Continuation - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[Fiona]

OK, now I'm confused. I keep hearing claims that AK repeatedly said she didn't remember who the text message was sent to, and various other claims that are supposed to have been said in her own words, but I can't find anything like that in her testimony. This seems to be the main part where she describes the interrogation:



Is it the bit in bold that people are talking about when they say she repeatedly said she didn't remember who she sent the SMS to (even though you would think the recipient would be listed on her phone as 'Patrick')? Or am I missing something from another bit of the testimony?

Because to me, it looks from this that she just couldn't remember sending the SMS in the first place. I'd be quite surprised if, once she knew the content of the message and that it was in her 'Sent' folder under the name 'Patrick', she'd go ahead and tell them she didn't know who the message was to. Can someone point me to the area in her testimony where she says she did this? And the police's accusations that she was lying seem to have come about when she (a) denied that she was trying to protect someone; (b) denied that she was going to meet someone; and (c) denied she left Raffaele's house. If she said she didn't remember doing any of that because she didn't do any of it, how is that obstructing the police?

In addition to that testimony there are several other parts which discuss this.

For example:

.....there was a man who was holding my telephone, and who was literallyshoving the telephone into my face, shouting "Look at this telephone!
Who is this? Who did you want to meet?"

Who is this is an easy question to answer. Even if she did not remember sending the text at the start, as she said, once it was discovered it is odd to me that she still did not recollect.

they would ask questions like: "Okay, you met someone!" No, I didn't.
They would say "Yes you did, because we have this telephone here, that
says that you wanted to meet someone. You wanted to meet him." No, I don't remember that.

And again it seems to me that at this point she could have told the truth: but she again said she did not remember

GCM: When you say they said "Maybe you met him?", did they specify names?

AK: Well, the important fact was this message to Patrick, they were very
excited about it. So they wanted to know if I had received a message from
him --

GCM: So, you were the one who gave the first indication, introducing this generic pronoun "him"? This "him", did they say who it could be?

AK: It was because of the fact that they were saying that I apparently had
met someone and they said this because of the message, and they were saying "Are you sure you don't remember meeting THIS person, because you wrote this message."

GCM: In this message, was there the name of the person it was meant for?

AK: No, it was the message I wrote to my boss. The one that said "Va bene.
Ci vediamo piu tardi. Buona serata."

GCM: But it could have been a message to anyone. Could you see from the message to whom it was written?

AK: Actually, I don't know if that information is in the telephone. But I told
them that I had received a message from Patrick, and they looked for it in
the telephone, but they couldn't find it, but they found the one I sent to
him.

And again surely?

GM: Yes, yes. I just wanted one concept to be clear: that in the Italian language, "suggerire" means "indicate", someone who "suggests" a name actually says the name and the other person adopts it. That is what "suggerimento" is, and I...so my question is, did the police first pronounce the name of Patrick, or was it you? And was it pronounced after having seen the message in the phone, or just like that, before that message was seen?

?? Objection! Objection!

GM: On page 95, I read--

CDV: Before the objection, what was the question?

GM: The question was: the question that was objected was about the term
"suggerimento". Because I interpret that word this way: the police say
"Was it Patrick?" and she confirms that it was Patrick. This is suggestion
in the Italian language.

GCM: Excuse me, please, excuse me. Let's return to the accused. What was the suggestion, because I thought I had understood that the suggestion consisted in the fact that Patrick Lumumba, to whom the message was addressed, had been identified, they talked about "him, him, him". In what terms exactly did they talk about this "him"? What did they say to you?

AK: So, there was this thing that they wanted a name. And the message --

GCM: You mean, they wanted a name relative to what?

AK: To the person I had written to, precisely. And they told me that I knew,
and that I didn't want to tell.

Once again she reiterates that they did not know who the message was to and she did not tell them.

GCM: "Remember!" is not a suggestion. It is a strong solicitation of your memory. Suggestion is rather...

AK: But it was always "Remember" following this same idea, that...

GCM: But they didn't literally say that it was him!

AK: No. They didn't say it was him, but they said "We know who it is, we know who it is. You were with him, you met him."

GCM: So, these were the suggestions.

AK: Yes.

