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Avrom Brendzel and Nigel Scott set out the reasons why Italy will lose another case in Strasbourg.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is the court of last resort for defendants in the 47 states of the Council of Europe (CoE) who have been subjected to violations of the rights of defence. It was set up to rule on alleged violations of the provisions set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. If the ECHR rules that the rights of a person within the territory of a CoE state have been violated, that state is required to make amends. CoE member states agree to abide by ECHR rulings because they are treaty signatories to the Convention. Another organization of the CoE, the Committee of Ministers, supervises the remedial measures carried out by the states. Except for certain urgent cases, the ECHR will only consider a case when all domestic remedies have been exhausted.
On November 25th 2013, lawyers representing Amanda Knox, a US citizen from Seattle who was studying in Italy in 2007, lodged an application with the European Court, following the Italian Supreme Court’s confirmation of a criminal slander conviction against her in connection with the Meredith Kercher murder case. The statement that led to Knox’s conviction arose from an interrogation on the night of November 5/6 2007.
Interrogated as a suspect but denied lawyer and independent translator
She explains the circumstances in her blog:
“My slander conviction was based on comments I made regarding Patrick Lumumba… comments that were coerced during a lengthy interrogation by Perugia police shortly before I was arrested in 2007. The interrogation took place in a language I barely spoke, without a lawyer present, and without the police informing me that I was a suspect in Meredith’s murder, which was a violation of my human rights. The police were the ones who first brought forth Patrick’s name saying they knew I was going to meet him the night of Meredith Kercher’s murder which was not true. I have stated many times that my original comments about Patrick were coerced by the police and not true.”
Italy is one of the worst offenders in Europe in terms of human rights violations reviewed by the ECHR. Only Turkey has had more cases against it before the ECHR, and Italy continues to be one of the top four states in current number of pending applications to the ECHR. Repeated negative rulings have not brought about the changes in practices that might have been expected.
There is a lengthy backlog of cases awaiting judgment before the ECHR. Two and a half years after being lodged, Knox’s case has moved forward. The ECHR has issued preliminary enquiries in a public document called a Communication, and Italy is required to respond and provide further information. When the ECHR process of gathering information is complete, the court will weigh the assembled evidence and rule. Based on previous cases, this is likely to take several years.
Independent observers believe, based on ECHR precedents (case-law), that the ECHR is almost certain to rule in Knox’s favour and against Italy. Judgments reached in other cases with similar issues are set out below. They have established clear precedents. Articles and cases are referred to where appropriate.
Summary of relevant case-law (including quotations from ECHR judgments)
1. ECHR review of a case is concerned only with whether or not a Respondent State has respected the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and ECHR case-law in its treatment of an applicant; the guilt or innocence of the applicant is not an issue.
2. ECHR examines cases individually with respect to their merits; the details of cases are important; the ECHR considers and seeks to give the appearance of considering the merits impartially and objectively.
3. Access to a lawyer should be provided as from the first interrogation of a suspect by the police, unless it is demonstrated in the light of the particular circumstances of each case that there are truly compelling reasons to restrict this right. The rights of the defence will in principle be irretrievably prejudiced when incriminating statements made during police interrogation without access to a lawyer are used for a conviction (Salduz v. Turkey, Ibrahim et al. v. the UK). Compelling reasons to interrogate a suspect without a lawyer, as found in Ibrahim et al. v. the UK, would be, for example, the threat of a future terrorist attack which could cause mass casualties. Even in that case, the questioning without a lawyer must be restricted to topics such as the identification of future threats, and information gained in such questioning must not be used to prejudice the rights of the accused at trial.
4. The right to silence and the right not to incriminate oneself are generally recognised international standards which lie at the heart of the notion of a fair procedure under Article 6. Their rationale lies, inter alia, in the protection of the accused against improper compulsion by the authorities, thereby contributing to the avoidance of miscarriages of justice and to the fulfilment of the aims of Article 6. The right not to incriminate oneself presupposes that the prosecution in a criminal case seek to prove their case against the accused without resort to evidence obtained through methods of coercion or oppression in defiance of the will of the accused. In this sense the right is closely linked to the presumption of innocence contained in Article 6 § 2 of the Convention. In examining whether a procedure has extinguished the very essence of the privilege against self-incrimination, the Court must examine the nature and degree of the compulsion, the existence of any relevant safeguards in the procedures and the use to which any material so obtained is put.
5. The general requirements of fairness contained in Article 6 apply to all criminal proceedings, irrespective of the type of offence at issue. Even persons accused of infamous crimes such as rape, murder, and terrorism are protected under the rights listed in the Convention and detailed in the ECHR case-law, as are those accused of petty theft or making false accusations.
6. A waiver of a right guaranteed by the Convention – in so far as it is permissible – must not run counter to any important public interest, must be established in an unequivocal manner and must be attended by minimum safeguards commensurate to the waiver’s importance…. Moreover, before an accused can be said to have impliedly, through his conduct, waived an important right under Article 6, it must be shown that he could reasonably have foreseen what the consequences of his conduct would be. Thus, a person may not have been considered to have validly waived the right to a lawyer without clear evidence that this was done with full knowledge of the legal consequences and was truly based on the person’s will, and not a result of intimidation or threat.
7. If a person is interrogated in police custody, or if the questioned person’s freedom of action is significantly restricted, and there is no lawyer present to fairly represent the interests of that person, the statements of the person may not be used to convict him of any crime. This holds true whether or not the statements are considered incriminating statements (Aleksandr Zaichenko v. Russia).
8. Statements made by a person under interrogation who was not told of the right to remain silent and warned that the statements could be used against him before the interrogation starts cannot be used to convict him.
