Cont: The Trials of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito: Part 32

[Numbers]

Comodi was acquitted in the case regarding the cartoon so she didn't have to pay for it. The fact that the prosecution had a cartoon created that cost 182,000 euros paid for by the state is yet another example of the prosecution having access to funds that the defense does not have. Knox and Sollecito had to pay for their own expert witnesses, etc.

Stacyhs, thanks again! I didn't know or didn't remember that the cartoon cost 182,000 euros, I only recalled it was costly. Is there a reference for the cost? I assume I am correct that the contract and funds for the cartoon went to her relative. What were the grounds for her acquittal? Was there any evidence that Comodi received any kickback (compensation) from her relative for directing the contract to him?

 

[Numbers]

An important ECHR case, Cioffi v. Italy 17710/15, was published today, 5 June 2025. There were violent disorders in Naples on 17 March 2001 against an event, the Third Global Forum on Reinventing Government, that was being held in the city. Police and demonstrators clashed when the demonstrators attempted to dismantle barriers and enter a protected area; the police charged the demonstrators, the demonstrators threw dangerous objects at the police, and the police responded with force. Injured demonstrators sought treatment in the emergency rooms of city hospitals. Other persons, not involved in the demonstrations, were also present in the emergency rooms as patients or accompanying patients.

At 12:30 pm, police received orders to transfer all patients in the hospital emergency rooms to a specific police station. A deputy chief of police was assigned the task of coordinating the activities in the police station for the transferred individuals, and he delegated authority in the activities involving the transferred persons (a total of 85 individuals, including the applicant Cioffi, a trainee lawyer), to two senior police officials. Records indicate Cioffi was held from no later than somewhat before 1:00 pm to no later than his release somewhat after 5:30 pm.

The police in the station, according to Italian court records, proceeded to inflict serious mistreatment upon the transferred persons, including but not limited to threats and beatings. The ECHR judgment states:

13. Following a preliminary investigation, thirty-one law-enforcement officers of different ranks were charged with offences in connection with the events of 17 March 2001. These included kidnapping (sequestro di persona) with the aggravating factor that it had been carried out by State officials abusing their authority; unlawful personal searches and inspections (perquisizione e ispezione personali arbitrarie); destruction and damage of property (danneggiamento); abuse of office; forgery committed by State officials in the drafting of public documents (falsità ideologica commessa dal pubblico ufficiale in atti pubblici); criminal coercion (violenza privata); and bodily harm (lesione personale), including, inter alia, causing contusions to the applicant’s head and back, with a number of aggravating factors, such as committing the offence while exercising a public function, operating in a number greater than five, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the injured, and using service batons to commit the offence.

14. On 13 July 2004 they were committed to stand trial in the Naples District Court. The applicant joined the proceedings as a civil party alongside nineteen other individuals.

Because of the length of the information in the ECHR judgment, I will skip to Cioffi's claims as summarized by the ECHR (I recommend reading the entire judgment):

65. The applicant pointed out that the domestic courts had confirmed his account of the ill-treatment he had suffered at the hands of the police. In particular, he had been subjected to several beatings, spat on and forced to kneel on the floor with his face to the wall and his hands behind his head. He had not been allowed to use his phone to communicate his whereabouts and his phone had been destroyed. He stated that when he had identified himself as a trainee lawyer and requested explanations for his having been taken into custody, for which he saw no legitimate reason, he had been subjected to more physical and verbal abuse. He cited the first-instance court’s finding to the effect that he had become a “designated target” for the law-enforcement officers, who had attempted to arouse feelings of fear in him through threats.

66. As to the legal classification of the treatment to which he had been subjected, he considered that it amounted to torture for the purposes of the Court’s case-law, since in his view it had been inflicted with a punitive and retaliatory intent.

67. He added that the fear and anguish he had experienced as a result of this treatment ought to be taken into account by the Court. He emphasised that the treatment he had endured was in no way attributable to actions on his part. He also contested the Government’s submission to the effect that the impugned events had occurred because of the difficult situation caused by clashes between the police and demonstrators, as those events occurred several hours after the clashes and not during the demonstration itself.

68. The applicant focused on the failure to punish the law‑enforcement officers and argued that, despite the domestic courts’ acknowledgment of the seriousness of the offences at issue, those responsible had not received appropriate punishment. Most of the offences had gone unpunished as a result of the expiry of statutory limitation periods, which were too short in relation to the time necessary to conduct in-depth investigations in cases as complex as the one under scrutiny. Indeed, while the applicant argued that the proceedings had been lengthy, he nevertheless conceded the Government’s submission that the proceedings had lasted fourteen years because the case was particularly complex, concerned a large number of police officers and many victims, in an exceptional context of police violence.

69. He further submitted that the sentences that had been handed down, which were the minimum sentences applicable for the related offences, were derisory in comparison to the seriousness of the offences committed. The effectiveness of criminal sanctions had been further undermined, in his view, by the application of pardons and suspended sentences.

70. He submitted that the Italian legal framework had proved to be inadequate for the purposes of punishing the violations complained of and providing the necessary deterrent effect to prevent similar violations from occurring in the future.

71. The applicant added that some of the officers involved in the impugned events had not been subjected to disciplinary sanctions, that they had been suspended from duty for only a few days, that most of them were still in active service and that some had even been promoted.

72. Lastly, he emphasised that he remained without compensation fourteen years after the impugned events and argued that any award of damages after bringing civil proceedings could not, in any event, have afforded sufficient redress for a violation of his rights under Article 3 since those responsible had gone unpunished.

Here is the ECHR analysis:

85. Turning to the facts of the present case, the Court observes at the outset that the domestic courts established in considerable detail the different forms of ill-treatment to which the persons held at the police station, and the applicant in particular, had been subjected (see paragraphs 15 to 34 above). As the Court finds no cogent reason to depart from such findings, and noting the Government’s statement to the effect that they fully endorsed the findings of the national courts, it regards the ill-treatment complained of as proven.

86. In particular, the Court notes that, upon their arrival at the police station, the individuals held there, which included the applicant, were made to walk through a hallway lined by law-enforcement officers who, amongst other things, took turns slapping, kicking, and tripping them (see paragraph 17 above). The applicant had also been forced to kneel on the floor with his face to the wall and his hands behind his head, and in order to enforce that posture, he had been shoved, kicked and punched from behind by officers (see paragraph 18 above). What further emerges from the findings of the domestic courts is that the applicant was also subjected to several beatings and that he sustained contusions to the head and back (see paragraphs 18 and 23 above). The physical abuse against the applicant was described as “very violent” by the first-instance court, which also found that he had become a “designated target” for the officers (see paragraph 19 above). The Court notes that there has not been and, on the basis of the material available to it, there can hardly be any suggestion that the treatment to which the applicant was subjected while entirely under the authorities’ control, as described above, was made necessary by his conduct (see Bouyid, cited above §§ 88 and 100-01).

87. The Court further notes that the first-instance court singled out the applicant as among the recipients of “particularly odious” verbal abuse
(see paragraph 19 above). This conduct had aimed, according to that court, to instil and prolong a state of fear in the applicant. The Court also notes that, as emphasised by the applicant and as shown by the findings of the domestic courts, the applicant identified himself as a trainee lawyer and requested explanations, as he stated he did not see any reason for his transfer to the police station, there having been no formal arrest, and having already undergone an identity check by the police at the hospital (see paragraph 19 above). The first-instance court described the applicant’s attempts to obtain information as having been met by further physical and verbal abuse, to the point that he had had no choice but to desist, a circumstance which the court referred to as “particularly unacceptable” (see paragraph 19 above). Moreover, this treatment had been coupled with the inability of the applicant, who spent approximately five hours in the police station, to contact the outside world in order to make his situation known (see paragraphs 16 and 18 above). In the Court’s view, there can be little doubt that these circumstances must have caused the applicant considerable emotional and psychological distress.

88. Having regard to all the foregoing elements, the Court concludes that the applicant was subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 of the Convention, and that such treatment should be regarded as both inhuman and degrading.

Many of the police officers who were convicted of offenses in the case were pardoned or benefited from the statute of limitations (because the trials went on so long that the time limits were exceeded). The punishment for some consisted of a written warning entered into their personnel file.

Concerning Italy holding the police responsible for the misconduct that was proven by Italian courts to have occurred, the ECHR stated:

99. Having regard to all of the above, the Court is not persuaded that the authorities’ overall response to the impugned ill-treatment in the instant case can be considered adequate in terms of its capacity to punish the inhuman and degrading treatment at issue and as having sufficient deterrent effect to prevent the commission of future acts similar to those complained of by the applicant. It follows that the requirements of an effective investigation have not been fully satisfied in the present case.

The Italian government objected that Cioffi could no longer be considered a victim of mistreatment because some of the officers had been convicted, even if they had been pardoned later or merely given written warnings. The ECHR did not agree:


100. The Court reiterates that it falls first to the national authorities to redress any violation of the Convention. In the present case, it acknowledges the fact that the domestic courts thoroughly examined the impugned events, established the circumstances of the applicant’s ill-treatment and recognised his right to compensation, as emphasised by the Government.

101. However, in cases of wilful ill-treatment by State agents in breach of Article 3, the Court has repeatedly found that, in addition to acknowledging of the violation, two measures are necessary to provide sufficient redress. Firstly, the State authorities must have conducted a thorough and effective investigation capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible. Secondly, an award of compensation is required where appropriate or, at least, the opportunity to apply for and obtain compensation for the damage sustained as a result of the ill-treatment (see Gäfgen, cited above, § 116).

102. Given the Court’s findings to the effect that the investigation was not effective (see paragraph 99 above), it cannot but conclude that the applicant may still claim to be a “victim” of a breach of his rights under Article 3 of the Convention. Accordingly, the Government’s objection must be dismissed.

In conclusion, the ECHR stated:

103. The Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention under both its substantive and procedural limbs.

This Cioffi v. Italy ECHR case is significant for the Knox - Sollecito case. It shows how reluctant the Italian judicial system is to acknowledge misconduct by police unless there is overwhelming evidence, and even more reluctant to hold any police officer who commits misconduct to be held accountable through an appropriate punishment that matches the severity of the criminal misconduct. It should be recalled that the first violation found in Knox v. Italy is a violation of Convention Article 3 in the procedural limb, and to date, Italy has done nothing known to the public to remedy that violation.

Source: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-243366

 

[Stacyhs]

Stacyhs, thanks again! I didn't know or didn't remember that the cartoon cost 182,000 euros, I only recalled it was costly. Is there a reference for the cost? I assume I am correct that the contract and funds for the cartoon went to her relative. What were the grounds for her acquittal? Was there any evidence that Comodi received any kickback (compensation) from her relative for directing the contract to him?

I can't answer your questions because the article I read about her acquittal had no other details.

 

[Stacyhs]

Here is an aerial photo of the Lana's house and garden in relation to Guede's apartment. Notice the Sant'Angelo Park gate in the upper left-hand corner and Guede's apt. that is a few seconds walk from it. Guede would have known of this small, obscure gate to the park making it much more plausible that he threw the phones into the Lana's garden (which is invisible from the road due to tall trees and bushes) than either Knox or Sollecito. There would have been no reason for them to walk that way to get rid of the phones whereas it's logical that Guede would have. Guede either walked home through the park and tossed them before going up the path to the gate or later by exiting the gate, walking down the path, and then back up. When I walked that area in the late afternoon on a beautiful May day, I saw no one, not even a car, so it's much more private than inside the city walls.



Here is a photo of the Lana's garden. You can see how the trees completely block the view of the house from the rood and it sits below the road so Guede likely thought he was tossing them into a wooded area.

 

[Numbers]

I can't answer your questions because the article I read about her acquittal had no other details.

I found an article with some information I didn't know, although it doesn't address my previous questions - there may be no public information on some of those.

For the issues with the expenses for the cartoon, Manuela Comodi was not tried in a criminal court. She was tried by the CSM (High Council of the Magistrates aka High Council of the Judiciary), the disciplinary body for judges and prosecutors ("magistrates" in Italy) as defined in Articles 104, 105, and 107 of the Italian Constitution*. The prosecutor appearing before the CSM is the Attorney General (Chief Prosecutor) of the CSC. The hearing or trial was described in media articles; I Google translated one dated 6 December 2013 in Umbria24.**

The cartoon itself used the latest technology available when it was made ("4D" - supposedly simulating realistic motions) and cost 182,740 euros, which included 30,000 euros in VAT. The charge against Comodi was that she had caused "unjust damage to the Treasury [of Italy]" and had given the company making the cartoon "an undue advantage" [apparently by not seeking competitive bids] so that the payment was not properly motivated [justified] and the proper criteria [standards] for the large sum were not applied. The prosecution called for Comodi to be issued a warning (a light sanction) for her alleged "inexcusable negligence" in the way she handled the expenditure and financial justification for the cartoon. However, the CSM disciplinary section did not agree and acquitted her, so no warning was issued.

