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Friday, January 02, 2015
The Serial-Break-in Arm Of The Rudy Guede Hoax: Testimony In Court Far Short Of Smoking Gun
Posted by Peter Quennell
[Maria Del Prato in the inner courtyard in Milan from which her pre-school opens off]
You might first like to read Miriam's translations of trial testimony here and here. There are more images here.
That trial testimony fell far short of providing Guede demonizers with all they now claim. All the testimony about supposed break-ins by Guede was presented on 26 July and 27 July 2009. These were two lackluster half-days for the defense.
Pre-school principal Maria Del Prato came across as understanding and fair. Lawyer Matteo Palazzoli, who encountered the break-in scene during a Sunday night visit to his office and who lost his computer did not elaborate very much and seemed glad to be gone. Lawyer Brocchi with the least involvement talked the most, but he could be read as pointing a finger away from what he really thought happened.
Christian Tramontano, who had claimed someone threatened him in his house in the dark with a knife who looked like a shot of Guede in the papers two months later, was not even called, perhaps because at a hearing in October 2008 Judge Micheli denounced him as having made things up.
Maria Del Prato conceded that Guede probably had a key loaned to him by one of her staff which explained why no break-in charges were lodged. Milan police did not just let him go, they checked his record with Perugia police (he had none and police knew little or nothing of him) and knew where he was for a possible later charge.
Nobody in Italy is given precautionary custody simply for possessing several items none of which were reported as stolen which conceivably could have been passed to him by another perp.
The French window one floor above the ground in the dark around the back would have been easy to break into on a Saturday night according to Matteo Palazzoli by simply climbing up the grill over the French window below and then using the balcony to break through.
Hardly the scenario for breaking into Filomena's window during Perugia's late rush-hour on a weekday evening with a lot of cars and people still around, under a great deal of light from the street and the carpark above, while leaving no prints and no DNA, on a day when as far as he knew all four girls were in town (three of them were).
Zero fingerprints were found in the lawyers' offices though a great many items had been touched. What appear to be the tools of a habitual burglar were left at the scene. The burglar alarm dial-out had been disabled by someone who knew the special trick to doing that.
The copier was switched on and some quantity of copy paper and several USB drives with legal data were gone. A front window had been opened and then not fully closed, perhaps to pass things through to someone waiting with a car.
Payback or warning by a legal opponent? Such things are not unknown. Neither lawyer systematically reported a theft - Paolo Brocchi claimed he didnt know that his cellphone was gone and Matteo Palazzoli never gave the serial number of his computer to the police. Were they each anxious to just move on?
Note that Guede was placed at a disadvantage here. Neither he nor his lawyers were there to cross-examine the witnesses or call more witnesses of their own and the prosecution did not ask even one question. Nobody asked what legal documents may have been involved.
This has allowed supposition to grow unchallenged, though it looked like a red-herring by the defenses in the court. Certainly no smoking gun, other than that Guede had some items later proven stolen. For those he was recently sentenced in Milan to another 16 months.
Archived in Those who were charged, Rudy Guede, Public evidence, Staged breakin, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Prelim hearings, Massei prosecution, Knox-Mellas team, Sollecito team, Nina Burleigh, Michael Heavey, Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer, Knox book hoaxes, Sollecito book hoaxes, The break-in hoax, Guede good guy hoax
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Thursday, January 01, 2015
Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #2 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede
Posted by Peter Quennell
Exit route was via one of those windows; weeks later, Guede would come knocking at that door.
1. Overview Of The Post
This post provides the translated testimony of lawyer Matteo Palazzoli.
He was the owner of a Sony Vaio computer stolen from his office, which was possibly the same one that Guede was found in possession of. The previous posts on this aspect of the Guede hoax showed:
- How similar to the back balcony route to a forced break-in of Meredith's house was the supposed route into the Perugia lawyers' offices.
- How the testimony from the lawyer Paolo Briocchi on the office break-in pointed as much away from Rudy Guede as it did toward him.
There will be an overall assessment in the next post.
2. Testimony Of Matteo Palazzoli
Translation of the difficult language here and in previous posts was kindly provided by Miriam. MP stands for Matteo Palazzoli, the lawyer whose office was broken into. GCM stands for Judge Giancarlo Massei. LM stands for Sollecito defense lawyer Luca Maori. MDG stands for Knox defense lawyer Maria Del Grosso.
The witness, admonished pursuant to Article 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code, reads the oath.
General information: Matteo Palazzoli, born in Umbertide, province of Perugia, October 9 1974, resident of Perugia.
GCM: Please proceed.
LM: Lawyer Maori, for the defense of Sollecito. What is your profession?
MP: Lawyer.
LM: Where is your legal office?
MP: At via del Roscetto no. 3, from Febuary 2007, if I am not mistaken.
LM: Together with lawyer Brocchi.
MP: Together with lawyer Brocchi.
LM: Before you, Lawyer Brocchi told us of this theft you were subject to on the night between the 13th and 14th of October 2007.
MP: Yes.
LM: Can you give us information of what happened in that situation?
MP: I was coming back on Sunday October 14, after being away from Perugia for 2 days, and before coming back… because I live close to the office, I keep the car parked with a subscription at the parking lot of Sant'Antonio [opposite Meredith's house], therefore I walk down via del Roscetto regularly to return home, which is in via Imbriani [further down the hill behind the law offices]. In these circumstances, I sincerely don't reacll the reason, I stopped at the office before returning home. I think it was 6:30, 7.00 pm, of Sunday afternoon, I don't recall the exact time.
I went to the office, and upon entering the office, I noticed right away that something was not right, because to begin with it was October, and it was rather warm, I remember, and strangely the heaters were turned on and it was rather hot inside the office. The heaters were turned on and I immediately noticed upon turning on the light that the bathroom light was on, the restroom of the office. At that moment I didn't notice anything else.
Then I turned my head to the right in respect to the office entrance , and I immediately noticed my jacket, a black jacket, and a jacket of Lawyer Brocchi's laid out on the floor. Honestly I asked myself the reason for this. I went to the French window of the office that gives out to an inner courtyard of the building, and opening the inner shutters, I noticed the glass had been broken, and that the jackets had probably been laid on the floor to cover the broken glass.
At this point I ran to my office, that is in front of Lawyer Brocchi's , and I immediately noticed, cautiously, that the only thing that was missing… besides the binders being completely opened, and the dossiers, in there turn, also were opened with papers strewn throughout the office, I noticed that my computer was no longer there, it was not where it should have been, and that the window of my office that gives out to via del Roscetto [a window in the image at top] that at first glance appeared to be closed, in reality was open. Therefore, it had been reclosed but not completely closed, probably, don't know why.. whoever entered, exited through my window, not closing it completely on the way out, I honestly don't know the reason.
I did another round of the legal office, and I noticed again upon entering the restroom, the light on in the restroom. I went into the office of Lawyer Brocchi, and I remember that inside his office, on the desk of Lawyer Brocchi, there was a suitcase of his and on top were positioned, with a certain precision, certain objects, that I seem to remember were screwdrivers, I am frankly not sure if there were screwdrivers.
After having gone into Lawyer Brocchi's office I turned and went into the waiting room that is there close to the conference room, and I noticed that there was a small pile of glass, that I don't know where it came from, because the window of the waiting room… that is, no other window, if I remember correctly, of the office was broken, in the office the only window that had been broken was the French window that gives onto the inner courtyard.
The window of the waiting room had not been broken and yet still, there was this small pile of glass, furthermore well arranged, in the waiting room. The copying machine was turned on, I don't know for what reason, several reams of paper of the copying machine were missing.
