Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[acbytesla]

I fully do expect at some time in the future that officials in Italy will make public apologies to Amanda and Raffaele. I'm even hopeful that the Kerchers will also forgive Amanda...but something tells me John Kercher won't ever. His words condemning her are too public. But maybe the kids will.

 

[Planigale]

I'm finding a weirdly curious parallel between Mrs Kercher's saying she "doesn't want to talk about that girl", and Rudy Guede saying he isn't concerned about what happens to Amanda and Raf, just what happens in his own life (although he did apologize to his adopted family for not calling for help, so there's that).

And, Mrs Kercher wants to visit Rudy Guede in prison. Sadly they seem to have a lot in common in regard to denial and cognitive dissonance. Strange to say, but I can imagine her coming away from such a visit, charmed by Rudy, and blaming others for luring or leading him astray.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...h-Kerchers-mother-We-have-waited-in-vain.html

I find this entirely natural she will want to try and find out the truth about what happened to her daughter. The Italian justice system has not really provided that. It has apparently left the issue as Guede did not act alone, but has not identified the others.

This might be a great opportunity for redemption if Guede tells the truth and Meredith's mother discovers the truth. I am not sure this will happen. The UK has some programs where criminal can meet with their victims but these are quite closely supervised. In the cases I have read about they seem therapeutic, but I imagine they could easily go wrong.

 

[Desert Fox]

I fully do expect at some time in the future that officials in Italy will make public apologies to Amanda and Raffaele. I'm even hopeful that the Kerchers will also forgive Amanda...but something tells me John Kercher won't ever. His words condemning her are too public. But maybe the kids will.

The sad thing is that Amanda could give them happy memories of their daughter.

 

[Kauffer]

Arline Kercher wants to meet Rudy Guede! Wow, just when you think you've seen it all.

Meredith Kercher's mother: 'We have waited in vain' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...h-Kerchers-mother-We-have-waited-in-vain.html

Mrs Kercher suggested she may make a prison visit to see Rudy Guede, who is serving a 16-year jail sentence for the murder of Miss Kercher, but said she didn't know whether it would be possible.

Perhaps she's started to wonder if Guede was the only one after all and wants to look him in the eye.

The people at PMF and TJMK and their own lawyer were telling her that the last thing she should expect was wholesale acquittal and that the most likely thing to happen was confirmation, arrest, extradition and imprisonment - and for Raffaele, he was going to prison immediately after the reading - so that bit of trust has evaporated - maybe the rest will too.

When she said she was 'shocked', I've no doubt she was accurately describing her feeling.

Maybe these people needed to be shocked and that now it's happened, it will, as the hypnotists say, 'bring them back into the room'.

 

[carbonjam72]

Time for RandyN's take, as posted on Facebook:

Thats right Alexander...the reporter asked Knox yesterday, "who killed Kercher?" The answer to that has always been so clear that one would have to be a dense to not really know that answer. And the Perugia prosecutor and police and several lower court judges knew that answer as well....Rudy Guede killed poor Miss Kercher. You really have to have a wild imagination to fall for all the varying stories that were used to try to implicate RS and AK. Forget trying to weave in the lack of evidence. The failed CSI ...the abusive interrogation without lawyers, the continued denial of attorney's up until the minute of the first hearing. The numerous sub-related cases filed by the prosecutor to either deny a fair and free press or to intimidate witnesses or even scare the families into silence for talking about their daughter's beatings at the hands of police. There are literally more than a hundred examples of official abuse, lies and deceit. Witnesses lying in court, prosecutors trying to sneak fake documents into the court record...(this would be the fake control data sheets)...twice the judge caught them and twice let them slide... If the average joe knew the true facts of the level of corruption in this case they would howl for justice...but not for Miss Kercher or her family...that time passed long ago when the real killer Guede was given only a slap, meanwhile they worked for the devil to convict two completely innocent persons. Only a fool would not know this. Not the average joe, because most people could not spend the time to study the facts, but certainly the families? Please....how can anyone be that oblivious? I feel sorry for them on two counts...they lost a loved one and second they were cheated and lied to by police and prosecutor and a dishonest lawyer or three. Who burns up 4 computers and then denies a defense motion to try and recover and repair this damage... caused by who? Why the police thats who. And THEN...as if it never happened, to try and use the now lack of data to prove that what??? A relationship never happened? The roommates were not friends? The alibi was no good. It is a case so full of wrong that it should go down in history for the sheer volume of mafia like behavior of the officials. All pretending. No one being fully honest...even the first appeal judge allowing a false slander charge to stand in order to save Italy a few millions in false imprisonment charges. I hope the case against this prevails in the ECOHR and that Italy is held up to the light for allowing such open and gross abuse of the law and of persons. The murdered girl and her family will never get justice. The two wrongly accused and their families suffered irreparable damages, grief and strife. Meanwhile, the real protagonists have all been happily promoted or else given a unbelievably light sentence as in Guedes case...Several of the original police have been caught up in other corrupt acts... Not small things, but tampering with evidence and going after the husband of the chiefs soon to be ex-husband. How does this movie not get made? The facts are there for a 3 movie series easily. And right...how did this mess start? What motivated this? A police informant and a whack job of a prosecutor. Not an unknown rouge but a known and examined screwball. So many corrupt acts. They cant be mistakes...Toto, the store clerk, the ear witnesses, the lab tech, the knife, the bra clasp, the fake DNA tests, the outright lies of police in court...Stefanoni stating that samples were large when they were so small as to be untestable...maybe zero in size! How did they get away with this? Not without severe cronyism and corruption. In the end they punted. I hope the Kerchers get some answers about why the Italians failed them ...but honestly how could they be so clueless after 8 years? Never an expressed doubt? That says enough for me. Trying to get clearly innocent persons locked away...using the convoluted words of a scared and confused and abused girl to arrest Lumumba and then pretending that this was not a stupid police move but rather the power and persuasion of a 19 year old non native speaking co-ed. Shameful! And then Mr Lumumba's bar is kept closed for months or until assured bankruptcy and still he slanders Miss Knox rather than suing the police for the same abuse he received from them... as Miss Knox did...beating and threats and actual abuse...why keep him out of business other than to shut him up? I could list a dozen pages of odd and irregular facts that officials used over the years but they all started with one crazy man...a chubby prosecutor from Perugia. He speaks to mediums who channel dead priests. He suspects Masons. He is "pure". Who could believe this is all true and yet it is. Impossibly weaved to be so confusing as to be unexplainable. A level of crazy that is incredulous in the amount of blatant gall required to even attempt such a farce and yet...it happened and a fair number went along for the ride on the crazy bus....sigh.

Nothing quite like a tour de force from Randy to stir the blood!

ETA reproduced with Randy's kind permission, I should add.

Randy's in top form.

Are you able to share the link to Randy's FB page?

 

[kwill]

Time for RandyN's take, as posted on Facebook:

Thats right Alexander...the reporter asked Knox yesterday, "who killed Kercher?" The answer to that has always been so clear that one would have to be a dense to not really know that answer. And the Perugia prosecutor and police and several lower court judges knew that answer as well....Rudy Guede killed poor Miss Kercher. You really have to have a wild imagination to fall for all the varying stories that were used to try to implicate RS and AK. Forget trying to weave in the lack of evidence. The failed CSI ...the abusive interrogation without lawyers, the continued denial of attorney's up until the minute of the first hearing. The numerous sub-related cases filed by the prosecutor to either deny a fair and free press or to intimidate witnesses or even scare the families into silence for talking about their daughter's beatings at the hands of police. There are literally more than a hundred examples of official abuse, lies and deceit. Witnesses lying in court, prosecutors trying to sneak fake documents into the court record...(this would be the fake control data sheets)...twice the judge caught them and twice let them slide... If the average joe knew the true facts of the level of corruption in this case they would howl for justice...but not for Miss Kercher or her family...that time passed long ago when the real killer Guede was given only a slap, meanwhile they worked for the devil to convict two completely innocent persons. Only a fool would not know this. Not the average joe, because most people could not spend the time to study the facts, but certainly the families? Please....how can anyone be that oblivious? I feel sorry for them on two counts...they lost a loved one and second they were cheated and lied to by police and prosecutor and a dishonest lawyer or three. Who burns up 4 computers and then denies a defense motion to try and recover and repair this damage... caused by who? Why the police thats who. And THEN...as if it never happened, to try and use the now lack of data to prove that what??? A relationship never happened? The roommates were not friends? The alibi was no good. It is a case so full of wrong that it should go down in history for the sheer volume of mafia like behavior of the officials. All pretending. No one being fully honest...even the first appeal judge allowing a false slander charge to stand in order to save Italy a few millions in false imprisonment charges. I hope the case against this prevails in the ECOHR and that Italy is held up to the light for allowing such open and gross abuse of the law and of persons. The murdered girl and her family will never get justice. The two wrongly accused and their families suffered irreparable damages, grief and strife. Meanwhile, the real protagonists have all been happily promoted or else given a unbelievably light sentence as in Guedes case...Several of the original police have been caught up in other corrupt acts... Not small things, but tampering with evidence and going after the husband of the chiefs soon to be ex-husband. How does this movie not get made? The facts are there for a 3 movie series easily. And right...how did this mess start? What motivated this? A police informant and a whack job of a prosecutor. Not an unknown rouge but a known and examined screwball. So many corrupt acts. They cant be mistakes...Toto, the store clerk, the ear witnesses, the lab tech, the knife, the bra clasp, the fake DNA tests, the outright lies of police in court...Stefanoni stating that samples were large when they were so small as to be untestable...maybe zero in size! How did they get away with this? Not without severe cronyism and corruption. In the end they punted. I hope the Kerchers get some answers about why the Italians failed them ...but honestly how could they be so clueless after 8 years? Never an expressed doubt? That says enough for me. Trying to get clearly innocent persons locked away...using the convoluted words of a scared and confused and abused girl to arrest Lumumba and then pretending that this was not a stupid police move but rather the power and persuasion of a 19 year old non native speaking co-ed. Shameful! And then Mr Lumumba's bar is kept closed for months or until assured bankruptcy and still he slanders Miss Knox rather than suing the police for the same abuse he received from them... as Miss Knox did...beating and threats and actual abuse...why keep him out of business other than to shut him up? I could list a dozen pages of odd and irregular facts that officials used over the years but they all started with one crazy man...a chubby prosecutor from Perugia. He speaks to mediums who channel dead priests. He suspects Masons. He is "pure". Who could believe this is all true and yet it is. Impossibly weaved to be so confusing as to be unexplainable. A level of crazy that is incredulous in the amount of blatant gall required to even attempt such a farce and yet...it happened and a fair number went along for the ride on the crazy bus....sigh.

Nothing quite like a tour de force from Randy to stir the blood!

ETA reproduced with Randy's kind permission, I should add.

Brilliant. I'm going to start attaching the words "wrongfully accused" to Amanda's and Raffaele's names every time I mention them. Their names need to become shorthand for "severe cronyism and corruption" that was aimed at "trying to get clearly innocent persons locked away."

Wrongfully accused Italian software engineer Raffaele Sollecito will be making a public statement tomorrow. Wrongfully accused journalist Amanda Knox has recently announced her engagement. Etc.

 

[acbytesla]

The sad thing is that Amanda could give them happy memories of their daughter.

She could. I CA actually imagine Arline doing this but not John. I have always suspected that he is/was the famed Harry Rag. If I was Amanda, I would sue the websites he posted his malicious and false comments to uncover his true identity.

 

[Kauffer]

Members seem interested in what Machiavelli has to say, so here is some of it. (He has said here that he is Yummi who wrote the following).