* https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costituzione_inglese.pdf
** https://www.umbria24.it/cronaca/omi...di-per-la-liquidazione-delle-spese-del-video/

 

[Numbers]

Here is an aerial photo of the Lana's house and garden in relation to Guede's apartment. Notice the Sant'Angelo Park gate in the upper left-hand corner and Guede's apt. that is a few seconds walk from it. Guede would have known of this small, obscure gate to the park making it much more plausible that he threw the phones into the Lana's garden (which is invisible from the road due to tall trees and bushes) than either Knox or Sollecito. There would have been no reason for them to walk that way to get rid of the phones whereas it's logical that Guede would have. Guede either walked home through the park and tossed them before going up the path to the gate or later by exiting the gate, walking down the path, and then back up. When I walked that area in the late afternoon on a beautiful May day, I saw no one, not even a car, so it's much more private than inside the city walls.

View attachment 61702

Here is a photo of the Lana's garden. You can see how the trees completely block the view of the house from the rood and it sits below the road so Guede likely thought he was tossing them into a wooded area.

View attachment 61703

I believe there was a consistent pattern of the police and prosecution ignoring or minimizing evidence of Guede's role in the crimes against Kercher. While some may claim that this was a display of favoritism to Guede - actions motivated by the hypothesized role of Guede as a police informant or some other speculation such as the influence from Guede's wealthy foster family - it may simply have resulted from the desire of the police and prosecutor to falsely attribute as much of the crime as possible to Knox and/or Sollecito to hide the weaknesses of the case against them.

 

[TomG]

I believe there was a consistent pattern of the police and prosecution ignoring or minimizing evidence of Guede's role in the crimes against Kercher. While some may claim that this was a display of favoritism to Guede - actions motivated by the
hypothesized role of Guede as a police informant or some other speculation such as the influence from Guede's wealthy foster family - it may simply have resulted from the desire of the police and prosecutor to falsely attribute as much of the crime as possible to Knox and/or Sollecito to hide the weaknesses of the case against them.

I remember reading an "unpublished" interview that reporter Bob Graham had with Mignini, where the question of whether or not Rudy was an informant or not came up. I seem to remember that Mignini replied that it wouldn't be surprising if he was considering Rudy's background. I can't find any trace of it now, despite searches. Does anyone have a link?

 

[Numbers]

I remember reading an "unpublished" interview that reporter Bob Graham had with Mignini, where the question of whether or not Rudy was an informant or not came up. I seem to remember that Mignini replied that it wouldn't be surprising if he was considering Rudy's background. I can't find any trace of it now, despite searches. Does anyone have a link?

The unusual release of Guede at the request of the Perugia police after he was arrested after being found armed and illegally in a nursery school must have some explanation. One reasonable candidate explanation is that he was an informant for the Perugia police.

 

[Stacyhs]

I suspect Guede was an informant or had some kind of relationship with the Perugia police but, admittedly, there is no actual evidence of this.

What I also suspect is that Curatolo had some relationship with the police as the Kercher case was not the only time he'd testified in court. He'd testified in at least 2 previous cases:

Curatolo, as already mentioned, appears to be a professional witness, having already testified in two other previous trials of media relevance.

 

[Numbers]

The unusual release of Guede at the request of the Perugia police after he was arrested after being found armed and illegally in a nursery school must have some explanation. One reasonable candidate explanation is that he was an informant for the Perugia police.

As readers here are no doubt well aware, there is no bail or similar system in Italy. If a person is arrested, for example, as Guede was at the scene of a crime - the nursery school that he had illegally entered, and where he was found to be carrying a knife that he had apparently taken from the school's kitchen - the procedure after arrest would be to bring the suspect/accused person before a judge. The judge would then decide on personal precautionary measures, if any, that would be required under Italian law. The laws concerning precautionary measures and coercive measures (relating to limitations imposed on the suspect/accused) begin with CPP Article 272 (personal freedom may only be limited only in accordance with the laws listed in the CPP) and continue through CPP Article 315 (compensation for unjust detention).

Some relevant laws for understanding how odd the (apparently) unsupervised release of Guede after his arrest in the Milan nursery school include, but may not be limited to:

CPP Article 274, paragraph 1, subparagraph c: Precautionary measures shall be ordered if there is a real danger of the suspect/accused committing serious crimes using weapons or any other violent tool against persons....

CPP Article 297, paragraph 1: The effects of precautionary detention shall start as soon as the moment in which the suspect/accused has been captured, arrested, or placed under temporary detention.

Lawful precautionary measures include but are not limited to: detention in a prison (CPP Article 285), house arrest (CPP Article 284), and requiring the suspect/accused to be free but to make periodic appearances at a specific police facility (CPP Article 282). CPP Article 275-bis provides that in ordering house arrest or in place of precautionary detention in prison, a judge may order monitoring procedures through electronic means or other technical devices (e.g., electronic ankle bracelets).

Source: The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure: Critical Essays and English Translation, ed. M. Gialuz, L. Luparia, and F. Scarpa, Wolters Kluwer Italia (C) 2014.

 

[Numbers]

While searching for information on Rudy Guede, I came across this 28 November 2021 article from il Giornale:

Rudy Guede rischia l'espulsione. E chiede asilo all'Italia​

La legge italiana prevede l'espulsione per gli stranieri che abbiano commesso un reato superiore ai 2 anni di pena. Il 34enne ha presentato domanda di protezione internazionale

As stated in the article, a foreigner convicted of a crime with a sentence exceeding 2 years may be expelled from Italy after serving the sentence (CP Article 235). Guede, however, having been released in 2021, having served about 16 years for the murder/rape of Kercher "in complicity with unknown persons", applied for asylum in Italy, and apparently was granted asylum or other permission to remain.

I translated the Italian text of CP Article 235, and it specifically refers to the expulsion or removal of foreigners who are also citizens of other European Union member states, as well as "the cases expressly provided for by law". I don't know if this wording means that a citizen of the Ivory Coast, for example, was not allowed to be expelled or removed under CP Article 235.

Sources:
https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/rudy-guede-rischia-lespulsione-1992393.html
https://www.altalex.com/documents/news/2013/12/19/delle-misure-amministrative-di-sicurezza

 

[Stacyhs]

If he's convicted of the rape and beating up of his former girlfriend, I wouldn't be surprised if he's deported after serving his sentence. But some never learn.

 

[Welshman]

I believe there was a consistent pattern of the police and prosecution ignoring or minimizing evidence of Guede's role in the crimes against Kercher. While some may claim that this was a display of favoritism to Guede - actions motivated by the hypothesized role of Guede as a police informant or some other speculation such as the influence from Guede's wealthy foster family - it may simply have resulted from the desire of the police and prosecutor to falsely attribute as much of the crime as possible to Knox and/or Sollecito to hide the weaknesses of the case against them.

There is an excellent website "Knox auguries of innocence" which makes the point there has been an effort by the Italian authorities to minimise Guede's role in Meredith's murder, deflect attention from Guede and treat him leniently and this attitude extents to the guilters. On the TJMK/PMF hate sites they viciously attack Amanda and Raffaele but they largely ignore Guede. It has been argued one of the aims of the hate sites is minimise Guede's role in Meredith's murder and place as much blame as possible for Meredith's murder on Amanda and Raffaele which could be one factor why guilters such as Vixen regard Amanda and Raffaele as guilty regardless of the facts and the anger guilters feel over the Hellman and supreme court acquittals . If Amanda and Raffaele are convicted, minimising Guede's role in Meredith's murder and passing the blame to Amanda and Raffaele can be justified but this is not the case if Amanda and Raffaele are acquitted. To minimise Guede's role and place as much as blame as possible on Amanda and Raffaele, guilters are prepared to express utter absurdities eg that Amanda and Raffaele came back to stage a rape when Guede had raped Meredith. By claiming that Amanda and Raffaele staged a rape rather than Guede actually raped Meredith, this is a way of minimising Guede's role.

 

[Numbers]

There is an excellent website "Knox auguries of innocence" which makes the point there has been an effort by the Italian authorities to minimise Guede's role in Meredith's murder, deflect attention from Guede and treat him leniently and this attitude extents to the guilters. On the TJMK/PMF hate sites they viciously attack Amanda and Raffaele but they largely ignore Guede. It has been argued one of the aims of the hate sites is minimise Guede's role in Meredith's murder and place as much blame as possible for Meredith's murder on Amanda and Raffaele which could be one factor why guilters such as Vixen regard Amanda and Raffaele as guilty regardless of the facts and the anger guilters feel over the Hellman and supreme court acquittals . If Amanda and Raffaele are convicted, minimising Guede's role in Meredith's murder and passing the blame to Amanda and Raffaele can be justified but this is not the case if Amanda and Raffaele are acquitted. To minimise Guede's role and place as much as blame as possible on Amanda and Raffaele, guilters are prepared to express utter absurdities eg that Amanda and Raffaele came back to stage a rape when Guede had raped Meredith. By claiming that Amanda and Raffaele staged a rape rather than Guede actually raped Meredith, this is a way of minimising Guede's role.

Welshman, thanks for reminding us of the excellent "Amanda Knox: Auguries of Innocence" online publication*. It contains many clear observations and analyses of the case. The 16 September 2015 analysis of the Marasca CSC panel MR is excellent, although it may miss noting the forecast or plan of resistance in the MR to the then-anticipated 2019 ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy. Here's an excerpt (note that "the conviction" in the excerpt refers only to the conviction of Knox and Sollecito on the murder/rape charges and of Knox on the "aggravated calunnia" charge; the conviction of Knox on the "simple" calunnia charge was final and could not be lawfully altered by the Marasca CSC panel):

It is important to step back a bit and see what Marasca did accomplish:

• He annulled the conviction definitively without further possibility of review.
• He states in the strongest possible terms that Amanda and Raffaele had nothing to do with the murder.
• He eviscerates the prosecutor and police over the deplorable quality of the investigation.
• He strongly criticizes the likes of Massei and Nencini for ignoring evidence that undercut their theories and, more generally, for not evaluating evidence in ways clearly established by Italian law.

In short, the subtext of everything Marasca says is that Guede, acting alone, killed Meredith Kercher. An American judge might well have felt free to state this plainly. A subtle Italian judge, operating in an environment where professional courtesy is important, pays you the compliment of assuming you are smart enough to work this fact out for yourself following the clues he has given.

* https://amandaknoxauguriesofinnocence.wordpress.com/

 

[Numbers]

Welshman, thanks for reminding us of the excellent "Amanda Knox: Auguries of Innocence" online publication*. It contains many clear observations and analyses of the case. The 16 September 2015 analysis of the Marasca CSC panel MR is excellent, although it may miss noting the forecast or plan of resistance in the MR to the then-anticipated 2019 ECHR judgment Knox v. Italy. Here's an excerpt (note that "the conviction" in the excerpt refers only to the conviction of Knox and Sollecito on the murder/rape charges and of Knox on the "aggravated calunnia" charge; the conviction of Knox on the "simple" calunnia charge was final and could not be lawfully altered by the Marasca CSC panel):



* https://amandaknoxauguriesofinnocence.wordpress.com/

As some readers may be aware (and I learned today), the original "Auguries of Innocence" is a poem by William Blake (1757-1827). A focus of the poem may be that those who practice cruelty and injustice will themselves suffer. Here are some comments excerpted from a summary and analysis by Oliver Tearle, University Teacher in English at Loughborough University:

After the opening lines of Blake’s poem, the most famous are probably ‘A Truth thats told with bad intent / Beats all the Lies you can invent’. Often repeated with reference to politicians or other people who would justify harm and injustice by using facts to support their position, these lines are among Blake’s most resonant.

A lie, for Blake, would carry its own punishment: like letting your own dog starve, it is an act of self-harm that rebounds upon the perpetrator. As Mark Twain once said, if you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything; nor will you have your conscience nagging you that you have done something Immoral with a capital ‘I’. But this is why misusing pure truth is worse: it is an assault on innocence, because (good) truth is being pressed into service for immoral ends. Truth – and, by extension, innocence – is thus being corrupted once more.

‘Auguries of Innocence’ might be regarded as a sort of verse manifesto for much of Blake’s writing, laying out, through a long sequence of examples, his moral position. Blake was consistent in speaking out against injustice and moral wrong, and ‘Auguries of Innocence’ shines further light on how Blake saw evil deeds harming not just the victim but also the perpetrator.

