Why would Raff tell police investigating a murder, rape and mise en scene burglary what he was doing on Halloween, when it is obvious they were asking him about his girlfriend's roommate murder on the night after?
He has never retracted this statement - if indeed, as you and LoJo claim was just an error - and in fact, got Bongiorno to call a press conference jsut before the Nencini appeal to reiterate Raff could not vouch for Amanda's movements on the night of the crime.
Forget about my syntax - concentrate on the lies of the kids.
Oh mannn. Let me spell it out in the simplest terms I can think of.
1) The police and PM become convinced, by around 3-4 Nov, that they know what "really happened" in respect of the murder.
2) What they think "really happened" was that Knox met up with the man with whom she exchanged text messages that night, and took him to the cottage whereupon he attacked and killed Kercher. Knox then staged the break-in the following morning to cunningly try to misdirect investigators away from a keyholder (i.e. herself).
3) At that point, both Knox and Sollectito were adamantly telling the police that they spent the whole of the evening and night together alone in Sollecito's apartment.
4) Because the police "knew" what had happened, they in turn "knew" that Knox and Sollecito "had" to be lying about Knox's whereabouts/movements on the murder night.
5) The police/PM surmised that Knox had persuaded Sollecito to lie and corroborate her claim of being with him in his apartment, and that Sollecito had agreed to do so out of loyalty/love/fear/whatever.
6) Therefore, the first part of the police/PM plan on the "interrogation night" of 5/6 Nov was to bring Sollecito in and *persuade* him to stop lying to protect Knox - and to tell them the "truth" that Knox had left his apartment that night.
7) They brought Sollecito and started putting heavy pressure on him. They told him that he could get into massive trouble if he kept lying to protect Knox, that Knox was evil for even getting him to lie on her behalf, that they (the police) already knew for sure what had happened, and that Knox had been present at the murder, so there was no mileage for Sollecito in keeping up his lie that she'd been with him at home all evening/night. They told him that if he "fessed up" now and told them the truth - that Knox had actually left his apartment for a sizeable period of time on the night of the murder - then he (Sollecito) would likely not be in any further trouble. They told him it was time to abandon the bitch Knox.
8) Sollecito got into a befuddled and confused state amidst all of this. He remembered a night on which Knox HAD gone out while he stayed at home, but he had thought that was the previous night. He asked the police for a calendar, because he thought that would clarify his memory. They police refused to provide him with one.
9) In the face of the simultaneous threats and "carrots" from the police, in the face of the police's claims that they had solid evidence that Knox was present at the murder, and by now in a thoroughly confused state about dates, Sollecito came to an internal resolution that the date on which Knox had gone out in the night and left him alone in his apartment MUST have been the date of the murder, since this was the only explanation which fit with what the police were telling him.
10) However, Sollecito was wrong. The evening he described to the police was, in fact, a description of movements of Knox and Sollecito which provably took place the previous evening to that of the murder - the evening/night of Halloween, 31 Oct. But Sollecito had become so confused by the police and so convinced of the idea that the police already "knew" Knox had been present at the murder, he convinced himself that events which actually took place on Halloween night took place on the night of the murder.
11) The police (and PM), having had the goal of getting Sollecito to "admit" that Knox had left his apartment on the night of the murder, enthusiastically took his (actually false) statement, since they could now use it in phase two of their plan: to confront Knox with the news that Sollecito had "abandoned" her alibi, and to get her in turn to "buckle" and "tell them what they already knew to be correct".
Hope that makes it easier to understand.
