There was no 'speculation', it was based primarily on the signed testimony of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox. Neither was the clasp, footprints or knife speculation, it was forensic evidence. As the investigation progressed, more evidence against the pair was found. I fail to see why this is a problem. perhaps you can point it out?
Police perjury? Can you justify or evidence this accusation? In short Charlie, do you have anything with more substance then slogans to sling around?
I'd agree in principle that the use of the allegation "police perjury" in the argument is too strong and is currently unwarranted in that context. However...... you are arguing that if one has no evidence to corroborate a particular charge or opinion, then that charge/opinion by definition has no validity. So, you argue, in order to make an allegation of this sort, one has to show that it happened. Which all sounds perfectly reasonable on the face of it. But in an instance such as this (police perjury), we only have the word of the potential accused party (here, the police), set against the conflicting word of the potential accuser (here, presumably, AK on appeal, as well - in passing - as some posters on here), together with any supporting or contradictory circumstantial evidence. We have no direct evidence one way or the other, since the police apparently didn't make an audio or video recording of the interrogation
So, one should weigh up three things in assessing the validity of such an allegation: first, the credibility of both sides; second, the motivation and opportunity of both sides; and third, the way in which other known evidence tends to support or disprove the allegation of perjury.
I'd freely grant that most right-thinking people would instinctively accord the police very high levels of credibility - with a fair amount of justification. By and large, police have a deservedly good reputation for upholding the law with diligence and honesty. And I'd also freely contend that most people would regard AK as a less credible subject (although part of that belief might be based on a circular rationale that she is a lying murderer). I'd add that in this instance the Perugia police's credibility might be somewhat dented by the town drive-through episode, the way in which they arrested Lumumba (and possibly how they treated him in custody), and the way in which they leaked deeply incriminating information so freely (NOTE: yes, yes, I KNOW the Knox/Mellas camp also leaked information, and I'd argue that this damaged their credibility too - but it doesn't lessen any potential criticism of the police for doing the same).
Regarding motivation and opportunity, the situation gets a little murkier. AK clearly has strong motivation in accusing the police of misconduct (and therefore, by extension, of perjury). Her motivation is to remove any doubts over her own insistence of innocence, and to damage the police's reputation (which might help her in other areas of the evidence against her). However, the police clearly would also have a strong motivation and opportunity to deny any accusations of misconduct on the stand, if such misconduct did occur.
Furthermore, in the absence of any recorded evidence, those police that were in the interview room (were there not five or six at one point?) would be sure that only they, the interpreter, and AK could ever testify as to what actually went on. And after AK is discounted, then the police would only need to ensure that all the relevant officers were "onside" (potentially relatively easy, as shown by past historical examples), and that the interpreter would also not contradict their version of events (more difficult and therefore less likely, but the interpreter was retained and paid by the police for her services, and was a citizen of Perugia).
And on the "supporting evidence" front, I'd say that evidence in "favour" of AK would be the bizarre confession (which I've already argued in previous posts could conceivably be interpreted as the outcome of coercion and suggestion), and - to a smaller degree - the lack of any recording. Yes, yes, I know one can argue that a recording might not have been mandatory for "witness interviews, but I think AK could argue that she should have been under "suspect" status by the time she led up to her confession. Evidence "against" AK on this particular issue is actually nothing - since, intellectually, one has to discount the "evidence" of the police statements on the stand, and indeed the evidence of AK's eventual conviction, for reasons of circularity.
For those who would suggest that my argument in the paragraphs above is based on fantasy and pure conjecture (just because it COULD happen, doesn't mean it DID happen), I'd agree. But I'd equally point that it is intellectually invalid to argue that the police didn't/couldn't commit perjury JUST because a) they said they didn't commit perjury, and b) there's currently no smoking-gun evidence that they did so. I think the only way to analyse this properly is to adopt an approach similar to the one I've used above. This type of approach suggests that the whole misconduct issue might not be as cut-and-dried as it might at first appear. But of course it's perfectly feasible that one might employ this type of approach and conclude in favour of the police's version of events - and I have no problem with that if the conclusion has been arrived at properly.
