Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 32

[Vixen]

Doesn't work. I've asked her repeatedly several questions which she just ignores.

Please show me where I said Marasca said Guede climbing the wall was impossible. You made that up and it is extremely irritating to be deliberately misquoted. Please stop doing it.


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[Stacyhs]

Because corruption obviously happened given the facts that:

• the burglary was staged. Ask your self: who staged it and why would they?

It wasn't staged. Ask yourself, if staged, why the perpetrators would then tell the police nothing was stolen. Ask yourself why glass was found both on top and below items if the rock was thrown after the staging.

• Knox was at the cottage when Kercher was murdered. Why will she not admit it, what is there to hide?

There is no evidence beyond her coerced and retracted signed statements that she was at the cottage. Ask yourself why NO forensic evidence proves she was there that night and not left innocently from living there.

• Sollecito was almost certainly there, too and definitely there later.

Ah, the old "almost certainly" you so love to employ. WHAT evidence places him at the cottage the night of Nov. 1? And please, do not trot out the discredited bra hook yet again or the bloody footprint on the mat.

He's never denied being there later...the next morning.

• Knox washed Kercher's blood from her hands.

Ask yourself why NO evidence was ever presented in court of that ever happening. Ask yourself why neither you nor anyone else has ever been able to provide it. It was an unfounded assumption made because her DNA was mixed with Kercher's blood in three places. Which, as any credible forensic expert will tell you, could have become mixed upon collection or even when her blood dripped onto/next to Knox's pre-existing DNA left on items she touched/used many times.

• Mixed blood of Knox and victim on bathroom tap. Ask yourelf, how long does it take for blood to stay were enough to get mixed?

Um...the blood on the tap was ONLY Knox's, not a mixture of Knox and Kercher.
Ask yourself why, if guilty, Knox did NOT clean the bathroom of all blood but instead pointed out the blood to the police. She'd have no way of knowing what was hers and what was not so she'd have cleaned it up with the "bleach [not] bought at Quintavalle's".

• Knox informed police it was Lumumba to cover up for Guede. Why would she cover up for Guede?

Ask yourself: Does leaving and pointing out his feces to the police count as "covering up" for Guede?
Does leaving his intact bloody shoeprints count as "covering up" for Guede?
Logic should tell you that it doesn't. But, hey....

How do Knox and Sollecito know it was Guede if they were not there?

Um...just like the rest of us: from the police announcing it to the media.

Yes, I'd say slam dunk evidence as close as we'll ever get.

If it's so slam dunk then answer all the bolded questions I asked you.

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[Stacyhs]

Please show me where I said Marasca said Guede climbing the wall was impossible. You made that up and it is extremely irritating to be deliberately misquoted. Please stop doing it.

Our exchange:

[Vixen] What is important is what the court determined. Your claim anyone athletic could do it is a meaningless argument. It's a non sequitur.

I don't see Marasca specifically addressing if Guede could scale the wall. If you can quote and cite from the MR otherwise, please do so.

You claimed "the court". Which court? Hellmann certainly didn't find it impossible. But since Hellmann, Massei and Nencini were all annulled, what "court" remains? That would be Marasca. What THEY determined is what's important.

I never said you named Marasca specifically so I never 'misquoted' you. Since his is the only "court" that matters, I ASKED you if you could quote and cite Marasca determining Guede could not have climbed the wall. All you had to do was say what "court" you were referring to. But instead, you just ignored my question.

And you've still failed to answer my other two questions. It's the "ignore it until it goes away" tactic.

 

[Vixen]

It wasn't staged. Ask yourself, if staged, why the perpetrators would then tell the police nothing was stolen. Ask yourself why glass was found both on top and below items if the rock was thrown after the staging.

There is no evidence beyond her coerced and retracted signed statements that she was at the cottage. Ask yourself why NO forensic evidence proves she was there that night and not left innocently from living there.

Ah, the old "almost certainly" you so love to employ. WHAT evidence places him at the cottage the night of Nov. 1? And please, do not trot out the discredited bra hook yet again or the bloody footprint on the mat.

He's never denied being there later...the next morning.


Ask yourself why NO evidence was ever presented in court of that ever happening. Ask yourself why neither you nor anyone else has ever been able to provide it. It was an unfounded assumption made because her DNA was mixed with Kercher's blood in three places. Which, as any credible forensic expert will tell you, could have become mixed upon collection or even when her blood dripped onto/next to Knox's pre-existing DNA left on items she touched/used many times.

Um...the blood on the tap was ONLY Knox's, not a mixture of Knox and Kercher.
Ask yourself why, if guilty, Knox did NOT clean the bathroom of all blood but instead pointed out the blood to the police. She'd have no way of knowing what was hers and what was not so she'd have cleaned it up with the "bleach [not] bought at Quintavalle's".

Ask yourself: Does leaving and pointing out his feces to the police count as "covering up" for Guede?
Does leaving his intact bloody shoeprints count as "covering up" for Guede?
Logic should tell you that it doesn't. But, hey....



Um...just like the rest of us: from the police announcing it to the media.

If it's so slam dunk then answer all the bolded questions I asked you.

You are not getting that a lot of the stuff you claim, was put forward by the defence (and very expensive barristers, too) was rejected by the court in favour of the prosecution. A court works by making a decision as to the facts and the evidence presented. It went to appeal on some points and then to the Supreme Court for the final stamp. As I have pointed out, the Supreme Court does not have the remit to find its own facts so when it rejected Massei (a very sharp judge) and Nencini, with C&V having been tossed, it did not have the legal power to bring C&V back in without another merits hearing on the issue.