LM: The person who entered had drunk beverages that were in the legal office?
MP: Yes, I remember that it was a bottle of orange drink, if I am not in error, it was left in the waiting room.
LM: Listen, you spoke of this computer that was taken on this occasion. Can you tell us what type of computer it was?
MP: It was a Vaio, the outside cover was white. The distinctive trait is that differently… the distinctive feature of that computer is that it has a 16:9 screen that is high resolution.
LM: It's a Sony.
MP: It is a Sony Vaio, that is a brand of Sony. It has a particular graphics, it is only one of a few computer that doesn't change the type of color depending on how one roatates the screen. It was a laptop, in any case.
LM: This laptop did you have any news of where it was… was it ever found? Was it given back to you?
MP: In these days I have had ways to reconstruct, in my mind, the events and the only thing I have not had a way to… it happened in the succeeding days, I don't remember exactly when, that while I was coming back from a client outside the legal office, Lawyer Brocchi called me to tell me that the police or carabinieri called from Milan saying that they had found our things, commenting: "you are always lucky, you lose everything, they steal everything, but you always recover everything", "Okay", I said.
I arrived back at the office and he told me about the call in detail, that it was… the police station, I sincerely don't remember, of Milan anyway, they had called and they had found us because on the cellphone of Lawyer Brocchi… which in the immediacy of the event, we had not noticed had been taken because it was an out of commission cellphone and not used by Lawyer Brocchi, thus probably he did not remember in the immediacy of the event it had been taken, he did not realize at that moment.
Opening the cellphone, the message, if I am not in error, "welcome Lawyer Brocchi" had appeared. Thus they were able to find us, and substantially tell Lawyer Brocchi that they had found his cellphone and my computer. Now, I said before, in these days before today's judicial hearing I was able to gather my thoughts and furthermore I was never able to verify that the cellphone [note: he presumably means his laptop] that was found was effectively mine, because when Lawyer Brocchi and I went to the police station of Perugia to do the report, I did not have at hand, because my accountant had not given it to me, the invoice that indicated the specific model of the commuter. Thus, today I would not be able to say, if not…
LM: Anyway the computer was not given back to you?
MP: No.
LM: Before you spoke of this telephone call by the Milan police station.
MP: Made to Lawyer Brocchi.
LM: Do you know if those [investigators] attached to the police station in Milan had discovered the perpetrator of the theft?
MP: I sincerely don't know, they certainly did not tell us. That is, we were told only that our things had been found, or rather, Lawyer Brocchi related to me that the police station of Milan had told him that the things we reported stolen had been found.
LM: Lawyer, do you know Rudy Hermann Guede?
MP: No.
LM: Have you heard of him?
MP: I have heard of him in relation to the renowned incident of this proceeding.
LM: Do you know that Hermann Rudy Guede was found by the police station of Milan, a few days before these matters, with your computer?
MP: I don't know that he was found with… or rather, at the time that Lawyer Brocchi related to me that the police station of Milan had called him, the police station did not specify the individual that was found with the computer. I think that in that circumstance they had specified that it was found on a boy that was committing a similar crime, if I am not in error, in a kindergarten in Milan.
LM: Was it related to you by your assistant Doctor Morini, I believe that is his name, and by Lawyer Brocchi of an encounter that took place on October 29 with this Rudy Guede?
MP: Yes, it was related… somehow in this case…when these things happen, unfortunately I am never there.
LM: You were not present, it was only related to you.
MP: It was related to me that a boy had come to the legal office, and a conversation had intervened between…
LM: What kind of boy?
MP: A colored boy, I gathered, had come to the legal office and held a conversation with Doctor Morini and probably even with Lawyer Brocchi, and declared himself absolutely extraneous to the matter and declared that he bought my computer legally , if I am not in error at the train station of Milan, I sincerely don't know. This was related to me by my colleagues.
LM: In any case, you exclude having had your computer returned?
MP: No, absolutely.
LM: That, by your knowledge, is in Perugia?
MP: I think I remember having done a request of release [to Milan] that unfortunately was rejected.
LM: If you do it here in Perugia, probably you will have a better result. Another question, before you spoke of the fact that when you entered the legal office on the evening of October 14th you saw lights on. The light that was on, where was it situated?
MP: At the instant I entered the legal office, it was dark obviously, inside the office, and I had not yet turned on the light, I noticed the shining of the bathroom light on.
LM: Had the bathroom been used?
MP: The bathroom… honestly this I can't tell you, that is I can't know if it was used, from evident signs I think not, but, that is a simple supposition on my part , that does not have much value.
LM: Thank you.
GCM: There were no signs of it having been used.
MP: Yes, no signs of use, no odor.
GCM: This is what the lawyer was asking. Other questions? For the prosecution? There are no questions. Excuse me, probably just a peculiarity, the window that was broken, if you can give us a description? Are there inner shutters, outer shutters?
MP: It is a French window that gives out to a small terrace that overlooks an inner courtyard of the building, and below our window, right in alignment, there is a door covered with a metal mesh, so much so that we supposed that whoever entered inside the legal office, one of the possible hypothesis, climbed that metal mesh, because it is a mesh, with squares not more than fifteen centimeters, thus perfectly usable for this purpose. It is a French window that has inner shutters. It doesn't have…I don't remember, I think it has… because there was a period when our legal office, for reasons of restoration, eliminated all the outer shutters. So I don't remember if in that moment it had or not the outer shutters, I think not, but I would say something I don't remember exactly.
GCM: I also wanted to ask you, there were only the two jackets on the glass? Where there other items of clothing that indicated a search in wardrobes, or only these two jackets?
MP: Honestly I would not be able to remember.
GCM: You remember of these two jackets, that one was yours.
MP: Yes because I don't think there were other clothingsd in the office. I don't remember if there were others… besides the toga of Lawyer Brocchi, but it was left…
GCM: I wanted to ask you, these jackets where [normally] were they? On a coat rack?
MP: They were on a coat rack that is to the right of the entrance to the legal office, they were on a coat rack, a bluish jacket of Lawyer…
GCM: Not in a wardrobe?
MP: No, no, not in a wardrobe, on a coatrack.
GCM: A coatrack.
MP: A coatrack, yes.
GCM: I also wanted to ask you, you spoke of a small pile of glass.
MP: Yes.
GCM: That is, what was it, a small gathered pile or scattered?
MP: A small gathered pile of glass.
GCM: Purposely put there?
MP: I don't know that.
GCM: A little gathered pile, not scattered..
MP: Not scattered glass as the ones…
GCM: Not scattered glass but a small pile.
MP: A small pile of glass.
GCM: Originating from the broken window?
MP: Probably yes even because there was no other broken window if not that one and there were no other bottle or other things inside the legal office.
GCM: The computer, can you describe it? Seen as you said: "you gathered your thoughts" you remember something…
MP: If I can see it, I will be able to say if it is mine..
GCM: It's not that the invoice has…
MP: No, my computer is a Sony Vaio with a white cover, but the model is not…
GCM: Okay.
LM: With regard to the question by the President…
GCM: Please proceed.
LM: In connection to the glass, the glass of the broken window, was this glass scattered?
MP: In part scattered, I gather, seeing as there weren't others…that the others clustered inside the waiting room were from that glass, but not…
LM: So there was glass scattered both inside the room where the window was broken, and in adjacent rooms?
MP: Let's agree that the scattered glass, covered by the jackets, was in the corridor that leads to the administrative office, which is to the right of the entrance and is in front of the French window from where the individuals had…
LM: So, in conclusion, there was a scattering of glass…
MP: Yes.
