Continuation Part 16: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Dougm]

I agree. This is a far better way of putting all of it than I have been able to manage. Whatever the early "dogma" was, even then it was not the driver of the case - what tended to drive this case was the myth of "Foxy Knoxy" that the PLE tried to construct. There is very little which emanated from the FOA which "drove" what went wrong with the case in Perugia (and Florence) - unless one believes in all powerful PR firms from Seattle!

I posted a Washington Post article upthread which referred to the 1990s and beyond where there were some prosecutorial jurisdictions which seemed stuck on Satanic-related crimes. There was one in Martensville, Saskatchewan. Over 100 charges were filed, and one conviction resulted, in a satanic-hysteria which took over the investigation.

It is clear that in relation to AK (as well as RS), this theme was a driver; but was also abandoned. Seems to me to be something a little more central to what went wrong early on than anything the early FOA did or didn't do.

The difference in the Pro-guilt or Pro-innocence "memes", so to speak, is that the PG memes about Amanda and Raffaele are required to try to prove their case, and the PI ones about Rudy are not. Rudy's race, employment, ownership of a cellphone, drug taking/selling, etc. are all irrelevant to proving he committed the murder. Without the bogus memes about Amanda, there is no case at all.

 

[js202]

The difference in the Pro-guilt or Pro-innocence "memes", so to speak, is that the PG memes about Amanda and Raffaele are required to try to prove their case, and the PI ones about Rudy are not. Rudy's race, employment, ownership of a cellphone, drug taking/selling, etc. are all irrelevant to proving he committed the murder. Without the bogus memes about Amanda, there is no case at all.

I would agree with the argument you're pressing here, only up to a point. John Douglas was one of the key professional voices on behalf of Knox and Sollecito, critical to the initial push-back against Mignini's preposterous case. A main pillar of Douglas' viewpoint was the profile he elicited of Guede. Utilizing his vast experience, he created the profile based on what he could glean of Guede's background, intersected with the evidence he left at the scene.

The difference between Douglas' experience and professionalism and the fundamental lack of same on the part of the loudest & looniest of the PGP makes all the difference.

 

[Desert Fox]

Let us assume that Guede was a college graduate with grade A's and had a high paying job.

Assume that Amanda and Raff were low level drifters hanging together

Would the evidence be enough to convict Guede and exonerate Amanda and Raff?

Of course one issue is that they would not have been able to defend themselves and there would be good odds that if Amanda and Raff were in Texas, they would be fighting not to get executed.
Edit: Virginia would not be much better in this regard

 

[Strozzi]

I believe you are stuck in the dogma of the PIP scenario.

It would be nice if you admitted one of your central arguments has been shown by many sources to be false. He had phone access.

You seem unable to free your mind from one image of a fence or fencing. If you read the RW post and the interview of Rudi by Mignini you would know that Rudi worked a number of jobs in 2007. If he sold stolen merch for others, it only augmented other income.

As you have pointed out, used laptops in general and stolen ones in general aren't worth a lot and aren't easy to sell. This is the kind of product a thief wants to get rid of fast in order to provide a degree of separation and may well front the goods to guy like Rudi. You have indicated that he stole because he needed money, which means you believe he had the ability to sell. You haven't made any case why he could sell his "own" product but not others.

Another piece of information from the interview is that Rudi had only recently moved back to Perugia. The collection of computers in his tiny living space were likely accumulated in a short period of time. It seems unlikely that he kept stealing computers he couldn't sell. More likely that someone fronted them to him just before the Spanish kids saw them.

I hope for his own sake that Rudi worked regularly at the jobs he claimed when he told Mignini that he worked at various jobs. Rudi cited catering, for example. That is honest work. It may be regular employment, or intermittent.

Based on Mignini's interrogation of Rudi, I don't have a clear picture of Rudi's prior employment or criminal activities. I do suspect that Mignini knew of Rudi's prior criminal activities but did not want to draw it out for the record. He was pursuing bigger targets to construct a complex and sensational conspiracy legend that brought him greater fame.

 

[acbytesla]

The difference in the Pro-guilt or Pro-innocence "memes", so to speak, is that the PG memes about Amanda and Raffaele are required to try to prove their case, and the PI ones about Rudy are not. Rudy's race, employment, ownership of a cellphone, drug taking/selling, etc. are all irrelevant to proving he committed the murder. Without the bogus memes about Amanda, there is no case at all.

For me, the stories about the coincidences of other potential burglaries makes me believe that there is a good possibility that Rudy committed some or all of them. I'm not saying that to demonize Rudy, it's just a belief that the cottage break in probably wasn't his first.

