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News of Interest => Trial in Perugia, Italy => Topic started by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:01:03 am


Title: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:01:03 am
Amanda Knox awaiting fate as jury begins deliberations in Meredith Kercher murder trial
The jury hearing the murder trial of Meredith Kercher has retired to consider whether American Amanda Knox and her Italian former lover Raffaele Sollecito killed the British student.

(http://tothewire.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/amanda-knox-460_979625c.jpg?w=368&h=230)


The family of Miss Kercher arrived in the Italian town of Perugia where she was brutally killed ahead of the verdict.

The semi-naked body of Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in her bedroom in November 2007.
 
Related Articles
Amanda Knox: I'm afraid to have the 'mask of a murderer'
Amanda Knox's family 'very hopeful' of acquittal

Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, are on trial for her murder.

Prosecutors say the Leeds University student was stabbed to death after what started as an extreme sex game.

The jury retired this morning to begin its deliberations and a verdict is expected later today or tomorrow, ending a trial that has lasted almost a year.

Knox addressed the court in Perugia, Italy, yesterday in a voice trembling with emotion.

Fighting back tears, she told the eight jurors in Italian that she did not want to be branded an assassin.

But she showed no anger towards the prosecutors who have requested a life sentence for her.

She said: ''They are trying to do their job, even if they can't understand.''

A third person, Rudy Guede, 22, from the Ivory Coast, has already been convicted of the murder and sexual violence and sentenced to 30 years in jail.

But prosecutors say he was only one of three killers who acted together, under ''the fumes of drugs and possibly alcohol''.

Knox, who has been behind bars for two years, told the court people often asked her how she managed to stay so calm.

She said: ''The first thing to say is that I am not calm...I am afraid of being defined as something I am not and by actions that are not mine.

''I'm afraid of having the mask of a murderer forced on to my skin.''

She said she was ''confused, sad, frustrated'' about being kept in jail for two years.

But she remained ''confident and certain in what I know,'' she said.

She had tried, she added, to find the positive side of the situation.

''I don't get depressed,'' she said. ''In these situations, I grieve and try to find the positives in important moments.''

Sollecito also addressed the court yesterday, saying that no motive had emerged for his alleged role in the murder.

He said: ''I am not violent, I never have been. I wasn't at the house (where Miss Kercher lived and died) that night.''

He added: ''If Amanda had asked me to do something I didn't agree with, I would have said no. So imagine if she had asked me to do something as terrible as killing a girl.''

But prosecutor Manuela Comodi argued that ''we live in an age of violence with no motive''.

She often asked herself why Knox and Sollecito murdered Miss Kercher, she said, but suggested that the reason was a mystery.

''We don't know what sparks these things,'' she said.

She cited DNA evidence allegedly linking Sollecito to the crime and wrapped a white bra around a microphone in the courtroom to demonstrate how his DNA could have ended up on Miss Kercher's bra strap and not on the rest of the bra.

Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, vowed the family would continue to battle for her daughter's freedom if she is convicted.

''If she is found guilty we will carry on fighting,'' she said.

In his response to the defence lawyers' summing up speeches, Francesco Maresca, the Kercher family's lawyer, told the court Miss Kercher was killed because a point of no return had been reached.

Knox, Sollecito and Guede had gone so far with torturing her that they had to kill her, he said.

''Meredith was killed because she knew all three of her attackers,'' he said, indicating that the three supposedly knew they could not get away with what they had done so far.

Speaking outside court, Deanna Knox said she thought her sister had done ''really, really well'' in addressing the court.

She said: ''I think (she) said exactly what she needed to say and I'm glad she spoke up and talked for herself.''

Knox's father, Curt Knox, added: ''I think Amanda did a fantastic job today.

''Both her and Raffaele gave heartfelt thoughts and comments to the judge and jury and hopefully we'll have a verdict in the next day or so.''

video >>>>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6724767/Amanda-Knox-awaiting-fate-as-jury-begins-deliberations-in-Meredith-Kercher-murder-trial.html

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(http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/ap/a00f62b5-177a-4eb7-a2cb-4469b33b102f.widec.jpg)

Alessandra Tarantino / AP
Amanda Knox is escorted to court in Perugia, Italy, on Friday.

BREAKING NEWS

updated 6:17 p.m. ET Dec. 4, 2009

PERUGIA, Italy - An Italian court on Friday convicted American student Amanda Knox of murdering her British roommate and sentenced her to 26 years in prison.

Knox's Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 25, also was convicted of the murder charges. He was sentenced to 25 years.

trial by Media ?

(http://ricerca.iltempo.ilsole24ore.com/data/images/immagini/thumb/2009/01/7613-lapresse.JPG)

she lived in this house

(http://i48.tinypic.com/28hml52.jpg)
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:02:15 am
Media work as American university student Amanda Knox sits in court for a murder trial session in Perugia December 4, 2009.

(http://uk.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20091204&t=2&i=26772288&w=450&r=2009-12-04T233627Z_01_BTRE5B30ZES00_RTROPTP_0_ITALY-MURDER)

(http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20091204&t=2&i=26766509&w=460&r=2009-12-04T232209Z_01_BTRE5B31ST600_RTROPTP_0_ITALY-KNOX)
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:03:22 am
Bruno the most famous criminologist in Italy:
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:fzc48s4DzMFEBM:http://www.terna.it/Portals/0/Immagini/webmagazine/Francesco_Bruno_Ansa_wm_hp.jpg)
Amanda is depicted as a black widow, she is seen as a dangerous and murderous woman who has caught all the members of the crime scene in her erotic coil.



Francesco Bruno, a criminologist who is studying this case and acts as an unpaid consultant for the Sollecito defense team, believes that the perception of Knox's role is complicated by her behavior both before and after the crime.  On her Facebook and MySpace pages she wrote about **** and fantasy and posted pictures of herself in compromising positions, including one video where she appears drunk.  "This is a murder committed out of fear," Bruno says.  "Amanda is depicted as a black widow, she is seen as a dangerous and murderous woman who has caught all the members of the crime scene in her erotic coil."

What's likely to happen next? Guede's attorney Walter Biscotti has indicated that his client will seek to separate himself from his co-defendants. Guede is the only suspect who has admitted to being in Kercher's bedroom the night she died. He also admits having consensual sex with her, but denies murdering her. His DNA is in her room, but not on the alleged murder weapon. Knox's DNA is on the weapon, but her attorneys will argue that other DNA on the blade is less than a 100 percent match to Kercher's—which Knox's attorney says it is not enough to convict his client.  Because Knox lived in the house, her DNA in the dwelling will not prove guilt and because Sollecito was her boyfriend and spent time there, his DNA in the house proves nothing, says her lawyer. But Sollecito owns the knife in question and, in fact, it was confiscated from his apartment nearby.  His DNA has also been found—on the back of the bloodied bra that was cut off Kercher's body. Sollecito's father offered the defense that perhaps the girls had traded bras, but investigators believe that it proves Sollecito's involvement. His defense team has asked for CCTV camera footage of the morning of November 2, presumably to prove their client's whereabouts.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:04:00 am
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/release-38-3/img/new_logo.png)
Amanda Knox and Sollecito guilty of Kercher murder
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46856000/jpg/_46856114_226170_kercher1.jpg)
 
Miss Kercher had been studying Italian on an exchange programme

American student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend have been found guilty by an Italian court of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

(http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00187/knox_187270s.jpg)

Knox, 22, bowed her head and burst into tears as she was jailed for 26 years for murder and sexual violence.

Italian Raffaele Sollecito, 25, looked impassive as he was given 25 years.

Miss Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student from Surrey, was found with her throat slit in Perugia in 2007. Knox had denied killing her in a sex game.

But prosecutors said Sollecito held her down while Knox stabbed her to death.    We have obtained truth and justice for this tragic event


Knox buried her head in her lawyer's chest, sobbing, after the judge read the verdict to a hushed court.

Miss Kercher's family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said they were satisfied with the verdict.

He said: "They got the justice they were expecting. We got what we were hoping for.

"With what we got with the Guede sentence last year, we have obtained truth and justice for this tragic event."

Knox's family, meanwhile, left court in tears, fighting through the crowds of journalists gathered outside. Her father, Curt, told the BBC "we will fight on".

The court ordered Knox and Sollecito to pay one million euros to Miss Kercher's mother and the same amount to her father.

Her siblings would each receive 800,000 euros, the court ruled.

The pair committed the killing with small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede, 22, who was jailed for 30 years for murder and sexual violence last October.

Miss Kercher's semi-naked body was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in her room.

She had been sharing a house with Knox, also a student, on her year abroad in the Umbrian hilltop town.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:04:26 am
Older articleJuly 2009

Wounds on murder victim Meredith Kercher's neck 'could not have been made by blade police found' 

By Nick Pisa
Last updated at 1:02 PM on 06th July 2009
 
A leading forensic expert today used a mannequin head and two knives to show how wounds found on murdered Meredith Kercher's neck were incompatible with a knife found by police.

Professor Carlo Torre, has been involved in numerous Italian trials and carried out 5,000 post mortems, gave evidence on behalf of Amanda Knox, 21, as the case against her and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, continued.

They are jointly charged with the murder and sexual assault of Meredith, 21, who was found semi naked and with her throat cut in her bedroom in the house she shared with Knox.

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/06/article-0-059C3414000005DC-197_468x364.jpg)
Amanda Knox arrives for a hearing in the Meredith Kercher murder trial, in Perugia this morning

Prosecutors have already told the court in Perugia, Italy, where the murder took place that she was killed after refusing to take part in a drug fuelled ****.

Prof Torre, who is based in Turin, used the knives and head to demonstrate how in his opinion the wounds on Meredith's throat were not compatible with a 30cm kitchen knife found by police in Sollecito's flat.

The trial has already heard how DNA from Meredith was found on the blade while DNA from Knox was found on the black handle but defence lawyers say the traces are insufficient and cannot be seen as conclusive.

Media and public were asked to leave as graphic photographs of Meredith's body were shown to the court and at one point Knox's official interpreter asked to leave as she felt unwell.

Audio of Prof Torre's evidence was relayed to a press room and with a large bladed knife in one hand and a shorter one in the other, he said:''Examining the blade found and the wounds it is clear that it is incompatible.

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/06/article-0-059C7B25000005DC-843_468x584.jpg)

Consultants for Knox, forensic expert Carlo Torre, left, and pathologist Walter Patumi

(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/06/article-0-05979B30000005DC-790_468x483.jpg)

'It is my opinion that the blade that caused the wounds to the victim's neck was much shorter, probably around 8cm and that it was no more than a centimeter wide.

'The knife went in and out of the wounds, once, twice, three times, in a sawing motion.'

Prof Torre added that there was also evidence of strangulation as the hyoid bone, a small bone in the neck, had been broken after pressure had been applied.

As he gave evidence Knox listened intently while a few feet behind her, her mother Edda Mellas and her sisters Deanne and Ashley sat behind making notes.

Prof Torre, who has examined crime scene footage and autopsy video and notes, also told the court that there was 'nothing to make me think that more than one person was involved.'

He added: 'There are no elements or traces to suggest anyone else was involved.'

Prof Torre also said that from the blood splatters on Meredith's chest it was clear to him that she was not wearing her bra as the spots were compatible with being 'breathed out' as she died.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/07/06/article-0-059C30E8000005DC-542_468x395.jpg)

Amanda Knox listens to her lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova prior to a hearing

He added that bruises found on Meredith's body was not evidence that she had been held down but instead caused by her 'bashing and knocking' into the floor and furniture.

Last October Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, 21, was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Meredith and sentenced to 30 years jail after a fast track trial.

Defence lawyers for Sollecito have insisted that only one person was responsible for the murder and that he has 'already been found guilty and sentenced'.

Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was a Leeds University student and was in Perugia as part of her European Studies degree. She had only been in Italy for two months when she was murdered.

The trial has been sitting only on Fridays and Saturdays since January as Judge Giancarlo Massei and prosecutors Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Comodi are involved in other trials, a common practice in the Italian legal system.

A verdict is not expected until the autumn and the case will take a two month summer break from the middle of July.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:24:06 am
One thing is certain: Rudy didn't belong in the upstairs flat in the cottage. He had never been a lodger, boyfriend, guest or anything else. Yet police found his DNA on the victim, inside her body, on her purse and in other locations. His conviction was no surprise.
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/RudyIDCard.JPG)

Amanda Knox murder trial: Taking aim at Rudy Guede

By Candace Dempsey

Coming up: On November 18, Rudy Guede's appeal begins and will last perhaps two days. On November 20, the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaaele Sollecito reopens with closing arguments. On November 27, the much-postponed verdict in the abuse-of-power trial for prosecutor Giuliano Mignini may finally arrive, but ... could be delayed once again. The rumor is that it may not be announced until after the verdict in the Knox/Sollecito trial. That may come as early as December 3-5.
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/RudyMugShots.jpg)
Rudy Guede mugshots taken before the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007



Lawyers for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito promise huge surprises when the world's most tabloid-genic murder trial restarts September 14.

Shockers can't be good news for supposed conspirator Rudy Guede. He opted for an abbreviated trial, got slammed with 30 years, and will appeal the guilty verdict on November 18. All three are accused of murdering and sexually assaulting Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, in Perugia, Italy, on November 1, 2007.

The problem for the prosecution: It never showed Rudy conspiring with the co-conspirators. Now PMs Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Comodi must cool their heels in Judge Giancarlo Massei's courtroom. The defense teams for Amanda and Raffaele get to speak. Look for Raffaele's team to take direct shots at Rudy Guede.

They point out Raffaele never met Rudy--except in court, never the best place to socialize. Nor has Rudy been eager to establish a buddy relationship. He's always said he was a stranger to Raffaele, Amanda's Italian boyfriend, a wealthy doctor's son.
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/MeredithKercher.jpg)
Erasmus scholar Meredith Kercher
Everyone agrees Rudy did meet both of the beautiful foreign girls, Meredith and Amanda. But only because he played basketball with the boys who lived in the downstairs flat from them at via Della Pergola 7, in the house where the murder occurred.

No one saw either girl out with the club-loving loafer, a jobless 20-year-old, hard-pressed to pay his rent. Amanda did place him on a police list of visitors to the downstairs flat, but couldn't even provide his name. Stefano Bonassi, one of the downstairs boys, said Rudy had been over only two times, one night falling asleep on their toilet.

Police admit Rudy never called or emailed Meredith, Amanda or Raffaele. Police found no trace of them in his apartment, nor did they discover his DNA in Raffaele's flat. Yet he is supposed to have participated in a sex game with the three college students that ended in Meredith's refusal and death. A theory for which the prosecution has presented little evidence, other than numerous attempts to portray Amanda as sluttish and manipulative. A black widow. Judge Paolo Michelli, during the pretrial, took the conspiracy for granted. He boasted that he began his reasoning with all three suspects in the murder room. So much for innocent until proven guilty.



One thing is certain: Rudy didn't belong in the upstairs flat in the cottage. He had never been a lodger, boyfriend, guest or anything else. Yet police found his DNA on the victim, inside her body, on her purse and in other locations. His conviction was no surprise.

Police nabbed Rudy the old-fashioned way. They found his bloody hand print on a pillowcase under the victim. They matched it to his Italian ID card and launched an international manhunt. They tracked him down in Germany, where he'd fled, sleeping on trains and river barges. German police brought him in on November 20, nearly three weeks after Meredith died. He eventually admitted he'd been in the flat on the night she was murdered, but claimed they had a date and another man had stabbed her to death. Rudy also claimed to have seen this man--a tall left-handed Italian--and grappled with him, accounting for the cuts police found on Rudy's hands. He said he was so rattled that he took off after this encounter. Too panicked even to call for an ambulance, he left Meredith to bleed to death. He went home to change out of his bloodstained pants. He topped off the evening by joining friends at the Domus disco at 2:30 a.m. All of this by his own admission.


