Continuation Part 4: Discussion of the Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito case

[Kaosium]

The article link below (from today) tells of the possibility/desire of Amanda in returning to Italy to testify on behalf of her parents in their defamation case.

The court will reconvene on March 30 with testimony of five police as witnesses. It has not been determined the date of when (or if) Amanda will testify.

http://www.agi.it/in-primo-piano/no...processo_genitori_knox_amanda_forse_in_italia

There are more articles, many covering the same ground, however, there may be additional information not covered in the article above.

http://news.google.it/news/story?pz...J4zNr-AtC74BsMvpldYgCRxIgn4M&cf=all&scoring=d

This is interesting and possibly very positive news, if she is willing to go back to Italy to testify. I definitely am happy to see they will be contesting this, I hope they note that the Follain article¹ (which I can no longer link as it's behind a paywall but I quote it below from this post) contains a distorted 'translation' in which Amanda's story goes from a brother fighting another to a graphic description of female-on-female rape. This 'translation' is quoted right before her parents give a true account of the story, which he makes them look like liars with imaginary version he produces before it.



¹

"In December 2006 she posted a story on MySpace in which a young woman drugs and rapes another woman. It reads in part: “She fell on the floor, she felt the blood on her mouth and swallowed it. She couldn’t move her jaw and felt as if someone was moving a razor on the left side of her face.” Her family claims to have spoken to the teacher who made her write this as a course assignment. She was told to write everything that happens right up to a crime. Curt says: “Amanda was graded down because the story she wrote wasn’t dark enough. It wasn’t what the teacher wanted.” University authorities have banned staff from talking publicly about Knox." "


From PMF.net:


"Edgar dropped to the floor and tasted the blood in his mouth and swallowed it. He couldn't move his jaw and it felt like someone was jabbing a razor into the left side of his face. His eyes blurred and became focused intermittently and he gently shook this off, watching his hands until they came into focus. He looked up at Kyle and waited a moment to focus there too. Kyle's hands covered his face."

 

[Grinder]

I was rereading this old Daily Mail story headlined 'Foxy Knoxy': I heard Meredith scream... then covered my ears.

This story is datelined November 8, 2007. That is the latest update date so this story was based on information disseminated at latest the morning of the eighth and probably on the 7th.

Amanda and Raffaele "changed their stories" late on the 5th and early on the 6th and Amanda didn't finish her "notes" until the 7th (morning or night?).

This is another area harder to fully appreciate looking back than it was at the time. Most of the material in the story is totally familiar now, but at the time this was new and obviously coming from some sort of inside source. Why was alleged information from these interrogations available to the press before it was presented in court? Even after being presented in court why would a system make this type of information publicly available? The statements were later ruled inadmissible by the Corte Suprema di Cassazione yet they were already public and poisoning the well.

Much of the discourse on the case comes of this article and others of the same time period.

Some quotes from the article:

Police last night took away a flick knife with a three-inch blade from the home of Sollecito, compatible with the wound to Miss Kercher's throat. It will be tested for blood and fingerprints.

How little the PGP discuss the above or...

The post-mortem examination on Miss Kercher's body has already revealed that the wound to her throat was likely to have been caused by a penknife.

The PGP say that information about the changing stories and the "confession" should be believed but apparently a penknife can grow into a large kitchen knife (but DNA can't be deposited except during a murder ).

Police believe that the cut was most likely made by a man, because of the depth.
Yesterday the suspects were being held in isolation in prison, ahead of an appearance before a magistrate this morning when they may be charged.
All three of the accused appear to be denying responsibility for the crime - and also appear to be blaming each other.
Extracts from statements made by Knox and Sollecito to police revealed convoluted and contradictory accounts of her final hours.

One must wonder how the press knew all this and it is important to note that they were held in isolation and weren't allowed to see an attorney before their hearing which makes the following quote perplexing:

His lawyer Tiziano Tedeschi said: "The possible hypothesis is that being with a beautiful girl he allowed himself to be drawn into giving her an alibi."
Lumumba, who has been a well-known and popular figure in Perugia for a decade, was heard shouting "I'm innocent" as he was arrested by police.
Police chief Arturo De Felice said that the three had continually changed their stories and that things just 'didn't add up'.

