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

[Planigale]

Hummm...unless some others, who also buy ink by the barrel and are in direct competition with BBC/NBC and who just may wish to look into the story that their competition may well have been reporting incorrect and provably false information...then it may be worthwhile.

But sure doing nothing has worked out quite well for the wrongly accused so far so maybe they should go with that continued strategy. Ya think?

You are making the assumption that BBC radio 4 would not happily put the boot into a BBC TV 3 bought in documentary.

 

[acbytesla]

Hummm...unless some others, who also buy ink by the barrel and are in direct competition with BBC/NBC and who just may wish to look into the story that their competition may well have been reporting incorrect and provably false information...then it may be worthwhile.

But sure doing nothing has worked out quite well for the wrongly accused so far so maybe they should go with that continued strategy. Ya think?

Lawsuits can take years and traditionally libel is a tough to prove. Plaintiffs don't actually win that often. I'd only do it, if I could use it from a PR perspective to get them to present a much more positive perspective. NBC did produce the Dateline special which was quite favorable to Amanda.

I'm not saying I disagree with you Randy, but I'd have serious discussions with Mariott and how they might actually have an effect on the press.

 

[RandyN]

No, I'm afraid you've misunderstood it by a very wide margin.

Firstly, the judge should not have drawn an adverse inference from Sollecito not testifying. Full stop.

Secondly, if Nencini (or any of the prosecutors or other judges) had problems believing Sollecito's defence, they could and should have called him to the stand, as is their right in Italy. None of them did so. So it's therefore doubly out of order for Nencini to draw adverse inferences.

Had Nencini (or anyone else) asked Sollecito to testify and be cross-examined, he could have refused (in which case the judges would obviously have more of a case for adverse inferences). Or he could have agreed to testify and be cross-examined, and the court could have drawn appropriate inferences from the testimony and responses he gave.

This is not about "spin". It's about what is legally/judicially correct and proper, and what is not. And, frankly, your repeated small digs like this one are getting a little........ frustrating. Your prerogative though, I guess....

For me the point is ...how can RS defense complain in court about RS not being examined? This is unexplainable stupidity IMHO. Nencini will be excused, given a medal and promoted. RS will go to jail. And Knox will remain free here in the US while fighting extradition. Extradition will eventually be denied because Italy will be found guilty by the ECOHR of as usual.... violating several human rights inside it's own court system. Failure to provide a fair trial and failure to provide a speedy trial. Perhaps the ECOHR will look into police beatings during interrogations although I am unsure they concern themselves with this type of thing.

In the end Italy will be called upon to retry the defendants and Italy will refuse and then the case is closed. Everybody is safe. RS and AK will remain forever guilty. Italy escapes payments for false detainment and corrupt prosecution. The Kerchers will remain forever clueless. And finally all we will really know is that a girl is dead! Huh.

 

[RandyN]

You are making the assumption that BBC radio 4 would not happily put the boot into a BBC TV 3 bought in documentary.

Yes...yes I am.

Firstly I don't see their report as coming out that strongly against the Ch 3 thing. I hope that someone with a brain and some reporting credentials finally looks at this case. I just dont see BBC radio doing that against BBC TV. I hope I am wrong.

 

[RandyN]

Lawsuits can take years and traditionally libel is a tough to prove. Plaintiffs don't actually win that often. I'd only do it, if I could use it from a PR perspective to get them to present a much more positive perspective. NBC did produce the Dateline special which was quite favorable to Amanda. I'm not saying I disagree with you Randy, but I'd have serious discussions with Mariott and how they might actually have an effect on the press.

NBC news should be reporting verified double sourced facts. Nothing more, nothing less. They are not FOX or BBC 3 for that matter.

This appears to be a sign of their imminent downfall much like the decline of Newsweek magazine under the tutelage of Tina Brown when she decided to opt in reporting like that of Nadeau into the mainline magazine making it a joke like her Beast web site.