Yes, the pair got out of jail early and had their convictions annulled on the basis of a loophole last used by slimy politicians, such as Andreotti and Berlusconi, but you are not getting that the facts found by the merits courts remain, as set out in the Marasca-Bruno MR.

I get that wrong verdicts happen, as in OJ Simpson but I cannot see anything wrong with the facts in this case, other than minor quibbles, which one would get with any complex case with multiple defendants.

Was knowing how Mez died a red flag? Not particularly, for me. The fake burglary, and the posing of the body, which was forensically proven to have been done later, doesn't seem to have been likely by a burglar - Guede didn't try to hide his DNA or fingerprints. Given police only found five of Knox' fingerprints proves the old maxim that absence of evidence does not mean absence of person.

The red flags for me at the time which I still cannot get past are:

• the way the pair both switched off their phones ahead of Mez' arrival home, and Knox not switching it back on until 12:07 next day to make quick calls to Mez' phone and not even calling the police until 12:54 via Sollecito despite Filomena telling her to. This seemed really evasive to me.
• The fact Mez' door was locked. I can find no other explanation for that other than that the person who was home at the time, locked it, especially as the perp returned to stage the body and remove some of the clothing to make it look sexual.

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[Vixen]

Our exchange:

You claimed "the court". Which court? Hellmann certainly didn't find it impossible. But since Hellmann, Massei and Nencini were all annulled, what "court" remains? That would be Marasca. What THEY determined is what's important.

I never said you named Marasca specifically so I never 'misquoted' you. Since his is the only "court" that matters, I ASKED you if you could quote and cite Marasca determining Guede could not have climbed the wall. All you had to do was say what "court" you were referring to. But instead, you just ignored my question.

And you've still failed to answer my other two questions. It's the "ignore it until it goes away" tactic.

Where do you get that my generalised comment, What is important is what the court determined, was addressing the specific issue of the wall climbing by Guede?

You then went on to demand I prove that Marasca said Guede climbing the wall was impossible.



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[Numbers]

This issue was already discussed a few pages back and I have no desire to discuss it again. To recap, Numbers posted the ECHR legal definition of 'the charged/accused/defendant' and it was established that as of the time Knox made her claim she was under the category of ordinary witness.

See here from the Oct 2011 CoA judgement:



So you see, as we were discussing what ECHR meant by 'a charged person' and determined Knox was not charged, accused, a defendant, an official suspect until AFTER she accused Lumumba of murder and rape. ergo, it is a tautology for you to claim Knox was a charged person because the ECHR [mistakenly] refers to her as thus and it is also begging the question - a logical fallacy

Vixen, your collection of half-truths in the above may be confusing to some readers. You have left out certain highly pertinent information. This may be a result of your concentration on only one of the Convention violations, denial of a defense lawyer (Convention Article 6.3c), while not discussing at all another critical Convention violation, failure to provide an adequate (fair) interpreter (Convention Article 6.3e). Both resulted in the finding by the ECHR in its Knox v. Italy judgment violations of Convention Article 6.1, unfair trial, meaning that either one was adequate to require Italy in its self-determined corrective actions to nullify (invalidate or annul) the entire trial proceedings and the conviction.

Let's review some of the relevant ECHR case law and Italian CPP law. This had previously been discussed in my other posts, including #2818, 2820, 2851, and others.

Italian CPP Article 63 establishs that Knox was a suspect (and suspects have all the rights of an accused by another CPP article) when she first uttered any statement that the police considered incriminating. That would mean prior to her receiving and then signing the 1:45 am statement.

I'll start with ECHR information from post #2851 first:

Here are some paragraphs from the Guide on Article 6 - Criminal Limb [*] that explicitly state that the ECHR is using certain terms such as "criminal charge" or "charged with a criminal offense" in accordance with its specific definitions, which have been originally specified in its case law. Inline citations have been omitted for brevity and clarity of reading. In paragraph 19, only the most relevant part of the paragraph is shown. The word "accused" in the ECHR sense is equivalent to "charged with a criminal offense".

15. The concept of a “criminal charge” has an “autonomous” meaning, independent of the categorisations employed by the national legal systems of the member States .... This is true both for the determination of the “criminal” nature of the charge and for the moment from which such a “charge” exists.

17. In using the terms “criminal charge” and “charged with a criminal offence”, the three paragraphs of Article 6 refer to identical situations. Therefore, the test of applicability of Article 6 under its criminal head will be the same for the three paragraphs.

18. The concept of “charge” has to be understood within the meaning of the Convention. The Court takes a “substantive”, rather than a “formal”, conception of the “charge” contemplated by Article 6 .... Charge may thus be defined as “the official notification given to an individual by the competent authority of an allegation that he has committed a criminal offence”, a definition that also corresponds to the test whether “the situation of the [suspect] has been substantially affected” ....

19. The Court held that a person arrested on suspicion of having committed a criminal offence ..., a suspect questioned about his involvement in acts constituting a criminal offence ... and a person who has been questioned in respect of his or her suspected involvement in an offence ..., irrespective of the fact that he or she was formally treated as a witness ... as well as a person who has been formally charged with a criminal offence under procedure set out in domestic law ... could all be regarded as being “charged with a criminal offence” and claim the protection of Article 6 of the Convention. ....