How would the lawyer have any idea and why would the press ask a lawyer that had never met Raffaele about his alleged leaked statements?

The ILE clearly leaked this material. This had nothing to do with press misconduct as has come out in Britain. The ILE spoiled the investigation from day one and allowed Rudy to read a play by play as he kicked back in Germany. Any accomplice of Rudy (Kokomani?) would also be able to keep up with all the details being leaked.

Even for me, one that read the linked story the day it came out, reading today makes me mad and makes it clear that the ILE releasing information that should be a crime. Even if the kids did it, releasing the interrogation characterizations (couldn't have been the audio or video recordings could it ) spoiled any chance for a fair trial. I think it is important for those arguing today to go back in time and see where the data come from.

 

[el buscador]

I was rereading this old Daily Mail story headlined 'Foxy Knoxy': I heard Meredith scream... then covered my ears.

This story is datelined November 8, 2007. That is the latest update date so this story was based on information disseminated at latest the morning of the eighth and probably on the 7th.

Amanda and Raffaele "changed their stories" late on the 5th and early on the 6th and Amanda didn't finish her "notes" until the 7th (morning or night?).

This is another area harder to fully appreciate looking back than it was at the time. Most of the material in the story is totally familiar now, but at the time this was new and obviously coming from some sort of inside source. Why was alleged information from these interrogations available to the press before it was presented in court? Even after being presented in court why would a system make this type of information publicly available? The statements were later ruled inadmissible by the Corte Suprema di Cassazione yet they were already public and poisoning the well.

Much of the discourse on the case comes of this article and others of the same time period.

Some quotes from the article:



How little the PGP discuss the above or...

The PGP say that information about the changing stories and the "confession" should be believed but apparently a penknife can grow into a large kitchen knife (but DNA can't be deposited except during a murder ).



One must wonder how the press knew all this and it is important to note that they were held in isolation and weren't allowed to see an attorney before their hearing which makes the following quote perplexing:



How would the lawyer have any idea and why would the press ask a lawyer that had never met Raffaele about his alleged leaked statements?

The ILE clearly leaked this material. This had nothing to do with press misconduct as has come out in Britain. The ILE spoiled the investigation from day one and allowed Rudy to read a play by play as he kicked back in Germany. Any accomplice of Rudy (Kokomani?) would also be able to keep up with all the details being leaked.

Even for me, one that read the linked story the day it came out, reading today makes me mad and makes it clear that the ILE releasing information that should be a crime. Even if the kids did it, releasing the interrogation characterizations (couldn't have been the audio or video recordings could it ) spoiled any chance for a fair trial. I think it is important for those arguing today to go back in time and see where the data come from.

Look at what is happening in the Concordia story. Everything is being leaked. I'm getting the idea that this is business as usual in Italy.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

True enough, however in this case a significant portion of the forensics was actually collected by a team lead by Stefanoni, so the lab personnel ought to be 'implicated' regardless. This one they were using to try to deflect all claims of contamination, and it was Hellmann's comment at the end which according to Frank Sfarzo took all the wind out of Comodi's sails. I never did understand entirely what that was about, how the prosecution could ever think a 'six day gap' would do anything for certain and somehow erase all the rest of the falsifiers regarding the knife. (especially)

This is yet more grasping at straws. In the first place, there's no reason a six-day gap in testing would magically eliminate the possibility of contamination at the level of a hundred picograms. People who think that way are not aware of what is going on in the real world of forensic DNA labs. They don't want to know. They avoid considering this information because it undermines their quasi-religious beliefs about this case.