ETA: Near the beginning of Blake's poem are the following lines:

A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage

Sources:

A Summary and Analysis of William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Unlike many of his other celebrated poems, William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’ languished unpublished in notebooks for decades after his death, and…

interestingliterature.com

 

[Numbers]

Some ECHR cases against Italy reinforce the opinion that one of the primary drivers of injustice in Italy is a desire by the Italian government and/or courts to minimize expenditures from the Italian treasury, even when those expenditures are fair and lawful. An example is AVELLONE AND OTHERS [Committee] v. ITALY 6561/10 final 09/07/2020. (The case was considered so readily determined from ECHR case law that the ECHR judged it before a Committee of 3 judges rather than a Chamber of 7 judges.)

In 1985, Italy passed a law increasing the pensions of some group(s) of pensioners to increase with a calculation of the cost of living, effective with the enactment of the law. When individuals retired and sought their pensions, the pension authority (INSP) calculated the increase from their date of retirement, not from the date the law went into effect. The pensioners sought relief in the pension authority's administrative court, but it sided with the authority. They then took the case to the civil courts, and won their case at every level, including the CSC - pension increases would be calculated from the date the law went into effect. However, while these court cases were ongoing, the Italian parliament passed a new law, giving an "authentic interpretation" to the 1985 law, specifying that it was to be Italian law that the pensions were to be increased with the cost of living only starting from the date of retirement, and it was retrospective. This new law went into effect on 1 January 2008. The Italian courts now reversed themselves and followed the new law. A group of 30 retirees lodged an application with the ECHR complaining of a violation of Convention Article 6.1, on the grounds that the parliament had interfered with the court judgments in process. Some of the applicant retirees had lost as much as about 2,200 euros, but some had suffered no monetary loss.

The ECHR judgment excluded those applicants who had suffered no monetary loss. The ECHR found a violation of Convention Article 6.1 (inline citations omitted):

47. The Court has repeatedly held that although the legislature is not prevented from regulating, through new retrospective provisions, rights derived from the laws in force, the principle of the rule of law and the notion of a fair trial enshrined in Article 6 preclude, except for compelling public-interest reasons, interference by the legislature with the administration of justice designed to influence the judicial determination of a dispute....

48. The Court is not persuaded by the arguments advanced by the Government that the disputes were not decided on the basis of the law of authentic interpretation. While it is true that in the judgments mentioned by the Government (see paragraph 45 above) the Court of Cassation expressly maintained that the outcome would have been the same, since the disputes had to be resolved on the basis of the new interpretation, the Court notes that such an interpretation followed the approach of the Constitutional Court in judgment no. 401/2008 (see paragraph 18 above), which in turn concerned the constitutionality of Law no. 244/2007.

49. The Court notes that the Government did not submit any judgment of the Court of Cassation predating the enactment of the Law that had endorsed the position of the INPS. On the contrary, the Court notes that before the enactment of Law no. 244/2007 the domestic courts repeatedly found in favour of the applicants’ position, and the interpretation of the relevant legal provisions was also endorsed by the Court of Cassation on one occasion (see paragraph 10 above). Given that the legal provisions had mostly been interpreted in favour of the applicants during the decades when the adjustment of the increase in line with the cost of living had been challenged in the domestic courts, it follows that the legislative interference (shifting the balance in favour of one of the parties) in the present case was not foreseeable.

50. In reality, the enactment of Law 244/2007 when the proceedings were pending did determine the substance of the disputes. Indeed, the Law had the effect of definitively modifying the outcome of the pending litigation to which the State was a party, endorsing the State’s position to the applicants’ detriment.

51. Lastly, even accepting that the State was attempting to adjust a situation it had not originally intended to create and ensure respect for the original will of the legislature, it could have done so without resorting to a retrospective application of the law....

52. The foregoing considerations are sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that there has been a violation of Article 6 of the Convention.

While the Italian government submitted an Action Plan in 2021, this case remains pending before the CoM.

Conclusion: While "protection of reputation" and "assuring impunity for illegal acts of authorities" may be motivations for the re-conviction of Knox for calunnia and the denial of compensation for unjust detention for Sollecito, a desire to minimize expenditures from the Italian treasury, even if the expenditures would be lawful, just, and fair, is another apparent motivation of the Italian state and its branches.

Sources:

HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights

The HUDOC database provides access to the case-law of the Court (Grand Chamber, Chamber and Committee judgments and decisions, communicated cases, advisory opinions and legal summaries from the Case-Law Information Note), the European Commission of Human Rights (decisions and reports) and the...

hudoc.echr.coe.int

ECHR judgment

HUDOC-EXEC

hudoc.exec.coe.int

CoM Case Status

HUDOC-EXEC

hudoc.exec.coe.int

Action Plan

 

[Vixen]

Here is an aerial photo of the Lana's house and garden in relation to Guede's apartment. Notice the Sant'Angelo Park gate in the upper left-hand corner and Guede's apt. that is a few seconds walk from it. Guede would have known of this small, obscure gate to the park making it much more plausible that he threw the phones into the Lana's garden (which is invisible from the road due to tall trees and bushes) than either Knox or Sollecito. There would have been no reason for them to walk that way to get rid of the phones whereas it's logical that Guede would have. Guede either walked home through the park and tossed them before going up the path to the gate or later by exiting the gate, walking down the path, and then back up. When I walked that area in the late afternoon on a beautiful May day, I saw no one, not even a car, so it's much more private than inside the city walls.

View attachment 61702

Here is a photo of the Lana's garden. You can see how the trees completely block the view of the house from the rood and it sits below the road so Guede likely thought he was tossing them into a wooded area.

View attachment 61703

Oh please. Sollecito also lived nearby Lana's garden. Did you forget Guede and Sollecito lived very close by each other?

Perugia Guede-Sollecito proximity by Username Vixen, on Flickr

key Perugia proximity by Username Vixen, on Flickr

Source: John Follain, Death in Perugia

It was Knox who was charged with stealing the phones (later dropped) and if you recall she knew when she called Mez next day that Mez would not be answering her phones any time soon (unlike Filomena).

 

[Numbers]

How could anyone except possibly Guede be charged with stealing the phones, since as far as has been made known, no forensic testing such as fingerprint or DNA profiling was conducted on the phones. DNA evidence showed that Guede had handled Kercher's handbag.

The charge of stealing the phones leveled against Knox was merely a part of the frame-up against her and Sollecito.

 

[Stacyhs]

Oh please. Sollecito also lived nearby Lana's garden. Did you forget Guede and Sollecito lived very close by each other?

Perugia Guede-Sollecito proximity by Username Vixen, on Flickr

key Perugia proximity by Username Vixen, on Flickr

Source: John Follain, Death in Perugia

It was Knox who was charged with stealing the phones (later dropped) and if you recall she knew when she called Mez next day that Mez would not be answering her phones any time soon (unlike Filomena).

1. "Oh please. Sollecito also lived nearby Lana's garden. Did you forget Guede and Sollecito lived very close by each other?"

I know exactly where Guede and Sollecito lived. I've been there. But the fact remains that Guede's apt. was literally a few seconds walk from the gate in a secluded alley and he'd have seen that gate almost daily. Sollecito lived near it, but it was not in an area he would frequent. Unless, you want to claim he used it to access the park to shoot up. Which, of course, is disproved my his hair narcotics test. On the other hand, Guede was a small time drug dealer.

As Raffaele was just getting finishing his IT degree, he'd know how to turn off both cell phones in order to hide their whereabouts.

2. "It was Knox who was charged with stealing the phones (later dropped)"

The charges were not "dropped", she was convicted of stealing the phones (charge "D") by Massei and acquitted on charge D by Hellman. Chieffi annulled Hellmann's acquittal of charge D. Nencini convicted them on charge D.

3. "...if you recall she knew when she called Mez next day that Mez would not be answering her phones any time soon (unlike Filomena)."
Will you please stop the psychic mindreading act? If you recall, Knox was acquitted of the murder and of stealing the phones so just how would she know "that Mez Meredith would not be answering her phones"?

 

[Vixen]

1. "Oh please. Sollecito also lived nearby Lana's garden. Did you forget Guede and Sollecito lived very close by each other?"

I know exactly where Guede and Sollecito lived. I've been there. But the fact remains that Guede's apt. was literally a few seconds walk from the gate in a secluded alley and he'd have seen that gate almost daily. Sollecito lived near it, but it was not in an area he would frequent. Unless, you want to claim he used it to access the park to shoot up. Which, of course, is disproved my his hair narcotics test. On the other hand, Guede was a small time drug dealer.

As Raffaele was just getting finishing his IT degree, he'd know how to turn off both cell phones in order to hide their whereabouts.

2. "It was Knox who was charged with stealing the phones (later dropped)"

The charges were not "dropped", she was convicted of stealing the phones (charge "D") by Massei and acquitted on charge D by Hellman. Chieffi annulled Hellmann's acquittal of charge D. Nencini convicted them on charge D.

3. "...if you recall she knew when she called Mez next day that Mez would not be answering her phones any time soon (unlike Filomena)."
Will you please stop the psychic mindreading act? If you recall, Knox was acquitted of the murder and of stealing the phones so just how would she know "that Mez Meredith would not be answering her phones"?

Please quit the hypotheticals and what-ifs 'would, could, and should'. IF the phones were stolen by Guede, he WOULD have removed the SIM cards and passed the phones on to his stolen goods go between. IF Guede was going to steal a couple of cheap manky phones he WOULD have also taken the far more valuable three laptops and Filomena's expensive jewellery and camera openly lying around. He COULD have used one of her tote bags to carry the blag in, being of his ethnicity, a strong fit athletic type with criminal tendencies and likely ate cats and dogs, as per MAGA stereotypes, beloved of the PIP.

Let's stick to known facts. Knox had a cocaine dealer on her speed dial. She was getting through up to €400 a day. Whilst Mez had €300 rent money missing, Knox had a similar amount remaining in her possession. Both Knox and Sollecito bragged about being drug users. Both said after the murder they would never take drugs again.

The fact is, Mrs Lana heard Knox ringing one of the phones dumped in her garden. She immediately took it to the police and to report threatening phone calls about her toilet blowing up. The postal police promptly and efficiently identified the phone as being registered with Filomena (who had given it to Mez as being cheaper to use than her English phone). The postale police were so efficient, they sent a squad car with a couple of cops to hand the phone back in person*.

So, who do I believe, the postal police who caught the pair hanging around at the scene canoodling or a cunning convict who is now making a lot of money out of the dreadful crime?

Whilst the undercover cop Stasi-style secret police remnants of the old Mussolini fascist police state dictatorship lingers on in Italy, with its wire-tapping and ears to the wall furtiveness, and is to be looked upon with opprobrium by those of us who believe in transparency, in this instance, it well demonstrates how covert intelligence gathering identified the key suspects very quickly. Obviously such undercover intelligence can't be used in court and the police still had to build an evidence-based case. The phone logs - or lack thereof - were very useful evidence here.

*Imagine losing your phone and the cops bringing it round to you in person within the hour of it being handed in.

But after this experience, believe me Dad, I will never smoke another joint in my life. ~ Extract from Raffaele Sollecito's letter to his father -- Published in The Observer, Sunday November 25 2007

 

[Numbers]

I've looked a bit at the final ECHR cases pending before the CoM of two states with a low number of such cases, the UK and Germany (each has 7 pending cases before the CoM), to see how those states organized their Action Plans. I came across two cases - one from each country - that surprisingly had a few elements reminiscent of the Knox - Sollecito case. Unlike the Knox v. Italy case, however, where Italy has not provided an Action Plan indicating how the violations of the Convention would be redressed, the two cases had Action Plans with extensive discussion of the history of the case and a brief indication of how the violations of the Convention would be redressed.

The two cases are V.C.L and A.N. v. the United Kingdom 77587/12 16/02/2021 and Meng v. Germany 1128/17 16/02/2021. I'll write about the first case only in this post in the interests of brevity.

V.C.L and A.N. were two minors trafficked for their labor from Vietnam who were arrested in the UK in a police raid on a large house where cannabis was being grown illegally. The two minors were tending the plants. Because of confusion and delays in communication between the relevant UK agencies, the two were prosecuted, although as victims of trafficking, they should have been exempt from prosecution. Their state-appointed lawyers had advised them to plead guilty (a possible case of ineffective counsel), which they did. (This is an element that is somewhat similar to the improper revelation of her own alleged traumatic amnesia by the interpreter in the Knox case.) They were found guilty. On appeal, after their status as victims of trafficking had become clear to the prosecution and courts, the higher courts did not accept their change in pleas:

208. .... Although the applicants had relied on Article 4 [prohibition of slavery and forced labor] of the Convention [the Appeals Court] did not consider their cases through the prism of the State’s positive obligations under that Article. On the contrary, it restricted itself to a relatively narrow review; in dismissing the appeals by both applicants the Court of Appeal made it clear that a defendant was provided with one opportunity to give instructions to his or her legal advisers and that it would only be “in the most exceptional cases” that the court would consider it appropriate to allow the defendant to advance fresh instructions about the facts for the purposes of an appeal against conviction.... In the [ECHR's] view, such an approach would in effect penalise victims of trafficking for not initially identifying themselves as such and allow the authorities to rely on their own failure to fulfil their duty under Article 4 of the Convention to take operational measures to protect them. Consequently, the Court does not consider that the appeal proceedings cured the defects in the proceedings which led to the applicants’ charging and eventual conviction.