LM: … let's say with enough range…
MP: More than where the jackets were located.
LM: Thank you.
MDG: May I, President, just one question?
GCM: Yes, please proceed, Lawyer.
MDG: Do you remember if you had inserted a password on your computer.
GCM: Okay, maybe the last questions, on the computer.
MDG: On the computer model, President.
MP: No.
MDG: It was not inserted?
MP: No.
MDG: Thank you.
GCM: The witness is excused.
There are no other questions; the witness is dismissed.
Archived in Those who were charged, Rudy Guede, Public evidence, Staged breakin, The witnesses, Knox-Mellas team, Sollecito team, Nina Burleigh, Michael Heavey, Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer, Knox book hoaxes, Sollecito book hoaxes, The break-in hoax, Guede good guy hoax
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Friday, December 26, 2014
Guede Hoax: Translation Of Lawyers Testimony #1 On Breakin Shows No Concrete Connection To Guede
Posted by Peter Quennell
Christmas in Milan where Rudy had an ambiguous encounter in a pre-school in October 2007
Our previous post showed the giant scale and surreal flavor, and the hard facts left out of the innuendo, of the crackpots of the Knox-Mellas campaign.
Innuendo will get them precisely nowhere. All the courts that have processed the case have warned about this, except for the hapless Judge Hellmann's, and in March 2013 Cassation was especially sharp in warning that unless there is EVIDENCE to the contrary the hard facts presented to the panels of judges must be respected.
For evidentiary reasons exclusively, Rudy Guede has never been charged with breaking and entering. Guede got no breaks, ever, contrary to myriad claims.
The one questionable location where he was found was the nursery school in Milan. As he apparently used a key from one of the staff, any breakin trial would have been dead on arrival. No law required that he be detained. (He was however later charged with being in possession of stolen property, and just a few days ago his sentence was extended by 16 months.)
The previous post in this series showed how similar to the BACK BALCONY route to a forced break-in of Meredith's house was the supposed route into the Perugia lawyers' offices. It had nothing in common with Filomena's window, contrary to myriad claims.
This post and the next in this series show how the evidentiary proof that it was Guede (and not someone with a grudge or a trial opponent) who broke into the Perugia lawyers' office is ambiguous and contradictory. Some signs point away from Guede, not least that photocopies apparently made of legal documentation (the copier was on and copy paper missing) would have required the use of a car.
This post is on the testimony of the lawyer Brocchi (owner of the cellphone) and the third post is on the testimony of the lawyer Palazolli (owner of the Sony Vaio computer). Brocchi was quite talkative, despite his minor role, and so we will hold our highlights and interpretation for the next post.
The extensive translation of the difficult language here and in the post still to come was kindly provided by Miriam.
The witness, admonished pursuant to Article 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code, reads the oath.
General Information: Paolo Brocchi born in Rome, March 2, 1968
GCM: Please proceed.
LM: Good Morning, lawyer Maori, for the defense of Sollecito.
PB: Good morning.
LM: It is an unnecessary question, but I must ask it. The first question is this: what profession do you hold?
PB: Lawyer.
LM: Where is your legal office?
PB: In via del Roscetto no.3 in Perugia.
LM: Did your office undergo a burglary in 2007, in October 2007?
PB: Yes.
LM: Can you tell us how this burglary took place, how the thieves got in, and what was taken?
PB: Certainly, the burglary was discovered by my colleague lawyer Palazzoli, the owner of the office, he told me about it on a Sunday afternoon, because the theft took place….. It was done between the night of 13th and 14th of October 2007, a night between Saturday and Sunday. The burglary was discovered by my colleague, the lawyer Palazzoli, on Sunday afternoon, because he entered the office to look for a professional file, and upon entering he discovered the burglary. The person or persons that entered inside the office, from what we were able to reconstruct together with members of the Squadra Mobile that intervened for us at the office, they entered through a window situated in the secretary's office that was subjected to broken glass, the glass of this window was broken with the aid of a piece of porphyry, a big rock that we found there at the spot. The window was broken, then these persons or person turned the handle. The glass clearly was spread everywhere, because it was a rather thick glass. After which, on top of these pieces of glass we found our clothes. For the most part the glass was scattered on the floor and on top of the glass were our jackets, mine and my colleague's Palazzoli, that had been hanging on the clothes hanger in the corridor right in front of the window.
LM: Excuse me if I interrupt you, to reconstruct the dynamics of the event exactly . It would seem that the 13th of October was a Saturday.
PB: From what I remember, yes.
LM: Your colleague had remained in the office until….........
PB: No, I stayed in the office. Saturday I remained in the office because I had a client on Saturday afternoon, that was something anomalous, but it was for an urgent discussion. I called for a meeting that Saturday morning, then he arrived in the afternoon, and I left the office at 8.30 pm that Saturday.
LM: 8.30 pm that Saturday and after, the following Sunday, the evening…...
PB: The day after, Sunday, I was called on the telephone by lawyer Palazzoli, who told me "Look somebody came into the office, I have already called the Carabinieri", who then because of the jurisdiction of the old town center, as we found out, alerted the Squadra Mobile of the State Police.
LM: Does your office have an alarm?
PB: The office was fitted out with an alarm, but that evening it was not activated, because, as I reconstruct the event, it had just been installed. That evening I left at 8.30 pm. I remember perfectly that I did not activate the alarm system. The strange thing that I can highlight in connection here is that I noticed the alarm system the next day, when we entered, was not damaged, the bright light was functioning even if it was dis-activated, and the person or persons that entered did not damage the alarm, they only dis-activated the telephonic combination, thus with this they manifested a minimum confidence, a certain competence in the subject matter of alarms, of electronics, because to dis-activate a telephonic combination without damaging the alarm, I would not be capable, even being the owner, thus I would not have this competence.
LM: One other thing. You spoke then about a window that …..
PB: Yes, apparently
LM: Was that the only break in?
BB: Yes
LM: Is it a window that gives onto the main street or onto a private court yard?
PB: No, this window gives out to a private court yard that is than protected from the public street by an exterior gate. So it is probable…. I don't know if can be possible…. because close to that window there are other windows of other apartments, there are… there is a window that is about one meter from the balcony of my office, so everything is possible. But this person or persons if they came from the public street would have to open a gate that gives on private property and then, with the help of I don't know which tools, climb up for three, four meters on a vertical wall to then arrive to the terrace ,where was located my office, where it is still located, first up to this window and then through this window enter inside my office, if this was the way in.
LM: However this break in took place in this window, three/four meters high.
PB: More or less
LM: Did you find a ladder close by?
PB: No
LM: Did you find other tools?
PB: No. I remember that we inspected with the Squadra Mobile crew. I should say that the property below us has a door, an armored mesh and a particularly able person could have climbed up. Could have, I don't know, this is just an assumption.
LM: Anyhow it was not easy to climb up.
PB: Absolutely not.
LM: Before, you spoke about this rock, this porphyry..
PB: Yes
LM: Where was it found, inside or outside?
PB: Strangely, right on the little terrace, evidently the person or persons that entered with the help of this very heavy porphyry because a double glass had to be broken, it was not a thin glass, but it was that type of glass utilized mainly for thermal insulation, certainly not for security reasons, evidently it needed a heavy impact in order to somehow succeed in the intent, otherwise a small piece of rock would evidently have been sufficient.
LM: What was taken from inside the office?