9. The Convention is intended to guarantee rights that are practical and effective. Therefore, statements obtained in interrogations that are in reality the questioning of a de facto suspect under the pretense that he is a witness may not be used for conviction (Brusco v. France). The ECHR will not accept the use statements for conviction obtained from the questioning of a de facto suspect as a witness even if the questioning allegedly satisfies legal formalism or domestic law, and certainly not if there is deception by the authorities.
10. When an applicant has been convicted despite an infringement of his rights as guaranteed by Article 6 of the Convention, he should, as far as possible, be put in the position that he would have been in had the requirements of that provision not been disregarded, and that the most appropriate form of redress would, in principle, be trial de novo or the reopening of the proceedings, if so requested by the person concerned.
A compelling case
These points combine to build a compelling case. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were suspects within a day of Meredith Kercher’s body being discovered, according to police testimony. Their phones were tapped immediately and by Saturday November 3rd, the media was being briefed that a woman close to Meredith was a suspect. This was reported in the London Sunday Times dated November 4th.
Amanda Knox was a suspect when lead investigator Edgardo Giobbi ordered colleagues to call her in for overnight questioning along with boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Giobbi said: “I gave direct orders to the investigators to bring them in, look I remember it really well, because it was the first time that we carried out a kind of, to do two witness questionings at the same time and I said to go and bring them in, I believe they were in a pizza restaurant. I can tell you with mathematical certainty I remember perfectly to have arranged for this investigative strategy.”
Amanda Knox was a suspect when the interview on the evening of November 5th began at around 10.00pm. Giobbi’s special team that had arrived from Rome helped to carry out the interrogation.
Amanda Knox was a suspect when the interrogators took her phone, checked her messages and refused to give it back.
Amanda Knox was a suspect when she was denied a lawyer and was told that having one would make things worse for her.
Amanda Knox was a suspect when she was hit on the head and called a stupid liar.
Amanda Knox was a suspect when the police conducting the coercive interrogations phoned prosecutor Giuliano Mignini at about 11:30 pm on November 5, 2007 to report that her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was no longer confirming Knox’s alibi for the night of the murder, and at about 3:30 am after Knox had named Lumumba as the murderer, asked Mignini to join them.
Amanda Knox was a suspect long before a statement was written in Italian for her to sign.
Amanda Knox was a suspect for days before she was arrested. Her human rights as a suspect were denied. That is why the European Court of Human Rights will rule against Italy and in her favour.
Source for ECHR case-law:
http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22documentcollectionid2%22:[%22GRANDCHAMBER%22,%22CHAMBER%22]}
This is a good exposition of the issues in the case. For the ECtHR not to rule in Knox’s favour on the Article 6 complaints would require a reversal of the court’s recent jurisprudence. So, essentially, she must win her judgement. A small question mark over the Article 3 claim is apparent, but I think it is unlikely that Italy will prevail here either, if they do put up their only defence. One addition to the relevant case law I would propose is Shabelnik v Ukraine. This case develops further the methodology to be used in deciding when someone is entitled to legal advice. “In the Court’s opinion, the applicant’s position was SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECTED as soon as the suspicion against him was seriously investigated..”. In Knox’s case, I would argue that objectively, this position was reached no later than 11:30pm on 5th November (the final interrogation) when senior police officer Profazio telephoned prosecutor Mignini to report that Knox no longer enjoyed the benefit of an alibi witness. This is before Knox said anything or provided any statement that was later used against her at trial.
Of course, an interesting and important connected issue is the matter of the callunia conviction itself. Following a judgement in favour of Knox, the case would pass to the Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe, where Article 46 of the Convention becomes operative as the Committee supervises Italy’s compliance with the judgement of the court in respect of the payment of any compensation awarded, but also in respect of the taking of “individual measures” in order to put Knox back in the position she would have been in, as far as possible, had her rights not been violated. In this case, the only appropriate measure will be the voiding of her conviction. But, this may well be a drawn out and convoluted process.
I hope the ECHR rules in Amanda’s favor so that this miscarriage of justice is finally reversed 100 percent. Two people wasted precious years of their young lives incarcerated for a crime they did not commit, because of the interrogation tactics used on a young woman, Amanda, who was coerced into making statements later used against her. Even worse was the faulty collection and interpretation of so called physical evidence, cooked up to inculpate young people who had nothing to do with this horrendous crime. In the meantime the one person who was guilty beyond all doubt, was given a soft sentence, and for some perverse reason, widely sympathized with.
I followed avidly the comments on the numerous articles particularly those that believed Amanda was guilty. For some reason, this case seemed to bring out the worst in people. For someone that other than a politician or other public figure like a sports star or actor, I would say that Amanda was slandered in more ways by more people than anyone in modern times. The reasons for that widely vary although I suspect it had much to do with either regional pride and/or bitterness towards young women. Either way, I’m glad to see the courts have returned some sanity to their rulings. This was a case of illusion. A horrible but common type of crime that occurs somewhere every day was turned into something Hollywood could envision by one deluded prosecutor. And so many bought into it. Just incredible.
One reason this case became so notorious is pure sexism. It is clear the prosecutor had it is for Amanda and that he had a psycho full of sick sexuality. She was subjected to an old fashioned witch hunt that portrayed a perfectly normal young woman as some sort of sexually sick person. It was all a fantasy that the press was all to happy to exploit.
One reason this case became so notorious is pure sexism. It is clear the prosecutor had it is for Amanda and that he had a psyche full of sick sexuality where women are concerned. She was subjected to an old fashioned witch hunt that portrayed a perfectly normal young woman as some sort of sexually sick person without an iota of evidence. It was all a fantasy that the press was all to happy to exploit.
Meantime Amanda Knox is now living the life she is entitled to, though I am sure she will always have scars from what was done to her. I am impressed that she is now actively helping other falsely imprisoned people win their freedom and get their lives back.
