Posts Tagged ‘rudy guede’

“Rudy Guede is the Forgotten Killer” – Knox’ secret message to Rudy Guede

December 12, 2020

“Rudy Guede is the Forgotten Killer”

So claims Amanda Knox on her Labyrinth podcast and her written press release (which she also reads out). 

RUDY IS OUT OF JAIL

This was a response 10 Dec 2020 to the news report 4 Dec 2020 of Rudy Guede being relased on ‘community service’ for the rest of his sentence, having served twelve years.  He was sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment in 2008, which means his sentence does not finish until 2024.  Thus, being on some kind of probation or parole seems to suggest Knox and Sollecito are safe from his publishing a tell-all book just yet, as one of the conditions of early release is ‘playing the game’  and tacitly acknowledging guilt for the crime you served time for.  This is one reason we have not heard anything from Guede, apart from – unusually – the RAI3 – Italian state  TV channel with Franca Leosini in which he pointed the finger at Knox as being present at the crime scene, and kept up the alibi he had already given in court.

RAPID RESPONSE FROM KNOX

So why would Knox respond so rapidly and heartily to Guede’s release on community service, within days?  The speed by which she put out a response suggests she was greatly excited by this news.  Firstly, 4 Dec 2020 coincides with when she and Sollecito were first found guilty after a long merits trial. The professionalism of the podcast indicates a touch of a smooth marketing attempt, with the audio having an opening and closing clip of her mother, Ebba Mellas, ringing her up ‘about the news’ and expressing concern.  Then we have Knox vehemently expressing her anger that ‘Guede has never taken responsibility for the rape and murder of Meredith Kercher’.

“RUDY IS A BURGLAR“

In her written press release, she claims Guede was on a burglary spree, culminating at a nursery in Milan ‘where he was found with a knife’.  She omits to mention he was cleared of burglary, the knife he had in his backpack came from the nursery drawer so he didn’t have it when he arrived.  He was still there in the morning, so his claim he went there to spend the night after a party rings true.  He didn’t need to beak in as an acquaintance gave him access, as confirmed by the nursery owner in court at the trial.  So an arrogant open lie by Knox right there.  Guede had no criminal record as of the point of Kercher’s murder.  Arrogant, because she presumes the reader knows nothing about the case.  She feels confident about lying and thus providing Guede with a motive in the minds of her readers.

HUSBAND AND WIFE CHAT SESSION

Knox and Chris Robinson, her husband, then have a ‘chat session’ in which Robinson puts forward the theory that murders are mostly committed by young men of Guede’s age group.  Guede was twenty years old at the time.  Another, ‘Therefore, of course he must have done it!’ – moment, ignoring that Knox herself was also twenty and Sollecito twenty-three.  Knox claims that Guede not taking sole responsibility for the crime meant many people suffered as a result.  However, the courts found overwhelming evidence of multiple attackers.  Knox and Sollecito themselves brought out as their key witnesses, Luca Aviello, a mafia gangster, and Mario Alessi, a child kidnapper and killer, as providing alternative suggestions as to who the ‘other attackers’ might be, if not themselves.  The prosecution, the defence, the pathologist,  and the judges all agree there were multiple attackers, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Given it is for the police and prosecutors to bring the correct charges and the courts to find the correct verdict and supply the prescribed sentencing, it is hardly the onus of Guede to offer exoneration to Knox and Sollecito, as courts rarely believe anything a prime suspect says anyway on the assumption, ‘They would lie about their own involvement, wouldn’t they?’. 

WHY IS KNOX EXCITED BY GUEDE’S RELEASE?

So what is the reason behind Knox’ excitement about Guede’s release into the community?

There are a mixture of possible reasons for her public address, other than the obvious one of wanting to remain in the news as a person of interest herself.

  1.  Not having been able to communicate openly with Guede before, now she can address him directly.  She taunts him as ‘being a coward’.  Clearly she is angling for a response or reaction from him.  Her rationale to the public she avers to be addressing is that she is ‘upset’.  But why would she be?  She had her own sentence annulled.  He is in Italy on probation, she is in the USA.  They will not be meeting in the street any time soon.  She was not the victim of the crime.  If the courts ‘got it wrong’ as she claims, for she berates them for ‘giving Guede a lesser sentence’: conspiracy to murder instead of murder – then that is down to the courts.  She aggressively asserts Guede alone was responsible for the ‘rape and murder of Meredith’ and ‘there were no other suspects’.  Unless she is a detective, how would she know this?  The final Supreme Court who annulled Knox’ and Sollecito’s sentence states clearly in its written reasons that there were multiple attackers and it was indisputable that Knox was present when Kercher was murdered.  It also clearly states that Knox named Diya Lumumba as the rapist and killer of Kercher ‘to cover up for Rudy Guede’.  Knox never mentions that she still has a conviction for her false accusation of a Black man she knew was innocent, nor that her four years in jail were not ‘wrongful imprisonment’ but the correct sentence for Calunnia, of three years (which roughly corresponds with the US ‘Obstruction of Justice’  – five years maximum imprisonment in most states – or perverting the course of justice in the UK which has a similar sentence to Italy’s).  There was also one year on remand, for which she has not claimed compensation.  Sollecito tried to but had his case thrown out because the pair were proven by the courts to have lied, lied and lied again about their movements and whereabouts as of the time of the crime.  So now she is challenging Guede to ‘admit you were the sole perpetrator’.
  2. Perhaps she is desperately worried about what Guede might say, now that he cannot be prosecuted for the same crime and having served almost all of his sentence.  Now he is out and about living like a normal person.  So, her broadcast and press release is a pre-emptive strike.  Attack being the best form of defence.  Get the public on your side.  Arise sympathy in the reader/listener about all the ‘pain’ Guede made everybody suffer, especially in respect to yourself.  Warning: this man is a coward!  Do not believe him!
  3. But what if it is something else?  A coded message to Guede, as one co-crime partner to another?  Think of how when you meet an old friend and you reminisce together.  Perhaps it is an old boyfriend and you would rather your current one did not know.  So, instead of openly talking about the time you went to the cinema together, you might allude to it instead.  You might say remember that time ‘Oceans Seven’ was showing but I couldn’t go because I was washing my hair and hint, ‘I know secrets about you’ so if you agree not to tell on me, I can reward you in some way.  Read the following extract and substitute ‘I’ for ‘he’ and ‘I’ for ‘he’:

I’m [he’s] upset that he’s [I’ve] never acknowledged his [my] crimes, that he’s [I’ve] never been held fully accountable, and that I [he] continue [s] to bear the burden of his [my] infamy.

PAIN

  • Knox talks about Guede inflicting ‘pain‘, which is what a sadist does, but perhaps it takes one to know one? 
  • Knox plays ‘the race card’ by bringing in her friends ‘who are men of color just like Guede’ but they really were innocent but had to wait much longer than twelve years for their exoneration.  Here the logic becomes illogical.  This is because the point being made is not the sentencing or their presumed innocence or guilt but ‘I have friends who are persons of color’.  It is an “I am not a racist,” declaration, even though Knox did falsely accuse a ‘man of color’ as the perpetrator of Meredith Kercher’s death, yet Knox never, EVER, mentions that crime she did indeed commit and remains convicted.
  • Knox complains that the press are ‘humanizing’ Guede whilst vilifying herself.  She claims she ‘bears the burden of his infamy’.  However, Guede has no control over the press, so why blame him for one’s own press coverage?  Knox is banking on most readers of her quasi-anguished plea of not knowing any of the facts of the case.  Knox and Sollecito were charged and convicted of Aggravated (first degree) Murder because of the overwhelming evidence against them.  The sentence of 26 years for Knox was annulled after intervention from the same very sympathetic US press and PR agencies Knox now claims are her tormentors.  She was given her own column in the West Seattle Herald newspaper owned by her husband’s grandfather and edited by his Uncle Ken Robinson, wherein she was free to promote her own agenda of having being victimised by Italian police and Italian justice, which she repeated with the Netflix film.  The truth is, Guede has never been humanised.  He is always portrayed as the African drifter and prolific burglar and drug dealer.  The Black guy.
  • The issue of who let Guede into the cottage in the first place is one she prefers to ignore; hers and Sollecito’s trumped-up story of a burglary-gone-wrong was firmly disproved by solid forensic evidence that ‘the burglary’ scene was half-heartedly done and was effected after the murder, to put investigators off the scent.  It is not possible for Guede to confirm he came in through the window because it is proven not to have happened.  The window was proven to have been smashed from the inside.  Guede came in through the front door.
  • I believe her excited press release contains a coded message to Guede.  First, she is inviting him to respond to her.  Secondly, she sees him as a threat so is manipulating him.  This is apparent from the following:

I don’t need to know his reasons, what was going through his mind that night. But I would like to know if he cares now. If he cares about what he did to Meredith, what he did to me.

Translated:  ‘I don’t need to know your reasons, what was going through your mind that night [of the murder].  But I would like to know if you [still] care [about me] now.  If you care what [you made me do] to Meredith, what you did to me [by causing me to be upset that evening].  Contact me and let me know if you [still] care about me.  And maybe we can come to some arrangement. [Thanks for covering up for me so far.]’  …

’You could end all that [my appearance of guilt] in a second.’

So, when she proclaims Guede as ‘the forgotten killer’ she implicitly acknowledges there are other killers: the known killers.  However, they are not taking any responsibility.  And they need never need to if you, Guede, could contact me and we’ll talk about this.

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AMANDA KNOX – DOES SHE SUFFER FROM FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME?

May 1, 2020

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Knox claimed at her trial she suffered from false memory

AMANDA KNOX – DOES SHE SUFFER FROM FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME?

In her testimony at the trial for the Aggravated Murder of Meredith Kercher, co-defendant Amanda Knox claimed her initial accusations and confession to being at the crime scene were based on faulty memory due to coercion by the police.  For example:

AK:

According to me, it depends on the situation. I can only talk about my own experience, which was, that I had to, forced myself — because they told me that I had to remember something else — to recall something else, so I forced myself so hard, that I was trying to imagine the reality that I had apparently forgotten, and I got confused as to whether the things I had imagined were really memories or just imagination. Because they were fragmentary. They were just images of things I had seen in my life, for example Piazza Grimana, that I saw every day, Patrick, whom I saw almost every day. These things, which were fragmented, I didn’t know if they belonged to that evening, to that sequence of events, or that line of reasoning. I didn’t know, and not knowing what was reality and what was my imagination, this was the state of confusion.

She had made a voluntary statement a few days after the murder claiming she had been present at the murder and had witnessed from another room Meredith’s harrowing screams and hearing thud.  DNA, blood, luminol and subsequent circumstantial evidence after the murder of 2 Nov 2007 meant Knox was charged, together with Sollecito a few months later in the following year.

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Knox’ signed statement

Knox gave several reasons for having claimed to have been present at the murder and for naming Patrick Lumumba, whom she knew to be innocent and was subsequently convicted for criminal calunnia and served three years for it.  She has never paid Lumumba the damages she was ordered to pay by the court for his wrongful incarceration as a result of her criminally malicious claim

One reason was that the police had coerced her by slapping the back of her head, interrogated her ‘for 53 hours’ – a claim she maintains today, even though police records show she was only at the police station of her own free decision for a couple of hours before she made the startling claim, totally unexpected by the police, who correctly immediately terminated the witness interview.

In her testimony she claimed further, she had experienced a ‘flashback’:

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Prosecutor G Mignini cross-examining Knox on her claim she had a false memory

Another reason was that the police had told her Sollecito had withdrawn his alibi for her – which he had and has never reinstated it – and that she was threatened with thirty years in jail.

The third reason, which she uses as a PR meme in her various tours of Innocence Project events is that she suffered from ‘false memory’ syndrome and even teamed up with psychologist Saul Kassin, whose pet subject this is.

An early open advocate of Knox, Nina Burleigh rushed out a book to present Knox’ side of the story.  It was Burleigh who introduced the theme of Rudy Guede as ‘a drifter’ and claims he was aged ‘twenty-seven’, when in fact he was twenty at the time.   To help Knox with her case Burleigh introduces the idea – which Knox latches onto – of False Memory syndrome, caused by being under duress.

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Saul Kassin

In The Fatal Gift of Beauty by Nina Burleigh p 234  Burleigh cites Saul Kassin as a proponent of false confession.  She draws attention to the case of Barry Laughman, 24, who in 1990 was ‘falsely convicted’ of the murder and rape of 85-year old Edna Laughman in 1987.

laughman newsclip crop

Laughman was legally categorised as a ‘moron’ and when told his fingerprints had been found at the scene, he confessed and it wasn’t until later that his blood sample DNA was ‘excluded’ by a left-over sample years later.

laughman's fingerprint

At the time of his interview Laughman was not told that all the police had at the time was a whorl fingerprint and was led to believe they had his prints.  35% of the population has whorl prints.

There had been three finger marks on Miss Laughman’s arm and Laughman was seen to have had an injured pinky finger, leading police to note that he was only able to grasp with three fingers.

This syndrome, Burleigh implies, is also why Knox ‘falsely confessed’, because the police (a) used the same Reid technique as had been used against Laughman way back in DNA prehistory in 1988, when matching blood type analysis was the norm rather than DNA testing and (b) because Italian police applied a good cop/bad cop method of interrogation, called the Reid Technique  Thing is, at that stage, Knox was not a suspect and the police were still at an early investigation level.  Knox had attended the Questura of her own accord to keep Sollecito company, who had been called in.