PB: So, at first we noticed that the office was in a state of general disarray : all the archive was turned upside down, all the files of the offices were piled up in a heap. But from the first inventory that we did there at the moment, this was missing: a new computer belonging to the lawyer Palazzoli, a note book the brand of which I absolutely do not remember [actually a Sony], a USB flash drive used to save data, a portable Canon printer which was mine, and then a few days later, when I was contacted by a crew of the Police of Milan, agent Spesi Rita, I realized that they had also stolen a cell phone, that anyhow was not working properly, that furthermore was included in the process of investigation (SDI) of the Police Force. Therefore there was also this cell phone, that beforehad I had quit using and didn't even remember about, that was in the drawer of my desk.
LM: Lawyer, were money and checks stolen too?
PB: No, there were none.
LM: On this I have to challenge, that you on the complaint of the burglary indicated also checks from the Banca delle Marche [were stolen].
PB: No I will explain the reasoning. Those checks at the first moment appeared to us not present. There was a block that was finished, but then after checking with the bank, those checks had been annulled, so in reality they hadn't been stolen. The verification that we did at the bank the Monday after, highlighted that I had annulled those checks and the bank had trace of it, so nobody took anything.
LM: Another thing before speaking of the recovery of the computer, you told us of the small havoc done inside your office.
PB: Yes.
LM: You spoke of the ransacking, in addition to, as you said before, of the broken glass with your clothes on top. Was also the photo-copy machine utilized?
PB: I am not able to say that. It was easily usable because it was not code protected, but this I am not able to…
LM: Did they turn on the heating?
PB: Yes, when we entered the heating system was on, as matter of fact there was a torrid temperature inside the office, because it remained on, I think, more than 24 hours, in a month, October, that was not particularly cold. Furthermore I noticed that this person or persons that entered inside my office even made use of drinks that were in a cabinet, leaving…. they even opened the cabinet of the first aid meticulously looking for everything that was inside, but more than anything else disinfectants and blood pressure gauge, this type of things, but they really did an accurate selection of the material present inside the first aid cabinet.
LM: Returning to the computer, the property of…..
PB: Of the lawyer Palazzoli, yes.
LM: Was it discovered at a later date?
PB: Well, we never saw it. I say, that the 27th of October 2007, around noon, it was a Saturday, I was in the office in a anomalous way because generally I had the first 3 hours at school and the last 3 hours are normally always….. making 6 hours Saturday morning. But that morning I left early and I was in the office. A telephone call came in on the land line, a call from the police station Venezia Garibaldi from the Milan Police, the agent Rita Spesi, who told me that they had found an individual, of whom I was not given general information, nor the gender, I was only told that certain goods were on this individual, that if I remember correctly they were found inside a kindergarten, a school, an institute of learning, and in this instance, among goods that were in possession of this individual or better held by this individual, this person also had this cellphone. Turning it on, my name appeared, and from here the police officer by way of a search of the SDI system of investigation, saw my complaint of theft of October 15th 2007, and so she asked me if proveably those goods were my property.
LM: Therefore the telephone and computer?
PB: Telephone without doubt, the computer was described to me, it was not mine, I manifested doubts in the sense that…... well I had never seen it, or used it, because it was my colleague's, who had just bought it, a short time ago he had just bought it. On the computer I manifested doubts. On the telephone, on the telephone however by way of the names of the address menu, the clients and friends of mine, I was able to confirm with certainty that at least my SIM card was on that phone.
LM: It is a Sony model…..no excuse me…..
PB: No, the telephone is a Nokia.
LM: It is a Nokia, model 6310.
PB: Nokia, for sure, the model now not….....
LM: Like this one, so to….....
PB: Yes, exactly.
PB: It is the same color, if I remember correctly.
LM: However this is not yours, it is mine.
PB: No, fine.
LM: Was the name of the person that was stopped given to you by agent Rita Spessi?
PB: No, absolutely not.
LM: Did you then find out the name of this person?
PB: No, this happened on October 27th when the police officer calls me. All ends with this telephone call in which I stated I recognized at least the cell phone. On October 29th, a Monday afternoon I am in the office and on the phone with some clients. October 29th, I may be mistaken, but I believe I mentally reconstructed the facts in this way, I did not take notes, I must be honest. October 29th my attention - I was on the phone - my attention was drawn by a commotion in the lobby, the common reception area outside the office. I hear voices in the corridor, I am still on the phone, afterward I get closer to see that an assistant of the office, Dott. Luciano Morini, is speaking with someone. Before I can realize what is happening, he tells me "Look Paolo, here is a person that says that he was found with merchandise, goods, objects that were reported stolen by you and your colleague Palazzoli, but that he bought them in Milan close to the train station in central Milan". At which I go to the corridor and I see, at the entrance of the lobby, a colored person that has a basketball in his hands and is dressed in sport clothes. These things surprised me, because we were at the end of October and it was kind of cold, it struck me quite a bit seeing this person in sport clothes, a tank top like those used by basketball players, and a basketball. I recognized the basketball because I played basketball for twenty years, so I know how to recognize one. At that point I say: "Look I don't know who you are", he answered: "I don't know who you are either", I replied: " Look we are only interested in having our belongings returned" and that was all. At that point I went back to the office. I don't know if the person stayed in front of the office, and anyhow I close the door and there it ended. A few weeks later, may be a month later, I'm not sure, some time later I see on the newspapers photographs of a person that was associated with the matters of this proceeding, from which I recognized the person that presented himself that afternoon on October 29th, before the matters that brought to this proceeding, at the office to say that, yes he was found at that location in Milan by the crew of the Squadra Mobile, of the police station Venezia Garibaldi, that he did not…. tell me but tell to my colleague Morini, that he did not take anything from anybody but those things he obtained by purchasing them.
LM: Who is this person? Can you give us a name and surname?
PB: Doctor Luciano Morini that…....
LM: No, no, I say…....you told us of your assistant. You said that this colored person that you did not know, that you saw for the first time October 29th 2007, then at a later stage had the means to see by the newspaper who it was.
PB: Yes.
LM: Can you give us the name and surname of this person?
PB: I believe that I recognized in that person this Mr. Rudy Hermann Guede, that is not a defendant in this proceeding, but is involved in the other one…..
LM: Always in reference to October 29th , at the moment this person came to your studio, you said : "This person arrived , and spoke with my colleague Morini".
PB: Yes.
LM: And he told you: "I do not know you". These are the exact words that you said before?
PB: When I was on the landing, I said….....
LM: That which Guede said to you.
PB: That which I said to him, because I spoke first and said: "Look I do not know who you are". He responds: " I don't know who you are either", furthermore in a perfect Italian, with a Perugian accent, something that surprised me, because been a person…… but everything is possible. To which I told him, "look let's cut it short we are not interested. We are only interested in getting our goods back ", end.
LM: But naturally you knew the subject of the discussion between….
PB: Because a moment before Dr. Morini related to me "look there is a person outside that says that he bought goods that you and your colleague reported stolen, he bought them in Milan".
LM: One last thing. Concerning the computer of your colleague Pazzoli, do you remember the brand, the model?
PB: No, I'm not able to answer.
LM: Thank you.
GCM: Please proceed.
LG: Excuse me Lawyer Brocchi, I am Ghirga. Your office is on which street?
PB: Via del Roscetto, 3.
LG: First…. You already told us the height, can you repeat it?
PB: The office is on a raised floor, technically, it is not a first floor, is a raised ground floor, that means that from the entrance of the building you go up ten steps to enter the condominium, then on the left end side there is the entrance to the office.
LG: An what about this terrace window?
PB: It is on the other side of the building.