As I said before, I do believe that Rudy almost certainly committed the burglary at the law office. I also believe if the Ms.Diaz burglary took place, Rudy was the perp. That's far too big a coincidence for me. Grinder may disagree with me. That is his perogative.

This all makes me believe that Rudy wasn't some professional burglar, but just a small time criminal that may have been more a rapist than a burglar. But of course there is no proof of that. Rudy scares me in the sense, he might be inclined to commit additional rapes and killings.

Go ahead Grinder. I know you will.

 

[Dan O.]

IIRC, Nina Burleigh reported Chistian Trematano (I know this spelling is wrong) tried to report it and Napoleoni took CT's complaint, but he gave up when the line was too long.

So why would the presumption that Nina Burleigh is unreliable prevail in a reasonable discourse? We don't have her notes of course, but do you have any indication of her blowing facts like that?

Why does stubborn 'skepticism' outweigh our confidence in a proven professional?

Let's clear this up. The spelling is Cristian Tramontano. I find reporting in:

• ABCnews report by Ann Wise, June 27, 2009
• investigative report by Frank in Perugia-Shock, May 5, 2008 (reposted earlier in these threads)
• Massei trial transcripts of June 26, 2009 (about page 4)
• Micheli Report page 35 (excerpt at AmandaKnoxCase.com)

In brief, About September 1 or 2 of 2007, at 2-3 am, Cristian was woken by a noise and discovered a black man in his flat. The apparent entry was through an open window. His girl friend, Monika Oltrarzvesca, called 113 while he chased the intruder downstairs. The police responded within 2 hours. On 7 January 2008 Cristian was heard by commissioner Monica Napoleoni where there was a summary report produced that was introduced to the Massei court on June 26, 2009.

We appear to be missing that summary report.

 

[Dan O.]

From all sources it would seem he called and they told him to come and file a report but he never did. Later after he came forward in this case he was interviewed by Napoleoni.

There is enough confirmation that the intrusion did happen so the fact that Cristian didn't bother to file an official report at the time should be taken off the table. The contemporaneous report may have helped prevent memory slippage of the event so it is still unfortunate in that regard that no report was made.

 

[Samson]

There is enough confirmation that the intrusion did happen so the fact that Cristian didn't bother to file an official report at the time should be taken off the table. The contemporaneous report may have helped prevent memory slippage of the event so it is still unfortunate in that regard that no report was made.

I thought he said he went to file the report, but the queue at the counter was too long so he didn't bother pursuing it.

 

[Dan O.]

I thought he said he went to file the report, but the queue at the counter was too long so he didn't bother pursuing it.

That was probably a detail from Nina's book. Frank's report says:

Then Christian says he called the police, and they arrived immediately, in just 2 hours. The police said he could come to the station the next day and report the intruder. But Christian let it go. It must not have been a very frightening experience for him and his girlfriend if they didn't even have the time to file a suit.​

I have seen nothing that contradicts Cristian's claim that he tried to file a report. The window was open so there was no damage (something to consider for those living in a high crime district). Some credit cards were stollen but a quick call to the card company will get them canceled and replaced. And a small amount of cash was missing. He probably values his time more than that cash.

 

[Numbers]

Catching up....

Regarding the posts by some in Thread 15, I consider myself a conservative in making predictions* including any prediction of what actions the ECHR will take regarding Amanda Knox's application claiming that Italy violated her Convention rights in convicting her of calunnia against Patrick Lumumba.

Indeed, I fully agree with Kauffer's assessment in Thread 15. ECHR will rule Amanda Knox's application admissible and will judge that Italy has violated her Convention rights. ECHR functions strictly in accord with the Convention, including potential new interpretations, and its existing case-law. It has demonstrated no tendency to arbitrarily judge against precedent in the cases I have read. It is not a political body and has ruled against various CoE States, including Italy, numerous times.

* For example, my prediction of the CSC ruling for March, 2015, was that I could not really tell which of the several alternatives would be realized. There was not enough information about the CSC panel available to me to make a clear predictions, so I indicated that each possibility I was aware of, including acquittal, was about equally likely. If I had a favorite, it was that the CSC Marasca panel would delay finalization, which in fact they did not, apparently due to their wisdom and integrity.

 

[Numbers]

Catching up....

Regarding the posts by some in Thread 15, I consider myself a conservative in making predictions* including any prediction of what actions the ECHR will take regarding Amanda Knox's application claiming that Italy violated her Convention rights in convicting her of calunnia against Patrick Lumumba.