209. The foregoing considerations are sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that in respect of both applicants the proceedings as a whole could not be considered “fair”.

210. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

The refusal of the UK appeals court(s) to conduct a fair evaluation of the information that the two minors had been trafficked also is suggestive of the failures of the Italian courts to fairly evaluate exculpatory evidence in the Knox case, including, for example, the testimony of the interpreter that she had, acting as a mediator, revealed her own alleged experience of traumatic amnesia, suggestive information that may have influenced Knox during the coercive interrogation, or to order an effective independent investigation of Knox's allegations that she had been subjected to misconduct by the police during the interrogation.

Sources:
ECHR judgment:

HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights

The HUDOC database provides access to the case-law of the Court (Grand Chamber, Chamber and Committee judgments and decisions, communicated cases, advisory opinions and legal summaries from the Case-Law Information Note), the European Commission of Human Rights (decisions and reports) and the...

hudoc.echr.coe.int

CoM summary and status:

HUDOC-EXEC

hudoc.exec.coe.int

 

[Stacyhs]

Please quit the hypotheticals and what-ifs 'would, could, and should'.

Nothing I wrote was "hypotheticals and what-ifs 'would, could, and should'.
You accuse me then you immediately follow it with your own "hypotheticals and what-ifs 'would, could, and shoulds"

IF the phones were stolen by Guede, he WOULD have removed the SIM cards and passed the phones on to his stolen goods go between.

You mean fence phones that would have directly connected him to the murder? Not even Guede was that stupid.

IF Guede was going to steal a couple of cheap manky phones he WOULD have also taken the far more valuable three laptops and Filomena's expensive jewellery and camera openly lying around.

After killing Meredith, he grabbed her wallet, cash, and phones leaving his DNA in Kercher's blood on her purse. Then he got the hell out of Dodge. Or do you think his DNA got on her purse when he was looking for a phone to call 911 to help Meredith?

You don't know her jewelry was "expensive". She was a law intern having to rent share a rundown cottage with three other girls in a sketchy part of town. It's a perfect example of your "just make stuff up" habit.

He COULD have used one of her tote bags to carry the blag in, being of his ethnicity, a strong fit athletic type with criminal tendencies and likely ate cats and dogs, as per MAGA stereotypes, beloved of the PIP.

I hate to break it to you, but Guede was, in fact, "a strong fit athletic type with criminal tendencies". As for the rest of your comment, wtf is wrong with you?

Let's stick to known facts. Knox had a cocaine dealer on her speed dial.

OK, let's do stick to known facts:
1. Knox had "Cristiano's" number in her phone. She had met him on a train and interacted with him one day. You do NOT know that it was on "speed dial". That's yet another example of you just making things up with it suits your purpose.
2. There is no evidence Knox knew he was a drug dealer.
3. The phone records show she had NEVER dialed that number nor had she ever received a call from that number.
4. Knox's hair test was negative for any narcotics, including cocaine.

She was getting through up to €400 a day.

That is easily disproven by looking at her bank records:
Knox's bank record activity in US dollars from Oct.1 to Nov 5/6 (days of the interrogation and arrest). Irrelevant international transaction/withdrawal fees which ranged from under $1 to $8 have been left out which is why the balance amount is slightly off. Knox typically withdrew €150 or €250 at a time to avoid transaction fees.
Action Balance
Oct 1: -355.75 [€250] $3,593.38 (Rent money)
Oct 3: -354.52 [€250] $3,235.31
Oct 4: +2,052.30 $5,284.07 (Grandmother)
Oct 15: -355.29 [€250] $4,912.78
Oct 23: -355.79 [€250] $4,549.89
Oct 29: -215.90 [€150] $4,333.99 (Trip to Assisi)
Nov 5: -361,54 [€250] $3,9790.30
Nov 5: +562.00 $4,528.69 (paycheck)
Nov 5: -62.18 [€42.92] $4465.89
Nov 11: -8.00 (fee) $4457.89

The numbers don't lie.

Whilst Mez had €300 rent money missing, Knox had a similar amount remaining in her possession.

And her bank records show where it came from. It was HER money.

Both Knox and Sollecito bragged about being drug users. Both said after the murder they would never take drugs again.

LOL. The were stupid kids smoking weed. And since you seem to suffer from selective memory: BOTH tested NEGATIVE for any narcotics.

The fact is, Mrs Lana heard Knox ringing one of the phones dumped in her garden.

BREAKING NEWS! READ ALL ABOUT IT! KNOX CALLED KERCHER!
Gosh! Who knew?

She immediately took it to the police and to report threatening phone calls about her toilet blowing up.

Um, no. She had called the police the night before to report the "bomb" call.

The postal police promptly and efficiently identified the phone as being registered with Filomena (who had given it to Mez as being cheaper to use than her English phone). The postale police were so efficient, they sent a squad car with a couple of cops to hand the phone back in person*.

LOL. Yet more of your need for exaggeration. You're praising them for doing their job like it was really difficult to identify the owner through the SIM card. That didn't take Sherlock Holmes to do.

So, who do I believe, the postal police who caught the pair hanging around at the scene canoodling

"Caught"? LOL!! You mean they arrived to find them standing outside waiting for the carabinieri who they called BEFORE the postales arrived? Even your beloved Massei acknowledged that.
I'm surprised you didn't claim they were caught with a mop and bucket!
"Canoodling"? If you consider three quick pecks within 4 seconds by two somber and blank- faced people "canoodling" then you've got a very weird idea of what "amorous petting or caressing" is. That might explain the 3 divorces.

or a cunning convict who is now making a lot of money out of the dreadful crime?

You mean the convicted murderer who is now going to be tried on rape and beating up his former girlfriend?

Whilst the undercover cop Stasi-style secret police remnants of the old Mussolini fascist police state dictatorship lingers on in Italy, with its wire-tapping and ears to the wall furtiveness, and is to be looked upon with opprobrium by those of us who believe in transparency,

So you want to discuss Mignini now?

in this instance, it well demonstrates how covert intelligence gathering identified the key suspects very quickly. Obviously such undercover intelligence can't be used in court and the police still had to build an evidence-based case. The phone logs - or lack thereof - were very useful evidence here.

LOL! How did 'covert intelligence' identify the key suspects? Mignini admitted he suspected Knox almost immediately because 1) it was an 'inside job', 2) only a female would cover the body, 3) Sollecito dared to comfort Knox with 3 small pecks, 4) she broke down when taken back to the cottage.
That is hardly "covert intelligence". Hell, it's not even "intelligence" at all; it's jumping to wrong conclusions and tunnel vision.
The phone logs were useful evidence. They supported innocence when looked at logically.

*Imagine losing your phone and the cops bringing it round to you in person within the hour of it being handed in.

Imagine the postales doing their job!

 

[Stacyhs]

But after this experience, believe me Dad, I will never smoke another joint in my life. ~ Extract from Raffaele Sollecito's letter to his father -- Published in The Observer, Sunday November 25 2007

And? Is anyone denying he smoked weed? EVERYONE in that cottage smoked week including Meredith but it's your repeated pushing of the "cocaine" lie that's the issue.

I notice you ignore (as usual) that your 'the phone theft charges were later dropped' claim is also proved false.
I remember you've previously claimed a charge was never adjudicated when it was. Even after quoting and citing the judgement, you kept denying it. I forget which charge it was so maybe someone here does.

 

[SpitfireIX]

He COULD have used one of her tote bags to carry the blag in, being of his ethnicity, a strong fit athletic type with criminal tendencies and likely ate cats and dogs, as per MAGA stereotypes, beloved of the PIP.

I hate to break it to you, but Guede was, in fact, "a strong fit athletic type with criminal tendencies". As for the rest of your comment, wtf is wrong with you?

As you may suspect, this is a veiled accusation of racism, as part of a lame attempt to shame her detractors into muting their criticism. The implication, which we've seen from guilters before, is that if you think Rudy is guilty, but you think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent, it must be because Rudy is black, but Amanda and Raffaele are white. This obviously ignores the fact that there is no credible evidence that Amanda and Raffaele were involved in the murder.

 

[Stacyhs]

As you may suspect, this is a veiled accusation of racism, as part of a lame attempt to shame her detractors into muting their criticism. The implication, which we've seen from guilters before, is that if you think Rudy is guilty, but you think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent, it must be because Rudy is black, but Amanda and Raffaele are white. This obviously ignores the fact that there is no credible evidence that Amanda and Raffaele were involved in the murder.

Of course it's a none too veiled accusation. She tried to pull that on me, too. When I said it was Guede who played the race card with his "Black man found, black man guilty" nonsense in an attempt to paint himself as a victim of racism, she accused me of being racist.

Another bit of nonsense from many PGP is that Trump "got her off" when he wasn't even a declared candidate for POTUS the first time when Knox was acquitted in 2015. All he did was post one of his stupid tweets about boycotting Italy. Yeah, I'm sure that threat from a NY land developer made the Court of Cassation just quake in their robes.

Then there's the other dumb claim that the US State Dept. got her off. There's zero evidence of that but it's a go-to excuse for those who can't accept the acquittal. They can't argue the evidence so they resort to an excuse that can't be proved or disproved.

 

[Numbers]

I've looked a bit at the final ECHR cases pending before the CoM of two states with a low number of such cases, the UK and Germany (each has 7 pending cases before the CoM), to see how those states organized their Action Plans. I came across two cases - one from each country - that surprisingly had a few elements reminiscent of the Knox - Sollecito case. Unlike the Knox v. Italy case, however, where Italy has not provided an Action Plan indicating how the violations of the Convention would be redressed, the two cases had Action Plans with extensive discussion of the history of the case and a brief indication of how the violations of the Convention would be redressed.

The two cases are V.C.L and A.N. v. the United Kingdom 77587/12 16/02/2021 and Meng v. Germany 1128/17 16/02/2021. I'll write about the first case only in this post in the interests of brevity.

....

In this post I'm going to discuss the ECHR case Meng v. Germany 1128/17 16/02/2021. It's interesting because the German judicial system violated the European Convention on Human Rights in a way that the Italian courts attempted in the Knox - Sollecito case, but that attempt was blocked by the Marasca CSC panel judgment. The violation is one of the presumption of innocence. The method of the violation is to use a previous court judgment that convicted an alleged co-conspirator and also presented alleged evidence against another named person, without allowing that other person to present a defense in that trial. Then, in a trial for the named person, the alleged evidence presented against that person from the trial of the alleged co-conspirator is presented as a "judicial truth", or in a variant, a judge from the first trial presides over the trial of the named person.

As background, it's important to note that the German judicial system is an inquisitorial civil system - the judges ask the witnesses questions during the main part of the trial, followed by a part where the defense and prosecution can examine the witnesses, there is no jury, but there is a panel of professional and lay judges. For a criminal trial for murder, there are 3 professional judges and 2 lay judges.*

Here's the introductory paragraph of Meng v. Germany:

1. The present application raises the issue of whether the Regional Court, which convicted the applicant [Ms. Salina Meng] of murdering her husband out of greed, jointly with G.S., had been impartial as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. The Regional Court in the applicant’s case was presided by judge M., who had been judge rapporteur in previous separate criminal proceedings conducted against G.S. alone. In these proceedings, G.S. had been convicted of murdering the applicant’s husband in a judgment which contained numerous references to the applicant, describing her participation in the offence.

Here's the ECHR's reasoning that led it to find a violation of Convention Article 6.1 in the trial and conviction of the applicant, Meng:

58. In determining whether the judgment against G.S. contained such findings prejudging the applicant’s guilt, the Court observes that the references to the applicant in that judgment, which speaks of “the accused and Salina Meng”, show that the applicant was not formally on trial in these proceedings; her procedural status as a third party (witness) in these proceedings was therefore clear.