* https://ks.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr-ks/guide_art_6_criminal_eng

When had Knox's situation been substantially affected, according to the ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy? In fact, the judgment is somewhat vague on this point**, but paragraph 185 indicates that it must have been no later than the time that the interpreter Donnino was, by her own account in court testimony, acting as a "mediator" during the first phase of the interrogation (Google translation; "accusee au penal" translated with help from Reverso and the Guide on Article 6 text shown above):

185. In the present case, it is clear from the file that, by A.D.’s own admission, the role played by the latter while the applicant, a person charged with a criminal offense [accusée au pénal] within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, was formulating her version of the facts, went beyond the interpreter functions that she was required to perform. The Court notes that A.D. in fact intended to establish a human and emotional relationship with the applicant, assuming the role of mediator and adopting a maternal attitude [actions] that were in no way required in the present case (see paragraphs 40 and 41 above).

The above ECHR reasoning and some additional facts lead to the following conclusion:

187. In the Court's view, this initial failure therefore had repercussions on other rights which, while distinct from the one whose violation is alleged, are closely linked to it, and compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole (Baytar, cited above, § 55, 14 October 2014).

188. In view of the above, Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 e) of the Convention has been infringed in this case.

For the violation of Convention Article 6.3c, the ECHR chooses a different explicit point to find that Knox was a person charged with a criminal offense, but the wording indicates NOT that she was only a witness before that point, but rather states that she was certainly an accused by that point, although the ECHR suspects that she was in fact a suspect from the beginning of the interrogation. According to paragraphs 150 and 152, although the ECHR suspects that Knox was a suspect (a person accused of a criminal offense in the Convention sense), it states that even, as the Italian Government states, she became a suspect only after her first statement, there can be no dispute that she was thus a suspect prior to her second statement. In terms of ECHR case law, there is no difference in the effect on the fairness of the trial as to when during the interrogation she became a suspect with respect to the violation of denial of a defense lawyer. Here are the key paragraphs (Google translation):

149. As regards the statements taken at 1.45 a.m., the Court reiterates that the guarantees provided by Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention apply to any “charged person” within the autonomous meaning of that term under the Convention. A “criminal charge” arises when a person is formally charged by the competent authorities or when the actions taken by those authorities in response to the suspicions against him or her have significant repercussions on his or her situation (Simeonovi, cited above, §§ 110-111).

150. Applying this principle to the present case, the Court therefore questions whether, at the time of the interviews, the domestic authorities had reasonable grounds to suspect that the applicant was involved in the murder of M.K.

151. It observes in this regard that the applicant had already been interviewed by the police on 2, 3, and 4 November 2007 and that her phone had been tapped. It further notes that it is clear from the facts of the case that, on the evening of 5 November 2007, the investigators' attention was focused on the applicant (see paragraphs 12-14 above). It notes that, although the applicant had gone spontaneously to the police station, she was questioned in the corridor by police officers who then continued to question her in a room where she was subjected to intensive interrogations on two occasions and for hours.

152. However, in the Court’s view, even assuming that these elements are not sufficient to conclude that, at 1:45 a.m. on 6 November 2007, the applicant could be considered a suspect within the meaning of its case-law, it must be noted that, as the Government acknowledged, when she made her statements at 5:45 a.m. before the public prosecutor, the applicant had formally acquired the status of a person under investigation. The Court considers that there is therefore no doubt that, at 5:45 a.m. at the latest, the applicant was the subject of a criminal charge within the meaning of the Convention (Ibrahim and Others, cited above, § 296).

.... [skipping some important paragraphs for brevity]

166. The Court therefore considers that the Government has failed to demonstrate that the restriction of the applicant's access to legal aid during the hearing on 6 November 2007 at 5:45 a.m. did not irreparably affect the fairness of the trial as a whole.

167. In view of the foregoing, Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (c) of the Convention has been infringed in the present case.

** This is largely due to the failure of the Italian police to have made a written record of the questions and answers of the interrogation. Similarly, Mignini failed to record in writing the questions and answers in his segment of the interrogation. These failures to make written records were violations of Italian procedural law (contained in relevant CPP articles)

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I don't think you grasp the issue.

I think it was simple enough.

You purported to have detected that Knox was deliberately making sure specific things she said were clearly overheard by people she somehow imagined would be listening in through a hidden microphone somewhere in the room. I'm saying that particular mind reading trick appears to be something which exists solely in your imagination.

If you contend to have a reason why she would have wanted some thing to be overhead I think you ought to realise that is an encouragement for you to fool yourself into imagining she made a point of being heard, and does not make it more likely that you had genuinely perceived some artful subterfuge on her part. Quite the opposite.

 

[SpitfireIX]

You did. You launched into a massive personal attack.

Then you shouldn't have any trouble quoting at least one personal attack. Here is a link to the post in question, for your convenience. And, again, report any posts you feel violate forum rules for moderation rather than make accusations in-thread for rhetorical effect.

I am still awaiting your citation I called anyone a misogynist.

See my earlier post on the subject, and see also below. However, I'm not pursuing this any further, as I feel my point has been made, and we're way off topic. And I never said you actually called anyone a misogynist, though I believe you did use that word as an oblique insinuation at one point. I will concede that for now, without the search function, that I am unable to substantiate that recollection. You certainly did, however, make false thinly veiled accusations of sexism. Feel free to have the last word on this subject, if you'd like.

(or a racist)

I said the accusations were oblique, and you've amply proven my point with your posts falsely accusing me of having claimed that Guede must have "extraordinarily long arms" because he's African.

as you described me in hateful terms as 'she' as though 'she' is the cat's mother.

I referred to you as "she" because you're a woman. But apparently you're determined to find some excuse to be offended.

You went into a long rant about freemasons because I was sceptical about Altieri's claim he saw a medic make a cut-throat' gesture at the scene of the crime, hence why he knew Mez had 'her throat slit' to pass on the info to Knox in the car. You yourself confirmed that that is a masonic gesture.

