The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 29

[Rolfe]

It's inconceivable that a court case such as the one we are discussing could exist in Scotland, simply because our national DNA and psyche is incapable of breeding and cultivating such a "bamstick" https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bamstick as Mignini.

Could I introduce you to Alan Turnbull? Or the remarkable similarity between this case and the case of Luke Mitchell, currently the subject of another thread in this subforum?

 

[Stacyhs]

Speaking of Amanda's alleged murderous jealousy and anger toward Meredith, I find it telling that the prosecution couldn't come up with a single person who claimed that Amanda had ever expressed any unhappiness with or anger or jealousy toward Meredith. In fact, those actually living in the cottage never reported hearing a single argument or even raised voices between the two.

 

[TomG]

Or behave as if there was nothing of interest stored on the phones and digital cameras belonging to Knox and Kercher, which the cops took possession of from the get-go.

It was notable how little in the way of photos or videos of Knox and Kercher with each other surfaced during the various trials (or has ever surfaced), which conveniently served the prosecution's bizarre "narrative" hinging on Knox's deranged animosity toward Kercher.

That would be because ALL such material was on the phones or cameras, or had previously been moved to the (destroyed) laptop drives.

As far as I'm aware none of these devices were ever even returned to their owners or their families.

.

Yep! The relationship between Amanda and Meredith was erased and re-written, courtesy of Mignini and the cops. I've always been intrigued by all the grudges that Meredith allegedly held against Amanda. They all seem to indicate a motive for Meredith to kill Amanda rather than vice-versa since there is no indication whatsoever that Amanda knew of these grudges.

Hoots

 

[TomG]

Could I introduce you to Alan Turnbull? Or the remarkable similarity between this case and the case of Luke Mitchell, currently the subject of another thread in this subforum?

Hi Rolfe. I haven't forgotten about Luke's case, though I believe he is innocent. I'm not sure how this relates to the Kercher case other than a clear miscarriage of justice. Shamefully, I don't know about Alan Turnbull's case, though I promise I will look up on it further.

Hoots

 

[Stacyhs]

Yep! The relationship between Amanda and Meredith was erased and re-written, courtesy of Mignini and the cops. I've always been intrigued by all the grudges that Meredith allegedly held against Amanda. They all seem to indicate a motive for Meredith to kill Amanda rather than vice-versa since there is no indication whatsoever that Amanda knew of these grudges.

Hoots

One of the things Mignini tried to do was paint Amanda as not respecting the cleaning chores of the house and, thus, not cooperative. He asked Filomena at trial who had not respected the cleaning schedule. She replied that Amanda didn't always respect it but failed to mention that the schedule had only been written up a couple days before the murder.

 

[LondonJohn]

Speaking of Amanda's alleged murderous jealousy and anger toward Meredith, I find it telling that the prosecution couldn't come up with a single person who claimed that Amanda had ever expressed any unhappiness with or anger or jealousy toward Meredith. In fact, those actually living in the cottage never reported hearing a single argument or even raised voices between the two.

Well they DID come up with some people who made some forms of claim about Knox's and Kercher's relationship being strained (remember the English girlfriends, for example, and Lumumba, who claimed Knox was pissed off at his having asked Kercher to show him a cocktail recipe).

BUT....... the huge kicker to every single piece of such "evidence" is that it was all hearsay - a form of evidence which is disallowed (except for under a tiny number of extraordinary circumstances) in England & Wales courts, for very good reason. And the two primary reasons for the unreliability of hearsay evidence are these: firstly, the person who actually made the alleged primary remark is not present in the courtroom to testify and to be cross-examined (and thus judged as to their veracity); and secondly, the person giving the hearsay evidence may very well either have embellished or even invented the alleged remarks, owing to the crime having occurred and the defendant being on trial.

The first key reason should be self-evident; but to illustrate the second reason, and with respect to this very trial and the examples I gave up top: following the Kercher murder and the arrest and trial of Knox (and Sollecito), both Lumumba and the English girlfriends clearly had feasible reasons to feel animosity towards Knox. And it doesn't take a genius to work out how that might consciously or unconsciously manifest itself in the embellishment or even invention of a remark about Knox's anger etc, "told to them" by a woman who's now dead (Kercher), who obviously cannot ever verify or refute having made that remark.

The tragicomic part of all this hearsay evidence is that they even used (hearsay) evidence of Kercher's (alleged) annoyance at Knox over bathroom cleanliness and the vibrator-in-the-washbag as evidence AGAINST KNOX'S STATE OF MIND!!! (AND THE MASSEI COURT ACCEPTED IT AS SUCH!)

