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

[anglolawyer]

I don't think so. But you can get a look at them if you Google them. I think the Octopus is particularly nice.

I google Octopus and I get your yacht? Wow.

 

[acbytesla]

I google Octopus and I get your yacht? Wow.

If only...

They don't call it the Supertanker for nothing.

 

[Bill Williams]

Must I waste my genius on these people?

I have said, over and over again until I am blue in the face, it is not a question of either they thought she was guilty or they tried to frame her. Please try to break out of your comfortable middle class world of condos and yachts and look at these people!

I float this theory and challenge you to find one single fact (properly verifiable) which falsifies it. One.*

My theory

The cops believed they had it all figured out when they hauled Raffaele in. Amanda had agreed to meet Lumumba in the area of the square to take him to see Meredith, that's how come there was no sign of a forced entry. Telephone records showed they exchanged texts at a suspicious time and (this part I am hazy about, I think it comes from Matteini) Lumumba's cell phone, one of them, was picked up in the area at the requisite time. That's it. Lumumba called Amanda at the police station on the afternoon/evening of 02 Nov. This will have been picked up. He met her on the morning of 05 Nov to evade telephone surveillance but was seen. Lumumba was black. End of.

The plan was to break Raffaele because the cops knew he was providing the whore with a false alibi. That's all they wanted from him. That worked and then they turned on her. That worked too. By 1.45 they had a signed statement with these features:

1 it left Raffaele in the clear
2 it had her meeting Lumumba 'at once' after receiving his text at 8.30 p.m. after lying to Raffaele
3 it recorded his text message as saying no need to come to work because no customers

By 5.45 on these three points anyways they had:

1 Raffaele now implicated
2 there is no longer a lie to Raffaele, instead:
3 there is no longer any reference to Lumumba's text.

Ok - I got hung up on the highlighted part which is my highlighting....

No sign of forced entry! I spewed coffee across the room at that one....

I know what you're going to say... from Battistelli saying, "This is no burglary," to Filomena saying, "This is the stupidest burglar in the world for not actually burgling the place," to all of it being reinterpreted into something more sinister once Meredith's door had been busted down....

One of the complete failures of investigation here is not so much that they left the possibility of a staged break-in open as an investigative line.....

It is that this, then, became the received text and canon of certainty that it was a staged break-in, therefore there is "no sign of forced entry".

Did not one of these geniuses keep open the possiblity that it may have, in fact, been a real forced entry, through Filomena's window?

Did not one person even in confidence go into Mignini's office two weeks later to have a private word, "Say, boss, now that Lumumba's out and Guede is in - shouldn't we at least take a second look at that window and the forensics of Filomena's room to determine whether or not it was staged or real? Shouldn't we at least keep open the possibility?"

Ok, ok, your bit at the top refers to what was going through the investigator's minds in the wee early hours of Nov 6.... I mean, given that Chiacchiera took on the early investigative line of, "Find all of Meredith's boyfriends or even anyone who was seen harrassing her at a party...", and given that it was Chiacchiera who counselled Napoleoni and Mignini to let the kids go and continue to monitor them....

There may HAVE been some who departed from this myopic party-line which developed about the break-in.... much like de Felice gives away the farm by telling reporters that all Knox did was, "buckle, and tell us what we knew already."

Ok, there were some working the very genuine investigative line, but it is only one of at least two (if not more) lines, which suggested that Knox had let the killer in with a key - or at the very least, "the thing that Knox is not telling us," is that she'd misplaced her keys on the night of Nov 1st....

Gad I'm getting tired ending paragraphs with "....." ....

There still is the possibility, as reconstructed by you, that the cops (Napoleoni and Ficarra) were still on a fishing trip with Knox, and the way to get to Knox was to harass Raffaele. That fishing trip could also have included, "Maybe Lumumba had asked for Amanda's keys and she had given them to him," or that the private meeting on the morning of the 5th between them in the square also included, "Patrick, I think I may have left my keys at your bar: have you seen them?"

