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

[Methos]

Reading list...

I have now bought Waiting to Be Heard, Honor Bound, Murder in Italy, and Angel Face on iBooks. Is there anything that I should know before I read them?

Read them in the order you listed them.

 

[Kaosium]

There are so many lies posted on this thread that its hard to keep up.

Then stop adding to them. The issue of the interrogation does not revolve around the whups to the head. No doubt it was intimidating at the time, but even Amanda in court said she hadn't been damaged by them.

It's over who was responsible for the generation of those statements and why they were acted upon so enthusiastically. For that ILE has no defense, had she been allowed a lawyer the statements wouldn't exist, had ILE not been responsible for them they would not have made such utter fools of themselves in arresting Patrick, Amanda and Raffaele on the gibberish they got from a girl barely out of her teens in the middle of the night.

The problem with Ms. Knox is that she's a liar.

Her lawyers never filed any complaint of police abuse.

The evidence from the police response to those statements shows that they're lying. In describing Amanda's condition when those statements were generated Anna Donnino showed Napoleoni, Ficarra and Zugarini were lying. When Amanda testified she faced the possibility tapes from that night at the Questura would show up and and had she been lying it would have probably convicted her of murder whether she'd done it or not.

As PM it was Mignini's duty to investigate it the moment he read her note, I guess he just cleared himself and his police which in other places would be a conflict of interest.

In fact, during the trial, her lawyer Luciano Ghirga in a taped interview said “There were pressures from the police, but we never said she was hit.” "

Ghirga was trying to avoid a calunnia charge, he failed as one was filed on him anyway.

Someone is lying…. I wonder who?

More from Girgha speaking about her alibis:

"A lawyer for Knox, Luciano Ghirga, told reporters Friday that his client had given "three versions and ... it is difficult to evaluate which one is true."


"He also said he had warned Knox against making unfounded accusations. "We told her that it would be worse than assassination to accuse an innocent person. We explained to her what slander means in Italy and we'll see," Ghirga said.

lhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-d...f it happened and she wasn't accusing anyone.

 

[Vibio]

....even though Knox already on the 7th had told the prosecutor Mignini that her "confession" was not true and that she in fact didn't know at all if Lumumba was involved?

Oh right... her famous memorandum of the 7th "I didn't lie when I said the murderer might be Patrick."

LOL.

 

[anglolawyer]

Anglo, as so often, has his tongue in his cheek.

Jefferies was completely innocent. He wasn't even enormously eccentric, he only affected an eccentric appearance. He was a retired school teacher with no history of any particular weirdness other than a penchant for mauve hair.

He was monstered by the press, but was released without a stain on his character when they found no actual evidence against him. Anglo, I didn't know Tabak had tried to finger Jefferies - where did you get that from?

Rolfe.

I am pretty sure Tabak told the police something that pointed them at Jefferies. 'Pretty sure' might be too strong, on reflection. Challenged by Rolfe I am wavering. I will go look it up

 

[Caper]

I will. Thank you for recommending it.

I thought Knox made a false witness statement and not a false confession? As I understand it, false witness statements are common.

That is true... it is not exactly the same. But the psychology of it is the same..... It just gives you such a sense of what goes on in an interrogation room.... Suddenly hearing guilter lines like "Amanda lied" or "Amanda and RS changed their stories multiple times ".... doesn't sound very impressive.... at all.

 

[Dan O.]

They stopped him when? On November 4th? The 3rd? When? And how did they stop him? I'm really curious about this. Cops can tell you lots of things..and they can do things too. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they have the authority to do them.

Others have understood that I was reffering to the night of the interrogations and the passage in his book which is quoted here:

RAFFAELE CONFIRMS THE ACCUSATIONS

A story of horror, confirmed by Sollecito himself, in his memoir Honor Bound. Raffaele writes of having heard ”the policemen shouting at Amanda and then the crying and moaning of my girlfriend, who shouted “Help!” in Italian in the other room,” and of being threatened himself (“If you try to get up and leave, I shall pound you and kill you. I shall leave you in a pool of blood,” another detective whispered to him.) Statements that passed lightly under the radar of the Perugian investigators.

