The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 28

[LondonJohn]

Not only that, Machiavelli defended Donnino's self-described role (not as an interpreter, but) as a mediator. Machiavelli took it one step further - Donnino had been a diplomat. And, acc. to Machiavelli, appropriately so. Anyone who claimed otherwise just did know the hidden meaning of things.... the dietrology which is behind all things Italian. The best story, a story available only to the initiate.

Ah yes! The ignorant or misleading nonsense so often trotted out by pro-guilt commentators - and seemingly also believed by the police/PM in this case and indeed the Italian state itself! - that what Donnino did was actually nothing more or less than beneficial to Knox and Knox's legal position!!

And remember, Machiavelli solved the problem of Knox/Sollecito going to the Questura that night - suspects? or persons-informed-of-the-facts? - by inventing a judicial concept which he put as, "almost a suspect". It was that grey area in which Knox could be treated as a suspect, but not to the point where guaranteed rights kicked in.

Ah yes again! The beautiful confluence of ignorance, lack of logic, and lack of understanding of law/ethics - where it's possible for the police to suspect someone of a criminal offence but not to consider them a suspect

I mean, it'd be laughable if it hadn't had such devastating consequences for both Knox and Sollecito in this case for so long.....

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh and I forgot to add earlier, on the subject of Knox clearly being regarded as a criminal suspect by the police before she ever made her verbal "confession/accusation".....

......we also of course need look no further than the triumphant pronouncement to assembled journalists made by not-so-stellar Perugia Chief of Police de Felice at that infamous press conference on 6th November 2007 (the daytime after the night during which Knox had made the "confession/accusation").

To refresh our collective memories, de Felice said (in translation, I believe): "Originally she (Knox) told us something which we knew was not the truth. (But) eventually she buckled and told us what we knew to be the truth"

Now.........

.......... either de Felice was flat-out lying when he spoke those words (which would make him fundamentally unfit to hold his office, and which would immediately cast doubt upon the probity and fitness-for-purpose of the entire Perugia state police department)......

...........or he was telling the truth. And if he was telling the truth, then the automatic implication is that the police "knew" Knox was not telling them the "truth"* at some point prior to the verbal confession/accusation, and that the police caused her (presumably - in de Felice's mind - through their outstanding techniques) to "buckle" and tell them this "truth" that they already knew.


* this "truth" of course being that she'd met with the recipient of the "see you later" text and taken him to the cottage, and the corresponding "lie" being Knox's consistent story up to that point that she'd spent the entire evening/night of the murder together with Sollecito within his apartment.

 

[Bill Williams]

.......... either de Felice was flat-out lying when he spoke those words (which would make him fundamentally unfit to hold his office, and which would immediately cast doubt upon the probity and fitness-for-purpose of the entire Perugia state police department)......

...........or he was telling the truth. And if he was telling the truth, then the automatic implication is that the police "knew" Knox was not telling them the "truth"* at some point prior to the verbal confession/accusation, and that the police caused her (presumably - in de Felice's mind - through their outstanding techniques) to "buckle" and tell them this "truth" that they already knew.

..... add to this that Knox back then was only 3 1/2 months out of her teenage years, coming from a liberal area of the USA (the Pacific Northwest) where the assumption in middle-class neighbourhoods is to call the police, and trust the police, when you're in a jam.

Knox, quite understandably, believed her innocence (as well as Raffaele's innocence) was obvious.

When Ficarra had come out into the hall that late evening of November 5, 2007, the line Ficarra had used was, "It's now time for truth." Knox (as well as everyone else) had told fibs about the victim's marijuana use, as well as the over all marijuana use in the cottage - both upstairs and downstairs. Filomena Romanelli was perhaps the one with the most potential exposure on this - remember when she testified, and told Mignini from the stand that she "had sinned" in that regard?

Knox had joined in with the lie. Ficarra then took her into the interrogation room with a virtual teenager, who barely spoke the language, exhaustedly motivated to "tell the truth".