Indeed, I fully agree with Kauffer's assessment in Thread 15. ECHR will rule Amanda Knox's application admissible and will judge that Italy has violated her Convention rights. ECHR functions strictly in accord with the Convention, including potential new interpretations, and its existing case-law. It has demonstrated no tendency to arbitrarily judge against precedent in the cases I have read. It is not a political body and has ruled against various CoE States, including Italy, numerous times.

* For example, my prediction of the CSC ruling for March, 2015, was that I could not really tell which of the several alternatives would be realized. There was not enough information about the CSC panel available to me to make a clear predictions, so I indicated that each possibility I was aware of, including acquittal, was about equally likely. If I had a favorite, it was that the CSC Marasca panel would delay finalization, which in fact they did not, apparently due to their wisdom and integrity.

A little quantitative information in support of the above:

Since the Court was established in 1959, almost half of the judgments delivered by it have concerned 5 member States: Turkey (3,095), Italy (2,312), the Russian Federation (1,604), Romania (1,113) and Poland (1,070).

Subject-matter of the Court’s violation judgments in 2014
In the judgments delivered by the Court in 2014, a fourth of the violations concerned Article 6 (right to a fair trial), whether on account of the fairness or the length of the proceedings. Furthermore, 17% of the violations found by the Court concerned the right to liberty and security (Article 5).
More than 25% of the violations found by the Court concerned the right to life or the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention).

Source: http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=reports&c=
The ECHR in Facts and Figures 2014 (Published by the CoE/ECHR)

From the above statistics, it can be seen that ECHR has frequently judged Italy to be in violation of the Convention. Italy is generally one of the "big four" of States in terms of number of applications against it each year.

As others have noted, there is no clear way for the public to estimate when Amanda Knox's application (or any other non-emergency - that is, an application not about a life-threatening case) will be processed. As of 30 April 2015, there were about 8850 applications pending (= awaiting action by a judicial formation) against Italy. The applications against Italy are 13.7% of the total applications against all 47 CoE States.
Source: Pending Cases, at http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=reports&c=

 

[Numbers]

....
[A] prediction of what actions the ECHR will take regarding Amanda Knox's application claiming that Italy violated her Convention rights in convicting her of calunnia against Patrick Lumumba.

Indeed, I fully agree with Kauffer's assessment in Thread 15. ECHR will rule Amanda Knox's application admissible and will judge that Italy has violated her Convention rights. ECHR functions strictly in accord with the Convention, including potential new interpretations, and its existing case-law. It has demonstrated no tendency to arbitrarily judge against precedent in the cases I have read. It is not a political body and has ruled against various CoE States, including Italy, numerous times....

{Warning: ECHR case-law discussed below.}

1. IBRAHIM AND OTHERS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM 50541/08 50571/08 50573/08... 16/12/2014
1.1. Provides a 5-point outline for determining if an interrogation without a lawyer affects the fairness of a trial.
1.1.1. The general legislative framework applicable and any safeguards it contains;
1.1.2. The quality of the evidence, including whether the circumstances in which it was obtained cast doubt on its reliability or accuracy; in this respect, improper conduct, notably coercion or ill-treatment, during interrogation and vulnerability of suspects are relevant factors;
1.1.3. Whether the statement was promptly retracted and the admissions made in it consistently denied, particularly once legal advice had been obtained;
1.1.4. The procedural safeguards applied during the criminal proceedings, and in particular whether the applicant was given the opportunity of challenging the authenticity of the evidence and of opposing its use;
1.1.5. The strength of the other evidence in the case.

I suggest that a reasonable person using the Ibrahim et al. v UK outline from ECHR to analyze the conviction of Amanda Knox for calunnia against Patrick Lumumba, and understanding that the Ibrahim case is one precedent in a group of cases going back to Salduz v Turkey [GC], will consider it essentially certain that the ECHR will rule that the conviction was unfair and that Italy violated her Convention rights.

 

[davefoc]

Why would Mignini possibly choose Kokomani to his witness? Koko by all accounts I know of left for Albania just after the murder and on return had a lawyer set up the initial meeting with Mignini. There is nothing I know of indicating he did this at any PLE direction.
...

He testified for the prosecution, albeit in a highly confused way. So why did he do that? I don't know, but I made a guess it wasn't because he was a concerned citizen doing his duty. My guess was that he did it because Mignini made it worth his while. I didn't back up any of my speculation here with evidence beyond general knowledge because my speculation was essentially a guess and I didn't have any evidence beyond general knowledge (which is less than almost everybody that participates regularly in this thread) about the case that would support my speculation, .