They cannot stop him from crossing the Italian border. But it is difficult to predict Raffaele's plan. If he stays in Italy there is a good chance that he will find himself back in prison if the ISC confirms the latest verdict. If he runs he might be able to delay that action by forcing an extradition hearing as Rudy had done in Germany. If he openly sets this up before hand he might be able to get the hearing without the stigma of appearing to be running from justice.

 

[Kaosium]

Oh right... her famous memorandum of the 7th "I didn't lie when I said the murderer might be Patrick."

LOL.

First off as far as she knows Patrick is the murderer, at this juncture the police still have him in custody and the next day will present 'evidence in court again him including a 'witness' to his bar being closed and the implication he cannot provide an alibi. That's an example of brutal incompetence if not outright lying. So at this point the police and prosecutor definitely think Patrick was the murderer but she's already told them she can't be used as testimony and that none of what she signed actually happened, which a rational being should have been able to suspect from reading the statements themselves.

Second off what she says is that she wasn't lying, she'd been convinced by police it must be so, thus wasn't lying to them. She was convinced by the police continually telling her untruths that I don't think they were lying about either, even though it wasn't true, because they had reason to believe them because of their mistakes.

 

[Grinder]

Here Chris: http://websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10002833&postcount=577

ETA "Amanda handed the two pages to a guard, who gave them to the prison governor, they were then sent to Mignini." (Follain, p 153)

Sure you do it for Chris . Thanks anyway!

Someone upstream agreed with the PGP, I will do it as well. This note seems as if it is written for a far bigger audience than the police. Before some engineer or preacher starts screaming at me, I don't think it makes her guilty, but odd.

Yes we are all different, but by that time I would have been very wary and would most likely have waited for my lawyer or I would have written it very straightforwardly without the dramatic touches.

At any rate it certainly seems to make it clear that she was withdrawing her statement of the 6th.

 

[Vibio]

And again:

Ghirga was trying to avoid a calunnia charge, he failed as one was filed on him anyway.

There were never any calunnia charges filed against Ghirga.

 

[acbytesla]

Others have understood that I was reffering to the night of the interrogations and the passage in his book which is quoted here:

​

They cannot stop him from crossing the Italian border. But it is difficult to predict Raffaele's plan. If he stays in Italy there is a good chance that he will find himself back in prison if the ISC confirms the latest verdict. If he runs he might be able to delay that action by forcing an extradition hearing as Rudy had done in Germany. If he openly sets this up before hand he might be able to get the hearing without the stigma of appearing to be running from justice.

I'm not talking about during the interrogation. The moment they said he couldn't leave the interrogation room...well actually sooner is the moment he needed to shut up and demand an attorney.

What I'm curious about is that time before they were arrested. Not now. Now they have taken his passport. Now if he leaves the country it probably can be considered "flight from authority".

I want to know if before his arrest, does the Italian police on their own authority without a court have the "actual right" to limit a citizen or guest of the country movements? Ficarro (I think) told Amanda that she couldn't leave the country. I'm curious, if she left the country at that time would it have been considered "flight"? I can imagine that a court shown evidence could issue an arrest warrant and Amanda would have been forced to return.

This doesn't really matter much about the present situation. I'm just thinking through some "what ifs" in my mind.

Thanks

AC

 

[Vibio]

Second off what she says is that she wasn't lying, she'd been convinced by police it must be so, thus wasn't lying to them. She was convinced by the police continually telling her untruths that I don't think they were lying about either, even though it wasn't true, because they had reason to believe them because of their mistakes.

Oh. That makes sense.

 

[anglolawyer]

Read them in the order you listed them.

No! Read them in reverse order. That will be more like a criminal trial. You here the prosecution case and cannot conceive of any possible answer - then you hear the defence and you slowly realise there is one and sometimes it goes beyond that and you feel a mounting sense of outrage at the lies you have been told.

 

[acbytesla]

And again:



There were never any calunnia charges filed against Ghirga.

He said Ghirga was trying to avoid a calunnia charge...DOH!!!!

 

[Bill Williams]

Oh right... her famous memorandum of the 7th "I didn't lie when I said the murderer might be Patrick."

LOL.

What she did not know at the time was that she herself had been lied to on that point.

 

[RoseMontague]

Oh really? Do you read Italian? Do you watch Italian investigative news programs? Do you know anything about Italian activism?

Tell me: how does does a TV show like "Pressdiretta" exist?