You left out one little detail, Vixen, hardly worth mentioning, really. Must have just slipped your mind. The part where you claimed that a judge who's a Freemason will let a defendant who's a fellow Freemason off "with a wink and a nudge." That's why I took you to task.

And what does a cut throat gesture mean anyway, other than amongst freemasons, where it means, ''Help!' so a mason defendant might make that gesture to a judge, who is also a mason, and with a wink and a nudge will get him off the charge (is the idea behind such a gesture between masons).

Oh, and by the way, that's a conspiracy theory.

I was expressing scepticism a medic at a desperately sad murder scene would make any such frivolous disrespectful gesture at youths hanging around the cottage, especially as it is convention and protocol to let the next of kin know first.

Further, as I mentioned, and, as usual, you ignored, you're just assuming that if this happened, the medic was making a gesture toward the bystanders. It is possible that the medic was indicating to a police officer, or another medic, the location of Kercher's wounds.

Your claim there is no mafia problem in Italy within the judiciary is also incorrect . . .

I've made no such claim. See my posts on the motte-and-bailey fallacy.

. . . but you prefer to make out it is a conspiracy theory . . .

As I've told you repeatedly, the conspiracy theory is that Knox and Sollecito were let off due to Mafia influence; not that Mafia influence exists.

. . . because you yourself are just using the term 'CT-ist' as a form of vile scathing abuse . . .

It's not "vile scathing abuse." As you've been told in this and other threads, it accurately describes your behavior, and if you don't want to be characterized as a conspiracy theorist, then you should stop behaving like one.

. . . yet you hypocritically claim the (imagined) terms misogynist or racist are verboten.

See above.

There was one occasion I asked a poster not to mansplain something to me . . .

Yes, I found that post, along with the "macho" post. It actually turns out to be possible to look through AAH by just scanning for thread names, although it takes a bit of time. All I'm going to say is that, unsurprisingly, and, as noted by others, your allegations were unfounded. I won't be discussing either one after this; again, feel free to have the last word.

. . . and you will be gratified to know I was VERY heavily punished by the mods.

No, you weren't, at least not for either of those posts, and I'm not going to say anything else on the matter.

So the system works: you are free to hurl abuse at me . . .

For about the 10th time, accurately (or even inaccurately) calling your claims conspiracy theories is not abuse.

Rule 12. “Address the argument, not the arguer." Having your opinion, claim or argument challenged, doubted or dismissed is not attacking the arguer.

And if you are promoting conspiracy theories, then, by definition, that makes you a conspiracy theorist.

but one is not allowed to call BS on your claim about Guede's arms . . .

As I've previously stated, you had to grossly mischaracterize what I said in order to fashion a strawman on which you could call BS.

. . . or ask not to be assumed an airhead bimbo.

No one ever said anything like that, or made any comments whatsoever related to your being a woman; you were just trying a new line of BS to try to shame people into not pointing out that you were wrong. As I've mentioned, this is basic stuff from the conspiracists' playbook, and most of us had seen it many times before.

Your claims I am a conspiracy theoris is ad hominem because you have nothing to support it . . .

As discussed here and elsewhere, you've propounded several theories positing that powerful, secretive groups have conspired to either cause or influence certain events, and that the truth about what actually happened is being kept from the public. However, you have no credible evidence for any of these theories, as has been amply demonstrated. Further, you have repeatedly attempted to redefine, or simply ignored, the widely accepted definitions of "conspiracy theory," (several of which I posted earlier in the thread) in an attempt to pretend that you aren't a conspiracy theorist. So yes, I have copious evidence to support my claims.

. . . other than my interest in a local area shipping disaster and a current affairs official government investigation into it.

About which you've advanced several conspiracy theories.

What else is there, yes the Luton Car Fire was of great interest to many people in the UK which I started as a thread in current affairs.

Which was moved to the appropriate subforum because you were proposing a conspiracy theory.

What else was there? Oh yes, someone had never seen the use of primes to denote time durations before so again, I was heavily bullied as I really had no idea anyone one would consider it the slightest bit controversial.

I'll give you that one; I think the mods just left it in Conspiracy Theories because it was split off from the Estonia thread. You were wrong about the notation, though. And, no, you weren't bullied, you were just repeatedly told why you were wrong, and people didn't accept your attempts to weasel out of that.

You don't have any tools in your debating tool box which is why you resort to calling me hostile names because you think you are safe couching it in the hateful terms 'conspiracy theorist' because you think you can get away with it without needing to justify your ridiculous and insecure assertions.

 

[SpitfireIX]

You can get urgent help here.

 

[Numbers]

Vixen, your collection of half-truths in the above may be confusing to some readers. You have left out certain highly pertinent information. This may be a result of your concentration on only one of the Convention violations, denial of a defense lawyer (Convention Article 6.3c), while not discussing at all another critical Convention violation, failure to provide an adequate (fair) interpreter (Convention Article 6.3e). Both resulted in the finding by the ECHR in its Knox v. Italy judgment violations of Convention Article 6.1, unfair trial, meaning that either one was adequate to require Italy in its self-determined corrective actions to nullify (invalidate or annul) the entire trial proceedings and the conviction.

........
[skipping some important paragraphs for brevity]

I'm using this post to discuss the important paragraphs from the ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy that I excluded for reasons of brevity from my post #3406. Those paragraphs were not highly relevant to the topic of when Knox became a person accused of a crime (in the Convention sense), but are among the important paragraphs in understanding the flaws in the re-trial and re-conviction of Knox for calunnia. Here is a Google translation (with a little help from me with some confusion with pronouns) of paragraphs 182 - 188. Emphasis by bolding and italics are mine.