Enter Donnino. IN fact, when Donnino entered the room, she later testified that the interrogation had fallen apart, and that she herself could be the most helpful by "acting as a mediator" between this virtual-teenager and the police. Part of that "mediation" was to get Knox to imagine what may have happened in that cottage that night if she had been there - indeed, Donnino herself had had a memory lapse and thought she was helping Knox by relating it.

As for your choice up above, LondonJohn, I counterintuitively go with the "de Felice was lying" option.

 

[Numbers]

The following hypothetical issue has been raised for the Knox - Sollecito case.

Suppose in the ECHR case Knox v. Italy, there is a final judgment that Italy had violated Amanda Knox's right to a fair trial, and, therefore, Italy is obligated to redress this violation, for example, by granting her a revision trial which would dismiss the calunnia case conviction or otherwise acquit her. However, in the hypothesis, Italy fails to take the actions required to satisfy the ECHR judgment. What would happen in those circumstances?

An ECHR Grand Chamber judgment in the case Ilgar Mammadov v. Azerbaijan 15172/13 shows one avenue that the Council of Europe, through the Committee of Ministers (CoM) and the ECHR, could take in a case where a state allegedly does not follow its obligations under the Convention to comply with a final judgment of the ECHR. That avenue includes a question directed to the ECHR by the CoM as to whether there has been an infringement of the relevant international law, Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention, and a subsequent judgment on that question by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR.

Today, 29 May 2019, the ECHR Grand Chamber has published its judgment on this question of infringement by Azerbaijan for the Ilgar Mammadov case. Here is the summary from the press release issued by the ECHR:

"The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, delivering its first judgment in infringement proceedings under Article 46 § 4 of the European Convention, today found that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfil its obligation to comply with the Court’s 2014 ruling in the case of political activist Ilgar Mammadov (application no. 15172/13).

The Grand Chamber found, unanimously, that there had been:

a violation of Article 46 § 1 (binding force and execution of judgments) of the European Convention on Human Rights by Azerbaijan.

The case concerned the referral of a question to the Court on 5 December 2017 by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is responsible for supervising the enforcement of the Court’s judgments, as to whether Azerbaijan had failed to abide by the 2014 judgment by not releasing Mr Mammadov unconditionally. The Committee was using powers set out in Article 46 § 4 of the European Convention.

The Court found in particular that the Government had taken only limited steps to implement the judgment, which had not amounted to Azerbaijan acting in “good faith” or in a manner which was in accordance with the “conclusions and spirit” of its ruling in Mr Mammadov’s case.

It concluded that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfil its obligation under Article 46 § 1 of the Convention to abide by the judgment.

In accordance with Article 46 § 5 of the Convention, cases in which the Court finds a violation of Article 46 § 1 are to be referred back to the Committee of Ministers for consideration of the measures to be taken.

The Court’s 2014 judgment found that Azerbaijan had violated Mr Mammadov’s rights by charging him with criminal offences and placing him in pre-trial detention in 2013 without there being any reasonable suspicion that he had committed an offence. It considered the circumstances indicated the actual purpose of those measures was to silence or punish Mr Mammadov for criticising the Government.

In the enforcement proceedings the Committee of Ministers stressed the fundamental flaws in the criminal proceedings and called many times for Azerbaijan to release Mr Mammadov as an essential step towards redressing the violations the Court had found.

However, he remained in detention for almost four years after the Court’s judgment had become final on 13 October 2014, until his conditional release on 13 August 2018, following the initiation of the infringement proceedings. In March 2019 the Supreme Court, after reducing his sentence, found he had served his time in full and set aside the probation order and other conditions on his release."

 

[TruthCalls]

..... add to this that Knox back then was only 3 1/2 months out of her teenage years, coming from a liberal area of the USA (the Pacific Northwest) where the assumption in middle-class neighbourhoods is to call the police, and trust the police, when you're in a jam.

Knox, quite understandably, believed her innocence (as well as Raffaele's innocence) was obvious.

