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

[Bill Williams]

I like most reasonable people would have a huge issue with Frank's posts and draw some conclusions . Combined with recent events his credibility is in question. It would be foolish of me buy what he has written about his arrest in Perugia in light of his recent behavior and off the wall rants against those that funded him.

And even if any of this were true....

So?

 

[Bill Williams]

For some reason, it is part of Follain's agenda to be the only book writer, a dangerous guy, to claim that Chiacchiera suggested (opposed may be too strong a word) that Sollecito and Knox be let go for "further observation", rather than having the whole shooting match thrown at them.

Is it really that hard for you? You said earlier that Chiacchiera wanted to release them which is far different from what you are now saying. There was no reference to Follain being dangerous except by you. The danger is taking these snippets and building a theory.

Follain is served by book sales. Raf is served by being honorable.

WTF? See highlighted parts.

I apologize for the "dangerous" quote. You said originally that it was dangerous to read books, because the authors of the books have agendas. That means that you believe Follain is dangerous because he has an agenda.

Strangely, I do agree that it is dangerous to take snippets from here and there (like Biblical proof texting where you can prove just about anything) and build a theory.

However it is important to understand the bias (in the most neutral, unpejorative sense of the word) of a book or an author, to understand the nature of the points within. It is then that one can, with fear and trembling, attempt to build a theory - esp. if they read more than one book.

Once again, other than my joke about "dangerous" fell flat..... what are we arguing about?

 

[Bill Williams]

Perhaps you could also explain why you had to spend hours with the Canadian immigration people top get him in the country. You could but you won't.

You obviously have a source of information which eludes me. I'm beginning to feel a little the way CoulsdonUK reported feeling. Staring at my computer screen and thinking to myself: where do they come up with this stuff?

Hours? I "got him into the country"? Where do you get this stuff? How can I trust anything you say, much less respond to it, if you can type this stuff?

Grinder - yours is a "when did you stop beating your wife" post; filled with innuendo. That's all. And this is my point.

 

[Briars]

And even if any of this were true....

So?

If you quote Frank with regard to the Perugian Police or the prosecution , you are quoting a source which has been shown to be highly suspect and not reliable. He can't be abusive in four separate events where the police needed to be called and claim it was a conspiracy. Well he can but I don't have to believe a word he writes. His verbal abuse on IIP erased any doubt. The fact is his story about Mignini is far more important to you.

 

[Bill Williams]

If you quote Frank with regard to the Perugian Police or the prosecution , you are quoting a source which has been shown to be highly suspect and not reliable. He can't be abusive in four separate events where the police needed to be called and claim it was a conspiracy. Well he can but I don't have to believe a word he writes. His verbal abuse on IIP erased any doubt. The fact is his story about Mignini is far more important to you.

This is where your reasoning falls, Briars. You've made the conclusion based on allegations that he is suspect, which you turn into a fact that he IS suspect. And even at the end of that bit of illogic, you still only refer to him as "suspect". That's what I mean upthread.

There's been way too much in all this where people suspected of something have been proceeded upon as if suspect was as good as guilty.

As always, you are free to decide as you think fit. You have stated your case for your own belief well. Great!

 

[Grinder]

WTF? See highlighted parts.

A man of the cloth using such language. Earlier, much earlier weeks ago when Follain first impressed you - you indicated that C wanted to release them but now you added the part or throw the book at them or however you said it.

[quoteI apologize for the "dangerous" quote. You said originally that it was dangerous to read books, because the authors of the books have agendas. That means that you believe Follain is dangerous because he has an agenda.[/quote]

What I've been saying is that taking one part from a book while disdaining the rest doesn't work for me. It is dangerous, the author isn't dangerous, to build arguments on these True Crime Novels without cites and with agendas.

Strangely, I do agree that it is dangerous to take snippets from here and there (like Biblical proof texting where you can prove just about anything) and build a theory.

Good

 

[Grinder]

You obviously have a source of information which eludes me. I'm beginning to feel a little the way CoulsdonUK reported feeling. Staring at my computer screen and thinking to myself: where do they come up with this stuff?

Hours? I "got him into the country"? Where do you get this stuff? How can I trust anything you say, much less respond to it, if you can type this stuff?

Grinder - yours is a "when did you stop beating your wife" post; filled with innuendo. That's all. And this is my point.

I believe it was a post by Peter H at IIP stated that you picked up Frank and had to help him get through immigration.