They clearly did not know who it was, though

This next is from the record of the interview on 17th December

GM: [reading] She said: "I accused Patrick and no one else because they were continually talking about Patrick." Suggesting, to use Amanda's words.
I asked: "The police, the police could not suggest? And the interpreter,
was she shouting the name of Patrick? Sorry, but what was the police
saying?" Knox: "The police were saying, 'We know that you were in the
house. We know you were in the house.' And one moment before I said Patrick's name, someone was showing me the message I had sent him." This is the objection. There is a precise moment. The police were showing her the message, they didn't know who it was--

GM: Now, what happened next? You, confronted with the message, gave the name of Patrick. What did you say?

AK: Well, first I started to cry. And all the policemen, together, started
saying to me, you have to tell us why, what happened?

From all of this taken together it seems to me that Knox still said she could not remember who the text was to, even after being shown it:

 

[Fiona]

Mrs. Columbo,

Amanda was doing some stretches or yoga poses when an officer commented on her flexibility. According to her, he asked her something along the lines of whether she could do a cartwheel. Others on the previous thread may have accepted that the officer commented on her flexibility but did not believe that he asked her to do any other gymnastics moves. All of this is to the best of my recollection, and please bear in mind that this whole question is disputed.

On the previous thread Kestrel provided a link to a good videotaped lecture on why the innocent should be careful when talking to the police as well.

This is at odds with Amanda's testimony.

 

[RoseMontague]

Fiona,
I am not sure why you are disputing the "dozen officers" here. Are they not the ones that have been slandered in addition to the interpreter. Steve cites that they have entered that in court, perhaps that is what he is referring to. This group considers itself slandered evidently. If they were not 12 there then they would not have been part of that group. What am I missing?

 

[Fiona]

I think you've massively underestimated the importance of the point that the police had seemingly convinced themselves that the AK's text indicated a meeting with the recipient on the evening it was sent: November 1st. This is because they had misinterpreted AK's poor use of Italian, and believed "see you later" (in its Italian translation) to mean that AK had made an appointment to meet up.

No I dont think I have underestimated that. I have referred to it in the post you quote and in previous posts. I agree they misinterpreted her meaning, because her Italian was poor.

For me, this changes everything. For me, the crucial point is that AK would have (correctly) denied that she'd arranged to meet anyone that evening, and that this wasn't what the text meant.

Except that she did not deny that was what the text meant. She first said she did not send a text: then she said she could not remember who she sent it to. She has not claimed that she explained who it was to and what it meant: if she had done that things might have been different

The fact that she may not have immediately remembered who the text was sent to is reasonable (in my view), given that the text was merely a throwaway end-of-conversation remark with no identifying details.

Maybe

But by this time I believe that the police had convinced themselves that a) AK was lying about the meaning of the text,

There is no indication that she explained the meaning of the text

and b) she was deliberately withholding the name of the recipient because of the gravity of the "arrangement to meet up" that the police had convinced themselves existed.

The police had the text she said she never sent. In Italian it means what they thought it meant. She did not tell them who it was to. She did not explain what it meant. She said she could not remember. They did not believe her. I am sure that made them believe she was not being open with them: I think they were right. I can accept that she may not have remembered sending the text (though it is a stretch given she was happy not to go to work that night); I can accept she may not have remembered who it was to at first. But she did remember. And when she remembered she did not explain what it meant: she told them who it was to and she accused Lumumba of murder.

So I believe that they then made the next logical leap, which was that whoever the text was sent to was likely involved in the murder, and also that AK knew an awful lot more about the murder than she was letting on. Cue accusations/coercion/suggestion...........

Your sequence of events does not make sense to me.

RS changed his story and said she had gone out that night. They asked if she had replied to Lumumba and she said no. The text was there and it did not identify who it was to. It appeared to arrange a meeting with someone, and since RS now said she was not with him they wanted to know what she had been doing and who she had been doing it with. If she had explained the text was to Lumumba and that it only meant "later" they might not have accepted that immediately: but there was no reason not to tell them that: yet she did not. She said she did not remember who it was to and she did not explain what she meant. I am quite sure they believed she was hiding something. I am quite sure they were frustrated. I do not think they necessarily (or even likely) thought she had been party to the murder: but I think they thought she was keeping something from them. Anyone would in the circumstances. I think the questioning would be very tough. But there was no "suggestion" and I do not believe there was any coercion nor any accusation beyond the charge that she was lying. I dont find anything changes at all and I cannot understand why you think that.