182. The Court recalls that Article 6, paragraph 3 (e), of the Convention means that an accused person who does not understand or speak the language used in court is entitled to the free services of an interpreter for the purpose of translating or interpreting any part of the proceedings against him or her which, in order to have a fair trial, require him or her to understand the meaning of or have it translated into the language of the court. The assistance provided in the matter of interpretation must enable the accused to know the charges against him or her and to defend himself or herself, in particular by giving the court or tribunal his or her version of events. The right thus guaranteed must be practical and effective. The obligation of the competent authorities is therefore not limited to appointing an interpreter: they are also required, once alerted in a given case, to exercise a degree of subsequent control over the value of the interpretation provided (Hermi v. Italy [GC], no. 18114/02, § 80, ECHR 2006-XII; Kamasinski v. Austria, 19 December 1989, § 74, Series A no. 168; Güngör v. Germany (dec.), no. 31540/96, 17 May 2001; Cuscani v. the United Kingdom, no. 32771/96, § 39, 24 September 2002; Protopapa v. Turkey, no. 16084/90, § 80, 24 February 2009; and Vizgirda v. Slovenia, no. 59868/08, §§ 75-79, 28 August 2018).

183. Furthermore, just as the assistance of a lawyer, the assistance of an interpreter must be guaranteed from the investigation stage, unless it can be demonstrated that there are compelling reasons to restrict this right (see, to this effect, Diallo v. Sweden (dec.), no. 13205/07, § 25, 5 January 2010; Baytar v. Turkey, no. 45440/04, §§ 50 et seq., 14 October 2014; and Şaman v. Turkey, no. 35292/05, § 30, 5 April 2011).

184. The Court also indicates that there is no need to lay down detailed conditions under Article 6 § 3 (e) of the Convention as to the manner in which the services of an interpreter may be provided to assist defendants. An interpreter is not an agent of the court within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and is not subject to any formal requirement of independence or impartiality as such. The interpreter's services must provide the accused with effective assistance in the conduct of the accused's defence, and the interpreter's conduct must not be likely to prejudice the fairness of the trial (see Uçak v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 44234/98, 24 January 2002).

185. In the present case, it is apparent from the file that, by A.D.'s own admission, the role played by the latter while the applicant, a criminal defendant within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, was formulating her version of the facts, went beyond the interpreter's role that she was required to perform. The Court notes that A.D. indeed intended to establish a human and emotional relationship with the applicant, assuming the role of mediator and adopting a maternal attitude, actions that were in no way required in the present case (paragraphs 40 and 41 above).

186. The Court notes that, despite the applicant having raised these complaints before the national authorities, she did not benefit from proceedings capable of shedding light on her allegations (see, mutatis mutandis, Mantovanelli v. France, 18 March 1997, Reports 1997-II). The authorities failed to assess A.D.'s conduct, to evaluate whether her interpreter duties had been performed in accordance with the safeguards provided for in Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(e), and to consider whether her conduct had had an impact on the outcome of the criminal proceedings against the applicant. The Court further notes that no mention of the exchanges that took place between the applicant and A.D. during the interrogation of 6 November 2007 was made in the relevant report.

187. In the Court's view, this initial failure therefore had repercussions on other rights which, while distinct from the one whose violation is alleged, are closely linked to it, and compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole (Baytar, cited above, § 55, 14 October 2014).

188. In view of the above, Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 e) of the Convention have been infringed in this case.

My thoughts on the violations of Convention Article 6.1 with 6.3c and of Article 6.1 with 6.3e are profound in their impact on the total proceedings, including on Knox's state of mind when she wrote the initial English-language repudiations of the Italian-language statements she had signed. I believe that the CoM and ECHR would not at all accept the revision or distortion of the ECHR-attributed meaning of those repudiations to the status of accusations against Lumumba that would justify the re-conviction of Knox for calunnia. As I have pointed out in one or more earlier post, the ECHR in its case law has stated that a distortion of the meaning of the conclusions of its judgments is not within the "margin of appreciation" and is indeed a new violation of the Convention, including possibly Article 46.1 (binding force of an ECHR final judgment). In the Knox case, the reconviction may also be considered a new violation of Convention Article 6.1.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I very clearly explained my reasoning.

I don't believe that.

Let's try again.

All right, I'll play along.

• A fact is found at trial.
• The Appeal Court upholds that fact
• The Supreme Court rubber stamps it.
• If it accepts the appeal - i.e., not rubberstamped - the lower court got it materially wrong on a stated issue, it sends it back to the lower court with directions to correct the legal error it has detected.
• The Supreme Court cannot hold a trial or find facts.
• Its function is to ensure the legal process has been followed as per the Constitution and as argued by the Appellant

Do you follow that? If there is anything not clear, let's sort it out now before going on to the next step.

I don't accept you as an authority on the Italian legal system, but I'll grant these, provisionally, for the sake of argument.

Please point out anything you have identified as a conspiracy theory.

This isn't an encouraging start, but please, do continue.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I'm a bit confused by the particular application (Mafia + Italian Judicial System) of the Motte-and-Bailey fallacy argument.

If I'm following you correctly, I think you're wondering whether it's still a motte-and-bailey fallacy even if the motte is of questionable defensibility. Yes, it still is, although it makes the argument look even more fallacious.

First, what evidence is there that there is any Mafia influence on the Italian judiciary? There certainly have been allegations of Mafia influence on a few Italian politicians, but are there any such allegations of Mafia influence on any Italian judges? If so, are those judges in a particular region?

Upon investigation, I discovered that there's not nearly as much evidence as I had assumed there would be, although there certainly is some. That's what I get for taking something guilters say at face value.

