Continuation Part 11: Amanda Knox/Raffaele Sollecito

[tsig]

They had to know that Amanda would be tagging along. Scolding her for comming may have been planned to put her off guard. Alternatively, it may have been just to put some distance between her and Raffaele so if he started making a fuss she wouldn't get spooked or catch on to what was happening and run off. I recall reading that one of the officers was actually tasked with insuring that Amanda didn't get away.

Does anyone really think the Perugia cops were so dumb not to understand that Amanda had just been evicted from her home and had nowhere else to go but to tag along with her boyfriend.

Amanda was homeless in Perugia?

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
By the way, earlier you translated the end of Amanda's text message to Patrick Lumumba "Buona serata" as "Have fun" - but Google translates it as "good evening" - can you explain this discrepancy?

The discrepancy consists in the fact that Google Translator is not an authentic Italian

Salutation is very much a cultural matter and cannot be shifted from a language into another so easilly. It's a matter of contexts.
In Italian, no one would write the wording "see you later" in Italian unless he/she is going to actually meet with you later the same day.
"Buona serata" might be translated as "have a good night", but also this has a context. It is not the equivalent of saying "good night" ("buona notte"), and it is also not the equivalent of saying "buona sera".
"Serata" is not "sera". While "sera" is a time of the day (until very late like after 11pm or midnight), "serata" is a condition, a quality of what happens during the evening or how you enjoy your time, with reference to either: 1) weather conditions, or 2) pleasure or fun. It is just polite to say "buona serata", not really a "goodbye", and it is also colloquial and very frequent among friends, also not as a greeting or salutation but rather just used to wish "have a good time", "enjoy yourself".

 

[Numbers]

But is it possible that you fail to see the difference?

First, you don't realize the potential cost of taping police interviews: you don't realize that under Italian law this would mean some lawyer from some party would always ask for transcripts, and judicial organs may be compelled to provide them: you cannot "give" out tapes without an official transcript. Audio transcripts cost about 5 euros per minute, there can be hundreds of hours of questionings on a case. But also think about the danger: leaks and impossibility to keep those materials secret; like on the Garbatella case for example, the video interrogation of a suspect was leaked, the suspect in the end was innocent, but appeared as guilty in the video (because in fact, audio and video tapes are not obvious at all, they can be very misleading and basically false information).
Last, but not least: think about § 6 and 7 of the procedure code:



§ 6 says information obtained close to the event and without the assistence of lawyer cannot be documented, and § 7 points out that the investigators can collect spontaneous statements also from people who are under investigation, but those statements are not usable in the trial debate.
Think about the rationale behind these articles and paragraphs: they basically prohibit to document police activity of collecting statements or anyway suggest it should be confidential, for the investigation and not usable in a trial. § 5 also acknowledges that police can collect information in a situation of diminished defensce rights.

http://www.brocardi.it/codice-di-procedura-penale/libro-quinto/titolo-iv/art350.html



You suspect because you are biased.
But if you were unbiased, you should presume the witness statetements are truthful, and also assume their behaviour is likely consistent.

{Highlighting added to quote.}

Mach,

Thanks again for your response.

I highlighted the odd statement you made about the cost of audio recording transcripts. I consider the statement odd, because there were many police detailed to the interrogation that night and they no doubt had substantial salaries. Furthermore, the costs are trivial compared to the importance of any statements that the interrogated person might make. Similarly, the costs of the forensic tests should be considered trivial in relation to the value of the evidence. Apparently, even the costs of ink and paper were too high for the police on the night of the interrogation of Amanda and Raffaele, because no contemporaneous notes were offered in evidence.

If you wish to consider me biased, you are, of course, free to do so.

I have, however, come to my opinions and suspicions based on the available evidence - and the lack of reliable evidence of guilt of Amanda and Raffaele - and my reading about many cases of official misconduct in the US and in Europe (the latter in the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights). It is also noteworthy that a number of cases in Europe (where the prosecution is allowed to appeal acquittals) which resulted in a conviction after acquittal on essentially the same evidence were found to be unfair by the ECHR.

 

[Bill Williams]

I believe - as I've written before - that the situation can be properly reconciled by considering that the original police/PM plan was to "break" Sollecito first (i.e. get him to abandon Knox's alibi), and then to go to Sollecito's apartment with all lights and sirens to grab Knox with maximum fanfare and public presence (and to then "break" Knox in turn). And if that was the strategy, then of course the police only told Sollecito to come in at first. However, when Knox turned up alongside him, the police were forced to modify their plan and abandon the public fanfare arrest of Knox, Of course, as it turned out, the heavies were indeed used later on in the brutal snatching of Lumumba (complete with racial and physical abuse). But the underlying plan was always to interrogate Knox that night - she just came into the police HQ earlier than they had envisaged.

