Continuation Part 18: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[analemma]

All in your mind. I have asked several times for a citation of where and when anyone, let alone "a mob", whether screaming or otherwise, called Amanda a "witch" - or even a "slut" - (aside from barrister, Paceli) and have been met with complete silence.

IOW yet another strawman logical fallacy.

Gallileo, Gallileo, oh no, we will not let him go.

All of your lies and "all the perfumes in the world" will not erase the Rudy DNA from INSIDE the Vagina

 

[analemma]

All in your mind. I have asked several times for a citation of where and when anyone, let alone "a mob", whether screaming or otherwise, called Amanda a "witch" - or even a "slut" - (aside from barrister, Paceli) and have been met with complete silence.

IOW yet another strawman logical fallacy.

Gallileo, Gallileo, oh no, we will not let him go.

Paceli, one of the lawyers allied in the prosecution against AK and RS, called her an "enchanting witch" with "the Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic".
This was to the cheers of the Italian police.
What about the Rudy DNA in the victims vagina????? Did you forget that???
Is the Rudy DNA in the victim vagina a "Strawman Logical Fallacy"?
Dance around where this DNA was found and how it got there, Vixen..
Was it before the murder or after the murder?????
Which one was it Vixen.
The former casts aspersions on Mez and the former casts Poor, Poor, Rudy, in a VERY bad light!!!!!
Which one is it Vixen? will you slander Mez to save Poor, Poor, Rudy?????

 

[analemma]

Paceli, one of the lawyers allied in the prosecution against AK and RS, called her an "enchanting witch" with "the Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic".
This was to the cheers of the Italian police.
What about the Rudy DNA in the victims vagina????? Did you forget that???
Is the Rudy DNA in the victim vagina a "Strawman Logical Fallacy"?
Dance around where this DNA was found and how it got there, Vixen..
Was it before the murder or after the murder?????
Which one was it Vixen.
The former casts aspersions on Mez and the former casts Poor, Poor, Rudy, in a VERY bad light!!!!!
Which one is it Vixen? will you slander Mez to save Poor, Poor, Rudy?????

Did the "American witch" entrance Rudy to penetrate the victim or did Raf show Rudy a Magma cartoon to drive Poor, Poor, Rudy into the forbidden, but to Rudy, irresistible place where even Stefs " amnesia" and "glaring errors" could not hide the magnitude of the Rudy DNA sample?
Fill me in on the details, Vixen: You can certainly come up with an innocent reason for the embarrassing placement of the DNA of Rudy.

 

[Strozzi]

It requires the ECHR judgement. Then and only then will the last of the doubters (the sane ones) be persuaded. Importantly, Amanda will probably come to value the ECHR report more than Marasca's. The insane doubters will probably argue that Gogerty Marriott bought Strasbourg.

Please don't assume that because Amanda and Raffaele are continuing to live free that they are "getting on with their lives", implying that both are doing well. Both innocent defendants have been seriously harmed by the failures of the Italian justice system. A few years ago Amanda flew to NY to appear for a television news interview. She disclosed later that she was in such deep pain in her hotel room that night that she cried and cried through late at night, so much that the person in a nearby hotel room worriedly called hotel security thinking that someone was hurt. Someone was. Brave public comportment does not mean that the two innocent victims of this monstrous miscarriage of justice are "doing well and getting on with their lives". The public does not see them during the dark hours.

 

[Vixen]

I'll engage you on this one and agree with you for now. I posted a hypothetical theory upthread against Raffaele that excludes Amanda, here it is again for reference:



What do you think? Plausible? See any obvious problems? Would love to get your feedback and maybe I can work on it some more.

Raff has a strategy, which has paid off for now, of distancing himself from it all. As long as people think of Amanda as the baddie, then he can pretend he was just the patsy who got caught up in it, a ruse papa Raff suggested early on (there was a furious exchange of phonecalls between him and his boy the morning of 2nd Nov 2007).