CBS and ABC would be all over that story like a pack of wolves. There is no downside to taking NBC to court at this point. Fox might even shoot a few arrows at NBC for fun. But the point is that the majors may finally become interested enough to have a good look at what is actually going on in this case. They may have to conclude that this is the craziest case in history. It has to be in the top ten bizarre land cases certainly.

 

[anglolawyer]

Bugging his bar....try to keep up Anglo. This is serious business.

No, you keep up. I am way out in front What they started with was a cell phone number, the number with which she exchanged messages between 8 and 9 p.m. on the 1st. Assuming an unregistered phone, they had some work to do tie that number up with Patrick. But I assume that would be pretty easily done. Bug the phone and listen to his conversations might be enough, checking out people he was in telephone contact with and simply asking one of them (also easily done). Then, by all means, bug his bar and tail the guy either or both of which they may well have done.

Let me see if I am keeping up with Dan. Lumumba had two phones with almost identical numbers. He kept one in the bar at all times and the other he had on his person. They were rigged so that a text sent to one would be received by both. The phone the cops recovered was the one from the bar. It had Amanda's message on it but not Lumumba's to her and it appeared the message had never been on the phone at all. It had not been deleted. The other phone was never found. Dan, please correct me if any of that is wrong (and don't be too brutal about it please )

A couple of things about this are:

1. it shows that deleting a text is not the end of the story so far as data retrieval is concerned. It follows there may yet be interesting information on Amanda's phone (assuming they didn't entrust it's storage to any Italian policeman, prosecuting lawyer or lab technician - fingers crossed!). The time at which Patrick's message was deleted might be there, for example. That would settle who deleted it because we know to the minute how long she had the phone under her exclusive control.
   
2. How come they didn't retrieve Patrick's other phone? Surely at 6 in the morning it was right there beside his bed or in his coat pocket or wherever he kept it, right? It was a key item since (we are supposed to believe) the cops did not know what his message had said. They would surely have searched and quickly found the phone had they been interested in gathering crucial incriminating evidence against Patrick. All they had to was scream at him very loudly until he gave them the phone. Easy. So why didn't they? Where is the phone?

I suggest none of this happened because they knew exactly what his message said and it was no help to them. I further suggest they found and 'lost' the phone and that Patrick was made to understand which way was up before he gave evidence. Was he asked what became of that phone? His testimony needs to be examined.

 

[anglolawyer]

[/HILITE]

Yes...yes I am.

Firstly I don't see their report as coming out that strongly against the Ch 3 thing. I hope that someone with a brain and some reporting credentials finally looks at this case. I just dont see BBC radio doing that against BBC TV. I hope I am wrong.

Or - we could just listen to the programme and see! Just a thought.

 

[Strozzi]

Everyone has their own tastes. Still I find it hard to believe that people actually think that Amanda looks creepy. Sure, if you pick out a few photos, you might find a few that might have that effect. But you'd have to be damn selective in your choice. Which I think the tabloids definitely were.

Frankly, I think Amanda is beautiful. She reminds me of my first girlfriend. pale skin, pretty blue eyes, nice smile. If I was twenty years younger, I'd damn sure would have made a play.

But that's irrelevant in terms of guilt or innocence. That's judging a book by its cover...or Italian justice.

What's this? I've seen a few photos of her. I thought her eyes are red.

I also know from court testimony that she has a large gap between her two front teeth. Curatolo testified to it in court so it must be true.

 

[Strozzi]

Bill Williams posted this from Andrew Gumbel's book.
Quote:
Tellingly, Mignini did not direct the court to look at the evidence per se, but to look at the logic of his reconstruction of the murder. And the high court endorsed his view when it sent the case back to trial last March. It was a mistake, the high court said, to focus on the shortcomings of the evidence piece by piece; the new trial judge needed to absorb the facts of the case “by osmosis” to appreciate the story in its totality. (end quote)

I sincerely hope that is not how Italian schools teach science.

 

[Samson]

The only posts of Platonov's I see are the ones that get quoted by others. I wish posters would show more discretion in what they quote. That last one is probably reportable but I'm not going to open the original.