When Ficarra had come out into the hall that late evening of November 5, 2007, the line Ficarra had used was, "It's now time for truth." Knox (as well as everyone else) had told fibs about the victim's marijuana use, as well as the over all marijuana use in the cottage - both upstairs and downstairs. Filomena Romanelli was perhaps the one with the most potential exposure on this - remember when she testified, and told Mignini from the stand that she "had sinned" in that regard?

Knox had joined in with the lie. Ficarra then took her into the interrogation room with a virtual teenager, who barely spoke the language, exhaustedly motivated to "tell the truth".

Enter Donnino. IN fact, when Donnino entered the room, she later testified that the interrogation had fallen apart, and that she herself could be the most helpful by "acting as a mediator" between this virtual-teenager and the police. Part of that "mediation" was to get Knox to imagine what may have happened in that cottage that night if she had been there - indeed, Donnino herself had had a memory lapse and thought she was helping Knox by relating it.

As for your choice up above, LondonJohn, I counterintuitively go with the "de Felice was lying" option.

I think you're all missing the single biggest, indisputable piece of evidence that they were suspects - the thousands of phone tap recordings made of Amanda and Raffaele, as well as those of family and friends. Judicial approval is required in Italy to tap a phone, meaning there must be probable cause, which would mean the target of those taps are suspects in a crime. That family and friends had their phones tapped as well only reaffirms their suspect status.

 

[Bill Williams]

I think you're all missing the single biggest, indisputable piece of evidence that they were suspects - the thousands of phone tap recordings made of Amanda and Raffaele, as well as those of family and friends. Judicial approval is required in Italy to tap a phone, meaning there must be probable cause, which would mean the target of those taps are suspects in a crime. That family and friends had their phones tapped as well only reaffirms their suspect status.

You may be right.

Yet there's this phrase guilter-nutters use when delivered a setback to their bizarre theories:

Ok, that may not be true, but Knox knows something she's not telling us.​

That's a fallback position often used by the likes of Barbie Nadeau when she's forced to retreat from a point.

Meaning, those wiretaps granted by judges within a PM-friendly Italian Inquisitorial system should not be hard to obtain. Esp. when told "she knows something."

That those hours of clandestine surveillance yielded nothing should mean something.

 

[Stacyhs]

You may be right.

Yet there's this phrase guilter-nutters use when delivered a setback to their bizarre theories:

Ok, that may not be true, but Knox knows something she's not telling us.​

That's a fallback position often used by the likes of Barbie Nadeau when she's forced to retreat from a point.

Meaning, those wiretaps granted by judges within a PM-friendly Italian Inquisitorial system should not be hard to obtain. Esp. when told "she knows something."

That those hours of clandestine surveillance yielded nothing should mean something.

No, no, no! That those hours of secret surveillance yielded nothing is not due to the fact that RS and AK were innocent, but due to their knowing that they were likely being taped by the police. Remember, these were two criminally savvy people who knew how to remove all their forensic evidence from the bedroom. The only reason they didn't do the same in the bathroom, hallway and FR's bedroom is because they were interrupted by the police when they arrived. They were caught outside with a mop and bucket and were obviously on their way to those areas to finish their clean up.

 

[TruthCalls]

You may be right.

Yet there's this phrase guilter-nutters use when delivered a setback to their bizarre theories:

Ok, that may not be true, but Knox knows something she's not telling us.​

That's a fallback position often used by the likes of Barbie Nadeau when she's forced to retreat from a point.

Meaning, those wiretaps granted by judges within a PM-friendly Italian Inquisitorial system should not be hard to obtain. Esp. when told "she knows something."

That those hours of clandestine surveillance yielded nothing should mean something.

My brief research indicated that it isn't difficult to get judicial approval. However, within the context of whether they were suspects or not, I find this irrelevant. The issue is one of intent - you don't tap the phones of witnesses, especially family and friends of witnesses. I'm sure Mignini had no problem (or didn't even bother) to get the approval, but would he have even bothered to tap the phones if he didn't think they were involved?