Is that not true? Didn't you drive Frank in or to Canada? Or was it the other BW? If so, I apologize.

And why don't you admit that he was only charged once, in Seattle, and was not vindicated anywhere?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

switcheroo

Quite right no bashing of Raffaele but filled with the attack on two former supporters.

This is a deliberately misleading comment. Mary_H was discussing the pro-guilt discussion boards, and with a sleight of hand you started discussing a different (generally pro-innocence) discussion board. Now for a moment let's suppose counterfactually that every word Frank ever wrote about the case is false. We still have the Massei report, the Conti-Vecchiotti report, and the Hellmann report. There is plenty of information in those three documents to reduce Mignini's and Comodi's case to rubble. That is why this whole discussion is a sideshow, and not a terribly interesting one IMO.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

slippery

The unfortunate numerous comments on IIP were examples of anything goes. Abusive, untruthful but revealing of the source You can shoot the messenger if the message is a hoax. Frank has most likely invented a story about his arrest in Perugia. That persecution has been a big part of the Mignini myth It falls apart just like much of the conspiracy to frame the innocents.

You are dodging questions and misrepresenting the facts. PM Mignini's reputation stems from his comments and actions over many years, as documented by a slew of reporters (see the links we have provided). Moreover, Mignini went after the West Seattle Herald and Joe Cottonwood, among many others. Again I ask, "Are these the actions of one who believes in a liberal democracy and a free flow of ideas where the fourth estate provides a useful corrective force, or are these the actions of someone who wants to control by shutting down dissenting voices?"

 

[Bill Williams]

I believe it was a post by Peter H at IIP stated that you picked up Frank and had to help him get through immigration.

Is that not true? Didn't you drive Frank in or to Canada? Or was it the other BW? If so, I apologize.

And why don't you admit that he was only charged once, in Seattle, and was not vindicated anywhere?

I thank you for one thing, which is for actually going back and retracing the conversation.

As for people in the clothing industry saying, "WTF", it's really the only thing that can be said. There is very, very little of this saga I am a direct witness to - but if things can go off the rails THIS bad in conversation about the little I DO know, then it really must have been a complete nightmare in Perugia with innocents with their liberty for the next 2 decades on the line.

I say this because, below it all Grinder I do respect you. We have crossed swords here, sometime badly, often talking way way past each other - but at the end of the day I wouldn't give you the time of day if I did not have some measure of respect.

With that said, and I truly, truly do not mean this as a put down - if you can type some of the stuff about Sfarzogate that you type - and you are one of the ones that DOES want facts checked! (witness you pulling out Peter H's post!) - if you can say "hours", and if you can actually believe that one private citizen "gets someone into the country," them I now believe that all is lost in terms of rational debate.

Are we now going to debate the meaning of the word "gets"?

Truly, I am going to get on an airplane this evening and go to Heathrow, and personally apologize to CoulsdonUK. I will buy the ale. CoulsdonUK, I apologize.

One of the positively addicting things about all this is the completely bizarre and unpredictable things that have been typed.

Ok, just because you have been nice - yes, Frank was charged once, in Seattle. He is not in need of vindication because he is innocent. How do I know he's innocent. Because that's what it says in the US Constitution.

People are talking and acting as if the bizarre charges brought aginst him on the word of his housemates mean anything... much less than that the State of Washington has yet proved anything against him, or even tried the case.

I will make a bet, though - because bets are not covered by the US Constitution. I'll bet that the prosecutor, once Frank is in court, is the one to drop the charges.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

fabrications

His stories are total fabrications IMO and not by any means small errors.

So his account of the killings of Federico Aldrovandi and Sarah Scazzi are total fabrications according to you. Thank you, that tells me everything I need to know about your position.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

denial of legal counsel

It looked to me more like he was angry, and considering Mignini's other numerous attempts to silence criticism, including having Frank's site shut down by court order, this would hardly be out of character for him.

Kaosium,

Good post. One of your links is to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They wrote: "Mignini filed a request with the preliminary investigation judge of Perugia, Marina De Robertis, to invoke a rarely used law under Italy's criminal code to deny Spezi access to a lawyer for five days, Spezi's lawyer Alessandro Traversi told CPJ. The law is typically applied to the most dangerous criminals, yet Judge De Robertis authorized the measure, and for five days Spezi was denied legal counsel and held incommunicado." It is PM Mignini's words and actions that define who he is, not the comments of any blogger.