‘On September 8, 1987, Troopers Holtz and Blevins requested that Plaintiff and his father return for more questioning. When Plaintiff and his father arrived, Trooper Holtz took Plaintiff into an interview room alone. At the time of this second questioning, Plaintiff was twenty-four years old with an IQ of 69-71, which was lower than 97.5 % of the population. He was classified as “a moron” under then existing mental health classifications.

Under current mental health classifications, Plaintiff would be considered mildly retarded.

After approximately an hour of interrogation, Troopers Holtz and Blevins claim Plaintiff confessed to the rape and murder. Although Trooper Holtz had a tape recorder, Plaintiff’s confession was not recorded. Rather, Trooper Holtz is heard reading the confession statement to Plaintiff and asking whether it is correct. Plaintiff’s voice is only heard on the tape saying “yes.” https://casetext.com/case/laughman-v-commonwealth

So, is Burleigh claiming Knox, too, like Laughman, is technically a ‘moron’ – the offivial legalese of the day – and easily manipulated into essentially lying?  She states in her book, ‘After sixteen years in prison DNA evidence finally proved Laughman innocent, and he was set free’.

laughman newsclip

Newspaper report of the day

On June 20, 2003, the motion was granted and the DNA evidence was ordered to be tested and compared to samples taken from Plaintiff. In a report dated November 5, 2003, the DNA analyst concluded that, “Barry Laughman is excluded as a source of the DNA obtained from this sample.” [ibid]

Can Burleigh reasonably claim this is an equivalent case to that of Knox or Sollecito?  The reason for its inclusion in her book and her self-professed advocacy of Knox, it seems, is to underline Saul Kassin’s theories about why someone would confess to something so incriminating as being present at a heinous crime scene.  So here we have the launch of one of Knox’ key PR memes:  she only named Patrick Lumumba and described being present herself whilst Patrick raped and murdered her room-mate…because of (1) false memory and (2) the Italian ‘good cop’ in the form of Anna Donnino making sympathetic noises about how trauma after an accident can affect your memory.

Barry Laughman’s case, whom Burleigh cites as an example of false memory

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Barry Laughman

When Barry Laughman was a small boy, he injured his pinky finger. At the time, it didn’t seem like a life-threatening injury. But it would eventually turn out to be very serious indeed.

In 1987, when Laughman was 24, a female neighbor was found murdered. The police quickly zeroed in on Laughman after noticing that he couldn’t bend his little finger. The victim had been found with three small bruises on her arm, as though someone had gripped her with only three fingers. This seemed to match Laughman’s damaged pinky.

Laughman had an IQ of 70 and was mentally the equivalent of a 10-year-old child. He eventually agreed to confess after police trooper John Holtz told him that a fingerprint found at the crime scene had a whorl pattern, as did Laughman’s fingers. Holtz wasn’t lying, but he neglected to tell Laughman that whorl fingerprints are extremely common, found in 25–35 percent of the population. In reality, Laughman’s specific fingerprints were not found at the scene.

Armed with his confession, the prosecution secured Laughman’s conviction. A short time later, DNA testing became standard practice and defense attorney Mark Beauchat mailed key evidence samples to anthropologist Mark Stoneking for testing. According to Beauchat, Stoneking called him to say that he couldn’t perform a conclusive test and then never returned the evidence. According to Stoneking, he was never able to carry out a test, because Beauchat only sent the evidence from the crime scene and ignored his request for a sample of Laughman’s DNA to compare it to.

Communication apparently broke down between Stoneking and Beauchat after this, with Beauchat believing that the evidence had been lost or destroyed, when Stoneking had actually taken it to Germany with him. It only resurfaced in 2003, when investigative reporter Pete Shellem tracked Stoneking down. (In his defense, Stoneking told Shellem that he “had no idea what the case was about.”) DNA testing quickly cleared Laughman, albeit almost a decade after it should have.

https://listverse.com/2016/04/10/10-convicted-murderers-who-confessed-but-didnt-do-it/

PCR/DQ Alpha DNA testing was done in 1993 by Cellmark Diagnostics. It tested the vaginal swabs collected from the victim, but the results were inconclusive.

Kassin, in the course of his studies as a psychology student, became interested in the works of Stanley Milgram, famous for his experiments which showed that people will often just ‘obey authority’ (Milgram’s own interest aroused by the phenomenon of German Third Reich prison camp guards obeying orders to perpetrate acts of extreme crimes against humanity).  Kassin’s interest moved to criminal psychology and he was intrigued to find out why some people confess to shocking crimes they did not commit, as in the early example of Marty Tankleff:

tankleff

Marty Tankleff

 In one of the most striking examples, Marty Tankleff, a Long Island teenager, came to breakfast one morning in 1988 to find his parents stabbed on the kitchen floor, his mother dying and his father in a coma. Detectives thought Tankleff was not sufficiently grief-stricken, so he became their prime suspect. After hours of getting nowhere, a detective said he had called Tankleff ‘s father at the hospital and that the injured man said Tankleff had committed the crime. (In truth, his father died without regaining consciousness.) Shocked beyond reason, Tankleff confessed. He spent 19 years in prison before a growing body of evidence set him free.

Exonerated or Vacated?

However, when one investigates further the reasons for the above apparent ‘exonerations’ (Laughman, Tankleff) we find that they are more as a result of ultra-persistent defence advocates, such as those active in US Innocence Projects.  Laughman was cleared because the early blood sample had deteriorated and a defence advocate pursued a scientist who still had a residual sample he took to Germany who, eventually, under pressure from the advocate, in 1993, claimed the DNA ‘excluded’ Laughman.  This is curious wording and tells us little.  Does it mean it is someone else’s DNA or more likely, it failed to identify any DNA or enough DNA loci up to legal standard due to poor quality?  We are not told.   In the case of Tankleff, his case was vacated according to Wikipedia, for reason of:  “The issue in this case is not whether there is evidence, but whether there is sufficient evidence.”  

Is Evidence Insufficient without DNA Proof?

‘Insufficient evidence’ is, of course, the unusual final verdict for Knox and Sollecito, rather than a straight forward not guilty,  when their convictions were annulled, in 2015.  So, who then, did kill Edna Laughman and Marty Tankleff’s parents?  No-one knows, is the answer.   The confessions of the two that they committed the crime at the time, together with a fingerprint in the Laughman case and a blood spot in the Tankleff one counts for nothing.

Of course it is better to see a guilty man go free than an innocent man punished for a crime he did not commit.

Ten Million Dollar Settlement

The area of legal jurisdiction opposed Tankleff’s claim for compensation after being freed, although he won in the end.  Knox and Sollecito have received zero compensation as they were not actually exonerated.

A prosecutor and detective who worked the case plan to argue against the settlement before it’s approved. They believe the jury got it right.

“Tankleff has argued for years that his confession was coerced, but he has never even attempted to explain the incriminating blood proof, which even his lawyers admitted to a federal appeals court ‘was self-evidently damning’ evidence of Tankleff’s guilt,” said Leonard Lato, a former prosecutor represented Suffolk County in Tankleff’s appeal.

 

The Advance of DNA Testing in Criminal Trials

The progress of science cannot be halted and DNA identification has helped courts in that there is a further source of evidence to access.  If there is an error in the collection phase of forensics, as in the Laughman case, when the blood sample taken in 1988 had deteriorated by 1993 and with the advances in DNA testing, no legal standard match could be found come 2003, should this make the entire trial and conviction void, given the other evidence of fingerprint, three-finger bruising, blood spots and explicit confessions?

With every pro comes a con:

  • Does a lack of DNA evidence prove a person is innocent?

  • Should a confession count for nothing in a court of law?

  • If an error is made in forensic testing does that void a trial?

  • Is there any genuine evidence for Saul Kassin’s false memory syndrome?

It would appear to be the case that the public and the press are now demanding definite DNA evidence of guilt rather than the current legal standard of ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ based on all of the evidence in a fair trial.  In other words, is a lack of a strong DNA trail grounds for ‘insufficient evidence’ despite the presence of other evidence, such as a confession, luminol footprints or fingerprints, as in Knox’ case?

Can a detailed confession to a crime be even proven to have been ‘false memory’?

 

 

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Amanda Knox demands $10,000 to talk to law students

January 28, 2018

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Amanda Knox after the dramatic annulment in 2015

Acquitted ex- murder defendant hires herself out for talks

Row over Knox charging to speak to students

A media storm erupted when it transpired that the acquitted murder defendant was paid ‘up to $10,000’ to speak in front of law students at Roanoke College last week

Amanda Knox is reported as having registered as a speaker with an entertainments agency. Her entry shows she expects between US$5,000 – US$10,000 plus expenses for an appearance.

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Kercher Attorney slams the enterprise as ‘inappropriate’

The Meredith Kercher attorney, Fransesco Maresca is quoted deploring her tactlessness towards the victim’s family.

ANSA, the Italian News Agency, reports him as saying:

“I hope I can convey how inappropriate this behavior is and how the family of Meredith Kercher can be adversely affected.“

‘Demonized’

The gist of Knox’ talks are that she is a victim of ‘demonization‘ by the Italian prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini and the press. In particular, Nick Pisa of the DAILY MAIL, has been hammered in the Netflix documentary, ‘Amanda Knox‘, as writing salacious reports during the trial.  The Netflix film was also shown at Roanoke College the day before as the background to her talk, which was on the theme of ‘Truth Matters‘.

Attendees at the event report Knox spoke ’emotionally’.  Her book Waiting to be Heard was also on sale at a discounted price.

Misogyny

Knox maintains she is the victim of misogyny and a belief the aggravated murder was part of some kind of satanist rite by the Roman Catholic prosecutor.  Court records do not support her claim that this was the grounds for her prosecution, although the fact of Halloween – the murder took place 1 Nov 2007, the day after – as was her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito‘s penchant for self-proclaimed satanist Marilyn Manson, his expressed wish on FACEBOOK for ‘extreme experiences‘ and the violent manga material found at his apartment, were observations brought up by Mignini at the initial remand trial before Judge Matteini. Matteini concluded the crime was so serious and the likelihood of Knox absconding to the US was high. Thus she remanded the pair in custody.

Convicted, then unexpectedly freed

After the pair were convicted in 2010, after a trial, the convictions were upheld by the Appeal Court. The case was taken to the Supreme Court, who annulled the conviction in 2015 on the grounds of a ‘flawed investigation‘ and ‘undue press influence‘. The judges, Marasca and Bruno, did however, remark in their written reasons that it was a judicial fact she was certainly present at the cottage during the murder, did wash off Kercher’s blood from her hands and did cover up for Rudy Guede, also convicted.

‘The burglary scene was staged”, the courts ruled

The final Supreme Court ruled that the burglary was staged. In the Netflix film, Knox claims, ‘Guede was the local burglar and he burgled my house.’

The pair were freed for the legal reason of ‘Not Guilty due to insufficient evidence‘. The words, ‘innocent‘ and ‘exonerated‘ do not appear anywhere in the judgment. In addition, the conviction for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba of the assault and murder was upheld, for which Knox served three years, in addition to one year in remand.

Raffaele Sollecito bid for compensation rejected

Knox’ co-defendant Sollecito failed in his attempt to win €500,000 in compensation last year, as it was deemed he lied time and again to the police, thus excluding himself from any because of misconduct during the investigation.

‘I was wrongfully imprisoned for four years’ Knox tells audiences

In her latest move, Knox is touring America demanding up to $10,000 per event claiming she has been declared innocent and exonerated. She tells audiences that she was ‘wrongfully imprisoned‘ for four years. However, that conviction, for Calunnia (=US equivalent Obstruction of Justice) against Patrick Lumumba has never been overturned, and remains on her record.

Amanda Knox has an application to the European Court of Human Rights outstanding, since 2013, claiming a breach of Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Article 3 (torture).

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TEN FACTS the makers of the Netflix film ‘AMANDA KNOX’ don’t want you to know!

January 1, 2017
 rodandbriRod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, Directors of ‘Amanda Knox’ netflix film

What they do not tell you in the ‘documentary’ film

Ten damning facts, which give an insight into why Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were originally properly convicted.  They were then acquitted because of ‘other’ extraneous factors.  The fact that the filmakers, Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, conceal the facts found at trial, indicates an elaborate attempt to fool the viewing public.

The pair had ample opportunity to research the original court documents – of which the key ones are translated – so one can surmise the aim was not objectivity.  However, they fail to declare their vested interest, as long-time avid pro-Knox/Sollecito supporters.

 

For those without access to youtube flashplayer, here’s a plain version:

 

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Content by KrissyG1

Credits:

http://www.themurderofmeredithkercher.com

http://truejustice.org

Basic ’10 facts’ template design: Countess Castiglione @parislover
Music:
Danse Macabre by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Meredith Kercher

December 28, 2016

RIP You’ll Never Walk Alone

 

A touching poem from her sister, Stephanie reminds us of how precious she was and how she touches us still.

 

This video was uploaded by me last year, after a disappointing year for justice, with the alleged perpetrators of her untimely death being controversially acquitted in March 2015, by the Italian Supreme Court in the Fifth Chambers.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa3

28 Dec 1985 – 1 Nov 2007

Today, on what would have been her 31st birthday, we still keep hope in our hearts for justice.

 

Walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.

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RUDY GUEDE : FACTS AND FICTION

December 19, 2016

THE REAL LEGAL POSITION

What is the legal situation of Rudy Guede, as set out by the courts?

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Rudy Guede appearing on RAI3 Italian tv January 2016 with Franca Leosini

Rudy Guede’s appeal against his conviction continues

UPDATE: 19 Feb 2017 Rudy Guede’s legal team has now lodged an appeal with the Italian Supreme Court, in Rome, against the decision of the Florence Appeal Court to reject his application for a review of his conviction.  In the original appeal, ‘contradictions between verdicts’ was cited, referring to the Marasca-Bruno Supreme Court acquitting Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, but yet stating there were ‘multiple attackers’ at the murder scene.