Thousands of hours worth of conversation and nothing linking them to the crime. For an honest investigator looking for the truth, that should have meant plenty. But Mignini wasn't looking for the truth, he was looking for evidence to back his conclusion. I'm sure he was disappointed, but that's about it.

 

[LondonJohn]

My brief research indicated that it isn't difficult to get judicial approval. However, within the context of whether they were suspects or not, I find this irrelevant. The issue is one of intent - you don't tap the phones of witnesses, especially family and friends of witnesses. I'm sure Mignini had no problem (or didn't even bother) to get the approval, but would he have even bothered to tap the phones if he didn't think they were involved?

Thousands of hours worth of conversation and nothing linking them to the crime. For an honest investigator looking for the truth, that should have meant plenty. But Mignini wasn't looking for the truth, he was looking for evidence to back his conclusion. I'm sure he was disappointed, but that's about it.

I believe it's a rather common "investigative" technique in Italy to routinely tap the phones of a wide circle of people who have any connection to the case. As you and others say, the law dictates that phone taps must get judicial approval.

BUT it appears there's plenty of evidence that gunslinging PM's tend either to bypass the judicial approval stage altogether, or they go to pliant judges who are still stuck in an inquisitive-era mentality of "my colleague the PM must have just cause for wanting these phone taps, since (s)he is purely an objective disinterested truth-seeker".

As such, I don't actually think that in the badly broken Italian hybrid system, the phone tapping of an individual necessarily implied that the police/PM suspected that individual of a criminal offence. Rather, the police/PM were in the habit of using a battery of phone taps to weed out the true suspects from those who'd said nothing incriminating in the taps.

And talking of inquisitive-era mentality, I believe the whole notion of mass phone taps stems from here: I think that the inquisitive system, in Italy at least, relied very significantly on confessions. And in an end-justifies-the-means mentality, a widespread "dragnet" of phone taps was deemed an ethically reasonable approach, in the search for incriminating or self-incriminating statements that could then be used to extract confessions. Of course, a body such as the ECHR (as well as any system of jurisprudence in place among any industrialised liberal democracy) would take a *somewhat different* view........

 

[TruthCalls]

I believe it's a rather common "investigative" technique in Italy to routinely tap the phones of a wide circle of people who have any connection to the case. As you and others say, the law dictates that phone taps must get judicial approval.

BUT it appears there's plenty of evidence that gunslinging PM's tend either to bypass the judicial approval stage altogether, or they go to pliant judges who are still stuck in an inquisitive-era mentality of "my colleague the PM must have just cause for wanting these phone taps, since (s)he is purely an objective disinterested truth-seeker".

As such, I don't actually think that in the badly broken Italian hybrid system, the phone tapping of an individual necessarily implied that the police/PM suspected that individual of a criminal offence. Rather, the police/PM were in the habit of using a battery of phone taps to weed out the true suspects from those who'd said nothing incriminating in the taps.

And talking of inquisitive-era mentality, I believe the whole notion of mass phone taps stems from here: I think that the inquisitive system, in Italy at least, relied very significantly on confessions. And in an end-justifies-the-means mentality, a widespread "dragnet" of phone taps was deemed an ethically reasonable approach, in the search for incriminating or self-incriminating statements that could then be used to extract confessions. Of course, a body such as the ECHR (as well as any system of jurisprudence in place among any industrialised liberal democracy) would take a *somewhat different* view........

I don't disagree with any of this, but...

IIRC, the taps were put on many of Raffaele's family member's phones as well as the phones of several of their friends. Assuming that is the case, and assuming the police didn't considered any of the friends/family as suspects, then the police weren't trying to weed out anything - they were trying to get something incriminating to reinforce what they already believed to be the truth. To that end, I think the highlighted sentence above is spot on. The police should have tapped the phones of Laura and Filomena, as well as the boys downstairs, so as to at least not be so obvious with their intent.

 

[LondonJohn]

I don't disagree with any of this, but...