Interrogate Knox in relation to...... what?

The possibility exists that they wanted Knox in precautionary detention (for up to one year) even as for someone "informed of the facts". The operative principle here is that once Knox's mom showed up, they were officially out of ANYONE they could bully without a lawyer.

Why is this simply not this: they strongly believed that Knox knew something she was not telling them? Even something somewhat more innocent than the whole shooting match of murder?

 

[Numbers]

Amanda was homeless in Perugia?

Amanda's flat was a crime scene as of Nov. 2, 2007 and she and her flat mates could no longer stay there. You may remember that Meredith Kercher was murdered and raped in that flat on the night of Nov. 1, 2007, and her body discovered the next day.

 

[Bill Williams]

They had to know that Amanda would be tagging along. Scolding her for comming may have been planned to put her off guard. Alternatively, it may have been just to put some distance between her and Raffaele so if he started making a fuss she wouldn't get spooked or catch on to what was happening and run off. I recall reading that one of the officers was actually tasked with insuring that Amanda didn't get away.

Does anyone really think the Perugia cops were so dumb not to understand that Amanda had just been evicted from her home and had nowhere else to go but to tag along with her boyfriend.

Amanda was homeless in Perugia?

Yes.

Her last call before her interrogation was to Filomena on exactly this question. Their cottage was behind crime-scene tape.

Filomena had consulted a lawyer about her own liability for rent during that period as well as for potential liability for the damage to her room.

Amanda, Laura, and Filomena were homeless and needed to see to practical matters in the midst of this tragedy.

 

[Machiavelli]

Mach,

Thanks again for your response.

I highlighted the odd statement you made about the cost of audio recording transcripts. I consider the statement odd, because there were many police detailed to the interrogation that night and they no doubt had substantial salaries. Furthermore, the costs are trivial compared to the importance of any statements that the interrogated person might make. Similarly, the costs of the forensic tests should be considered trivial in relation to the value of the evidence. Apparently, even the costs of ink and paper were too high for the police on the night of the interrogation of Amanda and Raffaele, because no contemporaneous notes were offered in evidence.(...)

I don't know what you mean by "contemporaneous notes". Investigation activity byt police forces is supposed to produce what Italian law calls verbali of police activity. A verbale (minutes) is usually supposed to be a summary written by the police. It should not be a direct recording of what the person says.
It is also supposed to be used for the investigation, but not to enter the trial.
The cost of 5-10 euros per minute (this is the price of audio transcripts on the market) would make the police activity rise to rather astronomical costs, if you consider that 1 hour would be 300 euros at least and a police station may well perform tens of hours of questionings every day all the time. Not to speak about the catastrophic delay of hearing sessions: the asking for a transcription is the favourite tool used by Italian lawyers to obtain delays of hearing sessions. And every hearing delay means a delay of months of the whole trial in Italy.
You must understand, btw, that those "contemporaneous notes" are for investigation only. They are prohibited at the trial. In fact, judges are not allowed to read police notes, and also they are not allowed to hear or read recordings of declarations of suspects.
This evidence is inadmissible. (art. 541 § 2) The Judge cannot read or listen recordings from police questionings.
The rule is these materials are not admissible in trials under Italian law. If - paradoxically - a recording of Knox's interrogation or Knox's spontaneous statement existed, and if the prosecution wanted to bring it as proof, the Court would refuse to hear it. So all this money would be wasted.

 

[Desert Fox]

Another way of looking at this is....

What did they have on Raffaele at the end of the all-nighter interrogation? They had what they claimed was the withdrawal of an alibi for Knox, and they had his shoes. They were fairly sure that he and Knox had spend 24/7 together since the horrid events of Thursday night - and they'd eavesdropped on their conversations which revealed nothing.

Fill in the rest. What, then, did this have to do with Raffaele?

In a situation which Amanda was in, I am not sure if I would not break. In fact, I am fairly sure I would in the same situation. Granted, since I have read up on certain cases, I know that talking to cops never does any good, innocence cannot defend itself, and best to just demand a lawyer.