1. The SC definitively established that Guede acted with other people, and that he could not be holding the murder weapon. This is what the Italian newspapers pointed out yesterday.
2. Cassazione didn't throw out the final verdict on Guede, nor the Chieffi verdict. They are all still valid, this is the bizarre thing.
3. If the Guede verdict is reviewed and changed, if there is no evidence of multiple attackers, then he could not be convicted at all. There is no chance he could be convicted as a lone perpetrator. If there is no evidence that multiple attackers were there - we know 100% there is of course - but assume there isn't, then try to imagine if there could be evidence that he did everything alone: zero evidence that he broke the window, zero evidence that he could perform all physical actions alone and leave those traces, zero evidence he walked back to lock the door or washed himself in the bathroom on the murder scene, zero evidence he came back to alter the scene. Absolutely zero possibility to present a consistent scenario on that evidence. Guede cannot be accused of this.

What the motivations report says about multiple attackers is one of the most fascinating issues. And it will have implications.

 

[lonepinealex]

Time for RandyN's take, as posted on Facebook:

Thats right Alexander...the reporter asked Knox yesterday, "who killed Kercher?" The answer to that has always been so clear that one would have to be a dense to not really know that answer. And the Perugia prosecutor and police and several lower court judges knew that answer as well....Rudy Guede killed poor Miss Kercher. You really have to have a wild imagination to fall for all the varying stories that were used to try to implicate RS and AK. Forget trying to weave in the lack of evidence. The failed CSI ...the abusive interrogation without lawyers, the continued denial of attorney's up until the minute of the first hearing. The numerous sub-related cases filed by the prosecutor to either deny a fair and free press or to intimidate witnesses or even scare the families into silence for talking about their daughter's beatings at the hands of police. There are literally more than a hundred examples of official abuse, lies and deceit. Witnesses lying in court, prosecutors trying to sneak fake documents into the court record...(this would be the fake control data sheets)...twice the judge caught them and twice let them slide... If the average joe knew the true facts of the level of corruption in this case they would howl for justice...but not for Miss Kercher or her family...that time passed long ago when the real killer Guede was given only a slap, meanwhile they worked for the devil to convict two completely innocent persons. Only a fool would not know this. Not the average joe, because most people could not spend the time to study the facts, but certainly the families? Please....how can anyone be that oblivious? I feel sorry for them on two counts...they lost a loved one and second they were cheated and lied to by police and prosecutor and a dishonest lawyer or three. Who burns up 4 computers and then denies a defense motion to try and recover and repair this damage... caused by who? Why the police thats who. And THEN...as if it never happened, to try and use the now lack of data to prove that what??? A relationship never happened? The roommates were not friends? The alibi was no good. It is a case so full of wrong that it should go down in history for the sheer volume of mafia like behavior of the officials. All pretending. No one being fully honest...even the first appeal judge allowing a false slander charge to stand in order to save Italy a few millions in false imprisonment charges. I hope the case against this prevails in the ECOHR and that Italy is held up to the light for allowing such open and gross abuse of the law and of persons. The murdered girl and her family will never get justice. The two wrongly accused and their families suffered irreparable damages, grief and strife. Meanwhile, the real protagonists have all been happily promoted or else given a unbelievably light sentence as in Guedes case...Several of the original police have been caught up in other corrupt acts... Not small things, but tampering with evidence and going after the husband of the chiefs soon to be ex-husband. How does this movie not get made? The facts are there for a 3 movie series easily. And right...how did this mess start? What motivated this? A police informant and a whack job of a prosecutor. Not an unknown rouge but a known and examined screwball. So many corrupt acts. They cant be mistakes...Toto, the store clerk, the ear witnesses, the lab tech, the knife, the bra clasp, the fake DNA tests, the outright lies of police in court...Stefanoni stating that samples were large when they were so small as to be untestable...maybe zero in size! How did they get away with this? Not without severe cronyism and corruption. In the end they punted. I hope the Kerchers get some answers about why the Italians failed them ...but honestly how could they be so clueless after 8 years? Never an expressed doubt? That says enough for me. Trying to get clearly innocent persons locked away...using the convoluted words of a scared and confused and abused girl to arrest Lumumba and then pretending that this was not a stupid police move but rather the power and persuasion of a 19 year old non native speaking co-ed. Shameful! And then Mr Lumumba's bar is kept closed for months or until assured bankruptcy and still he slanders Miss Knox rather than suing the police for the same abuse he received from them... as Miss Knox did...beating and threats and actual abuse...why keep him out of business other than to shut him up? I could list a dozen pages of odd and irregular facts that officials used over the years but they all started with one crazy man...a chubby prosecutor from Perugia. He speaks to mediums who channel dead priests. He suspects Masons. He is "pure". Who could believe this is all true and yet it is. Impossibly weaved to be so confusing as to be unexplainable. A level of crazy that is incredulous in the amount of blatant gall required to even attempt such a farce and yet...it happened and a fair number went along for the ride on the crazy bus....sigh.