Beyond that, those who grasp at straws - seizing on isolated scraps of alleged testimony, supposed weaknesses in the source material used by C&V, etc. - completely ignore the actual findings presented in the report. When C&V finally obtained the quantification test result for sample 36B, they found it showed no measurable DNA in the sample. Stefanoni lied about this in her lab report, and she lied about it in her testimony. So, whatever showed up in the e-gram is not from the sample, but from contamination.

And of course this is why she stonewalled the defense for years and tried to stonewall C&V, only to hand over her data with great reluctance after Hellmann intervened and demanded that she do so.

 

[Grinder]

"Knox orchestrated a rape prank where a bunch of guys in ski masks with knives terrorised her friends and threatened to rape them" was a pretty good one as well. It turned out it started with one anonymous and never-corroborated claim in the comments thread of an unrelated article, then got repeated all over the internet.

The original version didn't even mention knives or sexual assault. Those aspects of the rumour seem to have been added on by guilters to make the rumour juicier.

Ah yes, the rape prank. Not only was the comment left by a person that claimed only to know a person that knew Knox but he refused when contacted by the "administrator" to give that person's name. Even though no one ever came forward to substantiate the story the PGP have continued to use this tall tale as a major part of their desperate attempts to concoct a story that fits facts even they must admit are true.

For anybody interested in the genesis of this story go here and search for Joh. If you are still hungry for more, go to here to see more on the poster.

I will say that this hasn't played the major part for the general public's opinion as the bloody bathroom picture did.

 

[Bill Williams]

The ILE clearly leaked this material. This had nothing to do with press misconduct as has come out in Britain. The ILE spoiled the investigation from day one and allowed Rudy to read a play by play as he kicked back in Germany. Any accomplice of Rudy (Kokomani?) would also be able to keep up with all the details being leaked.

Even for me, one that read the linked story the day it came out, reading today makes me mad and makes it clear that the ILE releasing information that should be a crime. Even if the kids did it, releasing the interrogation characterizations (couldn't have been the audio or video recordings could it ) spoiled any chance for a fair trial. I think it is important for those arguing today to go back in time and see where the data come from.

I am not so sure that the earliest of leaks had, "nothing to do with press misconduct as had come out of Britain."

The Surrey police report, as reported a week ago by The Guardian, states that the tabloid press thought of itself as being in a position of bullying the police, "they were so drunk with arrogance." True, this is in relation to a U.K. case, handled by U.K. police, but.......

Would not the editors back home be putting the same kind of pressure on their people in Perugia, pressure to get into the bars where the lawyers and police mingle to get a story? Bully them if you have to, offer cash for a story if you have to, show them how, "we in the British press can make or break them with a single headline," if you have to....

But I will give you this. It was the police controling the myth that AK and RS kept changing their stories and kept lying. Nothing could be further from the truth - both AK and RS were simply trying to adapt, wrongly and naively, to what police were telling them when they were being held in isolation!

Meaning: Knox only ever entertained the idea that Raf might have had something to do with this, because the police had lied to here about Raf chaning his story. Then they lied to Raf that now Knox was changing her story.

In a sense, the thing that backfired on the police was keeping Knox and Raf in isolation. The only people left who COULD massage their stories, were the police themselves, with the help of a rabid press.

The record that comes from Knox and Sollecito themselves is clear - from Nov 2 to Nov 5, there story was clear. From the end of their isolation to Oct 3, 2011, that story remained unchanged.

It was ONLY in the Nov 6, 2007, to the "end of their isolation" period, that the large brushstrokes of their stories varies at all. And that is when the cops are playing them off against each other.

Actually, I have nothing against cops playing suspects off against each other. But the compelling issue here is, four years later and Knox and Raf are essentially telling exactly the same story as they'd told Nov 2 to 5th, despite efforts large and small to get them to change.

This is what I do not get about the group of guilters who say, "I still think of them as guilty, look at all the lies they told, and look at how many times they changed their stories."