The stuff about, "I wish I had never met Amanda" or "She asked me to lie for her about going out that evening", was just Raff following his papa's suggestion of blaming it all on her. Problem is, he can't name Amanda blatantly, for she would soon reveal "all" about him, if she were convicted, and him not. So we have witnessed an entertaining version of The Prisoners' Dilemma between the pair of them, each subtly threatening to throw the other "under the bus", hence Amanda's dark hints about seeing blood on the back of Raff's hand or his rubbing her fingerprints onto the knife whilst she slept. Note her informing the police of his drug habits and mental health issue with depression.

Both said they'd never take drugs again, after the murder.

Clues come from the police and prosecutor. It was Raff who came under the greatest police suspicion, not Amanda. They were certinly convinced of his involvement. You only have to watch the video of their search of his apartment. PM Mignini described Raff as "icy cold" in his closing submissions to Matteini, as well as bringing in the manga aspect Marilyn Manson fan worship, not to mention his knife fetish. Bearing in mind Raff being a middle-class young Italian man, the claim police were burning with desire to pursue "the American Witch" can be seen to be the distraction it really is, as put forward by Friends of Amanda, when in truth, police were pretty sure of Raff's culpability.

When Stefanoni carried out the DNA testing, she was not to know in advance the defense expert would not turn up, so IMV it is really reaching to imagine Stefanoni could manufacture Raff's DNA out of thin air. Remember, she is Italian and so is he. No "Ugly American" prejudice there, as FOA keep claiming as the motive for police framing them.

I see Raff and Amanda as two immature thrillseekers, together with Rudy, all reckless, irresponsible bored youth looking for kicks. After halloween Rudy made a video in which he pulled grotesque faces and rolled his eyes back saying he wanted to drink a vampire's blood. Raff's manga book found at his apartment, Blood the Last Vampire was set at halloween and was about a female vampire slayer.

Kokomani who was near the cottage on the eve of the murder, as per cctv and witnesses who saw his vehicle, told police he witnessed the three drugged up to the eyeballs, hiding behind the cottage bins and wielding a large knife. Like Aviello, he, too, claimed he'd been offered €100,000 to drop his evidence on behalf of the police. There are Raff and Amanda's social media pages. There are independent sources testifying to Amanda's reckless behaviour with sex, drugs and money, and Raff's extreme FB pics and comments.

So, no, not an unusual psycho murder insofar there have been several by unbalanced youth, the guy who had never had a girlfriend, Cho of Virginia Tech who could not make friends, the Scream murderers, only 16 at the time, who killed a classmate for sheer fun and videoed themselves bragging about it (and which got them convicted), one of whom claims to be innocent, then we had high school shooters in Finland, weird youths with guns, copying Columbine and Virginia Tech. Meaningless, trite, futile murders of random innocent peers who had never done anything to them, except exclude them from decent social circles because of their erratic egregious behaviour.

No, IMV Raff did not act alone with Rudy, with Amanda covering up because she witnessed it. OTOH he definitely isn't the affable foppish patsy he presents himself as. I can quite see him as a ruthless killer who did it for kicks. Their justification being they were bored, it was halloween and they imagined Mez to be the vampire and themselves the vampire slayers, possibly under the influence of LSD or perhaps cocaine or "speed", which enabled them to stay up all night plotting what to do about their crime.

They have no alibi, Raff refused to give evidence, and their sole defense seems to be "We know you know we did it, but you can't prove it. Ha!"

 

[Vixen]

All of your lies and "all the perfumes in the world" will not erase the Rudy DNA from INSIDE the Vagina

Yes, Rudy is scum. As are his two accomplices.

 

[Vixen]

Paceli, one of the lawyers allied in the prosecution against AK and RS, called her an "enchanting witch" with "the Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic".
This was to the cheers of the Italian police.
What about the Rudy DNA in the victims vagina????? Did you forget that???
Is the Rudy DNA in the victim vagina a "Strawman Logical Fallacy"?
Dance around where this DNA was found and how it got there, Vixen..
Was it before the murder or after the murder?????
Which one was it Vixen.
The former casts aspersions on Mez and the former casts Poor, Poor, Rudy, in a VERY bad light!!!!!
Which one is it Vixen? will you slander Mez to save Poor, Poor, Rudy?????

