Continuation Part 17: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[Vixen]

So, according to you, before she signed any statements. So, she gets a lawyer.

But, actually, she was a suspect much earlier - on the 2nd. This is confirmed in testimony by Ficarra and, elsewhere by Mignini. They were also tapping her phones by the 3rd.

Your statement is wrong.

You are confusing the colloquial term, "suspect", with the legal formal style, "suspect".

 

[Vixen]

Really? Then what is all this talk about "suspicious behaviour" leading up to the all-night interrogation session? Buying underwear, kissing her boyfriend, eating pizza, allegedly knowing details about the murder.

You guilters try to have it both ways. 4 days of piling suspicion on herself, but - oh no - taking the police completely by surprise with her "voluntary" statements on 5-6 November.

And what did the police do after she allegedly came up with her confession/accusation, thus becoming unequivocally a suspect? Why, they typed it up for her (in Italian) and demanded she sign it. All still without a lawyer, video recording, or advising her of her rights. Isn't that true?

Napoleoni suspected Amanda straight away, especially when she urged she come and have a look at a suspicious turd.

It is the detective management team who make the decision to make a suspicious person a formal legally defined suspect. The person is formally informed of this fact.

 

[Mr Fied]

You are confusing the colloquial term, "suspect", with the legal formal style, "suspect".

Napoleoni suspected Amanda straight away, especially when she urged she come and have a look at a suspicious turd.

It is the detective management team who make the decision to make a suspicious person a formal legally defined suspect. The person is formally informed of this fact.

There is nothing legal about it.

If the police investigating a crime "suspect" that someone may have been involved, in anyway, then that person is a suspect.

Why would you record someone's phone calls and conversations if they were not suspected of being involved?

BTW, did any of these phone calls or bugged conversations reveal any hint of participating in the crime?

It seems that the only place in Perugia that wasn't recorded was the police interview room.

But hey, the police followed all the protocols didn't they?

 

[carbonjam72]

Vixen. There is no doubt about this Mignini officially made the decision to refuse access to a lawyer for Knox / Sollecito. I do not know about Lumumba. There is no dispute about this, the police / authorities accept this. This was apparently allowable under Italian law for the PM to do. I think ECHR will take a differing view.

IIUC, denying an attorney was allowable under Italian law, but it required Mignini file a request with the judge ( I believe Matteini at the time). IIRC, Mignini claimed he had filed such paperwork when defense requested it, but it was never actually found.

PLANINGALE: There are a series of escalating points at which Knox should have become an official suspect and according to Italian law had to have had a lawyer (and cannot refuse to have one).
1) Withdrawal of 'alibi' by Sollecito. 2) When they informed Knox that Sollecito had withdrawn his alibi. 3) When they told Knox they had evidence she was there at the time. 4) When she broke and admitted to her presence. I think that the ECHR will take the view that once the police began questioning her after 1) and telling her that she had no alibi and they know she was there she was de facto a suspect and entitled to the rights thereof. That is prior to her admission.

I think it's pretty apparent that the whole purpose of the exercise that night was to get Amanda to implicate Patrick. Without Amanda's statement placing herself at the crime scene, the police had nothing to hold any of them, not Amanda, Raf nor Patrick.

The protections for defendants are in place to avoid exactly what the Italians did to Amanda and Raf. They just had weak players who failed to maintain their own legal standards at the time.

Given the fact that he had just been indicted for abuse of office, no reasonable system would have allowed Mignini to remain active in his office, much less go about showboating in front of the media with yet another satanic-masonic-group-orgy-murder scenario, when the evidence clearly pointed to only a single perp.

 

[Mr Fied]

OK, fair enough. However, in Amanda's case she had not been arrested as of that point she made her confession of witnessing the murder.

Rudy's interrogation dated 26 March 2008 lasted roughly 3 1/2 hours and consisted of 115 pages.

Amanda's transcript of her "confession" consists of approx. 5 paragraphs.

The statement was signed as having finished at 01:45 with no indication officially of what time the interview started, unlike in Rudy's document.

Would it be safe to assume that the interview lasted somewhere in the region of 2 to 3 hours?


Do you think that maybe not everything that was said in Amanda's interview was written down?

If this is the case then basically the police have written in Italian what they wanted Amanda to sign and not a minuted version of the unrecorded interview.

Do you think that maybe the police had something to hide?

 

[acbytesla]

If this was allowable under Italian law, then Mignini did nothing illegal. AFAIAA the police followed correct protocol. Personally, I consider Anna Donnino a little borderline.

Even the Italian Supreme Court said that Amanda's statements were inadmissible to be used for the criminal trial It is only in strange Italy where they run the civil trial concurrently that they back doored this into the trial.

So no, you are wrong again. What a surprise.

 

[acbytesla]

You are confusing the colloquial term, "suspect", with the legal formal style, "suspect".

You can't be serious.

 

[Bill Williams]

So, according to you, before she signed any statements. So, she gets a lawyer.