Also, I think I remember reading that AK's post-midnight interview didn't start until RS's interview had finished - or at least at any rate it didn't start until after RS changed his alibi testimony. However, you've said that the police only found out about the RS alibi change at some time mid-way through their interrogation of AK. Is there any evidence to support your view?

It is in Knox's testimony

 

[Fiona]

Fiona,
I am not sure why you are disputing the "dozen officers" here. Are they not the ones that have been slandered in addition to the interpreter. Steve cites that they have entered that in court, perhaps that is what he is referring to. This group considers itself slandered evidently. If they were not 12 there then they would not have been part of that group. What am I missing?

This was explained when we were discussing group slander. All the police officers who were at the police station that night can be identified, because they were part of the team working on the murder. That does not mean they were all involved in the interrogation: it only means that they can be damaged by an accusation precisely because no-one specific was named.

In this country there is a rather arbitrary cut off at 25:though it is not binding. It may not be the same in Italy,but an example in this country concerns a sales force. I am afraid I cannot remember all the details now but the gist is that someone said of this sales force that some of the blokes were pansies and some of the women were whores (that kind of insult: not saying it was exactly that). In that case both the men and the women tried to bring suit for defamation. The men were able to do that because there were only 25 of them and that was held to be a small enough number that they would all be tarred by the slur. The women could not do it because there were about 300 of them: so it was held that "some" did not place any individual in the frame of the insult.

The record of the interrogation shows three police officers in the room plus the interpreter. That was stated in court by Mignini: accept it or don't. Knox does not specify how many in her testimony: as ever her wording is vague. If you look at it she does not even tie her statements, about there being a lot at some points, to that night: it covers all her interviews (or I read it that way): and we know that there were a lot of officers after the body was discovered, for example.

It makes no sense to start an interview with a load of people in the room: and that is not what happens in my experience. It may be different in Italy, but I doubt it. Too many people means you are less likely to get information, just as it does in any situation when a lot of people are talking at once. But it is quite likely that people came and went: for example the information that RS had changed his story had to be conveyed and that would have meant at least one more person came in. I have no idea what more might have needed to be passed on

But the point is that if this is like the UK the fact that 12 brought suit does NOT mean that 12 were involved in the interrogation

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Hi Mr Holmes,
Excellant point there Sherlock!

If I recall correctly, before he ever changed his story and included Amnada Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in it, Rudy Guede said there were 2 men in the apartment when he came out of the bathroom. After they left, he says that he tried to save Miss Kercher by using towels to staunch the flow of blood, and then he left her.
IIRC once more, Rudy Guede said in a story that I have read of before, that he saw 1 or both of the guys later on that night when he was out in the clubs and 1 of them gave him money to split town. Maybe 1 of these guys came back later to see if Miss Kercher was still alive, and put the duvet over her then and then locked her door before leaving...

A question for you Mr. Holmes, since I feel that you Sherlock have an open mind:

Because she was tired, Miss Kercher went home early after hanging out with the English girls the evening she died. Do you think the murder happened around 11:30pm as the court seems to think or do you think that the murder happened much earlier after she arrived home at her apartment?

I tend to think it happened much earlier, since I believe that Miss Kercher, being tired after a very late night out the evening before, probably just wanted to put her pajama's or nightgown on this chilly Nov. evening and crawl under the covers of her bed and read herself to sleep with the history book she had borrowed from her friend, fellow student Robyn Butterworth.

So Miss Kercher, I believe, should have had her pajamas or her nightgown on when she was found the next day. But she didn't. So that make me think that the murder happened much earlier than the court says it did, when she still had her pants on.
Your thoughts?
Thanks,
RWVBWL

I fully agree - the murder had to happen much earlier, 9:30 - 10:45


The two ladies that heard the scream could be wrong about the time, could have been a tire screaching, could have been just some kids. I don't have a lot of faith in the scream meaning much.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

_________________

Excellent point Sherlock.

Maybe Rudy ---as a "known criminal" type---had his lock-picking tools in his pocket and so was able to enter Meredith's bedroom after the murder. And Rudy wouldn't wish to mention that detail in his version of events.