 

[Numbers]

The discrepancy consists in the fact that Google Translator is not an authentic Italian

Salutation is very much a cultural matter and cannot be shifted from a language into another so easilly. It's a matter of contexts.
In Italian, no one would write the wording "see you later" in Italian unless he/she is going to actually meet with you later the same day.
"Buona serata" might be translated as "have a good night", but also this has a context. It is not the equivalent of saying "good night" ("buona notte"), and it is also not the equivalent of saying "buona sera".
"Serata" is not "sera". While "sera" is a time of the day (until very late like after 11pm or midnight), "serata" is a condition, a quality of what happens during the evening or how you enjoy your time, with reference to either: 1) weather conditions, or 2) pleasure or fun. It is just polite to say "buona serata", not really a "goodbye", and it is also colloquial and very frequent among friends, also not as a greeting or salutation but rather just used to wish "have a good time", "enjoy yourself".

Mach,
Thanks for providing this insight into idiomatic Italian.

Your information points out the problem that Amanda Knox had only been in Italy for about 6 weeks on Nov. 1. Her knowledge of Italian and its idiomatic use would have been limited. An English-speaking beginner in the Italian language would not be expected to know the details you have given above.

The police obviously seized on any such issues, without use of a fair interpreter, in their interrogation of Amanda. In English, "See you later" is an indefinite good-bye (and good-bye itself, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a contraction of "God be with you", first known use in 1580). It could be followed by "Good night" or "Good evening" or similar words. It is not an indication of a proposed meeting - that would have specifics of time or place.

Note that a fair interpreter is a requirement of the Convention.

 

[Samson]

Amanda was homeless in Perugia?

Alas tsig, it sounds like you are pining for the gorgeous Meg Ryan from your tree top.

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

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
Your implication that she named Patrick Lumumba because he was the "village black man" (your words) is the height of racism. Amanda Knox made no statements against Lumumba until she was coercively interrogated on the night of Nov. 5/6, 2007, and withdrew her statements later.

(...)

Incidentally, let's remind to us all that Knox was not coerced; she did not claim to have lied under coercion, but instead she claimed to have incurred in a false memory syndrome.
Second, indeed there was a probable racial element in her decision to finger Patrick, as for Knox's own word: she admitte accused specifically Patrick, because she thought it could be true. She didn't believe that it was true; but she thought that it could be. It "could", it was realistic. It was beliavable. They might have believed that.

Third, let's not forget that Amanda Knox accused Lumumba after only 2.5 hours of questioning with the curious coincidence that she did so after the police told her that Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi. And incidentally, let's not forget that Sollecito also made statements against Amanda Knox: she was not the only one releasing incriminating statements against someone, or changing their story.

Fourth, let's not forget that Amanda Knox did not withdraw her statements, not even weeks later. In fact she even invoked her right to remain silent, she even refused to release a spontaneous statement on Dec. 8., in order to not withdraw her statements.
She did not withdraw her statements, but she repeated further a false testimony against Patrick Lumumba at 05:45, in a spontaneous statement not released to a police, but released to a magistrate, at the presence of a translator and other witnesses.
Then she repeated her false testimony again, in two hand written notes, which she wrote on her own initiative, in which she comes out as a manipulative liar, and in which she places further incriminating evidence also against Sollecito (blood on hands). In those statements offer a further false testimony, they put false evidence against Lumumba again, this time in the form of insinuations, designed to be not certain, but being false evidence (calunnia) nothwistanding.

 

[Machiavelli]

(...)
The police obviously seized on any such issues, without use of a fair interpreter, in their interrogation of Amanda. In English, "See you later" is an indefinite good-bye (and good-bye itself, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a contraction of "God be with you", first known use in 1580). It could be followed by "Good night" or "Good evening" or similar words. It is not an indication of a proposed meeting - that would have specifics of time or place.

Note that a fair interpreter is a requirement of the Convention.

You should quit talking about "fair interpreter", since there is absolutely nothing one could say about Anna Donnino being "unfair", except their own personal bias.

Those people who attack Donnino in fact are only biased against the police. They only presume the police was "unfair".

An unfair interpreter could be someone who translates things falsely.
But an interpreter, a language facilitator or language mediator, as the word says is also a mediator, and being fair means to perform the duty of a mediator, a task that doesn't have anything intrinsically unfair in it.

Of course Knox claimed "ci vediamo più tardi" was just intended to translate "see you later" as just an idiomatic expression, and of course Anna Donnino explained this, and in fact this point was recorded in the spontaneous statement. But this doesn't automatically imply the police should buy this explanation.

 

[Numbers]

You should quit talking about "fair interpreter", since there is absolutely nothing one could say about Anna Donnino being "unfair", except their own personal bias.

Those people who attack Donnino in fact are only biased against the police. They only presume the police was "unfair".