From the BBC:

Judges held in Italy Naples mafia swoop​

19 March 2012

Italian police have arrested 16 judges in what they say is a big anti-mafia operation centred on Naples.

They are alleged to have taken bribes to issue financial rulings in favour of the Camorra, the crime syndicate active around the southern city.​

Google turned up a few other cases of individual judges' having been arrested and/or convicted (and one suicide while under investigation) over the past 30 years. But I didn't find nearly as many as I would have expected to.

I would suggest that part of the problem with the Italian judiciary is not the Mafia, but the judiciary's cohesion and adherence to an authoritarian or inquisititorial legal philosophy. I suspect that Hellmann resigned after the Court of Appeals acquittal of Knox and Sollecito on the murder/rape charges because of his resistance to that philosophy. The judges that have resisted that philosophy to some extent and recognized, at least in part, the full range of Italian laws, including those that protect the rights of defense of suspects and defendants (accused persons) are the ones who have recognized the errors and miscarriages of justice in this case.

That's absolutely true, and this is discussed in the article that I quoted up-thread. I'm not sure if it was that one, but one author described Italy's system as a "hybrid" between inquisitorial and adversarial. This implies that the shift to an adversarial system was either never fully accepted, or never fully intended in the first place. Guilters love to bang on about how Knox and Sollecito were convicted by the court of first instance, and how we ought to respect that, ignoring the fact that in an inquisitorial system, there is a presumption of guilt, and that the many opportunities for appeal in the Italian system are intended, inter alia, as a safeguard against that presumption.

 

[Vixen]

I think it was simple enough.

You purported to have detected that Knox was deliberately making sure specific things she said were clearly overheard by people she somehow imagined would be listening in through a hidden microphone somewhere in the room. I'm saying that particular mind reading trick appears to be something which exists solely in your imagination.

If you contend to have a reason why she would have wanted some thing to be overhead I think you ought to realise that is an encouragement for you to fool yourself into imagining she made a point of being heard, and does not make it more likely that you had genuinely perceived some artful subterfuge on her part. Quite the opposite.

Well given it is a proven empirical fact that Knox is convicted of falsely accusing Lumumba of the crime* in the knowledge he was not there, and further, was entirely innocent, perhaps you should start wondering why Knox was keen to spread Shaky's name about as a possible suspect on Sunday Nov 4, two days before she planted Lumumba's name.

*The facts are these, whilst Hellmann found that Knox had made the 6 Nov 2007 allegation as a means of trying to relieve the unbearable psychological tension** nonetheless, it still counted as a crime under Italy's codified criminal law. (As you know, ignorance of the law is not normally an acceptable defence.)

From Boni's recent 2025 decision MR: 'HELD IN FACT' - [it's own title], referring to Hellmann/Chieffi arising from Oct 2011 hearing

According to the judge of first instance, the defendant's action was inevitably to be traced back to the need to remove from herself, and from her co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, the elements of existing responsibility that were emerging against them.

In the opinion of the Court of Assizes of Appeal, on the other hand, Knox would have fed the investigators the name of Lumumba in order not to exonerate himself from a murder that he had not committed, but to overcome, without further negative consequences, the particular moment of unbearable psychological pressure, which had been created on her due to the exasperated insistence made by the investigators in order to obtain significant indications for the development of the investigations.

The Boni recent MR hearing the Appellant Knox, in respect of the re-trial verdict of guilty, reasons that not only was it held true that there was psychological pressure***, but that in the later police tap with her mother, this pressure was no longer there, and thus, it was Knox' cold choice to carry on with the accusation, despite expressing remorse for her allegation against Lumumba, leading him to be imprisoned for two weeks. It reasons as follows:

By judgment no. 26455 of 2013, the aforementioned Court, First Criminal Section, rejected the appeal, resulting in the final passage of the ruling of criminal liability in this regard.

5.1. According to the judgment of legitimacy, the overlapping assessments of the judges on the merits regarding the configurability of the slander were attributable to the


to the solidity of the evidence, of a documentary nature, in which the false accusation was engraved.

On the other hand, it had been irreproachably considered that the defendant was perfectly aware of the innocence of the accused, as this emerged from the content of the intercepted conversation held on 10 November 2007 with her mother. His subjective state could therefore not give rise to perplexity, denoting the absolute lack of willingness to deny to the investigators the name indication that he had maliciously offered them, despite the fact that he felt a strong remorse for having done so.

So, given that Knox DID know Lumumba was innocent, it puts into new light her manipulative and devious attempt to name Shaky also as a suspect whilst in a police waiting room giggling and joking with Sollecito. The term used by the courts was 'Mendacious'.

**What happened at the Questura was that police already knew Knox had received an SMS text from Lumumba telling her not to come into work that evening but she denied it. However, police knew this message had been deleted because on scrolling her phone it was no longer there. Knox however, had forgotten to delete her reply which the police showed her. This is what caused her to have a massive meltdown. The realisation that despite the pair knowing to switch off their phones to evade triage of phone mast signals and to conceal their movements for the night, that whilst the Lumumba message had been received and read at Sollecito's apartment, her response was made in Grimana Piazza. _DOH! Hence, her mortification that her location was known to the police as of that time.

The mortification that their plan for a perfect murder - for 'futile' extreme thrills - had come to a hitch was why Knox trotted out her story about her and Patrick popping along to the cottage so that he could have sex with Mez. She instantly realised she was located there by that phone message, so came up with the Lumumba get-out-of-jail card. All the stuff about being tortured and slapped and interrogated for 53 hours with police yelling, 'Remember! Remember!' is just the PR story put out by her defence team and supporters to try to explain her calumny away. The story Knox' best friend, Madison Paxton, fed to her boyfriend journalist on ROLLING STONE, the magazine to first start that particular ''RAILROADED!!!' hoax, had a massive circulation in the US and so began the great deception of our time.