Before the trial shut down for the summer recess, Sollecito's team managed to wedge in Rudy's previous brushes with the law, including two break-ins in which he allegedly entered via windows and was armed with knives.

Both teams have sought to portray Rudy as the lone wolf of Piazza Grimana. Now they're getting some help from the press.
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/RudyCoatOggi.jpg)
This week the Italian glossy Oggi posted stills from CCTV camera footage taken on November 1 beginning at 7:41. Reporter Giangavino Sulas says the photos show a figure dressed like Rudy Guede leaving the parking garage and heading over to the cottage--and then coming back about 20 minutes later. The young man in the wool hat does wear a "husky" coat very similar to the one Rudy was wearing when arrested. The figure is also wearing the same shoes that Rudy admits to wearing on the night of the murder: Nike Outbreak 2s, with the telltale white stripe on the bottom.

When Rudy fled Perugia, he took those shoes with him and dumped them somewhere in Germany. Much later he admitted that--while wearing those shoes on the night of the killing--he had made the bloody shoe print next to Meredith's bed. Prosecutors had blamed that print on Raffaele even when his lawyers made an appeal to the Supreme Court in Rome in April 2008. In fact, it was considered grave evidence against him.

Rudy admitted the truth in late May 2008, too late to help Raffaele, and only after police had discovered the empty Nike Outbreak 2 shoebox in his flat and matched that model to the bloody shoe print. Only then did he say, "Yes, the print is mine" to PM Mignini in a face-to-face.
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/RudyBloodyFootPrint.jpg)
Bloody shoeprint of Rudy Guede

(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/RudyGarage.jpg)

According to Oggi, defense experts will now display many more Rudy footprints from the murder room. Professor Francesco Vinci, of the University of Bari's department of Forensic Medicine, has examined the pillowcase on which the victim lay. Judge Massei granted him permission to enter Rome's forensics lab from Judge Massei. What he saw astonished him.

As Oggi says: "With the use of Crimescope which helps to select prints, treated chemically with fluorescing products, he found on the pillow case five good prints (3 superimposed) of a left shoe that delineates a sole that corresponds and measures exactly to a Nike Outbreak 2, size 45. Thus the foot of Guede. The disconcerting thing is that on that pillowcase the forensic police found only 2 traces: one of Guede and the other of a woman size 37."

The police have tried to pin the latter print, not too convincingly, on Amanda. "Today the discovery of Prof. Vinci bewilders everyone. On this cushion only the youth of color has 'walked.' The report of the professor will be presented in court at the re-start of the trial and will surely be at the center of a clash between experts. Will he succeed in establishing the truth?"

Oggi contends that all of the blood-stained footprints in Kercher's bedroom are Rudy's size 11 Nike Outbreak 2 shoeprints. Lorenzo Rinaldi, the director of print identity in the Rome forensic police division said that in court in May 2009. Oggi goes further, saying there are no women's shoeprints in the room at all. And all of the prints appear to be from Rudy's left foot.

Patrizia Stefanoni note: Courtesy, Perugia Shock

Look for more fireworks over the missing data that made Judge Massei close down the trial early. Adriano Tagliabracci, a well-respected forensic geneticist, will be back on the stand on Monday, addressing that very issue. The judge shut down his testimony when it was discovered that defense lawyers hadn't received all of the evidence analyzed by the forensic police in Rome. The judge demanded it all be turned over by the end of July. (Note: Judge Massei has now ruled that the defendants were not wronged by documentation withheld for a year and a half. Their lawyers continue to press for complete documentation. Many questions remain unanswered).

The rumor is the defense received many pages, but not the key information they were seeking.

As Oggi says: "They foresee other interruptions because Giulia Bongiorno, Luca Maori and Luciano Ghirga, the defense lawyers of Sollecito and Amanda, will question at least two super experts: one on the bra clasp of Mez on which was found the DNA of Sollecito, and the other on the knife, the presumed crime weapon, on which was found the DNA of Amanda and that of the victim." We can expect "a fiery trial phase: the defense has announced sensational findings of a degree to demonstrate the innocence of the two ex-lovers and also the construction of false proof against them."

The drawing below is from the Oggi story. It shows the five footprints from the murder room and--an even bigger surprise--a Rudy-attributed footprint from the famous room with the broken window (a room once occupied by Filomena Romanelli). The defense contends Rudy Guede broke in that way; the prosecution insists the broken window was part of an elaborate staging.

We'll be hearing more about all six footprints in court. Below you can see the two images that will highlight the debate at the re-start of the hearing. Oggi says: "To the left, a diagram of glass lying next to a shoe print left by Rudy Guede. For the lawyers of Amanda and Raffaele this is another sign against the Ivorian: it would show that he entered the house after breaking down a window. To the right, the five prints that, to his astonishment, Prof. Vinci (Sollecito's expert) found on the pillowcase of the cushion on which lay the body of Meredith. There is an entire left shoe print and the sole is of a Nike Outbreak 2 number 45, the same worn by Guede the night of the crime."

(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/StefanoniTooLow_(2).jpg)

Patrizia Stefanoni note: Courtesy, Perugia Shock
(http://blog.seattlepi.com/dempsey/library/OggiFootPhoto.jpg)

From Oggi: Glass on the tile next to Rudy's shoeprint in Filomena's room, where a broken window was found. Five shoeprints in the murder room on a pillow case under the victim's body. (right).

Note: The left photo shows exhibit A on the tile; the right shows the five left shoe prints on the pillowcase, one in the center, 3 overlapping ones in a group a half-step to the left, and one below the other 4, turned to the right.

* Feet of a killer: Here is another set of footprints, said to be Rudy Guede's, heading across the living room floor.

Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:32:17 am
Neutral Expert Dismisses 'the Murder Weapon'
'ANY KNIFE COULD HAVE DONE THAT WOUND'
End of a Myth

(http://i47.tinypic.com/aviuqo.jpg)
On the news. Special appearance of The Knife

Those who work at the Meredith Kercher case know very well that mythical day when a bunch of people coming from all over Italy met in a room to grasp the elements of a mystery.
The summoned individuals were all the scientists of the case, they had to analyze the gastric content, the hyoid bone, the neck, etc.
But the most emotional exhibit of the day was a knife, the most popular knife in Italy, the cheapest possible knife, the one that you find in all stands at the marketplace: aMarietti knife. Presumed murder weapon of the case.
It was introduced in the room, it was taken out of the box with all precautions, it was shown to them like a relic. They could have a look at it from a distance, and see, or believe to have seen, the groove into which the biological material of Meredith was found.

(http://i46.tinypic.com/k3k85k.jpg)

Exclusive. Scientific view of the knife.

Long time elapsed since, and that shoddy, banal knife has enjoyed quite a career as a relic and a myth. Everybody standing today, when it was suddenly introduced in court. Even if it was just in a box people were plunging down the stairs to be in its presence. Even later, when it was shown in a tacky cellophane dress --not suitable for the star it was-- people were elbowing to have the privilege to stand for a second before the famous fetish.

And actually yes, knowing that it was the murder weapon, it may be important having a look at it, it may be useful, it may be emotionally powerful to witness a tool of evil. But if, instead, that knife was only used to slice bread, than we are all a bunch of schmucks.

Today the judges' experts -- Giancarlo Umani Ronchi, Mario Cingolani and Anna Aprile-- were heard. They are nothing new, we know by heart their position --deployed in the pre-history of the case-- about the sexual violence which can't be proven, the time of death which can't be precisely determined, and The Knife which is compatible or, to use their words, non incompatible with the fatal wound.
But hearing finally someone neutral is not only a scientific pleasure, is as well important for the trial. Reports, indeed, count up to a point, and things have to be said in court, in the debate. That's were the proof is created.

No proof was created today about the sexual violence and the time of death, status quo.
But over the famous fetish the battle has been harsh.

Professor Cingolani has been stressed by basically everyone about the relation between wounds and knife. He has been treating, even with surprising positions, all minor wounds.
Until Amanda Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova brought him to say something very clear about the main one: any single-edge knife is compatible with Meredith's larger wound.

He could have revealed it before, and maybe we wouldn't be at this stage. What to say? Nothing really new for us, but at this point believing theMarietti knife --found at its place in Raffaele's kitchen-- as the murder weapon starts to be a matter of faith. Or of obstinacy.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 03:53:45 am
Rudy Guede: Portrait of Meredith's murderer as he begins 30 year sentence
Murderer Rudy Guede was identified by police after his bloody fingerprint was found on a cushion at the scene of the crime.

The 21-year-old Ivory Coast national had given his fingerprints when he applied for an Italian identity card several years earlier.

He was known to police after being stopped and searched several times and was known as a petty thief and small time drug dealer.

(http://i46.tinypic.com/2jfywww.jpg)(http://i49.tinypic.com/2ziamva.jpg)
Guilty: Drifter Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years in jail for the sex murder of British student Meredith Kercher

Guede had arrived in Italy in 1992 as a five year-old child with his father Roger, who left his wife behind in west Africa to seek work in Italy where he had a sister.

At first they lived on the outskirts of Perugia, which has a large community from the African country,  and quickly managed to integrate with Guede attending a local school.

Roger found work as a labourer and so stayed there rather than move to Lecco near Milan where his sister lived.

But when Rudy was 15 Roger went back to Africa, leaving his son behind in the care of, remarkably, a multi-millionaire Paolo Caporali who had occasionally employed the boy in odd jobs.

Caporali affectively adopted Rudy and gave him work at a  farmhouse bed and breakfast the  family owned.

"We gave him an opportunity, even though we knew he was a liar and had been in trouble, but we wanted to give him a chance," said Caporali.

"We took him in as a son,  but he was more interested in other things than studying and work.  We gave him a job but we had to sack him because he was never there.

"In the end we asked him to leave our home because we just couldn't cope any longer and we have had no contact with him for more than a year.

(http://i46.tinypic.com/6z0eu0.jpg)

Behind bars: Rudy Guede leaves with penitentiary police after a court hearing in Perugia last month


'I thought I could help him to build a future, but with the passing of time I realised I had made a mistake. 

'He was a tremendous liar, saying he had been to school when he had skipped lessons and watched TV and played video games all day. '

Not even a promising basketball career with Perugia, sponsored by Caporali's coffee business, Liomatic, could keep  the six foot Guede more into sport than crime.

Perugia is an Italian university town and with its high proportion of students out looking for a good time it was a potential gold mine for petty drug dealers and petty criminals such as Guede.

In the summer of 2007, after being sacked from the bed and breakfast and spending a few weeks working as a barman in Lecco where he lived with his  aunt, he  returned to Perugia where he rented a flat in the centre.

By this time Meredith and Knox had also moved to Perugia.

Guede  became friendly with four male students who lived in the flat below Meredith and Knox.

One of them Stefano Bonassi told police when questioned after the murder that Guede had told him how he was "infatuated" with Knox and how he would like to have sex with her.

In September and October Guede was linked to three break-ins - two in Perugia and one in Milan. In the first he was disturbed as he rifled through the belongings of a barowner.
(http://i45.tinypic.com/anexok.jpg)

Justice seen to be done: Meredith Kercher's father, John, leaves the tribunal in Perugia last night

Cristiano Tramontano told police he challenged Guede who was armed with a large knife and he ran off. 

Guede also carried out another break-in at the offices of a local lawyer in Perugia  and at the end of October he was arrested in Milan after breaking into a school.

There he was found in possession of a  laptop and mobile stolen in the burglaries as well as a large flick knife,  but he was freed and made his way back to Perugia where he met Meredith.

Following the murder Guede went out dancing in the Domus nightclub - a popular student haunt in Perugia - and was seen there by several witnesses in the early hours.

But as the hunt for him intensified he fled Perugia and went to Germany on a train, evading police as he first went to Milan and then crossed the border.

Detectives contacted his friends and one,  Giacomo Benedetti, came forward in mid November to say that he had been contacted by Guede via a Skype internet phone call from Germany.

In the meantime Guede himself through his Facebook site had also been contacted by journalists and he told them: 'I'm innocent. I am not a bad man. I want to sort this out. The police have got it wrong about me.'

Police listened in to the Skype conversations between Benedetti and Guede as he pleaded his innocence but described his fear at returning to Italy saying he would be implicated.

For hours police eavesdropped on the conversation and through internet technology managed to trace him through the server address to a cafe in Mainz.

Benedetti had persuaded him to return so that he could clear his name and Perugia Flying Squad chief Giacinto Profazio dispatched the  head of the city's murder squad Monica Napoleone to arrest him as he crossed the border into Italy.

But before they could 'get their man' Guede was picked up by a zealous train guard for not having a ticket, arrested and his identity emerged and he was held for two weeks in Germany before being deported back to Italy.

Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 06:40:07 am
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito 'seen chatting' on night Meredith Kercher murdered
An Italian tramp has told a court that he saw Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito close to her house on the night British student Meredith Kercher.
 

From Nick Pisa in Perugia
Published: 2:02PM GMT 28 Mar 2009
(http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01373/amanda-knox_1373962c.jpg)

Knox, dressed in a lilac jumper and blue jeans, exchanged glances with Sollecito in court Photo: EPA

Antonio Curatolo, 52, said that a couple he had seen "chatting animatedly" on a basketball court were her alleged murderers, American student Knox and Italian Sollecito.

He told the court that he saw them "around five times" between 9.30pm and midnight on the night Miss Kercher died.

Knox and Sollecito have always claimed they were at home when Miss Kercher was killed in November 2007 and did not leave until the following morning.

When asked if he recognised the two people he had seen in court Mr Curatolo said he could. He pointed out Knox and Sollecito who were sitting just a few yards away from him.

According to a post-mortem report police and prosecutors believe that Miss Kercher was murdered between 9pm and 11pm on 1st November 2007. She was found semi-naked and with her throat cut in the bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy.

The trial has already been told by prosecutor Giuliano Mignini that she was murdered after refusing to take part ina drug-fuelled sex game.

Knox, dressed in a lilac jumper and blue jeans, exchanged glances with Sollecito in court and during breaks smiled and joked with warders guarding her.

On Friday the court heard from a woman who said she had heard a "prolonged" scream coming from the house the night Miss Kercher was killed and imitated it for the court.

Nara Capezzali said the scream made her "skin crawl" and the memory of it still troubled her now.

Knox's mother Edda Mellas has arrived to give her support but will not be allowed to attend court because she is listed as a witness.

The court also heard from unemployed Fabrizio Gioffredi who said he had seen Knox, Sollecito and Guede together with Miss Kercher two days before she was killed.

Prosecutor Mignini has told the trial that Miss Kercher was a victim of a sex game organised by the three and that Knox, Sollecito and Guede all knew each other.

This is denied by the couple. After giving his evidence Sollecito stood up and made a spontaneous declaration as he is allowed to under Italian law challenging Mr Gioffredi.

He said:''This witness could not have seen me with Rudy Guede because as I have already said, I do not know Rudy Guede and I have never met him before in my life.

"Also the day he claims to have seen us altogether is impossible as I was somewhere else and that will be proved as the trial continues.''

Outside court Knox's mother Edda Mellas said: "'I am not allowed inside because at some stage I will have to testify but I saw Amanda briefly.

"She is doing well and looking forward to coming home and being with her family and friends.

"I have brought her some flip flops, CDs and books to read - I gave her a book in German by Herman Hesse and another on a shipwreck.

"We were allowed to hug and we both cried. She is innocent of all this and the trial will show that.''

Francesco Maresca, the Kerchers' lawyer, said that he expected the case to be finished by the autumn. He said that Miss Kercher's parents and siblings would give evidence, probably in May.