IIRC, the taps were put on many of Raffaele's family member's phones as well as the phones of several of their friends. Assuming that is the case, and assuming the police didn't considered any of the friends/family as suspects, then the police weren't trying to weed out anything - they were trying to get something incriminating to reinforce what they already believed to be the truth. To that end, I think the highlighted sentence above is spot on. The police should have tapped the phones of Laura and Filomena, as well as the boys downstairs, so as to at least not be so obvious with their intent.

No, that's the thing. I think they DID tap the phones of the other female housemates.

And I don't think they would have done so just to disguise their intent.

I believe that what routinely happens in a case such as this in Italy, where there is a pool of people who might possibly have something to do with the crime, is that the police simply tap the phones of all of those people, plus potential confidents of those people. And they assume - often correctly (which only serves to reinforce the use of this tactic) - that if one of those people is involved in the crime, that person will say something incriminating on the phone in the couple of weeks after the crime.

Thus can the police capture incriminating evidence via a numbers-game dragnet; all that remains is to pull the person into the police HQ, confront him/her with this evidence, and intimidate him/her into making a usable confession.

I don't think that on 2nd November 2007 the police/PM would have had any firm suspicions about the perpetrator(s) of the Kercher murder. And, that being the case, I believe Mignini simply ordered the phone taps of everyone in that pool of potential suspects - a pool which likely included Kercher's boyfriend, the boyfriend's close friends and parents, the two female housemates and their close friends and parents, the English friends, etc.....

Such dragnets are, of course, unlawful in civilised liberal democracies. But not, it would appear, in Italy.

 

[Stacyhs]

Stefano Buratti testified that there were 83 wiretaps starting on "day 2" including Laura, Filomena, Raffaele, Amanda, and "friends" and then Sollecito's family.

See http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Stefano_Buratti's_Testimony

 

[TruthCalls]

No, that's the thing. I think they DID tap the phones of the other female housemates.

And I don't think they would have done so just to disguise their intent.

I believe that what routinely happens in a case such as this in Italy, where there is a pool of people who might possibly have something to do with the crime, is that the police simply tap the phones of all of those people, plus potential confidents of those people. And they assume - often correctly (which only serves to reinforce the use of this tactic) - that if one of those people is involved in the crime, that person will say something incriminating on the phone in the couple of weeks after the crime.

Thus can the police capture incriminating evidence via a numbers-game dragnet; all that remains is to pull the person into the police HQ, confront him/her with this evidence, and intimidate him/her into making a usable confession.

I don't think that on 2nd November 2007 the police/PM would have had any firm suspicions about the perpetrator(s) of the Kercher murder. And, that being the case, I believe Mignini simply ordered the phone taps of everyone in that pool of potential suspects - a pool which likely included Kercher's boyfriend, the boyfriend's close friends and parents, the two female housemates and their close friends and parents, the English friends, etc.....

Such dragnets are, of course, unlawful in civilised liberal democracies. But not, it would appear, in Italy.

Do you have a reference for whose phones were tapped?

 

[Stacyhs]

Do you have a reference for whose phones were tapped?

There were 80 phones bugged and 3 'environmental' bugs...locations such as Le Chic, the questura (I assume the waiting room), ). You can get a list of these if you go to the link below and look for the 'intercept -RITs' under each date. For example, Bonassi's, Silenzi's, and the questura were filed on Nov. 2, 2007, and Knox's, several more at the questura, Sollecito's, Mezzetti's and Romanelli's were on Nov. 3, 2007. Just check under each date.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Files_by_chronology

 

[LondonJohn]

There were 80 phones bugged and 3 'environmental' bugs...locations such as Le Chic, the questura (I assume the waiting room), ). You can get a list of these if you go to the link below and look for the 'intercept -RITs' under each date. For example, Bonassi's, Silenzi's, and the questura were filed on Nov. 2, 2007, and Knox's, several more at the questura, Sollecito's, Mezzetti's and Romanelli's were on Nov. 3, 2007. Just check under each date.