 

[LondonJohn]

One of the things Mignini tried to do was paint Amanda as not respecting the cleaning chores of the house and, thus, not cooperative. He asked Filomena at trial who had not respected the cleaning schedule. She replied that Amanda didn't always respect it but failed to mention that the schedule had only been written up a couple days before the murder.

Indeed. But in any case, as I said in my post before yours (and disregarding the hearsay aspects for a moment), this would be evidence of the housemates' ("roommates" in the US for some reason ) annoyance towards Knox - NOT the other way round. Unless they could also introduce evidence of Knox taking exception/anger at having had her (alleged) slovenliness pointed out to her. Which they could not and did not......

 

[LondonJohn]

Yep! The relationship between Amanda and Meredith was erased and re-written, courtesy of Mignini and the cops. I've always been intrigued by all the grudges that Meredith allegedly held against Amanda. They all seem to indicate a motive for Meredith to kill Amanda rather than vice-versa since there is no indication whatsoever that Amanda knew of these grudges.

Hoots

This

(I should read right to the bottom of the thread before replying to any particular post lol)

 

[TomG]

One of the things Mignini tried to do was paint Amanda as not respecting the cleaning chores of the house and, thus, not cooperative. He asked Filomena at trial who had not respected the cleaning schedule. She replied that Amanda didn't always respect it but failed to mention that the schedule had only been written up a couple days before the murder.

If that were the criteria for murder, half of the worlds student population would have slaughtered each other by now. I can't get my neighbour to agree on a cleaning rota for the communal enclosure, it doesn't mean we are going to kill each other over it.

Hoots

 

[Rolfe]

Hi Rolfe. I haven't forgotten about Luke's case, though I believe he is innocent. I'm not sure how this relates to the Kercher case other than a clear miscarriage of justice. Shamefully, I don't know about Alan Turnbull's case, though I promise I will look up on it further.

There are some remarkable similarities between the Luke Mitchell case and the Knox/Sollecito affair. Police hunch, blame the person who found the body, only collect evidence that supports that theory, dream up innocent explanations for far more incriminating evidence found against someone else, Reid technique, blacken the character of the suspect, portray the victim's family as perfect saints, continue pursuing the original suspect in the absence of any forensic evidence and despite DNA of someone else being found on the body, twist the timelines to deprive the suspect of an alibi, charge the people who were his alibi of complicity, stir up a hostile press campaign against the suspect... you name it.

Alan Turnbull is a QC who gets innocent people convicted. I'm not claiming he's a clone of Mignini, but the effect is the same. It's ludicrous to claim something like the Knox/Sollecito debacle couldn't happen in Scotland. It totally could and it totally has. The main difference is that Knox and Sollecito only spent four years in prison, and the Italian legal system did more or less fix it in the end. Luke Mitchell has been in jail for 14 years and our legal system is doing back-flips to keep him there.

 

[Stacyhs]

While I was looking at Sophie P's and Amy Frost's depositions, I noticed that much of the wording was EXACTLY the same, as if arranged to a standardized form and not really the "spontaneous" statements claimed. Notice the identical 'spontaneous' statements are in quotes. I have highlighted the statements that are identical in both:

Sophie:

On November 02 2007, at 18:20, in the Offices of the Perugia Flying Squad. Before the undersigned police officers Chief Inspectors BURCHIELLI Giampiero and PASCAI Giuliano, in service with the 1st Section of the Perugia Flying Squad, assisted for a translation in English by Assistant D’ASTOLTO Fabio in service with U.P.G.S.P., the person indicated in the subject is present who declares to understand the Italian language sufficiently in written form, a little less in oral form. PURTON Sophie, heard regarding the English citizen named KERCHER Meredith Susanna Cara, found dead today in her home in Perugia at via della Pergola no.7, spontaneously declares as follows:
“I have known Meredith for about two months because in September we attended an Italian language course at the Perugia Foreigners’ University, level B2. After that period we started to meet and four or five times a week we would meet to go out and go to some venues. We often went to the venue called “MERLIN”. I know that Meredith sometimes went to a venue called “Le Chic” in the center of Perugia, where her friend Amanda works, she is American, and lives in the same house. On other occasions we met with Meredith at the home of two English friends, Robyn BUTTERWORTH and Amy FROST who live in Via Bontempi, I can’t remember at which number.