Last October a third defendant, 21-year-old Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years for sexually assaulting and murdering Miss Kercher.

Miss Kercher, a Leeds University student who was from Coulsdon, Surrey, was in Italy as part of a year-long exchange programme with her European Studies degree. She had only been in Perugia for two months when she was killed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5066282/Amanda-Knox-and-Raffaele-Sollecito-seen-chatting-on-night-Meredith-Kercher-murdered.html
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 07:18:58 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG-jClco8Ik
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 07:24:53 am
reveal apartment bloodbath horror

By NIALL FIRTH

Last updated at 13:56 16 januari 2008

This is the grim, blood-soaked scene inside the Italian apartment where British student Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered.

In chilling new photographs released by Italian police today, the full scale of the horror that confronted police when they entered the apartment in Perugia becomes clear.

In one shocking image, pools of blood lie at the foot of a wardrobe on which photographs of Meredith and friends have been pinned.

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_03/Meredith3BAR1601_468x303.jpg)

The bathroom (left) and the corner of Meredith's bedroom are covered in blood

The images also show the apartment's bathroom sink and walls smeared with blood.

DNA belonging to Amanda Knox, Meredith's American flatmate and one of the prime suspects in her murder, has allegedly been found in the bathroom.

Tests have shown that her DNA was found in a splash of blood on a tap, and on the plug in the sink, suggesting she may have washed her hands after the crime.

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_03/MeredithBAR1601_468x704.jpg)

Police mark out key pices of evidence in Merdith's room. Her body was found beneath the duvet marked '7'

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_03/Meredith2BAR1601_468x311.jpg)

A bloody footprint, that allegedly matches shoes belonging to Sollecito

According to Italian police, DNA belonging to Knox's lover Raffaele Sollecito has allegedly been discovered on a bra clasp belonging to Meredith.


However, DNA belonging to Rudy Guede, who is being held in Capanne prison near Perugia along with Knox and Sollecito, was also allegedly found on the bloody bra that is seen at the foot of one of the new photos.

Computer studies student Sollecito, 24, who was Meredith's flatmate, had always denied being at the crime.

Knox, who has the nickname Foxy Knoxy, has repeatedly changed her story as the investigation into Meredith's murder has progressed.

She has claimed that she was at Sollecito's apartment on the night that the murder took place.

Last month, Knox reportedly broke down under intensive questioning by Italian police.

Meredith, 20, was found semi-naked and with her throat cut in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia on November 2.

Police are said to be working on the theory that Meredith was murdered after stumbling across Guede and Knox as they stole money she kept in her underwear drawer.

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/01_03/knoxsplitL1601_468x350.jpg)

Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are prime suspects in Meredith's murder
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 07:34:19 am
http://www.youtube.com/v/oPKopufVAsM&hl=en_US&fs=1&
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 10:08:51 am
U.S. Student Delivers Appeal at End of Italian Trial

After one of the most closely watched trials in Italy, an American college student and her former Italian boyfriend were found guilty early on Saturday of murdering her housemate two years ago in this picturesque university town.
By RACHEL DONADIO
 
PERUGIA, Italy — An American college student charged with murdering her housemate in this picturesque Umbrian hill town told the court on Thursday she was “afraid of being branded a murderer.”

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/04/world/04italy_CA0/popup.jpg)
Amanda Knox entering the court Thursday in Perugia. Her murder trial has been an object of fascination for the news media.

In a trembling voice the day before a jury is expected to begin deliberating her fate, the student, Amanda Knox, 22, thanked her family and friends, the jurors and even the prosecutors. “They are trying to do their work even if they don’t understand,” she said in Italian nearly perfected during her time in prison.

In a tale of junior-year-abroad-gone-bad that has drawn intense news media attention, prosecutors allege that Ms. Knox, then a student at the University of Washington, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 25, killed her housemate, Meredith Kercher, 21, of Surrey, England, after coercing her into a sex game.

They are facing trial together, and prosecutors are seeking life, Italy’s stiffest sentence, for both. A third defendant, Rudy Guede, 22, was sentenced to 30 years for sexual assault and murder, although the judge ruled that he was one of three assailants. All three deny wrongdoing.

Yet more than two years after Ms. Kercher’s body was found semi-naked with her throat slit in the Perugia house she shared with Ms. Knox and two others — and after a barrage of press coverage and hundreds of hours of testimony from forensic experts and character witnesses — no one is any closer to understanding what exactly happened that fateful night.
(http://i49.tinypic.com/5ofp76.jpg)
House Amanda  Knox in Perugia

“It plays like a great crime story, like a television series,” said Gianluca Nicoletti, a cultural commentator for Il Sole 24 Ore radio. “But in the end, years have gone by and what are we talking about? Who killed her? With what? With what motive?”

In their closing arguments, prosecutors argued that Ms. Knox, high on drugs and alcohol and irritated with Ms. Kercher for being “prissy,” corralled Mr. Sollecito and Mr. Guede into group sex that ended with her slitting her housemate’s throat. They claim the murder weapon was a kitchen knife later found scrubbed clean in Mr. Sollecito’s kitchen with Ms. Knox’s DNA on the handle and Ms. Kercher’s on the tip.

Defense lawyers say that the DNA was contaminated and is not credible, and that the blade does not match some of Ms. Kercher’s wounds. In the absence of a smoking gun or entirely convincing motive, the telegenic and enigmatic Ms. Knox, who came to the police station as a witness and left as a suspect, has become an object of fascination.

“Who is Amanda?” the playwright John Guare, who has followed the case closely, asked in an interview by e-mail. “Is she Henry James’s ‘Daisy Miller,’ the archetypal American girl in Europe who comes to a disastrous end? Is she Dorothy swept up into an evil Oz?” Ms. Knox, he added, “with no history of violence, is a screen on whom we can project any identity.”

The case is also freighted with race, a still uncomfortable issue in an increasingly diverse Italy. Ms. Kercher’s mother is of Indian origin and her father is white. Mr. Guede, who has admitted to being at the house the night of the crime and whose DNA was found on Ms. Kercher’s body, is from Ivory Coast. Ms. Knox first accused Patrick Lumumba, originally of Congo and the owner of a bar where she worked, of the crime; he was jailed and later released and is suing her for defamation. In testimony in June, Ms. Knox said the police pressured her to accuse him.

In the press, Ms. Knox is often portrayed as an innocent girl unwittingly caught up in the Kafkesque Italian justice system. But even one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said that he believed the trial was fair. He added that he “disagreed” with news media coverage that depicted it otherwise.

But to American eyes, many aspects of the trial can in fact seem baffling, even if they are perfectly normal here.

Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito were held in jail for a year before prosecutors moved to indict them. Although it began in mid-January, the trial has taken nearly a year — long by American standards but fast by Italian standards — because it has met only two days a week, partly to accommodate a powerful lawyer for Mr. Sollecito, Giulia Bongiorno, who is also a sitting member of Parliament and the head of Parliament’s Justice Committee.
(http://i45.tinypic.com/20l02nd.jpg)

The case the prosecutors have presented is largely circumstantial, though even some American legal experts say it could be strong even in an American courtroom.

Prosecutors have cited records showing that Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito stopped using their cellphones around the same time on the evening of the crime, and began using them again around the same time early the next morning. Forensic experts have testified that evidence with Ms. Knox’s and Ms. Kercher’s commingled DNA was found in a room in the house where prosecutors allege Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito staged a break-in as a cover-up, for which they are also charged.

Ms. Knox has maintained that she spent the night of the murder at Mr. Sollecito’s house, where the two smoked marijuana, watched the French film “Amélie” and had sex. She said she went home the next morning and found the door to the house open and Ms. Kercher dead.

Mr. Sollecito has said he does not remember whether or not Ms. Knox spent the whole night at his house. His lawyers chose not to subject him to cross-examination, in part because his story does not entirely corroborate Ms. Knox’s. On Thursday he delivered one of his few declarations in court, saying, “I did not kill Meredith” and appealing to jurors to give him his life back.

Unlike in some American trials, where defendants often turn on each other, Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito’s lawyers have mounted a common defense. They say this is because their clients are innocent. Yet the Italian justice system offers no American-style plea bargain, in which defendants admit some guilt in exchange for a lesser sentence. The closest equivalent is a fast-track trial, which Mr. Guede’s lawyers asked for with the hope of a shorter sentence for him.

The jury of six civilians and two judges is not sequestered and has access to news media coverage of the case. They must convict if they are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. In closing arguments on Thursday, one prosecutor, Manuela Comodi, told jurors that they did not require absolute truth. That, she added, was known only “by God"
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 10:12:20 am
the foot prints

(http://i46.tinypic.com/23hq9tu.jpg)
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 10:21:44 am
 Raffaele Sollecito on his website

(http://i48.tinypic.com/5yhmch.jpg)
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 10:40:45 am
Meredith suspect 'danced at night club' right after killing

26 November 2007
Rudy Hermann Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant suspected of sexually assaulting and killing Meredith Kercher in Perugia, went dancing at a disco after her murder.

Witnesses have testified to police that they saw Guede at the 'Domus' disco from two in the morning onwards until 4.30am on Friday November 2.

Kercher, 21, was found semi-naked with her throat cut on 1 November in the Italian university city.

These new revelations about Guede come as police hunting the killer of Kercher are seeking two more suspects.

Italian detectives apparently believe Kercher was murdered after a sex and drugs party which took "a tragic and nasty turn".

And despite already having three people in custody, officers are still reportedly hunting another man and a woman who were part of the group at Kercher's apartment, in Perugia, on the night of her death.

The manhunt was sparked by blood and "organic substances" on tissues recovered from Kercher's bedroom and the street outside, according to Italian newspaper reports.

None of the traces - which belong to "a male and a female" - are from the three suspects currently being held.

Kercher's flatmate, American student Amanda Knox, 20, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 23, and Guede, a convicted drugs dealer, are all in custody.

Over the weekend, it emerged Guede, 20, who is in custody in Germany, had given a vivid account of the night of Kercher's murder, even claiming she whispered the initials of her killer to him as she lay dying.


(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_03/GuedeLL_468x393.jpg)

Suspect Guede, pictured here in a photo on his Facebook page

Guede, who is under armed guard in the German city of Mainz, was arrested after a tense cat and mouse game over the internet service Skype, which can be used for phone and email.

Police in Perugia believe he fled to Germany within hours of Miss Kercher's murder on November 1.

But a friend identified only as 'M' agreed to help them contact him.


In a hushed room crowded with senior police officers, M told Guede: "They are after you for the murder of Kercher. What have you done?"

His lawyer refused to reveal the name but said it would be "at the centre of the defence case" when Guede is extradited to Italy from Germany, where he was arrested.

The key questions are how he came to be involved with suspects Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito – and why Kercher was killed.

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/MereSOCOMS0411_468x321.jpg)

The scene: Detectives apparently believe Meredith was murdered after a sex and drugs party at her apartment

The fugitive admitted he had been at Miss Kercher's house the night she died, saying she had invited "me round for a drink".

During a three-hour internet exchange he claimed they had sex, with Kercher a willing participant.

At that point, with police passing M notes of what to say, Guede denied he had killed her.

He claimed that he had gone to the bathroom because of an upset stomach when he heard the doorbell ring.

After that he said he heard "the English girl" screaming.

Her throat had been slashed "by an Italian lad with chestnut hair. We knocked into each other, I was also injured, but I cannot remember clearly the face of that man.


"Then I ran away, I was scared. I am not the one who killed her".

Forensic evidence places Guede undeniably at the centre of the crime. His fingerprints were all over Kercher's bedroom, his DNA has been found and there were even particles of his hair clenched in the dead girl's hands.

Police say their tests show that Kercher had not had "consensual sex" as Guede claimed, but had probably been held down.

(http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/009Foxyknoxy_468x516.jpg)

There was also evidence of an attempt to hide her body in a cupboard.

Later today a court will decide whether a second post-mortem should be carried out on Kercher.

Her funeral has been held back despite her body being flown back to England two weeks ago.

The hearing before judge Claudia Mateini will decide if the original post-mortem by pathologist Luca Lalli was adequate or whether another should be carried out.

Laywers for Congolese bar owner Diya Patrick Lumumba, 38, made the request to establish a precise time of death as their client was held on suspicion of murdering Kercher.

(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:D4uOTZUPDeMYKM:http://i.cdn.turner.com/trutv/trutv.com/graphics/photos/notorious_murders/young/amanda_knox/Patrick-Diya-Lumumba-200.jpg)

Last night police sources in Perugia painted a picture of Guede, who has dual Ivory Coast and Italian citizenship, as a misfit "obsessed with foreign girls".

He was recently involved in a stabbing incident in Perugia's main square, where students and local youngsters smoke cannabis and drink late at night. Guede was five when he arrived in Italy from the Ivory Coast with his father.

Shortly afterwards, he was taken under the wing of wealthy Perugia businessman Paolo Caporali, now 62. He fostered Guede "to give him a chance in life" and sent him to Vittorio Emanuele II school – one of the city's best.

Initially, the act of charity appeared to have been a success. "My sons considered him as a brother," recalls Mr Caporali. Teachers described Rudy as "happy, lively and well integrated".

Then he began taking drugs, his character changed abruptly and Mr Caporali realised he had made a mistake.

He recalled: "I was trying to help Rudy build a future. I thought I gave him a good opportunity.

"But he revealed himself to be a great liar. He would say he would go to lessons, then skip them. His results were lousy. He preferred sitting in front of the TV and video games to studying.

"He had no interest in work either. When I realised what was happening I wanted to distance him from my family. He went away."

Guede left for a while, but when he returned to Perugia in January, Mr Caporali gave him a second chance, finding him work as a gardener.


It was another mistake. Guede simply vanished again in August and the next Mr Caporali heard of him was when detectives investigating Kercher's murder arrived at his door.

Police are confident that the three suspects were brought together by drugs, and that Knox is the key figure.


Reports at the weekend shed fresh light on her character and behaviour.


Lumumba, who employed Knox as a barmaid, described her as irrational, vengeful and insanely jealous.

"I don't think she's evil," he said.

"To be evil, you have to have a soul. Amanda doesn't. She's empty; dead inside. She's the ultimate actress, able to switch her emotions on and off in an instant."

Sollecito described her as having "an almost non-existent contact with reality".

In a letter from prison to his father he wrote: "She lived life like a dream, reality didn't enter. Her only goal was the search for pleasure at all times."

But he continued to deny any involvement in Kercher's murder, and said he believes Knox is innocent, too, writing that even the thought that his girlfriend could be involved is "impossible".

Lumumba said Knox, who styled herself Foxy Knoxy on a website, was eaten up with jealousy of Kercher, who he described as a "natural charmer".

He said: "Amanda tried much harder, but was less popular. I didn't realise it at the time, but now I see that she was jealous. She wanted to be the queen bee, and as the weeks passed, it became clear that she wasn't.

"She hated anyone stealing her limelight – and that included Meredith."

Lumumba eventually sacked Knox as a barmaid over her obsessive flirting with customers. That, he says, was why she framed him.

"She was angry and wanted revenge," he said. "By the end, she hated me."

Those who knew Knox also say she was a "woman hater", possibly as the result of her mother having a string of affairs while she was growing up.

Knox's account of what happened on the night of November 1 has changed repeatedly.

At one stage, after asking for paper to write down her thoughts, she wrote: "I know all of this is very strange. But what has happened is, to me, like for others, very confused. Let me tell you something, in my mind. I have things I remember and others which are very confused. Truth? It is that I am not sure of what is the truth."

Knox, Sollecito and Guede have been described as misfits whose drug use removed them even further from society.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 11:18:55 am

How Strong Is the Evidence Against Amanda Knox?