I completely agree with you. When people have called this a witch hunt I believe that that term is actually very accurate as there seemed to be a lot in common with the old medieval witch hunts that had a sexual component to them.
The press went wild and I suppose for many that its easier to believe the tantalizing than the boring. The prosecutor should be brought up on charges for what he did. His unprofessionalism scarred two people forever and did great harm to the family of the murder victim who now believe that the case was never solved even though the one and only murderer has been in prison for years. Just incredible!
I still look forward to the day when Mignini will get his in the end.
Me too.
in the “rear end”.
You never know.
F–k ’em. How do you get years of your life back?
A superb summary of the injustices that Amanda Knox endured at the hands of Italian authorities. This case was an outrage from day one. I hope that she wins this case and expect that she will. I hope it helps her continue to heal from the persecution she endured.
Sexism! Puritanical sick Italians! Nonsense. The judge who “exonerated” her (not guilty by “insufficient proof”) said that she and her boyfriend were in the apartment at the time of the prolonged and brutal murder. So why didn’t she go to her roommate’s aid or call the police? Well, uh, let’s not go there.
The final ISC Motivation Report did not say that Ms. Knox or Mr. Sollecito were in the “apartment” at the time of the murder. This is just disinformation created by the “guilters.” At best the report can be read as saying it cannot absolutely be ruled out that they were in the house (not apartment) at the time of the murder. Even this reading strains credulity and is legal fiction to avoid yet another trial based on inconsistent final reports. The rest of the motivation report makes it clear that it is very unlikely they were in the house and definitely not in the room where Ms. Kercher was murdered, hence they could not have committed the crime.
1. The house (a small cottage) had but two apartments, one where Knox and Kercher lived with two others and one where some boys lived. The boys were out of town and no one has ever suggested Knox would have been at the house but in the boys apartment. 2. Whether or not they were in Kercher’s bedroom they could be accomplices, either by initiating the confrontation, encouraging Guede to attack Meredith, or simply by refusing to come to her aid or call the police. 3. Judge Marasca writes that the evident physical actions of the murderer are ‘very difficult to ascribe to one person acting alone’ (p28), that it is difficult to ascribe such an attack to ‘an unknown burglar’ (29), that Knox at some point washed Kercher’s blood off her hands. (49), that the bloody footprints were probably Raffaele’s, and that Knox’s claim that police bullying led her to slander Lumumba is ‘extremely fragile.’ (49). Knox’s Trump card is the absence of DNA traces in the murder room but the trace on the bra clasp would be damning if admitted. The judge says it can’t be admitted because it’s too small to permit repeated testing.
You are just like all the other guilters, you quote from the Marasca motivation report by picking and choosing single sentences, many of which are taken out of context, and claiming that the report clearly shows that Knox and Sollecito are guilty. I will give you a hint the Court found them not guilty because “they did not commit the crime.” One with even a small amount of legal training can tell from the overall tone of the report that most of what you quotes you rely on are ones that the Court did not believe. They were placed in the report to create a viable fiction that supports a finding of not guilty and still does not go against prior final verdicts, which would open the case to the possibility of a revision trial. Remember, if the Court felt they were guilty but the prosecution case was flawed, they could have followed the more common route of just pointing out the prosecutions errors and sending it for another trial. The motivation report creates a basis for acquittal, while not running afoul of any of the prior final verdicts.
From a forensic viewpoint, there is no evidence to support any of the quotes you take from the motivation report. To believe that DNA was transferred to the clasp of the bra by merely holding it momentarily by not only Sollecito, but by two other individuals as well is laughable. DNA just does not transfer that easily. Remember Sollecito handled the steering wheel of his car for much longer periods and it has a much larger surface area, yet no DNA was found. The best explanation for the results are lab contamination. The only actual footprint expert said the footprint was likely that of Guede and certainly not Sollecito’s. The presence of both Knox’s and Kercher’s DNA in the sink along with blood from one of them, has many possible explanations, that Ms. Knox washed Kercher’s blood off her hands is the least likely. As to the break-in being real or faked, common sense indicates that it was probably real and how Guede got in. As to the number of perpetrators all the forensic evidence and common sense indicate that it was just one person, Guede.
While you and your fellow guilters are entitled to your beliefs, as wrong as they are, you must realize the case is over. Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito are free and the only thing that will change is that the Calumnia verdict will be reversed.
You have a rather elaborate theory of why Marasca says this and that and why he doesn’t really mean it. The police always lie and the judge doesn’t mean what he says. Ok, that disposes of the evidence.
Actually, the judge said that the defendants “didn’t commit the act”. Now, that really does dispose of the ‘evidence’. The motives suggested were interesting: the defendants had the night off; an argument about cleaning; an argument about hypothesised missing rent money; halloween; lust; being socially snubbed. It’s usually a big red flag when different prosecutors show up in different courts and say, “Hey judge, forget what the last prosecutor said to the last judge, here’s why they did it”. On one occasion the judge who convicted Knox and Sollecito came up with his own motive – yet all the motives were fantasies – pure imagination. As for evidence, we have footprints not made in blood, the presence of Knox’s DNA in her own bathroom, a bread knife with bread on it and no blood, a lying forensic scientist and a nasty case of covered up contamination. I say take them out back and shoot them! Clearly guilty eh? On the other hand….But I do like the notion that Knox and Sollecito, so as not to leave any evidence actually in blood in Kercher’s abattoir of a bedroom, decided to unfurl their wings, fly into the room for killing purposes and fly out again afterwards.
One of the most things that the guilters cannot grasp is the scientific method of direct comparison. In a controlled experiment, scientists use a control to compare to the sample.