I believe none of this - but as for investigators who are trying to put a non-forced-entry theory together, they first have to ignore the most obvious aspect of this case. Which is more likely:

1) that the break-in was staged as part of some elaborate plot which includes the equally unlikely story of the transport of one of Raffaele's kitchen knives, which itself matches no forensics at the scene; or,

2) the break-in as is is a real break in; and on the afternoon of Nov 2nd points to an unknown subject, rather than to any of the three under suspicion as Nov 5th develops?​

At this point, five years later, one becomes testy (particularly after an acquittal!) that the break-in itself can be realistically seen on Nov 2nd as anything other than a real break-in - pointing to the most likely investigative line of this case: the whole thing must have been done by someone with the facility to manage a break-in.

The investigative line would have been to round up every cat-burglar in Perugia on Nov 1st, even the ones who had fled the country, and start eliminating them until you got one who matched the forensics in the bedroom. (The ONLY set of forensics!)

How's that for a likely investigative line, rather than one that continues in the assumption that Amanda must have let the killer in? At that point, did anyone ask Filomena if her keys had gone missing? If someone had, then maybe I'd buy that as a legitimate line of inquiry.

 

[anglolawyer]

All noted Bill. But we know what actually happened. They ran a staged burglary case and are still running it, so it's not a great leap to suppose that idea implanted itself very firmly and very early, as Follain writes (and I believe him). And I do not think, just to be clear, the interrogations were a fishing trip. The cops already had their crime theory going into the questioning and modified it to include Raffaele in the middle of the night.

 

[Bill Williams]

All noted Bill. But we know what actually happened. They ran a staged burglary case and are still running it, so it's not a great leap to suppose that idea implanted itself very firmly and very early, as Follain writes (and I believe him). And I do not think, just to be clear, the interrogations were a fishing trip. The cops already had their crime theory going into the questioning and modified it to include Raffaele in the middle of the night.

The problem I am having is that you are suggesting more than that they were myopic. You are also saying that they were stupid.

A.L. - you DO know don't you that they charge people with calunnia over there the way we let snowflakes fall on the ground here in Canada?

 

[anglolawyer]

The problem I am having is that you are suggesting more than that they were myopic. You are also saying that they were stupid.

A.L. - you DO know don't you that they charge people with calunnia over there the way we let snowflakes fall on the ground here in Canada?

And I hope YOU know that if they pick on me I'm taking you all down with me.

Actually, my people have looked into this from all angles and are reasonably confident the chances of batting away a calunnia charge are at least 50/50 so no worries.

 

[LondonJohn]

All noted Bill. But we know what actually happened. They ran a staged burglary case and are still running it, so it's not a great leap to suppose that idea implanted itself very firmly and very early, as Follain writes (and I believe him). And I do not think, just to be clear, the interrogations were a fishing trip. The cops already had their crime theory going into the questioning and modified it to include Raffaele in the middle of the night.

I totally agree. I think the police had "figured out the truth" by the afternoon of the 5th, and that the interrogations of the 5th/6th were specifically designed with the intention of securing a very specific set out outcomes: firstly, to make Sollecito cave in and abandon his alibi for Knox, and then to confront Knox with Sollecito's abandonment plus the mobile phone "evidence", and get her too to cave in.

 

[Bill Williams]

I totally agree. I think the police had "figured out the truth" by the afternoon of the 5th, and that the interrogations of the 5th/6th were specifically designed with the intention of securing a very specific set out outcomes: firstly, to make Sollecito cave in and abandon his alibi for Knox, and then to confront Knox with Sollecito's abandonment plus the mobile phone "evidence", and get her too to cave in.

Think about it. This still does not rule out a fishing trip.

 

[LondonJohn]

Think about it. This still does not rule out a fishing trip.

I agree that there almost certainly was some element of a fishing trip about these interrogations. It's likely that the police hoped that they had trapped Sollecito and Knox sufficiently to make them "buckle" - but that beyond this, they were hoping for Knox and Sollecito to give them far more once the house of cards came crashing down.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Amanda's statement and Mignini's mindset

For me one of the oddest aspects of Amanda’s statements is how she described waking up in Raffaele’s bed without any description of a cleanup or walking back or anything. I previously responded to Cuki777, “You left out what for me is the most bewildering sentence, "I’m not sure if Raffaele was there that evening but I clearly remember waking up at his place, in his bed." She is scared, yet she cannot remember whether Raffaele is there? How did she teleport to Raffaele's bed? What happened in between?”

