Continuation Part 14: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[anglolawyer]

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/wp-co...llecito-Phone-Intercepts-Nov-3-16-English.pdf

Date. 05.11.2007

Time 20.49

Interceptions of telephonic communications Criminal Proceeding No. 8/08 R.G. Corte d’Assise

Against Knox Amanda Marie + 1
SPEAKERS: RAFFAELE + Male Voice (from the Police Station)

Raffaele - Hello?
MV - Good evening, Police Station Flying Squad.
Raffaele - Hello, go ahead. (Tell me)
MV - Listen, you have to come to us at 21:30
Raffaele - I’m having dinner, can we make, let’s say… 21:30..
MV - Can you make it at 21:30?
Raffaele - Could we make it 22:00
MV - 22:00, alright. Fi.., finish your dinner. Tw..twenty-two. A little earlier maybe.
Raffaele - Alright, I will see, that is, to make it as soon as possible.
MV - Between 21:30 and 22:00.
Raffaele -Ok.
MV - The sooner you’re here the sooner we’ll be done.
Raffaele -Ok.
MV - Hello?

And we know now at least part of the reason why the cops were so insistent is they had a black op planned to enter Raf's apartment that night, **** with his computer and, as some think (I am not one) plant evidence on the knife.

 

[Bill Williams]

Is it demonstrated that Filomena retained professional representation to advise her in her dealings with the police about the murder? Or was the advice just about mundane things like the tenancy and release of property? Whichever, having seen what happened in this case nobody should ever go to or remain in Italy above one minute without a lawyer on tap

Filomena "lawyered up" because of the damage to her room, as well as any rent they may owe while being unable to reside at the cottage. IIRC she brought the lawyer with her to the Questura when she returned her own computer to the police there, the one she took from her room (behind crime-scene tape).

 

[Grinder]

Filomena "lawyered up" because of the damage to her room, as well as any rent they may owe while being unable to reside at the cottage. IIRC she brought the lawyer with her to the Questura when she returned her own computer to the police there, the one she took from her room (behind crime-scene tape).

with the permission of the PP IIRC.

 

[Grinder]

I am only half agreeing. I agree she was a suspect but I disagree that the police/Mignini were acting reasonably either in considering her to be one or in questioning their assumptions (assuming they did that, which is far from clear).

It has long been my opinion (not just mine) that the PGPs and the ILE alike hold two irreconcilable positions simultaneously: that she was suspicious but not a suspect.

And there those on the other side that say she was suspect for interview purposes but not suspicious.

 

[anglolawyer]

And there those on the other side that say she was suspect for interview purposes but not suspicious.

I am one of them.

 

[Numbers]

Grinder,


yes we all know this. do you have some special knowledge of Italian law?

Illegal implies criminal -

il·le·gal
i(l)ˈlēɡəl/
adjective
1.
contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law.
​

...
As the most common definition of illegal demonstrates the word generally means criminal. I by the way think that the type of questioning by the flying squad should be criminal. For purposes of this conversation the interrogation fruits were ruled inadmissible and the action was improper.

It remains that the PLE thought they were involved but didn't name them as suspects until after the statements. The heart of what we started with is that with what they thought they knew arrest wasn't unreasonable. Where the system totally failed first was not releasing them after the first hearing and charging them a year later. Had everything been the same but they were released to "home" detention and then the charges never filed there wouldn't have been much of anything to this case.

"Illegal" only is identical to "criminal" if one chooses to define it that way.

Full Definition of ILLEGAL
: not according to or authorized by law : unlawful, illicit; also : not sanctioned by official rules (as of a game)

Full Definition of CRIMINAL
1
: relating to, involving, or being a crime <criminal neglect>
2
: relating to crime or to the prosecution of suspects in a crime <criminal statistics> <brought criminal action>
3
: guilty of crime; also : of or befitting a criminal <a criminal mind>
4
: disgraceful

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/

 

[Numbers]

1. So it is legal to beat a person during an interview? I don't think you have expressed yourself well.



2. I think it is you that is imprecise and off topic. What again is your special knowledge of Italian law?



3. I hardly think they needed days to organize and I doubt they went into all this with the intent of an ILLEGAL interview.