In this case we don’t have a controlled experiment but we have a direct comparison and a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that Guede, Amanda, and Raffaelle all committed the act together in a small bedroom. And what did the police initially find in this bedroom by the body?
Guede. Bloody shoeprint. DNA on the purse. DNA in the victims private area. Bloody handprints. Writing on the wall in blood that Guede later admitted was his.
Amanda. Nothing.
Raffaelle. Nothing.
This direct comparison of evidence found exactly by the body says more than all the innuendo, nonsensical DNA samples from Amandas own bathroom, one DNA sample only obtained from the bra clasp when the prosecutor realized he had NOTHING on Raffaelle and returned to “get something” over a month later, a bloodless knife that had no bleach on it, and other nonsense offered as “evidence” by a desparate prosecutor who couldn’t admit that he just f****d up.
Yes, this is an excellent analysis. Of course the pro guilt lobby has the hypothesis, for the most part, that it was Knox who actually did the stabbing. So, that would make Guede a minor actor in their drama. They want us to believe that the minor actor left all this clear and unequivocal evidence of himself as a participant in the murder – some eight shoeprints in blood as well as DNA in Kercher’s body – but the major player left nothing to indicate even her mere presence. It is an entirely incoherent proposition. One could not imagine any adult with an IQ north of 100 believing such nonsense, let alone half a dozen or so of Italy’s finest justices. Knox and Sollecito are so clearly innocent that it is frightening – frightening to realise that if a system can successfully indict and convict people like this, then it can indict and convict anybody. If they’d locked them up for a couple of weeks before they had processed the results of the crime scene investigation, took a little time to understand it properly and then let them go with an apology, I might have believed that to err is human and to correct a mistake is honourable, but these people doubled down on stupid, committed a monstrous miscarriage of justice and brought shame on their country.
Thanks for the compliments and comments. I have another observation that the guilters seem to miss.
According to them and the police and prosecution, Amanda and Raffaelle busted out the window to stage a break-in so as to throw off the investigation.
The day after the murder, Amanda and her room-mates discovered the broken window and all knew about it. The police knew about it. She knew about it. All knew.
Then later, in her overnight “chat” with the police Amanda signed two statements and then wrote one note discussing how she met Patrick and then had him come back to the house. The police claimed that she was falsely accusing Patrick to throw the investigation away from Guede and herself.
In those three documents she never once mentioned the window. If she was making up a story about Patrick so as to throw off the police, then why wouldn’t she include such an important detail in her story? Someone broke the window. Everyone knew that. If she was framing Patrick it would have made sense to explain how and why Patrick broke the window as part of this story. She never mentioned it. She left it blank. That left her story concerning Patrick incomplete and nonsensical.
Of course we know why. She didn’t know anything about how the window was broke and her comments about Patrick were coerced with intimidation and slaps.
Why did Raffaele offer an ‘explanation’ of how Meredith’s blood got on that knife, making up a lie about how he had accidentally pricked her hand when cooking for her. Also, I repeat that A and R did not have to go into the room to be accomplices. If they encouraged Rudy to attack Meredith and refused to go to her aid they are guilty. That is a possible scenario: Rudy tries to force himself on. Meredith and instead of defending her A and R decide to enjoy the show or abandon M to her fate. Why did Raff refute Amanda’s alibi saying he had lied to protect her?
1) He was speculating about how Kercher’s blood could have got on the knife because he had been told it was found there. He was the one who was lied to. He was merely trying to make sense of the situation.
2) If you think they are guilty but didn’t go in the room then you must agree that the bra clasp and knife DNA evidence is nonsense. But this scenario is not a prosecution claim. Nor is there evidence for it. The key piece of evidence is that there is no relationship between Guede, Knox and Sollecito. They didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers. So, there cannot have been a conspiracy.
3) Sollecito was subjected to a similar lawyerless interrogation as Knox. He mixed up the night of the murder with the previous night. We know this because he refers to the time of a call with his father, whom he spoke to every night. He was exhausted and coerced by the police. Sollecito’s story as Knox’s has been entirely consistent but for the period of their lawyerless interrogations. That should tell you something.
1) Raff was not ‘speculating.’ He did not say ‘maybe.’ He made up a story. The most you can say is that he was trying to lie his way out of a situation he wasn’t really in. The large number of lies and implausible statements made by A and R were part of the case against them.
2) On the hypothesis that they didn’t go in the room the bra clasp would simply be a statistical anomaly, or a result of contamination, as urged by the defense. ….. Guede was seen in the company of Knox and Sollecito both at the house and in the bar where Amanda worked. Possibly he was their drug dealer. But if Raff met Rudy for the first time at the apartment it wouldn’t preclude his joining Amanda and Rudy in a hazing of Meredith. who may have voiced strong disapproval of Amanda bringing Rudy and Raff to the house in a state of intoxication when she was trying to study. Meredith had a sharp tongue.
3) Raff said that he had lied to protect his girlfriend. That statement is damning whether or not he was confused about which night was which.
4) If as you say all the damning statements were made without lawyers present that would be suspicious but I think there are a number that were made later. At any rate, Raff didn’t affirm that Amanda was with him at their original trial. He could have done so in a ‘spontaneous statement’ without subjecting himself to cross-examination but chose not to, which is very odd if she was indeed with him.
1) You would really benefit from a closer reading of the evidence in context. The source of this material is Sollecito’s private diary with relevant entries written less than two weeks after the murder. He’s not addressing his comments to anyone and would later come to understand these matters better. At this time, he didn’t.