An unfair interpreter could be someone who translates things falsely.
But an interpreter, a language facilitator or language mediator, as the word says is also a mediator, and being fair means to perform the duty of a mediator, a task that doesn't have anything intrinsically unfair in it.

Anna Donnino in her testimony in court stated that she acted as a "mediator". She talked to Amanda about Donnino's own personal experiences with injury, pain, and memory. That was not part of being a fair interpreter. The Convention calls for a fair interpreter, not for a "mediator".

 

[Kauffer]

Certainly he doesn't state he was bugged before the 5th (I can't rule out that he was; but he doesn't state that).
However he does say that Filomena Romanelli and Laura Mezzetti were bugged and also all the "friends" (and I understand all the cottage people).
He points out that the bugging of phones increased gradually, many people were added to the list over the course days and weeks as the investigation went on.
There seems to be a rather big number of people in the list. Are they all "suspects"?

Well now, there's two ways of looking at this.

1) The professional way

"A burglar has entered the premises. It appears that Ms Kercher has come home and surprised him. We need to look at all of our usual burglary suspects, trying to match the M.O., run the crime scene for physical evidence and DNA and talk to the residents to check whether they have noticed anyone who might be a possible suspect hanging around. Let's start collecting our evidence."

2) The unprofessional way

"That window is too high to climb. It's probably an insurance fraud. Oh dear, there's a body. I bet that American harlot's involved in some way. Don't worry about the body temperature, we have to keep the door closed - the biology graduate doesn't want any contamination. You do realise it's sort of Halloween - that might be significant. I know, let's tap everyone's phones while the biology graduate wraps up that mop"

In scenario 1, suspects would become apparent during an evidence based investigation. In scenario 2, the one they went with, as far as the law is concerned, just about everyone the police spoke to in connection with the case should have been afforded counsel. With the kind of thinking going on, nobody was safe without an alibi but in particular all the residents and all of their friends.

Interesting isn't it, how you've now moved from ridiculing the idea that Lumumba was a suspect to not actually being able to rule it out. But how do you know what the purpose of bugging the bar was?

 

[Bill Williams]

You should quit talking about "fair interpreter", since there is absolutely nothing one could say about Anna Donnino being "unfair", except their own personal bias.

Those people who attack Donnino in fact are only biased against the police. They only presume the police was "unfair".

An unfair interpreter could be someone who translates things falsely.
But an interpreter, a language facilitator or language mediator, as the word says is also a mediator, and being fair means to perform the duty of a mediator, a task that doesn't have anything intrinsically unfair in it.

The one thing an interpreter should not do is mediate.

The only time a translator can "mediate" is when they have to stop to check with the speaker for the exact meaning of the source word/phrase. To meditate is to insert oneself and one's own agenda into the translation process.

It is to mask the exact thing which the source person is trying to communicate - for instance, if the source person is confused or incoherent, it is important for the interpreter to translate it as confused and incoherent, not to "clean up" the translation in an attempt to be helpful.

In all the expertises you've claimed in all the posts you've made, this is the most ludicrous. Amanda Knox was constitutionally guaranteed a translator, and got a mediator, someone who meddled with meaning.

 

[Numbers]

Incidentally, let's remind to us all that Knox was not coerced; she did not claim to have lied under coercion, but instead she claimed to have incurred in a false memory syndrome.
Second, indeed there was a probable racial element in her decision to finger Patrick, as for Knox's own word: she admitte accused specifically Patrick, because she thought it could be true. She didn't believe that it was true; but she thought that it could be. It "could", it was realistic. It was beliavable. They might have believed that.

Third, let's not forget that Amanda Knox accused Lumumba after only 2.5 hours of questioning with the curious coincidence that she did so after the police told her that Sollecito had withdrawn her alibi. And incidentally, let's not forget that Sollecito also made statements against Amanda Knox: she was not the only one releasing incriminating statements against someone, or changing their story.

Fourth, let's not forget that Amanda Knox did not withdraw her statements, not even weeks later. In fact she even invoked her right to remain silent, she even refused to release a spontaneous statement on Dec. 8., in order to not withdraw her statements.
She did not withdraw her statements, but she repeated further a false testimony against Patrick Lumumba at 05:45, in a spontaneous statement not released to a police, but released to a magistrate, at the presence of a translator and other witnesses.
Then she repeated her false testimony again, in two hand written notes, which she wrote on her own initiative, in which she comes out as a manipulative liar, and in which she places further incriminating evidence also against Sollecito (blood on hands). In those statements offer a further false testimony, they put false evidence against Lumumba again, this time in the form of insinuations, designed to be not certain, but being false evidence (calunnia) nothwistanding.