4. I doubt the kiss had any significant effect but I'm sure RW will come with a quote from Napoleoni.



5. No they wrote up the arrest document in away to deflect a charge that she was a suspect when the interrogation started. Had they written the truth of all the reasons they suspected her from early on it would have been clear the entire fruits would be thrown out as being improper.



6. Which doesn't negate the central aspect of my position which is it wasn't unreasonable for them to arrest them that night. It may not have been following procedure or even illegal but not unreasonable considering what they thought to be true.

{Numbering added to quote paragraphs.}

I will attempt to address some of your points:

1. In fact, I was in error. Your comment "except for the slaps" is correct; these were an illegal and criminal act. Sorry.

2. My only "special" knowledge of Italian law is that I own a copy of M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, and F. Scarpa, ed., The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical essays and English translation, and some of which I have read. I have also read some of the Criminal Code Articles, translated through Google. I am not a lawyer.

3. Your opinion and of course, we are all entitled to our opinions.

4. My comment was in part satirical. But then the store owner from whom Amanda bought underwear from when she was effectively locked out of the cottage, since it was a crime scene, gave testimony at the Massei trial.

5. Your opinion, which differs somewhat from mine. I believe that the police and prosecutor did not believe that their suspicions prior to the interrogation statements would have been considered adequate "reasonable suspicion" by the Italian courts. I believe they did not bother to include the early suspicions in the "reasonable suspicion" detail because it would have detracted from the "reasonableness" of the details; the original suspicions might have been viewed as absurd by an objective person.

6. Well, this again is your opinion, to which you are entitled. Would a court, even an Italian court, have considered an arrest reasonable if the "reasonable suspicion" detail of the arrest warrant had not included the false statements from the interrogations of AK and RS of Nov. 5/6, 2007? This is no way to be sure of this one way or the other, IMO. But my opinion is that possibly even an Italian court would laugh if the "reasonable suspicion" was primarily an allegation of a staged break-in, but no reliable evidence to support that allegation.

 

[Numbers]

And there those on the other side that say she was suspect for interview purposes but not suspicious.

I am one of them.

Again, one must note the difference between a "suspect" as a person that the police consider might be a perpetrator and someone who may be arrested legitimately because there is "reasonable suspicion" (aka probable cause), meaning enough evidence for an objective person to conclude there is some meaningful probability of guilt. The police often identify a number of suspects who are innocent, and the police interview the suspects and gather additional evidence to confirm or deny the suspicion. If there is some adequate confirmation for a particular suspect, the police seek a warrant for the arrest of that suspect. In some cases, the police interrogate a suspect in a way that results in a false confession or other false statement, which is then used to justify the arrest warrant. That is what happened in the Amanda Knox - Raffaele Sollecito case. (IMO)

ETA: The "suspect" is thus anyone identified as such by the police, by a police statement or a police action. For example, conducting an interrogation (rather than an interview) of a person means, IMO, that that person is a suspect - even if the police claim that the person is a "witness". This point of view is supported by ECHR case-law, such as Brusco v France 1466/07 and many other cases.

 

[sept79]

.
.
.
I am posting this in reference to Stefanoni's false claim about obtaining a positive quantification of DNA in 36B (this point may have also been discussed in the "Math on Trial" thread at IIP, if my memory serves me correctly). Perhaps her misstatement was an unintentional error that was brought about because she had been able to obtain an electropherogram from this sample, but at the very least, it still reflects poor scientific ethics.

Chris, I consider Stefanoni's claim about obtaining a positive quantification of DNA in 36B and her statement of the 36B sample size in front of Judge Micheli as much of a 'misstatement' as when I confuse my minivan with a Lamborghini.