But, actually, she was a suspect much earlier - on the 2nd. This is confirmed in testimony by Ficarra and, elsewhere by Mignini. They were also tapping her phones by the 3rd.

Your statement is wrong.

You are confusing the colloquial term, "suspect", with the legal formal style, "suspect".

Vixen was not around when Machiavelli danced around this subject. The twin task that the ever decreasing number of guilters had to accomplish is also reflected in Vixen's latest....

Knox had to be suspicious and obviously suspicious from the start - or why then all the intrigue about the mop, whether or not Batistelli detected right away that the break in was fake, that Mignini (or someone else) thought the climb in through Filomena's window impossible, or that Napoleoni thought Raffaele too insistent that she see the pooh in the other toilet....

..... while at the same time, catching the PLE/Mignini totally off-guard with a sudden, completely unanticipated confession on the night of Nov 5/6.

Machiavell called Knox "strongly suspected", which he (unlike Vixen) intended as a quasi-legal term (of his own invention) which meant that the full weight of the PLE's investigative tools could descend upon both the kids (because they were strongly suspected)....

..... while denying them their rights as suspects. Why? Because they were in this intermediate category of being only, "strongly suspected".

The difference between Vixen and Machiavelli? Machiavelli is verbose enough to know he has to deal with with these things, and is forced into legal fictions by the sheer weight of his inventions and confirmation bias.

Vixen: she just blurts them out at the rate of 30 per day, then moves on regardless.

 

[Vixen]

There is nothing legal about it.

If the police investigating a crime "suspect" that someone may have been involved, in anyway, then that person is a suspect.

Why would you record someone's phone calls and conversations if they were not suspected of being involved?

BTW, did any of these phone calls or bugged conversations reveal any hint of participating in the crime?

It seems that the only place in Perugia that wasn't recorded was the police interview room.

But hey, the police followed all the protocols didn't they?

The police don't work that way. You are a high ranking cop, you have a crime. Initially, you could have literally thousands of potential suspects. You do door to door interviews, mass DNA testing, search criminal data bases, car license plates, until eventually you have a half dozen suspects.

You don't have enough evidence, just a qualified hunch. So you interview them some more, observe them, check their alibis.

Only when you have enough evidence for a conviction do you make your move and tell your suspect they are now formal legal suspects and anything they say, etc, etc.

Sure many suspected Raff and Amanda right from the start, but it would have been pretty stupid to bring em in without good evidence.


Police can apply to a magistrate as can the security forces to intercept your electronic communications and phone calls, without ever having to inform you.

 

[Vixen]

Oh oh I almost forgot that Vixen was going to give at least one example of a murder knife that tested negative for blood but positive for the victims DNA.

Still waiting.

But by now there should be a wealth of articles written about <Dr. Steffi's groundbreaking work. I'm surprised she hasn't been awarded a Nobel prize.

I'm on the case.

 

[Vixen]

I understand now. The proof that Amanda was at the scene of the crime was that she didn't accuse Rudy. Why? ...because Rudy would put her at the scene of crime. Since we know that Rudy was at the scene of the crime Amanda would have had to be at the scene of the crime in order to know not to name him. So, in order to avoid being placed at the scene of the crime Amanda cleverly stated that she was at the scene of the crime except that Rudy was not there. By saying this she is really saying that she was not at the scene of the crime because if she had been at the scene of the crime she would have accused Rudy of being at the scene of the crime, which, being the clever liar that she is, she didn't do.

Have I got it?

Kokomani claims to have seen all three together before the murder, so they were clearly associates.

 

[Bill Williams]

Kokomani claims to have seen all three together before the murder, so they were clearly associates.

Clearly? You must be joking.

There are now 7 totally unsubstantiated remarks today, only 23 more to go.

 

[Bill Williams]

Kokomani claims to have seen all three together before the murder, so they were clearly associates.

The following was Judge Massei's 2010 remarks about Kokomani's claims:

To uphold the thesis of non-acquaintance (the Sollecito defence team) pointed to the unreliability of
witnesses Gioffredi and Kokomani, and this Court considers reasonable what they highlighted on this point: the activity on Raffaele Sollecito’s computer makes an
encounter with him in the time-span indicated by Gioffredi scarcely plausible; also
the red coat which Amanda apparently wore at that time, a coat of which there was
no other evidence, does not allow [us] to consider as believable the circumstances
related by Gioffredi, and according to which he allegedly also saw Rudy
accompanied by Raffaele, as well as by Amanda and by Meredith.

The inconsistencies in Kokomani’s statements are even more obvious. It is enough to
think of the black bag which then revealed itself to be two people and of the
throwing of olives and of a mobile phone which had allegedly been used to make a
video which was subsequently shown to others and, furthermore, the time he had seemingly seen Amanda, a time predating her arrival in Italy and the mention of an
uncle of Amanda’s of whose existence no one was able to supply confirmation.​

Not even Judge Massei, one of the convicting judges, believes the factoid just chucked into this thread by Vixen.