It could even be that because of the written reasons by Florence in rejecting Raffaele Sollecito’s compensation claim, there are further legal grounds for a review.  The Sollecito Florence Appeal seems to challenge Sollecito being acquitted, as it lists at least five misdemeanours which are the grounds of refusing compensation under Art 314, which allows prisoners wrongly held in custody to apply for an award, but bars those deemed to have contributed to their incarceration.

Rudy Guede is also due out on leave again, this time in Perugia, it is reported.

Rudy Hermann Guede is back in Perugia. It ‘happened last December when, taking advantage of one of the special permits of which have benefited in recent months, was a guest of his elementary school teacher who has never ceased to take care of him. In addition, according to the findings, the boy, the only definitively convicted for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, will return for another term in Perugia shortly.

The appeal to the Supreme Court Meanwhile, his lawyers Thomas Pietrocarlo and Monica Grossi, after the Court of Appeal of Florence had branded as inadmissible their request filed for a new trial, filed a petition in the Supreme Court. The Supreme court judges may then cancel with the order issued from Florence, or confirm it, putting an end for ever in the judicial history of Rudy Guede who has always said he is innocent.

http://tuttoggi.info/rudy-permesso-premio-perugia-gli-avvocati-vanno-cassazione-la-revisione/381739/

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Rudy Guede at the time of his arrest

I plan to sort out the facts from the fiction and to provide a definitive review of what the legal facts concerning Guede are, as rubber-stamped by the Supreme Court in Guede’s case, and how the Supreme Court verdict in the Knox / Sollecito case impacts on it.  Guede has brought an application for a review of his case, listed 20 Dec 2016, citing ‘internal inconsistencies’ within the Marasca-Bruno reasoning in respect of Knox and Sollecito.

A good starting point might be the recent crimepod broadcast by ex-FBI agent and ex- District Attorney & prosecutor, Jim Clemente, in tandem with Laura Richards, wherein they carry out a ‘behavioural analysis’ of the Guede interview on RAI3an Italiana TV channel earlier this year with interviewer Franca Leosini.  My analysis of their analysis will highlight some of the misconceptions  by Clemente and Richards in this broadcast, which can be accessed here:

https://art19.com/shows/real-crime-profile/episodes/b1351cff-2e9f-4fc0-8128-b17cba402e38

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Laura Richards and Jim Clemente – True Crime tv Broadcasters

Separating the facts from the spin

There are many theories about Guede’s role in the Kercher murder case with many assertions becoming common currency, as interested parties, such as Knox and Sollecito compete for the hegemony.   I have referred to original source material to get to the actual facts of the matter.  These consist of Guede’s Prison Diary whilst under extradition proceedings in Koblenz, between 21 Nov 2007 and late November 2007, his Skype conversation 19 Nov 2007 with best friend Giacomo Benedetti, whilst on the run from the police and the detailed Micheli report, Perugia, 28 Oct 2008,the finalised legal findings of fact, and as approved by the Cassazione Supreme Court.  Thus, whether one agrees or disagrees with the court findings or of Guede’s exact role in the crime, these remain the legal position today, and these are the grounds on which Guede is bringing his application for a review to the Florence Appeal Court.

To summarise, the main findings of Micheli are :

  • Guede definitively did not wield the murder knife.
  • He had no meaningful prior contact with Meredith.
  • Therefore he was not invited to the cottage or let in by Meredith, nor had any consensual contact.
  • The burglary and rape mise en scene was a second stage of the crime after the murder.
  • It thus follows that Knox let Guede into the murder cottage.
  • The crime was sexually motivated, and not one motivated by theft.
  • There were multiple assailants – as per DNA and luminol testing and the fact of a return to the scene to rearrange it.
  • Guede did not steal the rent money or the phones.
  • He was guilty of aggravated murder because of his complicity in the attack and failure to stop it as soon as knives were produced.
  • Complicity: “Above all if the certain facts include the consequent outline of that supposed ‘unknown’ (the presence of the three at the scene of the crime) they are abundant, and all abundantly proven”. – Micheli

The spotlight is on the following issues:

  1. Is Clemente’s and Richards’ claim – one of Guede being the ‘lone killer’ grounded in any substance?
  2. The timeline of the events from Guede’s point of view.
  3. Could Guede have been the sole killer?
  4. How do Knox and Sollecito fit in with Guede?
  5. The actual legal position with Guede, as laid down at Guede’s trial.
  6. How this differs from the Fifth Chambers (Knox & Sollecito) Supreme Court’s controversial ruling in March 2015, acquitting the pair on the grounds of Article 530 Para II, ‘Not guilty: due to insufficient evidence’.

The claims of Clemente and Richards

These reflect the views of pro-innocence campaigners of Knox & Sollecito, critiquing Franca Leosini’s tv interview.

During the broadcast several ‘behavioral’ observations are made:

  1. ‘The foundation as to why he is in her room and cottage, DNA inside as well as outside – he is finding a plausible excuse for being there.’

My comment:  Guede did not claim to have made sexual advances in Meredith’s room.

  1. ‘Meredith had locked door from the inside – helped self to drink – Meredith went to bedroom – claimed she was mad at Knox for stealing money and being dirty.’
  2. ‘He said he ‘wouldn’t go with her unless she had a condom. Not appropriate time to get going so got dressed.   As if.!  Leosini cracks, ‘You missed the best part of the evening – ‘No Sex Please We’re British’ – inappropriate – she is flirting with him (Leosini).  She purports to get tough with him, but he dances around the question.’
  3. ‘Got dressed, had bad stomach, had to go to bathroom, kernel of truth – poop in toilet. Before Meredith came in. Trapped in there – he if flushed the toilet, she’d know he was there. She tells him to use that bathroom, in kitchen, then went to bedroom.

My comment:  Guede used the large bathroom which was by the front door.  If He was in there when Meredith unexpectedly returned, it was easy to run out of there.

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  1. Heard doorbell ring, Meredith opens door, engages in conversation – 101% it is Amanda. Fallacy – Amanda lives there, why would she ring doorbell?  ‘Meredith had locked inside door.’  There is no reason for Amanda to ring doorbell.

My comment:  the courts agree.  The courts uphold that it was Knox who let Guede in.

  1. Becomes very detailed and specific. He saying look, I’m very clean. Poor boy ‘found myself in Germany’.  101% – extending.
  2. Why would Amanda ring, Rudy’s explanation. Identifies someone by voice – despite listening to very loud music.  Hears girls arguing, puts on ear phones to block out- 2.5 songs – 10 minutes.    It’s a lie. The attack on MK took about 10”.  Kernel of truth in the lie.

My comment:  Guede says he put on headphones after hearing initial greetings.  However, Micheli agrees that how come Guede only hear the last scream, form 4-5 metres away, when a nearby resident, witness Mrs Capezelli, heard a series from 70 metres away.

  1. It was Meredith coming home, not Amanda, we ‘know as a fact’ it didn’t happen. His sleeve had the victim’s DNA. He carried a knife consistent with bloody impression on bed.

My comment:  There is no evidence Guede carried a knife.  At the Milan nursery trespass 27 Oct 2007, Guede was found with a knife which belonged to the nursery so had not carried it with him.

  1. Scream louder than his music, runs to Meredith’s room, lights off. So concerned about his image in terms of cleanliness.  He leaves a dying girl alone.  ‘Lights were suddenly not on’ coming out of the bathroom into the hall, but were on in her room.
  2. Can only describe the jacket – guy facing Meredith. Guy turns starts flashing with his scalpel.  Happened so fast, did didn’t know what was in his hand.  He says, ‘I said’, not what happened.  Recount what happened, not ‘when I testified I said this’ – leakage – skips ahead.  ‘This is the story I am sticking to’.  It shows he is trying to keep to the story he testified.
  3. “He turned around and came to me I didn’t see his face”. Quotes self.  Not in the moment any more.  Wildly gesticulating hands – struggling for words.  Cognitive load, wants to get it right.  Story trying to remember.  How do you remember insignia but not face? (The brand logo on the man’s jacket.)

My comment:  The light was described as an abat-jour.  This is Italian for ‘bedside lamp’, and probably refers to the one in the sitting/kitchen area, which leads to Meredith’s and Amanda’s bedrooms and small bathroom.

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‘The hallway is actually a sitting room area, together with the kitchen.  The door at the far end leads to the bedrooms of Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox and to the small bathroom.

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 Guede explains he was busy concentrating on the blade in the man’s hand.  The man’s face would have been back lit.  Good point about Guede reverting back to testimony.

  1. German police found he had a cut on his hand.- ‘you were focused on his hand’ – ‘I said I thought it was a scalpel. It could have been a knife 12” long 7” blade.  So he says, ‘I thought’ but didn’t know.  Mignini argued, ‘There are two knives’.  Rudy and Mignini are ‘perverted accomplished liars’  (Clemente’s view).  ‘Pissed off with Mignini for perverting justice.  Collusion’.  Man fleeing.  RG backed out of way.

My comment: the fact of at least two knives was decided by the courts after expert witness testimony and not up to the prosecutor.

  1. Says he saw Amanda walking away outside. Statement made to Mignini – You must have seen her, you must have seen her! –  I saw her silhouette a long way into the night. –  Voice over music in earphone from bathroom.   Mignini pushing his agenda to ID Amanda.  ‘Man is like – had beret with red band, jacket’ ; called out to other person, let’s run before they catch us; black man found’ odd thing to say .  ‘Great! We just killed Kercher, we’ve got a black man here we can blame!’

My comment:  the courts agree this is Guede being self-serving.  The fact he doesn’t mention the silhouette until later, could be preclusion from reading the press.

  1. Hero, he finds Meredith bleeding – runs out of bedroom to grab towel x 2. Grabs third towel, that didn’t work, so left. Said she was alive. Was able to run into Romanelli’s room – sees Amanda run away with this young man.  Made silhouette ID in time period there is a dying woman on the floor.  More important than helping Meredith is to go to Filomena’s room to ID these people.

My comment:  No DNA on towels due to environmental degradation, but someone did apply them. 

  1. Why, If he is already 101% certain it was Amanda? No reason except to please the prosecutor.  All of a sudden, people saw the three together.  Pressuring others.  Mignini ends up giving Rudy  a fast track trial.  – he wouldn’t have to testify on any subsequent trial.  Takes first amendment against self-incrimination, should have to testify in Amanda and Raffaele’s case – he was not used.

My comment:  Mignini as a prosecutor (district attorney) has no authority to provide legal advice.  Guede would have been advised by his counsel to take the fast track as it offers the incentive of a third off discount from the sentence.  He pleaded, ‘Not Guilty’ therefore, he had the right to decline giving any further self-incriminating testimony, as exercised by Sollecito himself in his trial.  There are mechanisms.  A party can appeal for other documents or transcripts in evidence instead (as Mignini did at one stage) and it is up to the presiding judge whether to accept the application or dismiss it.  It is the Judge’s or the defendant’s decision, not the prosecutor’s.

  1. Why does he want the fast track? – wait. He has to say he stayed in bathroom for that long.  This other person did it, when he left, Rudy was trying to stop the bleeding.  Meredith was saying af – writing on the  wall ‘in her blood’ – there’s a desk right there.  Why didn’t he alert for help?   Has to construct a narrative to make sense.  How does this person get in when door was locked?  What we hear in his narrative is how he is overwhelmed.  He is the victim, everyone feels sympathy for him.

My comment:  In his original claims he says he was in the bathroom between six and ten minutes.  Later Guede changes this to ‘lightning fast’, although he may have meant the supposed fight between him and the mystery man.

  1. He hears scream. The broadcast host, Laura Richards, says she once saw someone run into a room and stab someone.  Stabbing had very little blood.  Saw stab put pressure on it.  Quick in and out – what prisoners do.  Will never forget the guy’s face.  Guy turned ran out, Guede could not remember the guy’s face.  Would he forget?  In the only lit room.  Light is on this guy, why can’t he ID his face? – clearly lying.    Afraid he’d be blamed.  What does he do, he goes out drinking with his friends – he is establishing an alibi.  He ran out of country ‘because he was afraid’ – alibiing himself.

My comment  The issue of the blood spurt is an important one, which I shall deal with further on.

  1. Clever narrative because of kernel of truth. Always wants to be seen as victim.  ‘Why didn’t you call for help?’ a six-year old would ask – he starts to talk over her – the real him.  ‘The investigators didn’t believe your point’.   Sad fact is, that black people do get blamed for crime – he is lumping himself in with them.  OJ?  Exactly same situation – charismatic, wants people to think he’s a victim.  How he left Meredith.  Details of crime scene.
  2. When he left Meredith she was fully dressed. In his story, Amanda had argument with Meredith killed her, then ran away everything was in order except one drawer pulled out.  Filomena’s room undisturbed.
  3. If he saw her, she must have seen him. Raffaele must have told Amanda man there.  Why would Amanda then come back?  Feel bad for anyone who believes this crap.  ‘Judge didn’t believe your version of events’.  Why did someone come back and alter the crime scene?’  He left Meredith fully clothed, with full details of clothes she was wearing but can’t remember the guy’s face. 

My comment:  Guede describes Meredith as wearing a white top.  Robyn Butterworth (friend) testified Meredith was wearing a sky-blue zip up top with sporty arm stripes, with a beige top underneath, and perhaps a second, patterned one.

  1. Franca Leosini says left foot and face showing. Crime scene staged , as a legal fact.   Glass and rock on top of clothes, rock thrown from inside. Glass and rock on top.  Rudy gets specific about Knox and Sollecito; not in dispute they were there.  Judge said Rudy wasn’t the one who had the knife and dealt the blow, not in dispute.  It is now in dispute, they were declared ‘innocent of the crime’.