Mez was a nice English girl and we can be sure she absolutely did not consent to Rudy paying a visit when she was tired and wanted to study, having borrowed a heavy history textbook for that purpose.

Rudy is a murderer rapist, as are his co-assailants, who were there, as found by Bruno-Marasca and did nothing to save or protect Amanda's "friend" in distress.

 

[Vixen]

Did the "American witch" entrance Rudy to penetrate the victim or did Raf show Rudy a Magma cartoon to drive Poor, Poor, Rudy into the forbidden, but to Rudy, irresistible place where even Stefs " amnesia" and "glaring errors" could not hide the magnitude of the Rudy DNA sample?
Fill me in on the details, Vixen: You can certainly come up with an innocent reason for the embarrassing placement of the DNA of Rudy.

Amanda and Raff had bare footprints which showed up in luminol and the footprint on the bathmat was identified by a police forensic expert as Raff's. There was also a Raff luminol footprint in Amanda's room, so likely the pair were naked, having sex and incited Rudy to join in their degeneracy by attacking Mez, as premeditated.

 

[Vixen]

Please don't assume that because Amanda and Raffaele are continuing to live free that they are "getting on with their lives", implying that both are doing well. Both innocent defendants have been seriously harmed by the failures of the Italian justice system. A few years ago Amanda flew to NY to appear for a television news interview. She disclosed later that she was in such deep pain in her hotel room that night that she cried and cried through late at night, so much that the person in a nearby hotel room worriedly called hotel security thinking that someone was hurt. Someone was. Brave public comportment does not mean that the two innocent victims of this monstrous miscarriage of justice are "doing well and getting on with their lives". The public does not see them during the dark hours.

What about Mez' sadness and pain that night when she realised she had been killed and would never see her dear mum and dad or brothers and adored sister, Stephanie, ever again. The last persons she saw were her grinning murderers.

At least Amanda can seek psychiatric help and visit Tacoma.

 

[js202]

Edited by Agatha: 

Content removed for breach of rule 9. Please avoid excessive references to sexual matters in the public section of the forum.

 

[Desert Fox]

What about Mez' sadness and pain that night when she realised she had been killed and would never see her dear mum and dad or brothers and adored sister, Stephanie, ever again. The last persons she saw were her grinning murderers.

At least Amanda can seek psychiatric help and visit Tacoma.

Imagine yourself, innocent of the murder but imprisoned for years for a murder you did not commit. The state threatened to put you back in prison. How would you feel?

Do you understand empathy, a normal human emotion?

 

[bagels]

Raff has a strategy, which has paid off for now, of distancing himself from it all. As long as people think of Amanda as the baddie, then he can pretend he was just the patsy who got caught up in it, a ruse papa Raff suggested early on (there was a furious exchange of phonecalls between him and his boy the morning of 2nd Nov 2007).

The stuff about, "I wish I had never met Amanda" or "She asked me to lie for her about going out that evening", was just Raff following his papa's suggestion of blaming it all on her. Problem is, he can't name Amanda blatantly, for she would soon reveal "all" about him, if she were convicted, and him not. So we have witnessed an entertaining version of The Prisoners' Dilemma between the pair of them, each subtly threatening to throw the other "under the bus", hence Amanda's dark hints about seeing blood on the back of Raff's hand or his rubbing her fingerprints onto the knife whilst she slept. Note her informing the police of his drug habits and mental health issue with depression.

Both said they'd never take drugs again, after the murder.

Clues come from the police and prosecutor. It was Raff who came under the greatest police suspicion, not Amanda. They were certinly convinced of his involvement. You only have to watch the video of their search of his apartment. PM Mignini described Raff as "icy cold" in his closing submissions to Matteini, as well as bringing in the manga aspect Marilyn Manson fan worship, not to mention his knife fetish. Bearing in mind Raff being a middle-class young Italian man, the claim police were burning with desire to pursue "the American Witch" can be seen to be the distraction it really is, as put forward by Friends of Amanda, when in truth, police were pretty sure of Raff's culpability.