Nina Burleigh interviewed Mignini, apparently multiple times. “Mignini was also comfortable with the notion that his Catholic church still battles the forces of paganism, and chief among the Church’s traditional pagan foes was an old cult in Italy that revered the fertility goddess Diana… In their confessions about these gatherings, both men and women said that they followed a ‘white goddess’ or a ‘lady of the game’ into the forest at night, where they practiced animal transformations, becoming beasts that could fly, and traveled long distances, entering houses through windows and walls, drinking wine, leaving behind feces, and waking up in their own beds the next morning unsure of how they’d gotten home…For some unclear reason, the game nights traditionally fell on Thursdays.” (The Fatal Gift of Beauty, pp. 217-218; highlighting mine) Perhaps Amanda’s account makes perfect sense if one has a certain perspective.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Upon what basis does this claim rest?

Mignini appears to be thought of quite highly in Perugia and also I have never read either of the defence team joining in with public vilification of him, so no.

CoulsdonUK, Can you document your claim that PM Mignini appears to be highly regarded in Perugia? If not, I suggest you withdraw it.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

I'm not a betting man, but...

Let’s wait and see whether any of the people you and others believe are guilty of wrong doing are ever sent to trial or are professionally censured. Are you aware of either defence team lawyers making any public allegations of Mignini’s conduct as being unlawful?

CoulsdonUK, I think that it is a near-certainty that neither PM Mignini nor any police officer will face trial and professional censure seems unlikely, despite there being ample suggestion of behaviors that are at best unprofessional. Here are my reasons:

One, Mignini knows the system; therefore, he knows how to play the system. I think can run out the clock on the charges against him. Andrea Vogt wrote, “'There are good guarantees and bad guarantees in the system,' explained [Italian legal scholar Stefano] Maffei….For example, Maffei said, Italian attorneys' primary job for decades has been to try to exploit the rules of procedure and evidence to delay long enough for the statute of limitations to be reached and the case to be dismissed. Like in the U.S., in Italy power and wealth can help. Those who are rich or well connected can to hire clever attorneys who know how to find the procedural loopholes and inefficiencies to drag out a case long enough to be dismissed.” Professor Maffei was not being interviewed about PM Mignini at the time, but his comments are general.

Two, in 2008 Amnesty International wrote, “Italy continued to lack an effective police accountability mechanism. There were irregularities in legal processes against law enforcement officials accused of human rights violations.” Every country's LE and judicial systems have problems; this lack of accountability is one of Italy's.

Three, consider the case of Federico Aldrovandi, an unarmed youth whom the police beat to death some years ago (I became a little nauseous looking at the photos). On the one hand his mother faced multiple charges. Frank Sfarzo wrote, "While criticizing the first investigation Patrizia said in an interview to La Nuova Ferrara that at the beginning “the prosecutor’s file was empty”. In response the prosecutor sued her for defamation! 
And a new trial just started, against the defendant Patrizia [Moretti].” On 19 May 2010 Beppe Grillo quoted Federico's mother Patrizia, “A few days ago, I received a notification regarding a court hearing scheduled to take place at the Modena Court, which is the Court with jurisdiction in the matter of the newspaper’s publication of my words. The complaint regards my statement concerning the apparent impunity that these people seem to enjoy and the issue that probably led to the charges was the fact that, at the time, I had referred to these policemen as 'delinquents' because, in my view, anyone who kills is a delinquent, quite obviously, even if he/she wears a uniform, perhaps even more so, indeed, that is an aggravating circumstance!" She continued, “Many complaints have been laid against me over the years. I think that I have collected around ten of them. In my case, I believe that all of these complaints laid against me over the long years were attempts to intimidate me and to prevent people talking about the case, either on the Internet, in the newspapers or using any other medium of communication.”