My comment:  False: there is zero mention Knox and Sollecito were ‘declared innocent’.

  1. Rudy did it in concert with two people – it is a legal point of law and cannot be appealed – certified fact. Once evaluated it was 100% fraudulent, not a mistake.  People would be fired if they did not say what Mignini wanted them to say.  If they disagreed, they weren’t called to testify. (Clemente’s views.)

My comments:  Mignini and later Comodi only get to choose the prosecution witnesses, the defence get to call whomsoever they wish.

  1. Leosini: You fled to Germany. Guede:  I had no idea how I got there, it could have been Russia.  Conversely, they (Knox/Sollecito) did not run.  Rudy trusts the system.  Skyped with his friend Giacomo for four hours.  Threw away clothing. Choosing not to give an account.
  2. Specifically says, ‘Amanda was not there’. Why bring it up at this point?  Friend says Amanda was arrested.  Friend brought her up.  Police direct the conversation.  Says clearly, ‘She was not there’.  Rudy gets it from Mignini.  Mignini gets Rudy to ID Knox – silhouette, knife.  Patrick Lumumba has a proven alibi, so they needed another black man there, which is why Amanda volunteered his name.

My comment:  Knox was not arrested ‘for no reason’.

  1. Accomplished liar. Part 9, Leosini talks through the forensics consensual foreplay.  Palm print, DNA on toilet paper . Interesting leakage about Patrick being there – he gets vociferous there, true self.  Why fast track trial?  He says because of his ‘non-involvement’.  More than one person.  Sentence reduced from 30 to 16 on assumption he did not hold the knife. ‘He went along with others’; someone else’s initiative.
  2. Jan 2016. People are still sticking to their beliefs Sollecito and Knox are still guilty.  Reformed character, artsy, intellectual.  Served sentence because, “I didn’t call for help”.  Lawyers have been very strategic – stylised interview – deliberate choice.  FB and twitter set up.
  3. All evidence points to him being only killer and guilty of murder and sexual assault. He’s charismatic, intelligent, detail-oriented no sign of remorse.  Psychopath; gifted at selling himself. Takes a trained eye to see the holes in his story. Let Meredith die; fled country only after he went drinking with his friends.    Foster father says he is ‘an accomplished liar’.  Multiple perpetrators.
  4. Retrial 20 Dec will be interesting.  Already eligible for parole.  2018  By the time the motivation comes out.  Opens everything up for Kercher family.  This interview may have been the grounds on which the appeal for a review is granted.  Engaging charismatic young man – interview is a strategy to get him out.  “Amanda got away with murder.”  It was because of Mignini.  He used Rudy to get Amanda.  Should be prosecuted.  Recommendation: Amanda wrongfully convicted and then exonerated. JC and LR.

My coment: Mignini was nothing to do with ultimate conviction.  That was solely for the courts to decide.

Timeline of events from Guede’s Perspective

Early life

Born in the Ivory Coast 26 Dec 1987 six months older than Knox and three years younger than Sollecito.  Came to Italy with his father Roger, aged five, rejected by his mother.  Lived with a series of foster families, including a wealthy local family, whom he left as soon as he reached age of majority.  Stayed with an aunt in Lecca.  Took up various short-term jobs, had periods of unemployment, tended to ‘disappear’.  His childhood friend Mancini, the son of Guede’s teacher, Mrs Tiberi tried to keep tabs on him.  His last job he was fired from for sickness without a note, took up bedsit in Perugia in early September 2007 nearby Sollecito and the cottage.  Socialised with the Spanish contingent in his house.  Mrs Tiberi described Guede as always polite and well-behaved.  His childhood friends, Mancini and Benedetti, say they never saw him take drugs or get drunk, although latterly they had not seen him much.  His more short-term acquaintances mentioned witnessing him drunk at various times.

Guede gets into trouble

A witness claimed he had said he wanted to go to Milan for a few days ‘to dance’.  In Milan 27 Oct 2007, just a few days before the murder, he was caught trespassing at a nursery, but was not charged at the time.  He was found in possession of a stolen laptop, a knife found at the nursery, a ladies watch and a small glass-breaking hammer.  His mobile phone was confiscated, thus claimed to have no phone as of the time of the murder.  He was charged post-murder conviction for the laptop possession.

When Rudy met Amanda

Around the time of a friend’s birthday (Owen), ‘12th or 14th October 2007’ he’d been out celebrating with friends, met up with some basketball playing pals outside, which included the boys in the downstairs apartment of the cottage, Knox approached, whom he had seen before at Patrick’s bar, Le Chic, to say ‘Hi, I’m Amanda from Seattle’, the boys made off towards home, together with Guede.  Knox went into her apartment on the upper level whilst the boys went downstairs and lit up a joint.  Knox came down to join them, and then Meredith later.  This was the first time she met Guede.  Guede relates Meredith had just one toke on the joint and then said she was off to bed, Knox followed shortly after.

Rudy and Meredith

The next time Guede saw Meredith was at a pub called ‘The Shamrock’ where the World Cup Rugby Final between England and South Africa was being played.  This took place 20 Oct 2007.  Witnesses confirm that both Meredith and Guede were present, within groups of friends.  Guede claims to have struck up a banter with Meredith, but there are no witnesses to this and Meredith never mentioned it to her friends if it happened.   On Sunday, Guede went by the cottage to watch the Formula One final after seventeen events.  This took place 21 Oct 2007.  If Guede had struck up a friendship with Meredith, he made no attempt to pop his head around the door to say hello.  Laura Mezzetti, one of the roommates upstairs did witness Guede there, when she came down to ‘buy a smoke for €5’.

Guede then claims to have asked Meredith for a date on the night of Halloween on 31 October 2007 at the Domus nightclub, again there were no witnesses to this and Meredith never mentioned it to anyone.  Both were at the packed night spot. He gives this as the reason he approached the cottage the next evening, 1st Nov 2007, claiming Meredith let him in.  He had a drink from the fridge whilst Meredith went to her room.  He claims he heard her cursing Amanda, as her money was missing; she showed him her drawer where she had kept it; he calmed her down; they searched the cottage together and, after chatting about their families; they began canoodling.  They had no condoms so it went no further.

Guede’s version of the murder

As Meredith had not been home when he first arrived circa 20:20 pm, he had gone to see his friend Alex and then went to buy a kebab whilst he waited.  Because of the effects of the kebab, Guede claimed that whilst at the cottage, he had to rush to the bathroom and whilst there, the doorbell rang, Meredith who had been on her way to her room, answered the door and Guede heard Amanda’s voice with Meredith saying, ‘We need to talk’ and Amanda reply, ‘What’s happened?  What is the problem?’

Guede put on his earphones to listen to loud music for ten minutes when he heard a loud scream, ran out, the light was now off, ‘to my astonishment’, saw the figure of a man standing on the threshold of Meredith’s room, who suddenly turned with a knife in his hand.  Guede backed off and grabbed a chair in self-defence, the man said, ‘Black man found, black man guilty’ and then ‘Let’s go!’ and ran off.  Guede administerd three towels to the dying girl before himself running off, because he heard a noise from downstairs that frightened him, he claimed.

He ran home via Plaza Grimana direction, changed and washed his jogging pants, then went out nightclubbing.  Rudy in his formal interview said he left the cottage about 22:30.  He has thus been at the scene for about one and a half hours.

Guede flees

3 Nov 2007 he went to Milan via Modena and Bologna and after midnight he jumped on a random train, to avoid police seen at the station, an ended up in Duesseldorf in Germany.  Between then and 19th he stayed in barges and places along the Rhine.  Sixteen days.  Mancini his childhood friend had contacted him 12/13th November via the internet, unaware he was wanted, accusing him of ‘always running away’ and Guede replied, ‘You know why’, without elaborating.  His other old friend, Benedetti helping police, set up a Skype conversation with Guede, 19 Nov 2007,and persuaded him to return.  In the meantime German police caught him on a train without a ticket and on an Interpol warrant, held him in custody in Koblenz until 1 December 2007, whilst processing an extradition order.

Guede was brought back to Italy and subsequently interviewed by prosecutor Mignini 26 March 2008 and charged with the murder, in complicity with Knox and Sollecito.  Guede opted for a separate, ‘fast-track’ trial, which was closed, although we can discern what took place from the presiding Judge’s reasoning (Micheli) for the ‘guilty of aggravated murder’ verdict and the dismissal of the theft charge of the phones and credit cards.

Could Guede have been the Sole Killer?

The Missing Money:  Who first mentioned it?

It was Guede, and he brags about this fact of being first in his Prison Diary written in Koblenz up to 19 Nov 2007.

Who First Mentioned Knox and Sollecito at the scene?

Whilst Guede does refer to a mystery man holding a knife in the doorway of Meredith’s room in his presence, he does not actually name either Knox or Sollecito until his recorded interview with Mignini, March 2008.  We know he read the papers whilst on the run for he mentions to Benedetti in the Skype conversation he saw that Knox is accused of using the washing machine to clean Meredith’s clothes.

An alternate explanation is that he was applying ‘Prisoners Dilemma’, a situation when there are several perpetrators and each is dependent on the other/s to not ‘grass’ them up. Therefore, it is theorised, the best strategy is to say nothing.  Knox did not name him, he did not name Knox.  Guede himself confirms he did not know Sollecito at all to name him.

Who First Mentioned Sollecito and Knox together at the scene with Guede, and when?

A witness, Kokomani did come forward to say he had seen the three together outside the cottage prior to the murder, and police have corroborated he was in the region because of pings from his phone and his account of seeing a dark car, also seen by a separate car mechanic witness.  However, his testimony was dismissed by Micheli as ‘ravings’.  It appears that what holds the three together is circumstantial evidence as constructed by the forensic police (DNA, luminol, bathmat footprint), the inactivity of Knox & Sollecito’s phones in advance of the crime and for the rest of the night, their false alibis and inability to ‘remember’ what they did that evening, together with the apparent staged scene of the burglary, clean up and repositioned body.

The case against Guede 

When comparing Guede’s original account with his later recorded interview, it is safe to note that much of what he says is:

  • To try to establish justification for being at the cottage at all. To do this, he claims to have made a date with Meredith the night before.  However, when he made a date with a Latvian girl in a similar circumstance, they wanted to swap telephone numbers, with Guede having to memorise hers as he did not have a phone at the time.  He does not say this for Meredith.
  • To try to justify his DNA being on Meredith’s body, he precludes this by claiming the contact was consensual. In his conversation with Benedetti he expresses he knows none of his sperm will be found.  In his Prison Diary he makes no mention at all of Meredith talking about her mother being ill.  Micheli points out that his later claim that Meredith spoke about her mother’s specific condition was already widely reported in the papers since 4 November 2007, by Meredith’s aunt.

Formula 1 and World Cup Rugby

  • He claims in his testimony the Formula 1 final race (21 Oct 2007) was BEFORE the Rugby World Cup (20 Oct 2007) – and Micheli does not pick up on this – to evade the fact he didn’t say hello to Meredith when he visited the cottage to watch the F1 race downstairs.  In his Prison Diary he claims Meredith told him she had ‘someone special’ back home, implying she was free in Italy.  However, we know Meredith was in an exciting new relationship with Silenzi, from downstairs, so would not have made herself easily available.  None of the British girls corroborated Guede’s claim to have made friends with Meredith.
  • Guede in both his original Prison Diary  account and in the Leosini tv interview in Jan 2016, expresses disapproval of Meredith cursing out Knox over the missing rent money.  In the interview he becomes quite agitated.  Thus, Guede takes Knox’ side in this dispute and is not a friend of Meredith’s.
  • To try to justify running away without calling for help for Meredith, despite his claim it was ‘another man’ who did the killing, Guede says he was worried he would be blamed because he was Black and because the man said so, before running off. He claims he was frightened off by ‘a noise downstairs’.
  • Most incriminating of all is the description of the blood. Micheli found as a fact that Meredith was stabbed in the neck and then immediately fell backwards into a supine position because (a) of a bruise on the back of her neck indicating a violent jolt, (b) because there is no spray of blood on the desk where one would expect it to be and (c) it was a logical position by which to carry out the sexual assault by Guede.  Her left hand was restrained.  Dr Arpile an expert witness said this was a characteristic of a sexual attack.
  • In his Prison Diary in Koblenz he recalls the stabbing of Meredith was being like the time he was whacked over the head with a stick by his father and blood spurted out of his head ‘like a fountain’. This suggests he may have witnessed the ‘fountain of blood’ spurting from Meredith?
  • In his Prison Diary Guede makes much of the sheer volume of blood.  He sees blood everywhere, and sees nothing but ‘red’ when he closes his eyes to sleep.  Massei in the later trial of Knox and Sollecito, does not agree with Micheli that she was stabbed whilst standing and then falling onto her back, and rules that Meredith was killed whilst forced into a kneeling position.  Where then, did the spray of blood go, when the knife was pulled out, if there is none to be seen on the furnishings and upholstery?  Garofano in Darkness Descending offers his expert forensic opinion that the blood surge would have gone all over the person who withdrew the knife.
  • Guede by his own account relates that his pants were ‘soaking wet’ and he’d had to cover them up with his sweatshirt as he ran home fleeing the scene.
  • Guede states that on his way out, none of the windows were broken and Meredith was full dressed. The broken window and condition of the body were all widely reported so it could be argued that Guede states everything was intact when he left as a self-serving narrative to preclude himself as the culprit.