 

[Grinder]

So, according to you, before she signed any statements. So, she gets a lawyer.

But, actually, she was a suspect much earlier - on the 2nd. This is confirmed in testimony by Ficarra and, elsewhere by Mignini. They were also tapping her phones by the 3rd.

Your statement is wrong.

Do you have a list of whom they tapped? They also had others they were suspicious of, for example Hicham Khiri. He (the innocent) was interviewed twice on the fourth and his employer on the 5th. Christopher Turpin was interviewed on the 5th. I don't know if the list of witness statements on AMC are inclusive but it would appear they were suspicious of others.

I think Vixen is correct that being a suspect and attaining the rights of a suspect is an official status in Italy.

 

[Desert Fox]

Do you have a list of whom they tapped? They also had others they were suspicious of, for example Hicham Khiri. He (the innocent) was interviewed twice on the fourth and his employer on the 5th. Christopher Turpin was interviewed on the 5th. I don't know if the list of witness statements on AMC are inclusive but it would appear they were suspicious of others.

I think Vixen is correct that being a suspect and attaining the rights of a suspect is an official status in Italy.

Is the ECHR going to look at things that way?

 

[Grinder]

I agree that various GD advocates exaggerated things. I cringed at times watching videos of some of the pro-defense speakers during interviews wherein I knew they were exaggerating or downright wrong. The best defense is sober precision, as you see consistently in Chris H's comments.

Thank you. For those of us watching from the beginning there were many cringe worthy moments. I remember Chris M saying Amanda had never even met Rudi.

It is obvious that the attacks on the ILE and Mignini certainly didn't work. I believe it was Randy N here that listed out defense mistakes. Many people were baffled that they didn't make an official complaint early on about the interrogation not withstanding the danger in Italy of speaking against authority.

 

[Grinder]

In this case there is no need for hyperbole, since the verifiable facts are bizarre enough without ornamentation.

Chris H and many others who post here and elsewhere with scrupulous research and honesty make it possible for a reader to get a fairly clear understanding of the body of evidence and the progress of the case through the courts.

True but it took a long long time for a lot of the errors to come out. Knox's early legal work was done by lawyers not familiar with a high profile murder cases. One from Perugia, a local full service attorney and one a civil lawyer that was there because of his English skills.

I don't think the defense went all out from day one. Obviously the public never was given all the details of their early work and because the kids were locked up and their conversations recorded so they didn't know what was being done.

Maybe someone on the defense will write a book.

 

[Grinder]

Even the Italian Supreme Court said that Amanda's statements were inadmissible to be used for the criminal trial It is only in strange Italy where they run the civil trial concurrently that they back doored this into the trial.

So no, you are wrong again. What a surprise.

A witness statement can not be used against themselves but may be used against another which is what the ISC ruled. They were in fact admissible but not as a confession.

They did allow her own notes.

 

[Grinder]

Is the ECHR going to look at things that way?

Don't know. One would think that if this policy is so obviously against ECHR laws that we would have seen a hundred examples instead of a few obscure ones from Turkey and Estonia.

I hope that Hellmann's always obvious error is corrected by them.

 

[Ken Dine]

I wish an Italian writer would write a magazine article to show the Italian public that there was money in the Perugia police budget to operate the police headquarters' record system in late 2007, while quoting Mignini claiming that it was not done due to budget reasons, and then contrast that hypothetical expense of recording the interrogation with the millions of Euros spent taking this case in the wrong direction. The article could list various regular or exceptional expenses incurred in trying to manufacture evidence to support Mignini's version of the case. The list would include, for example, the consulting fee paid to the head of the scientific police's fingerprint analysis unit to serve as "expert" witness to manufacture a false claim that the foot smear on the thick bathmat is Sollecito's footprint, the $170,000 spent to produce Mignini's animation of the crime; the money spent to record and screen/summarize 39,000 Sollecito-family phone calls, etc.

I suspect an Italian writer doing an expose of this case could face legal problems and other harassment.

As for Mignini's animation, I think that cost $70,000? Either way, it was a ton of money spent on a highly prejudicial video that was based upon zero supporting evidence.

As for the true cost of recording an interrogation, since the equipment had already been purchased and installed, the cost for the electricity would only be a few cents. Transferring the video to a DVD would cost under $5 for several DVDs, plus the salary of the technician transferring the interrogation video to DVDs - I've burned video to DVDs many times and it doesn't take very long. If the interrogations were only audio-taped, then even easy to transfer the audio to CDs.

The real cost for such a recording would be for translating Amanda's English to Italian, and then transcribing the audio to a text document suitable for a court filing, and the prosecution managed to find the necessary funds to do all that for the testimonies of the English girlfriends of Meredith.

Amanda's interrogation was surely recorded, but this case would never have gone to trial with those recordings publicly available, so they had to be buried.