On 16th November, with regard to the knife, he writes:
“I saw on TV yesterday evening that the knife that I had at home (the one from the kitchen) has traces of Meredith and Amanda (latent)… I was breathless [mi è salito in cuore in gola] and I also got into a total panic because I thought that Amanda had killed Meredith or that she had at least helped someone kill her [nell’impresa]. But I saw Tiziano today who calmed me down: he told me that the knife could not have been the murder weapon, according to the medical examiner [medico legale], and that it has nothing to do with anything because Amanda could have taken it and carried it from my house to her house since the girls didnʹt have a knife like that one [così], they are causing a commotion for nothing… I feel as if I were living in a nightmare reality show. The ʹnightmare reality showʹ. Unbelievable!”
So, he has formed the view that the knife could for purely innocent reasons have been taken to the cottage. He has been told that the autopsy revealed the knife could not be the murder weapon. So, now the finding of DNA is extremely puzzling to him. But he believes the finding to be legitimate.
Two days later, on 18th November, we see that he has processed all the information about the knife that he has and writes:
“They are keeping me in jail because of the kitchen knife that has a DNA trace belonging to Meredith. It seems like a horror movie… Thinking back and remembering, I remembered that that night father sent me a goodnight SMS message to be indiscreet [indiscreto, sic] (knowing that I was with Amanda), then, the following day, Amanda kept on telling me that if she had not been with me, she would be dead now [a quest’ora]. Thinking and reconstructing, I think that she always remained with me; the only thing I do not remember exactly is if she went out for a few minutes in the early evening.
I am convinced that she could not have killed Meredith and then come back home. The fact that there is Meredithʹs DNA on the kitchen knife is because on one occasion, while we were cooking together, I, while moving around at home [and] handling the knife, pricked her hand, and I apologized at once but she was not hurt [lei non si era fatta niente]. So the only real explanation for that kitchen knife is this one.”
It now becomes clear that Sollecito has rejected the notion that Knox could have killed Kercher. He knows that Knox was with him and that Kercher never visited his apartment, so he arrives at a conclusion, logically derived from the evidence he has. He needs to explain the knife DNA to himself in the context of his innocence, which he is assured of. He provides an hypothesis, which, as it turns out is flawed. We know this because later it became apparent that whereas Sollecito did in fact prepare a meal at the cottage and the incident he relates did take place, he could not have been using the knife on which the DNA was allegedly discovered. But at the time he does not know this.
If you read Sollecito’s statements properly, as derived from the information he has been given over the course of these two diary entries, there is no sense in which a claim that he is lying, is valid. Nor does it have any meaning in the wider context of the case. He’s telling the truth! But he’s mistaken about the identity of the knife in his recollection of the event he is describing. He’s mistaken about this because he has accepted as true his lawyer’s speculation that Amanda might have taken the knife to the cottage for the purpose of cooking.
We could call Sollecito a liar if he had stated that he had taken the knife to the cottage for cooking purposes himself or that Kercher had visited his flat and he had situated the “pricking” event there. But all that is erroneous about the story he tells is the identity of the knife.
You are guilty of starting with the conclusion of Sollecito’s involvement in Kercher’s murder and interpreting evidence in the light of it, whereas what you should be doing is interpreting evidence neutrally and allowing reasonable conclusions from it to determine your view about the murder. The knife pricking incident has no bearing on the case whatsoever.
2) There is no evidence that Sollecito ever met Guede. He was not seen in Guede’s company. You are wrong. There is no evidence that Guede was K and S’s drug dealer. There is no evidence they consumed anything other than small quantities of marijuana, in a similar manner to other young people in Perugia including Knox’s Italian roommates. Interestingly, Silenzi, Kercher’s boyfriend, was growing marijuana plants in the downstairs apartment and Kercher was tasked to care for them. Yet you choose not to impugn her character on this basis. Kercher and Silenzi’s association with ‘drugs’ was far stronger than Knox and Sollecito’s. Silenzi was growing the stuff!
3) I think you are referring to this: “In my previous statement I told a load of rubbish because Amanda had convinced me of her version of the facts and I didn’t think about the inconsistencies” as given to the police in a lawyerless interrogation. He does not say that he lied to protect his girlfriend. He was confused, exhausted and coerced by the police and juxtaposed the events of two different days. This is supported by the detail in his statements.
4) Knox and Sollecito’s accounts are consistent, but for the period of the interrogation. There are no lies. If you don’t believe this, then you can state what you think they are. I will be happy to explain why you are wrong. They both state that they were together in Sollecito’s flat for the duration of the evening of November 1st. If you read the transcript of the first trial you will discover that Massei accepted that both Knox and Sollecito’s accounts provided each other as alibi witnesses. There is no sense in which a reaffirmation of this point by Sollecito by way of a spontaneous statement would have made the slightest difference to Knox’s position. The prosecution’s contention was that they both left Sollecito’s apartment and they did not assert that Sollecito stayed in when Knox went out. It is not a substantive claim.
You are confusing your facts with fiction. Raffaelle never said to anyone that Meredith pricked her finger. That was a diary entry Therefore not a lie as a lie is told To someone. Raffaelle knew he was being set up so with bs so he speculated his own defense. Difference is he never delivered it.
False fact 2 is that guede was seen with raffaelle. Nope never. Not once.
False fact 3 was that guede was in the company of Amanda. No. They were introduced and attended separately the same party at the boys flat downstairs. They had no relationship either friend or romantic. No cellphone record. No testimony of the hanging out at the cottage or going to dinner.
Raffaelle not making a statement at trial means zero. Lawyers advise that commonly.
Raffaelles statement concerning the time that Amanda was at his house was based on an error that nencini had made. He wrote incorrectly that Amandas cellphone indicated she was away from his apartment around 9:30. Rafs lawyers decided to take advantage of it. Not vey honorable of him but he is being falsely accused so he did what was being done to him.