 

[Dan O.]

Frank's recent adventures would be considered off topic if this thread were still moderated. The private forums at IIP is an appropriate venue for sharing such news. Let there be no more of it here.

 

[Kaosium]

Amanda Knox's Calunnia Appeal Document

Summary of Amanda Knox’s Recourse to Cassazione against her calumny conviction.

Point 1

It is fully evident the contradiction in the Motivation Report the Appeal Court run into: in it (the Hellmann Report) it was ruled that the content of Amanda's "spontaneous declarations" and of her memoir "did not represent the real event".

If what Amanda said does not correspond to real events, the crime of calumny cannot exist because it lacks of certainty and univocity, an hypothesis or a malicious gossip not being enough (to justify a charge of calumny).

Moreover Amanda was "confusedly induced to indicate, in a probabilistic manner, a lead which should have been obviously evaluated, scrutinized and verified by the competent Authority" (that is it should not have been taken as Gospel).

Furthermore the obligation of informing Amanda of her rights should have been respected, particularly by inviting her to appoint an attorney and, she being a foreigner, by alerting her embassy and her parents.

Only after such obligations have been fulfilled her declarations, even if spontaneous, could have been put to the records in full compliance with the existing laws.

From all that was said above it follows:

1) the documents evaluated by the Court have been acquired without complying with the obligations concerning the rights of the person under investigation;

2) if the person under investigation is not informed of her rights, she cannot be a witness;

3) whatever she said without a lawyer is totally not usable (in a trial);

4) since spontaneous declarations can substantially be equivalent to an interrogation, they must be accepted in to the records only after the formalities concerning the rights of the person under investigation;

5) only after the formal information (about her rights) the person making the spontaneous declarations is ready to assume the responsibilities of a person under investigation.

Finally the SC in a previous ruling has established that he/she who denounces someone while having a doubt about the commission of the crime by that person cannot then be punished for calumny if the person accused is innocent. Basically because the accusing person cannot have the certainty of the innocence of the accused one.

Knox, in her memoir of November 6, that must be considered her first act of defense, spontaneously states that she is confused and that she is not sure about her declarations concerning Lumumba.

Absence of the psychological element of the crime.
The crime of calumny requires the precise will of attributing a crime to a person known to be innocent.

Knox did not certainly want to make the existence of the crime of calumny against her boss dependant on her action (it should mean that there was no malice or evil intention on the part of Knox).

Indeed the Appeal Court excluded such a reason and defined Knox's declaration as an "extreme" behaviour aimed at escaping from a situation of "heightened stress".

The 5.45 declaration must be viewed in the light of the subsequent memoir, that Knox saw fit to immediately write down in order to certify her situation of absolute uncertainty.

Basically, since she had doubts then she could not be sure if Lumumba was innocent or not and hence she could not "know" that he indeed was such, as the law prescribes for charging the crime of calumny.

Summing it up:
1) Knox, in her "spontaneous declarations", in her first memoir of November 6, in her email of November 4 to her USA acquaintances and in her second memoir of November 7, never showed any malicious intention;

2) since the Appeal Court excluded that she accused Lumumba in order to protect herself and her alleged accomplices from the murder charge, this shows that she had no reason to accuse an innocent;

3)Knox wanted to collaborate with the authorities having faith that whatever she said would have been examined with the due skepticism and cross-checked.

Point 2
Knox was subjected from November 2 to November 6 2007 to a total of 53,45 hours in the hands of the Judicial Authority between questioning and inspections at Via della Pergola.

In her own memoir of November 6 she talks about "extreme exhaustion", having being threatened with 30 years in jail, having been hit on the head, of being "very confused" and says that the images she had about meeting Patrick and Patrick killing Meredith were "unreal images".

The Appeal Court acknowledges that the defendant was subjected to an extreme stress and that her "memories" seem more a dream than reality, but then erroneously states that to consider such declarations devoid of any validity Amanda should have been unable to understand and will.
The error of the Court is in pretending such a serious pathology as required while there is a wide range of objective and subjective situations that can corrupt the acquisition of evidence.

Knox during that evening was under suggestion because of the effects of the long interrogation and such suggestion caused effects of confusion.
She ended up saying something not true without having the consciousness of doing it, because she did not have a correct and professional filter in the translation from Italian to English and because she was driven by the desire and the need of running away from a situation of high stress.
She was waiting for her mother coming from Seattle the next morning and this fact too engendered those declarations, in the perspective of escaping stress and confusion.

