The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 31

[Stacyhs]

Wait wait wait, Vixen, are you claiming that systemic racism is only in the USA?

Of course not! But it doesn't exist in Italy!

 

[LondonJohn]

Of course not! But it doesn't exist in Italy!

Not only does racism not exist in the latter-day Nirvana that is Italy, but also the authorities in Italy can confirm to you that it does not exist!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-62476406

Quote from the above article:

Ms Tekle says black people in Italy regularly experience racist violence, police harassment and discrimination, and the rise of far-right anti-immigration parties has "normalised" racism.

But, she adds, most Italians grow up with the attitude that racism is not that serious in their country.

"They always say it's 'ignorance' or something else. They don't want to admit that there is racism in Italy. They always say America or the UK is worse."

Sure looks totally fine and dandy for black people in Italy, compared to the evil empire of the US!!

 

[Numbers]

I suggest you research more thoroughly as your creative post contains factual errors.



It was exactly the word used and there's nothing 'colloquial' about it.


We do know for a fact that he was not arrested, something your research should have easily discovered:

We will soon learn this from the PGP:

Reuters and the other media that reported that Sollecito was only issued a travel restriction with his passport seized rather than his being arrested and detained are all part of the pro-Knox conspiracy. And the lack of any order to arrest Sollecito or to extradite Knox by the Nencini court in its verdict was merely a clerical error.

 

[Stacyhs]

Many media sites simply regurgitate info from other media sites without doing a speck of confirmation. This is how a story on a single site suddenly flies around the world and appears as if multiple places are confirming it. Most people are not willing to do any confirmation research themselves...or only a very shallow attempt at it, especially if it confirms what they want to believe.

 

[Bill Williams]

Many media sites simply regurgitate info from other media sites without doing a speck of confirmation. This is how a story on a single site suddenly flies around the world and appears as if multiple places are confirming it. Most people are not willing to do any confirmation research themselves...or only a very shallow attempt at it, especially if it confirms what they want to believe.

Indeed. In the Netflix documentary, tabloid hack Nick Pisa confirmed this.

In response to being asked, "why didn't you wait to confirm some of your sources or the facts that turned out to be wrong?"......

.... Pisa answered, "If I did that, someone else would beat me to the filing of the story and they'd get the paycheque."

Such is the reason why in Michael Winterbottom's film, "The Face of an Angel," (IIRC he was renamed Peter Sullivan for the film) Pisa was portrayed as a jerk, a tabloid hack, all of which he was proudly aware of!

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Systemic racism doesn't exist in a country that just elected a literal fascist.

Is that seriously what you're claiming Vixen?

 

[Vixen]

Yes, you're right. Daily Mail headlines (for that is what the word was in) never fail to exaggerate for salacious effect. Didn't you know that?

And I refer back to my overarching point about the Daily Mail. Don't use it as a source. Ever. It's simply unreliable. As is excellently evidenced here, since Sollecito wasn't arrested in this scenario. (If you'd done some better research, you'd easily have been able to ascertain this.)

So try these, as reported at the time:

Meredith Kercher ‘killer’ Raffaele Sollecito arrested near Italian border

EVENING STANDARD

Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito arrested near Austrian border after murder convictions upheld

ABC

Meredith Kercher killer Raffaele Sollecito arrested at 1am in hotel room

DAILY MIRROR

 

[Vixen]

And this deals with the problem of cutting and pasting from anonymous, potentially unsourced sources.....

...... how?

I'm not sure you comprehend what transparency is. There's no way for a disinterested third party to verify the claims you've just made.

Court documents and transcripts are not anonymous. They are official public records.

 

[Vixen]

Wait wait wait, Vixen, are you claiming that systemic racism is only in the USA?

It is interesting that you claim ignorance of recent history. Italy is EU-directive regulated. Hate crime and discrimination, whilst it happens, is unlawful and even a criminal offence. In the U.S.A. people are allowed to express race hate under the first amendment. Segregation (similar to apartheid in South Africa) was enshrined in law until as recently as 1964 (Civil Rights Act). U.S.A., unlike Italy, has a Black colony* of former slaves and slavery was legal long after the slave trade was abolished.

Recent revelations show that America's favourite Black guy, Louis Armstrong recorded his resentment at Americans coming up to him saying how much they loved his music, yet at the same time refusing to serve him a drink or expecting him to sneak in through a back door, or 'use the Black hotel down the road'.

On those tapes, Armstrong, who died in 1971, speaks of being “born with nothing” and the horrors of racism. He remembers being insulted by an apparent fan – “a white boy”, possibly a sailor, who approached him after a show, initially shaking his hand and telling him that he had all his records, before turning on him: “He said, ‘you know, I don’t like negroes’, right to my face. And so I said ‘well, I admire your Goddamn sincerity’. He said, ‘I don’t like negroes but… you’re one son of a bitch I’m crazy about’.”

GUARDIAN

("The cheeky so-and-so: smiling at us, singing in his gravelly voice, 'What a Wonderful World' with a twinkle in his eye, and all the time the freaking bastard was calling us racist!!!")**

In the U.S.A. slavery is still enshrined in law under the 13th Amendment.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

How this affects the U.S.A Black population, can be seen in the award-winning Netflix documentary 13th in respect of levels of imprisonment.