On the other hand the police officers were treated very leniently. In 2012 Beppe Grillo wrote, “Now the definitive verdict for those who brought about the death of Federico Aldrovandi has been delivered, and they have been found guilty. On 21 June, the Court of Cassation in Rome, sentenced them to three years and six months but they will not have to go to prison because of the Great Pardon. The police officers, however, are still in their jobs. Free to repeat the crime.”

 

[Chris_Halkides]

pot and kettle

It is not a deflection at all. The simple truth is neither defence teams have publicly accused Mignini.

I do understand your difficulty in responding to simple questions, as ever I am happy for anyone to draw their own conclusions.

As you know Frank Sfarzo (Sforza) does have outstanding arrest warrants in the US and legal issues in Italy, if he ever returned to the US he would be arrested where as Mignini if he wished could travel to the US without fear of arrest.

CoulsdonUK, Your previous answer was indeed deflection, and your present one, while stating something that is true, is nevertheless intellectually dishonest. My comment (message #6473) gives a concrete example of a Perugian lawyer avoiding a statement of the obvious, that the police destroyed the data." Please answer the implicit question (now made explicit) that you avoided: "Is there a good reason why a lawyer would not publicly criticize the police or prosecutor even when there is reason to do so?"

I have less information about Frank and his arrest than others here. I have not seen any documents myself, and I consider it a waste of my time to look for them. I am not sure why you would classify not answering a question as a "difficulty," but perhaps I should bow to your greater experience.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

The connection between the Narducci case and the FOA

Please If possible provide the current status of any legal proceedings against Mignini in Florence.

Is Mignini like Raffaele and Amanda innocent until proven guilty or are you applying different legal rulings.

I mention Frank merely to expose how some treat an individual’s legal status differently.

CoulsdonUK, Who are these "some," and what did they say? Your arguments are made of straw, and not for the first time. More importantly, you must have failed to read the links I provided and are therefore failing to understand my argument. The status of the charges brought against PM Mignini depend on many factors other than whether they are valid or not. It is conceivable that the charges are baseless but that a jury would convict him. Conversely it is more likely that the charges are true but that Mignini will throw up enough procedural roadblocks to walk IMO.

Therefore, the most direct way to judge Mignini is to examine his words an actions. Let's start with something that Nini Burleigh wrote, "Before his conviction, the magistrate had begun to see the deviant [Masonic?] cult’s conspiracy in many nooks—maybe even as far away as Seattle, U.S.A. ‘What I am looking for now,’ he said in 2009 during the Knox trial, in one of many hours he spent explaining the complexities of the Narducci conspiracy to me, ‘are the people who know the answer about Narducci. And they might even be someone from the Friends of Amanda Knox…In both cases, there are desperate people, and I can see them doing stupid things.’” (The Fatal Gift of Beauty, p. 165)

An Italian Publication Panorama Magazine wrote, "You're my enemy? Then I will indict you....From December 2005 to May 2006 a file was created and added to entitled “Attacks to Remember”, in which there is another file: “Orgy of Attacks Following the Arrest of Spezi; an index of newspapers: Libero, Il Giornale, Oggi.” Following that is a long list of people “To Remember” that consisted of the names of some of the most prominent judges involved in the case of the Monster of Florence, a long list of politicians, among which could be found the ex-mayor of Florence, Leonardo Domenici, the deputy mayor Michele Venturo and the Minister of the Environment Altero Matteoli, all of whom signed a petition of solidarity protesting Spezi’s incarceration."

Joe Cottonwood was the subject of one of Mignini's lawsuits for writing, "Here is Joe's quote that won him the honors of a Magnini lawsuit: "The Meredith Kercher murder is one of those mirrors that reflects the prejudices of whoever is looking into it. There is no physical evidence and no credible motive, and yet an egotistical prosecutor is blaming Amanda Knox anyway. In the USA, this would only happen if she were black. Perhaps partying American college kids are so hated in Italy that Amanda will be treated as blacks are treated in the USA, and she will be convicted not because of the evidence but because of general resentment of shallow rich Americans. Personally, from what I've read I don't like Amanda Knox. She sounds spoiled, naive, and shallow. But that's not a crime. I loathe the prosecutor, who has a counterpart in every city in the USA - a preening, intellectually dishonest bully who cares more about making newspaper headlines than in serving justice. It's the same all over the world. Power and prejudice are the enemies of justice."