The authenticity of the evidence during its acquisition can be compromised, as it was in this case, by an extreme concurrence of suggestions; Knox entered a state of oppression, coonfusion and stress precisely because of the interrogation and of the way it was done, under the influence of the translator/prompter and also receiving a slap (scappellotto) from one of the officials, who certainly acted out of tension and perhaps because of fatigue due to the wee hours.

All these elements surely altered Knox's capacity of evaluating the facts.
In order to affirm the lacking of a malicious will, pretending that the defendant had to be unable to understand and will is a typical "petitio ad excessum" (e.g. “ demanding too much”).

The acquisition of evidence is ruled by strict parameters outside which it is unusable (inutilizzabilità). This is quite different and a far cry from the requirement of unability to understand and will, whose effect would be absolute nullity (the c.p.p. articles concerned are also different).
The plaintiff claims also that the Second Grade Court did not acknowledge the exempting state of need in which she was when she allegedly committed the crime of calumny.

A wide and in-depth analysis has been done of the subjective and objective situation experienced by Knox during the dreadful (orrenda) night between 5 and 6 November 2007 in the offices of the Judiciary Police of Perugia.
The appealed verdict reconstructs precisely the state in which the defendant was.

She had come to a state of "extreme exhaustion" out of pressures, physical offenses (the well known "scappellotti"), lack of legal assistance and above all because of the specious news that codefendant Sollecito had changed his version of the events, she was then threatened with thirty years in prison if she did not remember or confirm the facts.

These ascertained elements confirm the state of absolute need Knox was into and the threat of an extreme danger that she could avoid only pointing at some way of escape, even if not true (in practice inventing a story about Lumumba) that would have appeased the investigators and removed the threat.

To sum it up: that night Knox was in a situation of extreme danger and menace that justified her behaviour.

Point 3
To make a long story short: Knox acted in the exercise of her right of self defense (against accusations, pressures and so on).
Furthermore she was thinking that whatever could have said would have been thoroughfully evaluated and crosschecked before undertaking actions against the personal freedom of a third person (Lumumba).

Point 4
In a subordinate position to the previous reason, the lawyers criticize also the missing or wrong reasoning behind the noteworthy increase of the sentence inflicted to Knox for the crime of calumny.

The Second Grade Judge did not justify the increase of the sentence from two (the standard for defendants without a criminal record) to three years: according to jurisprudence an explanation is not needed only when the sentence is very close to the standard ("minimo edittale") in relative terms (e.g. 2 years and 2 months).

 

[Kaosium]

Prosecution Appeal of Calunnia Charge

MISSING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCE OF TELEOLOGICAL LINK IN THE CRIME OF CALUMNY.

CONTRADICTION OR MANIFEST ILLOGICITY OF THE RULING; VICE RESULTING FROM RECORDS OF THE TRIAL:
FROM THE STATEMENTS OF PATRICK DIYA LUMUMBA, FROM THOSE OF THE DEFENDANT AMANDA KNOX HERSELF
AND FROM THE CONTENT OF THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE LATTER AND HER MOTHER ON NOVEMBER 10 2007 -
Article 606, section e), last part, of the penal procedural code.


The Court of Assizes of Appeals [C.A.A.] has recognized Knox responsible of the crime of calumny at count F), to the detriment of Patrick Diya Lumumba, but it did not recognize the aggravating circumstance quoted in article 61 section 2 of the penal code, with which Knox had been charged, of having committed calumny in order to obtain for herself and the other partners in crime the impunity for murder and particularly for Guede, he too colored as Lumumba.

The C.A.A. has therefore recognized the calumny charged on Knox, but it excluded any relationship with the murder.

In order to provide a logical and rational motivation the C.A.A. first explained why Knox named Lumumba, then, trying to overcome the evident contradiction existing between holding Knox responsible for the calumny against Lumumba and clearing her of the crime she knew Lumumba was not involved in, explained why Knox could not be unaware of Lumumba's innocence and, at the same time, why she was not involved in the murder.

These are points of the ruling, as we will see, deeply and manifestly illogical and contrasting with the case findings that will be subsequently shown.

Why Lumumba's name?

According to the C.A.A., Knox slandered Lumumba only in order to put an end to the "stress" of the "interrogations".