Nothing quite like a tour de force from Randy to stir the blood!

ETA reproduced with Randy's kind permission, I should add.

A rare occasion when the word "awesome" is actually appropriate!

 

[Numbers]

Is it common place for fast-track trials to be sealed, or is Rudy Guede's the exception? Any word on when it may be unsealed?

My thought is that it has been kept sealed to protect the police and prosecution. Revealing what Guede told them in his first interviews would probably reveal some of the abuses in how the Italian authorities manipulated the case.

 

[Samson]

And since he maintains he was the last person to have had a date with Meredith, perhaps the Kerchers view him as someone who was close to their daughter/sister.

Have the Kerchers ever contacted Meredith's actual Italian boyfriend, Giacomo?

DanO made a controversial post some time ago on this subject. This is getting close to complete vindication.

 

[toto]

"1. The SC definitively established that Guede acted with other people, and that he could not be holding the murder weapon. This is what the Italian newspapers pointed out yesterday. "
This SC ruling or does he mean the previous SC ruling?

 

[Planigale]

Thanks for that. I was actually thinking of the social clubs you mention, like the Bullingdon.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/may/09/oxbridgeandelitism.highereducation

Sonia not sure where you are from so this allusion may fail. Most of these are like Rugby clubs, but for the less hunky. If you'd ever been to a Rugby club dinner as a student you'd understand (and since I didn't get to the all male dinners I just shudder to imagine what those are like). They may down wine rather than beer, boat races in fine claret rather than bitter. But there is the same level of food throwing, mooning (which really is not your best side boys), debagging, attempts to do a circuit of the room without touching the floor, and vomit. I suspect they may even sing Zulu warrior. That is not to say women's hockey clubs can't be pretty alcoholic just less beer and more cocktails. I guess the food and drink at Bullingdon does, might be a bit richer as are the members. The Universities are very careful about their public profiles at present and conspicuous consumption is out. In general sports clubs are probably just as elitist, and as for the Footlights, probably a much bigger threat to democracy just look how they get everywhere.

 

[Kauffer]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...er-about-italian-courts-verdict-10141391.html

"Seven and a half years after the murder of Ms Kercher in Perugia, and a number of legal proceedings, Franceso Maresca, the lawyer representing the Kerchers, said yesterday: “The family is in shock after the verdict. They don’t wish to make any other declarations. I’ve had to explain to them there are now no avenues open to them. There is a great sense of bitterness.”"

Sure there are:

1) Demand all the evidence in the cases is released.

2) Sit down with Peter Gill and let him explain the forensic evidence from the complete case file.

3) Insist on an independent review of the conduct of the case.

After all, they've always wanted to know the truth.