59. However, in the judgment against G.S. the applicant was not mentioned only in passing. That judgment contained extensive findings of fact also concerning the applicant. It stated, in particular, that “[t]hey” – that is, G.S. and the applicant – “...decided to kill [M.M.]” and that the applicant, following a “plan made jointly with the accused to kill [M.M.] in order to get hold of his assets”, prepared the act as well as the acquisition of [M.M.]’s assets (see paragraph 7 above). It further assessed evidence taken at the trial also in respect of the applicant and found, in particular, that the fact that neither G.S. nor the applicant had asked about the cause of M.M.’s death could easily be explained in the circumstances “as they had committed the offence themselves or been involved in it” (see paragraph 8 above). Moreover, when legally classifying the killing of M.M. as murder, the Regional Court stated that “the reckless manner in which the accused and Salina Meng acted and by which they attempted, by the murder of [M.M.], to take over his business ... had to be particularly taken into account” (see paragraph 9 above).

60. The Court observes in this context that the Regional Court, in its judgment against G.S., presented its findings regarding the applicant as established facts and established legal qualification thereof, and not as mere suspicions. This was confirmed by the domestic courts themselves which had found this to have been necessary in order to establish comprehensively the relevant facts in respect of G.S. and to provide a full picture regarding the planning of, and motive for the offence (see paragraphs 14, 16 and 19‑ 22 above). The Federal Court of Justice, in particular, had confirmed that the Regional Court’s indications in its judgment against G.S. – that it was firmly convinced that the applicant was a co-perpetrator in the offence – had been necessary to establish the basis for G.S.’s conviction (see paragraph 22 above).

61. The Court cannot but note that the judgment against G.S. contained a detailed assessment of the precise role played by the applicant in the violent death of M.M. going beyond a factual account of the circumstances of the crime. It can be regarded as having established that the criteria necessary for the act to constitute a criminal offence were also met in respect of the applicant. The judgment described in detail not only the premeditated killing of her husband and the manner in which the joint plan with G.S. was carried out, but also the base motives of the applicant herself for acting in that manner, namely that she wished to acquire M.M.’s assets in a reckless manner. The Regional Court can thereby be seen to have made a legal assessment of the act also in respect of the applicant in that it found in substance that not only G.S., but also the applicant had acted out of greed and that the latter had thus participated in, and was equally guilty of, the murder of M.M. The Court cannot but note in that context that these findings and the assessment in respect of the applicant were made despite the fact that G.S. had been charged as a single perpetrator who was found to have acted alone at the crime scene and that the legal assessment of the applicant’s acts appears to go beyond what was necessary to legally qualify G.S.’s offence.

62. The applicant’s doubts that the Regional Court, including judge M., may already have reached a preconceived view on the merits of the applicant’s case in the judgment against G.S., prior to the applicant’s own trial, were also confirmed by the prosecution’s assessment after that judgment. The prosecution stated that “the judges of the Darmstadt Regional Court had clearly expressed their conviction – shared by the prosecution – that the applicant had incited G.S. to kill her husband” (see paragraph 10 above).

63. Having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the Court concludes that the applicant had a legitimate fear that judge M., in the light of the wording of the judgment against G.S., had already reached a preconceived view on her guilt. Therefore, the applicant’s doubts as to the impartiality of the Regional Court in the present case were objectively justified.

64. The Court further recalls that a higher or the highest court might, in some circumstances, make reparation for defects that took place in the first‑instance proceedings (see De Cubber v. Belgium, 26 October 1984, § 33, Series A no. 86, and Kyprianou, cited above, § 134). However, the Federal Court of Justice, which had the power to quash the Regional Court’s judgment on the ground that the Regional Court had not been impartial, upheld the applicant’s conviction and sentence. Consequently, the higher court did not remedy the defect in question.

65. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

In the Meng case, we don't have any way to know from the ECHR judgment whether or not she was involved in the murder of her husband, but it is clear that the trial of the co-conspirator improperly prejudged her guilt. I am surprised that the German authorities did not try them together to avoid that problem.

In a 17 March 2024 Action Plan, Germany indicated the following individual measure to redress its violation of Convention Article 6.1:

On 14 March 2024, the Higher Regional Court ordered the reopening of the proceedings and the recommencement of the main hearing at the Kassel Regional Court, as well as the release of the applicant from prison. While the proceedings are ongoing, measures have already been taken to ensure that the applicant’s right to a fair trial by an impartial tribunal is respected: The proceedings were reopened at a different court, i.e. the Kassel Regional Court instead of the Darmstadt Regional Court. This will ensure that new judges decide on the applicant’s case as none of the judges who participated in either the proceedings against G.S. or the first set of proceedings against the applicant work at the Kassel Regional Court.

Conclusion: The ECHR cases V.C.L and A.N. v. the United Kingdom and Meng v. Germany show that even states with generally well-functioning judicial systems occasionally violate the Convention, in ways that the authorities in those states should have recognized before the domestic decisions became "final". Those well-functioning states tend to submit Action Plans and redress the violations relatively responsibly. Italy, unfortunately, commits such violations more frequently, suggesting, along with other evidence, that it has a relatively dysfunctional system. In another sign of dysfunction, Italy is relatively slow to submit Action Plans and to redress its violations of the Convention.

Thus, the final resolution of Knox v. Italy (the calunnia miscarriage of justice) and any compensation for her unjust detention may be years in the future. Similarly, the ECHR case Sollecito v. Italy (for violations of Article 6.1 and 6.2 in the hearing for compensation for unjust detention), communicated to Italy in January 2022, has not yet reached judgment, and thus the year of its resolution is unknown.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Germany

Sources:
ECHR judgment

HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights

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[Vixen]

Of course it's a none too veiled accusation. She tried to pull that on me, too. When I said it was Guede who played the race card with his "Black man found, black man guilty" nonsense in an attempt to paint himself as a victim of racism, she accused me of being racist.

Another bit of nonsense from many PGP is that Trump "got her off" when he wasn't even a declared candidate for POTUS the first time when Knox was acquitted in 2015. All he did was post one of his stupid tweets about boycotting Italy. Yeah, I'm sure that threat from a NY land developer made the Court of Cassation just quake in their robes.

Then there's the other dumb claim that the US State Dept. got her off. There's zero evidence of that but it's a go-to excuse for those who can't accept the acquittal. They can't argue the evidence so they resort to an excuse that can't be proved or disproved.

Please do not tell lies about me, thanks!

 

[Vixen]

As you may suspect, this is a veiled accusation of racism, as part of a lame attempt to shame her detractors into muting their criticism. The implication, which we've seen from guilters before, is that if you think Rudy is guilty, but you think Amanda and Raffaele are innocent, it must be because Rudy is black, but Amanda and Raffaele are white. This obviously ignores the fact that there is no credible evidence that Amanda and Raffaele were involved in the murder.

For the record, it is an established fact that Guede was an accessory to the crime and hence guilty of the aggravated murder because of his sexual assault on the victim. This is the final view of the courts (Massei, Micheli, Giordani [Supreme]). In other words, arguing against facts established at a highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law means you are simply resorting to ignorant guesswork, which you call 'opinion' which you mistake as being superior to that of a court of law. It is also an established scientific and legal fact that it was Amanda Knox who killed Mez with a kitchen knife belonging to Raffaele Sollecito. This is final (Massei, Chieffi). The issue of the annulment of the sentences by Marasca-Bruno 2015 ruled that the bra clasp evidence against Sollecito was unsafe due to the possible tertiary contamination from Stefanoni's sterile latex glove after a period of six weeks. Hence, the 'insufficient evidence' final verdict against the pair. This ruling only helps Sollecito. It remains a fact that Knox killed Mez in a horrible, cruel and brutal manner, and Guede and Sollecito were her flying monkeys who enabled and encouraged her. Your insistence Guede is the sole perpetrator is not based on anything rational. Knox named one of her cats, Screams and her kids, Echo and Eureka. How much more does AK need to strongly hint [brag?] of her involvement?

 

[TruthCalls]

For the record, it is an established fact that Guede was an accessory to the crime and hence guilty of the aggravated murder because of his sexual assault on the victim. This is the final view of the courts (Massei, Micheli, Giordani [Supreme]). In other words, arguing against facts established at a highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law means you are simply resorting to ignorant guesswork, which you call 'opinion' which you mistake as being superior to that of a court of law.

Huh? We all agree Guede is guilty. Spitfire's post had to do with the accusations of racism when anyone argues the black guy (Guede) is guilty but the white people (Amanda, Raffaele) are not.

However, I have to chuckle a little when I think of Nencini's court as "highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law", but whatever. And BTW, it's Giordano, not Giordani.

It is also an established scientific and legal fact that it was Amanda Knox who killed Mez with a kitchen knife belonging to Raffaele Sollecito. This is final (Massei, Chieffi).

It is an established legal fact that Amanda and Raffaele were not responsible for the murder. This is final (Marasca). It's also an established fact the knife and bra clasp evidence was compromised and deemed unreliable. And BTW, Massei was overturned and irrelevant, and Chieffi did not establish legal facts, he returned the case back to the lower courts to decide.

The issue of the annulment of the sentences by Marasca-Bruno 2015 ruled that the bra clasp evidence against Sollecito was unsafe due to the possible tertiary contamination from Stefanoni's sterile latex glove after a period of six weeks. Hence, the 'insufficient evidence' final verdict against the pair. This ruling only helps Sollecito.

Nonsense. The clasp and knife evidence were deemed unreliable for clear and obvious gross violation of forensic protocols. The insufficient evidence dealt directly with the fact that there is no forensic trace of either Amanda or Raffaele in Meredith's room. They were BOTH definitively acquitted because of these facts.

It remains a fact that Knox killed Mez in a horrible, cruel and brutal manner, and Guede and Sollecito were her flying monkeys who enabled and encouraged her.

This might be true within the confines of your delusional mind, but it remains a legal fact, as established by one of those highly sophisticated and advanced criminal courts of law, that Amanda had nothing to do with Meredith's murder.

Your insistence Guede is the sole perpetrator is not based on anything rational. Knox named one of her cats, Screams and her kids, Echo and Eureka. How much more does AK need to strongly hint [brag?] of her involvement?

Our insistence of Guede as the sole perpetrator is based on the evidence, and the lack thereof of anyone else assisting. However, I can't help but enjoy the irony of you accusing us of forming opinions based on nothing rational, and then you throwing out the names of Amanda's children and cat as a 'strong hint' of her involvement.

I further enjoy the irony of your comment;

"In other words, arguing against facts established at a highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law means you are simply resorting to ignorant guesswork, which you call 'opinion' which you mistake as being superior to that of a court of law."

What you're really saying is the court is highly sophisticated and advanced when they rule according to your beliefs, but are somehow incompetent and bent when they don't.

 

[Vixen]

Huh? We all agree Guede is guilty. Spitfire's post had to do with the accusations of racism when anyone argues the black guy (Guede) is guilty but the white people (Amanda, Raffaele) are not.

However, I have to chuckle a little when I think of Nencini's court as "highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law", but whatever. And BTW, it's Giordano, not Giordani.

It is an established legal fact that Amanda and Raffaele were not responsible for the murder. This is final (Marasca). It's also an established fact the knife and bra clasp evidence was compromised and deemed unreliable. And BTW, Massei was overturned and irrelevant, and Chieffi did not establish legal facts, he returned the case back to the lower courts to decide.

Nonsense. The clasp and knife evidence were deemed unreliable for clear and obvious gross violation of forensic protocols. The insufficient evidence dealt directly with the fact that there is no forensic trace of either Amanda or Raffaele in Meredith's room. They were BOTH definitively acquitted because of these facts.

This might be true within the confines of your delusional mind, but it remains a legal fact, as established by one of those highly sophisticated and advanced criminal courts of law, that Amanda had nothing to do with Meredith's murder.

Our insistence of Guede as the sole perpetrator is based on the evidence, and the lack thereof of anyone else assisting. However, I can't help but enjoy the irony of you accusing us of forming opinions based on nothing rational, and then you throwing out the names of Amanda's children and cat as a 'strong hint' of her involvement.

I further enjoy the irony of your comment;

"In other words, arguing against facts established at a highly sophisticated and advanced criminal court of law means you are simply resorting to ignorant guesswork, which you call 'opinion' which you mistake as being superior to that of a court of law."

What you're really saying is the court is highly sophisticated and advanced when they rule according to your beliefs, but are somehow incompetent and bent when they don't.

Nobody is stopping you from having kneejerk feelings about who you believe to be responsible or not. What we are looking at here is scientific empirical objective facts versus MAGA-style prejudice based on 'gut feelings', which may or may not involve a perception of the individual's personal characteristics as being relevant. This is why we have trials in courts of law and not by villagers waving pitchforks.

Here are the facts of the case in respect of Guede.


What the courts ruled


Micheli re proof of multiple assailants

[275] That someone returned to the house, taking care to sketch out the pantomime of the clandestine ingress of thieves or other chance malcontents, has been equally affirmed, and it is once again sufficient to recall the precautionary custody order; in that same context, the authors of the falsification also intervened in the victim’s room, and perhaps removed the bra from MEREDITH’s body, if they had not already done so straight after the girl had fallen to the floor.