I think Mignini was using not credible witnesses like Toto to push his case forward. I don't think it's a big leap to imagine that the same guy that got one not credible, criminally leaning guy to testify by applying pressure on him, would have done something similar with another not credible, criminal type guy.

As an aside, before your post I didn't realize that there was a theory that Diaz didn't exist. I thought that was an established fact.

On a slightly different topic somebody speculated that Kercher's father might have had something to do with the leaks. I thought that was a very interesting idea, but it also seems to not shed much light on what really happened with regard to the leaks of false information since it doesn't add any evidence. It just adds another element that adds another permutation multiplier to the possible sequence of events surrounding the early leaks that contained so much misinformation.

My model for went on is based on my understanding of what went on with Cheney and the Iraq war leaks. Cheney underlings with his full approval leaked stories that supported the story Cheney was pushing and then Cheney used news stories based on the leaked stories to allege that an independent source had supported the White House narrative on Iraq. In the case of the Kercher murder I think Mignini's approach was similar to Cheney's, he was authorizing a trusted operative to create and leak fake incriminating stories to use to pressure AK/RS and probably to create a sensational trial that he would exploit for his own benefit.

Kercher's father could fit into a scenario like that in various ways. The major pieces of evidence to support the idea is Kercher's unfalsifiable belief in the guilt of AK and RS and Kercher's association with the tabloids that might have provided him contacts and techniques to successfully vilify AK and RS in the public's mind. But I don't know that it was likely that Kercher's father had some sort of a significant role in all this, although perhaps he participated as a stooge leaker, primed with misinformation by the people Mignini controlled.

 

[Kauffer]

A little quantitative information in support of the above:

Since the Court was established in 1959, almost half of the judgments delivered by it have concerned 5 member States: Turkey (3,095), Italy (2,312), the Russian Federation (1,604), Romania (1,113) and Poland (1,070).

Subject-matter of the Court’s violation judgments in 2014
In the judgments delivered by the Court in 2014, a fourth of the violations concerned Article 6 (right to a fair trial), whether on account of the fairness or the length of the proceedings. Furthermore, 17% of the violations found by the Court concerned the right to liberty and security (Article 5).
More than 25% of the violations found by the Court concerned the right to life or the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention).

Source: http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=reports&c=
The ECHR in Facts and Figures 2014 (Published by the CoE/ECHR)

From the above statistics, it can be seen that ECHR has frequently judged Italy to be in violation of the Convention. Italy is generally one of the "big four" of States in terms of number of applications against it each year.

As others have noted, there is no clear way for the public to estimate when Amanda Knox's application (or any other non-emergency - that is, an application not about a life-threatening case) will be processed. As of 30 April 2015, there were about 8850 applications pending (= awaiting action by a judicial formation) against Italy. The applications against Italy are 13.7% of the total applications against all 47 CoE States.
Source: Pending Cases, at http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=reports&c=

Hi Numbers - Do you know, let's say, of the cases dealt with this year by the court, what the typical or average time was from submission to communication, communication to admission and admission to judgement?

 

[Samson]

He testified for the prosecution, albeit in a highly confused way. So why did he do that? I don't know, but I made a guess it wasn't because he was a concerned citizen doing his duty. My guess was that he did it because Mignini made it worth his while. I didn't back up any of my speculation here with evidence beyond general knowledge because my speculation was essentially a guess and I didn't have any evidence beyond general knowledge (which is less than almost everybody that participates regularly in this thread) about the case that would support my speculation, .

I think Mignini was using not credible witnesses like Toto to push his case forward. I don't think it's a big leap to imagine that the same guy that got one not credible, criminally leaning guy to testify by applying pressure on him, would have done something similar with another not credible, criminal type guy.

As an aside, before your post I didn't realize that there was a theory that Diaz didn't exist. I thought that was an established fact.

On a slightly different topic somebody speculated that Kercher's father might have had something to do with the leaks. I thought that was a very interesting idea, but it also seems to not shed much light on what really happened with regard to the leaks of false information since it doesn't add any evidence. It just adds another element that adds another permutation multiplier to the possible sequence of events surrounding the early leaks that contained so much misinformation.

My model for went on is based on my understanding of what went on with Cheney and the Iraq war leaks. Cheney underlings with his full approval leaked stories that supported the story Cheney was pushing and then Cheney used news stories based on the leaked stories to allege that an independent source had supported the White House narrative on Iraq. In the case of the Kercher murder I think Mignini's approach was similar to Cheney's, he was authorizing a trusted operative to create and leak fake incriminating stories to use to pressure AK/RS and probably to create a sensational trial that he would exploit for his own benefit.