Micheli’s Fact Finding

Micheli ruled that Guede’s claim to have struck up a first date with Meredith was proven false and therefore it was not Meredith who let him into the cottage.  As Meredith was in a new relationship and no-one could corroborate any date with Guede, she did not consent to any sexual activity with him.   In addition, Knox would not need to ring the doorbell as she had a key and in any case, had Meredith locked the door from the inside, she would have in effect locked Guede in for the night, not to mention locking out Knox.  Therefore, as the burglary was staged – clothes rummaged first and then window broken, bits of paper from the burglary on top of the duvet on top of the body – then it must have been Knox who let him in.

Micheli directs that it is a legal fact that Guede did not wield the knife based on submissions by the prosecutor and that the crime was in complicity with the others.  This was due to the fact that even if Guede only intended a sexual assault, he became culpable of murder ‘as soon as the knives were produced’.

Micheli legally acquitted  Guede of the theft of the phones as he ruled that they were taken ‘to cause their sudden removal’ and not for lucrative gain.  He ruled that the autocall to Meredith’s bank Abbey National logged at circa 22:11 was due to the phone falling from her person to the floor due to her wanting urgent contact with her sick mother, and indeed, there does appear to be an outline in blood in the shape of a phone.

Micheli ruled that Guede did not go through Meredith’s bag as his DNA (which was scant at the scene) was midway on the clasp at the top of the bag, indicating Guede had gripped it to lift and move it, as there is no DNA or blood stains inside it.  In addition, there were multiple differing footprints of sundry persons at the murder scene, as highlighted by luminol, a forensic instrument to make visible invisible blood which had been cleaned up.

  • Complicity: “Above all if the certain facts include the consequent outline of that supposed ‘unknown’ (the presence of the three at the scene of the crime) they are abundant, and all abundantly proven”. – Micheli

 

The March 2015 Fifth Chambers Ruling acquitting Knox and Sollecito

This merely stated that the pair were acquitted because of ‘insufficient evidence’, not because they were ‘innocent’.

It confirmed that Knox,certainly, and Sollecito, ‘almost certainly’, were present at the murder scene, Knox did wash off the victim’s blood from her hands and did cover up for Guede.  It stated that the pair told ‘umpteen lies’ and that their behaviour remains ‘highly suspicious’.

So does Guede have a case, based on the final definitive facts, as set out, above?

We shall see.

Sources:

http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Primary_Sources

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Netflix ‘Amanda Knox’ 2016 and The Lizard King Donald Trump

November 25, 2016

donald-trump-amanda-knox

How Amanda Knox bites the hand that feeds her

Amanda Knox has been in the news a great deal recently, riding on the crest of an ‘exoneration’ campaign, culminating with the Netflix film, six years in the making, released in Sept 2016.

Netflix caricatures

In the film, the factors that led to her so-called ‘wrongful conviction’ (she claims) included Nick Pisa’s tabloid reportage in that most middle class of UK comics, the  <fx crucifix and garlic>  DAILY MAIL.  Much loved for its doomladen headlines, to the extent GUARDIAN pop hackette, Julie Burchill, famously nicknamed it ‘THE DAILY HORROR’, wherein the non-GUARDIAN-reading masses could immerse themselves daily in an entertaining round of ‘illegal immigrants and asylum seekers flooding the country’, ‘family of 27 given 50-roomed mansion’ and that most loved standby of all, ‘Benefit Scroungers’.

Bearded ‘modern parents’ GRAUNIAD readers, on the other hand, in their peep-toed sandals and chomping of organic vegetarian nut roasts lap up Simon Hattonstone’s bleeding heart eulogies for the wrongfully imprisoned one.  Thus: GUARDIAN hack, good.  Pisa bad.

Then there is the plodding Italian Prosecutor, a Dan Brown-style Italian Catholic  with a paranoia about masonic cults and devilish conspiracies, who sees himself (the film makers claim) as Sherlock Holmes.  So that explains his lurid interest in her!  Not that there is a shred of evidence she had anything to do with Meredith Kercher’s murder.  Yes, it’s all about priggish, obsessive tyrants, still living in the Italian equivalent of the Victorian ages.

Swept along on a wave of her own lies, see above, we are now entertained by the spectacle of Knox claiming that Donald Trump’s support for her, after her original conviction, only made it worse for her, because after all, the Italians were riding on anti-American feelings in convicting her and Sollecito.  But not anti-African, as Rudy Guede did do it.  That’s different.

Knox is now claiming, in her fervent support for the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton, that she despises Trump for his views on the Central Park Five, whom he still refers to as ‘guilty’, despite their exoneration, as contrasted with her, whom he described as ‘completely innocent’.  She sees racism in his stance.  Oh, the irony of Knox fingering an innocent black man for Meredith’s murder.  Paradoxically Knox seems to be saying, they are innocent and Trump calls them guilty, whereas I am guilty and Trump calls me innocent.  All because he’s a racist.  Knox vocally states she does not stand with Trump and why should she vote for him, just because he supported her and helped fund her defence?  These are all good commendable points.  But before we get carried away, whoa!   Let’s stop and take a reality check.

Gift Horse

For the astonishing fact to come out of all of this, is that Knox should indeed be grateful to Trump.  Of course, not to agree with his political views.  However, had her conviction been upheld by the Marasca-Bruno Supreme Court, as all the legal experts expected, Trump, as President of the United States has the power to refuse her extradition.  Not directly, as that is a veto for the State Secretary, but that power is there.

We saw it when Maria Cantwell, senator for Seattle put out a press release – which was taken up globally – calling for the then-State Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration that the USA should intervene to free Amanda Knox because of the clear anti-American sentiment of the Italian judicial system, she states.

Maria Cantwell even made an appointment to see Clinton saying she had been strongly petitioned by friends of Amanda Knox.

Didn’t the makers of the Netflix film ‘Amanda Knox’, 2016, assert it was the tabloid journalists who had bullied the Italian police and courts?  We see immediately that, true, whilst the mass media is intensely powerful in influencing opinion, it doesn’t actually do anything, except reflect social mores.  The real movers and shakers being politicians and political advisers.

From day one, Amanda Knox had the full weight of American politicians behind her, and, rather than Nick Pisa being responsible for her conviction, it is surely the likes of Donald Trump and influencers in the US State Department responsible for getting her off the charges?  It can be readily seen Knox has a debt of gratitude owing to these shady enforcers behind the scenes.

Senator Cantwell declares war on Italy

Tom Ford of THE WASHINGTON POST writes 06 Dec 2009:

 As angry Americans promised to boycott Italian holidays, wine and food, a vociferous support group calling itself Friends of Amanda Knox urged people to email Barack Obama to ask him to support her appeal.

Maria Cantwell, a US Democrat senator for Washington state has said she plans to bring her own concerns about the trial, including possible anti-Americanism, to the Mrs Clinton’s attention.

Mrs Clinton, the Secretary of State, said on Sunday that she had not yet looked into the case as she had been preoccupied with Afghanistan policy.

She told ABC News: “Of course I’ll meet with Senator Cantwell or anyone who has a concern, but I can’t offer any opinion about that at this time.”

cantwell

Seattle Senator Maria Cantwell

The dastardly DAILY MAIL writes 8.12.2009:

After the verdicts, Knox’s furious father Curt Knox vowed to fight to clear his daughter’s name and spoke of his ‘anger and disbelief’ at the Italian justice system.

His campaign seems to be gaining support on Capitol Hill. Senator Maria Cantwell, from Washington state, declared there were ‘serious questions about the Italian justice system’.

She said she was concerned there had been an ‘anti-American’ feeling at the trial and said she would be raising her concerns with Mrs Clinton.

‘The prosecution did not present enough evidence for an impartial jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Miss Knox was guilty,’ she said. ‘Italian jurors were allowed to view highly negative news coverage about Miss Knox.’

Mrs Clinton was asked about the trial in an appearance on a U.S. news programme.

She said: ‘Of course I’ll meet with Senator Cantwell or anyone who has a concern but I can’t offer any opinion about that at this time.’

She said she had not expressed any concerns to the Italian government. Last night, Knox’s Italian lawyer distanced himself from the senator’s claims. Luciano Ghirga said: ‘That’s all we need, Hillary Clinton involved. I have the same political sympathies as Hillary but this sort of thing does not help us in any way.’

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said: ‘This senator should not interfere in something she has no idea about. I am happy with how the trial went.’ 

Enter the cavalry

Business mogul, Donald Trump tweets 30 Sept 2011:

trump-tweet

In a tv interview with Fox News Greta Van Susteren, Donald Trump explains:

“I helped the family out — I felt very, very badly for that family and for her — I never thought she did it,” Trump told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “I watched very intently, like everybody else, and there was just no way she was involved in that.

“And so I did help them out — I feel very, very happy about it — in fact, I said boycott Italy until they release her,” Trump said. “It was really an injustice — and I would get on that plane so fast if I were her and get out.”

Van Susteren asked Trump whether he had ever spoken to her parents. Trump said he had and “well, they’re lovely people.”  Newsmax 4th Oct 2011

Ingrate

Whilst Knox has been complaining loudly about the intervention of Donald Trump the ingrate laughs in the face of the Kercher family who had to struggle financially.  John Kercher writes:

How Foreign Office let us down

We were surprised at the lack  of financial help available from the British Government as  we dealt with the aftermath  of Meredith’s death.

We had received tremendous support from the British Consulate in Florence,  which arranged translation facilities and made transport arrangements, but despite our pleas, we did not receive any financial support from the Foreign Office.

A number of MPs campaigned on our behalf for some contribution towards our flights, but their efforts were to no avail.

Indeed, it seemed this was a policy decision, one that did not affect just us, but anybody who had suffered an ordeal such  as ours. This lack of help was despite the fact that we were obliged to provide testimonies  in court.

Nor could we expect any help from the Italian government. Before Meredith was murdered, EU states had said they would sign an agreement to compensate the families of foreign nationals who were victims of a violent crime committed in their country. 

However, of all the states, Italy failed to sign the agreement in time.

Financially we were alone and it made the business of attending the trial, and seeking justice for Meredith, all the more problematic.  Daily Mail Femail, 15 April 2012

The GUARDIAN has been influential in giving Amanda Knox, in particular, a sympathetic ear.  Nick Richardson GUARDIAN COMMENT writes

 From the outset the innocentisti accused the colpevolisti of anti-Americanism. Following the trial the US senator Maria Cantwell wrote to Hillary Clinton to alert her to the anti-Americanism at work in the courtroom – though Sollecito, an Italian, was being tried too. Was there anti-American sentiment among the colpevolisti? The resentment, even, of a former great imperial power towards the current hegemon? Almost certainly.

But the anti-Italian sentiment flowing in the other direction has been just as concentrated. The managers of Knox’s downfall have come in for savage caricature: Giuliano Mignini, a Perugia public prosecutor, has been portrayed as a senile fuddy-duddy; Monica Napoleoni, head of Perugia’s murder squad, a vindictive bully; Patrizia Stefanoni, who was responsible for collecting forensic evidence from the crime scene, has been slammed for incompetence, though at the time of the crime she was well respected in her field.  Cantwell stated that she had “serious questions about the Italian justice system”, though the state she represents, Washington, currently holds eight people on death row.  30.1.2014

A blogger on My North West astutely ripostes:

 I was intrigued by a press release that came out right after the guilty verdict. Senator Maria Cantwell issued a statement in which she said “I am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial.”

Anti-Americanism??? I can understand how that could have been a factor during the Bush years when the world hated us.

But once we elected Obama, the world fell in love with the United States all over again. We were once again “welcomed into the world community”… and “no longer a pariah on the world stage”…

How could Senator Cantwell suggest that anti-Americanism played a role in this verdict. Barack Obama is our president – THERE IS NO MORE ANTI-AMERICANISM!!!

I guess the other possibility is that Knox actually whacked the gal…Dori Monson http://mynorthwest.com/75674/amanda-knox-guilty-how-could-this-happen- under-obama/

The ‘abominable’ DAILY MAIL – according to the Netflix film makers – writes:

This high-profile case though, brings a particular set of problems for the Obama administration because of the high emotions if elicits on both sides of the Atlantic – not just in Italy and America, but in the United Kingdom too.

The United States and Italy enjoy a successful extradition relationship, with cooperation high on busting organised crime.

It would cause a potential diplomatic row should the president and John Kerry choose not to send Knox to Italy if her appeal fail.

However, on the flip side, Italy may choose not to anger their most powerful ally over such an emotive case.

Knox herself has said that she would not return to Italy and that would only do so, ‘kicking and screaming.’

Regardless, any decision on whether to extradite the 26-year-old from the U.S. is likely months away, at least. Experts have said it’s unlikely that Italy’s justice ministry would request Knox’s extradition before the verdict is finalized by the country’s high court.

If the conviction is upheld, a lengthy extradition process would likely ensue, with the U.S. State Department ultimately deciding whether to turn Knox back over to Italian authorities to finish serving her sentence.

So far the State Department has refused to be drawn on a position regarding the outcome of the Knox re-trial.

Spokesman Patrick Ventrell was asked in March last year what would be the likely decision and only offered that the verdict was still months away.

‘We can’t really comment beyond that,’ Mr Ventrell told reporters according to the Daily Telegraph. ‘We never talk about extradition from this podium in terms of individual cases.’

 31 Jan 2014

Trump now

So, we see that the decision to extradite would now have been in the remit of Trump’s new Secretary of State – currently in the running are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani – whether or not to extradite, and with the power to override any treaty with Italy or US court.  From what we see of Trump’s attitude towards the legally exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ and his public disregard in continuing to label them guilty and to refuse to apologise for the ads he took out in four main newspapers calling for the death penalty, it is a short step to his overriding any guilty verdict by the Italian Supreme Court.  Indeed, some observers are convinced of the invisible hand of the US State Department in the background in the recent shock acquittal of the pair.