I've looked. That meme simply is not there. It's an invention.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

This is interesting and possibly very positive news, if she is willing to go back to Italy to testify. I definitely am happy to see they will be contesting this, I hope they note that the Follain article¹ (which I can no longer link as it's behind a paywall

Here's a pdf:

http://www.friendsofamanda.org/miscellaneous/times_online_06_15_08.pdf

 

[Chris_Halkides]

ILE should have kept quiet

The ILE clearly leaked this material. This had nothing to do with press misconduct as has come out in Britain. The ILE spoiled the investigation from day one and allowed Rudy to read a play by play as he kicked back in Germany. Any accomplice of Rudy (Kokomani?) would also be able to keep up with all the details being leaked.

Even for me, one that read the linked story the day it came out, reading today makes me mad and makes it clear that the ILE releasing information that should be a crime. Even if the kids did it, releasing the interrogation characterizations (couldn't have been the audio or video recordings could it ) spoiled any chance for a fair trial. I think it is important for those arguing today to go back in time and see where the data come from.

(highlighting mine)
Grinder,

That is an important point. It is one of many reasons I wish that someone would have enforced Italy's subjudice laws.

 

[Grinder]

Bill,

The Daily Mail had stringers there and I very much doubt that in a couple of days they had the police making stuff up. I'm sure that the Mail would pay for stories and would encourage people to be creative. I doubt the Seattle cop told them it looked like Beirut or Baghdad when he showed up at Amanda's party house but that's what they wrote.

Do we have an Italian speaker that could tell us what the Italian papers were writing?

 

[Arthur Wilson]

I know you already know this, but I'm going to spell it out. What Follain was doing there was two things. He wanted people to see the story Amanda wrote as an indication of her perversity making her guilt seem more plausible. Secondly, as you say, he wanted to make out her parents to be liars. It was they who softened the story not he who changed it. In another Sunday Times arcticle Follain said that Meredith Kercher's blood was found on the blade of the knife. In his book he says that the footprint on the bath mat certainly belongs to Sollecito. Those are not mistakes and not in any way untypical of the man.

 

[christianahannah]

Christianahannah,

So far this is all that I have found. Massei, p. 261, “On this point, Dr. Sarah Gino also complained about the missing indications of the dates on which the various examinations were carried out, an element that – she observed – would have been useful to better evaluate the contamination hypothesis precisely from this perspective.” In other words, the defense did not have the testing dates in the trial of first instance. Do you have a link to the work files? Thanks.

I think the defense did receive most of the work files (SAL records) in June or July of 2009 by order of the court. I am not so certain that there are dates missing as that the dates are carried over from one SAL record to another if several specimens were tested on the same date. When Gino resumed testimony in September of 2009, did she testify that she was still in question about the examinations? Or was she able to piece together what she had questions about in prior testimony?

 

[Grinder]

Perhaps the most important press transgression was not proactive but rather myopic

The press never asked the police how they knew what was correct before.the Amanda statement of Nov. 5/6. Imagine they had pressed the chief and others to disclose the source of their knowledge of how the crime had occurred. Obviously, the police couldn't say that the information couldn't be released as they were releasing quotes from the interrogation and the notes Amanda provided. The police were giving the press all sorts of information.

Imagine that they had detailed their thinking on the text messages and the fact that Patrick's alibi started at 10:30 which they claimed wasn't good enough because they were convinced the murder had occurred earlier. Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in while .

Much of what has been fleshed out by the PIP or PNGP people could have been written within days or weeks of the crime if the press had done its job.

The night of the interrogation should have been questioned as soon as the chief said case closed and indicated they had questioned her until "she buckled and told us what we knew to be correct."

If the press had shown how wrong the police were before they released Patrick, the entire "she accused an innocent black man" meme would have only been played on sites that still believe in the "bloody bathroom."

 

[christianahannah]

Hi, Christiana! Welcome back to posting!

Hello to you, also.

True enough, however in this case a significant portion of the forensics was actually collected by a team lead by Stefanoni, so the lab personnel ought to be 'implicated' regardless. This one they were using to try to deflect all claims of contamination, and it was Hellmann's comment at the end which according to Frank Sfarzo took all the wind out of Comodi's sails. I never did understand entirely what that was about, how the prosecution could ever think a 'six day gap' would do anything for certain and somehow erase all the rest of the falsifiers regarding the knife. (especially)

Was Stefanoni or part of her team in charge of collecting the knife? When you mention Stefanoni's team do you mean those personnel from Rome?