As for the clasp i agree not contamination. During the actual sweep the first week they found Guedes DNA in Merediths private and on her purse and his handprint in blood and his shoe prints by Meredith. Zero Amanda and zero Raffaelle. The prosecutor realized after the negative match with the bathroom print that they had zero evidence on Raffaelle. He ordered them to get some over a month later.
They did.
The scenario of Amanda standing outside the room and cheering on guede and never turning on him after 4 years in prison is more ridiculous than his story of him sitting on the toilet with two people coming in and doing the murder.
Now that i answered your questions would you like to try mine?
Actually, the error about the cell phone tower originated during the Massei trial. Nencini was merely reinstating it, under orders from the Italian Supreme Court Justice that had requested the retrial. He reinstated quite alot of Massei’s misinformation.
The statement that they did not commit the act is misleading because they were found not guilty by insufficient proof. The judge could have affirmed the stronger status, whose phrasing I forget. So I read this his statement as “there is insufficient proof they committed the act.” Whatever the police may have done and whatever the forensic uncertainties, there is no such thing as half of a bloody footprint. There was a clean-up, despite the fact that a successful selective cleanup of DNA traces is not possible. Guede had no motive to clean up and didn’t even flush the toilet. That taken together with various statements made by A and R at the trial and in their books suggests to me they probably did commit the act, but I accept the verdict as consistent with the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Insufficient proof is innocence and the constant assertion of otherwise is more subterfuge. In Italy the courts determine if the proof has been wholly refuted or if it is not enough to determine guilt.
If a murder happened and a witness places you in the general area at the time of the crime, that is evidence. But not sufficient evidence. The evidence may be totally valid, you may have been in the area. Its not “sufficient” to convict for murder.
The court doesn’t find you “partially guilty”. Either you are guilty or not guilty.
As for “no such thing as half of footprint”, uh yes, there are partial footprints, handprints, and fingerprints, taken all the time by police. That assertion is false.
Go argue with Mikey who admits the distinction is real. If insufficient proof is innocence then your further explanation is pointless. You include it because you realize that the Italian system does indeed distinguish between two ways of being found not guilty. Your explanation of the distinction between the two is vague and not very plausible. You seem to be saying that in order to receive the stronger version of innocence there can’t be any evidence against you. But if there were no evidence there wouldn’t be a trial in the first place, so nobody would receive the stronger version. I wonder what is the percentage of not-guilty verdicts versus non-guilty by insufficient proof verdicts? Now where you really shoot yourself in the foot – no pun intended – is when you say that there is such a thing as “half a footprint.” There could be half a footprint if I take a step and my foot lands half on the balcony and half in thin air, but in this case where someone steps onto a towel and leaves half a footprint on the towel, the other half of their foot would have landed on the floor and if the pattern indicates that the part that landed on the floor was bloody then there should be an additional bloody footprint on the floor. There isn’t because A and R cleaned it. Rudy would have no motive to clean it since he didn’t bother to flush the toilet and evidently made a hasty escape. Also, how did the towels get bloody? Did Rudy tried to save Meredith by toweling up her blood? Don’t be silly. It was a first attempt at a cleanup that was abandoned in favor of cleaning the hall and locking the door.
530 , 1 means all evidence against you was refuted. 530, 2 means the evidence was insufficient. In my example for 530,1 the witness was discredited when stating your were in the area (like curatolo who admitted that it was Halloween when he sighted the two and was high on heroin.). For 530,2 the witness was not discredited but it’s not enough to show guilt.
Both are “innocent “.
In the bedroom study the handprints and shoe prints. They are “partial “. No elaborate explanation is needed as with the footprint.
No! The difference is a holdover from the time when the presumption of guilt was an Italian standard as opposed to the presumption of innocence, when a conviction could be upheld even in the face of reasonable doubt. But Italy now operates the BARD standard. Both verdicts carry equal weight in that there is no sense in which one is adjudged to be less innocent than innocent but still acquitted. It is no “Scottish verdict”. There are calls for the abolition of 530:1 because it is no longer necessary to prove innocence in Italy. It’s archaic. As you point out, “if there were no evidence there wouldn’t be a trial in the first place”. This does not speak to the quality of the evidence however. The 530:2 acquittal is the equivalent of common law acquittals – a shifting of the civil code towards an adversarial model. The presumption of innocence means exactly that – until or unless a defendant is proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So, when you are aquitted, you remain (not become) innocent. It’s a constitutional right.
As an example of this holdover distinction using the different sections of the act, consider the staging allegation. Hellmann ruled that the act did not occur. So, Knox and Sollecito were aquitted by him on that basis. Bruno/Marasca on the other hand acquitted on that charge because K and S did not commit the act. Yet from both verdicts, they remain equally innocent of the offence they were charged with. In common law jurisdictions, the question as to whether or not there was a staging would have been settled at the investigation stage. In Italy, you can still ask a court to decide. That’s one of the reasons why Italian justice is problematic. One might still wish to argue philosophically that if a criminal act did not occur, there can be no doubt as to a defendant’s innocence, whereas if the act did occur, it is possible for there to be some but not any reasonable doubt to convict. But it has no legal or moral validity. Philosophically, I agree that there is a distinction between no doubt and no reasonable doubt. But it is of no practical benefit. I reasonably doubt that fairies live in my garden. But I don’t know if it’s certainly true. Understand?
That you dont even know Guede ADMITTED to using towels in the murder room is very very telling. Comedic actually!
The difference between a 530:1 and 530:2 acquittal is a philosophical one. But it is no less an acquittal. Furthermore Marasca/Bruno needed to be mindful of the conclusions reached (all be it erroneous) in Guede’s trial and signed off at the same level as their court – yet more evidence of the need for reform of Italian legal procedure. So, they were unable to state that the break in was not staged, merely that Knox and Sollecito did not do it, just as with the murder itself. Their court was bound by a previous ruling. And that is nothing less than a scandal.