In the case of Meredith Kercher's murder, there was a huge U.S.A-based campaign to pin the entire crime onto the African guy, Rudy Guede, with a certain author claiming that he was a drifter from a poverty stricken country where people lived in shacks with tin roofs (omitting to mention the result of French colonisation) in the hope of stirring up race prejudice against the Black guy. There were even books claiming Guede was the 'sole killer', despite all three having been convicted at the time, through a fair and lengthy trial process.

There was even the hypocrisy of claiming to despise Donald Trump, yet nonetheless, happy to 'Boycott Italy' and accept Trump's donation towards only Knox' defence.

So when it came to pass and the political campaign succeeded in getting the pair's sentences annulled, with their having earned thousands of dollars from book sales and tv shows, the Black guy, Guede, now free after serving thirteen years plus two on remand, as per standard parole conditions for prisoners serving life (which Guede had discounted for accepting a 'fast trial') decides to bring out a book and the same Americans baying for the Black guy to take the rap for the murder committed by 'more than one person' ( a finding of fact), the cry is, 'He had better not play the race card!!!' ***

*'Black colony is the term used by the Black Panthers, borne out of being fed up with police killing unarmed Black guys and being permanently in prison as a result of generational poverty, violence and deprivation (for example, Ronald Reagan's three-strikes for crimes such as possession of drugs becoming Life [literally, unlike Italy, where 'life' means hope of parole).

**"A vile accusation", apparently.


***We are not allowed to challenge this claim.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

A new documentary (using the word in the loosest sense), The Murder Of Meredith (sic), has just surfaced on Amazon (UK and Ireland only for the time being);

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Meredith-Angie-Cox/dp/B0B8QJKB6D/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

It tries to sell the old trope that "we might never know what really happened" (in part, I presume, to try and market the piece as a "murder-mystery").

Produced by one Angie Cox who is clearly a careerist hack, and it's par for the 'quality' of her ouvre if you check her resumé on Amazon.

Of interest because there are some recent interviews with the luminaries of Italian jurisprudence involved, but also notable for having zero contributions from any experts, of any kind, in forensics, despite allowing the former (not least fat bastard Giuliano Mignini) to pontificate on the subject.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

Re. The Murder Of Meredith; one breath-taking section covers the failure to take a body core-temperature measurement at the crime scene, and Mignini lies about it to the camera.

ETA >> it appears that the program is essentially a re-editing of an Italian documentary with some commentary by low-brow UK pundits and journos added, some of the early reviews (a few days ago) complain about the lack of subtitling for the Italian speakers. It was subtitled by the time I watched it yesterday.

 

[LondonJohn]

Re. The Murder Of Meredith; one breath-taking section covers the failure to take a body core-temperature measurement at the crime scene, and Mignini lies about it to the camera.

What does Mignini say? Is it still him trying (pathetically) to insist that it simply wasn't possible to allow for the temperature to be taken because letting the pathologist get to the body might have contaminated the crime scene? (While, of course, all and sundry proceeded to grossly contaminate the crime scene...)

And this is one of several clear indications that neither Mignini nor the goons in the Perugia State Police department had a clue about how to run a murder investigation. They'd already demonstrated that amply a year previously, when they spectacularly botched their investigation into a somewhat similar murder: their scene-of-crime incompetence and investigative failings led to them being unable to bring the culprit to justice - even though it was fairly clear to everyone who the culprit actually was.

The Kercher murder investigation should have been conducted by a specialist murder squad from the Carabinieri, under the direction of a PM who was far more competent and far less narcissistic than Mignini.

 

[LondonJohn]

ETA >> it appears that the program is essentially a re-editing of an Italian documentary with some commentary by low-brow UK pundits and journos added, some of the early reviews (a few days ago) complain about the lack of subtitling for the Italian speakers. It was subtitled by the time I watched it yesterday.

Ooh I hope the execrable Nick Pisa is involved! What would top it off of course would be a contribution from that titan of scrupulously-researched investigative journalism, Nick van der Leek.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

What does Mignini say? Is it still him trying (pathetically) to insist that it simply wasn't possible to allow for the temperature to be taken because letting the pathologist get to the body might have contaminated the crime scene? (While, of course, all and sundry proceeded to grossly contaminate the crime scene...)

And this is one of several clear indications that neither Mignini nor the goons in the Perugia State Police department had a clue about how to run a murder investigation. They'd already demonstrated that amply a year previously, when they spectacularly botched their investigation into a somewhat similar murder: their scene-of-crime incompetence and investigative failings led to them being unable to bring the culprit to justice - even though it was fairly clear to everyone who the culprit actually was.

The Kercher murder investigation should have been conducted by a specialist murder squad from the Carabinieri, under the direction of a PM who was far more competent and far less narcissistic than Mignini.

That's the one. It might have been incompetence at the time but Mignini now knows better but continues to lie about it.

Although one contributor is allowed to 'speculate' that Kercher died between 21.00 - 21.30, no mention is made of the finding at autopsy of the meal still in MK's stomach, of which the time it was eaten known precisely hence precluding her death as being much after 21.00.