Another disturbing aspect is the issue of press releases by Maria Cantwell calling on Italy to free Knox.  The question arises, on whose authority was she given permission to issue press releases about sensitive international legal matters?  It seems she then had to petition Hillary Clinton during the appeal process, who prudently declined to comment.

Matt Ford, The Atlantic.com analyses the issue in fine detail 31.1.2014:

Slate’s Justin Peters hypothesized that the U.S. could use Article X of its extradition treaty with Italy, which requires the requesting nation to prove “a reasonable basis to believe that the person sought committed the offense for which extradition is requested,” to block her extradition.

There are more drastic options the U.S. government could take to protect Knox, though. Could Congress and/or President Obama override the extradition treaty with Italy to shield Knox, for example? Yes, says Julian Ku, an international law professor at Hofstra University, but they’re unlikely to do so. “I doubt there will be any need for Congress to intervene,” he said. “If the political winds blow so strongly in favor of Knox, Secretary [of State John] Kerry has all the authority he needs to keep her in the U.S.”  

But even if Italy does request Knox’s extradition, Kerry can still simply refuse regardless of whether there are legal problems, says Ku. “It would be a real diplomatic blow, and a bad policy decision in my view, but neither illegal nor unconstitutional.” 

Earlier this year, Peter Quennell, of TJMK writes:

 Compare with how the UK government reacted after Meredith died. Basically it looked the other way. Many in Italian justice were amazed at how totally disinterested the UK government was in the case in all the years since Meredith’s death.

The US government sprang into action to help Knox and to make sure she was treated right, though there was no proof the Italians would do anything but. They found her a Rome lawyer with good English (Carlos Dalla Vedova) and monitored all her court sessions and her four years in Capanne.

This came at a probable cost of over half a million dollars. And that is just the public support. Nobody ever said “the Federal budget cannot stand this”.

The extent of the British government in pushing justice for Meredith and her family? Exactly zero over the years.

Nothing was ever paid toward the legal costs or the very high travel costs of the Kercher family to be in court as the family finances ran into the ground. Nobody from the Foreign Office in London or the UK Embassy in Rome observed in court except in Florence, just the once.  14 Feb 2016 http://www.truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/C350/

In more recent weeks Knox made a powerful denunciation of Trump in the wake of Clinton’s presidential election defeat.

Knox went on to say that Trump called for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York during the Central Park Five case.

“Is it because I is white?”

“Even now, he views (the suspects) as guilty, though they were exonerated when the true perpetrator, a serial rapist, confessed to the crime,” she wrote. “Why did Trump defend me and condemn them? Is it because I was an American on trial in a foreign country? Is it because I’m a white woman?”  www.wftv.com

Stand by me

So, when Amanda Knox declares her opposition to Trump, are we to take her seriously?  Any more so than her claim it was, ‘Nick Pisa wot got me jailed’?

Knox has had all kinds of senior and anonymous political figures involved in her rescue from justice: Cantwell, Kerry, Clinton, Ventrell, President elect, Donald Trump, and faceless officers of the US State department, the latter who appear to have issued a press release to the global media, circa 31 Mar 2015, that they would refuse to extradite.  We need to ask, on whose authority were all these press releases circulated?

It kinda takes your breath away when Knox claims – and as reported in the national press – that she is not ‘standing by Trump’.  To claim firstly that the likes of Nick Pisa is more powerful than US politicians really exposes the manipulative lies of Knox and the Netflix film makers.  Donald Trump is reported in the Italian press in recent days as being ‘bitter’ about Knox’ comments about his donation towards her legal costs, and who can blame him?  Sure, she doesn’t need to share his views, but a little gratitude may have been the better part of valour.

Trump and his views on law and order

THE WASHINGTON POST interviewed Kevin Richardson, one of the five 8 Oct 2016

Trump became a part of this widely reported and closely followed crime story when, two weeks after the teens were arrested, he spent a reported $85,000 placing full-page ads in all four major New York daily newspapers.

“Just like those ads, that speech was a call for extreme action based on a whole set of completely false claims. It seems,” Richardson said, “that this man is for some strange reason obsessed with sex and rape and black and Latino men.”

This week, when confronted again with just how wrong he was about the Central Park Five, Trump not only refused to acknowledge widely reported and well-known facts or the court’s official actions in the case. He did not simply refuse to apologize: He described the men as guilty, and then demonstrated, once again, that he is a master at the dark art of using long-standing racial fears, stereotypes and anxieties to advance his personal and political goals.

He used the Central Park Five to differentiate himself from his political opponent. He stoked support for solutions inconsistent with the law. And he refused to admit any error.

<snip>   Wise — who served the longest term of all the wrongfully convicted teens and eventually crossed paths with the real Central Park rapist in prison, setting off a chain of events that got the convictions tossed out — said the content of Trump’s campaign is really a continuation of those 1989 ads.

central-park-five

THE WASHINGTON POST also interviewed Yusef Saleem 12 Oct 2016

At the time, our families tried to shield us from what was going on in the media, but we still found out about Trump’s ads. My initial thought was, “Who is this guy?” I was terrified that I might be executed for a crime I didn’t commit.

Another man, Matias Reyes, eventually confessed to the rape and was definitively linked to the crime through DNA. Because of this, we were exonerated in 2002. New York City paid us $41 million in 2014 for our false imprisonment. (As is customary in such settlements, the city did not admit liability.)

Trump has never apologized for calling for our deaths. In fact, he’s somehow still convinced that we belong in prison. When the Republican nominee was recently asked about the Central Park Five, he said, “They admitted they were guilty.” In a statement to CNN, Trump wrote: “The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty.  [= This applies to Knox – confession – and Sollecito!~ KG] The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous. And the woman, so badly injured, will never be the same.” (Meili, for her part, told CNN in 2003: “I guess there are lots of theories out there, but I just don’t know. . . . I’ve had to come to peace with it by saying: ‘You know what? I’m just not going to know.’ 

It’s further proof of Trump’s bias, racism and inability to admit that he’s wrong.
When I heard Trump’s latest proclamation, it was the worst feeling in the world. I couldn’t breathe. <snip>

I realize, too, that I’m not the only victim. Trump has smeared dozens of people, with no regard for the truth.

Should politicians intervene in live murder trials?

Trump’s intervention in the Central Park Five case illustrates how imprudent it is for a politician to attempt to intervene in legal cases.  He can have little idea of the evidence presented before the courts.  Trump’s gung-ho White Knight charge-to-the-rescue of a fellow German-American – and backed by physical funding – is based on irrationality, emotion and jingoism, “the last refuge of a scoundrel”.  How dangerous and meddlesome for Cantwell to demand a defendant be released regardless of the facts of the case.

No, Knox doesn’t stand by Trump, but it’s thanks to the likes of him she is free.

I am the Lizard King
I can do anything
I can make the earth stop in its tracks
I made the blue cars go away 

~ Jim Morrison

 

 

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Netflix ‘Amanda Knox’ Review: The Italian Job: The DNA Sting

October 24, 2016

vandc

Above: ‘Independent’ Expert Witnesses, Conti and Vecchiotti, fraternise in Hellmann’s Court with Sollecito’s defence. Vanessa, Raffaele’s sister, and their father, Francesco, is pictured greeting Vecchiotti and Conti with beaming smiles.

I have previously written a review about the Netflix film, ‘Amanda Knox’ [2016], see here: https://krissyg1.com/2016/10/01/review-of-the-netflix-film-amanda-knox-2016/

How Conti & Vecchiotti Misrepresent the DNA Facts

Here I plan to expand on the section: ‘’The Appeal to Authority”: the inclusion in the film of geneticist scientists, Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti.

I hope to set out how and why the film misleads the viewer in respect of the appearance of Vecchiotti & Conti.  The choreography used by the film makers to present Knox and Sollecito as ‘exonerated’ and ‘innocent’ based on Vecchiotti & Conti’s narrative in the film will be revealed for the careful script that it is.  I will demonstrate why Vecchiotti & Conti’s declarations in the film are deceptive.  An analysis of Vecchiotti and Conti’s entire role in attaining the release of the pair and the revelation of the hidden agenda that underlies the film will be explored.

Fine Slicing

In the film, Vecchiotti and Conti appear quite deeply into the film, at 1’ 4” of 92 minutes.  The appearance of the ‘DNA experts’ towards the end, enables the film makers to reinforce the image of a great miscarriage of justice, leading up to the grand finale denouement.  Enter Conti.

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Referring to the evidence of Sollecito’s DNA found on the bra, Conti introduces the audience to a key principle of DNA.  It is ‘dust spread everywhere,’ he avers.  To set the scene, we are informed that the Forensic Police (‘Scientific Police’ in Italy) acted chaotically and that the crime scene was an absolute shambles.  We hear an audio voiceover of a supposed scientific policeman saying to another ‘this is absurd, there is unbelievable chaos everywhere’.

So there we have it.  ‘A crime scene must be completely sterile’.

We are roundly informed that this crime scene was not, based on Conti’s word for it.

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Next, enter his co-partner, the other ‘independent’ expert hired by the Hellmann appeal court to evaluate the evidence concerning the DNA identified on the presumed murder weapon knife, and the bra clasp sample: Carla Vecchiotti.

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Carla Vecchiotti claims that the issue of contamination of the DNA ‘was raised by the court’.

Shot moves to the scientific police as she continues, ‘ it could have been by other people’.

She then throws in a red herring.  ‘There was the DNA of two unknown males on the clasp’, which we can dispense with straight away.  In reality they were fragments of DNA, no more than 6 – 8 alleles, and precisely of the type of dust contamination Conti is talking about.   This effectively subverts the issue away from the strong DNA profile of Sollecito found on the clasp.

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Vecchiotti then continues the theme of the film that prosecutor, Mignini, was acting entirely intuitively.  ‘You can’t just make it what you want it to be’.

She claims there are ‘problems with contamination in the laboratory’, yet in court she insisted the alleged contamination was at the collection stage, and not at the laboratory.  A picture of the knife comes up.

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Vecchiotti comments, ‘The Knox DNA profile is a very good one.’

Of the Kercher DNA on the blade she states, ‘It’s so small.  So scarce, the likelihood of contamination is very high.’

From this, she concludes the Kercher DNA is ‘inconclusive’.

The film makers show us the picture at least three times with ‘INCONCLUSIVE’ in bold red letters.  ‘I asked Dr Stefanoni (the forensic police chief in charge of this case) how she concluded this is the murder weapon without any other evidence?’

However, the courts upheld, and Conti and Vecchiotti themselves concurred under oath, that far from being inconclusive, it was a strong profile of Meredith, at 15 alleles.

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Again, Vecchiotti repeats the lie that the laboratory was contaminated, when no such finding was upheld by any court, including Hellmann’s, by referring to Stefanoni stating she had examined fifty of Meredith’s samples at the same time, see above.  She insinuates Stefanoni overrode standards so that they would not have to close the lab up between samples.

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The film then cuts to clips of US media outrage at Vecchiotti’s findings of ‘contamination’, even dragging in Donald Trump, no doubt sucking on a tic tac, with just a small cameo of Mignini for ‘balance’, stating that ‘all evidence’ needs to be looked at, implying that Mignini accepted the alleged contamination and was now trying to deflect from it onto other evidence.  The reader should bear in mind, that in fact, there was no such finding of contamination in Stefanoni’s labs.

Nor does she or her co-partner ever once in the film, and nor do the film makers mention that their report was discredited by the Chieffi Supreme court and Hellmann expunged.

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Having established – falsely – that Vecchiotti and Conti had proven contamination to an unwary audience, the film then cuts to Amanda Knox claiming, ‘There is no trace of me in the murder room…and nothing reliable of Raffaele’.

We are shown a diagram of eight black spots of Rudy Guede’s traces and one white one for Sollecito, some distance away from the body, underneath which, it was actually found.  A police mug shot of Guede appears on screen, whom Knox describes as ‘ a guy who regularly committed burglaries’.

From this we are led to believe Guede is a seasoned criminal career burglar, when as of the time, he had no convictions at all.  The film makers inform the audience it is, ‘a burglary gone wrong’, not a finding by any court, apart from the vacated Hellmann court.  The balance (at roughly six to one against, in terms of time coverage) once again is provided by Mignini who points out its unfairness, given the evidence found at the trial.

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The film then cuts to Conti, who makes an astonishing confession – for a scientific professional expert witness and professor –  stating, ‘What happened inside that room between Guede and Meredith, was not a job assigned to me.’

So now it is out in the open, Vecchiotti and Conti, far from protecting their professional integrity by following their ethical code, which states that they are expected to act with objectivity in their professional role and should safeguard this by recusing themselves should they feel that they have become advocates for a party, in the film do not even hide their partisanship.

Conti  feels confident in this ‘documentary’, now as a global film star, to declare his advocacy for Knox and Sollecito with the above statement.

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The Vecchiotti and Conti sequence of the film ends with a drawn out episode of a supercilious Conti leaning back in an attitude of condescension, no doubt aimed at Mignini, when he concludes,

‘Cicero once said’ – pause – ‘ Any man can err, but only a fool perseveres.’

Next, the film completely ignores that his and Vechiotti’s report was unceremoniously ridiculed by the next level court – Chieffi, Supreme Court – and the pair branded as ‘intellectually dishonest’.  It ignores that the case was remitted back to a completely different Appeal Court, in a completely different area, from Umbria to Tuscany, and under a completely different judge.