LG: From the outside how much can it…
PB: Let's say that are a few meters, may be three, four, but I am not able …..because I never measured it.
LG: But you were speaking of an access from another street that intersects Via del Roscetto?
PB: Exactly there is an intersection, Via del Lupo, going downhill.
LG: Via del Lupo
PB: Via del Lupo, if I remember correctly, it goes down till you reach a dead end, it comes to a courtyard behind the building and then there is another courtyard that is private property enclosed by a gate. If these person or persons entered through here they would have had to open that gate to get inside to what I described before to get into the office.
LG: Thank you, I wanted to clarify that.
GCM: Mr. Prosecutor, please proceed.
PM: (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
PB: In effect I don't know. Seeing as I was alerted to these happenings by agent Rita Spessi of the police station Venezia Garibaldi, sometime later, together with my colleague, we filed an application for the repossession of these goods at the central penal record office of the Procura di Milano, via Manara. After 24 hours an agent, an operator, or a clerk of the central penal record office, calls me on the telephone and tells me: "Look, Lawyer, we saw the application of release, but to us form 21, does not result in any procedure". To which I said: "How can it be that no form 21 procedure shows up ? The agents would have done a CNR, or not? At least by the end of their duty, having found a person in possession of stolen goods should have reported…", "Look , there are no results of this procedure"
PM: (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
PB: Form 21, subject known, in the sense that in the Procura della Repubblica there are various forms, 21, 45, 44, relative documents, etc.
PM: (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
PB: No, I looked for it as a form 21, but even then they…..I even asked: "Be patient, I will look for it on the other forms", to which he said: "We cannot find it". Given that some time had passed this caused me some surprise. That's it.
PM: But they notified you (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
PB: No, never.
PM: So then this procedure in any case is not a charge (inaudible - outside the microphone)?
PB: This I don't know. I only say that the application of release, I filed it, and that the central penal record office of the Procura called telling me that they could not find the application filed by me and my colleague as the offended parties and no other relative documents regarding this procedure.
PM: When did this happen?
PB: 2008, last year in the spring, months and months after…..
PM: Did you by any chance verify if there was (unintelligible audible-outside the microphone)?
PB: No, no.
PM: (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
LM: I oppose this question by the Public Prosecutor because I would like to make it known to the court that we know that there is a penal proceeding, the Public Prosecutor D'Amico in Milan even has it. We asked for the acquisition, and we have right here……
GCM: Excuse me lawyer, what is the motive for your opposition?
LM: Because the Public Prosecutor is asking if there is a penal proceeding, when in reality……
GMC: Excuse me Lawyer, but the Public prosecutor is asking questions to the witness on what he knows. That if evidences comes out from other sources, they will be acquired. The objection is rejected. Please Public Prosecutor.
PM: (unintelligible - no microphone) ?
PB: Yes, it is a palace of the 15 century
PM: Do you know, by chance, which was the path (unintelligible – no microphone)?
PB: I can presume it, having found the glasses in the inside, that….
Note: in this moment the PM microphone is turned on
PM: Therefore before I could not be heard.
GCM: The answers have been…
PM: The answers were…
GCM: Yes.
PM: I understand.
GCM: The other questions… excuse me, the Public Prosecutor was asking if something to you results…
PM: If there is a proceeding, and you say there is not one.
PB: No, I don't say there isn't one, It does not result from me because the the central penal record office of the Procura di Milan, calling me on the telephone, referred to me the day after, that up to that date there was no registration. Now, everything is possible, that they it registered it later, I don't know.
PM: You did not have any news, in any case…
PB: Never, never.
PM: Did you receive an extension of the investigation?
PB: Never, never.
PM: Let's go back to the position of this… then this office is on the ground floor…
PB: Raised ground floor.
PM: … raised ground floor. From what point do you arrive?
PB: On via della Roscetto there are 2 windows on the raised ground floor, on the street front, that are the rooms of my colleague Palazzoli and mine. Then there are…
PM: What is the distance from the ground?
PB: From via della Roscetto it is minimum 3 meters, yes 3 meters, because I am tall… well it's 2 or 3 meters. Then going down via del Lupo, there is a slope, until this public courtyard, because via del Lupo is a dead end. Thereafter, from this side the height increases, let's say, it increases slightly after this small slope, therefore the ground goes up and there is an internal court yard that is accessible from the public courtyard through an iron gate. Going through this gate you arrive at this private courtyard, than there is an armored door with a mesh, so that one with the mesh is on the ground floor, looking up you see this balcony, this little terrace that is outside is my office, that is situated ….. more than three meters, between three and four meters from ground level.
PM: So, this door with the mesh is a door and not a window.
PB: No, it is a door
PM: Therefore all the way to the ground.
PB: Yes
PM: How high is it?
PB: More than two meters for sure.
PM: So after this door, there is another meter to arrive… or a meter and a half, two meters?
PB: I presume at least another meter.
PM: Another meter to arrive to the balcony.
PB: At least.
PM: Where was the porphyry rock found?
PB: On the balcony, on the outside.
PM: You said that inside … can you describe what you found? How was the…..
PB: The situation.
PM: So the rock was outside.
PB: The rock was outside, the glass was inside, the glass of the window in part on the corridor and they were covered with our clothes, mine and those of Lawyer Palazzoli, placed right on top of the glass.
PM: They were on top of the glass.
PB: On top of the glass, and the thing surprised us, "maybe" we said "to not make noise passing over them", I don't know, it is only a supposition. After which they were in the room of the photocopier other pieces of fragments of glass always coming from that window, the only one broken, they were situated on a small rug that was right in front of a workplace, a computer. Then right in front of this there were drinks, real close, open, partially consumed. Then we went into the other room, where the filing cabinet is, it was completely turned upside down. All the drawers were open, all the files were taken and the papers all mixed up on the floor, there were a mountain of paper, an entire archive practically mixed up, that many things we were never able to find, some later, some first, others later. Therefore this was the situation. Then inside my room, on my desk, there was a leather suitcase belonging to me, on top of this suitcase in a very orderly way were placed some screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, facing the window, all perfectly aligned and facing the window. Even here all the papers in disarray. A chest of drawers was opened, inside were files, all the records of the law practice funds, all the annual quotas of the inscriptions, all things that we found eventually with a lot of effort, mixed one on top of the other. Even here was another filing cabinet of my dossiers that was opened and all the papers mixed up. Then inside of the administrative office there were, there are all the folders with the contracts of the intensity bills, with the deed to the office, all upside down. There was the placement of the [printer] that was… let's say there had been activity, because we found receipts scattered close to the machine, so there had been…at the least this person or persons had gone to satisfy themselves of what that instrument was. This was…
PM: Listen, was the cell phone given back to you?
PB: No, I asked for the release, I deposited …
PM: So it is in possession of the police or the procura?
PB: Office of the body of evidence, I presume.
PM: Fine. I don't have any other questions.
GCM: Questions from the civil parties? None, President. The defense can complete it's questioning.
LM: I would like to deposit a record that naturally is in the dossier of the Public Prosecutor and on the basis of this record then ask questions of the witness.
GCM: Maybe put this record at…
LM: It's about.. this can be useful to the lawyer because the number of the penal procedure that charges Rudy Guede is indicated and a warning effected on February 1, 2008 by the Procuratore della Repubblica, the assistant D'Amico, that is carrying out the investigation with regard on Rudy Guede for the crime of theft, receiving stolen good, and for the crime of carrying an illegal weapon, law 110 of '75. This information was also given to the Procura della Repubblica of Peruga, to Dr Mignini, with communication via fax.