 

[anglolawyer]

Again, one must note the difference between a "suspect" as a person that the police consider might be a perpetrator and someone who may be arrested legitimately because there is "reasonable suspicion" (aka probable cause), meaning enough evidence for an objective person to conclude there is some meaningful probability of guilt. The police often identify a number of suspects who are innocent, and the police interview the suspects and gather additional evidence to confirm or deny the suspicion. If there is some adequate confirmation for a particular suspect, the police seek a warrant for the arrest of that suspect. In some cases, the police interrogate a suspect in a way that results in a false confession or other false statement, which is then used to justify the arrest warrant. That is what happened in the Amanda Knox - Raffaele Sollecito case. (IMO)

ETA: The "suspect" is thus anyone identified as such by the police, by a police statement or a police action. For example, conducting an interrogation (rather than an interview) of a person means, IMO, that that person is a suspect - even if the police claim that the person is a "witness". This point of view is supported by ECHR case-law, such as Brusco v France 1466/07 and many other cases.

I am with Grinder in not understanding what you are saying. Perhaps you are using too many words. A person may be reasonably or unreasonably suspected. In either case, they have the same rights to be cautioned, to know the particulars of the suspected offence and to have legal assistance.

 

[katy_did]

katy_did,
Are you aware that it is a classic police technique to question, at the same time but in separate rooms by separate teams of police, individuals who are believed to have conspired to commit a crime? And that another part of the technique is for a member of one police team interrogating suspect "A" to go to the interrogation room of suspect "B", and announce (truly or falsely) that the person they are interrogating has implicated suspect "B", so therefore "B" had better now tell the real truth?

So I believe that Giobbi helped point out this technique to the Perugians, and with his extra police staff that was available in Perugia, helped them plan and organize it.

Are you aware that the Notice of Arrest of Amanda Knox has the printed names and signatures of 36 police officers? The first two officers named are Giobbi and Facchini. They are the most senior police there. The police names are listed in order of descending rank.

Giobbi may or may not have sought to promote himself by his testimony, but it is clear that it "takes a village" of police to arrest an innocent American co-ed. Why?

I think you are underestimating Giobbi, a self-acknowledged skilled observer and interpreter of pizza eating and hip swaying, and someone who probably knows at least as much about police techniques as anyone who watches documentaries about police procedures. The technique the police used in this case was not so different from that used by the NYPD for the Central Park Five case, for example - split up the suspects, interview each, and confront each in turn with what the other had said (whether true or false).

ETA: Source: http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/amanda-knox-case-transcripts/
Notice of Arrest - Amanda Knox - Nov. 6, 2007

I'm confused - before you suggested they planned to bring Amanda in later on, after getting Raffaele to drop her alibi. If that's the case then obviously they weren't planning on doing a side by side interrogation, even if it is a recognised police technique.

Anyway, I'm not sure how the above is really relevant here. Obviously what they did end up doing is going back and forth between the two rooms, telling Amanda that Raffaele had taken away her alibi, but it doesn't follow that this was planned from the start.

I don't think I'm underestimating Giobbi, I'm saying that if the police doing the interrogation and Amanda and Raffaele all say that Amanda wasn't called in, then I see no reason to believe Giobbi and to disregard what all the people directly involved in the interrogation say. Why should we believe what he says and disbelieve everyone else?

 

[Sergei Walankov]

Wise words from Bruce Fischer at IIP:

It is time to completely ignore the guilters. No comments to them anywhere. No clicks to their sites. The Twitter wars need to end. No mention of them at all. It is time to forget they exist. The only reason they carry on is because there are still people out there fighting them. Some are just angry and vindictive, others view this as a means for social interaction.

The vile comments against Amanda will continue as long as there is a person on the other side to respond to them. These people are hungry for attention. Those that remain are all scrambling to try and keep this alive. It is all that some of them have. It is time to completely take it away. Let them rot.