I find all Machiavelli's posts extremely offensive, but they are quoted ad nauseam for a simple reason, it is an open forum, and frankly the most sophisticated forum for future research and reversal of this nonsense.

 

[Desert Fox]

Lawsuits can take years and traditionally libel is a tough to prove. Plaintiffs don't actually win that often. I'd only do it, if I could use it from a PR perspective to get them to present a much more positive perspective. NBC did produce the Dateline special which was quite favorable to Amanda.

I'm not saying I disagree with you Randy, but I'd have serious discussions with Mariott and how they might actually have an effect on the press.

Don't forget libel cases work the opposite in the UK as in the United Stated
Watch PBS Nova - Holocaust on Trial to get an idea

 

[Desert Fox]

I sincerely hope that is not how Italian schools teach science.

Err. . . . Well, don't forget the trial a few years ago on the seismologists.
You cannot work in an atmosphere like that.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Ruth Alexander, BBC reporter

Interesting slightly late BBC may be attempting to rebalance things. Tonight on BBC radio 4 20.00 GMT 'The Report' "Amanda Knox has had her conviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher reinstated by an Italian court. She was convicted, along with her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, in 2009. Doubts about forensic evidence meant the couple were freed after a successful appeal in 2011. But in January 2014 an appeal court reverted to the original guilty verdicts."

For non UK readers radio 4 is the 'flagship' broadcaster for BBC, it is certainly more serious than BBCTV 3, and probably with a larger reach.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vgr6x

The reporter mentioned in the BBC4 radio program, Ruth Alexander, wrote a 2013 article quoting Coralie Colmez, who advocated testing the knife twice: "But actually the mathematics tells you that if you have an unreliable test, you do it again and you can be a lot more certain of that answer. And it's not intuitive but a simple calculation will tell you that it's true." Maybe Ms. Alexander will interview Ms. Colmez again to discuss the actual results of the latest DNA testing, which did not show Ms. Kercher's DNA. Maybe not, though.
ETA
The facts that many PG commenters called for retesting yet the retesting did not produce the result they might have hoped for deserves more scrutiny than it has received so far.

 

[anglolawyer]

Since I just found it in a google-translated version of the 20 Mar 2009 transcript, here is what I think Dan was referring to before:

QUESTION - Then there were under the interception of telephones defendants?
ANSWER (Stefano Buratti) - The phones of the defendants, Knox and ...
QUESTION - Of the suspects then?
ANSWER - The suspects then from the day 2, from day 2 to follow developments Business Investigation hand to hand were authorized wiretaps.
QUESTION - So Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito.
ANSWER - Yes, and then we talk about the first interception,
is not it?
QUESTION - I do not ask in chronological order, then Rudy
Guede, Lumumba?
ANSWER - Yes, Romanelli, Mezzetti.
QUESTION - So even friends?
ANSWER - Yes.

Dan - please note the witness is not Sisani.

 

[Dan O.]

Let me see if I am keeping up with Dan. Lumumba had two phones with almost identical numbers. He kept one in the bar at all times and the other he had on his person. They were rigged so that a text sent to one would be received by both. The phone the cops recovered was the one from the bar. It had Amanda's message on it but not Lumumba's to her and it appeared the message had never been on the phone at all. It had not been deleted. The other phone was never found. Dan, please correct me if any of that is wrong (and don't be too brutal about it please )

While I remember the Perugia Shock interview where Patrick disclosed that he had two phones with one number, I failed to record the references for that detail and I have been unable to find that article again. While it is the only reasonable explanation for the two sim identities recorded in the phone logs and reported in court documents, it is not an important factor. Therefore, I will henceforth drop that claim as a fact and call it a possibility until a solid reference has been documented.

A couple of things about this are:

1. it shows that deleting a text is not the end of the story so far as data retrieval is concerned. It follows there may yet be interesting information on Amanda's phone (assuming they didn't entrust it's storage to any Italian policeman, prosecuting lawyer or lab technician - fingers crossed!). The time at which Patrick's message was deleted might be there, for example. That would settle who deleted it because we know to the minute how long she had the phone under her exclusive control.
   