(http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2009/0906/amanda_knox_3_0612.jpg)

Defendant Amanda Knox, right, stands in court in Perugia, Italy, as she faces a charge of murder
PIETRO CROCCHIONI / EPA


An attractive American student on trial for murder can count on support 6,000 miles away in her native Seattle. There, one of Amanda Knox's most vocal backers is attorney Anne Bremner, who has offered her counsel pro bono to the accused's family and is a spokeswoman for Friends of Amanda. On Friday, she sat down with TIME to go over the case against Knox, who took the witness stand on Friday in her murder trial.

Video footage from the crime scene of British student Meredith Kercher's murder flickers on a laptop screen as Bremner points out what she deems critical flaws in the collection of evidence. After placing rulers on the sides of a bloody shoeprint, for example, a blue-rubber-gloved hand reaches down with a piece of white cloth and scrubs the bloody mark off the tile floor before putting the cloth into an evidence tube. This happens three times for three separate footprints. In film footage taken at least a day later, another team of investigators attempts, using photographs, to place where the footprints had been. "They should have lifted the tile," Bremner says, shaking her head.
(Read a story about Amanda Knox's testimony in Perugia.)

In what is surely a well-rehearsed demonstration by now, Bremner goes on to address the case against Knox, point by point. The prosecution, she says, is most likely relying on a knife found at the house of Knox's then boyfriend and fellow accused Rafaelle Sollecito. That knife has Knox's DNA on the handle and what some forensic scientists say is Kercher's DNA on the tip. But Bremner dismisses the idea that it is the knife that killed Kercher: "They never found the murder weapon." Bremner claims that a bloody print on the bed linens conveys the shape of the actual murder weapon and that the knife in question "doesn't match an outline of the knife on the bed." Additionally, Bremner says, expert testimony has already indicated that at least two of the wounds on Kercher's neck couldn't have been made by that particular blade. That aside, she points out, it's not surprising that Knox's DNA would be on its handle; she prepared dinner with Sollecito in his apartment.

As to whether the DNA on the tip belongs to Kercher, experts disagree. Patrizia Stefanoni, a police forensics expert who testified in the pretrial hearing in May, suggested that it was Kercher's DNA on the tip of the knife — and that the way the genetic material was positioned indicated the knife had probably been used to puncture the skin. But other experts who have analyzed the DNA evidence for the defense suggest that poor sample quality and possible contamination undermine the accuracy of these results.

Contamination was also likely with the DNA found on Kercher's bra clasp, Bremner says, pointing out that the clasp wasn't collected until more than two months after the murder and that throughout film footage of the crime scene investigation it periodically changes location — suggesting it was picked up and moved several times.
(Read how the "Foxy Knoxy" story has roiled Italy.)

Bremner goes on to criticize the character assassination the media have directed at Knox since the beginning of the trial, which she believes gives the defense an uphill battle in front of a jury that is unsequestered and thus exposed to the often explosive stories in the press. Accounts of Knox doing splits and cartwheels as she awaited questioning by the police are a distortion of the behavior of a teenager exhibiting restlessness, Bremner argues, and depictions of a hypersexualized relationship with her "on-again, off-again" boyfriend Sollecito have been overly dramatized. "They met at a [classical] music concert and had been dating for two weeks when this happened," she says. "It's hard to be 'on-again, off-again' in two weeks."

Her list goes on. It was reported that Knox went out to buy lingerie and had an explicit conversation about sex with Sollecito as the investigation first got under way. "That house was a crime scene," Bremner explains, "so she couldn't go back in and didn't have any clothes. And the person who supposedly reported that this conversation had been overheard didn't even speak English, and their conversation was in English."

Reports about her supposedly salacious sex life — including a book, Amanda e gli altri, that according to Knox's ex-boyfriend was based on a mere 10 pages of an old diary — have contributed to her inability to get a fair trial, Bremner claims. "The tabloid media glommed onto the name Foxy Knoxy," Bremner says, referring to the moniker that peppers news coverage and that suggests that Knox had given herself the nickname in reference to her sexual proclivities. "It referred to playing soccer in Seattle as a kid," Bremner says. She and other Knox supporters draw a very different picture of the Seattle native: an athletic, hardworking student, now 21, who maintained three jobs while studying at the University of Washington to be able to afford to study abroad; a lover of the outdoors who cherished hiking in the mountains that flank her home city; an innocent victim of rapid-fire media and the public's bottomless hunger for lurid scandal.

Still, there are plenty of people who argue that Knox positioned herself in front of the firing squad. Why did she contradict herself, telling investigators that she had been present at the scene of the murder and that Patrick Lumumba, her boss at the bar where she worked a couple of nights a week, assaulted Meredith? She had originally stated that she'd spent the entire night at Sollecito's home. Knox's defenders suggest that a combination of exhaustion, after being questioned for hours, and police interrogation tactics may have led her to make the comments. Indeed, when Lumumba's airtight alibi got him released from jail, after a couple of weeks, Knox wrote ecstatically about it in her prison journal ("Patrick got out today! Finally! Something is going right!") and later wrote of her remorse at ever having implicated him, saying it was under extreme duress and a result of police "brainwashing." Her testimony Friday took it one step further: she told the jury that she had also been struck twice during the interrogation. (Another accused accomplice, Rudy Guede, has already been sentenced to 30 years in prison for Kercher's murder; Knox has acknowledged being acquainted with Guede.)

As the trial goes on, the prosecution will surely continue to drive home their most damning points: the knife; Knox's statement putting herself at the house the night Kercher was slain. And the defense will probably point to the crime-scene video, with its frequent stops and starts, and to alleged flaws in the investigation — for example, when a female investigator reaches down with tweezers to pluck a hair sample off the blood-stained duvet, her own long hair dangles down beside her.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, Knox's supporters will be following all this from afar. And observing a bitter milestone: this weekend, Knox's testimony coincides with what would have been her college graduation. Her former classmates "are commencing their lives," Bremner says, "and she's sitting in jail."
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 12:20:36 pm
La Repubblica ( a newspaper)

Police pathologists had found the "deeeply imprinted" marks of three fingers and a thumb in Kercher's throat, confirming the theory that an attempt was made to strangle her before she was killed with a knife. Her jaw bone was fractured. A witness told police that a "colored man" running from the direction of the cottage at about 10:30 p.m. barged so violently into her boyfriend that he nearly knocked him over.

Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: truthseeker2 on December 05, 2009, 12:34:58 pm
Johan,

Do you think Knox and her boyfriend were really involved in this girl's murder?
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 01:34:09 pm
Johan,

Do you think Knox and her boyfriend were really involved in this girl's murder?

NO
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 01:35:49 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dpZheBIhQs
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 01:38:23 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Nr_-xyKJg
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 05, 2009, 01:54:54 pm
minister for Administrative Simplification  rothf

Italy is busy with clearing the Italian Laws &Code. It is crucial and it is therefore rigorously addressed. Thursday, the Italian Government decided, in fact once as 29,095 unnecessary laws and regulations to remove, reports the Italian news agency ANSA.

Italy has some 120,000 different laws and regulations. No European country has more. They are so many that it is almost impossible to know them and apply. And finding the right law is also a huge task. There are already far outdated. The laws now in one blow from the statute are removed, there are already deployed in 1948.

The comprehensive legislation in Italy gives big problems. So great that it even has a minister for Administrative Simplification: Roberto Calderoli. He was also the initiative for the cleanup.

Besides the cut in the Code, the Government also decided a free online archive laws, so that people can easily look up laws.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 04:29:53 am
How To Clean a Bloody Knife
Does DNA come off with soap and water?
By Juliet Lapidos
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007, at 4:01 PM ET

(http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123073/2156470/2177233/071120_Exp_KnoxTN.jpg)

Amanda Knox

Investigators in Perugia, Italy, have found new evidence linking a 20-year-old American exchange student, Amanda Knox, to the brutal stabbing death of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher. According to the latest reports, Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raphael Sollecito, cleaned the alleged murder weapon—an 8-inch black-handled kitchen knife—with bleach. Nevertheless, police discovered Kercher's DNA on the tip and Knox's DNA by the handle. Is it possible to clean DNA off a knife?

Yes, if you know what you're doing. Knox and Sollecito were on the right track: Bleach contains sodium hypochlorite, an extremely corrosive chemical that can break the hydrogen bonds between DNA base pairs and thus degrade or "denature" a DNA sample. In fact, bleach is so effective that crime labs use a 10 percent solution (one part commercial bleach to nine parts water) to clean workspaces (PDF) so that old samples don't contaminate fresh evidence. Likewise, when examining ancient skeletal remains (PDF)http://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/card/pubs/kemp&smith2005.pdf (http://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/card/pubs/kemp&smith2005.pdf), researchers first douse the remains in diluted bleach to eliminate modern DNA from the surface of bones or teeth.

So, why did Knox and Sollecito's bleaching gambit fail? It's difficult to swab a knife thoroughly. Dried blood can stick to the nooks and crannies in a wood handle, to the serrated edge of a blade, or become lodged in the slit between the blade and the hilt. With help from a Q-tip, it's possible to eliminate most stains, but what's not visible to the naked eye might still be visible to a microscope, and sophisticated crime labs need only about 10 cells to build a DNA profile.

Bleach is perhaps the most effective DNA-remover (though evidently no methodology is failsafe), but it's not the only option. Deoxyribonuclease enzymes, available at biological supply houses, and certain harsh chemicals, like hydrochloric acid, also degrade DNA strands. It's even possible to wipe a knife clean of DNA-laden hair follicles, saliva, and white blood cells with generic soap and warm water. The drawback to this last method is that the tell-tale cells don't just disappear once off the knife. They linger on sponges, in drains, and even in sink traps, where wily investigators search for trace evidence.
(http://www.hometips.com/images/content/drains_er1.gif)

(http://www.hometips.com/images/content/drains_er2.gif)

http://www.slate.com/id/2178383/

Use of bleach to eliminate contaminating DNA from
the surface of bones and teeth
(PDF)
http://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/card/pubs/kemp&smith2005.pdf
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 07:09:58 am
Transcript of Amanda Knox's handwritten statement to police on the evening of November 6, the day she was arrested:

This is very strange, I know, but really what happened is as confusing to me as it is to everyone else. I have been told there is hard evidence saying that I was at the place of the murder of my friend when it happened. This, I want to confirm, is something that to me, if asked a few days ago, would be impossible.

I know that Raffaele has placed evidence against me, saying that I was not with him on the night of Meredith's murder, but let me tell you this. In my mind there are things I remember and things that are confused. My account of this story goes as follows, despite the evidence stacked against me:

On Thursday November 1 I saw Meredith the last time at my house when she left around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Raffaele was with me at the time. We, Raffaele and I, stayed at my house for a little while longer and around 5 in the evening we left to watch the movie Amelie at his house. After the movie I received a message from Patrik [sic], for whom I work at the pub "Le Chic". He told me in this message that it wasn't necessary for me to come into work for the evening because there was no one at my work.

Now I remember to have also replied with the message: "See you later. Have a good evening!" and this for me does not mean that I wanted to meet him immediately. In particular because I said: "Good evening!" What happened after I know does not match up with what Raffaele was saying, but this is what I remember. I told Raffaele that I didn't have to work and that I could remain at home for the evening. After that I believe we relaxed in his room together, perhaps I checked my email. Perhaps I read or studied or perhaps I made love to Raffaele. In fact, I think I did make love with him.

However, I admit that this period of time is rather strange because I am not quite sure. I smoked marijuana with him and I might even have fallen asleep. These things I am not sure about and I know they are important to the case and to help myself, but in reality, I don't think I did much. One thing I do remember is that I took a shower with Raffaele and this might explain how we passed the time. In truth, I do not remember exactly what day it was, but I do remember that we had a shower and we washed ourselves for a long time. He cleaned my ears, he dried and combed my hair.

One of the things I am sure that definitely happened the night on which Meredith was murdered was that Raffaele and I ate fairly late, I think around 11 in the evening, although I can't be sure because I didn't look at the clock. After dinner I noticed there was blood on Raffaele's hand, but I was under the impression that it was blood from the fish. After we ate Raffaele washed the dishes but the pipes under his sink broke and water flooded the floor. But because he didn't have a mop I said we could clean it up tomorrow because we (Meredith, Laura, Filomena and I) have a mop at home. I remember it was quite late because we were both very tired (though I can't say the time).

The next thing I remember was waking up the morning of Friday November 2nd around 10am and I took a plastic bag to take back my dirty cloths to go back to my house. It was then that I arrived home alone that I found the door to my house was wide open and this all began. In regards to this "confession" that I made last night, I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly. I understand that the police are under a lot of stress, so I understand the treatment I received.

However, it was under this pressure and after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers. In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming. But I've said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.

But the truth is, I am unsure about the truth and here's why:

1. The police have told me that they have hard evidence that places me at the house, my house, at the time of Meredith's murder. I don't know what proof they are talking about, but if this is true, it means I am very confused and my dreams must be real.

2. My boyfriend has claimed that I have said things that I know are not true. I KNOW I told him I didn't have to work that night. I remember that moment very clearly. I also NEVER asked him to lie for me. This is absolutely a lie. What I don't understand is why Raffaele, who has always been so caring and gentle with me, would lie about this. What does he have to hide? I don't think he killed Meredith, but I do think he is scared, like me. He walked into a situation that he has never had to be in, and perhaps he is trying to find a way out by disassociating himself with me.

Honestly, I understand because this is a very scary situation. I also know that the police don't believe things of me that I know I can explain, such as:

1. I know the police are confused as to why it took me so long to call someone after I found the door to my house open and blood in the bathroom. The truth is, I wasn't sure what to think, but I definitely didn't think the worst, that someone was murdered. I thought a lot of things, mainly that perhaps someone got hurt and left quickly to take care of it. I also thought that maybe one of my roommates was having menstral [sic] problems and hadn't cleaned up. Perhaps I was in shock, but at the time I didn't know what to think and that's the truth. That is why I talked to Raffaele about it in the morning, because I was worried and wanted advice.

2. I also know that the fact that I can't fully recall the events that I claim took place at Raffaele's home during the time that Meredith was murdered is incriminating. And I stand by my statements that I made last night about events that could have taken place in my home with Patrik, but I want to make very clear that these events seem more unreal to me that what I said before, that I stayed at Raffaele's house.

3. I'm very confused at this time. My head is full of contrasting ideas and I know I can be frustrating to work with for this reason. But I also want to tell the truth as best I can. Everything I have said in regards to my involvement in Meredith's death, even though it is contrasting, are the best truth that I have been able to think.

[illegible section]

I'm trying, I really am, because I'm scared for myself. I know I didn't kill Meredith. That's all I know for sure. In these flashbacks that I'm having, I see Patrik as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don't remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night. The questions that need answering, at least for how I'm thinking are:

1. Why did Raffaele lie? (or for you) Did Raffaele lie?
2. Why did I think of Patrik?
3. Is the evidence proving my pressance [sic] at the time and place of the crime reliable? If so, what does this say about my memory? Is it reliable?
4. Is there any other evidence condemning Patrik or any other person?
3. Who is the REAL murder [sic]? This is particularly important because I don't feel I can be used as condemning testimone [sic] in this instance.

I have a clearer mind that I've had before, but I'm still missing parts, which I know is bad for me. But this is the truth and this is what I'm thinking at this time. Please don't yell at me because it only makes me more confused, which doesn't help anyone. I understand how serious this situation is, and as such, I want to give you this information as soon and as clearly as possible.