My take on this would be that we should certainly to continue responding to calumnies and zombie facts when they are perpetrated by actual news outlets, even if they are only ones at the level of that Portuguese scandal sheet that was doing the rounds the other day. But comments of the "hey, look at what some idiot at PMF-dot-whatever just said" variety are clearly counter-productive.

 

[Bill Williams]

with the permission of the PP IIRC.

IIRC - once with the PP permission to "rummage through her room," and once again to retrieve her laptop.

How anyone could discern anything about the breakin being staged with Filomena being able to rummage around in there his one of the tragedies of the case - Mignini said as late as 2014 his immediate though upon inspecting that scene was - not that it had been hopelessly compromised - but thay it had been staged.

By this logic, Filomena must have staged it, and no one believes that!

 

[Grinder]

Number with due respect I think you are confusing the question with black letter Italian law. The question is whether the PLE had reason to think Amanda and Raf were involved withe the murder. I've laid out a number of things that they said they believed and I believe they believed them. Those reasons kept the focus on A and R and when the text message(s) {the s for Anglo} were discovered they "knew" they were getting close and then she gave them the case closing statement which they used for the arrest warrant.

Now if she were an official suspect before the interview they needed to provide an offer for a lawyer etc. (No matter what the police are not allowed to strike the suspect/witness) They maintain and you seem to agree that they didn't have enough for the arrest before the statement. So she, by their standards and yours, wasn't an official suspect before the interview. She wasn't entitled to the protections of a suspect UNTIL after she made the 1:45 statement. The ISC ruled that the 1:45 statement could only be used against PL. IIRC they ruled that the "gift" notes were admissible since they were made of free will.

 

[LondonJohn]

Wise words from Bruce Fischer at IIP:



My take on this would be that we should certainly to continue responding to calumnies and zombie facts when they are perpetrated by actual news outlets, even if they are only ones at the level of that Portuguese scandal sheet that was doing the rounds the other day. But comments of the "hey, look at what some idiot at PMF-dot-whatever just said" variety are clearly counter-productive.

I would say exactly the opposite. What these people want is direct engagement. I've never been able to understand properly why pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators want to (and/or feel the need to) fight battles with these idiots on things like newspaper comment sections or twitter.

Why do some people think that there's an important "battle for public opinion" to be "fought" and "won" here? Why should any pro-acquittal commentator care whether (say) the comments section below a particular Mail Online article about Knox is flooded by weirdos stating that she's a murderer who got away with it? Knox and her people (and Sollecito of course) can manage their own PR very well all by themselves, thank you very much. I think it's near-certain that Knox will do some media interviews at some point. And they have the backstop of the law if any of the idiots really are getting out of hand.

In short, Bruce Fischer is right: people need to stop fighting these "battles" on comment sites and twitter. Once the idiots realise that they're flailing around against no resistance, they'll get tired and bored very quickly. And even if they don't, who cares? Let them rage about Knox and Sollecito 24/7 all over the internet. Any sane person can easily see that they're oddballs with an agenda, and it's already more than clear that the "man in the street" is predominantly on the side of Knox and Sollecito at this point.

I remember writing several months ago (or even earlier) that all these battles for public opinion were a waste of time on the part of pro-acquittal/pro-innocence commentators, so long as the judicial process was still live. I wrote that if Knox and Sollecito were ultimately acquitted, then that in itself would be all the PR required. On the other hand, if Knox and Sollecito were ultimately convicted, then public opinion would be of far less importance than a proper legal challenge and effective communications to the right people.

Look: it's not for me (or Bruce, for that matter) to tell people what they should or should not post online. But I have to say that personally, I've long been uncomfortable with this war waged on the battlefields of comment sites and twitter. I think it's pointless and destructive, and it also usually becomes filled with hyperbole and invective. I would argue again: leave these grounds to the idiots who feel this pathological need to keep trying to persuade the world that Knox and Sollecito murdered Kercher and got away with it. Nobody should care about them any more.

