Oh, puhhhhleeeease Machiavelli, you would spin anything. The hit on the back of the head is just another sign of coercion during the interrogation. It has little to do with Amanda's guilt or innocence, Let's face it, there isn't any physical evidence of their guilt. (Not that you would admit that.) The only thing the prosecution has really, is the statements Amanda made during the interrogation. What is sad, is that the prosecution didn't video record the interrogation...or they did but won't produce them.
What you guys fail to see is that "real confessions" that are recorded really are extremely persuasive. But of course that wasn't a real confession...now was it?
You don't have to answer...we know what you will say.
First of all it's not true that "real confessions" are really persuasive when you look at them in video, neither that false confessions or coerced ones are "unconvicing". Even if you watch a coerced confession/testimony in video (and I saw two of them, one was the Garbatella rape case) you may not have a clue that the confession is coerced, and you may not perceive that from the video. It's quite the contrary: when you have a video camera you can construct a coerced confession which looks spontaneous.
But that's not the point.
The point is: it is absolutely not true that the only thing the prosecution has, about Knox's lies, is the false report she gave during a questioning.
Unfortunately this is a key logical mistake, and if you make this wrong assumption from the beginning you deny facts, you make a basically false assumption so it becomes impossible to go forward in a reasoning.
The truth is that what Knox said in the interrogation (which lasted from 22:40 to 1:45, three hours overall) is not the main part of what the prosecution has.
First, there are her previous lies (which are lies, but you don't acknowledge this).
But then, there is her 'spontaneous statement' she gave to Mignini and signed at 5:45.
Third, there is her hand written note, where she does repeat a false testimony placing evidence against an innocent person (albeit people here like to deny this), and which IS incriminating on multiple ground (albeit still, her supporters would deny this). This is a manipulative and false statement and includes even the 'blood on hands' thing (which I do consider itself further evidence of her intent, albeit still you folks deny this).
Her statements (the interrogation, the 05.45 statement, her hand written note) don't have just a 'situation', as you would put it, they have a content. Their content - its intrnsic properties - itself is evidence that she fabricates stories, that she is a liar, that she is consciously attempting to muddy waters. But I already said these things and it's not the time to explein them again. Btw, in this memoir she also declares "the thruth is that I don't know what the truth is" (statements like this one have a bit of a consequence on your credibility); and "there are things I remember and things that are confused" and one thing she remembers is that she had lunch "very late" (the only thing she is sure about is proven false); and also that "she stands by" what she remembers about patrick Lumumba, and all this is the "best truth" she can remember.
Then there is also a fourth statement, in which - among several other things - she states that she "did not lie" in the previous statements. She doesn't say something she remembers, what is truth and what is not; however, while maintaining she has only confused memories (or false memories, or no memories at all), instead she only offers a (lucid) indication about how her previous (false) testimony should be considered, how "it seems to her" (not the most likely).
So, as you see, even when you only speak about her false accusation, her interrogation is the smallest element the prosecution has. The rest, all what she said around it, is much worse.
But it's not finished.
And then, after her written and oral statements, the moment comes when she is before a judge, and there is a recording. What does she do? She remains silent. She refuses to clarify anything. She does not report even a tiny element usable to exculpate or to explain herself.
Another thing the prosecution has - which was a prominent argument in the prosecution's speech of 2008 (this indeed was a topic for the prosecution, not rituals or satanic things) - is her subsequent interrogation of Dec. 17., a disastrous interrogation for the defence, in which Knox invoked her right to remain silent at a certain point, and the last thing she said was that she justified her false accusation of Lumumba: at the question "why did you accuse Lumumba?", she answered "Because it could be true".
Words are important. She could have said "because I was scared of the police", or "because I only wanted to end the interrogation" (but there was none, recall, at 05.45), or "because I really had this memory (and still have?) and I really believed that my memory was the truth"; or "because I thought (I believed) it was true". Or "because I remembered it".
Instead she said "because it
could be true".
What does the verb "could" mean?
If you say "I told you this because I thought this could be true", this is logically equivalent of saying "I told you this because I thought you whould believe it".
"It could be true" is a logical equivalent of "it's believable"; "they would believe it".
Amanda Knox said "I accused Patrick Lumumba because I thought they would belive it".
I picked her last statement, just as an example to show how I deal logically with things. These are the things Knox's statements actually say.
Then, this is still not all. There is Knox's defensive theory; that is: she suffered from a false memory syndrome.
Now, when her books comes out, everybody in her supporters crowd are capable of rationalizing about that she was captured by a tribe of savages and thus she could not express herself in any way, this is why she only tells "her story" after years, etc. But in the true world, stories told after years of variating previous versions, are false; and apart from these wild rationalizations, Knox's line, her defensive position - what she told in her court statement - was that she was not coerced. She explained she suffered a false memory.
Her defence even called a psychiatrist - I think Dr. Caltagirone - to testify about her suffering from a false memory syndrome.
Not only that: it glares to you that in Knox's testimony and statements she always made throughout the investigation, preliminary hearing and trial, she never reports absolutely no factual event which would somehow explain, show or describe a situation of coercion.
She does not say that in her court statement of 2008 (where she does not even talk about an interrogation, she only talks about her "statement").
And all this, is something of what Knox has aganst her, still just about the false accusation, which is only one element in the evidence set.