If there are still parts that don't make sense, please ask me. I'm doing the best I can, just like you are. Please believe me at least in that, although I understand if you don't. All I know is that I didn't kill Meredith, and so I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1570225/Transcript-of-Amanda-Knoxs-note.html
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 07:47:35 am
Raffaele Sollecito story

ITALY MURDER DETAILS EMERGE

Kate Mansey In Perugia, Italy 4/11/2007

EXCLUSIVE MURDERED IN ITALY..MEREDITH, 21 Friend tells how he broke down door

A friend of murdered British student Meredith Kercher told last night how he discovered her body in her blood-spattered bedroom.

Raffaele Sollecito, 23, relived the horror of finding the body of the pretty brunette who died when her killer broke into her home and cut her throat as she lay in her bed.

"It is something I never hope to see again," he said. "There was blood everywhere and I couldn't take it all in.

"My girlfriend was her flatmate and she was crying and screaming, 'How could anyone do this?'"

Meredith, 21, who had been studying in Perugia, Italy since August, was murdered the day after a Halloween fancy dress party at the city's British-themed Merlin Pub on Wednesday.

On Thursday she posted happy snaps of herself in fancy dress on the internet and in the evening had returned home alone after watching a film at a friend's house.

But her flatmates - two Italian girls and one American - had all stayed out for the night, so the gruesome discovery wasn't made until the next day.

Raffaele had spent the night at his own house on the other side of the city with his girlfriend, Meredith's American flatmate Amanda Knox, 22.

He said: "It was a normal night. Meredith had gone out with one of her English friends and Amanda and I went to party with one of my friends.

"The next day, around lunchtime, Amanda went back to their apartment to have a shower."

As Amanda, from Washington DC, stepped into house she could tell there was something terribly wrong.

Raffaele said: "When she arrived the front door was wide open. She thought it was weird, but thought maybe someone was in the house and had left it ajar.

"But when she went into the bathroom she saw spots of blood all over the bath and sink. That's when she started getting really afraid and ran back to my place because she didn't want to go into the house alone. So I agreed to go back with her. When we walked in together, I knew straight away it was wrong. It was really eerily silent and the bathroom was speckled with blood like someone had flicked it around, just little spots.

"We went into the bedroom of Philomena (another flatmate who was away) and it had been ransacked, like someone had been looking for something. But when we tried Meredith's room, the door was locked. She never normally locked her bedroom door and that really made us frightened."

Their panic grew as they desperately banged on her door.

Raffaele said: "I tried to knock it down. I thought maybe she was ill... I made a dent, but I wasn't strong enough on my own so I called the police."

When police arrived they knocked the door down straightaway and Raffaele followed them into the room.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said. "It was hard to tell it was Meredith at first but Amanda started crying and screaming. I dragged her away because I didn't want her to see it, it was so horrible.

"It seems her killer came through the window because it was smashed and there was glass all over the place. It was so sinister because other parts of the house were just as normal."

Raffaele, a computer science student, said Meredith had recently started seeing an Italian neighbour called Giacamo who lived in the apartment beneath the girls. He said: "Meredith was always smiling and happy. She was really popular and it's horrible that someone would want to hurt her."

Police hunting for the killer found two mobile phones in nearby Parco Saint Angelo, a favourite hang out for heroin addicts.

One phone belonged to Meredith, the other is thought to belong to her flatmate, Philomena.

Yesterday, as police distributed posters around the town appealing for witnesses, Meredith's flatmate Amanda Knox revisited the scene with detectives after a full day of questioning.

Investigators say the killer most probably broke in through a window, locked Meredith's door after killing her and then escaped in a hurry, leaving the front door open and throwing the mobile phones into woodland as he fled. Last night, in a significant development, detectives said they believed Meredith had sex on the night she was murdered - but it was not clear whether it was consensual or forced.

Earlier senior detective Marco Chiacchiera said it wasn't clear if there was a sexual motive to her killing.

"Her T-shirt was pulled up over her breasts and she was naked but apart from the cut to her neck, there were no scratches or other wounds on her body," he said.

He added: "The cut to her neck appears to have been made by a heavy weapon. It was a clean cut and it looks as if it was made by something pointed rather than a sharp blade."

Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, had been studying Italian on an exchange year from Leeds University.

Her family in England spent yesterday comforting each other behind closed doors at the family home. Meredith's father John, who is believed to be separated from her mother Arlene, arrived at the house on Friday night. Her older brother Lyle, 28, and sister Stephanie, 24, live with their mother.

They were joined on Friday by their married brother John, 31, who lives in North London.

Soon after learning of the tragedy, her father John, 64, said: "In my heart I just can't believe it's her.

"When I heard, I rang her phone immediately and it was turned off. I must have called it 20 times in 30 minutes. I just couldn't believe it".

Meredith's university friends in Perugia yesterday spoke of their distress at her killing. Polish student Tom Bednerek, 22, said: "It's really hard to understand why or how this could happen.

"I know a lot of people who were at the party that night and it seemed they all had a good time.

"I had heard that there was a lover's note left lying next to her on the bed, but I didn't normally see her with a boyfriend.

"She just seemed to like going out with her friends and socialising with big groups of people.

"She had a lot of friends of all nationalities. We all just feel so sad for her family."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sunday-mirror/2007/11/04/italy-murder-details-emerge-98487-20058122/
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 07:59:39 am
Perugia Murder – Amanda’s Version
She was with Patrick yesterday and she was screaming. I was scared and covered my ears”
PERUGIA – “Patrick and Meredith were in Meredith’s bedroom while I must have stayed in the kitchen. I can’t remember how long they were together in the bedroom but the only thing I can say is that at a certain point I heard Meredith screaming. I was scared and put my hands over my ears. I can’t remember anything else. I’m so confused. I can’t remember if Meredith was screaming or if I heard any thuds because I was in shock but I could imagine what was going on”.
 
It was early yesterday morning when Amanda Knox, Meredith’s American friend and flatmate, revealed that she had been present at the murder. She broke down after police officers accused her of lying when she claimed to have left the flat at 5 pm on 1 November and come back the following morning, when Meredith’s brutally murdered body was found. Amanda’s boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, had been interviewed a few hours earlier. He admitted that the alibi was false while denying he had taken part in the crime. Amanda realised she had no way out but she claimed her role was marginal, accusing Patrick Lumumba Diya of being the murderer. Nevertheless, her story was confused and it was clear she was not telling the whole truth. It was enough for the public prosecutor, however, who signed warrants for the arrest of the two men.
 
“I CAN’T REMEMBER” – Amanda Knox’s story begins at 5.45 am yesterday morning. “I want to tell you what happened because it’s left me really shocked and I’m terrified of Patrick, the African boy who owns the Le Chic pub where I work sometimes. I saw him on the evening of 1 November after I replied ‘see you’ to his text message. We met at about 9 pm on the basketball court in Piazza Grimana and went to my place. I can’t remember if Meredith was already there or if she turned up later. What I can say is that they went into the bedroom”. Amanda goes into detail and describes the assault. Then she adds, “I met Patrick this morning [5 November – Ed.] outside the University for Foreigners and he asked me questions. He wanted to know what questions the police had asked me. I think he also asked me if I wanted to speak to journalists, perhaps because he was trying to find out if I knew anything about Meredith’s death”.
 
Amanda then talks about her boyfriend: “I’m not sure if Raffaele was there that evening but I clearly remember waking up at his place, in his bed. I went back home in the morning and found the door open”. Officers from the flying squad and special operational centre (SCO) say that after making her statement, Amanda put her hands on her head and shook it several times. In the warrant, the public prosecutor writes: “The sexual intercourse involving Meredith and Patrick must be regarded as violent, given the particularly threatening context in which it took place, and to which Ms Knox must have contributed with Diya”.
 
BOYFRIEND’S LIES – The printouts of telephone calls examined by the post office police proved crucial to establishing the movements of those involved. They were also incompatible with earlier statements. The first to admit to talking “a whole lot of rubbish” was Raffaele Sollecito. He was questioned at the police station at 10.40 pm on 5 November, two days ago. He had already been interviewed after Meredith’s body was discovered but claimed he did not know what had happened. “I was out with Amanda”, he had said. Then he realised that the situation had changed and decided to change his version of events.
 
Raffaele Sollecito’s statement begins at 10.40 pm on Tuesday. “I’ve known Amanda for a fortnight. She’s been sleeping at my flat since the evening we met. On 1 November, I woke up at about 11 am. I had breakfast with Amanda and then she left. I went back to bed. I got to her place at 1 or 2 pm. Meredith was there but she left in a hurry about 4 pm without saying where she was going. Amanda and I went into town at 6 pm or so but I can’t remember what we did. We were in the town centre until 8.30 or 9 pm. At 9 pm, I went home on my own while Amanda said she was going to Le Chic because she wanted to see some friends. That’s when we said goodbye. I went home, smoked a joint and had dinner but I can’t remember what I ate. At about 11 pm, my dad called on the landline. I remember that Amanda hadn’t come back yet. I surfed the net for another two hours after dad called and only stopped when Amanda got back, at about 1 am, I suppose. I can’t remember what she was wearing or if she was wearing the same clothes she had on when she said goodbye before dinner. I can’t remember if we had sex that night. The following morning, we got up at about 10 am and she told me she wanted to go home, have a shower and change. She left at around 10.30 and I went back to sleep. When Amanda left, she took an empty carrier bag, saying she needed it for her dirty washing. She came back about 11.30 and I remember she had changed her clothes. She had her usual bag with her”.
 
According to Sollecito, this was when Amanda told him she was worried. “She told me that when she got home, she found the door wide open and blood stains in the small bathroom. She asked me whether I thought it was strange. I said I did and advised her to phone her friends. She told me she’d phoned Filomena [another woman living in the murder house – Ed.] and that Meredith wasn’t answering”.
 
GOING HOME – The pair went back to the flat together. This is Raffaele Sollecito’s version of next few moments: “She unlocked the door and I went in. I noticed that Filomena’s door was open. There was glass on the floor and the room was a mess. Amanda’s door was open but the room was tidy. Then I went to Meredith’s door and saw it was locked. First, I checked to see if what Amanda had told me about the blood in the bathroom was true. I noticed there were drops of blood in the sink and there was something strange on the bathmat, a mixture of blood and water, while the rest of the bathroom was clean. Nothing else was out of place. Just then, Amanda went into the big bathroom and came out looking scared. She clung to me and said that when she was showering earlier, there had been stools in the lavatory bowl but now it was clean. I wondered what was going on and went out to see if I could climb up to Meredith’s window. I tried to force the door but I couldn’t open it. Then I decided to call my sister for advice because she’s a lieutenant in the carabinieri. She told me to call 112 but by this time the postal police had arrived. In my earlier statement, I told you a whole lot of rubbish because Amanda convinced me about her version and I didn’t think about the contradictions”.
 
 
Fiorenza Sarzanini

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2007/11_Novembre/07/perudia_murder.shtml
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 08:13:08 am
Rudy Says “If I’d Been A Man, Meredith Would Be Alive” – No Response From Sollecito
Sollecito invokes right to remain silent during questioning in prison. Guede landed at Fiumicino from Frankfurt just before 1 pm
Rudy Guede
(http://www.corriere.it/Media/Foto/2007/12/07/RUDYENG--180x140.jpg)

PERUGIA – “If I’d been a man, I could have saved her”, writes Rudy Guede in one of his many letters to his lawyers and his father. Guede has now returned to Italy from Germany, where he was arrested for the Meredith Kercher murder. “When I shut my eyes, all I can see is red”, he adds. “I’d never seen so much blood. All that blood on her pretty face”.
 
Rudy Guede will be interviewed at Capanne prison on Friday morning by the investigating magistrate, Claudia Matteini, who also signed warrants for the arrest of the other three suspects, Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Patrick Lumumba Diya, who was later released. The public prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, and investigators from the flying squad and special operational centre (SCO), will also be present. Guede, from the Ivory Coast, arrived at Perugia prison on Thursday afternoon from Fiumicino airport, where his flight from Frankfurt had landed. He was immediately placed in solitary confinement awaiting questioning. Wearing jeans and a light blue pullover, he looked thinner than in the photographs circulated three weeks ago, appearing tired and with a glazed look in his eyes. Lawyers who visited him in prison thought he looked calm.
 
Rudy will waive his right to remain silent when he is questioned by the investigating magistrate. “I have only one truth and that is what I will tell”, he said again yesterday. In effect, he has much to explain. In his interview with German magistrates, which cannot be used at the trial, there are many obscure points. First and foremost, he will have to supply convincing proof that he is not the murderer, since of the three suspects currently being held, he is the one in the trickiest situation, having abandoned the dying Meredith without calling for help. “I was in the house”, he admitted to magistrates, “but I had nothing to do with her death”.
 
Guede denies having had sex with or raping Meredith but will have to explain why scientific evidence indicates the precise opposite. He will also have to explain all the inconsistencies in the story of his meeting with the murderer. In particular, he claimed first that he saw the murderer only from behind, and could not identify him, but then he said that defended himself against someone who attempted to strike him with a knife held in the left hand. And who must therefore have been facing him. The other unclear point is that Guede says he came out of the bathroom when he heard Meredith screaming and saw, at the same time, the murderer at the front door and Meredith lying on the floor. If Meredith was in her bedroom, as Guede himself confirmed shortly afterwards, it would not have been possible for him to see both. Finally, Guede will have to explain the two letters – “af” – which Meredith pronounced before she died and which he says he wrote on the wall. Forensic investigators have been unable to find any trace of them.
 
Meanwhile, Raffaele Sollecito invoked his right to remain silent during questioning yesterday morning at Perugia's Capanne prison. He “believes he has already exhaustively clarified the most delicate aspects during the review process”, explained Marco Bruso, one of his lawyers. “He did not know Guede at all”, added Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyers, who say they have supplied technical evidence on the shoeprint to rule out that it could have been left by him. The lawyers said that they would be applying for a further taking of evidence on this point. As they wait for the appeal to the Court of Cassation against the ruling by the review court not to authorise the suspects’ release, lawyers repeated their belief that the murder weapon was not a knife belonging to Raffaele Sollecito, and that it must have been thrown down the steep slope near the murder house.
 


English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2007/12_Dicembre/07/rudy.shtml
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 08:18:08 am
How do murder trials work in Italy? Defense attorney Theodore Simon explains

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28075834#28075834
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 06, 2009, 02:46:22 pm
June 10, 2009, 10:00 pm

An Innocent Abroad
By TIMOTHY EGAN
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/06/10/opinion/knox.533.jpg)

Daniele La Monaca/Reuters
Amanda Knox, an American college student accused of murder, attended a trial session in Perugia April 18, 2009.


For five months now in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia, an American exchange student called “Angel Face” by the tabloid press has been on trial for the murder of her roommate. On Friday, for the first time, that student, Amanda Knox will testify on her own behalf.

The case against Knox has so many holes in it, and is so tied to the career of a powerful Italian prosecutor who is under indictment for professional misconduct, that any fair-minded jury would have thrown it out months ago.

That is not to say the Italian courts are not fair-minded. We kill innocent Americans often enough through our legal system, kill them because of shoddy police work or racial prejudice. Knox’s fate is in the hand of six jurors, two judges among them, who meet two days a week and will soon take a long summer break before reaching a verdict in the fall.

But this is not about whose system is better. This is about a high-spirited British student, Meredith Kercher, found strangled and stabbed in November of 2007 in the Perugian cottage she shared with Amanda Knox. Justice must be done. And in fact, a man has already been convicted of her murder – more about that in a moment.

But it is also about Amanda Knox, an equally high-spirited student whose life has been nearly ruined by this collision of predatory journalism and slipshod prosecution – “the railroad job from hell,” as one outside expert hired by CBS News concluded.