PB: When was the procedure registered? Ah excuse me,I can't…
GCM: Let's see the document. So the parties have seen this document?
LM: There is an error in the writing of Dr Mignini ("Dr Minnini") but it can be understood that it is his fax and and it was even addressed …
GCM: Even the defense of Knox knows this…?
LG: (unintelligible no microphone) ?
GCM: The question in relation to this document?
LM: The question is this, Doctor D' Amico makes aware that all of the confiscated material and thus the computer and the Nokia cell phone, had already on the date of February 1, 2008, prior to February 1, 2008, been passed on to the police station of Perugia.
PB: So it is in Perugia.
LM: The question is this, I would like to know, did you request in the first days of the year 2008 to the police station the return of…
PB: No, I did so to the Procura di Milan, believing that it was held in the body of evidence of the Procura di Milano, because those people told me they were found in Milan and that it was probable evidence of a criminal activity. Therefore, I thought to make a request of release to the Procura di Milano.
LM: Reading the letter sent by Dr D' Amico , for the Procura di Perugia, both the computer and the cell phone are indicated. Can you recognize the computer, property of your colleague?
PB: I say that the cell phone without doubt was a Nokia; the 27th of October 2007 is true because it was Saturday; the Sony Vaio I cannot be certain of the brand, because I absolutely don't remember it, because it was not even mine, , therefore I don't know. The attempted aggravated theft, 56, 624, 625, 648…
GCM: Only on the objects.
PB: Yes. No, the objects… I can only say about the cell phone.
GCM: So only the cell phone.
LM: I ask for the acquisition so as to demonstrate that, indeed, there is a penal proceeding.
GCM: Agreed. Other questions?
PB: So it is pending in Milan. The strange thing that I can say to the president is this… I see that it includes the form 21/2007. So I don't understand why the Penal Central Record Office told me that it was not pending…
GCM: Excuse me layer, let's go back to the testimonial questioning, therefore on the circumstantial facts.
LM: Let's go back to the reconstruction of the entry path in your office by the thief. To the question by the Public prosecutor you explained, as you explained to me, that this window is at the height of about 3/4meters from the ground floor.
PB: From via del Lupo, yes
LM: Then you refer to a door, an iron door which is close…
PB: Yes, I confirm.
LM: And this iron door at what distance is from the window?
PB: It is perpendicular just under the window.
LM: So therefore there were, let's say, coarseness on this door that could allow an eventual…
PB: A fit person, not I; a fit person, not someone like me, could have climbed up with the risk of plummeting to the ground, because there is clearly no protection, there is nothing but a vertical wall.
LM: I do understand. One last thing, the window from which the thieves entered as you indicated, is higher than the other windows?
PB: No, because the office is on the same level and it is exactly…you mean compared to the office or as per the window height?
LM: Compared to the street level and the other windows.
PB: No, at this point, when you get to little terrace you are practically at the level of the other windows.
LM: One last thing, when that man on the 29th of October that man, Rudy Guede, came to your office…
PB: No, not in the office, he was on…
LM: On the landing?
PB: Not even, he was in the entrance… on the steps between the street and the entrance of the office…part of the lobby. He did not enter the office.
LM: His intention was to come inside the office, to come to you?
PB: I don't know. As a matter of fact he didn't know who I was, because, when he rang he rang on Legal Office, because evidently somebody had told him that those goods had been… but I repeat, I did not speak with him, therefore no… they are all things told to me by Dott. Morini, so they are not of my direct knowledge.
LM: Thank you.
GCM: When did this take place?
PB: This happened Monday afternoon around 5, late afternoon on October 29th 2007
GCM: So how many days after the theft?
PB: The theft was October 13th, this on the 29th .
GCM: If there no other question the witness is excused.
There are no other questions; the witness is dismissed.
GCM: The communication from the Procura della Repubblica, Tribunale Ordinario of Milano dated the 1st of February 2008 is acquired in order to be used. Who is next?
LM: Lawyer Palazzoli
Archived in Those who were charged, Rudy Guede, Public evidence, Staged breakin, The witnesses, Knox-Mellas team, Sollecito team, Nina Burleigh, Michael Heavey, Steve Moore, Bruce Fischer, Knox book hoaxes, Sollecito book hoaxes, The break-in hoax, Guede good guy hoax
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Saturday, November 29, 2014
The PMF/TJMK Master Evidence List: First Of Our Projects To Make The Final Picture Whole
Posted by The TJMK Main Posters
High-achiever Meredith Kercher was born less than one mile south of this famous London landmark
There are really three pictures, not just the one, still to be fully made whole.
- That of Meredith. We believe a family site will soon add to the fine book published by Meredith's dad.
- That of all of the evidence the court acquired in 2009, which is the sole picture the Italian citizenry takes seriously.
- That of the misleading campaign by the Knox and Sollecito PR shills, leaving some in the UK and US misled.
The Master Evidence List is a key part of the second picture and there are several other media-friendly pages still to come.
The new page is here and it can also be permanently accessed via the new button in our column to the left.
Many posters on the two PMF websites and on TJMK helped to create the master list, which is divided into 25 areas with links in the column to the right.
To aid in emailing and tweeting the new page, it not only has its own address, also each of the 25 evidence areas also has its own separate address.
Much appreciation to those who built this list.
Archived in Public evidence, The locations, The timelines, Real crimescene, DNA and luminol, The two knives, Other physical, The computers, Cellphone activity, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Massei prosecution, Massei defense, The Massei Report, Smoking-gun posts, Knox alibis hoax, Knox book hoaxes, Sollecito's alibis, Sollecito book hoaxes, No-evidence hoax
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Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Analysis #3 Of Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera, Organized Crime Section: Contradictions Between RS & AK
Posted by Cardiol MD
1. Overview Of This Series
In 2007 Dr Chiacchiera was the Director of the Organized Crime Section and the Deputy Director of the Flying Squad.
He was one of the most senior and experienced law enforcement officers to testify at the trial. His testimony and his cross examination by the defenses occupied a lot of time of the court late in February 2009. He covered the following ground.
(1) He found Knox and Sollecito uncooperative when he asked them questions.
(2) Saw evidence contradicting any lone burglar theory and indicating that the "break-In" to Romanelli's room was faked.
(3) Phone records and the police investigation into the accused phone activity the night of the murder.
(4) Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito's house.
(5) Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito's and the evidence that it is the murder knife.
Dr Chiacchiera was submitted to cross-examination on the above 5 items by 4 Attorneys for the Defence of Knox and Sollecito, by 2 Civil Party Attorneys, and to Re-examination by the Prosecution. He had a gruelling time as a witness.
All the translation is by the ever-dedicated main poster ZiaK. This series is highlighting some key portions. Here is the full 50-page transcript which will be posted in the trial testimony area of McCall's great Wiki.
Continuation of Dr Chiacchiera's Evidence-in-Chief:
MaCh: It emerged that normally Sollecito kept his cellphones, and also Amanda Knox, they kept their cellphones on until a late hour, evening, [sic] there is no telephone traffic from 20:40 hours. A thing of this …
{Witness begins Testimony re cellphones and is interrupted}
MC: But did this emerge from the declarations or did it emerge from the analysis of the [phone] records in the preceding days?
{Examiner interrupts witness with good Q re source of telephone-usage information}
MaCh: It emerged from the analysis of the [phone] records in the preceding days.
{Witness answers clearly}
GCM: Excuse me. Let me understand. In other words you say: the cellphone was switched off and there was no telephone traffic, these are two different things.