Was PM Mignini under any obligation to bring this and other lawsuits? Are these the actions of one who believes that the news media and the blogosphere form a fourth estate, with a vital role in bringing sunshine (said to be the best of disinfectants by Brandeis) to the workings of government? Or do these many suits demonstrate that Mr. Cottonwood had a point?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

abuse of office

ETA - sorry Chris for not going to your link before posting. Do you remember what they were charged with?

Grinder, From this link: "The end result: on January 22 the Tribunale of Florence convicted the magistrate and the chief inspector for abuse of office.

According to the verdict of conviction (the two men received respectively a year and six months and a year and four months in prison, beyond a ban on holding public office), the two, in 2006, illegally investigated certain journalists, the police chief of Florence Giuseppe De Donno and two high officials of the Viminale [the Ministry of the Interior in Rome]."

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Sabrina Misseri and Sarah Scazzi

One thing you can't take issue with are Frank's posts . There for all to read and pass judgment on .

Briars, I agree. His posts on this case and the Misseri case have been filled with valuable reporting.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Rudy and the prosecutors

To be honest Frank is a mere sideshow and of little interest to me apart from the discomfort he causes in certain quarters (tick tick, boom).

CoulsdonUK,

Thanks for the clarification. I'll be thinking of your droll response the next time someone brings up the notion that Meredith has been forgotten. On the other hand, my view is that one of the saddest aspects of this case is this: In seeking to blame Amanda and Raffaele, the prosecutor made up a story that minimized the role of the actual perpetrator. A passage in Follain's book indicate that PM Mignini felt sorry for Guede without believing him (pp. 233-234). The unappealing fruit of the prosecutors' beliefs and actions is a sentence for Guede that is lighter than it should have been.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

several additional corrections

Halides1

Thank you for the link to Injustice in Perugia (IIP).

The Florentine court has actually invalidated the entire judicial process against Mignini and Giuttari, charges, preliminary trial and first level verdict! I am surprised given your usual thoroughness that you were not aware of this.

The rest of the information on link is simply out of date allegations. I ask again are you aware of any formal charges raised against Mignini by Raffaele or Amanda’s defence team or any of the people on the IIP link?

CoulsdonUK, Your description of the status of this case rests uneasily when set beside Grinder's. Why did you use an exclamation point? Grinder's description (that it was thrown out for being in the wrong jurisdiction) tallies with what I had heard but for which I had no link at the time. Mary_H's account was not news to me, but I was not sure whether or not it had been told to me in confidence, so obviously I could not share it.

From the link which I previously provided: "It is important to keep in mind that the Florentine judge in this case imposed a heavier sentence than what was asked for, which came as a huge surprise to even Mignini himself. A judge handing out a stronger sentence than asked for is extremely rare in Italy and serves as an incredibly strong condemnation of Mignini's illegal behavior (though under Italian law he is still presumed innocent until he has exhausted his appeals---as are Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito)." This last sentence rebuts another false argument you trotted out. You didn't actually look at this link, did you? If you had, you would have seen that it contained a lengthy list of PM Mignini's own lawsuits; therefore, your description is faulty. The charges he brought and his own words are a more direct indication who he is than the charges against him are. Your other question has already been asked and answered.

 

[anglolawyer]

In Honor Bound at Location 846 - the cops asked R whether A had gone out that night 'on the spur of the moment'. This was before the questioning of Amanda began.

Can anyone explain why the cops would be asking Raffaele this before 'discovering' the exchange of texts with Lumumba?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

real versus official explanation

In Honor Bound at Location 846 - the cops asked R whether A had gone out that night 'on the spur of the moment'. This was before the questioning of Amanda began.

Can anyone explain why the cops would be asking Raffaele this before 'discovering' the exchange of texts with Lumumba?

It is strange that you would ask this just now. I recently found myself wondering what the official versus the real explanations for calling Raffaele in were.