I know that Meredith was going out with a young Italian man called Giacomo, who I have never seen, and I know Giacomo lives on the floor below Meredith’s home.
The last time I saw Meredith was yesterday afternoon at the friends’ home in Via Bontempi, I arrived at 15:30 while Meredith arrived around 16-16:30. Together with the other friends we talked about various things and at around 18 we all started to eat a pizza we had prepared ourselves, then we ate coffee (Sophie adds 'marscapone) ice-cream and drank only water. Afterwards we watched a DVD until around 21, then Meredith and I went out to go home on foot, we walked together as far as via del Roscetto where I left her to go to my home in via Del Lupo, while she continued on her way home.

Yesterday evening Meredith was wearing a light jacket, colored dark blue, make “Adidas”, a white sweater underneath, light blue jeans with patches, when we said goodbye she was calm and only a little tired due to the partying of the previous evening spent at Merlin in the center of Perugia.

Amy:

FROST Amy, heard regarding the English citizen named KERCHER MeredithSusanna Cara, found dead today in her home in Perugia at via della Pergola no.7, spontaneously declares as follows

_“I have known Meredith for about two months because in September we attended an Italian language course at the Perugia Foreigners’ University, level B2. After that period we started to meet and four or five times a week we would meet to go out and go to some venues. We often went to the venue called “MERLIN”. I know that Meredith sometimes went to a venue called “Le Chic” in the center of Perugia, where her friend Amanda works, she is American, and lives in the same house. On other occasions we met with Meredith at my home, at Via Bontempi no.22 where I live with two friends Robyn BUTTERWORTH and SAMPSON Rachel who I know left yesterday morning at 9_00 she left Perugia by train for Pisa from where she was flying to England.

I know that Meredith was going out with a young Italian man called Giacomo, who I have seen only once and precisely when we went to a discothèque called REDZONE, and I know Giacomo lives on the floor below Meredith’s home.

The last time I saw Meredith was yesterday afternoon at my home where we met up, Sophie arrived at 15_30 while Meredith arrived around 16-16_30. Together with the three friends we talked about various things and at around 18 we all started to eat a pizza we had prepared ourselves, afterwards we ate coffee and mascapone ice-cream and drank only water. Afterwards we watched a DVD until around 21, then Sophie and Meredith went out to go home on foot.

Yesterday evening Meredith was wearing a light jacket, colored dark blue, make “Adidas”, a white sweater underneath, light blue jeans with patches, when we said goodbye she was calm and only a little tired due to the partying of the previous evening spent at Merlin in the center of Perugia_

 

[LondonJohn]

Stacy, you need to fix the embedding of the second quote!

I'd be very interested in two things with respect to these quotes:

1) In what language did the two women originally provide their statements? Was it in Italian (in which case we're obviously looking at an English translation of the original Italian)? Or was it in English (in which case we're either looking at the original English statements or an English-Italian-English translation of the original English statements). This is important, because in a fair few places there are either the same (English) grammatical or sentence-construction errors, or the same strange mis-usage of normal English phrasing (e.g. "we ate coffee" or "we would meet to go out and go to some venues" or "Meredith and I went out to go home on foot"). If these are claimed to be the verbatim English statements of these two English women, I immediately claim malpractice by the police/PM on this issue alone: I am certain that English women would never speak or write in this sort of manner.

2) Were these statements prepared by the two women beforehand and then handed or read out to the police/PM, or were they alleged to be truly "spontaneous" for the first time within the law enforcement premises? Because if the latter, then again I will immediately claim malpractice by the police/PM: clearly it would be virtually impossible for two women to give separate "spontaneous" statements which shared so very many identical similarities (which also included all those strange misusages of English....).

 

[Stacyhs]

LJ, I doubt the girls gave their depositions in Italian as I don't think they were likely fluent enough but I am certainly not sure of that. Here is a link to the Italian and English versions. You can see they are almost identical. It's as if they have a specific form they follow.

http://www.amandaknoxcase.com/witness-depositions/

 

[Stacyhs]

London John above said " following the Kercher murder and the arrest and trial of Knox (and Sollecito), both Lumumba and the English girlfriends clearly had feasible reasons to feel animosity towards Knox. And it doesn't take a genius to work out how that might consciously or unconsciously manifest itself in the embellishment or even invention of a remark about Knox's anger etc, "told to them" by a woman who's now dead (Kercher), who obviously cannot ever verify or refute having made that remark."