In order to be convinced that Knox and Sollecito “probably did commit the act”, you would need to respond convincingly to jack’s point with regard to the existence of a “direct comparison” in order to support your hypothesis. If Knox and Sollecito participated in the murder, let alone one of them actually wielding the knife, why do we not see a roughly equivalent amount of evidence against them next to the body as there is for Guede? Why do we see nothing? How is it possible for them to be active participants in a close quarters sexual assault and knife murder with prolific exsanguination and to leave no evidence in blood of their presence in the room where the murder took place and where there is no evidence of cleaning? Moreover, how did the glass shard get from Romanelli’s room into Kercher’s room, given the claim of a post murder staged burglary, (which required an exit of and re-entry to Kercher’s room), without the leaving of a double trail of bloody shoeprints belonging to Knox or Sollecito, at least minimally detectable by luminol?
The report clearly states there is NO evidence of them being involved. A definitive statement of innocence can only be made when indisputable evidence exists that proves you couldn’t have committed the crime – i.e., an iron clad alibi. Not having one is irrelevant as most of us who spend a quiet evening home alone or with our spouse likely can’t prove it any more than Amanda and Raffaele could.
There was a clean-up? Really? Based on what evidence do you make that claim? I tip for you here… there is NO evidence of a clean-up. But I suppose in the absence of any physical evidence of them being there combined with an emotional need to still claim they are guilty one has to come up with an explanation and a clean-up is as good as any.
Evidence of a clean-up. 1) Bloody towels found in bedroom. 2) Amanda’s lamp found on the floor. 3) luminol revealed footprints that had been cleaned. 4) Amanda’s fingerprints nowhere in apartment except one spot in Filomena’s room. 5) Amanda makes up ridiculous story about sliding back to her bedroom on the bloody bathmat to avoid spilling water drops in the hallway LOL. That really sounds like Amanda. She only came up with that story when they started to test the hallway for footprints. Obviously she was trying to explain how they got smeared into invisibility. 6) Amanda seen in early morning going to cleaning supplies section of nearby store. 7) Amanda transports mop day after. Makes up story about water spill at Raffaele’s which would have dried up by morning obviating need for mop. 8) Newly purchased bleach found at Raffaele’s though maid retracts claim after talking to R’s lawyer. 9) half of a bloody footprint found in bathroom. Where’s the other half nd where are the other footprints of the person who left the bloody footprint on the bathmat? Did he fly from one spot to another? 10) bloody footprint on bathmat was diluted with water as if someone had tried to rinse it out. … This is just from memory, I’m sure there is more. You are probably one of Amanda’s paid emissaries.
1. Guede took credit for those.
2. How is this evidence of a clean-up?
3. Luminol revealed prints made from something other than blood, and since the prints still remained in the shape of a foot proves it wasn’t cleaned as it would otherwise be distorted swirl marks
4. List where prints were dusted for. Explain how prints of hers and others were not found when we KNOW they were in the cottage on the day Meredith was discovered. Finding few usable prints is normal. Why were no prints found on the lamp?
5. You’re opinion, which is clearly biased. Obviously, if she cleaned up then there would have been no reason to make up a story. Who drops water if they have a towel available. Conversely, the towel wasn’t available because Guede had grabbed them the evening before after killing Meredith.
6. Only true if you believe Quintavalle’s “revised” story, not his original one. And odd that she would arrive there, going to the cleaning dept and then suddenly decide to buy nothing. And why didn’t anyone else, including CCTV cameras, see her.
7. Raffaele told his father about the spilled water the night before and there was a leaking pipe under the sink. There is no evidence the use of the mop was made up nor was there any trace of blood found on the mop or the bucket. A dirty floor that has had water spilled on it tends to be dirty and sticky, requiring a cleaning. A mop wouldn’t be needed only to “dry” the area.
8. The bleach under the sink had a very old label on it meaning it had been purchased long ago. The cleaning lady (not a maid) didn’t retract anything.
9. The other half was standing on the bathmat. Guede took his shoe and sock off, rinsed off his bloody pants leg. He put his foot down prior to replacing his sock and shoe, thus that was the only print he left.
10. Again, the print was made as a result of having rinsed blood off his pants leg. It was always diluted blood. There was no indication the bathmat was at any time cleaned.
It’s interesting to read the reasoning of someone who is blinded by confirmation bias. If you’ve followed the case you would know Guede claimed to have used the towels to try to stem the bleeding. Not that I believe that was his motive, but for you to reason that bloody towels in the bedroom are signs of a clean-up when everyone else knows Guede put them there really proves your inability to rationally think through your argument.
But hey, thanks for the response. It’s nice to get a response back from time to time and if truth be told, arguments such as the one you just made really help those new to the case in understanding just how silly the case against Amanda was.
Why would anyone take Guede’s word for anything whatsoever? Also, the question is whether there was a cleanup not who did it. Though it would make no sense for Guede to attempt a cleanup since he didn’t even bother to flush the toilet. It WOULD make sense for A and R to attempt a clean-up and then give up on it as hopeless. Nencini’s astute suggestion is that they decided to buy time by locking M’s door and cleaning the hallway area well enough that there would be no obvious signs of a murder. They were probably taking a break when the postal police arrived having been up most of the night. Amanda told Hayward that she had NOT taken a shower. Your theory that there was only one bloody footprint is extremely far-fetched. The police remarked on how odd it was that Amanda’s fingerprints were missing almost everywhere in her own house. Do you believe the towel-surfing story? If so you have at least as feeble a grip on reality as Mignini is alleged to. I suspect that time is not on Amanda’s side, though I do think she has a decent case that her rights were violated by the court in that they should have thrown out her morning note on the grounds that the earlier confession, which was correctly thrown out, prejudiced her in favor of writing the later one.