All the statements that Amanda Knox made when she was denied counsel of an attorney while in police custody may not be used to convict her, based on ECHR case-law. All those statements were made without her full knowledge of her right to remain silent and were ultimately the result of her treatment by the police during her interrogation.

You are also distorting things she wrote as speculations in her diary, which were not intended as statements to the police, as such statements. The police seizure of her diary and interception of any of her letters or phone calls in prison may be violations of ECHR Article 8 (right to privacy).

 

[Bill Williams]

Incidentally, let's remind to us all that Knox was not coerced; she did not claim to have lied under coercion, but instead she claimed to have incurred in a false memory syndrome.

This is a non sequitor. Knox is not competent to self-diagnose what happened to her at interrogation. What she claimed happened is not relevant, especially in an attempt to disprove coercion.

 

[Kauffer]

I don't know what you mean by "contemporaneous notes". Investigation activity byt police forces is supposed to produce what Italian law calls verbali of police activity. A verbale (minutes) is usually supposed to be a summary written by the police. It should not be a direct recording of what the person says.
It is also supposed to be used for the investigation, but not to enter the trial.
The cost of 5-10 euros per minute (this is the price of audio transcripts on the market) would make the police activity rise to rather astronomical costs, if you consider that 1 hour would be 300 euros at least and a police station may well perform tens of hours of questionings every day all the time. Not to speak about the catastrophic delay of hearing sessions: the asking for a transcription is the favourite tool used by Italian lawyers to obtain delays of hearing sessions. And every hearing delay means a delay of months of the whole trial in Italy.
You must understand, btw, that those "contemporaneous notes" are for investigation only. They are prohibited at the trial. In fact, judges are not allowed to read police notes, and also they are not allowed to hear or read recordings of declarations of suspects.
This evidence is inadmissible. (art. 541 § 2) The Judge cannot read or listen recordings from police questionings.
The rule is these materials are not admissible in trials under Italian law. If - paradoxically - a recording of Knox's interrogation or Knox's spontaneous statement existed, and if the prosecution wanted to bring it as proof, the Court would refuse to hear it. So all this money would be wasted.

Recordings keep the police honest. In fact they keep everyone honest. You didn't mean to suggest, did you, that if the police were to lie about what was said in a recorded interview that the defence couldn't call upon the recordings to impeach police testimony, did you? Why do these modern questuras have all this recording equipment?

PS I guess, reading this again, what you saying is that if the notes and recordings were made and turned over to the defence and shown to the investigating judge pre trial then she could have thrown out the case and it wouldn't have gone to trial.

 

[Numbers]

Anna Donnino in her testimony in court stated that she acted as a "mediator". She talked to Amanda about Donnino's own personal experiences with injury, pain, and memory. That was not part of being a fair interpreter. The Convention calls for a fair interpreter, not for a "mediator".

From Guide on Article 6:

345. It is not appropriate to lay down any detailed conditions under Article 6 § 3(e) concerning the method by which interpreters may be provided to assist accused persons. An interpreter is not part of the court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 and there is no formal requirement of independence or impartiality as such. The services of the interpreter must provide the accused with effective assistance in conducting his defence and the interpreter’s conduct must not be of such a nature as to impinge on the fairness of the proceedings (Ucak v. the United Kingdom).

 

[Numbers]

In consideration of the fast-track trial of Rudy Guede and its appeal trial, and the statements made in the trials or written in the motivations from those trials, that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were co-conspirators with Guede in the murder and rape of Meredith Kercher; from Guide on Article 6:

217. The presumption of innocence will be violated if a judicial decision concerning a person charged with a criminal offence reflects an opinion that he is guilty before he has been proved guilty according to law. It suffices, even in the absence of any formal finding, that there is some reasoning suggesting that the court regards the accused as guilty (see, as the leading authority, Minelli v. Switzerland, § 37; and, more recently, Nerattini v. Greece, § 23; Didu v. Romania, § 41). A premature expression of such an opinion by the tribunal itself will inevitably fall foul of this presumption (Nešťák v. Slovakia, § 88; Garycki v. Poland, § 66).

218. What is important in the application of the provision of Article 6 § 2 is the true meaning of the statements in question, not their literal form (Lavents v. Latvia, § 126).

219. The fact that the applicant was ultimately found guilty cannot vacate his initial right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law (see Matijašević v. Serbia, § 49; Nešťák v. Slovakia, § 90, concerning decisions prolonging the applicants’ detention on remand).