I would have to go back to prior testimony but I thought that Stefanoni came later to the cottage crime scene and took over the collection process but with the local police to help.

I always got the feeling that Frank did not blame Stefanoni for whatever may or may not have happened to evidence during the collection process. But maybe I read him wrong.

Of course they weren't making a whole lot of sense at the end with the sex-change bribery 'allegations' (anyone heard more about that from Bongiorno?) and whatever that one guy with the conspiracies was talking about--he lost me eventually, sometime around when he got to the 'cat lady' part.




I think you're right come to think of it. For some reason they musta thought they'd 'eliminated' that possibility some other way.

I don't think the same as you - I just think they were eliminating contamination occurring at the Rome lab. Was the discussion of testing gaps/contamination applying to both the knife evidence and the bra clasp evidence?

 

[Bill Williams]

Bill,

The Daily Mail had stringers there and I very much doubt that in a couple of days they had the police making stuff up. I'm sure that the Mail would pay for stories and would encourage people to be creative. I doubt the Seattle cop told them it looked like Beirut or Baghdad when he showed up at Amanda's party house but that's what they wrote.

Do we have an Italian speaker that could tell us what the Italian papers were writing?

Sun journalists and police officer arrested in corruption investigationMet police search News International's headquarters in Wapping as four current and former Sun employees are arrested

I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg - and, no, I cannot prove it, but I will bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in your pocket that within a year or two some Perugian police officer will be so charged.

How we'll keep track of the money in our pockets until then is only a small detail.

And if you at all believe the Surrey police report reported earlier in the Guardian, part of what journalists were doing was shaping, directing, influencing and bullying the police towards certain ends. Yes, "bullying" the police.

That is the nature of the scandal, and the nature of the arrogance of the British press, which is only now being exposed. The Kercher murder coverage was at the height of this, and I, for one, believe that Vogt, Nadeau, and Pisa used the tools at their disposal..... Foxy Knoxy had been dropped in their lap like manna from heaven.

They only had to establish a feedback loop into a medieval Prosecutor's mind, and "Bob's yer uncle."

They had the added benefit of reporting from Italy, where the accused's rights were not guaranteed as if they'd been charged back in the U.K. I think the three of them smelled "upward mobility" in their careers.....

Is it now farfetched to think they were driving Mignini towards the Foxy Knoxy myth?

If you think that is farfetched - how would all the money in your pocket have fared if 5 years ago I'd have told you that News of the World would be out of business and Rupert Murdoch would be sheepish?

 

[Bill Williams]

I am recanting on calunnia. I no longer agree with Hellman-Zanetti and Massei on Knox's conviction for calunnia towards Patrick Lumumba. That anyone cares what I believe is also a mystery!

Peter Quennell and Peggy Ganong have done a mountain of work supplying the world with an English translation of CNN's May 6, 2011, two hour interview with Mignini. Whereas Quennell and Ganong mean the two-hour transcript to prove that Magnini is a nice and thoughtful, honest guy - actually reading it gie (me) a totally different perception.

He's a bigger weasel than I'd thought. How Quennell and Ganong can read this and think he was simply a "transcriber of Amanda Knox's spontaneous declarations" pushes the limits of credulity, and makes me reach for words which will be banned by the JREF moderators.

See: http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index...w With Mignini That CNN SHOULD Have Reflected

Along with this, I can no longer hold to Amanda Knox's conviction on calunnia, as I have until reading Magnini's OWN account of the 1:45-5:45 am interrogation. He says in effect that he only made transcripts of her free and spontaneous declarations, like a notary would.

No wonder the Italian Supreme Court ruled this illegal.... if you believe Mignini, as do Quennell and Ganong, I have a bridge in Manhattan I'd like to sell you.....