But isn’t that the point. You wish to claim towels in the room are an indication of a clean-up. This is in direct contradiction to Guede’s own claims of grabbing the towels in an effort to stem the bleeding. In effect, what you are doing is deciding there was a clean up and then applying the necessary spin to things to support that conclusion, even when it contradicts with testimony. If Guede left the cottage without touching the towels then how would he know the towels were in the room and why would he add it to his story?
The same applies to virtually everything you cited as evidence of a clean-up. The evidence didn’t point to a clean-up, you decided that’s what took place and then applied “clean-up glasses” to everything you could.
Nencini was an idiot. There was a print revealed by Luminol just outside Meredith’s room. The print was a clearly defined foot. If this was a print made by Amanda in Meredith’s blood, it runs into two insurmountable contradictions;
1. If a print is cleaned up with a mop or towel it will no longer resemble a clearly defined foot print but an indistinguishable mess of swirl marks.
2. The print tested negative for blood using TMB and it tested negative for DNA. PLEASE do not parrot the “but Luminol is far more sensitive than TMB” claim. It is, but TMB is extremely sensitive in it’s own right – so much so that even Stefanoni testified a negative TMB result is definitive proof of no blood. And it’s also a known fact that a positive Luminol result only indicates a possible trace of blood. It is still necessary to confirm it’s blood, it’s human blood and who’s blood it is. The tests proved it was a false positive.
Amanda and Raffaele would have had no reason to lock the door as they knew Laura and Filomena were out of town for the weekend. Only Guede wouldn’t have known that and might have decided to lock the door to delay discovery.
Hayward testified Amanda told her she took a shower. I suggest you go back and re-read (read) her testimony.
I assume you mean my theory for how the print got on the bathmat is, in your opinion, far-fetched. I’d be interested in hearing how so. Guede himself said he went into the bathroom to wash blood off his pants leg. It’s not at all unreasonable to assume he removed his shoe and sock before rinsing it. So where does it become far-fetched? You know, that’s the thing about the pro-guilt… you have no problem believing the most outrageous things – such as a knife with a blade to big to have caused the wounds, which had no blood, no human biological material and no DNA (“too low” twice on the Q.F.) was somehow nonetheless the murder weapon – but someone taking off their shoe and sock to rinse their pant leg and then stepping on the bathmat before putting their sock and shoe back on is far-fetched.
Speaking of far fetched… so this clean-up also included wiping down the entire cottage to eliminate her prints even though she lived there? Do you have ANY idea how difficult it would be to do such a thing? Do you have any idea in how many places they dusted for prints?
Since I have used a bathmat to make it across my bathroom on several occasions (my floor is incredibly slippery when my feet are wet) I have no reason not to believe it. But in reality, what you’re really doing is conjuring up a steady stream of unsupported dots that don’t connect up to anything. In what way would making up a story about using the bathmat to go to her room help her?
As for the ECHR case, I would be shocked if she doesn’t win that as well. There is no doubt Amanda and Raffaele were suspects long before the interrogation. As such, failure to supply a lawyer, an unbiased interpreter and recording the session are all violations.
BTW, you didn’t answer my question – why were there no prints found on the lamp?
Burglars dont flush toilets when a resident of home being burgled turns up! In fact, burglars dont usually flush toilets at all for fear of someone hearing it whether or not resident is nearby. Go do some homework. Much to be read on the subject. I promise. 😉
Let’s not forget that none of the knives seized from Sollecito as “evidence” match any of the wounds described in Meredith’s autopsy report. The only thing I can conclude from that is that they weren’t used in the murder.
As for the interrogations of November 5 and 6, I don’t believe for a minute that the police “lost the tapes”, “forgot” to hit the Record button or “ran out of money”, or whatever excuse they try to concoct. They had more than enough money to record private conversations, and didn’t lose any of those tapes, but why the interrogations? Because they (the police) don’t want anyone to know what actually happened in there.
I know this is an old post, but I’ve been looking for the references for Mignini’s various evasions regarding the recording and ended up here. Can you reply to this with any links you know for the “lost,” “forgot,” and “budget problems” quotes from Mignini.
Thanks.
His evasions of course don’t really need to be documented as the simple fact that the recordings were not part of the evidentiary record together with the fact that the only thing the Perugia cops do well is record conversations (and they do this VERY well) is sufficient to conclude that the recordings were either destroyed or purposely not made. However, exact quotes are still useful documentation.
Read the Italian motivation report of the recent trial where Amanda was acquitted of slandering the police. You might believe that the police “always lie” at least the ones in Perugia.
I hardly see the bra clasp as damning evidence. Collected 46 days after the murder by goons wearing dirty gloves in circumstances where the lab technician who conducted the analysis failed to report the profiles of at least 2 other males, this item represents the only forensic evidence in MS Kercher’s room against Sollecito. Yet nobody on the prosecution side could explain the absence of his shoe prints in blood, his DNA on the rest of the bra or anywhere else in the room. Furthermore, in the absence of proper disclosure of lab records, there is no satisfactory assurance that the testing machinery was contamination free nor was it disclosed that Sollecito’s declared profile was the result of a repeated test. The first one was kept hidden.
If anyone deserves compensation it’s Amanda and Raffaele. They deserve nothing but the best and to finally see this miscarriage of justice turned around and to see Italy held accountable for their actions.
I stumbled onto this. It rekindled all the outrage I have felt during the last decade. It’s painful to think about what Amanda and Raffaele had to go through, not knowing whether they’ll ever experience justice. Their parents, relatives, and friends must have shared in the agony caused by a corrupt justice system. How many more innocents have been, will be, and are victimized by Italian justice?