[277] Starting from the alteration, and therefore preceding in reverse, it is clear that the bra was being worn when the blows were received, otherwise it would not show the same point-like marks of blood as found on the girl’s breast; it is as much evident that it was removed from the victim after some time had passed, it is not known how much in quantifiable terms, but in any case sufficient for the production, on MEREDITH’s back, of some marks shown in photographs 268 and 770, corresponding to the shoulder straps. In any case, and with equal undeniability, those small point-like stains were able to be made only because the bra was the only item of clothing that the girl had on her chest, otherwise they would have stained her sweatshirt or one of the tops, which were instead rolled up, up to her neck. At the same time, it was staged that someone had introduced themselves in the house by means of the window in Ms ROMANELLI’s room (probably to rob, but they had possessed themselves neither of a laptop on the desk, nor of jewels easily accessible in a drawer) and effected a more or less rudimentary clean-up activity, sufficient to make totally vanish from the house, except for on a glass on the draining board, the fingerprints of a girl who was spending days and nights there.


[278] From which it follows that there indeed was an alteration, someone certainly having an interest in returning to the place (from which they had been determined to distance themselves in haste) to improvise artificial scenarios and to make any compromising trace vanish, but not sufficient to produce the result so as to dictate, by themselves, a conclusion that there had been sexual violence: that conclusion was already derivable from the context, since it would have been ascertainable in any case that the girl was semi-nude at the moment when she was being attacked. As well, taken the considerations from a few pages back up again, it is not clear why the unknown stagers, wanting to make all the suspicions converge right on that boy of colour that they had found on their path like a guilty party to offer up a bit like a sacrificial lamb, would have needed to force-feed a fiction of sexual violence: what did they know, themselves, that RUDY had gone to the bathroom struck by colitis after having intimate relations with MEREDITH, and that therefore the vaginal swab or other testing would have revealed evidence of a petting or something of the sort between the unfortunate and the deceased student, so as to render necessary corroboration of the thesis that it was a case of non-consensual sexual contact? Why would they not have been satisfied in making believe in a burglary gone bad, seeing that their fundamental interest was in any case steering the investigation towards subjects outside of the house?
<snip>
[287] RUDY was living a very short distance away from Ms KERCHER’s house, likewise from Corso Garibaldi, where Mr SOLLECITO was living, and from Via Sperandio; it had already happened to him that he had been invited to Via della Pergola (the evening of the little nap on the toilet, after OWEN’s birthday) or to pass by to have a look (on the 21st of October: meaning this is also a notorious fact, easily accessible via the web, is the date on which the last Formula One race of the season was held; incidentally, the England-South Africa rugby game was played the evening before, but on the 21st – despite the clear recall of the pleasant conversation he had had with MEREDITH – he didn’t drop by to say hello at all, neither before nor after the Grand Prix). Because of this there was the possibility of a meeting, and – as already adverted to – it is curious to note that he had not said the truth as regards his movements in the time period immediately prior to the murder, having been contradicted at root by Mr CRUDO and Mr MALY, with the sole consequence being having to hypothesize that the truth had not been said to hide something that was not to be permitted to be made known.


[288] At the same time, RUDY is not credible along the entire course of his reconstruction, included therein the particular of his ingress in the house with the blessing of Ms KERCHER, who would have acceded to a prior rendez-vous or perhaps only finding him in front of her then and there, by reason of the moment of tenderness and complicity shared the evening before: and, if it is not true that he heard an invite to him to come in from MEREDITH, if the signs of a break-in were after the death of the girl, if RUDY was in that case in the same context in which there was someone who would have then manifested an interest in making believe there was an ingress of low-life unknown persons, the only conclusion is that Mr GUEDE entered Number 7, Via della Pergola because someone else let him in, the holder of that interest just described (who can be no other than Ms KNOX).

<snip>

[316] In favour of the detainee there are: the prior clean record, in the face of a rather problematic personal experience; the circumstance that it was not him who was holding the knife that struck the girl; the possibility that Ms KERCHER was in any case being given aid, there being otherwise no explanation for the presence near the body of three towels more or less fully soaked with blood. At any rate, the clean record (apparently, seeing that only a few days before the fact Mr GUEDE was going around Milan with stolen merchandise) cannot constitute always and in any case a kind of bonus refund to present at the cash register, especially when crimes are being discussed which reveal an absolute lack of inhibitory brakes and tendency to overcome weaker subjects; RUDY’s personal vicissitudes are to be then read in parallel with the numerous occasions given to him, with no ulterior purpose, by various families disposed to help him, who already were offering him the possibility of redemption and of constructing a contributive and normal life, in respect of others, without at any rate finding any seriousness of intent in the accused; and the fact that it was not him who was wielding the knife is not enough to relegate him to second place at the scene of the crime, seeing that it was he himself at the same time offending against the sexual liberty of the young woman.

Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of the phones, as he rules that the phones were taken on return to the scene.


Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of cash and cards from Mez' bag.


It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this. This is the fact of the matter, and is not dependent on opinion or gut feelings. The claims Guede was a prolific burglar and drug smuggler simply is not factual but merely an attempt to 'defend' AK and RS by playing on people's prejudices MAGA-style.

Guede definitively did not wield the murder knife.

The burglary was staged.

Amanda Knox let Guede into the murder cottage.

There were multiple assailants – as per DNA and luminol testing and the fact of a return to the scene to rearrange it.

Guede did not steal the rent money or the phones.

He was guilty of aggravated murder because of his complicity in the attack and failure to stop it ‘as soon as knives were produced’.

“Above all the certain facts include the presence of the three at the scene of the crime; they are abundant, and all abundantly proven”. – Micheli

 

[Numbers]

Reading through the above posts, it occurs to me that the inquisitorial false "judicial facts" manufactured in many of the Knox-Sollecito case trials are like magic tricks performed by a magician of modest skills. The more educated or sophisticated in the audience see through the tricks, while the gullible or those wishing to believe are convinced that the magic is "real".

Of course, someone might pretend in statements to others that the magic is real to obtain explanations of the realities of the magic trick mechanisms from the skeptical observers who rely on reliable evidence.

 

[TruthCalls]

Nobody is stopping you from having kneejerk feelings about who you believe to be responsible or not. What we are looking at here is scientific empirical objective facts versus MAGA-style prejudice based on 'gut feelings', which may or may not involve a perception of the individual's personal characteristics as being relevant. This is why we have trials in courts of law and not by villagers waving pitchforks.

Here are the facts of the case in respect of Guede.


What the courts ruled


Micheli re proof of multiple assailants

[275] That someone returned to the house, taking care to sketch out the pantomime of the clandestine ingress of thieves or other chance malcontents, has been equally affirmed, and it is once again sufficient to recall the precautionary custody order; in that same context, the authors of the falsification also intervened in the victim’s room, and perhaps removed the bra from MEREDITH’s body, if they had not already done so straight after the girl had fallen to the floor.

[277] Starting from the alteration, and therefore preceding in reverse, it is clear that the bra was being worn when the blows were received, otherwise it would not show the same point-like marks of blood as found on the girl’s breast; it is as much evident that it was removed from the victim after some time had passed, it is not known how much in quantifiable terms, but in any case sufficient for the production, on MEREDITH’s back, of some marks shown in photographs 268 and 770, corresponding to the shoulder straps. In any case, and with equal undeniability, those small point-like stains were able to be made only because the bra was the only item of clothing that the girl had on her chest, otherwise they would have stained her sweatshirt or one of the tops, which were instead rolled up, up to her neck. At the same time, it was staged that someone had introduced themselves in the house by means of the window in Ms ROMANELLI’s room (probably to rob, but they had possessed themselves neither of a laptop on the desk, nor of jewels easily accessible in a drawer) and effected a more or less rudimentary clean-up activity, sufficient to make totally vanish from the house, except for on a glass on the draining board, the fingerprints of a girl who was spending days and nights there.


[278] From which it follows that there indeed was an alteration, someone certainly having an interest in returning to the place (from which they had been determined to distance themselves in haste) to improvise artificial scenarios and to make any compromising trace vanish, but not sufficient to produce the result so as to dictate, by themselves, a conclusion that there had been sexual violence: that conclusion was already derivable from the context, since it would have been ascertainable in any case that the girl was semi-nude at the moment when she was being attacked. As well, taken the considerations from a few pages back up again, it is not clear why the unknown stagers, wanting to make all the suspicions converge right on that boy of colour that they had found on their path like a guilty party to offer up a bit like a sacrificial lamb, would have needed to force-feed a fiction of sexual violence: what did they know, themselves, that RUDY had gone to the bathroom struck by colitis after having intimate relations with MEREDITH, and that therefore the vaginal swab or other testing would have revealed evidence of a petting or something of the sort between the unfortunate and the deceased student, so as to render necessary corroboration of the thesis that it was a case of non-consensual sexual contact? Why would they not have been satisfied in making believe in a burglary gone bad, seeing that their fundamental interest was in any case steering the investigation towards subjects outside of the house?
<snip>
[287] RUDY was living a very short distance away from Ms KERCHER’s house, likewise from Corso Garibaldi, where Mr SOLLECITO was living, and from Via Sperandio; it had already happened to him that he had been invited to Via della Pergola (the evening of the little nap on the toilet, after OWEN’s birthday) or to pass by to have a look (on the 21st of October: meaning this is also a notorious fact, easily accessible via the web, is the date on which the last Formula One race of the season was held; incidentally, the England-South Africa rugby game was played the evening before, but on the 21st – despite the clear recall of the pleasant conversation he had had with MEREDITH – he didn’t drop by to say hello at all, neither before nor after the Grand Prix). Because of this there was the possibility of a meeting, and – as already adverted to – it is curious to note that he had not said the truth as regards his movements in the time period immediately prior to the murder, having been contradicted at root by Mr CRUDO and Mr MALY, with the sole consequence being having to hypothesize that the truth had not been said to hide something that was not to be permitted to be made known.


[288] At the same time, RUDY is not credible along the entire course of his reconstruction, included therein the particular of his ingress in the house with the blessing of Ms KERCHER, who would have acceded to a prior rendez-vous or perhaps only finding him in front of her then and there, by reason of the moment of tenderness and complicity shared the evening before: and, if it is not true that he heard an invite to him to come in from MEREDITH, if the signs of a break-in were after the death of the girl, if RUDY was in that case in the same context in which there was someone who would have then manifested an interest in making believe there was an ingress of low-life unknown persons, the only conclusion is that Mr GUEDE entered Number 7, Via della Pergola because someone else let him in, the holder of that interest just described (who can be no other than Ms KNOX).

<snip>

[316] In favour of the detainee there are: the prior clean record, in the face of a rather problematic personal experience; the circumstance that it was not him who was holding the knife that struck the girl; the possibility that Ms KERCHER was in any case being given aid, there being otherwise no explanation for the presence near the body of three towels more or less fully soaked with blood. At any rate, the clean record (apparently, seeing that only a few days before the fact Mr GUEDE was going around Milan with stolen merchandise) cannot constitute always and in any case a kind of bonus refund to present at the cash register, especially when crimes are being discussed which reveal an absolute lack of inhibitory brakes and tendency to overcome weaker subjects; RUDY’s personal vicissitudes are to be then read in parallel with the numerous occasions given to him, with no ulterior purpose, by various families disposed to help him, who already were offering him the possibility of redemption and of constructing a contributive and normal life, in respect of others, without at any rate finding any seriousness of intent in the accused; and the fact that it was not him who was wielding the knife is not enough to relegate him to second place at the scene of the crime, seeing that it was he himself at the same time offending against the sexual liberty of the young woman.

Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of the phones, as he rules that the phones were taken on return to the scene.


Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of cash and cards from Mez' bag.


It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this. This is the fact of the matter, and is not dependent on opinion or gut feelings. The claims Guede was a prolific burglar and drug smuggler simply is not factual but merely an attempt to 'defend' AK and RS by playing on people's prejudices MAGA-style.

I don't appreciate your derogatory commentary. My conclusions are not based on kneejerk emotions, as you so ignorantly claimed, but on careful analysis of the "scientific empirical objective facts", to use your words.

Micheli's "proof" is nothing more than speculation and fabrication. In fact, it's classic circular reasoning. He speculates, and then uses that speculation to justify further speculation.

There is no proof of multiple assailants. The FACTS tell us only Meredith and Guede were in Meredith's room.

There is no proof of a clean-up. The FACTS tell us that clean-ups always leave tell tale signs of having happened. However, not only was there no tell tale signs of a cleaning, but far too much evidence was left behind, evidence that would not have been there if there had been a clean-up.