When Stefanoni carried out the DNA testing, she was not to know in advance the defense expert would not turn up, so IMV it is really reaching to imagine Stefanoni could manufacture Raff's DNA out of thin air. Remember, she is Italian and so is he. No "Ugly American" prejudice there, as FOA keep claiming as the motive for police framing them.

I see Raff and Amanda as two immature thrillseekers, together with Rudy, all reckless, irresponsible bored youth looking for kicks. After halloween Rudy made a video in which he pulled grotesque faces and rolled his eyes back saying he wanted to drink a vampire's blood. Raff's manga book found at his apartment, Blood the Last Vampire was set at halloween and was about a female vampire slayer.

Kokomani who was near the cottage on the eve of the murder, as per cctv and witnesses who saw his vehicle, told police he witnessed the three drugged up to the eyeballs, hiding behind the cottage bins and wielding a large knife. Like Aviello, he, too, claimed he'd been offered €100,000 to drop his evidence on behalf of the police. There are Raff and Amanda's social media pages. There are independent sources testifying to Amanda's reckless behaviour with sex, drugs and money, and Raff's extreme FB pics and comments.

So, no, not an unusual psycho murder insofar there have been several by unbalanced youth, the guy who had never had a girlfriend, Cho of Virginia Tech who could not make friends, the Scream murderers, only 16 at the time, who killed a classmate for sheer fun and videoed themselves bragging about it (and which got them convicted), one of whom claims to be innocent, then we had high school shooters in Finland, weird youths with guns, copying Columbine and Virginia Tech. Meaningless, trite, futile murders of random innocent peers who had never done anything to them, except exclude them from decent social circles because of their erratic egregious behaviour.

No, IMV Raff did not act alone with Rudy, with Amanda covering up because she witnessed it. OTOH he definitely isn't the affable foppish patsy he presents himself as. I can quite see him as a ruthless killer who did it for kicks. Their justification being they were bored, it was halloween and they imagined Mez to be the vampire and themselves the vampire slayers, possibly under the influence of LSD or perhaps cocaine or "speed", which enabled them to stay up all night plotting what to do about their crime.

They have no alibi, Raff refused to give evidence, and their sole defense seems to be "We know you know we did it, but you can't prove it. Ha!"

So the only thing standing between your theory and mine is the crazed incoherent testimony of convicted cocaine dealer Kokomani. I'm cool with that.

 

[bagels]

What about Mez' sadness and pain .

If it happened in the US Meredith's murderer would have gotten exactly what he deserved.

 

[Numbers]

Numbers, is there anything from this case which might help us understand how or why the ECHR reached a conclusion that the conduct of the authorities was proven to the court's satisfaction? How were they persuaded? What defence, if you know, did Belgium put up to the claim?

....
Of interest, the judgment text is not now on HUDOC, which may mean that there was a need to edit it. The judgment is still announced as given, though, on the ECHR home page.

The Bouyid v Belgium case is back up on HUDOC.

The ECHR judged both substantive and procedural violations of Convention Article 3, for degrading treatment by the Belgian and failure to effectively investigate by the Belgian authorities.

I provided some information on the ECHR's views on the substantive issues in an earlier post. Here is some information on their views on the procedural issues:

129. The investigation was therefore mainly confined to interviews of the police officers involved in the incidents by other police officers seconded to the investigation department of Committee P and the preparation by those officers of a report summarising the evidence gathered, once again, by police officers (the internal oversight department of the police district covering the applicants’ neighbourhood), which mainly described the “general behaviour” of the Bouyid family.

130. Furthermore, no reasons were provided for either the submissions of the Crown Prosecutor or the order by the Committals Division of the Brussels Court of First Instance discontinuing the case. Furthermore, in upholding that discontinuance order, the Indictments Division of the Brussels Court of Appeal drew almost exclusively on the aforementioned report concerning the behaviour of the Bouyid family and the denials of the officers charged, without assessing the credibility and seriousness of the applicants’ allegation that they had been slapped by the officers in question. It should also be noted that the Indictment Division’s judgment of 9 April 2008, which contains only a very brief reference to the medical certificate produced by the second applicant, makes no mention at all of the certificate produced by the first applicant.

