On the date 5 November 2007, at 22.40, Sollecito, Raffaele, was again interviewed, modifying his version of the facts, affirming that on the evening of 1 November, after [page 7] Meredith had left the house, he lingered on with Knox, Amanda, up until 18.00 when the pair of them left the apartment to go into the [town] centre, around 20.30 – 21.00 Knox distancing herself saying she was going to go to the Le Chic pub to meet up with friends while he himself went back to his house, that at 23.00 he had received a phone call from his father on the fixed line, that he occupied himself on the computer for another two hours rolling a joint, that the ragazza had come back probably around 1 [am], that then both of them woke up at 10.00 when Amanda had gone out of the house to go back to via della Pergola, rebutting therefore what he had previously declared and justifying such conduct on the premise that it had been Knox to convince him to refer to untrue circumstances.
On her side, Knox, Amanda, on 6 November 2007, first at 1.45, then at 5.45, declared to the Public Prosecutor that on Thursday 1 November 2007, at 20.30, while she was at the house of Sollecito, Raffaele, she had received a message on her cell phone sent by a Patrick, manager of Le Chic pub, where she herself was working, by which the aforesaid [=Patrick] advised her that that night the local was going to stay shut and that therefore she did not need to go, the same [=Amanda] responding to him that they would meet up later, therefore left the house telling Sollecito that she was going to work while, on the contrary, she took herself to the basketball courts in Piazza Grimana; here she met Patrick, with whom she went back to the via della Pergola apartment, where she could not remember whether Meredith was already there or if the same [=Meredith] had joined them a short while later, adding however that, notwithstanding the confused memories arising from the hashish afternoon, Patrick took Meredith aside, with whom he had taken a fancy to, into her bedroom where they were having sex, that she could not remember whether the latter [=Meredith] had been menaced first but that it had been Patrick to kill her; specifying that in those moments she could not attest to hearing Meredith scream insofar as she was so frightened she blocked her ears, imagining what could have been happening.
She referred, further, to not being sure whether Sollecito, Raffaele, was also present but the morning after she found herself once again asleep in her boyfriend’s house on his bed; she then confirmed the declaration already made [page 8] pertaining to the unfolding of events from 10.00 in the morning, when she woke up, up until the arrival of the Polizia Postale.
It was at this moment that Knox Amanda and Sollecito Raffaele lost their status as “persons informed of the facts” to themselves becoming suspects; it must be noted on this point that it was on the 6 November [that] the seizure occurred of a pair of gymnastic shoes, Nike brand size 42 and a half, and of a black-coloured flick-knife with a blade-length of 8.5cm and width 2cm, the property of Sollecito Raffaele, as seen from the respective transcript in the tendered documents, notwithstanding the result of an initial verification carried out at the crime scene in reference to the shoeprints therein discovered, a verification from which there emerges a clear compatibility between said prints and those relating to the shoes of said Sollecito.
In fact, at the base of the finds made by the Polizia Scientifica, underneath the doona/duvet that was covering Meredith’s body, three shoe prints were found, of which one, as marked in the technical report of 6 November 2007 with the letter “A”, the only one that it was possible to analyse insofar as the others were characterised by an absolute indefiniteness in their characteristics, resulted as compatible in shape and size with the soles of the shoes seized at Sollecito Raffaele’s, insomuch as in those reports one reads, “the shoes seized at Sollecito Raffaele’s could have produced the shoe print (letter A) discovered on the occasion of the [crime scene] inspection”.
It is evident in light of this new situation that the declarations made by Sollecito Raffaele and Knox Amanda cannot be used in the confrontations with the same, in the senses covered by article CPP 63(2), but may be continued to be used in reference insomuch as each of them referred to the other and to third parties, insomuch as it is a matter of declarations otherwise made at a time in which the aforesaid [=Amanda and Raffaele] were solely persons informed of the facts and not persons subject to investigation, for which the altered situation of the declarant cannot void the validity of the documents previously examined, also applying the principle of the preservation of procedural documentation and of the general rule of tempus regit actum (Cass. pen. sen. III, 1 April 2004, n 15476; Cass. pen. sen. VI, 4 June 2003 n 24180).
[page 9] From which it follows that the declarations made in the period by Knox Amanda, as a person informed of the facts, may be used both to confront Sollecito Raffaele and to confront Diya Lumunda [=Lumumba], and in their turn the declarations of Sollecito Raffaele can be used to confront Knox Amanda.
This aspect being clarified, it is [now] possible to take cognizance that Sollecito Raffaele, at the review hearing, affirmed having spent the entire night of the 1st and 2nd November with Knox Amanda having made a return to his house around the time 20.00 – 20.30, of having dined with the ragazza, of having become aware of the arrival of messages on the ragazza’s cell phone, of having known from the same [=Amanda] that that night she was not required to go to work at the Le Chic pub, as had been communicated by means of an SMS sent to her cell phone, and of having therefore gone to sleep together to wake the morning after around 10.00 when Amanda was going out to go back to via della Pergola to take a shower; during the course of the same declarations, he added, on the contrary, that he could not remember whether Knox had left or not but re-asserted, however, not having left the house, having remained in front of the computer, as well as having received a phone call from his father at the time of 23.00, a telephone call that shortly afterwards he specified he could not remember whether he had in actuality received or whether he had referred to having received it, to corroborate the circumstances surrounding his permanence in the house.
Just as it is possible to take cognizance that Sollecito furnished yet another version with respect to that given earlier, as relating to the conduct carried out by Knox on the night of 1st and 2nd November, attributing the cause of such behaviour to the influence exercised on the same [=Raffaele] by the ragazza in the wake of the declarations by her rendered in the immediate [presence] of the Polizia Postale, declarations that, contrariwise, the aforesaid [=Amanda] had never made to the Polizia Postale agents arriving on the spot, due to her difficulty in speaking and understanding Italian, as, on the other side, was likewise specified by the same Sollecito.
Knox Amanda for her part, on the date 6 November, during the course of the preceding declarations, referred to Sollecito having spent the entire night with her, affirming to not remembering whether Sollecito [page 10] was present the night of 1st and 2nd November at the via della Pergola apartment together with Patrick, having consumed hashish in the afternoon and having therefore confused memories owing to not usually making use of such substances, but positively confirming that Sollecito was with her that morning after 10.00 having woken up on his bed.