There is no proof Guede didn't take the cell phones. It's a fact Guede's DNA was on Meredith's handbag, and that tells us it was Guede who handled the bag. Given this is likely where Meredith kept her phones, money, credit cards, and keys, I'd say the evidence strongly supports Guede as the one who took these items.

Guede DID break into the school in Milan. Guede DID break into Christian Tramontano's apartment as witnessed by both Christian and his girlfriend. Guede DID break into the law office as there is no other explanation for him being possession of stolen items from there. Guede likely was responsible for the burglary and arson of his neighbor's apartment, given he was found with a woman's gold watch consistent with the one stolen from his neighbor's apartment. And Guede DID break into the cottage. You can be in denial all you want, but these are the facts and the only logical interpretation of those facts.

It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this or not. These are the facts of the matter, as deduced from the known facts, not some unsubstantiated theory presented by the prosecution, one which Micheli was more than happy to follow. And no, Amanda and Raffaele don't need defending, as the highest court in the land definitively acquitted them of all crimes, calunnia notwithstanding.

Personally, I find Micheli's reasoning both misguided and offensive. He literally fabricates his own narrative to justify his own narrative. That you are now quoting Micheli tells me you've really hit rock bottom.

 

[Stacyhs]

Please do not tell lies about me, thanks!

Nothing I said in that comment was a lie. Thanks!

 

[Stacyhs]

I guess I need to point out that Micheli and Giordano were both issued before the 2011 Hellmann trial when the 'smoking gun' evidence of the bra hook and kitchen knife were believed to be scientifically reliable and thus strong evidence that Knox and Sollecito were involved. It was a case of false info in, false deductions out.

 

[Vixen]

Reading through the above posts, it occurs to me that the inquisitorial false "judicial facts" manufactured in many of the Knox-Sollecito case trials are like magic tricks performed by a magician of modest skills. The more educated or sophisticated in the audience see through the tricks, while the gullible or those wishing to believe are convinced that the magic is "real".

Of course, someone might pretend in statements to others that the magic is real to obtain explanations of the realities of the magic trick mechanisms from the skeptical observers who rely on reliable evidence.

By that criteria, I'm probably more sceptic than thou.

 

[Vixen]

I don't appreciate your derogatory commentary. My conclusions are not based on kneejerk emotions, as you so ignorantly claimed, but on careful analysis of the "scientific empirical objective facts", to use your words.

Micheli's "proof" is nothing more than speculation and fabrication. In fact, it's classic circular reasoning. He speculates, and then uses that speculation to justify further speculation.

There is no proof of multiple assailants. The FACTS tell us only Meredith and Guede were in Meredith's room.

There is no proof of a clean-up. The FACTS tell us that clean-ups always leave tell tale signs of having happened. However, not only was there no tell tale signs of a cleaning, but far too much evidence was left behind, evidence that would not have been there if there had been a clean-up.

There is no proof Guede didn't take the cell phones. It's a fact Guede's DNA was on Meredith's handbag, and that tells us it was Guede who handled the bag. Given this is likely where Meredith kept her phones, money, credit cards, and keys, I'd say the evidence strongly supports Guede as the one who took these items.

Guede DID break into the school in Milan. Guede DID break into Christian Tramontano's apartment as witnessed by both Christian and his girlfriend. Guede DID break into the law office as there is no other explanation for him being possession of stolen items from there. Guede likely was responsible for the burglary and arson of his neighbor's apartment, given he was found with a woman's gold watch consistent with the one stolen from his neighbor's apartment. And Guede DID break into the cottage. You can be in denial all you want, but these are the facts and the only logical interpretation of those facts.

It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this or not. These are the facts of the matter, as deduced from the known facts, not some unsubstantiated theory presented by the prosecution, one which Micheli was more than happy to follow. And no, Amanda and Raffaele don't need defending, as the highest court in the land definitively acquitted them of all crimes, calunnia notwithstanding.

Personally, I find Micheli's reasoning both misguided and offensive. He literally fabricates his own narrative to justify his own narrative. That you are now quoting Micheli tells me you've really hit rock bottom.

That is not correct. In addition, when I spoke of appealing to people's prejudices 'MAGA-style', I wasn't saying YOU were. I was saying you were using those tools. And you are doing it again. It is not a fact re the school in Milan. The school proprietor TESTIFIED under oath that RG did not break in. He was given the tip by someone whom he met at a party who worked there as he had nowhere to stay that night. It cannot be breaking and entering if you are let in. Likewise the law office. Whilst it is a fact RG was in possession of stolen goods - as he was duly convicted in due course - there is zero record of a burglary conviction. Had he broken into the solicitors office, it doesn't explain how he knew exactly how to switch off the burglar alarm nor why the intruder seemed to be searching for specific legal documents (as per the resident solicitors under oath). The person/s who broke into the solicitors' office did so via a low balcony at the back of the building. Exactly similar as the one leading to the downstairs entrance at via Pergola 7, the boys' entrance which had a terraced balcony easy to access on the first floor, not over twelve feet high with a sheer wall, as with Filomena's. As RG had been there on at least two occasions, he would have known of this relatively easy access and would have used it if it had been his MO (but there is zero evidence) - contrary to your claim of it being a fact that he was a burglar. Ditto, the Christian Tramontano claim. He only 'reported' it in retrospect, didn't bother reporting it at the time and thus it was disallowed as relevant evidence. Again not a fact, as you claim. Both claims are pure conjecture by AK/RS supporters and stated as being facts to try to stir up prejudice in the unwary person. Likewise his current DV charge may or may not have any relevance as to whether AK/RS were involved int he murder of MK. DV is an extremely common crime and hardly restricted to rapists/killers. So, yeah, it is straying from the facts of the case to claim the court findings of fact are all wrong and that people should take on board your conjecture instead,

 

[Stacyhs]

Nobody is stopping you from having kneejerk feelings about who you believe to be responsible or not.

Everyone here knows this case well so your claim our position is a result of our "kneejerk feelings" is laughably wrong.

What we are looking at here is scientific empirical objective facts versus MAGA-style prejudice based on 'gut feelings', which may or may not involve a perception of the individual's personal characteristics as being relevant. This is why we have trials in courts of law and not by villagers waving pitchforks.

The irony of you claiming the bolded when it's YOU who ignores scientific empirical objective facts and denis:
1) The negative TMB tests prove the luminol revealed prints were NOT in blood,
2) The negative hair tests prove the pair were NOT using narcotics,
3) Kercher's alleged DNA on the knife is not scientifically supported,
4) Only bleach could remove all traces of blood on the knife and would destroy any DNA,
5) Sollecito's DNA on the bra hook is likely contamination due to several egregious anti-contamination protocol violations,
et al.

"MAGA-style prejudice based on 'gut feelings'". Stop with this pathetic attempt to connect us to MAGA. You know damn well from the other ISF thread that I cannot abide that POS and his MAGA cultists and I've seen no PIP member here even mention Trump or his cult.
Ironic that you accuse us of "gut feelings" when it was officer Armando Finzi who selected the knife from the cutlery drawer based on his "investigator's instinct" because it was so clean. It was Mignini whose knee jerk reaction assumed the motive was 'satanic', the break-in was fake, that only a woman would cover the body, and that it was an "inside job".

Here are the facts of the case in respect of Guede.


What the courts ruled


Micheli re proof of multiple assailants

[275] That someone returned to the house, taking care to sketch out the pantomime of the clandestine ingress of thieves or other chance malcontents, has been equally affirmed, and it is once again sufficient to recall the precautionary custody order; in that same context, the authors of the falsification also intervened in the victim’s room, and perhaps removed the bra from MEREDITH’s body, if they had not already done so straight after the girl had fallen to the floor.

[277] Starting from the alteration, and therefore preceding in reverse, it is clear that the bra was being worn when the blows were received, otherwise it would not show the same point-like marks of blood as found on the girl’s breast; it is as much evident that it was removed from the victim after some time had passed, it is not known how much in quantifiable terms, but in any case sufficient for the production, on MEREDITH’s back, of some marks shown in photographs 268 and 770, corresponding to the shoulder straps. In any case, and with equal undeniability, those small point-like stains were able to be made only because the bra was the only item of clothing that the girl had on her chest, otherwise they would have stained her sweatshirt or one of the tops, which were instead rolled up, up to her neck. At the same time, it was staged that someone had introduced themselves in the house by means of the window in Ms ROMANELLI’s room (probably to rob, but they had possessed themselves neither of a laptop on the desk, nor of jewels easily accessible in a drawer) and effected a more or less rudimentary clean-up activity, sufficient to make totally vanish from the house, except for on a glass on the draining board, the fingerprints of a girl who was spending days and nights there.


[278] From which it follows that there indeed was an alteration, someone certainly having an interest in returning to the place (from which they had been determined to distance themselves in haste) to improvise artificial scenarios and to make any compromising trace vanish, but not sufficient to produce the result so as to dictate, by themselves, a conclusion that there had been sexual violence: that conclusion was already derivable from the context, since it would have been ascertainable in any case that the girl was semi-nude at the moment when she was being attacked. As well, taken the considerations from a few pages back up again, it is not clear why the unknown stagers, wanting to make all the suspicions converge right on that boy of colour that they had found on their path like a guilty party to offer up a bit like a sacrificial lamb, would have needed to force-feed a fiction of sexual violence: what did they know, themselves, that RUDY had gone to the bathroom struck by colitis after having intimate relations with MEREDITH, and that therefore the vaginal swab or other testing would have revealed evidence of a petting or something of the sort between the unfortunate and the deceased student, so as to render necessary corroboration of the thesis that it was a case of non-consensual sexual contact? Why would they not have been satisfied in making believe in a burglary gone bad, seeing that their fundamental interest was in any case steering the investigation towards subjects outside of the house?
<snip>
[287] RUDY was living a very short distance away from Ms KERCHER’s house, likewise from Corso Garibaldi, where Mr SOLLECITO was living, and from Via Sperandio; it had already happened to him that he had been invited to Via della Pergola (the evening of the little nap on the toilet, after OWEN’s birthday) or to pass by to have a look (on the 21st of October: meaning this is also a notorious fact, easily accessible via the web, is the date on which the last Formula One race of the season was held; incidentally, the England-South Africa rugby game was played the evening before, but on the 21st – despite the clear recall of the pleasant conversation he had had with MEREDITH – he didn’t drop by to say hello at all, neither before nor after the Grand Prix). Because of this there was the possibility of a meeting, and – as already adverted to – it is curious to note that he had not said the truth as regards his movements in the time period immediately prior to the murder, having been contradicted at root by Mr CRUDO and Mr MALY, with the sole consequence being having to hypothesize that the truth had not been said to hide something that was not to be permitted to be made known.


[288] At the same time, RUDY is not credible along the entire course of his reconstruction, included therein the particular of his ingress in the house with the blessing of Ms KERCHER, who would have acceded to a prior rendez-vous or perhaps only finding him in front of her then and there, by reason of the moment of tenderness and complicity shared the evening before: and, if it is not true that he heard an invite to him to come in from MEREDITH, if the signs of a break-in were after the death of the girl, if RUDY was in that case in the same context in which there was someone who would have then manifested an interest in making believe there was an ingress of low-life unknown persons, the only conclusion is that Mr GUEDE entered Number 7, Via della Pergola because someone else let him in, the holder of that interest just described (who can be no other than Ms KNOX).

<snip>

[316] In favour of the detainee there are: the prior clean record, in the face of a rather problematic personal experience; the circumstance that it was not him who was holding the knife that struck the girl; the possibility that Ms KERCHER was in any case being given aid, there being otherwise no explanation for the presence near the body of three towels more or less fully soaked with blood. At any rate, the clean record (apparently, seeing that only a few days before the fact Mr GUEDE was going around Milan with stolen merchandise) cannot constitute always and in any case a kind of bonus refund to present at the cash register, especially when crimes are being discussed which reveal an absolute lack of inhibitory brakes and tendency to overcome weaker subjects; RUDY’s personal vicissitudes are to be then read in parallel with the numerous occasions given to him, with no ulterior purpose, by various families disposed to help him, who already were offering him the possibility of redemption and of constructing a contributive and normal life, in respect of others, without at any rate finding any seriousness of intent in the accused; and the fact that it was not him who was wielding the knife is not enough to relegate him to second place at the scene of the crime, seeing that it was he himself at the same time offending against the sexual liberty of the young woman.

Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of the phones, as he rules that the phones were taken on return to the scene.

Marasca CLEARS AK and RS of theft of the phones.

Micheli CLEARS Rudy of theft of cash and cards from Mez' bag.

Marasca CLEARS AK and RS of theft of cash and cards from Meredith's bag

It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this. This is the fact of the matter, and is not dependent on opinion or gut feelings.

It doesn't matter whether YOU agree with this. This a fact of the matter, and not dependent on opinion or gut feelings.