131. These factors tend to indicate that the investigating authorities failed to devote the requisite attention to the applicants’ allegations – despite their being substantiated by the medical certificates which they had submitted for inclusion in the case file – or to the nature of the act, involving a law-enforcement officer slapping an individual who was completely under his control.

133. As the Court has emphasised on previous occasions, although there may be obstacles or difficulties which prevent progress in an investigation in a particular situation, a prompt response by the authorities in investigating allegations of ill-treatment may generally be regarded as essential in maintaining public confidence in their adherence to the rule of law and in preventing any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts (see, among other authorities, McKerr v. the United Kingdom, no. 28883/95, § 114, ECHR 2001‑III; and Mocanu and Others, cited above, § 323).

In the above quote, I have bolded statements that may be relevant to the Amanda Knox claim of violation of her Convention rights under Article 3 by Italy for convicting her of calunnia despite her allegations of abuse and coercion by the police in obtaining her statement.

 

[Kauffer]

Amanda and Raff had bare footprints which showed up in luminol and the footprint on the bathmat was identified by a police forensic expert as Raff's. There was also a Raff luminol footprint in Amanda's room, so likely the pair were naked, having sex and incited Rudy to join in their degeneracy by attacking Mez, as premeditated.

So they were naked in Kercher's room, were they?

Gosh, there must be so much evidence of Amanda and Raffaele next to and around the body....oh wait...no. There wasn't any. A fact which the Marasca court said demonstrated that it was impossible for them to have committed the murder.

 

[Kauffer]

The Bouyid v Belgium case is back up on HUDOC.

The ECHR judged both substantive and procedural violations of Convention Article 3, for degrading treatment by the Belgian and failure to effectively investigate by the Belgian authorities.

I provided some information on the ECHR's views on the substantive issues in an earlier post. Here is some information on their views on the procedural issues:

In the above quote, I have bolded statements that may be relevant to the Amanda Knox claim of violation of her Convention rights under Article 3 by Italy for convicting her of calunnia despite her allegations of abuse and coercion by the police in obtaining her statement.

"133. As the Court has emphasised on previous occasions, although there may be obstacles or difficulties which prevent progress in an investigation in a particular situation, a prompt response by the authorities in investigating allegations of ill-treatment may generally be regarded as essential in maintaining public confidence in their adherence to the rule of law and in preventing any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts (see, among other authorities, McKerr v. the United Kingdom, no. 28883/95, § 114, ECHR 2001‑III; and Mocanu and Others, cited above, § 323)."

Methinks Italy have a rather insurmountable problem with Art 3. Oh dear!

 

[Planigale]

No, it wasn't charging. IIRC she switched it off "to save the battery" btw one of three explanations. No, Raff awoke before her, or so they claim, she went to the cottage to get the mop and to take a bag for clothes (as they both told police).

In her testimony, Amanda claimed the door was swinging open, and as she thought someone had popped out to empty the trash she left it open, went to her room to undress, to take a shower (police disbelieve she took any shower when she claims she did), didn't notice her lamp missing, claimed Filomena's door was shut, when Raff described it as "wide open", said Laura's door was ajar, but didn't notice her drawer hanging open. The pair claim it wasn't until after breakfast Amanda told Raff about the odd things.

Not hard to spot the anomalies.

The big question is, if Rudy "did it alone", why Amanda, in particular, covered up for him, as inferred by Bruno-Marasca.

Frankly, the court is telling us, they do not believe Amanda felt fear, or she would have called Raff immediately. If the pair were not intimidated by Rudy, what was the deal going on? Clearly, Rudy had something on them, that's what. They didn't want Rudy caught, so had to dream up the "Bushy Haired Stranger" myth of the sex-maniac burglar, and again Bruno-Marasca clearly state they disbelieve that story, as presented by the pair. Or, more cunningly, they had to finger Rudy in a roundabout way by pointing out his turd - as analemma charmingly calls it - as how else could they explain they knew of his presence, without themselves also being present?