*** Re the emotional response the police noted re discovering her response to Lumumba. This wasn't caused by Donnino, it was due to not only being found out at Piazza Grimana but also to Napoleoni popping her head round the door to say Sollecito no longer supported her alibi she was indoors with him all evening (and he has never changed this claim [except at a meaningless press conference and in his book]). One's Autonomous Nervous System and the subconscious picks up shocks to the body before our consciousness does, hence people can go red with rage or embarrassment without having any control over it or even being aware until after their bodily functions such as breathing, sweating, salivating, trembling have already started to change, as these are things we do automatically, without using conscious control. So Knox, having had this uncontrollable visible breakdown, had to pretend it was to do with police brutality and trickery for her fans.



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[SpitfireIX]

Here's a general statement from the US Department of State* on the issue of enforcement of a foreign court civil judgment in the US:



So all the complaining by PGP about this issue of Knox not paying the award to Lumumba on the basis of a foreign court judgment is simply nonsense. To date, Patrick Diya Lumumba has not taken any action in the US to collect the award, as far as is publicly known.

* travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/internl-judicial-asst/Enforcement-of-Judgements.html

One thing I'm not clear on:

Is this a civil judgment that Lumumba obtained against Knox, or was this ordered paid to him as part of her sentence for calunnia? If the latter, Lumumba may have the additional problem of failure to fulfil dual criminality, as there is no such crime as criminal slander in the US.

 

[Vixen]

Then you shouldn't have any trouble quoting at least one personal attack. Here is a link to the post in question, for your convenience. And, again, report any posts you feel violate forum rules for moderation rather than make accusations in-thread for rhetorical effect.


See my earlier post on the subject, and see also below. However, I'm not pursuing this any further, as I feel my point has been made, and we're way off topic. And I never said you actually called anyone a misogynist, though I believe you did use that word as an oblique insinuation at one point. I will concede that for now, without the search function, that I am unable to substantiate that recollection. You certainly did, however, make false thinly veiled accusations of sexism. Feel free to have the last word on this subject, if you'd like.


I said the accusations were oblique, and you've amply proven my point with your posts falsely accusing me of having claimed that Guede must have "extraordinarily long arms" because he's African.


I referred to you as "she" because you're a woman. But apparently you're determined to find some excuse to be offended.


You left out one little detail, Vixen, hardly worth mentioning, really. Must have just slipped your mind. The part where you claimed that a judge who's a Freemason will let a defendant who's a fellow Freemason off "with a wink and a nudge." That's why I took you to task.

Oh, and by the way, that's a conspiracy theory.


Further, as I mentioned, and, as usual, you ignored, you're just assuming that if this happened, the medic was making a gesture toward the bystanders. It is possible that the medic was indicating to a police officer, or another medic, the location of Kercher's wounds.


I've made no such claim. See my posts on the motte-and-bailey fallacy.


As I've told you repeatedly, the conspiracy theory is that Knox and Sollecito were let off due to Mafia influence; not that Mafia influence exists.


It's not "vile scathing abuse." As you've been told in this and other threads, it accurately describes your behavior, and if you don't want to be characterized as a conspiracy theorist, then you should stop behaving like one.


See above.


Yes, I found that post, along with the "macho" post. It actually turns out to be possible to look through AAH by just scanning for thread names, although it takes a bit of time. All I'm going to say is that, unsurprisingly, and, as noted by others, your allegations were unfounded. I won't be discussing either one after this; again, feel free to have the last word.


No, you weren't, at least not for either of those posts, and I'm not going to say anything else on the matter.


For about the 10th time, accurately (or even inaccurately) calling your claims conspiracy theories is not abuse.

Rule 12. “Address the argument, not the arguer." Having your opinion, claim or argument challenged, doubted or dismissed is not attacking the arguer.

And if you are promoting conspiracy theories, then, by definition, that makes you a conspiracy theorist.


As I've previously stated, you had to grossly mischaracterize what I said in order to fashion a strawman on which you could call BS.


No one ever said anything like that, or made any comments whatsoever related to your being a woman; you were just trying a new line of BS to try to shame people into not pointing out that you were wrong. As I've mentioned, this is basic stuff from the conspiracists' playbook, and most of us had seen it many times before.


As discussed here and elsewhere, you've propounded several theories positing that powerful, secretive groups have conspired to either cause or influence certain events, and that the truth about what actually happened is being kept from the public. However, you have no credible evidence for any of these theories, as has been amply demonstrated. Further, you have repeatedly attempted to redefine, or simply ignored, the widely accepted definitions of "conspiracy theory," (several of which I posted earlier in the thread) in an attempt to pretend that you aren't a conspiracy theorist. So yes, I have copious evidence to support my claims.


About which you've advanced several conspiracy theories.


Which was moved to the appropriate subforum because you were proposing a conspiracy theory.


I'll give you that one; I think the mods just left it in Conspiracy Theories because it was split off from the Estonia thread. You were wrong about the notation, though. And, no, you weren't bullied, you were just repeatedly told why you were wrong, and people didn't accept your attempts to weasel out of that.

Once again, you seem completely devoid of self-awareness. The 'mansplain' comment had NOTHING to do with misogyny, it was to do with having something carefully explained to me (in this case, eye witness memory) in which I had some detailed academic knowledge having done my dissertation in memory. Nothing to do with being woke. The common assumption which this poster was using, that eye witness accounts are unreliable, is a common misconception and often used to ignore or disregard what eye witnesses to an incident relate. It was attacking the trite stereotyping and generalisation in a one-word nutshell.