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I think the defense did receive most of the work files (SAL records) in June or July of 2009 by order of the court. I am not so certain that there are dates missing as that the dates are carried over from one SAL record to another if several specimens were tested on the same date. When Gino resumed testimony in September of 2009, did she testify that she was still in question about the examinations? Or was she able to piece together what she had questions about in prior testimony?

Why do you think C&V's report was delayed last spring? Why were they complaining that they didn't have all the necessary data, if it had been released way back in 2009?

 

[Grinder]

Is it now farfetched to think they were driving Mignini towards the Foxy Knoxy myth?

If you think that is farfetched - how would all the money in your pocket have fared if 5 years ago I'd have told you that News of the World would be out of business and Rupert Murdoch would be sheepish?

And if I had told you 12 years ago GW Bush was going to be president or 6 years ago I'd have told you Obama would be president or if...

Really an uninteresting line of argument for me.

Knox clearly was a suspect before the British tabs began their coverage. Mignini had the sex party/orgy/satanic ritual idea almost immediately.

What exactly are you betting the British tabs paid the ILE to say? They really don't need to get real quotes or real facts - remember the appeal court finds Knox guilty story? If they had the kind of power wouldn't they have known the result ahead of time.

You need to be much more specific about what you imagine could have happened.

 

[Grinder]

Here's a fascinating early report from Nov. 3, 2007:

A British student murdered in Italy may have invited the killer into her home, police investigating her death now believe.
Officers think Meredith Kercher, 21, left three flatmates to go home alone after watching a film on the night she was murdered because she had arranged to see a man she had met the previous night at a Hallowe'en party.

Police said last night there were indications that she had sex before she was stabbed in the neck. Her attacker locked the bedroom door before fleeing the house and dumping her two mobile phones in a nearby garden.

Pietro Campolongo, a fellow student at the university, said he had warned Meredith never to be at home alone.
"I knew Meredith and her friends. I know Meredith met someone on Hallowe'en and this guy persuaded her to stay in Perugia rather than go back to one of her friend's houses. We think it was he who persuaded her to open the door on Thursday. I warned her about this. I warned her a thousand times. Girls should never stay at home alone."

I doubt Rudy was reading this in the English language press. Once again, do the Italian readers know if the Italian press had the same story.

Other early stories also refer to Meredith as a party girl. The above story mentions regular bar attendance. It definitely is the case that as time went by those references no longer appeared in stories.

I would be fascinated as to how the PGP would explain the date she had planned part of the story. The story above is from the Telegraph not the Sun, btw.

 

[HumanityBlues]

So 180,000 euro spent on a crappy video. Can we cut the "budget cut" crap now? Thanks.

 

[Grinder]

I am recanting on calunnia. I no longer agree with Hellman-Zanetti and Massei on Knox's conviction for calunnia towards Patrick Lumumba. That anyone cares what I believe is also a mystery!

Peter Quennell and Peggy Ganong have done a mountain of work supplying the world with an English translation of CNN's May 6, 2011, two hour interview with Mignini. Whereas Quennell and Ganong mean the two-hour transcript to prove that Magnini is a nice and thoughtful, honest guy - actually reading it gie (me) a totally different perception.

He's a bigger weasel than I'd thought. How Quennell and Ganong can read this and think he was simply a "transcriber of Amanda Knox's spontaneous declarations" pushes the limits of credulity, and makes me reach for words which will be banned by the JREF moderators.

See: http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index...w With Mignini That CNN SHOULD Have Reflected

Along with this, I can no longer hold to Amanda Knox's conviction on calunnia, as I have until reading Magnini's OWN account of the 1:45-5:45 am interrogation. He says in effect that he only made transcripts of her free and spontaneous declarations, like a notary would.

No wonder the Italian Supreme Court ruled this illegal.... if you believe Mignini, as do Quennell and Ganong, I have a bridge in Manhattan I'd like to sell you.....

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!

I knew you'd come to the right opinion