{Court asks good clarifying Q}
MaCh: I'm saying, Mr President. Two things. The first, normally Sollecito's telephone and the telephone of Amanda, were switched on until the late hours. The fatal evening, they were switched off from 20:42 hours until … one [of the phones] from 20:42 onwards and the other from about 20:50 onwards. One. Two, the traffic …
{Witness is Answering Court's Q in 2 parts. When he gets to his part #2, Court interrupts}
GCM: Before going on to "Two", excuse me: "normally" – what does that mean? You had …
{Court is asking good Q re witness's Part #1, but is interrupted}
MaCh: We had done a comparative analysis of the telephone traffic of that evening with the telephone traffic of the preceding evenings. Shall we say the habits ...
{Witness interrupts Court with narrative response, and is also interrupted}
GCM: And so the "normally" emerges from this?
{Court interrupts witness's response with good Q}
MC: How many evenings? If you recall, or not?
{Examiner asks witness relevant Q, adding redundant Q}
MaCh: Months, no … honestly, I don't remember how many [evenings], but months.
{Witness stumbles, seeming uncertain re 'evenings' vs 'months'}
MC: I mean to say, not …
{Examiner preambles re her redundant Q but is interrupted}
MaCh: Not three days, no. The telephone traffic habits were evaluated. [This is point] one. [Point] Two, the element that emerged, that contradicted the declarations, I can't report on the declarations but I can report on the element that contradicted [sic. i.e. provided the contradiction], that in effect no telephone call had arrived at 23:00 hours, as had been declared: on the phone line that was declared to have received that … the recipient of that very phone-call. Another element: no interaction with the computer emerged, unlike what was declared. So there were a few objective elements of comparison from the analysis and from the technical checks that contradicted what had previously been revealed.
{Witness interrupts Examiner with narrative response to Examiner's Q, witness indicating contradiction between suspects' declarations and objective records of telephone and computer activity}
MC: For Amanda Knox, were there incongruities of this type?
{Examiner asks if incongruities/contradictions existed for Amanda Knox}
MaCh: Yes, there were incongruities because Amanda Knox was, how to say, contradicted by Sollectio, and then she contradicted herself, if I may …
{Witness answers affirmatively, amplifying applicability both to Sollecito & Knox, but is interrupted}
GB: President, if we continue in this way, then we might as well do the old [trial] procedure.
{Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito's lawyer interjects, objecting-subjectively to Court, but submitting no legal basis for her objection}
GCM: Excuse me, please.
{Court seems to politely rule GB out-of-order}
MaCh: The elements, these are [sic], Mr President, I don't know how to do.
{Witness communicates uncertainty to Court}
MC: But it is so difficult, however.
{Examiner chimes-in apparently commiserating with her witness's uncertainty}
MaCh: Mr President, I really don't know what to do.
{Witness seems to repeat statement addressed to Court, who possibly interrupts}}
GCM: Excuse me…
{Court seems to begin response to Witness, but is possibly interrupted}
MaCh: If I have to describe the investigation activity …
{Witness may be interrupting Court or is continuing Witness's unfinished statement to Court}
MC: He's not referring to declarations.
{Examiner chimes-in with his opinion re Witness's reference to Defendants' contradictions/incongruities - GB's interjection seems to have side-tracked court procedure}
GCM: Regarding these declarations, you can report on this [sic. i.e. in this instance?], and with regard to Raffaele Sollecito, you reported – citing the telephone traffic and citing the use of the computer. There now, and this is one point. With regard to Amanda Knox, you cannot report the declarations. But you may, however, say – following these declarations – what type of investigations you carried out, and the outcome of these. So, following the declarations given by Amanda Knox, did you do similar investigations, as [those you did] for Sollecito Raffaele on the [phone] records? Or was there nothing to do, except to …?
{Court rules on subject of testimony re Defendants' declarations, seeming to rule admissibility of Sollecito's declarations re telephone traffic and computer usage, but inadmissibility of Knox's declarations. Court does seem to permit description of investigations that followed Knox's declarations, without describing Knox's actual declarations, and Court asks whether phone-record investigations similar to those done for Sollecito were done for Knox.}
MaCh: Mr President, all the necessary checks were made, but in that immediate moment the most important element … that is to say, in [this] place [NdT: i.e. "in this Court"], in this moment, in this place, that is to say, when they were … I said [that] when the arrests were made, I don't, I don't know how to do, however, the incongruity of the declarations with the facts that we had found, and with the declarations that Sollecito had previously given us, [this] was the most important element. I don't know if I have managed to …
{Witness seemingly responding to Court that he doesn't know how to deal with the declarations, is interrupted.}
GCM: No, excuse me (overlapping voices). So, with regard to Raffaele Sollecito, we have
understood these checking activities were carried out on the declarations made, the verification activities carried out, and [that's all] very well. With regard to Amanda Knox, if you also carried out … maybe there were no objective elements for possible checking, there were no … or else, there were activities carried out of …
{Court, interrupting over witness's testimony, seems to be explaining his Q to witness, but is interrupted by witness}
MaCh: Later, there emerged a series of further elements.
{Witness interrupts with statement re unspecified further elements}
GCM: Not evaluations on the congruity, incongruity, likelihood, these are evaluations and will be done, there you go, comparably. I'm thinking of the [phone] records, of the use, if she had given indications on the basis of which [you] could carry out investigative activity …
{Court seems to want evidence in Knox's phone records justifying further investigation.}
Here ends the Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera covering the relevant Phone Records, elicited by the Prosecution.
Next comes the Testimony Of Dr Chiacchiera elicited by the Prosecution, covering Discovery of pornographic magazines at Sollecito's house, Details of how the large knife, Exhibit 36, was collected from Sollecito's and the evidence that it is the murder knife
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Massei prosecution
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Sunday, December 15, 2013
Why Is Appeal Prosecutor Crini So Very, Very Interested In The Precise Position Of Filomena's Door?
Posted by Cardiol MD
[Above, we can see Filomena's grey door, at hard left; ahead are Meredith's & Knox's bedrooms]
Do please bear in mind that this appeal was initiated by Knox and Sollecito, and the verdict, sentence and sentencing report they dispute is Judge's Massei's from the 2009 trial.
The subject of one of Dr Crini's focuses - whether or not Filomena's door was open at the various times Knox and Sollecito stated they went to the women's apartment on the morning-after – is a crucial one, relevant to proving Knox's and Sollecito's lies and obfuscations.
Wasn't the staged break-in to Filomena Romanelli's room glaringly obvious? In the early morning of November 2nd, 2007? In spite of the Knox/Sollecito obfuscations? There is much information in Massei on this question, pointing to many very obvious obfuscations.
Now, for the legal requirements of beyond-reasonable-doubt (BRD) actual, literal quotations are needed. Much relevant information can easily get 'lost in translation' not only at the superficial level of paraphrase, as in "They said that…..", but also at the more subtle level of the formats used for quotations.
Some of the Massei Report as translated consists of the actual oral quotations of witness statements, some are quotations of the content of written documents, but some consist only of paraphrases of both oral statements and of written documents.
For some quotations, especially nested-quotations the translation uses various formats, beginning either with a comma or an apostrophe, ending with an apostrophe, and, in my copy, some back-slashes.
This mixture can be confusing to some readers, and Knox and Sollecito are seasoned veterans of exploiting such translational losses. That is a major factor in their continuing obstruction of justice: using chronic obfuscation.
He said, "She yelled, 'I'm going to kill you.' "
This quotation-format has been substituted in this post where it seems appropriate. It is hoped that when this format is used only to indicate editorial irony it will be self-evident.