This exemplifies the problem with the pro-guilt argument.
"to take a shower (police disbelieve she took any shower when she claims she did)'. It does not matter what the police (wrongly) believed; it is what they can prove. The prosecution has to build case based on evidence to prove guilt BARD. The defence are not required to prove innocence. There is no evidence Knox did not take a shower. In any case it makes no material difference whether she did or not.

"didn't notice her lamp missing" again what is the evidence her lamp was missing? The prosecution never argued this, probably because the police themselves moved the lamp to provide light while avoiding touching the lamp / light switch in Kercher's room.

"they do not believe Amanda felt fear", Indeed Knox never claimed she felt fear at that point.

"Not hard to spot the anomalies." Which is what you expect. There is a large amount of scientific literature showing how bad humans are at observing. http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html The lack of anomalies would be suspicious. What is striking is that the case is full of amateur psychology, but where are the professional psychology assessments? Knox underwent a psychological assessment, it did not report any psychopathology.

 

[anglolawyer]

Raff has a strategy, which has paid off for now, of distancing himself from it all. As long as people think of Amanda as the baddie, then he can pretend he was just the patsy who got caught up in it, a ruse papa Raff suggested early on (there was a furious exchange of phonecalls between him and his boy the morning of 2nd Nov 2007).

The stuff about, "I wish I had never met Amanda" or "She asked me to lie for her about going out that evening", was just Raff following his papa's suggestion of blaming it all on her. Problem is, he can't name Amanda blatantly, for she would soon reveal "all" about him, if she were convicted, and him not. So we have witnessed an entertaining version of The Prisoners' Dilemma between the pair of them, each subtly threatening to throw the other "under the bus", hence Amanda's dark hints about seeing blood on the back of Raff's hand or his rubbing her fingerprints onto the knife whilst she slept. Note her informing the police of his drug habits and mental health issue with depression.

Both said they'd never take drugs again, after the murder.

Clues come from the police and prosecutor. It was Raff who came under the greatest police suspicion, not Amanda. They were certinly convinced of his involvement. You only have to watch the video of their search of his apartment. PM Mignini described Raff as "icy cold" in his closing submissions to Matteini, as well as bringing in the manga aspect Marilyn Manson fan worship, not to mention his knife fetish. Bearing in mind Raff being a middle-class young Italian man, the claim police were burning with desire to pursue "the American Witch" can be seen to be the distraction it really is, as put forward by Friends of Amanda, when in truth, police were pretty sure of Raff's culpability.

When Stefanoni carried out the DNA testing, she was not to know in advance the defense expert would not turn up, so IMV it is really reaching to imagine Stefanoni could manufacture Raff's DNA out of thin air. Remember, she is Italian and so is he. No "Ugly American" prejudice there, as FOA keep claiming as the motive for police framing them.

I see Raff and Amanda as two immature thrillseekers, together with Rudy, all reckless, irresponsible bored youth looking for kicks. After halloween Rudy made a video in which he pulled grotesque faces and rolled his eyes back saying he wanted to drink a vampire's blood. Raff's manga book found at his apartment, Blood the Last Vampire was set at halloween and was about a female vampire slayer.

Kokomani who was near the cottage on the eve of the murder, as per cctv and witnesses who saw his vehicle, told police he witnessed the three drugged up to the eyeballs, hiding behind the cottage bins and wielding a large knife. Like Aviello, he, too, claimed he'd been offered €100,000 to drop his evidence on behalf of the police. There are Raff and Amanda's social media pages. There are independent sources testifying to Amanda's reckless behaviour with sex, drugs and money, and Raff's extreme FB pics and comments.

So, no, not an unusual psycho murder insofar there have been several by unbalanced youth, the guy who had never had a girlfriend, Cho of Virginia Tech who could not make friends, the Scream murderers, only 16 at the time, who killed a classmate for sheer fun and videoed themselves bragging about it (and which got them convicted), one of whom claims to be innocent, then we had high school shooters in Finland, weird youths with guns, copying Columbine and Virginia Tech. Meaningless, trite, futile murders of random innocent peers who had never done anything to them, except exclude them from decent social circles because of their erratic egregious behaviour.