The challenged verdict as a matter of fact does not agree with the Prosecution's thesis that Knox, distressed because Sollecito had denied the alibi that they were together that night, decided to say what had happened, substituting Lumumba to Rudi.

According to the judges of the appeal,

"The obsessive length of the interrogations, carried out during [both] day and night, by more than one person, on a young and foreign girl who at the time did not speak Italian at all well, was unaware of her own rights, did not have the assistance of an attorney (which she should have been entitled to, being at this point suspected of very serious crimes), and was moreover being assisted by an interpreter who — as shown by Ms. Bongiorno — did not limit herself to translating, but induced her to force herself to remember, explaining that she [Amanda] was confused in her memories, perhaps because of the trauma she experienced, makes it wholly understandable that she was in a situation of considerable psychological pressure (to call it stress seems an understatement [appare riduttivo]), enough to raise doubts about the actual spontaneity of her statements; a spontaneity which would have strangely [singolarmente] arisen in the middle of the night, after hours and hours of interrogation: the so-called spontaneous statements were made at 1:45 am (middle of the night) on 11-6-2007 (the day after the interrogation had started) and again at 5:45 am afterward, and the note was written a few hours later." (challenged ruling, page 30).

Well, aside from the serious and totally groundless allegations concerning the non spontaneity of Knox's statements, it cannot be understood from what the Court derives [the existance of] a wholly particular psychological stress in the American girl, such as to induce her to commit a serious calumny just to "get rid" of the questions of the investigators.

In the course of the investigations for such an heinous homicide it is a totally normal occurrence that the investigators during the first days of the inquiry make questions, even at length and persistently, to people who can give informations concerning the facts.

The Italian flatmates of the victims, particularly Romanelli, their friends, the boys living downstairs, as well as the fellow countrywomen of Kercher, who did even come back from the United Kingdom to answer to further questions after having been questioned at length at the QUestura, all of them had to undergo long examinations, but none of them decided to accuse an innocent in order to "get rid" of the investigators' questions.

Concerning this point it must be further observed that it was Knox who presented herself of her own initiative at the Questura to accompany Raffaele Sollecito, who had to be questioned: "Knox was waiting and was making the cartwheel and the split and was quiet until she was showed the cell phone" (record of Knox's cross examination June 13 2009, pages 17-18 and record of Inspector Rita Ficarra's examination on February 2 2009).

All the so called "interrogations" up to the statements of 5.45 a.m. on November 6 2007 were collections of concise informations where Knox was heard as "[person] informed about the facts" and to which no counselor could participate. It is really upsetting how the C.A.A. ignores the procedural role that Knox had till when the Police Officers of the Flying Squad of Perugia suspended the examination of Knox as provided by article 63 of the penal procedural code, having surfaced against her clues of responsibility for the murder; from that moment on Knox was not subjected anymore to examination or "interrogation".

The Court stated that the "interrogations" were run by many people, evidently also the one as a consequence of which Knox reached the peak of "stress" and slandered Lumumba, but such a circumstance, put forward by the defense in the filing of their appeal, is totally groundless.

If the county Court [i.e. C.A.A. of Perugia] had delved into the reading of the records of the trial, they would have had the opportunity to notice that the defendant herself during the conversation with her mother on November 10 2007, pages 43-44, confessed:

A[manda Knox]: I said...what happened is that they all had left the room, at that moment one of the police officers said: "I am the only one who can save you, I'm the only one who can save you. Tell me just a name". And I said: "I don't know!" And then they said, I said: "can you show me the message that I received from Patrick?!" Because I didn't remember I had answered him, and so they showed me the message and then I said: "Patrick..." And then I thought to Patrick, of seeing Patrick, that is I think I completely lost my mind and I imagined uhm...to see him and...

M[ellas Edda, Knox's mother]: See him where?

A: See him near the basketball court.

M: Ok

A: And then at my home, I uhmm, imagined that it went that way in the kitchen, that is uhmmm...because I could hear her screaming, but that is not true. It is not [true].

M: So, yes, they now say that you were...Ok.

A: And so it is not true. I said that only because I thought it could be true, because I imagined it. I did not say it to protect myself; and I feel horrible for this. Because I put Patrick in this horrible situation, he is framed in prison now, and it is my fault. It is my fault that he is here. I feel horrible. I did not want to do this. I just was frightened and confused, but now I'm not.

M: Ok, ok.