This is the RAI, our state television channel reporting about the death of Michele Ferrulli at the hands of the police. Watch it. Watch the witnesses speak.

This episode is called "Morti di Stato" ("Deaths by the State")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3JKm5qKt8g

This is the Pressadiretta website (and this is only one of a number of great Italian investigative programs):

http://www.presadiretta.rai.it/dl/p...d-0ef6-4b0c-9e6f-9801066c32d8.html?refresh_ce

And if It is "considered a serious crime to claim that the police abuse suspects" then tell me: how does a website like this exist?

http://www.abusodipolizia.it/

………………………………………

The problem with Ms. Knox is that she's a liar.

Her lawyers never filed any complaint of police abuse.

In fact, during the trial, her lawyer Luciano Ghirga in a taped interview said “There were pressures from the police, but we never said she was hit.” "

Someone is lying…. I wonder who?

More from Girgha speaking about her alibis:

"A lawyer for Knox, Luciano Ghirga, told reporters Friday that his client had given "three versions and ... it is difficult to evaluate which one is true."

"He also said he had warned Knox against making unfounded accusations. "We told her that it would be worse than assassination to accuse an innocent person. We explained to her what slander means in Italy and we'll see," Ghirga said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110901457_pf.html

First, thanks for the links. Good to know journalism is not completely restrained in Italy and there are a few able to speak freely about injustice.

On the three versions quote, that was the first day Amanda talked to her lawyers, IIRC, and they were new to the case as well. By this time Amanda had made two statements and written two memorials and Raffaele had made one and another in front of the judge. I remember trying to find this Ghirga quote in the Italian articles, the closest I found was this quote...

Stiamo valutando le carte. Ci sembra che la gravità del fatto e la complessità di 6 dichiarazioni incrociate meritino ulteriori approfondimenti", ha detto dal canto suo l'avvocato Luciano Ghirga, parlando anche a nome del collega Carlo Della Vedova, insieme difensori della studentessa americana Amanda Knox, coinquilina di Meredith e tra gli accusati - insieme al suo fidanzato, Raffaele Sollecito, ea Patrick Diya Lumumba - dell'omicidio.

This one would seem to make more sense to me. The other doesn't sound like something a lawyer would say about their brand new client they had just met.

 

[Kaosium]

And again:



There were never any calunnia charges filed against Ghirga.

Sorry, was it diffamazione then? Ghirga and Maori received 'indiscretions' and notified they were being investigated for slander. That gets translated differently depending on what the actual charge is.

 

[tsig]

The court never should have awarded damages... she did nothing wrong. She was wrecked in an interrogation room. She never would have made the accusation otherwise.

Let me ask you? If an Italian court tried to make you pay Patrick damages... would you pay?

Not if I was a cold blooded murderer whose only regret was that I didn't get away with my lie.

If I was innocent I'd pay in a heartbeat.

 

[platonov]

Racist nutters thinner on the ground than expected ?

Porn companies are not known for their taste AFAIK.

Now admittedly offering a convicted sex killer a gig might appear dubious but she has a lot of 'fans'* out there & the bottom line is the bottom line.

Go figure.

* whose interest could hardly be described as tasteful.

It appears I may have misspoke.

Apparently there is a whitehouse.org ? petition on the go.
How is that doing ?
Given that AK is going to avoid extradition due to a groundswell of popular support that the politicos dare not ignore one hopes the numbers are good.

With all the fawning TV coverage it must be up to 300/400 k at this stage.

So how is it looking.

Rose Montague - you are good at booksales etc ...
Can you give the board an update.

 

[Kaosium]

Not if I was a cold blooded murderer whose only regret was that I didn't get away with my lie.

If I was innocent I'd pay in a heartbeat.

I doubt you would if that person was guilty of far greater offenses against you and had joined up with the cops who were the ones actually responsible for any damage done.

 

[tsig]

Well let's not get into shoulds and shouldn'ts - a court of law DID IN FACT award damages and if Knox had any integrity she would have paid Lumumba (from her book advance for example, before settling any other debts). Mercifully we haven't reached the stage yet where defendants can choose which court awards they can happily ignore.

Especially if I had inadvertently caused him to be arrested and lose his business, it would be an opportunity to show to the world that I was honest about being sorry for mistakenly accusing him.