In the Netflix film, a diagram showing Knox’ DNA on the knife handle is admired as a strong profile.  Meredith’s DNA on the blade is highlighted as a question mark.  Time and again, the viewer is shown the same diagram with the word ‘INCONCLUSIVE’ above the Meredith DNA in red letters.  The truth is, ALL of the defence experts – including Vecchiotti and Conti – accepted it was a strong DNA profile of Meredith (15-allele) so we see a blatant misrepresentation here, that rather than the confidently strong profile it is, Vecchiotti declares that it is ‘inconclusive’, and leads the viewer to believe this was because of proven contamination.  This deception is underlined by the film makers immediately galloping to the Hellman Court after the Vecchiotti & Conti interview, with wild scenes of Hellmann freeing the pair and declaring them innocent.  The connection is made: the knife DNA – and the bra clasp – is ‘contaminated’ and that is why the pair were freed.  ‘This was the only flimsy evidence,’ is the message conveyed. Thanks to the lurid and putrid imaginings of Mignini and Pisa, those kids suffered, the viewer is told.  Cue mass media bombardment by the outraged Netflix viewers, on Twitter and Facebook excoriating Pisa, mostly, and also Mignini, as having botched up the whole case and ruined the lives of these two kids.

That was the film: now the reality

  • I will look at Vecchiotti and Conti’s true track record, which is appalling. The husband of a murder victim was denied justice for a staggering NINETEEN years, as DNA investigator Vecchiotti, et al, negligently refused to investigate the DNA of the perpetrator of the murder.
  • How did Vecchiotti and Conti get appointed by Hellmann court at all? I reveal how the US contingent of pro-Amanda Knox scientists helped ‘fix’ it.
  • I will highlight the legerdemain ploys adopted by the pair in preparing their report, which predicated Hellmann freeing the pair from prison. It was a moot point henceforth as to whether they would ever return.
  • I will set out Chieffi’s and Nencini’s damning criticisms of Vecchiotti and Conti in the case.  Crini points out, in the Nencini report, that Vecchiotti’s own laboratory fridge did not have a thermometer!
  • I will show how the elaborate ‘heist’ of the judicial system in springing ‘the kids’ from jail happened. A US scientist, using Boise University resources, Greg Hampikian, was bragging to courts in the US under oath, even as Hellmann had been expunged and Nencini had just recommenced the appeal, that, ‘I am still working on the Amanda Knox case’.
  • My analysis exposes the interconnections between US advocates Hampikian, Bruce Budowle and British forensic expert, Dr Peter Gill, with Vecchiotti and Conti, which casts grave doubt on the pair being ‘independent’ expert witnesses at all.

modern-scientific-police-labs-in-rome

Modern Forensic Science Laboratories in Rome

The track record

On 21 April 2016, Carla Vechiotti, together with Pascali, Vicenza and Arberello, was found guilty in a civil suit of gross negligence in the examination of the murder of Contessa Ogliata, dating from 1991, and ordered to pay €150,000 in damages.  Vecchiotti appears to have a reputation for cutting more corners than Stirling Moss, with other cases often quoted, with which she is associated.

Above:  Conti & Vecchiotti laboratores forcible closed down.  Right: Bodies line the corridors

Recently, Conti and Vecchiotti’s laboratory in Rome was closed down due to public health issues. Contamination almost certainly occurred in their laboratory.   Rotting cadavers unclaimed by relatives, were said to have piled up in the corridors.  Stefanoni’s laboratory, which followed all the conventional standards of the day was never proven to have been contaminated.

Carla Vecchiotti’s reputation is in tatters. She has made a number of shocking errors in a couple of murder cases, she repeatedly misled the appeal court – Judge Nencini described hers and Conti’s work as “misleading” and “reprehensible“.

The Hellmann Court (Appeal Court)

judge-claudio-pratillo-he-007

18 Dec 2010  At the Hellmann appeal the defences made three unusual requests, (a) to get an independent review of the DNA and (b) to bring in Alessi to challenge Curatalo’s testimony and (c) Aviello, a mobster.  Hellmann agreed to appoint Conti &Vecchiotti from La Sapienza University in Rome.  In the interim 16 Dec 2010, Rudy Guede was definitively convicted. (a) was challenged by Comodi, saying there were many experts for both sides already.  Hellmann argued a judge did not have sufficient expertise to evaluate the experts’ opinions.  Having achieved the appointment of Conti &Vecchiotti , Conti &Vecchiotti [‘the experts’] delivered the coup de grâce: claiming  international standards were not met, contamination could not be ruled out, and that the DNA profile of Meredith could not be reliable.  The pair made the claim the DNA could have ‘come from dust’, and rebutted by Stefanoni, who said in that case, there should have been contamination elsewhere, not just on the bra clasp.

braclasp

Contamination from the laboratory was completely ruled out, contrary to the claims made in the Netflix film, after which, ‘the experts’ moved to a stance that the contamination happened before it even got to the laboratories.  At the hearing, Conti was constantly asked what the criteria were for alleging contamination, to which he replied, ‘Anything is possible’.  As a scientist, a proper evaluation of probability was expected of him.

In their report they claimed, ‘The electrophoretic profiles exhibited reveal that the sample indicated by the letter B (blade of knife) was a Low Copy Number (LCN) sample, and, as such, all of the precautions indicated by the international scientific community should have been applied.’

It transpired ‘the experts’ had decided to use the US standards of Bruce Budowle and supported by Gill, et al., that the threshold for Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA should be raised to 200 picograms, from the hitherto conventional 100 picograms.  In addition, ‘the experts’ argued, the US standard of 50 RFU’s should be used in place of the then Italian standard of 30 RFU’s.  Analysis of DNA below these levels introduces a higher risk of ‘background noise’; contamination from alien sources, i.e., everyday dust, which may contain DNA fragments.  Hellmann, ‘the experts’ and the US scientists getting involved, by virtue of ‘the experts’ quoting extensively from their papers, erred in presupposing that Dr Stefanoni knew nothing about these issues.  Professor Novelli, for the state, challenged the claim that there was any contamination.  Indeed ‘the experts’ were unable to demonstrate this other than by quoting lengthy academic papers which had little to do with mundane case law and more to do with ivory towers.  Vecchiotti, born 1951, with a long CV from medical student days, would have known what Italian standards were, yet tried to subvert them in retrospect.

A complaint was lodged by the prosecution about the pair being seen to openly fraternise with Sollecito’s defence team during the hearing, a strict Bar Standard ‘no, no’ for an independent expert witness.

‘The experts’ refused to analyse a further sample of DNA found on the knife, giving the reason it was LCN, and they ‘didn’t want to make the same mistake as Stefanoni.’

rsakrg

Above: Raffaele Sollecito;  Amanda Knox;  Rudy Guede

Hellmann accepted Vecchiotti & Conti’s findings and acquitted Knox and Sollecito, declaring them ‘innocent’, aside from the calunnia for Knox, together with finding that Guede acted alone, as a ‘burglar disturbed.’

For the film makers, this defines the end of the film.

The Chieffi Court (Supreme Court)

The next level of appeal court overturned completely Hellman’s findings.  It rebutted that the DNA sample of Meredith’s was ipso facto low quality just because it was LCN.  ‘The experts’ had claimed, relying on their US sources, that LCN sampling should only be done on special projects, such as missing persons or cadaver identification, and that there was not the technology as it was ‘too innovative’.  Chieffi did not buy this, pointing to embryology studies.  He scoffed at the idea of ‘the experts’ being more expert than Professor Novelli or Dr Torricelli.  He censured Hellmann for failing to consider their equivalent expert knowledge.

Chieffi was particularly critical of ‘the experts’ refusing to test the remaining knife sample, calling their reasoning, ‘intellectually dishonest’.  25 March 2013, Chieffi ordered the case back to the Appeal court to consider the DNA evidence again, amongst other issues, and that the knife sample be tested.  One suspects ‘the experts’ were loath to test the sample in case it turned out be further DNA of Meredith, and this may be why Chieffi smelt a rat.

The Nencini Court (Appeal Court)

nencini

Nencini made it clear in a newspaper interview it was not within his remit to criticise ‘the experts’, but rather, to assess the legal rectitude of the Massei court decision, which Hellmann patently failed to do.  However, criticise he does.  He directs Barni, witness for the police, that ‘no US standards’ are to be quoted.   In upholding the findings of the Massei court, he makes the following point in his reasoning about the DNA of the knife and bra clasp:

  “… The consultant holds furthermore that the most appropriate technical approach to interpret the genetic profile arising from trace 165B and to avoid subjective interpretations is to “call upon”, meaning to consider as valid, all of the alleles with RFU > 50, independently of their position or whether or not they might be stutter. Once the complete profile is determined, given that there may also be more than

two contributors to the trace, we feel that the only statistical approach that can be used adequately here is the RMNE (Random Man Not Excluded) method. This statistical approach makes it possible to estimate the possible error due to a chance compatibility, meaning that of a person chosen randomly from the population and who by pure chance is fully compatible with the genetic characteristics of the individual represented in the trace. The higher and nearer to 1 that probability is, the more likely it is that the profile could be the result of a random choice and thus the higher the probability of an error in the attribution of the genetic profile to a given individual. In this case, as seen in Table 5, the profile of Raffaele Sollecito is compatible at all the loci analyzed in the mixture of DNA found on Exhibit 165B.

The probability that a random individual from the population would also be compatible (the inclusion probability) [245] was calculated, and came out to be equal to 3.05592 x 10^-6, which is about 1 in 327 thousand. This computation is considered to be extremely conservative, since all of the allelic components are taken into consideration together with their frequency in the reference population.” (Pages 15-17 of the technical report submitted at the 6 September 2011 hearing before the Court of Assizes of Appeal of Perugia.)

The same investigative method was also suggested by the consultant of the Prosecutor in relation to the interpretation of the genetic profile of the markers located on the Y chromosome of trace 165B. Here again, all alleles with RFU>50 were considered, giving the following table:

Table 3. Profiles of Chromosome Y taken from trace 165 B

Marker

Exhibit
165B

Raffaele
SOLLECITO

DVS456

13.15

13

DYS3891

12-13

12

DYS390

22-23-24

22

DYS3891

29

29

D’tS458

14-15-17

15

DVSI9

14

14

DVS385

13-14-16

13-14

DYS393

12-13-14

13

DYS39I

9-10-11

10

DYS439

11

11

DVS635

21-22

21

DVS392

11

11

V GAT,t 114

11-12

11

DYS437

14-15

15

D’t’S438

9-10

10

DVS448

19-20-21

20

 [246] On the basis of the data in the above table, applying the method of statistical calculation indicated above, Prof. Novelli estimated the probability of a chance inclusion of a random person from the population in the mixed profile, together with the chance compatibility of this random individual with the major contributor to the Y chromosome, as about 1 in 3 billion.”

He upholds that the Forensic Police, aside from some human error, acted correctly and dismissed defence claims that Stefanoni had withheld raw data, and as claimed by ‘the experts’, citing documentary proof the information had been deposited.  Nencini reinstated the convictions, 31 January 2014, and dismissed the claim of contamination.  The sample on the knife ‘the experts’ had claimed was ‘starch’ and ‘too low LCN’ was successfully tested and found to be that of Amanda Knox.  None of this is mentioned by Vecchiotti & Conti in the film and nor do the film makers point it out, leaving their audience to believe ‘the experts’ claim of ‘contamination is proven’.

A key finding was that Professors Novelli and Torricelli had already been the target of the criticisms raised specifically by Prof. Adriano Tagliabracci, technical consultant for the Sollecito defense, at the first instance trial court, and thus was a matter settled (res judicata).  This is important to note, for Marasca later describes Tagliabracci in glowing terms as ‘world renowned’ when he reinstates the Hellmann findings in this matter, at the next level.  Nencini observes, ‘Finally, it is observed that Prof. Tagliabracci’s criticism is founded on an unproven and unprovable suspicion, namely that the biologist doing the work being already in possession of reference samples supposedly used the “suspect-centric” method.’

tagliabracci

Professor Adriano Tagliabracci

Nencini also found that the second instance [Hellman] court undervalued the fact that the tests carried out took place during the preliminary investigation [of which the Defence was notified and had the right to attend], that at the time of those tests, there were no objections concerning the sampling and laboratory activity, nor was a pre‐trial hearing requested regarding the testing, all of which proves agreement with the [laboratory] procedures.

Is Contamination Possible?

There were NO full male DNA profiles on the bra, apart from Sollecito’s and Guede’s.  Vecchiotti and Conti, significantly, in the film, try to detract from this highly incriminating scientific fact, by making reference to everyday dust fragments, as if that could possibly account for it.  The assertion by Conti in the film that ‘a crime scene must be kept sterile,’ is meaningless for there are many environmental pollutants at every crime scene.

prof_david_balding

Professor David Balding

Expert forensic geneticist Professor David Balding, and who, until October 2009 was Professor in Statistical Genetics at Imperial College, London, where he still retains an affiliation as Visiting Professor commented as follows. He is an editor of the Handbook of Statistical Genetics.

“Sollecito’s alleles are all represented and these generate the highest peaks, but there are some low peaks not attributable to him; so at least one of the additional contributors of low-level DNA to the sample was male.”

“They correctly criticised the scientific police for ignoring these: many do appear to be stutter peaks which are usually ignored, but 4 are not and definitely indicate DNA from another individual.  The extra peaks are all low, so the extra individuals contributed very little DNA.  That kind of extraneous DNA is routine in low-template work: our environment is covered with DNA from breath and touch, including a lot of fragmentary DNA from degraded cells that can show up in low-template analyses.  There is virtually no crime sample that doesn’t have some environmental DNA on it, from individuals not directly involved in the crime.  This does create additional uncertainty in the analysis because of the extra ambiguity about the true profile of the contributor of interest, but as long as it is correctly allowed for in the analysis there is no problem – it is completely routine.” (David Balding).