As I know you are going to dig in your entrenched heels because you can't see that you are a stereotypist without realising it.

Consider the following:

As a simple illustration, let's say we have the following:

2 + 2 = 5

(My apologies for the VERY simplistic example of more complex issues but serves to explain the idea).
Now we can all see and easily calculate, this is not correct. But imagine it represents a more complex equation which the average person cannot immediately see or calculate as being wrong. Imagine next that the person putting forward this complex (but wrong) equation is being sponsored to mass publish it for clicks in mass circulation media, such as newspapers and broadcasters. This person is perhaps perceived as an establishment expert. So, of course, the average person in the street accepts it, either because they do not understand how the equation has been derived, or because they can't be bothered to critically check it for accuracy, or just because the guy promulgating it is 'a bod'.

Now, I come along. Because I can see or calculate that this equation is incorrect, I point it out.

Along comes you, with your ready 'CT' name-calling and listing all of the people you CLAIM back you up, scrunching your knuckles and glowering over one menacingly, challenging me to 'call the police if you don't like it', browbeating me over the head that:

2 + 2 = 5

Question: Are you able to understand that no amount of name-calling or intimidation will be able to force me to call something that I can see is an error or a lie, as being true?

It's called critical thinking. It should be nothing to do with appealing to the crowd.


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[Vixen]

One thing I'm not clear on:

Is this a civil judgment that Lumumba obtained against Knox, or was this ordered paid to him as part of her sentence for calunnia? If the latter, Lumumba may have the additional problem of failure to fulfil dual criminality, as there is no such crime as criminal slander in the US.

€10,000 is the penal element, €40,000 is the costs element as of 2009, which Numbers disputes as starting from the Chieffi rubber stamp of 2013.

The closest US equivalent is 'Obstruction of Justice' and the UK (E&W) Perverting the Course of Justice, each of which has a similar range of prison sentence. Basically it involves trying to or actually subverting the operations of the police to avert justice.


It is classed as a Serious Offence in all three jurisdictions.


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[SpitfireIX]

Well, the term 'mafia' can be used in two different ways. One, to mean serious organised crime and two, the much more historic one of simply 'family' as the word translates. As you know, Italy is a modern country and not so long a go it used to be a whole load of different regions and provinces with their own self rule. Different tribes and what have you. So these families would have codes of loyalty, honour and mutual benefit, and they'd be very insular, in particular the island regions, such as Sicily.

Equivocation. You've repeatedly insinuated that Sollecito was let off due to a connection to the Mafia, not some family connection to the Court of Cassation judges.

Also in Italy there is a strong fad for freemasonry, again not in itself particularly sinister, except that the Catholic Church disapproves.

You've implied that Freemasonry (btw, this is a proper noun and should be capitalized) is a serious threat to the Italian judicial system (and, by extension, other judicial systems). Kindly explain this apparent contradiction.

As for Hellmann, my insider intelligence is as follows:.

Another conspiracy theory.

 

[Vixen]

You left out one little detail, Vixen, hardly worth mentioning, really. Must have just slipped your mind. The part where you claimed that a judge who's a Freemason will let a defendant who's a fellow Freemason off "with a wink and a nudge." That's why I took you to task.

Oh, and by the way, that's a conspiracy theory.




<snip>

For goodness sake, any fule kno' the tale of the defendant and the judge making masonic signs at each other is an urban myth!


Like all urban myths, the story has its roots in various stories that became viral.


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[Vixen]

Equivocation. You've repeatedly insinuated that Sollecito was let off due to a connection to the Mafia, not some family connection to the Court of Cassation judges.


You've implied that Freemasonry (btw, this is a proper noun and should be capitalized) is a serious threat to the Italian judicial system (and, by extension, other judicial systems). Kindly explain this apparent contradiction.


Another conspiracy theory.

I suggest you read up on it. It is not exactly an unknown topic.

The interference by mafia is my conjecture based on my evaluation of events. I am not asking anyone to accept it.




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[Numbers]

€10,000 is the penal element, €40,000 is the costs element as of 2009, which Numbers disputes as starting from the Chieffi rubber stamp of 2013.

The closest US equivalent is 'Obstruction of Justice' and the UK (E&W) Perverting the Course of Justice, each of which has a similar range of prison sentence. Basically it involves trying to or actually subverting the operations of the police to avert justice.


It is classed as a Serious Offence in all three jurisdictions.


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Your post contains a misrepresentation of my statement in one of my posts.

The statement I made is that the Chieffi judgment finalized Knox's first calunnia against Lumumba conviction. The provisional conviction finalized was the provisional conviction from the Hellmann Court of Appeals. I made no statement about the amounts of the award to Lumumba, except that it was not final, and thus not collectable under Italian law, until the Chieffi court had finalized the conviction including the awards. It would also not have been collectable even if a US court accepted it as otherwise valid, had Lumumba sought to gain any award from Knox, who was resident in the US at and previous to the time of the Chieffi finalization of the Hellmann Court conviction for calunnia, prior to the Chieffi finalization of the conviction. US law requires any judgment to be final for the award from that judgment to be enforceable.

Your post goes on to mention that the equivalent US law to calunnia is obstruction of justice. While that statement has some validity, it suggests one reason why Lumumba would likely be unable or limited in the collection of an award through the action of a US court. The US court would be limited to enforcing the award of only amounts attributable to actual damages or costs sustained by the plaintiff. That part of the award attributed to a penalty likely would not be awardable because it was a criminal penalty, and therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of a civil court.