///

He must be real good with those lock picking tools, because he would have to do it all over again to lock the door after he's gone - not likely I think.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Producing the keys and knife, ideally with both Meredith and his brother's DNA on them, would be a start - otherwise it is just so much noise.

Part of me finds it hard to believe that an intelligent young student like Amanda would do something like this but Meredith is undeniably dead and alibis are poor and stories less than illuminating. The case against her is not cast iron but neither is the case for the defence.

I don't believe Amanda did this either, I think Rudy did it. Amanda started it by getting into a fight with Meredith and Rudy came running out of the bathroom and jumped in. I also think Amanda was sitting on the couch with her hands over her ears while Meredith screamed. She got scared and ran out to get RS, who returned with a big kitchen knife. Amanda was probally never in Meredith's room, unless it was during the staging.

 

[Mary_H]

In addition to that testimony there are several other parts which discuss this.

For example:

Quote:
.....there was a man who was holding my telephone, and who was literally shoving the telephone into my face, shouting "Look at this telephone!
Who is this? Who did you want to meet?"

Who is this is an easy question to answer. Even if she did not remember sending the text at the start, as she said, once it was discovered it is odd to me that she still did not recollect.

They didn't just ask her "who is this," they asked who did she want to meet. The fact that she didn't want to meet anybody was probably what made her hesitate.

Quote:
They would ask questions like: "Okay, you met someone!" No, I didn't.
They would say "Yes you did, because we have this telephone here, that
says that you wanted to meet someone. You wanted to meet him." No, I don't remember that.

And again it seems to me that at this point she could have told the truth: but she again said she did not remember.

And again, they asked her about who she met, when she hadn't met anybody. Of course she wouldn't remember.

I believe the exchange between Amanda and Massei (GCM) shows that the judge was trying to clarify for the rest of the courtroom that Amanda could not see who she had sent the message to because it didn't have Patrick's name on it. It looks like he was pretty frustrated with the chaotic direction of the questioning.

From all of this taken together it seems to me that Knox still said she could not remember who the text was to, even after being shown it:

I have read this several times now and I really don't see any evidence that Amanda deliberately withheld Patrick's name from the police. I do see evidence that she didn't understand what the police were driving at, and that they were accusing her of knowing and doing things she did not know or do. She also testifies that she told the police she had received a message from Patrick that night, which led them to look in her "sent" messages. She doesn't seem interested in keeping any secrets, that's for sure; it's just general bewilderment.

 

[Mrs.Columbo]

Coincidentally, I was struck the expression on Amanda's face in this picture;

I would say it is "open", which I believe is also how a psychologist would describe it. Very difficult or affect or fake.

That does not prove anything.
Yesterday I saw pictures of a very handsome and nice guy -
his name: Joran van der Sloot.


From the book: The Mask of Sanity (Hervey Checkley M.D.)

Cleckley introduced 16 behavioral characteristics of a psychopath: [5]

1. Superficial charm and good intelligence

 

[Mrs.Columbo]

Fiona,
I am not sure why you are disputing the "dozen officers" here. Are they not the ones that have been slandered in addition to the interpreter. Steve cites that they have entered that in court, perhaps that is what he is referring to. This group considers itself slandered evidently. If they were not 12 there then they would not have been part of that group. What am I missing?

I think that is because none of the police officers was ever specificly accused by his name, so all of them feel slanderd.

la giovane americana accusata di calunnia nei confronti di una decina di agenti, (Reuters.it)

That's the crux of the matter, IMHO

 

[Bruce Fischer]

Amanda's testimony is read differently depending on what side you are on. Much of it can be interpreted in different ways. Her hand written note does nothing to confirm her signed statements. It is a retraction. When she wrote it, she was still exhausted and still confused from everything she was told and from being up all night. She had very little rest in between.

The police were well aware of the fact that Amanda would be at the station on the night of the 5th. Amanda may have been confused about this point but there is no way that so many officers would have been available on any given night. It is also disputed what time her interrogation initially began. It would not take long to get a 20 year old to comply with your orders. 1 2 or 3 hours really doesn't make any difference. One hour would have been plenty of time. If you read Amanda's testimony, it is very clear that she was told what to believe.

After all of that, she signed a statement that made no sense. This often happens during interrogations like this. You get completely unreliable information.