 

[Numbers]

I am with Grinder in not understanding what you are saying. Perhaps you are using too many words. A person may be reasonably or unreasonably suspected. In either case, they have the same rights to be cautioned, to know the particulars of the suspected offence and to have legal assistance.

There is in your statement perhaps an assumption that I mean something different than what I have stated.

A suspect brought into police custody, or brought in to a custodial situation for an interrogation where the police are expecting to confirm their suspicions, must be cautioned. That caution must include notice that the person may remain silent and may request a lawyer.

If the suspect does say something in a witness interview (that is, the person is not truly in police custody) that indicates a confirmation of suspicion, but had not been cautioned, the questioning must stop for the caution. That is my understanding of the US procedure.

The police, at least in the US, may consider someone a "suspect" but may treat that person as a witness until such time as they are ready to proceed with a custodial interrogation. Custodial may mean the suspect is under arrest. Perhaps this is a looser definition of "suspect" than in Europe.

In the US:

For the police to make a lawful arrest, the arresting officer(s) must have either (1) probable cause to arrest, or (2) a valid arrest warrant.

A valid arrest warrant is one

1. containing an adequate showing of probable cause
2. issued by a neutral and detached magistrate
3. issued on the basis of a police affidavit that does not contain known or reckless falsehoods
4. particularly describing the person to be arrested

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_warrant

For additional information on the US, see:
http://www.videojug.com/interview/getting-arrested

I don't believe that ECHR requires someone who is suspected by the police in a CoE State to be cautioned, simply because and at one moment the police come to the conclusion "Aha! X is a suspect". But in proceeding with respect to that suspect, the police will at some point bring that person in to be interrogated, and the suspect must be fully cautioned at that point - immediately. The caution includes being informed of the right to remain silent and the right to counsel.

Thus, if what I have written above is correct, the police were not remiss in not notifying Amanda and Raffaele they were suspects, until such time as they entered the station for interrogation. And it was the police who determined the time and place of interrogation; if they had not wanted to interrogate Amanda, they would not have done so. To obey Italian procedural law and the ECHR case-law, they should have cautioned Raffaele and Amanda each at the start of his or her interrogation.

Now for the arrest warrant, reasons must be given to be reviewed by the hearing magistrate or judge. In the US, these reasons are called "probable cause", in Europe "reasonable suspicion". In the US, as Wikipedia notes, material falsehoods in the reasons invalidates those particular reasons that are false and may, depending on the strength and validity of the remaining reasons, lead to invalidation of the entire arrest warrant.

I believe that ECHR would consider an arrest where there were falsehoods entered as reasons in the arrest warrant, or in which the reasons were derived from violations of Convention Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment), as in bad faith and thus a violation of Article 5.1 (no deprivation of liberty except by law). I hope that Italian courts, operating to the letter of Italian law and constitution, would also not allow such an arrest.

I hope I have cleared up any confusion my posts may have generated. Again, there is a difference between being a suspect - and there is no specific public information (AFAIK) about when the police first considered Amanda and Raffaele suspects - and being a suspect brought in for interrogation. And a difference again in being a person arrested based on "reasonable suspicion" (which may or may not be reasonable to an objective person; if not reasonable, the arrest is a violation of the ECHR case-law for Article 5.1).

 

[LondonJohn]

I would add that my argument extends to situations where news outlets themselves publish incorrect or misleading articles about Knox or Sollecito. Really: who cares if the Mail (or radar, or wherever) publishes a piece that's less than fair about Knox or Sollecito? If it's sufficiently unfair as to constitute defamation, Knox and Sollecito are free to take legal action if they so desire. Why the hell should we unconnected commentators care?

I felt this quite strongly, for example, about the complaints to the BBC following the airing of the Vogt "documentary" on BBC3. I thought the programme was misleading, wrong and biased in many respects. But I was deeply opposed at the whole idea of petitioning the BBC to complain about the programme. Vogt's "documentary" clearly stayed within lawfully-acceptable boundaries, and it was - at the end of the day - an opinion piece. I just don't know why some people feel that it's necessary to go in to fight (on Knox's and Sollecito's behalf) against the BBC on things like this.