Amanda Knox was 20 years old, a Jesuit-educated student from a Seattle family without money, when she arrived in Italy for a term abroad. She had worked three jobs while attending the University of Washington to save money for this trip. She had no criminal record, was an athlete whose soccer tricks had earned her a grade school nickname of “Foxy Knoxy,” a lover of theater and the written word. And she was also a “little spacey,” in the words oft-used by friends to describe her.

She started seeing an Italian student, Raffaele Sollecito, the son of a prominent doctor. They spent the night of the murder at his apartment, she said, and no reliable witness or credible evidence has ever placed them at the crime scene. But within days of the killing, these two would be painted across Europe as thrill-seekers who killed a woman in a drug-fueled ****.

That may sound like a preposterous motive for a murder by college kids, but it’s a recurring obsession for the prosecutor in the Knox case.

“Case closed,” the Italian authorities said in those first days of November, 2007, even though they had yet to arrest the only man who has ever been found guilty of the murder.

As it happened, my daughter was studying in Italy at the same time – like Knox, una studentessa di Seattle. They did not know each other. But after the tabloid fallout, any female exchange student from Seattle was suddenly cast in a dark light.

After my daughter wrote about her experience for this newspaper, she found the paparazzi camped outside her room in Bologna. For all of that, our family consider ourselves honorary Italians; we lived there for a short while, our kids went to grade school there, and we love the country dearly.

Knox may not feel the same way. She spent nearly a year in jail without being charged. This, despite the fact that the only physical evidence found on the murder victim’s body was from someone else – a drifter with a drug problem named Rudy Guede.

Shortly after the crime, Guede fled Italy for Germany. His prints and his DNA were found in Kercher’s room and on the body. After being arrested, he underwent a fast-track trial and was found guilty last fall of complicity in the murder, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

That should have been the end of it. Guede initially told one story: that he had sex with Kercher and then went into the bathroom, plugged in his iPod, and came out to find a strange man standing over her with a knife.

Then, months later, Guede changed his story: he said that strange man was now Sollecito, assisted by Amanda Knox in a sex game that went wrong. Neither of them had been named by him before. Guede denied being the killer.

But if Knox and Sollecito had killed Kercher, and were in that blood-splattered room, why is there no physical trace from them on the body? A print? A swap of DNA somewhere? After all, Kercher had died after a brutal strangulation, evidence of considerable struggle, with knife pokes in the neck.

“In every murder, the killer always leaves something behind and always takes something with him,” said Anne Bremner, a former prosecutor and prominent attorney, a member of International Academy of Trial Lawyers, who is assisting the Knox family, pro-bono – though she has no role in the actual defense. “All the forensic evidence points to Rudy Guede.”

The prosecution says at least one of the college students did leave something behind. They said they found a bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA on it. But they discovered Kercher’s clasp nearly six weeks after the murder – a highly suspect and tainted piece of evidence from a contaminated crime scene.

Knox and Sollecito were arrested in large part because of what they said under duress by interrogation of the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini. Remember that name. After being questioned all night without an attorney or a professional translator, Knox said some things in response to a series of hypothetical questions. This was initially trumpeted as a contradiction, or worst – a confession. A higher court later threw out the most damning statements.

Lurid details were leaked to a press corps that trolled through Knox’s college sex life – something they would never do to a man. Her social network computer pictures, showing the usual 20-year-old drinking faces, were splashed across front pages.

The Brits, in particular, had a field day. Locked from her house in the first days after it became a crime scene, Knox went to a store one day with Sollecito to buy emergency underwear. The British tabs bannered this as a g-string celebration of remorseless killers.

Little wonder that an Italian television poll found Amanda Knox a bigger personality than Carla Bruni.

Still, Knox’s statements were troubling. She and Sollecito gave different versions of what they had done the night of the killing, their memories clouded no doubt because they’d been smoking hashish. And Knox raised the possibility that a bar owner with an airtight alibi could have been involved.

The authorities later claimed they found the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, at Sollecito’s house. The knife had Knox’s DNA on the handle – no surprise, considering how much time she spent with her boyfriend. But it was also described, after repeated and highly questionable testing, as containing a tiny amount of DNA that might match that of the victim.

That DNA, according to several outside experts, was of such trace amounts, and was available only after numerous enhancements in the testing, that it could belong to many people. Also, the knife did not match the bloody outline of a knife at the crime scene.

So why push forward against Knox and Sollecito? They had no motive. The evidence is flawed and flimsy.

One explanation comes from Douglas Preston, a prominent best-selling American author who lived in the Florentine hills while researching a book about a serial killer never found, “The Monster of Florence,” co-authored by Italian journalist Mario Spezi.

After the serial murders stopped, a prosecutor decided to reopen the case. His theory was that the killer or killers were Satanists from an ancient cult that harvested body parts. That prosecutor is the same one in the Knox case – Giuliano Mignini.

“One day I’m walking down the streets of Florence when my cell phone rings,” said Preston in an interview. “They say, ‘This is the police – we’re coming to get you.’” For three hours, the author was interrogated by Mignini about possible connections to the case. His phone calls with co-author Spezi had been wiretapped, and Mignini asked him to explain things. Preston said he was told he must confess to perjury or obstruction of justice.

“I’m not the kind of person who could be broken down,” said Preston. “But now I’m terrified. My wife and kids are out having lunch, and I’m thinking I’m never going to see them again.”

Preston is indicted – Mignini has that power – but then told he can go free if he leaves Italy. The author departs the next day, banished, humiliated and deeply troubled.

Fast forward to the Amanda Knox interrogations. She’s 20, hardly a world sophisticate, who spoke only passable Italian at the time. Mignini used the same methods – a pattern now coming to light in the misconduct case against him, in which he is accused by a Florentine judge of intimidation and wiretapping journalists and other perceived enemies. He has denied any misconduct. When Preston looked at the case against Amanda Knox, he saw a rogue prosecutor and a miscarriage of justice.

“There was no evidence,” he said. “I realized it was all bogus. Mignini believes that Satan walks the land and anyone who is against him must be working for the other side.”

One more thing about this case: a civil suit by the victim’s family and the wrongly accused bar owner is going forth at the same time, meaning that highly prejudicial information that a criminal jury would not usually hear is being aired, before the same people.

Amanda Knox faces 30 years in prison if convicted. For Mignini, what is at stake is his reputation, his honor – no small things in Italy. I’m haunted by an observation from Rachel Donadio, my Times colleague in Rome. In last Sunday’s paper, in trying to explain Silvio Berlusconi, she wrote:

“In Italy, the general assumption is that someone is guilty until proven innocent. Trials – in the press and in the courts – are more often about defending personal honor than establishing facts, which are easily manipulated.”

All trials are about narrative. In Seattle, where I live, I see a familiar kind of Northwestern girl in Amanda Knox, and all the stretching, the funny faces, the neo-hippie touches are benign. In Italy, they see a devil, someone without remorse, inappropriate in her reactions.

In the end, of course, this is about the victim. Meredith Kercher is gone, a daughter no more, leaving behind the “brutality, the violence, and the great sorrow it has caused,” as her mother said in court last week.

But one life taken should not keep anyone from asking the right questions before ruining two others
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 09:47:20 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_UKQ_tCP4g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_UKQ_tCP4g
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 09:50:11 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JJahPK3Peo
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 10:05:47 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VnnHcr7sww
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 10:39:13 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMaTI0SiuLw


souldonut666 (14 uur geleden)


Why would they make such a big "deal" videotaping the collection of this seemingly minor piece of evidence, 47 days after the murder? It's kind of like they knew there was something special about the clasp and really wanted to get it taped to add credibility to the evidence. At that point there wasn't evidence that the clasp was significant. There wouldn't be until after the DNA analysis.

The clasp stinks of being planted. It follows the pattern of AK/RS/MK's hard drives being destroyed.
newtonscat (16 uur geleden) Toon Verbergen
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So three people have engaged in a brutal, violent murder whilst "high on drugs and sexed up" - one left DNA "all over the place" but only one ultra minute trace of DNA from one of the other two was found. Amazing, eh?
Denvermorgan2000 (17 uur geleden) Toon Verbergen
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Wow this is a really sad thing this prosocuter is insane the people handling this evidence are incompetent
and from the video of amamda kissing her boyfriend it looks to me that she is just gettin comfort from him not any thing more i hope that the killer will confess
the truth but im sure they will make sure he doesnt say anything.
MalaTemporaCurrunt (22 uur geleden) Toon Verbergen
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italy.
lalaloppy (2 dagen geleden) Toon Verbergen
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The only positive that I can see in this whole thing is that the real killer is not roaming free...he has been caught (Rudy). Unfortunately the lives of two young people have been destroyed by a prosecutor who is possibly mentally ill and who certainly has never met a conspiracy theory he didn't believe. How can someone who is under indictment for misconduct be allowed to prosecute any case let alone one this big? It should have been taken away from him the minute he pulled out a comic book!
lalaloppy (2 dagen geleden) Toon Verbergen
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This is horrible...and even more so now that this bit of evidence essentially convicted Raffaele. This seems to be par for the course with Italian criminal justice system...and least in this particular region with this particular prosecutor. The guy is a joke and this evidence is beyond tainted. 45 days later? Gloves that have touched other things? Passing the evidence between investigators while "examining" it for 4 minutes?
PolitikaMente (16 uur geleden) Toon Verbergen
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Why Amanda should be innocent, stupid american idiot? Like all the american people, after all.
littletugartbug (3 dagen geleden) Toon Verbergen
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I don't understand what the hell they're doing? Just collect the evidence and put it in a bag you idiots. You can't see anything that needs to be seen with a flashlight, leave that to the forensics people. If they wanted to look at it so bad they should have collected it in the bag and then looked at it.
Boss6219 (5 dagen geleden) Toon Verbergen
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The freaking Keystone cops.....
craigmorita1 (2 maanden geleden) Toon Verbergen
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During the 46 days where the clasp laid in the room and was kicked to the side, cells from outside the room could be tracked into the room on their booties and then pressed into the fabric when they picked it up. They should have collected it immediately after the murder. They should use sterile forceps and a sterile plastic bag.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 10:50:06 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1orfm9fdBCI
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 11:18:53 am
(http://i46.tinypic.com/34pynax.jpg)
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 12:04:47 pm
http://www.youtube.com/v/n71ZJPBq8uk&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&rel=0&border=1" type=
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 12:12:58 pm
Amanda Knox - 47 Days is a Long Time - The Bra Clasp Discovery


http://www.youtube.com/v/gLE4s3jXTVU&hl=nl_NL&fs=1&rel=0&border=1
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 02:52:18 pm
Did Amanda Knox Do It? by Judy Bachrach

She was "Luciferina with an angel's face

Our writer, well-versed in ways Italian, deconstructs the case of an innocenct abroad.
By Judy Bachrach

(http://www.wowowow.com/files/imagecache/300x/2009_1207_getty_amandaknox_0.jpg)
© Getty Images


Editor’s Note: Judy Bachrach writes for Vanity Fair, and is the creator of thecheckoutline.org, an online advice column for friends and relatives of the terminally ill.

Friday night at midnight Italian time, a jury of six civilians and two judges in the town of Perugia convicted an American girl of the murder of her roommate – based on virtually no evidence that would stand up in an American court. That girl is Amanda Knox. She is 22. She was once – two long years ago – a carefree Seattle, WA, college student, blonde, pretty, careless and often thoughtless, who had gone to Italy to study.

Two years ago, after spending the night with her Italian boyfriend, Amanda dropped by her own apartment and found the place covered in blood. The night before she’d smoked too much dope with that boyfriend, and her memory was, to say the least, hazy — a disastrous scenario. As it turned out, the blood all around her belonged to Meredith Kercher, a British student she had known for only two weeks. The butchered corpse was in the next room.    She was "Luciferina with an angel's face." She was a mantide – a praying mantis.   


Knox is now sentenced to 26 years in prison for a crime she almost certainly did not commit. There is no indication of violence in her background; there was no obvious motive. The blade of the knife the prosecutor claimed she used for the crime doesn’t match the wounds of the poor victim. Her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for a crime he also almost certainly did not commit.

On the other hand, a drifter from the Cote D’Ivoire is stewing in jail for 30 years for that same murder: His fingerprints and DNA were all over the crime scene. At the start that drifter claimed he didn’t know Amanda or her boyfriend. But he did admit to engaging in sexual acts with the British roommate the night she died.

How did this happen? And more important, why did it happen?

As is, I’m afraid, usual practice in Italy (a country where I spent more than four years), the Knox case was tried first and at length in the press, which roundly condemned her a full year before the trial ever took place. She was "Luciferina with an angel’s face." She was a mantide – a praying mantis. The police recorded her conversations, translated these into Italian (often incorrectly) – and swiftly sent the transcripts on to members of the media. I know. I speak Italian and I read them. One of the things Amanda told her mother early on might be of special interest to Americans: She said she was slapped around in prison in order to elicit a confession. She was told, on inquiring, that she didn’t need an attorney: It would only complicate matters. There was no translator during these supposedly confessional moments, and at the time the college girl spoke little Italian.

What else went wrong? Well, the Italian lawyer for the murdered girl’s family informed me with great pride that the prosecutor had actually embraced him in full view of everyone on the street the day word came down from a judicial panel that Amanda Knox would not be permitted house arrest, but was to remain in prison before trial. (She was too much of a flight risk, said the judges. And besides, they added, a calculating and manipulative girl like her that might "influence" witnesses – a not-so-subtle suggestion that Amanda was a world-class, top-level seductress intent on bending the entire Italian judicial system to suit her needs).

And then there was Amanda herself: a girl who thought it a good idea to walk into court wearing a tee shirt emblazoned with LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED. Who, days after the murder, was captured kissing and hugging her boyfriend by a closed circuit camera of a lingerie shop. Not her own best friend, was she? But not a murderer either. However, try telling that to the jurors, who were regaled by the prosecution with tales of Amanda’s vibrator.    She was "Luciferina with an angel's face." She was a mantide – a praying mantis.   