With this unreliable information, the police ran out and arrested an innocent man. People on this board that believe Amanda is guilty won't even admit that this was poor police work.

 

[RoseMontague]

This was explained when we were discussing group slander. All the police officers who were at the police station that night can be identified, because they were part of the team working on the murder. That does not mean they were all involved in the interrogation: it only means that they can be damaged by an accusation precisely because no-one specific was named.

In this country there is a rather arbitrary cut off at 25:though it is not binding. It may not be the same in Italy,but an example in this country concerns a sales force. I am afraid I cannot remember all the details now but the gist is that someone said of this sales force that some of the blokes were pansies and some of the women were whores (that kind of insult: not saying it was exactly that). In that case both the men and the women tried to bring suit for defamation. The men were able to do that because there were only 25 of them and that was held to be a small enough number that they would all be tarred by the slur. The women could not do it because there were about 300 of them: so it was held that "some" did not place any individual in the frame of the insult.

The record of the interrogation shows three police officers in the room plus the interpreter. That was stated in court by Mignini: accept it or don't. Knox does not specify how many in her testimony: as ever her wording is vague. If you look at it she does not even tie her statements, about there being a lot at some points, to that night: it covers all her interviews (or I read it that way): and we know that there were a lot of officers after the body was discovered, for example.

It makes no sense to start an interview with a load of people in the room: and that is not what happens in my experience. It may be different in Italy, but I doubt it. Too many people means you are less likely to get information, just as it does in any situation when a lot of people are talking at once. But it is quite likely that people came and went: for example the information that RS had changed his story had to be conveyed and that would have meant at least one more person came in. I have no idea what more might have needed to be passed on

But the point is that if this is like the UK the fact that 12 brought suit does NOT mean that 12 were involved in the interrogation

I think the point that Mr. Moore was making was about tag-teaming. Not all 12 in the room at the same time. From your post it appears you are not certain of this either way.

 

[katy_did]

In addition to that testimony there are several other parts which discuss this.

Who is this is an easy question to answer. Even if she did not remember sending the text at the start, as she said, once it was discovered it is odd to me that she still did not recollect.

And again it seems to me that at this point she could have told the truth: but she again said she did not remember

And again surely?

Once again she reiterates that they did not know who the message was to and she did not tell them.

From all of this taken together it seems to me that Knox still said she could not remember who the text was to, even after being shown it:

But as Mary pointed out, not a single bit of what you quoted suggests that the police were asking her who the message was to, and that she told them she didn't know. It all indicates that they were asking her who she met, and then indicating the text message, saying they knew she met someone. To read that as Amanda telling them she didn't know who sent the text is a major distortion of what was said.

 

[RoseMontague]

I think that is because none of the police officers was ever specificly accused by his name, so all of them feel slanderd.

la giovane americana accusata di calunnia nei confronti di una decina di agenti, (Reuters.it)

That's the crux of the matter, IMHO

Most of the law enforcement people I have known over the years are not so touchy and sensitive as to feel calunniazated by an accusation like this unless they were personally accused of wrong doing. It is piling on, in my opinion.

Were each of the 12 interrogated for 40 plus hours over 4 or 5 days? I wonder if they sent any text messages to each other during the days of the interviews?
It would be interesting to ask why so many officers were there and why they were there.

 

[katy_did]

The police were well aware of the fact that Amanda would be at the station on the night of the 5th. Amanda may have been confused about this point but there is no way that so many officers would have been available on any given night. It is also disputed what time her interrogation initially began. It would not take long to get a 20 year old to comply with your orders. 1 2 or 3 hours really doesn't make any difference. One hour would have been plenty of time. If you read Amanda's testimony, it is very clear that she was told what to believe.

I was trying to figure out what information we have on when the interrogation began, since I keep hearing the 00.30 time mentioned. Reading through Amanda's testimony, there's a little bit of an indication, first with the phone call she made to Filomena at 22.29 from the Questura. She's waiting for Raffaele near the elevator, and the conversation ends with Amanda saying, "Sure, of course. Oh, right now somebody wants to talk to me. Ciao bella.".