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/File_library:_Files_by_chronology

And this appears to confirm the thesis. My firm belief is that this sort of thing was (and probably still is) the standard modus operandi for at least a certain section of Italian judiciary (i.e. PMs) and police: quickly figure out a cast of characters who might potentially be in the frame, and then bug them and their associates/confidants. Then listen to all the bugs and try to find someone incriminating himself/herself or someone else. Then use that to extract a useable confession under interrogation.

I suspect there's little or no chance that this huge volume of wire taps ever even passed before a malleable judge. I suspect that Mignini was comfortably used to doing this sort of thing entirely on his own authority.


By the way, it bears repeating that it appears that neither Knox nor Sollecito said a single thing on those bugs of an incriminating nature (otherwise it would have at least emerged in those 5th/6th November interrogations). I wonder what the police and PM might have heard if they'd included Guede in the list of "bugees".....


(And it also bears repeating that this sort of practice - whether one terms it a form of electronic dragnet or fishing trip - runs entirely contrary to jurisprudence principles in a modern liberal democracy. Heck, even in Italy it's not supposed to be able to happen: PMs are supposed to have to present just cause to a judge, where just cause corresponds to a reasonable level of evidence indicating suspicion. But, Italy being Italy, the rules just seem to be routinely ignored or circumvented by zealous PMs and senior police, who take the law into their own hands in this respect and act as their own check and balance.....)

 

[Numbers]

The ECHR Grand Chamber judgment ILGAR MAMMADOV v. AZERBAIJAN [GC] 15172/13 29/05/2019 contains some general information about a state's responsibilities under international law, including the Convention, for a violation of international law.

The principles relating to these responsibilities were assembled into "the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (the “ARSIWA”)" by the International Law Commission and submitted to the United Nations. The UN General Assembly has acknowledged that the many international tribunals refer to these principles in their decisions. (See paragraphs 81 and 82 of case 15172/13 [GC] 29/05/2019.)

These respondent state responsibilities will be of interest after Knox v. Italy - either the Chamber judgment or a new one from the Grand Chamber - becomes final.

The ECHR case-law applying the ARSIWA principles is detailed in paragraphs 150 - 156 of case 15172/13 [GC] 29/05/2019. Here are some of the key points:

150. As regards the requirements of Article 46, it should first be noted that a respondent State found to have breached the Convention or its Protocols is under an obligation to abide by the Court’s decisions in any case to which it is a party. In other words, a total or partial failure to execute a judgment of the Court can engage the State Party’s international responsibility. The State Party in question will be under an obligation not only to pay those concerned the sums awarded by way of just satisfaction, but also to take individual and/or, if appropriate, general measures in its domestic legal order to put an end to the violation found by the Court and to redress the effects, the aim being to put the applicant, as far as possible, in the position he would have been in had the requirements of the Convention not been disregarded .... In exercising their choice of individual measures, the State party must bear in mind their primary aim of achieving restitutio in integrum {restoring the applicant to his or her condition before the violation of the Convention occurred} ....

151. These obligations reflect the principles of international law whereby a State responsible for a wrongful act is under an obligation to make restitution, consisting in restoring the situation which existed before the wrongful act was committed, provided that restitution is not “materially impossible” and “does not involve a burden out of all proportion to the benefit deriving from restitution instead of compensation” ....

152. In any event, respondent States are required to provide the Committee of Ministers with detailed, up-to-date information on developments in the process of executing judgments that are binding on them (Rule 6 of the Committee of Ministers’ Rules for the supervision of the execution of judgments and of the terms of friendly settlements – see paragraph 91 above). In this connection, the Court emphasises the obligation on States to perform treaties in good faith, as noted, in particular, in the third paragraph of the Preamble to, and in Article 26 of, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 ....

153. Admittedly, subject to monitoring by the Committee of Ministers, the respondent State in principle remains free to choose the means by which it will discharge its obligations under Article 46 § 1 of the Convention ..., provided that such means are compatible with the conclusions set out in the Court’s judgment. ....