A: I am here and I am safe and I'm in the clear. But I do not want to stay here; because I know that I do not deserve to stay here.

M: Ok.

From the words of the defendant one infers that, at a certain point, all those who had participated in the "interrogation", as it is called by the C.A.A., get out, except for a "police officer" who invites Knox to remember; then the officer asks her to show the reply message to Patrick, Knox did not remember that she had answered and it is then that she accuses Lumumba.

The Court, instead, reenacts the crucial moment of calumny referring, according to them, to the statements of interpreter Donnino, according to which Amanda had an outright emotional shock when "the matter of the exchange of messages with Lumumba was raised". And then, if Lumumba was innocent, why this shock? Because, the Court answers "from having reached the limit of emotional tension" (pages 31-32).

Once more the Court builds up an hypothesis which is sheer conjecture devoid of any confirmation.

Donnino states (see the statements at the hearing of March 13 2009, page 137) that Amanda had denied to have replied to Patrick's message but, when the opposite was proven to her by showing her the reply, she had the emotional shock and started to accuse Lumumba.

The Court of Assizes [C.A., i.e. the Court of first level] had focused on the same circumstance and had excluded the hypothesis of a "forcing" by the Police on Knox in order that she accused Lumumba and this because the latter was absolutely not at the attention of the investigators, who did not have, therefore, any other consideration aside, any reason to push Knox to accuse Lumumba (see C.A. ruling page 418).

The absolute motivational illogicity of the Court and the misrepresentation of case findings do not end here.

According to the challenged ruling (page 32) "constructing a brief story around that name would certainly not have been particularly difficult, if for no other reason than that many details and inferences [illazioni] had already appeared in many newspapers the next day, and were circulating all throughout the city, considering the modest dimensions of Perugia."

But the next day [the day after the murder], contrarily to the Court's statement, nothing was known and there was no possibility of making inferences. From what certain facts did the Court draw this conviction? In the ruling is missing any indication which can transform the formulated hypothesis into a sure fact upon which to build a plausible supposition; the hypotheis is untested and the deduction is imaginative, totally invented by the Court, void of any objective verification.
Newspapers got interested in Lumumba only the day after November 6 because he was arrested. He was never talked about before.

Here too we have to record a further fall of the ruling in the false inductive reasoning fouded on the "petition of principle" already remarked in the preamble of the recourse, which ends in the vice of extrinsic inconsistency of the ruling as per article 606 section e) of the penal procedural code.

Why Amanda knew that Lumumba was innocent?
According to the C.A.A. there would be no contrdiction between holding Knox responsible of calumny against Lumumba in connection with the Kercher murder and, so, conscious of his innocence and the fact that such offence was not finalised to obtain, for her and the other crime partners, the impunity for that crime of murder.

The Court of Assizes [Court of first level] was very conscious of the intimate connection existing between the calumny imputed to Knox and her involvement in the Kercher murder and had no doubts in recognizing the existence of the aggravating circumstance. Referring to the Prosecution's thesis [assunto accusatorio], the Court of first level affirms that "...Amanda Knox could know that Lumumba was innocent of the crime of murder only because she had participated to the crime and, hence, she knew the real perpetrators of the crime: had not she participated to the crime or had not she been anyhow present in the house at Via della Pergola, she could not have known that Lumumba was innocent" (ruling of first level, page 34) [it is not on page 34, I could not find that sentence in the Massei ruling]

It is difficult to challenge the extreme coherence and rationality about this matter of the Prosecution's thesis [assunto accusatorio], that the challenged ruling is however compelled to reject (see page 35 of the ruling) in order to be able to defend its decision.

How can a person be sure of the non involvement of another person in a given crime if the former is not involved in the same crime?

(note 27: cfr Cassazione Penal Section VI September 14 2007 n. 34881 (hearing of March 7 2007) Profeta et al. and also Cassazione Penal Section II, January 21 2009, n.2750 (hearing of December 16 200) Aragona [RV 237675])

According to the Court of Assizes of Appeal [Court of second level], instead, Knox's conviction for calumny is based on the fact that she was certain of the complete non involvement of Lumumba in the Kercher murder, even if being herself totally univolved in it too.

The Court of Assizes of Appeal justified its conclusion, affirming that Knox was certainly conscious of Lumumba's innocence but not because the defendant had participated to the crime and knew who the perpetrators were, but because "...the lack of evidence of a connection between Lumumba and Meredith Kercher [should have] allowed Amanda Knox, even if actually innocent herself and far from the house on Via Della Pergola" (pages 34-35).