 

[davefoc]

Dave, I started reading the Newsweek article. It is so full of factual errors that I stopped. For example, it says the bra clasp was cut from the victim. Nina, the clasp was torn from the bra strap, not cut - get it right! Too bad Newsweek didn't have the article edited before publication by someone who follows the case.

An interesting reaction. I thought I was reasonably familiar with the case and I thought the piece was a pretty fair overview. I guess I'm not as familiar with the case as I thought or that I didn't read the article carefully enough. I thought I'd read the article again to see if I could pick up on what you mentioned. Alas the article is long and wordy and I didn't make it all the way through a second pass.

I did notice the section about Sollecito waffling on Knox's alibi. I didn't remember it quite the way Burleigh summarized it but my memory is hazy on this:

At that point, after providing an alibi for Knox for five years, Sollecito now says he doesn’t know if she stayed in his house all night or not.

ETA: I believe you are correct about the bra clasp, but I didn't notice it the first time through. Perhaps that says something bad about my reading skills.

 

[Planigale]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...er-about-italian-courts-verdict-10141391.html

"Seven and a half years after the murder of Ms Kercher in Perugia, and a number of legal proceedings, Franceso Maresca, the lawyer representing the Kerchers, said yesterday: “The family is in shock after the verdict. They don’t wish to make any other declarations. I’ve had to explain to them there are now no avenues open to them. There is a great sense of bitterness.”"

Sure there are:

1) Demand all the evidence in the cases is released.

2) Sit down with Peter Gill and let him explain the forensic evidence from the complete case file.
3) Insist on an independent review of the conduct of the case.

After all, they've always wanted to know the truth.

Actually asking to sit down or Skype with Gill might be helpful. That is quite a good idea.

One of the interesting things is that usually for a serious crime like this the UK police would provide a liaison officer, and monitor the investigation. I suspect the Metropolitan Police - London Police Force - not to be confused with the City of London Police, (Croydon her home town was in the Met area) felt that once Guede was convicted there was no issue.

 

[carbonjam72]

My thought is that it has been kept sealed to protect the police and prosecution. Revealing what Guede told them in his first interviews would probably reveal some of the abuses in how the Italian authorities manipulated the case.

Burleigh described Rudy's case as being sealed for some mysterious reason. So doesn't sound like usual process.

If Rudy made a recorded statement in December of 2007, that Amanda wasn't there and he didn't know Raf, and that wasn't turned over to the defense, I would think that was a serious violation of rights. That would have been before they went back for the bra clasp, right?

It would mean, IMO, that Amanda and Raf should have been released at that time. It's really nothing short of a kidnapping under the color of law.

 

[Samson]

"1. The SC definitively established that Guede acted with other people, and that he could not be holding the murder weapon. This is what the Italian newspapers pointed out yesterday. "
This SC ruling or does he mean the previous SC ruling?

I honestly think the wheels are coming off Yummi. But this could mean the Rudy confirmation, or the Hellmann annulment. Considering the next report is the final judicial report, and neither A or R can be holding the knife, it must be Yummi believes that the final truth is SODDI.

 

[bagels]

"1. The SC definitively established that Guede acted with other people, and that he could not be holding the murder weapon. This is what the Italian newspapers pointed out yesterday. "
This SC ruling or does he mean the previous SC ruling?

It's from the previous Chieffi court decision. There is a sense among the pro guilt crowd that an unchallenged alleged assertion brought up in Rudy's fast track trial in which Knox and Sollecito were not able to defend themselves in, and which Rudy's lawyer gleefully accepted, should have been used as a concrete basis for convicting them. This belief is held with a straight face as a way to achieve justice. At least it transparently confirms what Chieffi and later Nencini were up to when they issued guilty verdicts.

 

[Antony]

I fully do expect at some time in the future that officials in Italy will make public apologies to Amanda and Raffaele. I'm even hopeful that the Kerchers will also forgive Amanda...but something tells me John Kercher won't ever. His words condemning her are too public. But maybe the kids will.

"Forgive Amanda"? Was this a typo? They were the ones trying to destroy her life!