No, IMV Raff did not act alone with Rudy, with Amanda covering up because she witnessed it. OTOH he definitely isn't the affable foppish patsy he presents himself as. I can quite see him as a ruthless killer who did it for kicks. Their justification being they were bored, it was halloween and they imagined Mez to be the vampire and themselves the vampire slayers, possibly under the influence of LSD or perhaps cocaine or "speed", which enabled them to stay up all night plotting what to do about their crime.

They have no alibi, Raff refused to give evidence, and their sole defense seems to be "We know you know we did it, but you can't prove it. Ha!"

So, what was it that made your mind up since you joined the forum in a state of indecision about this case?

This is great stuff. A Booker prize if not a Pulitzer. 'Affable foppish patsy'. Wow.

Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man overly concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are: "coxcomb", fribble, "popinjay" (meaning "parrot"), fashion-monger, and "ninny".

 

[anglolawyer]

No, it wasn't charging. IIRC she switched it off "to save the battery" btw one of three explanations. No, Raff awoke before her, or so they claim, she went to the cottage to get the mop and to take a bag for clothes (as they both told police).

In her testimony, Amanda claimed the door was swinging open, and as she thought someone had popped out to empty the trash she left it open, went to her room to undress, to take a shower (police disbelieve she took any shower when she claims she did), didn't notice her lamp missing, claimed Filomena's door was shut, when Raff described it as "wide open", said Laura's door was ajar, but didn't notice her drawer hanging open. The pair claim it wasn't until after breakfast Amanda told Raff about the odd things.

Not hard to spot the anomalies.

The big question is, if Rudy "did it alone", why Amanda, in particular, covered up for him, as inferred by Bruno-Marasca.

Frankly, the court is telling us, they do not believe Amanda felt fear, or she would have called Raff immediately. If the pair were not intimidated by Rudy, what was the deal going on? Clearly, Rudy had something on them, that's what. They didn't want Rudy caught, so had to dream up the "Bushy Haired Stranger" myth of the sex-maniac burglar, and again Bruno-Marasca clearly state they disbelieve that story, as presented by the pair. Or, more cunningly, they had to finger Rudy in a roundabout way by pointing out his turd - as analemma charmingly calls it - as how else could they explain they knew of his presence, without themselves also being present?

Great stuff, Vixen. I'm fascinated by the complexity of it all. Given your idea that she lied about the events of the morning, it's quite fun to try to work out why she came up with the story of the open door, going back and forth etc. I don't follow the cunning thing with Rudy. Are you saying they wanted the police to catch him but didn't want to name him themselves because that would give away their own involvement? It's just that you have her both 'covering up' for and 'fingering' Rudy in the same post.

 

[codyjuneau]

In part, the ECHR relied on the medical reports of each of the two brothers, who each soon after release by the police, went to a physician who verified signs of hard contact on the face. These slaps apparently left significant bruising. However, the police denied that any such slaps were given. Only in its ECHR defense, and not in the original investigation of the police by Belgian authorities, Belgium claimed that the bruises were the result of the boys slapping themselves. Otherwise, the Belgian government defense was the police claimed not to have slapped the boys. There was no evidence that the boys had slapped themselves, the ECHR interpreted the medical record and statements of the boys as indicating that slaps had occurred, and the ECHR did not accept the Belgian government arguments.

Of interest, the judgment text is not now on HUDOC, which may mean that there was a need to edit it. The judgment is still announced as given, though, on the ECHR home page.

.
IMO, it should be incumbent upon the police to document all interviews and interrogations with audio/video recordings in order to protect themselves from false accusations. If they fail to do so, the courts should accept the interviewee's version of events unless the police can definitively prove otherwise.

It would be a practical way to ensure fairness, sort of like letting the person that cuts the pie, choose last.

Cody
.