2. How come they didn't retrieve Patrick's other phone? Surely at 6 in the morning it was right there beside his bed or in his coat pocket or wherever he kept it, right? It was a key item since (we are supposed to believe) the cops did not know what his message had said. They would surely have searched and quickly found the phone had they been interested in gathering crucial incriminating evidence against Patrick. All they had to was scream at him very loudly until he gave them the phone. Easy. So why didn't they? Where is the phone?

In testimony from the postal police officer from Rome it was explained that they only had the tools to make a logical copy of the cell phone contents. A logical copy does not preserve deleted texts. Some phones have a diagnostic event buffer that technicians can access. This may or may not be part of the logical copy.

The police were probably unaware of the existence of a second phone. They only knew that a SIM had been changed in some foolish attempt to cover his tracks. Once the find the first phone they would stop looking.

We don't even know where they found Patrick's phone. The only track we have is the two numbers from the SIMs, only one of which was reported when the phone was examined in Rome. From that we might be able to tell if the phone they found was the one that sent the text.

I suggest none of this happened because they knew exactly what his message said and it was no help to them. I further suggest they found and 'lost' the phone and that Patrick was made to understand which way was up before he gave evidence. Was he asked what became of that phone? His testimony needs to be examined.

By the time of the trial Patrick was a witness for the prosecution. His phones were no longer important for them so the subject would not come up.

 

[Dan O.]

Since I just found it in a google-translated version of the 20 Mar 2009 transcript, here is what I think Dan was referring to before:



Dan - please note the witness is not Sisani.

Look for the key word “environmental”

 

[Diocletus]

Since I just found it in a google-translated version of the 20 Mar 2009 transcript, here is what I think Dan was referring to before:



Dan - please note the witness is not Sisani.

Just what is the procedure and standard of proof for all of this wiretapping?

The Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari (Judge for the Preliminary Investigations) controls the actions of the Pubblico Ministero, when the personal rights of the indagato are at stake. No indagato can be wiretapped, unless the Judge for the Preliminary Investigations has authorised it. All measures must be adopted by the Judge with an order, and he must also publish written explanations of his decisions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Code_of_Criminal_Procedure

Of course, that's for indagato, which is a person suspected of a crime, I believe. What's the standard for wiretapping a mere witness, I wonder?

 

[Diocletus]

Just stumbled on this kind of fascinating summary.

http://www.englishforlaw.it/fotolezioni/543_1928_799.pdf

A couple of notes:

1. This suggests that a fast-track (summary) trial is NOT a public trial, as mandated by the Constitution, and that the investigation results are accepted as evidence, which is not the case in a full trial. So, these are substantial differences between Guede's trial and the Knox/Sollecito proceeding, which suggest that the results of the Guede trial should never have been used in Knox/Sollecito's trial. I think that this procedure is not only a violation of the ECHR, but also of the Italian Constitution. I think we're headed to the Constitutional Court after we stop at ISC.

2. Look at the so-called restrictions on evidence: opinion, illegally-obtained statements, etc. Yeah, right.

3. Look at the interrogation rights. Yeah, right.

 

[Dan O.]

I find all Machiavelli's posts extremely offensive, but they are quoted ad nauseam for a simple reason, it is an open forum, and frankly the most sophisticated forum for future research and reversal of this nonsense.

Mach's posts contain lies and misrepresentations but at least he doesn't try to be insulting. I don't remember putting Mach on ignore. and haven't seen anyone quote him for a while. He's probably off on retreat with Mignini and co preparing the next phase of the prosecutions case.

 

[anglolawyer]

Look for the key word “environmental”

Why? What's 'key' about it?

By the way, good find Dan. I agree with you that the mere fact they tapped Lumumba's phone and the reasonable deduction that they did so before they arrested him suggests they knew about him before the interrogations. It is a big find.

Next stop - Lumumba's testimony. Now I know how to google translate whole tracts of testimony there will be no stopping me! Today Lumumba, tomorrow the Sudetenland! Sieg Hei … oh, sorry.