 

[IsThisTheLife]

Ooh I hope the execrable Nick Pisa is involved! What would top it off of course would be a contribution from that titan of scrupulously-researched investigative journalism, Nick van der Leek.

No Nick Pisa. The impression I get is of a very low budget (for the re-edit) so perhaps there wasn't enough money in it for him. With the exception of Nina Burleigh (who I think is probably in the original Italian version) I hadn't seen or heard of any of the English-speaking commentators before.

 

[Numbers]

I suggest you research more thoroughly as your creative post contains factual errors.



It was exactly the word used and there's nothing 'colloquial' about it.


We do know for a fact that he was not arrested, something your research should have easily discovered:

So try these, as reported at the time:

EVENING STANDARD


ABC

DAILY MIRROR

At the risk of injecting some reality into this discussion, I will point out that "arrest" has more than one definition.

Among the several definitions is "to stop". For example, one may speak of arresting the motion of an object.

Another definition is the legal one, which means generally "to stop and detain a person under the authority of law (for example, with authorization of a warrant, or based upon police observation of someone apparently committing a crime)".

See, for example:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/arrest

It may not be clear which meaning of "arrest" was used in the media headlines.

It is clear that Sollecito was momentarily stopped and his passport taken by police, but from the reports in the media, he was not detained beyond that momentary interaction.

 

[Vixen]

At the risk of injecting some reality into this discussion, I will point out that "arrest" has more than one definition.

Among the several definitions is "to stop". For example, one may speak of arresting the motion of an object.

Another definition is the legal one, which means generally "to stop and detain a person under the authority of law (for example, with authorization of a warrant, or based upon police observation of someone apparently committing a crime)".

See, for example:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrest

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/arrest

It may not be clear which meaning of "arrest" was used in the media headlines.

It is clear that Sollecito was momentarily stopped and his passport taken by police, but from the reports in the media, he was not detained beyond that momentary interaction.

Initial reports by ANSA - the Italian news agency, claimed he had been detained.

Raffaele Sollecito detained by police near Austrian border, say reports
This article is more than 8 years old
Ex-boyfriend of Amanda Knox reportedly stopped near Tarvisio day after court upheld conviction for Meredith Kercher's murder

The Ansa news agency said Sollecito, 29, had been located by police officers in a village between Udine and the town of Tarvisio, which is about three miles from the Austrian border. He had reportedly arrived in the village early on Thursday afternoon. Sollecito had attended the court hearing in Florence in the morning but did not return in the afternoon.

Sollecito had been formally cautioned that he was forbidden to leave Italy on Friday morning, according to the agency. According to other media reports, his passport was taken away, as ordered by the Florence court.

GUARDIAN

 

[Numbers]

Initial reports by ANSA - the Italian news agency, claimed he had been detained.

GUARDIAN

Nothing in your source quote shows that Sollecito was taken into custody or detained beyond the momentary (short) time required for him to surrender his passport.

It is clear that Sollecito was not taken into custody (jailed, imprisoned) after the Nencini appeals court verdict.

The word "arrest" in the headlines apparently means merely that he was stopped and asked to surrender his passport.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

It is interesting that you claim ignorance of recent history. Italy is EU-directive regulated. Hate crime and discrimination, whilst it happens, is unlawful and even a criminal offence. In the U.S.A. people are allowed to express race hate under the first amendment. Segregation (similar to apartheid in South Africa) was enshrined in law until as recently as 1964 (Civil Rights Act). U.S.A., unlike Italy, has a Black colony* of former slaves and slavery was legal long after the slave trade was abolished.

You do realise that this doesn't actually mean anything, right?

Systemic racism doesn't go away just because overt racial discrimination is against the law any more than banning neo-nazi groups makes neo-nazis go away.

Getting you to actually state your positions is like nailing jelly to a wall so I'm going to ask again. Are you genuinely claiming that systemic racism does not exist in the EU? Yes or no?

 

[Vixen]

You do realise that this doesn't actually mean anything, right?

Systemic racism doesn't go away just because overt racial discrimination is against the law any more than banning neo-nazi groups makes neo-nazis go away.

Getting you to actually state your positions is like nailing jelly to a wall so I'm going to ask again. Are you genuinely claiming that systemic racism does not exist in the EU? Yes or no?

In the context of Knox, Guede and Sollecito, which this thread is about, AFAIAA no EU country has racism enshrined in its constitution and laws, nor slavery for prisoners, unlike the U.S.A.

That is not to say Italy has a clean conscience. However, being only established in 1882, it hasn't colonised as extensively as the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. It committed atrocities in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Libya before and during its Mussolini era and it has a new far right government in power.

Of course systemic racism is embedded in the UK, having been a major coloniser of one third of the world, with the ruling classes having acquired their wealth in generations past from the plunder of vast resourses - gold, ivory, tea, sugar, human labour, tea, coffee, jewels, etc, from India, the Americas and Africa. The class system is rigid, with little social mobility. In that respect it is systemic in the UK.

My answer could not have been plainer and starker.