She then says this about how the interrogation initially began:

AK: Okay. Fine. So, when I got to the Questura, they placed me to the side, near the elevator, where I was waiting for Raffaele. I had taken my homework, and was starting to do my homework, but a policeman came in, in fact there were I don't know, three of them or something, and they wanted to go on talking to me. They asked me again --

She then confirms that she'd only just started to do her homework when the police came to talk to her:

But I didn't do my homework for a very long time. I was probably just reading the first paragraph of what I had to read, when these policemen came to sit near me, to ask me to help them by telling them who had ever entered in our house.

All of this seems to indicate that Amanda hadn't been in the Questura long when the police came to talk to her - it may even have started immediately after her phone call to Filomena at 22.29. So what I'm wondering is, do we have any other information on when the interrogation started?

 

[katy_did]

A very interesting take on the use of Aviello's story by the defence in the appeal, from Bob Graham in the Daily Mail.

I had wondered if the defence using Aviello in the appeal could be a major mistake, not only because I think his story is obviously BS (and Sherlock's excellent point shows that) but also because I think it tends to undermine Alessi's testimony, which I do think is credible. Not in the sense that I believe the story itself - that a second man was present - but because I believe Rudy very likely did tell him that. It has all the hallmarks of a Rudy story, different enough from his other versions to be significant (he's a little more guilty in this one, perhaps because he was talking to people in jail convicted of crimes just as serious as his) but not dramatic enough, in my view, to be a tale fabricated by Alessi simply for attention (differing drastically from Aviello's there). I think its significance is that Rudy was still stating Amanda and Raffaele weren't there, even after his conviction. Maybe this is why the defence are including it.

But Graham raises the very interesting point that the defence are bringing up Aviello's story not because they believe it, but because it shows the laxness and incompetence of the investigation and the partiality of the trial. The police/prosecution had already decided Knox and Sollecito were guilty at that stage, so much so they didn't even bother investigating what Aviello told them. Perhaps the defence's use of Aviello's testimony is not such a mistake after all, in that context. Here's an extract from the article:

Yet why should we consider Aviello's evidence when it is so palpably flawed? After all, he could merely be returning a favour for an underworld associate, or doing a deal. In short, he is likely to have been instructed to give his version of events.

Yet Aviello's story will be used by Knox's lawyers to form a vital part of their appeal against her conviction for murder, which begins in October this year. It will be produced by her defence team, not necessarily because they believe what he says, but because they are supremely grateful to him for inadvertently highlighting the laxness of the first trial.

Three times during the course of the murder investigation and subsequent trial, Aviello wrote to the court and the presiding judge, offering his account. He claimed he could show investigators where the murder weapon was hidden along with a set of keys from the house Knox shared with Meredith.

At the time of the murder, Aviello and his brother - who has since vanished - were indeed living in Perugia: evidently, the Mafioso's story should have been investigated further by the authorities. His letters should, at the very least, have prompted police to look into the legitimacy of his evidence.

Instead he was ignored, thereby providing Knox's defence team with crucial confirmation of the court's partiality: in effect, it had decided that she was guilty before the trial was even completed.

So Knox's appeal will not merely be an examination of her and Sollecito, but a rigorous scrutiny of a profoundly flawed judicial system and its palpable inability to produce a verdict that stands any degree of scrutiny.

 

[Mrs.Columbo]

Most of the law enforcement people I have known over the years are not so touchy and sensitive as to feel calunniazated by an accusation like this unless they were personally accused of wrong doing. It is piling on, in my opinion.

Were each of the 12 interrogated for 40 plus hours over 4 or 5 days? I wonder if they sent any text messages to each other during the days of the interviews?
It would be interesting to ask why so many officers were there and why they were there.

I agree, I dont think they would have been too touchy, also. Every witness - innocent or not - is nervous and agitated and they know this an must be able to handle such situations. (they are trained for this, too).

But on the other side as they have been confronted with this accusation repeatedly in the media all over the world, (and with Ms. Knox' parents still talking about how her daughter was physically and psychically 'abused') - hence the Police are forced to take action against - to restore their reputation.

**
Regarding the 40 hours+ interrogation - as far as I know from this case, Ms.Knox was very eager to help the police and many of this interrogations have happened on her own free will. I think she wrote about this (in her e-mail?) - I have noticed this, but in the moment I do not know excactly where. So one can hardly blame the police for that.
One the other hand one must consider, that because of the language difficulties every interrogation would last much longer as normal (with a native italian speaker).