Italy is a country I love. But this is a cautionary tale. If you’re accused in Italy of anything at all, the presumption is simple and to the point: You’re guilty. If you’re an outsider without much clout or influential Italian friends – Amanda’s situation, as it happens – you’re sunk. And if you’re thinking of sending your college or high school kid there anytime soon, think again.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 07, 2009, 06:20:41 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfvb6wo4qe8
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 08, 2009, 03:25:24 am
In Perugia we have seen judge Micheli granting freedom to the man caught almost with the knife in his hands, after having killed his tenant.
Even judge Massei ruled that Maria Gesua Rinaldi --accused to have helped the rapist and murderer of her daughter-- had to wait in freedom. He convicted her, and still left her in freedom while waiting for the appeal trial.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 08, 2009, 04:24:05 am
letter from R to his dad

Nov 7 2007
Dear Papà and big sister mainly and to all those who will read these lines.
I write to you from a cell of isolation damp and cold, there are
peepholes in every angle from where the agents can watch even while
you do tend your needs in the toilet. The bed is made of industrial
sponge, the television cannot be used, the bath is so dirty and I am
requesting that they come and clean it. Today I had an extra blanket
and therefore, at least when I sleep, I stay warm. Outside from the
window there is a reinforced concrete ravine and beyond a clearing
enormous completely empty there is an armed guard atop the sight
tower. Amidst this sad and depressing total panorama, on the horizon
one can see a small mountain house. Fine, that far small house midway
on the plain wrests me a timid smile of hope.
I do not know if it is right that I must pay such for not being able
to focus the moments in the time during 1° the November, but after
this experience, believe me, I will never touch the pipe again in my
life. While I write to you there is a pair Moroccans (presumably) that
they speak a incomprehensible language and they knock on the wall of
my cell. They continue to complain also because they need a dose of
heroin. I do not want to respond, I don't keep us.
I do not know if it is right that I must pay such for not being able
to focus the moments in the time during 1° the November, but after
this experience, believe me, I will never touch the pipe again in my
life. While I write to you there is a pair Moroccans (presumably) that
they speak an incomprehensible language and they knock on the wall of
my cell. They continue to complain also because they need a dose of
heroin. I do not want to respond, I don't keep us.
In police headquarters they tortured to me psychologically, put to me
in shackles and made me strip in front of the scientific, I was even
barefoot. I'm not even able to offer guilt, given my deep fu**ing
stupidity for the fact that I smoke cannabis I even forget what I have
eaten and also for that I carry behind a knife to nock the tables and
the trees and I carry it so often that I brought it also to the police
headquarters. I write to you the reconstruction of the facts. We leave
from 31 October, day in which I went to the graduation of Francisco
(...) and stayed at Paolo's house (...) and subsequently I met with
Amanda. I passed the day with her having supper and then she went
downtown with her face painted like a cat. I went out subsequently
painting my face making an abstract figure. I took a stroll downtown
and after I met again with Amanda. From there we returned home right
away and we passed the night watching a film.
In the morning we rose around 10:00-11:00 and I wanted to sleep again,
therefore Amanda went to her house saying that she would wait for to
me to lunch. I caught up with her around 14:00 and Meredith was also
there, that poor girl, she said that she had already eaten. So I
prepared the lunch for us both, she so setting herself to play the
guitar meanwhile Meredith was preparing to go out.
The cute thing that I remember is that Meredith wore a pair of jeans
from man that were her ex-boyfriend's in England. She left hastily
near 16:00 not saying where she was going. Meanwhile Amanda and I
remained there until 18:00 approximately and began to smoke cannabis.
From this moment come my problems, because I have confused memories.
For the first thing Amanda and I had gone downtown from Piazza Grimana
to Corso Vannucci passing behind the university for exchange students
and ending up in Piazza Morlacchi (we always take that road), then I
don't remember but presumably we had to go grocery shopping. We
returned to my house around to the 20:00-20:30 and there I made
another pipe and saw that as it was a holiday, to take myself with
extreme tranquility, without the smallest intention to go out inasmuch
as outside it was cold.
I don't remember in reality at what time I ate, but certainly I ate
and Amanda ate with me. The questions the agents of the Squadra Mobile
me have made me to remember that that day the water pipe under to sink
was detached and thing I find very suspicious, I've seen that it is
not possible to so detach alone, at any rate, the fact is that it
flooded half the house.


I remember that I surfed the Internet for a bit, maybe I watched a
film and then that you had called me at the house or that anyhow you
sent me a goodnight message. I remember that was Thursday, therefore
Amanda had to go to the pub where she usually works, but I don't
remember how much time she was absent and remember that subsequently
she had said to me that the pub was closed (I have strong doubts
regarding the fact that she was absent). I am straining myself to
remember other details but they are all confused. Another thing of
which I can be sure is that Amanda slept with me that night.

The morning Amanda woke up before me and I did not make to raise
myself, therefore I remained to sleep while she went to shower at her
house. I don't remember if I had breakfast before or after Amanda
returned to my house. I don't remember how she was dressed day 1, but
I'm sure that she had changed and had put on the white skirt and her
usual black hiking shoes. She was cleaned up and had brought me a mop
in order to help me to dry the floor around the sink. The evening
before I had put only rags on the floor and they were not enough.
After that I cleaned up the floor and perhaps I made breakfast around
11:30-12:00 I changed clothes and we went out. She meanwhile had
spoken to me about the fact that she had found something strange at
her house. That is that she had found the front door opened, feces in
the bathroom of the Italian girls and blood in their bathroom. While
we came down from Corso Garibaldi she expressively demanded that I go
to see in her house what had happened. The investigators have asked me
if she had said to report something but (unfortunately I now say) it's
not like that: all of which I have said I have made of my spontaneous
will.



As soon as we arrived in the house I put aside the mop in the entrance
and I directed myself towards the other rooms in order to see what the
devil had happened. Those moments I remember well because I was shaken
and alarmed. I seem to have seen that Amanda had taken the mop bucket
and it carried it in to another room (from the text not shown, but
evidently the mop had been brought back to house of Meredith and
Amanda). The first thing I noticed was that the room of Filomena
(called Molli) had the door wide open. Ah, I forgot, Amanda had opened
the house with the keys (that I have repeatedly asked myself inasmuch
as she had said to me that she had found the entrance door wide open
when she entered before). We saw that Filomena's bedroom was in
completely disorder: broken glass on the floor and the room upside
down, it was an absurd mess. The window was broken on the left side
and was open. Going forward, I noticed that Meredith's room was closed
and locked and that in the bathroom there were stains of blood on the
sink and the floormat and the rest of the bathroom was clean. The
stains on the mat were diluted by water. Turning around I thought to
access Meredith's room by window and tried to find where, after I
discovered that the only access to the window was unthinkable heights,
and therefore I had to rethink. Meanwhile Amanda was trying to enter
the window bypassing the railing and I stopped, since her climbing
wanting to try to do something that according to me is absurd. She
then tried to knock on the door repeatedly shouting Meredith's name
(the door of the room, of course) because she thought that Meredith
was sleeping.

Meanwhile loitering at the house and counseling Amanda to call friends
Filomena, Laura, Meredith. And so, after that she did, she told me
that Laura was in Viterbo, Filomena was with her boyfriend and would
come later and finally Meredith did not respond. We took a turn around
the house and Amanda is terrified and jumps on me because she tells me
that in the toilet there was no more **** because presumably before,
when she was taking a shower, had seen in the bathroom there was a
**** and nobody had pulled the water. I face and look within the
reflection in the water and not see the **** give for good what Amanda
said to me.

In the end I think that the only thing to do is kick in the door of
Meredith's room. We try, but I don't succeed, then I call the cell of
my sister and she tells me to call 112. I call and leave the name of
Amanda as the address and try to explain briefly the situation. They
say that I would have to call again. We pause to wait outside and
suddenly there are two types who tell us to be the postal police
seeking Filomena, as they had found two mobile phones and a number
belonged to Filomena. For Amanda comes to mind that these phones were
Meredith's and I ask the police to break the door.

Initially, the police refused to violate privacy, but after Filomena
arrived, her boyfriend and their respective friends, he was convinced
to break in the door. While they were looking at what was inside they
began to shout: «Oh God A foot! Blood!». And they ran terrified. At
which point I moved away and took Amanda and brought her away. We
stopped outside from there and the mess.


Initially, the police refused to violate privacy, but after Filomena
arrived, her boyfriend and their respective friends, he was convinced
to break in the door. While they were looking at what was inside they
began to shout: «Oh God A foot! Blood!». And they ran terrified. At
which point I moved away and took Amanda and brought her away. We
stopped outside from there and the mess.

Today the court questioned me and said that I gave three different
statements, but the only difference that I find is that I said that
Amanda brought me to say crap in the second version, and that was to
go out at the bar where she worked, Le Chic. But I do not remember
exactly whether she went out or less to go to the pub and as a
consequence I do not remember how long she was absent. What is all my
difficulty? I do not remember this, for them, important detail,
therefore I don't break and we're investigating her. I tried to help
in the investigation trying to remember and now I've brought myself to
this place, better I did nothing and limit myself to say that I
remained at my house and I would be spared so much unrest. We speak of
something other that is better ...

Perhaps tomorrow we will see, at least so said Tiziano (Germans,
lawyers, ndr), who I saw today and has defended me in front of the
judge. At least I am glad for that. Today I have had removed the total
censorship, and I can watch TV ... At least time passes because I can
do practically nothing. But, apart from the usual cartoons, I am
bored. At this moment I think of Vanessa (his sister, ndr), I would
like to read you this letter. I am very sorry for all this mess and to
have involved you indirectly for your position (sub carabinieri,
editor's note): I can not imagine what is going on now. I am so sorry,
Vane, I did not want you to find yourself in this situation, I pray
you forgive me. I want so much good for you. Now I can say that I
understand what it means to take a walk in hell and I pray to God that
nothing more happens to me, on the contrary I hope for the good heart
of the court. Those of the squadra mobile, that god would strike with
lightning! ... No joke, but it is difficult to be sympathetic after
all that I went through. They want to paint me as the genius of
computer crime ... But, ah ah ah, a certain genius that you find in
the police station with the shoes with which he committed the crime
and with the knife with which he cut the throat of the victim in his
pocket ... A genius! Not to say a true Einstein! (Raffaele curses
against police). And should I strain to help them? Enough, better to
stay calm. Now I go to sleep, I hope to see you soon. A very strong
embrace.

Nov 11 2007
I woke not long ago. Yesterday I saw my father, uncle Giuseppe and
Mara. I am glad that my father is close to me and also uncle I didn't
expect that he would come, I was very pleased. I was given the clean
clothes, and I did not understand that outside there were all of my
party. All this gives me great strength. Instead I had information
that on the morning of Friday, when I was sleeping and Amanda went to
take a shower at her home, she had gone also with an Argentinian guy
... I suppose, in a laundry and that this here wedged in the washing
machine the clothes including the blue Nike shoes ...

All this makes me totally lose faith in Amanda after she continues to
lie ... I want to say, I don't know much, but although she doesn't
seem to me at all capable of killing, someone who can be capable of
telling lies to hide the fact that she's in rapport with people not
very recommendable. Indeed, I begin to think that she cheated on me
and he hid the impossible. But who doesn't cheat, I am sincere and
won't ever do such a thing because I won't lower myself to a certain
pettiness; if I am with a person who says they like me and I don want
to go on, I change. There is no need of escapades, I do not like to
lie, either to myself or to others.


I made friends with a nice Romanian that helped me the first day
insofar as I had no soap, bags for the garbage, etc.. A good guy, I
would say, given the helpfulness. Then I hear that he tried to do a
robbery and had a turn of prostitution. And I ponder how a man can do
certain absurd crap and maybe change, perhaps, I hope. Then the other
day a guard, while attending me in my cell, asked me, "Do you like
life in prison?". And I turn with anger in my heart, which I don't
show if not with my look, and in my mind I thought: 'This guy wants to
take me for the (fondelli??). Therefore I respond "yes, of course, c.
..!!!» to tell him to quit it. But he remains silent, and then he
tells me: 'So for you it's not bad, the life here. And I: 'Look I
intended the contrary. But you really would like to say that there
exists someone who likes life in prison? ". And he "Yes, certainly.

At that point all my thoughts and certainties collapse like a pyramid
of cards made badly and I it comes to mind that there exist people who
don't have even a house and food. And the response "But you mean
people who don't have a house? And he: "Yes". And I: "Excuse me
greatly" And he: "No, I appeared, it is I who didn't explain myself
well, I didn't want to taunt you.

This brief discussion opened my eyes. I used to habitually always have
a clean house, the heater so hot when it's cold, a warm bed, a
fabulous car, eating the best of the best, have the highest
performance computer on the market and a family that loves me ...There
are people who have nothing. And a filthy foam bed of sponge messy, a
tiny bathroom with the smallest amount of hot water, a heater that
works only a few hours a day, two blankets, a television of 13'' and
something to eat, it may be true gold that cola...

I sought and seek to return my life to that which was given to me, but
I realize that it is never enough and I still have to work hard to do
something for others and for myself. For the moment I pass the time
trying to talk to doctors, psychologists, educators, guards, captains,
even with the psychiatrist (not a bad sort) and I then watch
television and write, I want to start reading ... I want a computer
...if only ... The maximum would be a portable playstation or nintendo
... Yeah, sure, if I'm allowed to use a thing of its kind in prison
would say that Italy is the fruit!

Those days, I was very anxious and nervous, but to see my father who
tells me "don't worry yourself, we'll pull you out" makes me stay
better. My real concerns now are two: one derives from the fact that
if Amanda that night remained all night with me could (and is an
extremely remote possibility) to have made love the whole evening and
night only stopping to eat ... A fine mess because there are no links
to other servers in those hours on my computer ... The second is that
Amanda stole the knife from me to give to the son of a **** that
killed Meredith ... This hypothesis is a bit of science fiction, but
possible, ...therefore I am troubled. They say that on the knife there
are no traces of blood, so I am much more relaxed ... I cannot wait
for the scientific results from Rome.



Nov 12 2007
The facts are taking their course and slowly I am realizing that
according to the fact which you, dad, that night sent me a message of
'goodnight' and also for the fact that the first statement made by me
saying that Amanda was all the night with me, I must say that 90% I
said the fat cavolata [cavolo = cabbage... garbage/crap?] in my second
statement. And that is:
1 that Amanda brought me to say something stupid and I have repeated
that over and over again in the court of the squadra mobile;
2 reconstructing I am realizing that Amanda was actually very likely
with me all night, never leaving. And I certainly wouldn't mind to
help in the investigation and put freely in all the troubles. Indeed,
for me it would be fabulous if Amanda had done nothing, as it becomes
impossible to find whatever trace on my shoes and my knife and this
story will have a happy ending for me and for you ...

You say that it is not a happy ending for Meredith. But in these
moments it comes to me to be a little selfish insofar as, the mistake
isn't mine, but the problem is that they still haven't found a
solution to the case ... I'm accountable that if we all ended up in
jail it is also the fault of my light regard to the facts of that
evening and also that we smoked (Amanda and I) several joints. And I'm
so sorry. As soon as I'm out I want to make my biggest apologies
cordially to the parents of Amanda, who are totally destroyed and
devastated. I'm sorriest for all that , forgive me papà and forgive me
Vanessa, I have lived with extreme lightness a situation that I could
not believe real, I would have never believed and I can't forgive
myself for that.

I am trying to kill time and in the meanwhile I hear the voices and
shouts of jailbirds playing pinball, I suppose, although I have never
seen. I listen and think, I think deeply of all that has happened to
me and around me ... My brain these days seems to me an unstoppable
machine that seeks to reconnect and imagine ... Then I stop myself to
not go crazy and I think of my friends who are out there and of what
they think ...
I think my brothers from Giovinazzo (giovinezza means youth or boyhood
but this is capitalized so I believe it's the name of a school?) who
will worry and I think of Vito ... who will be suffering greatly, I
think then of the friends from college who will be thinking "that
crazy has fixed himself in an absurd story" I think of my companions
from university, Tozzo, Urte, Riccardo, Lucio, in particular the first
two will say "who knows what he will say to recover in a mess like
that.

I think of my companions from training who will all be upset ... I
think and feel I'm in fault ... I am paying for my superficiality.
This time will mean that I will pay in full.

Nov 13 2007
Today is Tuesday and I saw dad and Mara. You, big sister, I know you
are having a few export problems with export I am truly very sorry.
Meanwhile today I was marked by the fact that I have so many friends
who are all with me. I am flattered and above all feel in my heart
that my brothers are with me more than anyone else. I have an immense
fortune to have friends who are brothers like them. I think first of
all to you, Francè, I knew that you have declared that you are my
brother and I want to tell you that I feel what you try and what they
try also the others: Corrado, Raffaele, Xavier, Gianfranco (vabbè, he
I imagine quite passive as always), Marian (who is in Shanghai), Milko
(who certainly will be thinking that certain things only happen to
me), Claudia, Valeria (don't think that your life is less interesting
than mine that only I return cast a headline that you faint) ... But
what is it? I said something wrong? Want to analyze my attitude
criminal by this sentence?
FATEVI UN CLISTERE!!!
Enough! You have turned on my blog like a sock for nothing!