“in some cases we have peaks that correspond to a fourth person.”

“The fourth person is not Guede, it seems. This mystery fourth person hasn’t been mentioned much”. (Luciano Garofano, Darkness Descending).

“But because Sollecito is fully represented in the stain at 16 loci (we still only use 10 in the UK, as the legal threshold, so 16 is a lot), the evidence against him is strong.”

“In this case all the peaks associated with Sollecito seem clear and distinct  so I think there can be no concern about the quality of the result as far as it concerns him or Kercher.”

The Italian Scientific Police follow the guidelines of the ENFSI – the European Network Forensic Science Institutes. Dr Stefanoni observed that they followed these specific guidelines whereas Conti and Vecchiotti basically picked and mixed a random selection of international opinions:

“We followed the guidelines of the ENFSI, theirs is just a collage of different international opinions”.

In other words, Conti and Vecchiotti were not referring to the specific guidelines and recommendation of one particular international forensic organisations despite giving that impression at the appeal in Perugia. They cited a number of obscure American publications such as the the Missouri State Highway Patrol Handbook and Wisconsin Crime Laboratory Physical Evidence Handbook. The Italian Scientific Police are under no obligation to follow the DNA protocols of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Wisconsin Crime Laboratory.

Professor Novelli also pointed out that contamination has to be proved:

“The contaminant must be demonstrated, where it originated from and where it is. The hook contaminated by dust? It’s more likely for a meteorite to fall and bring this court down to the ground.”

Professor Torricelli testified that it was unlikely the clasp was contaminated because there was a significant amount of Sollecito’s DNA on it. Professor Novelli analysed the series of samples from all 255 items processed and found not a single instance of contamination, and ruled out as implausible that a contaminating agent could have been present just on one single result.

There was an independent review of the forensic evidence in 2008.

Dr Renato Biondo, the head of the DNA Unit of the Scientific Police, reviewed Dr Stefanoni’s investigation and the forensic findings. He testified at Rudy Guede’s fast-track trial in October 2008 and confirmed that all the forensic findings were accurate and reliable.

stefanoni

Dr Patrizia Stefanoni, leader of the Forensic Police, addressing Sollecito defence team.

He also praised the work of Dr. Stefanoni and her team. “We are confirming the reliability of the information collected from the scene of the crime and at the same time, the professionalism and excellence of our work.”

So, now we have a pointer as to why Conti introduced his presentation by claiming ‘DNA is spread like dust.’  To mislead the general public viewers of the Toronto International Film Festival 2016 – endorsed ‘documentary’ into believing the DNA evidence of the bra-clasp and knife was ‘contaminated’.

To sum up, then, WAS there any possibility of contamination, as Vecchiotti and Conti are now claiming in the film?

  1. Conti and Vecchiotti didn’t prove there had been any contamination.  Judge Chieffi pointed this out.
  1. Conti and Vecchiotti lied to the appeal court – Judge Nencini pointed this out – and they didn’t test the DNA sample despite the fact they were specifically instructed to do so.
  1. Numerous DNA experts believe the bra clasp is strong evidence – Professor Balding, Professor Novelli, Luciano Garofano, Professor Torricelli and Dr Biondo.
  1. It’s impossible that the knife was contaminated.
  1. There is no universally accepted DNA standards for collecting and testing DNA evidence. DNA protocols vary from country to country.
  1. Conti and Vecchiotti cited obscure sources, They didn’t refer to the specific guidelines of an international forensic organisation.
  1. Conti and Vecchiotti excluded contamination in the laboratory.
  1. The defence experts had no objections when the DNA evidence was tested.
  1. Vecchiotti made calamitous errors in other cases and her lab was closed down.
  1. Does anyone really believe Sollecito’s DNA floated on a speck of dust under Meredith’s door and landed on the exact part of her bra clasp that had been bent out of shape during the attack on her?                                              –  THE MACHINE

The Marasca-Bruno Supreme Court (Final)

marasca-bruno

Above: Italian Supreme Court Judges, Fifth Chambers, Genaro Marasca and Paolo Bruno

In the final Marasca-Bruno Supreme Court short 48- page reasoning, from March 2015, the guilty verdicts as upheld by Massei and Nencini are overturned, and Vecchiotti & Conti‘s report reinstalled.

“The second reason [the first reason being: The first reason challenged the violation and inobservance of the criminal law], highlights a problem of great relevance in the circumstance of the present judgment, that is the right interpretation of the scientific examination results from a perspective of respect of the evaluation standards according to article 192 of the criminal procedural code and the relevance of the genetic evaluation in the absence of repeatable amplification, as a consequence of the minimal amount of the sample and, more generally, the reliability coefficient of investigations carried out without following the regulations dictated by the international protocols, both during the collecting phase and the analysis. Particularly, anomalies were challenged in the retrieval of the knife (item 36) and the victim’s brassiere hook, which do not exclude the possibility of contamination, as correctly outlined in the Conti-Vecchiotti report, ordered by the Perugian Court of assizes, which also notified the unreliability of the scientific data, precisely because it was not subject to a further examination. It was also denied that the retrieved knife would have been the crime weapon.”

Thus, we see the Chieffi Supreme Court directly challenged by a sister chambers and the criticisms of Vecchiotti and Conti swept aside, as though they had never happened.

Marasca writes:

‘In fact, no trace of Sollecito was found in the room of the murder. The only element of proof against him was represented by the DNA trace retrieved on the brassiere hook of the victim; trace of which relation with the indicted was actually denied by the Vecchiotti-Conti report, which, in this regard, had accepted the observations of the defense advisor Professor Tagliabracci, world-renowned geneticist.’

It further states:

‘12) Also erroneous was the interpretation of the results of the genetic evidence on item 36) …[…]

14) Obvious also was the flawed reasoning on the results of the genetic investigations on the bra hook, …[…]… With regard to the possible contamination of the item, the appeal judges overlooked the photographic material placed before the court, which clearly demonstrated the possible contamination, regarding the way the hook was treated, with a “hand to hand” passage carried out by persons who wore dirty latex gloves. Furthermore, a second amplification was not carried out on the hook …[…]… With regard to this, the objections by the defense and the contrary conclusions of the defense adviser professor Tagliabracci, were not considered.’

In other words, the DNA evidence for the knife and the bra clasp is completely dismissed.  We see no proper rationale by Marasca, just a few handfuls of abstractions along the lines of Conti’s famous, ‘Anything is possible.’

peter-gill

Dr. Peter Gill

It takes on board Gill’s theories of ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ transfer of DNA, when Gill himself appears to have overlooked that he himself wrote, that ‘this is highly improbable after 24 hours have passed’.

If Marasca’s rulings are considered bizarre, then light is shed when one realises that Bongiorno, for Sollecito, was given NINE times longer to present her appeal than any of the other parties, so it is fair comment to assume its reasoning is based on Bongiorno’s appeal points.  In addition, her 306 page appeal was appended with Gill’s advocacy report, and whom was never cross-examined.

The resuscitation of the hitherto presumed decaying corpse of Vechhiotti & Conti is remarkable, given the cadaver of their report to Hellmann was picked raw, first by the First Chambers Supreme Court (Chieffi) and then Nencini.

Vecchiotti and Conti have risen like Lazarus from a car crash, shrouded in the malodorous cloth of something fishy.

How the Sting was pulled off

Freelance journalist Andrea Vogt, who reported extensively on the case, said of the Marasca reasoning:  ‘In my opinion, their report is superficial at best and intellectually dishonest at worst, when even the most minimal amount of Quellenkritik is applied’.

Andrea Vogt writes an incisive analysis of the US influence on the Conti & Vecchiotti reports, which I cannot better here, so do read it for yourself:  http://thefreelancedesk.com/the-secret-u-s-forensic-defense-of-amanda-knox/

However, I will repeat her prophecy, ironic in hindsight:

  “If Knox is acquitted at the end of this month, the quiet American hand in her forensic defense will be heralded as the turnkey that made the ultimate difference in her case. But if she is convicted, there are legitimate questions to be asked about exactly what public resources were spent on this international defense.”

Vogt uncovered what appears to be a whole secret network that she was unable to penetrate through the fog of Freedom of Information law, which enabled Hampikian to claim ‘trade secrets’ as a project of Boise University, where his laboratory is based, to evade the question of, ‘Who was funding his Amanda Knox advocacy work?’

hampikian-tv

If then, it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that both Meredith’s and Sollecito’s DNA is strong and background contamination ruled out by the trial courts, why then does the film revisit the discredited testimony of ‘court experts’ Vecchiotti & Conti?  We can link this back to the film makers own self-professed strong pro-Knox beliefs in her innocence.  Thus we have come full circle.

The defence managed to convince the now expunged Hellmann court to appoint ‘independent experts’; the Chieffi Supreme Court ruled that, whilst this was within Hellmann’s remit, it did not provide adequate reasoning for doing so.  Vecchiotti & Conti, remarkably, in their report, relied heavily on US standards, thus making the straw man claim that Italy hadn’t followed them, notwithstanding their strong academic and legal background in Italy.  This therefore cannot have been due to ignorance, so we have to point to their own volition to be influenced by strongly Knox-advocates.  For example, Hampikian, funded by Boise University grants and protected by a blanket of secrecy, citing ‘trade secrets’ when journalist Andrea Vogt requested information under the Freedom of Information statutes.

In addition, Bruce Budowle, a more conservative ex-FBI forensic expert, was heavily relied upon, together with peers Gill, et al.  It was at this stage Gill may have got roped in.  His later book draws on Vecchiotti &Conti’s Hellmann’s Report.  Thus, we see a band of pro-Amanda Knox advocates determined to influence the so-called ‘independent’ experts, even when both Hampikian’s and Budowle’s reports were rejected as depositions by the courts.  Even when ‘the experts’ were spiked by the Chieffi Supreme court, Hampikian was still averring, ‘I am involved in the Amanda Knox case’.

Friends of Amanda Knox even today lovingly quote Hellmann despite his de facto ex-communication from the judiciary.  Little surprise we see the film makers eager to include Vecchiotti and Conti, who made it all possible for the birds to fly.

On the subject of Dr Peter Gill, who is widely regarded as having influenced the Fifth Chambers, via Bongiorno’s Appeal, to which his theories were attached, is now drawing on Vecchiotti and Conti as his main source, so we have a case of the experts’ racing car, as it were, driving the man, referred to devoutly by the defence, as ‘the father of forensic science’.

Dr. Naseer Ahmad of PMF.net was moved to comment:

 ” – A look at his sources show that the chapter on Meredith Kercher was directly influenced by the Conti-Vecchiotti report.
– He argues contamination, but doesn’t prove a path of transmission.
– He cites papers on secondary transfer of DNA, but misses the point his suggested routes, RS>door handle>investigator’s latex glove>bra clasp is tertiary transfer.
– He argues the low cell count of Meredith’s Kercher’s DNA on the knife suggests contamination without considering that rigorous washing with household bleach might degrade it. (Yet miraculously those cells did provide a full match with Meredith’s DNA)
– The shoe box belonging to Meredith story has been shot down.
– He clearly has not read Inspector Gubbiotti or Finci’s testimonies, which removes all possible paths of ‘innocent transfer’.
– Reading the actual research papers he cites, there is no way that such significant amounts of DNA could actually transfer to the bra clasp.
– He did not review Patrizia Stefanoni’s Scientific Report or any of her notes, instead relying on the IIP translated C&V report and Hellmann decision.
– He refers to the Meredith Kercher wiki, but never even looked at the DNA segments which would have alerted him to problems with the C&V report.
– He may have had indirect input from Sollecito’s first DNA expert, Vincenzo Pascali, and Carla Vecchiotti, but does not seem to know of Vecchiotti’s colorful record of falsifying evidence.

Last, and worst of all, he did not refer to the Supreme Court decision annulling Hellmann even though the translation was widely available almost ten months before his book was published. There is no way he could not have known this, since we had been in contact with him since earlier this year. It is unconscionable that he chose this route to promote his theories. Elsevier under its new ownership and editorial policies seem to have allowed any number of self-published books to be written. If Professor Gill had written a scholarly text book it would have to be reviewed by an editorial board and sent for peer review, which might have led to professional experts critiquing and hopefully pointing out his errors. Instead, he wrote a slim, unreviewed ‘popular’ book to promote his own theories, which, embarrassing perhaps for him, is being critiqued and torn apart by lay persons, ahem.

Misleading DNA Evidence – Reasons for Miscarriages of Justice, Peter Gill, Academic Press.

Quote:

Recommendation 1: The expert should provide the court with an unbiased list of all possible modes of transfer of DNA evidence (pg 20).”

The irony is not lost.

meredith

R.I.P

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher (28 December 1985 – 1 November 2007)

Sources:
Thanks to Naseer Ahmad.
Thanks to The Machine, for the section on ‘Contamination, is it possible’
The Machine’s analysis of ’50 of the most common myths still promoted’ can be read here:
http://truejustice.org/ee/index.php?/tjmk/comments/fifty_of_the_most_common_myths_still_promoted/
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Main_Page
http://www.perugiamurderfile.net/viewforum.php?f=1
The Nencini Sentencing Report: http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Nencini_Sentencing_Report_(English)
The Chieffi Sentencing Report:
http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Supreme_Court_of_Cassation_of_Italy_Sentencing_Report
The Massei Report: http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Massei_Report_(English)
The Marasca-Bruno Report: http://themurderofmeredithkercher.com/The_Marasca-Bruno_Report_(English)
My thanks to everybody who helped me with material.

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