 

[Fulcanelli]

This was explained when we were discussing group slander. All the police officers who were at the police station that night can be identified, because they were part of the team working on the murder. That does not mean they were all involved in the interrogation: it only means that they can be damaged by an accusation precisely because no-one specific was named.

In this country there is a rather arbitrary cut off at 25:though it is not binding. It may not be the same in Italy,but an example in this country concerns a sales force. I am afraid I cannot remember all the details now but the gist is that someone said of this sales force that some of the blokes were pansies and some of the women were whores (that kind of insult: not saying it was exactly that). In that case both the men and the women tried to bring suit for defamation. The men were able to do that because there were only 25 of them and that was held to be a small enough number that they would all be tarred by the slur. The women could not do it because there were about 300 of them: so it was held that "some" did not place any individual in the frame of the insult.

The record of the interrogation shows three police officers in the room plus the interpreter. That was stated in court by Mignini: accept it or don't. Knox does not specify how many in her testimony: as ever her wording is vague. If you look at it she does not even tie her statements, about there being a lot at some points, to that night: it covers all her interviews (or I read it that way): and we know that there were a lot of officers after the body was discovered, for example.

It makes no sense to start an interview with a load of people in the room: and that is not what happens in my experience. It may be different in Italy, but I doubt it. Too many people means you are less likely to get information, just as it does in any situation when a lot of people are talking at once. But it is quite likely that people came and went: for example the information that RS had changed his story had to be conveyed and that would have meant at least one more person came in. I have no idea what more might have needed to be passed on

But the point is that if this is like the UK the fact that 12 brought suit does NOT mean that 12 were involved in the interrogation

Yes, you've nailed it. Throughout the course of the questioning, for various reasons, different police officers were entering and leaving the room. The questioning however, was being conducted by three officers with the help of the interpretor. As such, all those who entered the room at any point feel they also have been tarred by Amanda's accusations and so are taking action.


It has also been asked here why so many officers involved in the case were there that night and has been suggested that it was in preparation to interrogate Amanda all night (which is a nonsense, for as far as they were concerned, they going to question her anyway, but Raffaele and they were done with Amanda at 1:45 anyway). The fact is, the police in Perugia were taking this very seriously. Not only had a girl been sexually attacked and murdered in her own home, the killer/s were still on the loose. Therefore, the police were working around the clock on the case. Some also may not have gone home as early as they may have, because they were waiting for Raffaele to show up.

 

[Fulcanelli]

Amanda's testimony is read differently depending on what side you are on. Much of it can be interpreted in different ways. Her hand written note does nothing to confirm her signed statements. It is a retraction. When she wrote it, she was still exhausted and still confused from everything she was told and from being up all night. She had very little rest in between.

The police were well aware of the fact that Amanda would be at the station on the night of the 5th. Amanda may have been confused about this point but there is no way that so many officers would have been available on any given night. It is also disputed what time her interrogation initially began. It would not take long to get a 20 year old to comply with your orders. 1 2 or 3 hours really doesn't make any difference. One hour would have been plenty of time. If you read Amanda's testimony, it is very clear that she was told what to believe.

After all of that, she signed a statement that made no sense. This often happens during interrogations like this. You get completely unreliable information.

With this unreliable information, the police ran out and arrested an innocent man. People on this board that believe Amanda is guilty won't even admit that this was poor police work.

I don't know why you persist with this nonsense. Amanda stated in her note that she stood by what she said about Patrick the previous night. It most certainly was not a retraction. What it was, was a very deliberate attempt to muddy the waters and to cover her backside because she knew the police would eventually find out that what she had said regarding Patrick wasn't true. I can also understand, if that's what she like under questioning, full of wishy-washy non-answers, weasel words, obfuscation, avoidance and general obstruction, one can very easily see why the police may well have lost patience and raised their voices and became suspicious.

If they could force her to 'confess' in one hour, why had that not happened in the supposed previous 50 + hours of questioning she had undergone? The answer is simple. Raffaele had dropped her alibi and told police she had left him that evening to go to Le Chic. Subsequently, they also found the text message she had sent.

It wasn't poor police work at all. These sort of comments come from people who don't understand the first thing about police work. They HAD to do it, they had no choice...a direct accusation of his committing the murder had been made.