 

[Numbers]

Number with due respect I think you are confusing the question with black letter Italian law. The question is whether the PLE had reason to think Amanda and Raf were involved withe the murder. I've laid out a number of things that they said they believed and I believe they believed them. Those reasons kept the focus on A and R and when the text message(s) {the s for Anglo} were discovered they "knew" they were getting close and then she gave them the case closing statement which they used for the arrest warrant.

Now if she were an official suspect before the interview they needed to provide an offer for a lawyer etc. (No matter what the police are not allowed to strike the suspect/witness) They maintain and you seem to agree that they didn't have enough for the arrest before the statement. So she, by their standards and yours, wasn't an official suspect before the interview. She wasn't entitled to the protections of a suspect UNTIL after she made the 1:45 statement. The ISC ruled that the 1:45 statement could only be used against PL. IIRC they ruled that the "gift" notes were admissible since they were made of free will.

Grinder, please, no offense, but I believe there is a mix-up here between "suspect" and "arrestable person". It's an operational definition.

A person brought into an interrogation room for a high-pressure interrogation means that person is a suspect. The police may believe that they do not have enough credible information against the person to arrest them. That's why they are resorting to the high-pressure interrogation.

Once the police get the person being interrogated to sign some paper with an incriminating statement, whether true or false, the police incorporate that statement into the "reasonable suspicion" (which is the phrase naming the official details explaining why the person should be arrested, and may or may not be truly reasonable). The police do this to make sure that the court will accept the arrest. This makes an especially important difference in Italy, because for a crime with a long sentence, such as murder, the police and prosecutor get to have the person arrested imprisoned for one year before the trial even starts.

 

[Numbers]

I'm confused - before you suggested they planned to bring Amanda in later on, after getting Raffaele to drop her alibi. If that's the case then obviously they weren't planning on doing a side by side interrogation, even if it is a recognised police technique.

Anyway, I'm not sure how the above is really relevant here. Obviously what they did end up doing is going back and forth between the two rooms, telling Amanda that Raffaele had taken away her alibi, but it doesn't follow that this was planned from the start.

I don't think I'm underestimating Giobbi, I'm saying that if the police doing the interrogation and Amanda and Raffaele all say that Amanda wasn't called in, then I see no reason to believe Giobbi and to disregard what all the people directly involved in the interrogation say. Why should we believe what he says and disbelieve everyone else?

But then why was Amanda called into an interrogation room? And interrogated under very high-pressure tactics?

And at the same time (you call side-by-side) does not mean that one person's interrogation needs to start at exactly the same time as the others. Overlapping times of interrogation works just as well.

Again, why did 36 police officers sign the Notice of Arrest for Amanda Knox, a 20-year-old American college student with no history of violent or criminal behavior (unless you wish to call her noise ticket criminal - but it only was punishable by a fine).

 

[Grinder]

Numbers people here have been aware in quite some detail of the system was supposed to work and how it did work. I don't think you appreciate that most all of get it.

I repeat for the last time that I wasn't discussing technical Italian law or Sri Lankan law or international conventions of law, I was giving my opinion that the PLE had reason enough in their own minds with what they thought they knew at the time to arrest the two. I'm saying they thought they were involved from the variety of things I've described before. I'm saying she was a suspect and should have been given that designation but under Italian law she wasn't one using your logic of what the evidence they had showed.

Your argument that there wasn't enough to arrest them under law is exactly what the PLE maintained in saying she wasn't a suspect and therefore didn't deserve a lawyer and all the safeguards. Because they treated as a person with information they were not required to give her those safeguards. They agree with you. I on the other hand think they did have enough to arrest her or at least make her a suspect.

It isn't a matter of me or others not understanding and mixing up terms it is you not getting the subject. Anglo disagrees that they had enough for arrest I believe in the sense that they were squirreling the evidence. I think that came later.