Kercher's father could fit into a scenario like that in various ways. The major pieces of evidence to support the idea is Kercher's unfalsifiable belief in the guilt of AK and RS and Kercher's association with the tabloids that might have provided him contacts and techniques to successfully vilify AK and RS in the public's mind. But I don't know that it was likely that Kercher's father had some sort of a significant role in all this, although perhaps he participated as a stooge leaker, primed with misinformation by the people Mignini controlled.

Kercher's father is accorded a stunning degree of forebearance by contributors to this thread. I have no comprehension of this, because their is no evidence denied him, and he persuaded his family to appeal the Hellmann acquittal long before Hellmann published his reasons for the acquittal. After this he demanded Amanda and Raffaele be jailed while the process continued.

 

[Kauffer]

Kercher's father is accorded a stunning degree of forebearance by contributors to this thread. I have no comprehension of this, because their is no evidence denied him, and he persuaded his family to appeal the Hellmann acquittal long before Hellmann published his reasons for the acquittal. After this he demanded Amanda and Raffaele be jailed while the process continued.

I wonder whether Arline will in fact go and visit Guede. There was some indication she might do this.

The tragedy of the Kerchers is that their position was always that they wanted to know the truth but that every action they took led them further away from it. Yet, they could have got themselves real independent experts to assess the evidence without adversarial bias. (They didn't like CandVs, after all).

But it really should have struck them early on that the theory of the crime was at the very least, extraordinary and it should have made them suspicious. The chances of finding a real sociopathic female rage killer are incredibly thin. The chances that one of them actually murdered their daughter - thinner still. The odds against her being her own roommate are astronomical.

 

[lonepinealex]

I wonder whether Arline will in fact go and visit Guede. There was some indication she might do this.

The tragedy of the Kerchers is that their position was always that they wanted to know the truth but that every action they took led them further away from it. Yet, they could have got themselves real independent experts to assess the evidence without adversarial bias. (They didn't like CandVs, after all).

But it really should have struck them early on that the theory of the crime was at the very least, extraordinary and it should have made them suspicious. The chances of finding a real sociopathic female rage killer are incredibly thin. The chances that one of them actually murdered their daughter - thinner still. The odds against her being her own roommate are astronomical.

I disagree. How could they have known how unlikely this was? Most people have no clue on the statistics of real crimes, they get their ideas of crime and police work from the media and fiction.

Police and detectives are generally portrayed as well-meaning and professional, and I would think that the Kerchers would be more subject than most people to confirmation bias with respect to the case. To question Mignini and the cops' version of things leads to the tricky question of why?. Why on earth would these people accuse someone of a crime without any evidence?

To people who are unaware of how shoddy police work often is, and how susceptible even professionals are to confirmation bias, prejudice, hunches and balls-out corruption, the innocencisti scenario must look insane.

 

[Desert Fox]

Kercher's father is accorded a stunning degree of forebearance by contributors to this thread. I have no comprehension of this, because their is no evidence denied him, and he persuaded his family to appeal the Hellmann acquittal long before Hellmann published his reasons for the acquittal. After this he demanded Amanda and Raffaele be jailed while the process continued.

Interesting thing is that in the UK, he could not have appealed Hellmann's judgement.

 

[Samson]

I disagree. How could they have known how unlikely this was? Most people have no clue on the statistics of real crimes, they get their ideas of crime and police work from the media and fiction.

Police and detectives are generally portrayed as well-meaning and professional, and I would think that the Kerchers would be more subject than most people to confirmation bias with respect to the case. To question Mignini and the cops' version of things leads to the tricky question of why?. Why on earth would these people accuse someone of a crime without any evidence?

To people who are unaware of how shoddy police work often is, and how susceptible even professionals are to confirmation bias, prejudice, hunches and balls-out corruption, the innocencisti scenario must look insane.

Nonsense. This first thread post is what was obvious.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3164246&postcount=2

 

[lonepinealex]

Nonsense. This first thread post is what was obvious.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3164246&postcount=2

Really? You expect people with an extreme emotional connection to the crime to be able to objectively assess all the information that was flying around, a lot of which they would have been unable to even think about for emotional reasons?

And all this without us knowing whether they're even aware of the problems of wrongful convictions and the typical patterns that appear? Most people do not really understand how wrongful convictions happen and how often they happen.

I don't think any of us could possibly claim that we'd be able to be objective in such a circumstance, however much we'd like to think we could be.