I noticed in the statements made by Meredith's friends before Amanda's arrest on Nov 6, there are really no negative comments about Knox. That begins on Nov. 7. See Sophies Purtons Nov 7 statement to police where she begins to talk about Knox's behavior; how Purton thought she was strange before the murder and about Knox claiming to have discovered the body and was being too loud, etc.

 

[Welshman]

Or behave as if there was nothing of interest stored on the phones and digital cameras belonging to Knox and Kercher, which the cops took possession of from the get-go.

It was notable how little in the way of photos or videos of Knox and Kercher with each other surfaced during the various trials (or has ever surfaced), which conveniently served the prosecution's bizarre "narrative" hinging on Knox's deranged animosity toward Kercher.

That would be because ALL such material was on the phones or cameras, or had previously been moved to the (destroyed) laptop drives.

As far as I'm aware none of these devices were ever even returned to their owners or their families.

.

If there was a mountain of evidence and a slam dunk case against Amanda and Raffaele as Vixen constantly claims, why would the prosecution need to destroy photos of Amanda and Meredith together. If the prosecution had solid evidence, these photos would have been no use.

 

[TomG]

There are some remarkable similarities between the Luke Mitchell case and the Knox/Sollecito affair. Police hunch, blame the person who found the body, only collect evidence that supports that theory, dream up innocent explanations for far more incriminating evidence found against someone else, Reid technique, blacken the character of the suspect, portray the victim's family as perfect saints, continue pursuing the original suspect in the absence of any forensic evidence and despite DNA of someone else being found on the body, twist the timelines to deprive the suspect of an alibi, charge the people who were his alibi of complicity, stir up a hostile press campaign against the suspect... you name it.

Alan Turnbull is a QC who gets innocent people convicted. I'm not claiming he's a clone of Mignini, but the effect is the same. It's ludicrous to claim something like the Knox/Sollecito debacle couldn't happen in Scotland. It totally could and it totally has. The main difference is that Knox and Sollecito only spent four years in prison, and the Italian legal system did more or less fix it in the end. Luke Mitchell has been in jail for 14 years and our legal system is doing back-flips to keep him there.

I disagree. I took an interest in Luke Mitchell's case a few years back, but my interest waned since there was very little written about his case compared to K&S. There is certainly very little interest in his case. The prosecution tactics you refer to seems to be a standard working template rather than anything uniquely similar to the K&S case. The actual events that took place in Luke Mitchell's case bear no resemblance to the K&S case at all as far as I can see other than Jodi Jones was knifed to death. If Mignini had Scottish equivalents we would know about them by now.

Hoots

 

[Rolfe]

I guess that's a matter of opinion. I've been struck by many similarities. However, getting cocky about "it couldn't happen here" is ostrich territory. The system is different and we don't have inquisatorial prosecutors, so the prosecutors who are "at it" in respect of getting innocent people convicted work differently. But they do it, and the end result is the same.

 

[Planigale]

If there was a mountain of evidence and a slam dunk case against Amanda and Raffaele as Vixen constantly claims, why would the prosecution need to destroy photos of Amanda and Meredith together. If the prosecution had solid evidence, these photos would have been no use.

I remember reading somewhere that the police had deleted Meredith Kercher's computer to save embarrassment to the family. Presumably some dubious photos or emails. Does anyone else remember this or is this just a false memory? I have tried looking for the police statement since but cannot find it again.

 

[Samson]

The Knox/Sollecito/Guede/Kercher case is international, which is no doubt why this is probably a world record thread.
If any good comes from it, people will focus on the cases like Luke Mitchell, Mark Lundy and Jeremy Bamber British Empire cases. Then there is Shrien Dewani, exonerated. None of these people ever committed a crime.
Except Guede I suppose.

 

[Planigale]

I guess that's a matter of opinion. I've been struck by many similarities. However, getting cocky about "it couldn't happen here" is ostrich territory. The system is different and we don't have inquisatorial prosecutors, so the prosecutors who are "at it" in respect of getting innocent people convicted work differently. But they do it, and the end result is the same.

I think there are some similarities, the obvious difference from many other cases is there is no 'confession'. A similarity is the lack of forensic evidence. With modern forensic science, not just DNA but fibre analysis, the lack of evidence of the presence of the alleged assailant at the scene of the crime should cause some doubt about guilt. In addition once musical or literary tastes are included as evidence of a bad character then one thinks the prosecution are a bit desperate. On the other hand a boy friend killing a girlfriend is not uncommon, the idea of three minimally acquainted people entering into a murderous conspiracy as is alleged in the Kercher case is unusual.

I am not convinced of Mitchell's innocence; but I can understand that there may be questions.