But this is not corrispondent to the case findings: it is not absolutely true that there was no connection between Lumumba and Meredith.

In his statements of April 3 2009, Patrick Diya Lumumba relates that he made the acquaintance of Meredith right through Amanda (record of the statements of Lumumba on April 3 2009, pages 151-152).

The connection was indeed there and it was Knox herself, who had introduced Lumumba to the victim.

The explanation invoked by the Court, in one of the most critical passages of the ruling, to reconcile the psychological element of the acknowledged calumny against Lumumba with the alleged non involvement of Knox in the murder is thus contradicted by the certain facts acquired during the first level trial.

The vice forthcoming from the missing correspondence between the evidentiary result [risultato probatorio] at the basis of the reasoning of the judge and the trial record [atto processuale] or evidentiary record [atto probatorio] (defined in terms of "trial related contradiction" [contraddittorietà processuale], different and distinct from the "logical" one) is not subjected anymore to the limit of having to be found in the text of the challenged ruling [rilevabilità testuale dalla motivazione del provvedimento impugnato], being it possible to evidence it, in force of the now allowed "hetero-integration", also through other records related to the trial or of evidentiary nature, provided that they are specifically quoted.

The recent reformulation of article 606 section e) of the penal procedural code by article 8 of Law number 46/2006, has widened the perimeter of the vice of motivation with reference to the conceptual category of "contradiction", in which the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia incurred in this subject too.

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium,

Good post. One of your links is to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They wrote: "Mignini filed a request with the preliminary investigation judge of Perugia, Marina De Robertis, to invoke a rarely used law under Italy's criminal code to deny Spezi access to a lawyer for five days, Spezi's lawyer Alessandro Traversi told CPJ. The law is typically applied to the most dangerous criminals, yet Judge De Robertis authorized the measure, and for five days Spezi was denied legal counsel and held incommunicado." It is PM Mignini's words and actions that define who he is, not the comments of any blogger.

That would be essentially the same treatment Raffaele and Amanda endured, wouldn't it? Arrested, locked up in solitary and not allowed to even see their lawyers until hauled before court. Why Amanda and Raffaele both asked for legal council while they were being worked over by Perugia's finest, they didn't seem to have much respect for that either.

 

[Kaosium]

This space unintentionally left blank.

 

[Kaosium]

The two documents for Amanda's calunnia charge, the one she was convicted of and sentenced to time served, have been translated and published. The first word of each contains a link where the original (translation) can be found.

It just so happens it was a report of this charge that I caught quite by accident in a crummy little motel off the interstate somewhere between Buffalo and Rochester (NY) on July 3rd, 2010, as I headed to my vacation destination in my Dad's hometown. I didn't have the opportunity to change the channel fast enough thus found out about this charge, which the TV station claimed could net her six years in prison even if found innocent at her appeal, and that the charge was due to her claiming she'd been hit during the interrogation and that the police claimed no tapes were available. That didn't sound right to me at all, so I pulled out my computer and decided to try to find out what was what, I soon found PMF and was fascinated by all the people and their theories about the case, and then found the JREF thread after I devoured their archives.

I spent the rest of the week after hours reading about the case from my little cabin. I'd vaguely heard something about it, and that she was convicted, but wasn't aware there was a controversy--or a chance they were innocent. After reading all I could that week and finding out both that the Massei Report was being translated and it would be going back to court for the calunnia charge in the fall I decided to put it all away and come back to it then, not having enough information at that point to make a determination in my mind. That October I came back to it and did.

The nature demons have blessed me with more lovely snow that I have to take care of, but as both these documents are short I decided to post them here for discussion. Amanda's appeal document is missing some (lengthy) references to previous reports, mainly so the wonderful Roteoctober--a member of this forum and IIP--could actually get them finished in a reasonable time frame before the court starts. Thank you RO!

 

[Bill Williams]

Kaosium - did you get the title of the post right? "PROSECUTION" appeal of the calunnia charge?

 

[Kaosium]

Kaosium - did you get the title of the post right? "PROSECUTION" appeal of the calunnia charge?

Yes, there are two documents, one for Amanda and one for the prosecution. The prosecution has some 'splaining to do, being as they have to frame the calunnia conviction in the context of the murder acquittal.