154. Although the Court can in certain situations indicate the specific remedy or other measure to be taken by the respondent state it still falls to the Committee of Ministers to evaluate the implementation of such measures under Article 46 § 2 of the Convention ....

155. Moreover, the Court reiterates that given the variety of means available to achieve restitutio in integrum and the nature of the issues involved, in the exercise of its competence under Article 46 § 2 of the Convention, the Committee of Ministers is better placed than the Court to assess the specific measures to be taken. It should thus be left to the Committee of Ministers to supervise, on the basis of the information provided by the respondent State and with due regard to the applicant’s evolving situation, the adoption of such measures that are feasible, timely, adequate and sufficient to ensure the maximum possible reparation for the violations found by the Court ....

156. The purpose of awarding sums by way of just satisfaction is to provide reparation solely for damage suffered by those concerned to the extent that the relevant events constitute a consequence of the violation that cannot otherwise be remedied .... {That is, for someone wrongfully convicted who has served time in person attributable to that wrongful conviction, the ECHR will generally award just satisfaction to cover the violation immediately resulting in the wrongful conviction, and not for length of time served. The respondent state must provide the compensation for the time served as determined by a domestic court judgment.}

 

[TomG]

Aida Colantone's testimony is only available in Italian on the IA wiki but it's on the pro-guilt wiki in English (I know, I know)! Colantone testified in court about the events at the questura on Nov 4th, prior to the visit to VDP -

"On that same day. I remember that after the questioning with Amanda was finished we both exited the room, and Amanda was taken into a room near the offices of the Flying Squad. Then after a little while I was asked to go into a particular room because it was suitably prepared for surveillance, into another place at the police station, where they had taken Amanda and Raffaele. So that around four, four thirty, at 16.00 - 16.30 hrs., I was listening in with the headphones on what the two youngsters were saying in this room arranged for them."

Do we have "suitably prepared" arrangements made for anyone else connected to the case?

Hoots

 

[Stacyhs]

And this appears to confirm the thesis. My firm belief is that this sort of thing was (and probably still is) the standard modus operandi for at least a certain section of Italian judiciary (i.e. PMs) and police: quickly figure out a cast of characters who might potentially be in the frame, and then bug them and their associates/confidants. Then listen to all the bugs and try to find someone incriminating himself/herself or someone else. Then use that to extract a useable confession under interrogation.>snip<

Or, intentionally misrepresent (lie about) what was said in order to influence public opinion and boost their case. For example, the police released to the press, out of context, what Knox said during a recorded prison visit with her mother: "I cannot lie; I was there." The police claimed she was admitting to being at the cottage the night of the murder when she was actually referring to Raff's apartment.

 

[Numbers]

Aida Colantone's testimony is only available in Italian on the IA wiki but it's on the pro-guilt wiki in English (I know, I know)! Colantone testified in court about the events at the questura on Nov 4th, prior to the visit to VDP -

"On that same day. I remember that after the questioning with Amanda was finished we both exited the room, and Amanda was taken into a room near the offices of the Flying Squad. Then after a little while I was asked to go into a particular room because it was suitably prepared for surveillance, into another place at the police station, where they had taken Amanda and Raffaele. So that around four, four thirty, at 16.00 - 16.30 hrs., I was listening in with the headphones on what the two youngsters were saying in this room arranged for them."

Do we have "suitably prepared" arrangements made for anyone else connected to the case?

Hoots

Was any other "witness" (possibly excluding the suspect Rudy Guede) questioned or asked to remain with the police for as many hours as Amanda?

 

[Numbers]

Or, intentionally misrepresent (lie about) what was said in order to influence public opinion and boost their case. For example, the police released to the press, out of context, what Knox said during a recorded prison visit with her mother: "I cannot lie; I was there." The police claimed she was admitting to being at the cottage the night of the murder when she was actually referring to Raff's apartment.

The prosecution brought some of these misrepresentations into the court proceedings. For example, the prosecution maintained that a phone conversation between Amanda and her mother supported the calunnia charge.