The claims Guede was a prolific burglar and drug smuggler simply is not factual but merely an attempt to 'defend' AK and RS by playing on people's prejudices MAGA-style.

So, it's not factual that Guede was caught with stolen items from the law office and with a large knife stolen from the school kitchen? He wasn't caught with a woman's gold watch that he had no plausible means to obtain except by theft? He wasn't caught burglarizing Tramontano's apartment? His friends didn't claim he stole things from girls' purses?

Who said he was a "drug smuggler"? Or is that yet another of your exaggerated claims?

Stop with the "MAGA" nonsense unless you'd like to have your own MAGA-style nonsense pointed out.

 

[Numbers]

That is not correct. In addition, when I spoke of appealing to people's prejudices 'MAGA-style', I wasn't saying YOU were. I was saying you were using those tools. And you are doing it again. It is not a fact re the school in Milan. The school proprietor TESTIFIED under oath that RG did not break in. He was given the tip by someone whom he met at a party who worked there as he had nowhere to stay that night. It cannot be breaking and entering if you are let in. Likewise the law office. Whilst it is a fact RG was in possession of stolen goods - as he was duly convicted in due course - there is zero record of a burglary conviction. Had he broken into the solicitors office, it doesn't explain how he knew exactly how to switch off the burglar alarm nor why the intruder seemed to be searching for specific legal documents (as per the resident solicitors under oath). The person/s who broke into the solicitors' office did so via a low balcony at the back of the building. Exactly similar as the one leading to the downstairs entrance at via Pergola 7, the boys' entrance which had a terraced balcony easy to access on the first floor, not over twelve feet high with a sheer wall, as with Filomena's. As RG had been there on at least two occasions, he would have known of this relatively easy access and would have used it if it had been his MO (but there is zero evidence) - contrary to your claim of it being a fact that he was a burglar. Ditto, the Christian Tramontano claim. He only 'reported' it in retrospect, didn't bother reporting it at the time and thus it was disallowed as relevant evidence. Again not a fact, as you claim. Both claims are pure conjecture by AK/RS supporters and stated as being facts to try to stir up prejudice in the unwary person. Likewise his current DV charge may or may not have any relevance as to whether AK/RS were involved int he murder of MK. DV is an extremely common crime and hardly restricted to rapists/killers. So, yeah, it is straying from the facts of the case to claim the court findings of fact are all wrong and that people should take on board your conjecture instead,

There's more than one deviation from known facts in this post.

It's important to note that neither the owner and operator of the nursery school, Maria del Prato, nor anyone on her staff gave Rudy Guede permission to enter the school or sleep there. His entry into the school was therefore unauthorized. According to this news account*, del Prato called the police when she found him in the school. She did not believe his story that he was in the school only to sleep, as she testified*:

The owner of a Milan nursery school took the stand Saturday in the ongoing murder trial of U.S. college student Amanda Knox and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in Perugia, Italy, telling the court that Rudy Guede, convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering British student Meredith Kercher Nov. 1, 2007, had broken into her school and stolen a big kitchen knife.

Nursery school owner Maria del Prato testified in court today... that she had stopped by her school Saturday Oct. 27, when it was closed, and came upon Guede in her office.

"I asked him who he was," she told the court, "and he replied perfectly calmly, even though I had caught him red-handed." Del Prato said he told her he was "a kid from Perugia" who had arrived the night before and had nowhere to sleep.

Del Prato doubted his story, as her locker had been opened, and she said she believed Guede was looking for something to steal. Some small change was missing, and Del Prato noticed Guede had a laptop, but he told her it was his.

When police arrived at the school, they searched Guede's backpack and found a large knife with a 16-inch blade that had been taken from the school kitchen.

Guede was later booked at a Milan police station and accused of theft, receiving stolen goods, and in possession of a weapon. He was also fingerprinted and then released.

It was those fingerprint records that eventually nailed Guede to the scene of Meredith Kercher's murder. His bloody palm print was found on a pillow under Kercher's dead body.

The legal justification for Guede's release is not mentioned in the ABC News article. It's not clear how the release was justified under Italian law.

In 2014, Guede was convicted for two thefts (one being the laptop he had on 27 October 2007) that occurred or were detected in Milan on 27 October 2007. The sentence of 1 year and 4 months was to be served concurrently with the murder/rape conviction.**

* https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7946289

** https://www.milanotoday.it/cronaca/rudy-guede-condannato-furti-milano.html
https://www.ilmessaggero.it/primopiano/cronaca/rudi_guede_furto_milano_perugia_delitto-366191.html

 

[Stacyhs]

That is not correct. In addition, when I spoke of appealing to people's prejudices 'MAGA-style', I wasn't saying YOU were. I was saying you were using those tools. And you are doing it again.

Don' t try and gaslight us. "... as per MAGA stereotypes, beloved of the PIP," is an obvious attempt at connecting us, the PIP, to MAGA nonsense. It isn't working so stop embarrassing yourself.

It is not a fact re the school in Milan. The school proprietor TESTIFIED under oath that RG did not break in.

It doesn't matter whether he "broke in" or not. The fact remains that he entered the school without permission, helped himself to food, spent the night there illegally, stole a 16" kitchen knife, and had other stolen items in his possession.

He was given the tip by someone whom he met at a party who worked there as he had nowhere to stay that night. It cannot be breaking and entering if you are let in.

No, Guede claimed he paid 50 euros to a "South American" man he met at the train station:

I said to myself I’ll go to Milan Central Station and wait for the train. However it must have been about two… And so stupidly what did I do? I met… I was there and naively I spoke with anybody and I met this South American person and I explained my problem that here in Milan even the one star hotels cost so much and this person said to me “it’s dangerous to say here the night at the Central Station, I work in a place and you can stay there until the morning that way you are safe” however you have to give me 20 Euros. I gave him this money. He took me to this, in this that turned out to be a nursery school… when I saw it… I naively said “ok I’ll stay here” and I stayed there until the next morning and this person had said to me “in the morning I’ll come don’t worry and then you can leave.”

At the very least he illegally trespassed and stole the kitchen knife which is burglary.

Likewise the law office. Whilst it is a fact RG was in possession of stolen goods - as he was duly convicted in due course - there is zero record of a burglary conviction.

He would have been convicted if the Milan police had been able to charge him instead of being told to let him go. He was caught red-handed.

Had he broken into the solicitors office, it doesn't explain how he knew exactly how to switch off the burglar alarm nor why the intruder seemed to be searching for specific legal documents (as per the resident solicitors under oath).

He didn't need to as Brocchi testified it wasn't turned on that night:

DEFENSE - Attorney Maori - Is your property alarmed?
WITNESS – The property was equipped with an alarm system that however was not activated that evening, because, I also reconstructed the story, it had just been installed. That evening I went out at about twenty thirty and I remember perfectly that I did not activate thealarm system. The strange thing that I can highlight in this regard is that I noticed that the alarm system the next day, when we entered, was not damaged because the light cell it was always on, even if it was deactivated, and the person or persons who entered did not damage the alarm, but only deactivated the telephone dialer, thus demonstrating a minimum level of competence, in any case a certain level of competence in the field of alarms, electronics, because I would not be able to deactivate a telephone dialer without damaging the alarm, even though I am the owner, so I would not have this competence.

The person/s who broke into the solicitors' office did so via a low balcony at the back of the building. Exactly similar as the one leading to the downstairs entrance at via Pergola 7, the boys' entrance which had a terraced balcony easy to access on the first floor, not over twelve feet high with a sheer wall, as with Filomena's.

A "low balcony" that was "3 (9'10") to 4 (13'1") meters" off the ground according to testimony.

As RG had been there on at least two occasions, he would have known of this relatively easy access and would have used it if it had been his MO (but there is zero evidence) - contrary to your claim of it being a fact that he was a burglar.

Burglars will use whatever entrance means they can depending on ease of access and ease of escape. By throwing the rock through the window from the parking parapet, he had an easy escape right up the driveway. Once the window was broken providing an access, why go around to the other side and have to break-in there? I took this photo from the parking garage across the street:

Ditto, the Christian Tramontano claim. He only 'reported' it in retrospect, didn't bother reporting it at the time and thus it was disallowed as relevant evidence. Again not a fact, as you claim.

It was verified by his girlfriend who was also present when Guede broke in. Let me guess...she is also 'bent' and was only trying to help him out just like Altieri and Popovic were trying to help out two people they didn't know at all or barely knew by lying to the police.

He tried to report it but the lines at the police station were too long.

Both claims are pure conjecture by AK/RS supporters and stated as being facts to try to stir up prejudice in the unwary person.

It is a FACT that Guede was a burglar, or do you think that nursery school knife jumped into his backpack all by itself?
What a coincidence that he just happened to run into the same guy in the MILAN train station who ripped off the law office in PERUGIA (over 220 miles away and a train ride of 3.5 hours plus) and bought the stolen laptop and phone from him.

It is not "pure conjecture" that Tramontano and his girlfriend went to the police and identified Guede as the man who broke into their apartment.

Likewise his current DV charge may or may not have any relevance as to whether AK/RS were involved int he murder of MK. DV is an extremely common crime and hardly restricted to rapists/killers.

His current charges are not just for Domestic Violence as he is also charged with repeated rape.

So, yeah, it is straying from the facts of the case to claim the court findings of fact are all wrong and that people should take on board your conjecture instead,

The Marasca SC...the final word in the murder case... found many of the early 'court findings' to be wrong as detailed in their MR.

 

[Numbers]

....
It doesn't matter whether he "broke in" or not. The fact remains that he entered the school without permission, helped himself to food, spent the night there illegally, stole a 16" kitchen knife, and had other stolen items in his possession.

At the very least he illegally trespassed and stole the kitchen knife which is burglary.

He would have been convicted if the Milan police had been able to charge him instead of being told to let him go. He was caught red-handed.
....

Part of the issues here is the confusion of the use of English or American legal elements terminology crimes that are in some cases under Italian law defined differently in their elements and in their terminology.

For example, "breaking and entering" in US law may be a term (previously) used for the more current term "burglary". The current term burglary or "breaking and entering" is a crime that consists of any entry into a building, day or night, without permission, and with the intention to commit a crime while inside. The entry does not necessarily need to be “forced” to be considered criminal.*

In Italian law there are several laws relating to burglary and illegal or unauthorized entry. The elements of these laws may differ in Italy from those in the US. There's also a translation issue: for example, the Italian "furto" translates to "theft", "robbery", "burglary", and "break-in", among other related terms.** Google Translate typically translates "furto" to "theft", but in a short Italian news article containing that word, it is difficult to be sure whether the appropriate translation is "theft" or "burglary". Of course, in some cases it may make no difference, but a burglar who enters residences may be more dangerous to people.

In fact, there is a specific Italian criminal law against the entry of a dwelling: CP Article 314***:

Art. 614. Violation of domicile

Whoever enters another's home, or another place of private residence, or the appurtenances thereof, against the express or tacit will of the person who has the right to exclude him, or enters clandestinely or by deception, is punished with imprisonment from one to four years.The same penalty applies to anyone who remains in the said places against the express will of the person who has the right to exclude him, or remains clandestinely or by deception.The penalty is from two to six years if the act is committed with violence against property, or against people, or if the guilty party is clearly armed.The crime is punishable upon complaint of the injured party. However, the prosecution is carried out ex officio when the act is committed with violence against people, or if the guilty party is clearly armed or if the act is committed with violence against property against a person who is incapable, due to age or infirmity.

However, in Italian criminal law, the term "furto" alone is used specifically for crimes of theft:****

Art. 624. Theft

Whoever takes possession of another's movable property, taking it from the person holding it, in order to gain profit for himself or others, is punished with imprisonment from six months to three years and with a fine from 154 to 516 euros.

For the purposes of criminal law, electricity and any other energy that has an economic value are also considered movable property.

The crime is punishable upon complaint by the injured party. However, proceedings are carried out ex officio if the injured party is incapable, due to age or infirmity, or if one of the circumstances referred to in article 625, numbers 7, unless the act is committed on things exposed to public faith, and 7-bis.

But there is another use of "furto" in conjuction with entry into a building:****

Art. 624-bis.
Theft in a dwelling and theft by snatching.

Anyone who takes possession of another's movable property, taking it from the person holding it, in order to gain profit for himself or for others, by entering a building or other place intended in whole or in part for private residence or in the appurtenances thereof, is punished with imprisonment from four to seven years and with a fine from 927 to 1,500 euros. ....

* https://legaldictionary.net/breaking-and-entering
** https://context.reverso.net/translation/italian-english/furto
*** https://www.altalex.com/documents/news/2014/10/28/dei-delitti-contro-la-persona
**** https://www.altalex.com/documents/news/2014/10/22/dei-delitti-contro-il-patrimonio