind the MOF murders as well?

No. Absolutely not. But I think he was involved in the side-trackings on the MoF investigation from the very beginning.
In addition, Spezi was a member of SISDE (an Italian governmental secret agency that had devious branches within it, now dissolved) and was a personal friend - and neighbour - of some extremely powerful politicians who were into security matters. He was also a "failed lawyer" (or a "failed magistrate") and was a friend of some important members of the Florentine judiciary (Judge Nannucci and Judge Maradei).

And you believe Giutarri's theory that Vanni and Lotti, were assistants to pacciani in the MOF cases, and specifically, that they were obtaining female body parts for use in satanic rituals?

Let's be clear: this is not a theory. This is a proven fact to the courts. It's a judicial truth, there are definitive Cassazione sentences, about the fact that Vanni and Lotti and Pacciani used to murder together. The courts also established that there must have been someone else involved, and that the murderers had a probable exoteric/ritualistic motive of unknown nature.

(Or, if I understand you, 'masonic rituals tinged with satan', a not infrequent hobby of the rich)?

I would prefer to talk about "exoterism and drugs within the culture of the rich and powerful people".

(I understand Vanni and Lotti were convicted as accomplices to Pacciani, but motive was not addressed in their convictions, if I recall correctly).

The probable exoterism motive was the working scenario. But it was acknowledged in the verdicts that chapters of the investigation were still missing.

I hadn't heard of the Pythagaras secret society before, that's news to me. Is that the same fellow of the Pythagoras intheorum, relating the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle to the square of it's hypotenuse?

Yes, he is the founder of the first, famous "Italian" (albeit actually Greek) secret society, known as Schola Italica. It was an aristocratic, anti-democratic group of "illuminati" (enlightened) whose legacy survived through centuries. A Pythagorian secret society of the middle ages known as "Fratelli Obscuri" is believed to be the inspirational branch from which modern-time Anglo-Saxon Masonry developed under Elizabeth the 1st. Their symbols (geometry, triangle, circles with inscribed shapes and solids, eye etc.) are clearly recognizable.
The original Pythagorian Society also had religious symbolism from Egyptian religion and from the Bible.

Calabria - the land of Pythagora - is to the present day probably the land with the highest number pro-capita of members of Masonic lodges in the world.
Unfortunately, in Southern Italy Masonry is also tightly related with mafia and political corruption.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
The Carabinieri lab, working for the court, rejected Stefanoni's claim.

The Carabinieri never "rejected a Stefanoni's claim".

 

[Strozzi]

Vecchiotti doesn't even have a BA in biology.

You seem to allude to another "myth" misreporting Stefanoni's testimony.

Mach, I'm actually with you on this issue of Stefanoni's training and academic research experience. I understand that university graduates in Italy and some other European countries (Portugal, for example) are regarded as (non-medical) doctors and addressed with that earned title. And I understand that Stefanoni did a year or two graduate work akin to a U.S. masters degree in microbiology, and that she was a research assistant or researcher for about eight years before sitting for rigorous exams and being selected to join the forensic police service. I have no problem regarding her as a doctor of science, the Italian way. I understand that her academic degree did not include a Ph.D. course and Ph.D. dissertation. I have no problem regarding her academic training and Italian academic title.

I have a problem with her poor scientific practices.

 

[Machiavelli]

J
I have a feeling you're about to launch into some dietrology as to what it means to "call" someone something.

No matter, la Repubblica called Stefanoni a "laurea" in Biological Sciences.

I told you what it means. If you intent is to understand.

(Your actual intent is to make up stuff as usual).

You say: "Researcher as a term is different than professor, in that you don't hold it forever, if you leave the post you are no longer called researcher"...

...... when the term "ricerca" is also one attached to "dottore/dottoressa" to produce the permanent term ""dottore/dottoressa di ricerca" which IS permanent.

That title is not used.
Can you hear me?
It is not used.
People don't say "this is a dottore di ricerca". He/she would be called "laureato" in ... .
Can you udnerstand this?

 

[Strozzi]

The Carabinieri never "rejected a Stefanoni's claim".

Correct. Let me correct it. The Carabinieri forensic scientists found no evidence of the victim's DNA in the lab data or on the knife blade.

 

[Machiavelli]

Mach, I'm actually with you on this issue of Stefanoni's training and academic research experience. I understand that university graduates in Italy and some other European countries (Portugal, for example) are regarded as (non-medical) doctors and addressed with that earned title. And I understand that Stefanoni did a year or two graduate work akin to a U.S. masters degree in microbiology, and that she was a research assistant or researcher for about eight years before sitting for rigorous exams and being selected to join the forensic police service. I have no problem regarding her as a doctor of science, the Italian way. I understand that her academic degree did not include a Ph.D. course and Ph.D. dissertation.

But this understanding is false. She must have discussed a PhD dissertation in order to be allowed to work 8 years at an Italian university. The fact is that the Italian system and custom does not attach importance to PhD as a title, and does not use it as a title. In theory it exists, some people have that title, but it is not addressed, not mentioned, not used in the common language.

I have a problem with her poor scientific practices.

I don't. And even if I had, that wouldn't affect my rational conclusion about guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

I have a problem with the pro-Knox supporters' statements.

 

[Strozzi]

Vecchiotti doesn't even have a BA in biology.

You seem to allude to another "myth" misreporting Stefanoni's testimony.

The myth I am really alluding to is the myth that there has never been any DNA contamination in Stefanini's lab.