I say...I think of Paolo who is in Milan to think who knows what
happens and he stays, rather, he is already graduated. I want to be so
too, Paolo, and celebrate with you these idyllic moments. I also Erica
'little crispy' and Francesca my joy, Clelia and all Piazza Porta. The
magnum of Piazza Porta ... I think of Angela, Micaela, Annamaria and
all my companions from middle and high school, all shocked. I think
also that Ana and Marta who are dying of heartbreak poor girls and
also of Fabri, Fili, Boc, Veronica, Valentina, Chiara 1, Clare 2, the
mythical Pasquale (don't unpack yourself too much, see what happens),
Guido of Roma, Guido of Pisa (this time they put me in a cage),
Robertino, Alessandra, Enrico and our aerospace engineer) and all of
the friends from Erasmus (another place?) who have seen and are my
neighbors, who have known me and know that a characteristic of mine,
which some time can be a fault, is my total inability to do evil.

And it is precisely here that are created the various levels of my
personality, that tries in every way to defend carrying a knife in his
pocket and sacrificing so many years to learn and risk in a sport like
kickboxing. My personality is a combination of many weights and
measures adopted to find tranquility and peace in everyday life made
of small battles and conquests. These days, and even weeks ago, I
realized that the continued closeness to Amanda is the ...prison they
have made me lose totally my daily dedication to prayer, which,
although I did them sometimes in this period, it wasn't so ... as
usual ... The problem is not that I've lost faith, but that one ... of
facts and changes have taken assault on my life and I found myself
totally unprepared and lost in a context that I believe outside of
reality.

The reality is that my life now is changed forever and there is no way
to go back: I can only pick up the lost pieces, reattach them and make
a puzzle ... At heart, not all the evil come to harm, we must collect
the good parts from each thing otherwise to live becomes impossible.

Nov 16 2007
Last night I saw on television that the knife that I had at home (the
one from the kitchen) has traces of Meredith and Amanda (latent) ...
my heart jumped in my throat and I was in total panic because I
thought that Amanda had killed Meredith or had helped someone in the
enterprise. But today I saw Tiziano who calmed me down: he told me
that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the
legal doctor, and has nothing to do with anything as Amanda could take
it and and carry it from my house to her house because the girls
didn't have knife so, they are making a smokescreen for nothing ... I
live in a reality show nightmare, the 'nightmare reality show'.
Unbelievable!

I am starting to have perpetual panic attacks and palpitations due to
...in the anticipation of these scientific tests that fire shots
unsettling of this sort... Oh God, it is not their fault but of the...
who take everything that they can involve in this story.
I want to think about other things, think of my friends who are close
to me and think of fathers in these moments that will stay very badly
and will be worried and I am very sorry. I do not know what to do.
Please Jesus give me the strength and reason to deal with this
situation and I pray to support also dad who is sustaining an absurd
situation.

Nov 18 2007
they are keeping me in jail because there is a kitchen knife with a
trace of Meredith's DNA. It seems like a horror movie ... Looking back
and remembering it came to mind that the night dad sent me an sms
message of goodnight to be indiscreet (knowing that I was with
Amanda), then the day after Amanda repeated to me that if she had not
been with me at this time she would be dead. Thinking and
reconstructing, it seems to me that she always remained with me, the
only thing I do not remember exactly is when she left in the early
evening for a few minutes.

I am convinced that she could not have killed Meredith and then return
home. The fact that there is Meredith's DNA on the kitchen is because
once while cooking together, I shifted myself in the house handling
the knife, I had the point on her hand, and immediately after I
apologized but she had nothing done to her. So the only real
explanation of the kitchen knife is this.

I am not quiet because if they have found a trace so ridiculous they
can find many so many others on the rags and so on ... What a
nightmare! They should first of all show that the knife is indeed the
weapon of the crime: knife, type of cut, the obvious traces on the
blade, etc.. Then if they want to find invisible traces of Meredith in
my house, find some in the streams of this passage! There must be a
divine justice to all this! I continue to wake up in the morning with
accusatory faces that fix me as a murderer ...

What an absurd story, all ready to point the finger when nothing is
known yet. I hope that my father is well, and also all those who watch
this absurd event. I hope the real truth comes to surface. None of the
three enters! I have read in the newspapers that this story is taking
an enormous media dimension and all that scares me a lot, because if
they don't have the hit act it becomes impossible to calm them ... The
delusion of the mass, the money will be payed back to Patrick, to me
and to Amanda ...

Oh God, oh God, what a mess! They don't understand anything! Who and
what have stuck me in this story? Somewhat I have put of my own, but
now it is too much.
They call me to the infirmary and I read on the record that they
diagnosed me a few days ago for panic attacks and I had to be
reviewed. Both Amanda and Patrick are calm, and so this reassures me:
if neither of the two had done anything I figured! So we must have
patience. I am very pleased to talk with the (female) doctors (some
job titles are neutral, this one isn't) or social workers or the
pastor or (female) psychologist, they are very friendly and willing to
talk, it comforts me a lot. I am not liked to talk with the deputy
commander because he continues to investigate and to show me what can
happen if I don't tell the truth. We do not talk anymore.

I continue to watch TV and the morning, when I wake up, do exercises
to keep in shape. What else can I do? ... I write ... There is a girl
in France who has killed a guy she knew one evening inspired by the
tragedy of Perugia: The girl is crazy. We are all mad! Here it seems
to me I live in a comedy-reality-horror-show blowout by Big Brother.
That is the worst of the worst! The guards are kind, at least some,
not all, already it is impossible to change the minds of everyone ...

Nov 19 2007
Today I did exercises as always, I keep it in shape for not
accasciarmi and smollarmi physically; already food sucks and I am
losing a little appetite, but I hope that the truth will soon become
clear, and I could leave the prison. I spoke with a trainee (female)
teacher and there was nothing wrong. Maybe I should not think that
they are accusing me of being an accomplice to ****+murder ...But to
something cute I have to also think, sorry! She has a beautiful smile
with curly blond hair, I was very pleased that she smiled at every
joke that I made.

I seemed to receive a gust of spring air in a huge room dark and cold.
Already the prison is not a nice experience, above all because the
first times they slam me in cell isolation closed and locked with a
thread of light that passed through the window, for hours without
having the slightest sign that anyone could know that you are there,
not a sound, not a hiss, just the squeak of your shoes on a floor full
of dust and cockroaches and you that pass the time walking up and down
scared and you think, you think for so so long, you sit, look through
the cracks of the window and pray that the truth comes out, searching
to remember ...

They stuck me in prison because I do not remember exactly the events
of that day, I have confused memories. Meanwhile outside I watch the
clouds and begin to pretend to draw the sky looking for an answer to
me, this life, destiny, it seems all so mysterious, imperceptible,
like a point of light intense in a tunnel completely obscure... I
follow the light, the hope, no, that I won't lose ever; my life does
not end here; my destiny I follow until the bottom ... There's someone
that watches me and moves the threads of a destiny determined by my
choices.

There's mama, there's Jesus; what a crazy world here on earth, what
say you Jesus? You have been crucified because you have done a lot
more than what you had to for others, well, you know how I think?
Better to give a little less but survive... Excuse me for you the
speech is different seen that you saved us from sin, but sometimes I
wonder if it was worth it. I have received letters from Corrado and
family and it was made me very happy also another from Mimmo and
Paola. They support me very closely, I am very happy. Now all the
inmates greet me with a smile, I do not know whether it is because
they have realized that I have not done anything or because I have
their confidence.

Nov 20 2007
(Raffaele opens the page diary on November 20 with a conviction for
him decisive) today finally they have taken the real murderer of this
story from beyond belief. It is an Ivorian of 22 years, they have
found him in Germany. Papa I saw happy and smiling, but I for the
moment am not calm 100% because I fear that he will invent strange
things. There is the cook of the canteen who is black and kindly asked
me why I am not released. Well the reason is simple: there are my
footprints by the house and therefore from this story can always get
out coups de theatre: don't support them! Like Meredith's DNA on the
kitchen knife from my house. It comes to me, the tachicardia (medical
condition, heart beating too fast) and I remain unwell. It makes me
happy that I have many supporters everywhere. I await with patience my
future; at times it frightens me, we know who could really expect
anything. Life is a road long and dark , but I haven't lost hope.
After the storm there is the rainbow. Strength Raf! One of the
giovinazzesi; one of them, one of them!

Nov 23 2007
Today I have changed cells. I spent a lot of time cleaning from top to
bottom and I am also a bit nauseous from the conditions in which they
had left it. I re-encountered the policeman that I had that
conversation about whether I liked life in prison and we joked a bit
on the fact that there are peepholes of cells that have a cover and I
wondered why. Then he with air of the series "Who if is ever asked,"
he tells me: "I don't have a faint idea; that I don't cheat!" (that
section I didn't get...)

And I think there a bit and find the solution! They don't want other
inmates passing looking through the peephole. Consequently I tell him
smiling: "Could it be that I have to tell you something useful?". He:
"I do not care at all." Meanwhile I ask him: "If you tell me your name
to quote you, as I have already talked of our discussion and become
famous". He "No, absolutely no interest to me really, "you don't hold
us". And I kept thinking: 'Well, in fact, if I become famous it is not
for a likeable deed, on the contrary, a tragedy and that is very sad.
Already in order to be famous? All look at you and judge you and turn
your life like a sock ass backwards and they even accuse you if you
breathe too slowly. Better give up, do not look to the success, money,
but spend a quiet life without stress and suffering, to me it applies
not just punishment.
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on December 14, 2009, 07:32:19 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_qaiMmfwk0
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Observer on March 04, 2010, 01:54:35 pm
Report: Knox jurors found no planning, malice in Kercher's slaying

Rome, Italy (CNN) -- Jurors believed American Amanda Knox played a role in the slaying of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, but thought the death came about without any premeditation or animosity, according to a report released Thursday.

The 427-page report, written by Judge Giancarlo Massei and Assistant Judge Beatrice Cristiani, explains the reasons behind jurors' determination in December that Knox was guilty in the November 2007 stabbing death of exchange student Kercher while the two roomed together in Perugia, Italy.

The report blames "random contingencies" and "the combination of various factors" for Kercher's death.

"It is a crime that happened ... without any planning, without any animosity or rancorous feeling against the victim that in some way could be seen [as] a preparation and predisposition to the crime," it said.

Knox, 22, of Seattle, Washington, was sentenced to 26 years in prison for Kercher's death. Knox's ex-boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, was sentenced to 25 years. A third man, Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede, was tried separately and was initially sentenced to 30 years, but an appeals court later reduced that to 16 years.

Knox and Sollecito's appeals are expected this year. Both have denied involvement in Kercher's death.

"We're still perusing" the report, said David Marriott, a Seattle attorney representing Knox's family. "Amanda's lawyers in Italy are still reading through and reviewing the motivations and we'll discuss it with the family at a later point."



Interactive: The evidence

Timeline: The Amanda Knox case
RELATED TOPICS
Amanda Knox
Murder and Homicide
Italy
During the 11-month trial of Knox and Sollecito, prosecutors argued Knox was a resentful American so angry with her British roommate that she exacted revenge during a twisted sex misadventure game at the students' home. They said Knox directed Sollecito and Guede to hold Kercher down as Knox played with a knife before killing her.

Defense attorneys for Knox and Sollecito said Guede acted alone. Knox testified in court that she was not home at the time of the slaying. She told jurors during her trial that she is not a "killer."

However, jurors rejected both of those theories, according to Thursday's report. They found Guede the main instigator -- not Knox, as prosecutors hypothesized.

The jurors believed that Guede went into Kercher's room and attempted to have sexual contact with her, but Kercher pushed him away. Knox and Sollecito then came into the room and attempted to help Guede have "his way" with Kercher, the report said. Sollecito held Kercher while Guede fondled her, the report said, but things spiraled out of control.

Sollecito poked Kercher with a knife, inflicting one wound measured at 4 cm (1.5 inches), and Knox poked her with a bigger knife after she screamed, inflicting a larger 8-cm (3-inch) wound, jurors found.

"The most plausible hypothesis is that Rudy decided by himself to enter Meredith's room," the report said. "The reaction and refusal of the girl must have been heard by Amanda and Raffaele, who actually were probably disturbed and intervened, given the unfolding of events. They backed Rudy, whom they allowed to enter the house" and ultimately became Kercher's killers because of events that followed, according to the judges.

All three, the jurors believed, were under the influence of drugs. "The motive is therefore of erotic sexual violent nature, which originating from Rudy's choice of evil, found its active collaboration from Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito."

While both Knox and Sollecito denied being at the crime scene, jurors noted that Knox's blood was found in the bathroom and Sollecito's DNA was found on Kercher's bra. The two cannot prove they were at Sollecito's home until the following day, as no evidence puts them there, according to the report.

A knife found in Sollecito's house, with Knox's DNA on the handle and Kercher's DNA on the blade, was the murder weapon, jurors believed, according to the report.

Both Knox and Sollecito must have felt remorse, the judges wrote, because they covered Kercher's body and closed the door of the room where she lay. Police had to force it open the next morning. The judges said that was "significant behavior."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/04/amanda.knox.jurors/index.html?hpt=T2
Title: Re: trial in Italy
Post by: Johan555 on October 05, 2011, 03:05:34 pm
The media frenzy around Amanda Knox                                                                      Amanda Knox is reportedly contemplating TV and film offers                                                                                                                                            More from Torin                               

        Bookmarks on Delicious         
        Media Brief         
        Pub landlady wins TV football fight         
        Exports of British TV programmes rise         

                                                                       This round-up of   Wednesday's main media stories reports on a media frenzy - and an   apology - following the release of Amanda Knox.
The Daily Telegraph says   Amanda Knox is contemplating TV and film offers that could net her tens   of millions of dollars, as she returns home after four years in an   Italian jail.
It says: "The Knox family has hired a leading Seattle PR   firm, Gogerty Marriott, to handle bids which are expected to be as much   as $10 million (?6.5 million) for her first TV interview since she was   cleared of murdering Meredith Kercher. Before she makes up her mind,   Miss Knox wants to spend time at home with her family."
Press Gazette reports   that the Daily Mail has apologised and launched an internal inquiry   after mistakenly publishing a story on its website claiming Amanda Knox   had lost the appeal against her conviction for murdering Meredith   Kercher.
It says: "The same mistake was made on The Sun website, Sky   News and The Guardian's live blog, but the Mail appears to be the only   news outlet that ran a full-length article."
There are conflicting interpretations of the European Court victory of pub landlady Karen Murphy in the TV football case.
The Daily Mirror says   "a landlady yesterday struck a blow for hard-up pubs by winning a legal   fight to screen Premier League games cheaply via foreign satellite TV?   The ruling, which needs to be rubber-stamped by the High Court, could   see hundreds of pubs abandoning Sky Sports in favour of cheaper foreign   providers."
But the Independent says   "the judgment is not a giant-killing that will transform the way fans   watch games in British pubs. The court ruled that pubs should not be   able to show copyrighted material such as the Premier League graphics   and opening sequences without the authorisation of the league, which may   now insist on its logo being shown on broadcasts throughout matches."
In my analysis I explain   the ruling could lead to a major shake-up in the way TV rights have to   be sold in the European Union, not just by the Premier League, but by   Hollywood film studios and independent TV producers. But it's a   complicated ruling - and it's not a total victory for Karen Murphy. She   can now watch Premier League matches herself via the Greek service, but   it's not clear she can show them to her customers.
Hugh Grant has told the Guardian   that he warned George Osborne about the dangers of hiring the former   News of the World editor Andy Coulson. The paper says the actor "finds   it inconceivable that David Cameron did not know Coulson had overseen a   culture of phone hacking at the paper".
Several front pages run previews of the prime minister's closing speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, as reported in the BBC's newspaper review.
                           Torin Douglas           Article written by Torin Douglas           Torin Douglas                Media correspondent       

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