John Follain and Will Savive also make a number of relevant references, and so do some Wiki articles whose authors are too modest to identify themselves though 'Underhill' has been mentioned as a co-ordinator.
Of course, the members of the Florence Appellate Court have access-to, have probably already read, thousands of pages of evidence, including the actual verbatim witness-transcripts, and that Court will make up its own mind independent of what is written elsewhere.
Here are some of the Massei 'door' instances - this is a selection of a relevant 6 out of a grand total of 192 instances:
Massei Page 28: [Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito – said that they were waiting for the carabinieri whom they had called since "coming back to the cottage in the morning because they had been away for the night" and finding "the entrance [15] door open and then the window broken" (see declarations by Battistelli, hearing of February 7, 2009, page 64).]
Access to the Court Records would help us better-understand this passage, but Follain (Page 67, Kindle location 939), indicates that Battistelli is actually quoting Sollecito, substituting 'they' for 'we', so it seems that Sollecito was already obfuscating the facts, encouraging the inference that their shocking observations began only when both he and Knox arrived together and discovered together both the open apartment entrance-door, and from inside Filomena's room, the broken-window, so we are all being steered away, by Sollecito, from the true answer to our question.
Massei Pages 29-30: [Around midday(Nov, 2nd, 2007), at ten past twelve, when they had not yet arrived at the car park of the Fair, and she(Filomena) was in the car with her friend Paola Grande, she received a phone call: it was Amanda letting her know that there was something strange. She had arrived and had found the door open: she had had a shower and it had seemed to her that there was some blood; moreover she said that she was going [17] to Raffaele's place (declarations of Romanelli page 31, hearing of February 7, 2009).
To her (Filomena's) question about where Meredith was, she had answered that she did not know.]
Filomena had apparently not been told by Knox, in this 1st phone-call, about the broken pane, the stone, and the bedroom-disarray, as if Knox was not yet aware of these stunning facts. The obfuscation continues.
Massei Page 30: [Marco Zaroli, who was without a car because Ms. Romanelli had taken it, had called his friend Luca Altieri and they had gone together to the house in Via della Pergola, where they arrived around 1:00 pm, at almost the same time as Filomena Romanelli and Paola Grande. In the house there were the also the two present accused and – as we have seen – Inspector Battistelli and Assistant Marzi. The presence of the latter two was linked by Ms. Romanelli to what Amanda had told her about the open door, the broken pane, her own room in a mess.]
When Knox first told Ms. Romanelli about her visit, she had omitted reference to Laura's and Filomena's doors, whether they were open, whether they were openable, whether Knox opened them, and whether Knox looked inside and saw the broken pane, the stone, and the bedroom-disarray. It is implausible that Knox tried only Meredith's door and not the others.
It is also implausible that Knox even took a shower at the women's apartment, colder as it was than Sollecito's. Amy Frost testified that hours after the body was discovered Amanda Knox told her that she never took the shower, because when she noticed the blood that had stopped her from showering.
The Postal Police commented that Knox also emanated an unpleasant, 'post-shower' odour, inconsistent with Amanda having recently had a shower anywhere, implying Knox was lying about taking the shower.
Knox is steering Ms. Romanelli away from these crucial facts which logically demanded that their 'discoverer' flee (again), and call the Police. Knox is obfuscating by selective piece-meal feeding-of-the-facts to Filomena.
Massei Page 38: [On the day of November 2, 2007 at police headquarters, Amanda was also there and she said that that night she had been with her boyfriend Raffaele and that the next morning at around 11:00 am she had gone back home to get changed. She had found the entrance door open and this seemed strange to her: she had gone into the house and into her room and she had taken a shower and had seen drops of blood.
She said that after the shower she got dressed and noticed that Meredith's door was locked. She went into the other bathroom and said that there were faeces in the toilet. Then she went into another room and noticed that the window had been broken and that there was glass inside. She told these things to her and the other girls present. Then she related that she had gone back to Raffaele's house and had rung Filomena. She remembered that on that occasion at police headquarters Raffaele was very calm, silent.]
When Knox first called Filomena, Knox had omitted any mention of the most significant information - the (staged) break-in, as if she had not 'noticed' it.
Now, later, paraphrasing, Massei states: "Then she went into another room and noticed that the window had been broken and that there was glass inside."
Had Massei not paraphrased, but had written "Then I went into Filomena's room and 'noticed' that her window had been broken and that there was glass inside.", we could use it as BRD evidence.
The actual, verbatim quote should be among the many thousands of Court Records relied upon by Massei; Nencini's Court should use such Record in reaching its decision.
Massei Page 65: [Upon returning home, she [Amanda] noticed that the door was wide open. She thought someone had gone to take the trash out or gone to the floor below, closing the door behind them but not locking it. She asked loudly whether anyone was at home, but no one answered. The door to Meredith's room was closed, and this meant she was sleeping. She undressed in her own room and took a shower in the bathroom, (the one) nearest to (both) her room and to Meredith's.
When she got out of the shower, she realised that on the little bath mat where she had placed her feet, there was blood and also, there were drops of blood on the sink and the faucet. She left the bathroom and went to get dressed in her own room. Then, she went in the other bathroom to dry her hair, where there was a blow dryer. It was at this time that she noticed feces in the toilet, which surprised her. She then took the mop and returned to Raffaele's home, locking the door (on the way out.)
She told Raffaele what she had seen and he suggested that she call one of her friends. She then called Filomena Romanelli, who said that she had been out with her boyfriend and that Laura Mezzetti was also away, in Rome with her family. She then realised that the only one to have spent the night in Via della Pergola was Meredith, about whom, however, nothing was known. Filomena seemed worried, so Amanda (Page 66) told her that she would call Meredith, who would then call her back.
She then called the two cellphones that Meredith had, but without getting any response (from her). She then returned home, this time with [55] Raffaele. Upon returning home, she opened the door to Filomena Romanelli's room and saw that the window was open and completely broken: there was chaos, 'but her computer was in its place on the desk.' Convinced that there had been a burglary, she went into the other rooms: Laura's room was in order, and nothing was missing from her own room.
However, Meredith's door was closed. She began to knock and to call out, without receiving any answer. She was then seized with panic and went on the balcony to see if she was able to see anything, but she couldn't see anything. She went down to the apartment below to ask someone, but no one was there. She therefore went back inside and Raffaele said that he wanted to try to break down the door of Meredith's room, but he wasn't able to. It was then that they decided to call the police, which is what Raffaele did. She let Filomena know about this, asking her to come home.]
Now, only after returning "home, this time with [55] Raffaele." does Knox allege that she had then "opened the door to Filomena Romanelli's room and saw that the window was open and completely broken: there was chaos, 'but her computer was in its place on the desk."
Knox continues to obfuscate by selective piece-meal feeding-of-the-facts.
Massei Page 66: [While they were waiting, two police officers arrived (at the scene) and she showed them all that she had seen. Then Filomena arrived with her boyfriend and two other friends, and they broke down the door of Meredith's room.]
True. There are a number of other Massei references to Filomena's door and room, but they are basically repetitive of information already in the above references.
This seems to be enough for Nencini's Court to reach its verdicts re Knox and Sollecito.
[Below: the area from which Knox would have been looking at Filomena's door]
Archived in Public evidence, Real crimescene, Staged breakin, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Florence 2014+, The break-in hoax, Guede good guy hoax
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Saturday, June 01, 2013
Updating Our Scenarios And Timelines #1: The Timing Of RS Phone Events By Coordinated Universal Time
Posted by Cardiol MD
TMJK's core focus has long been upon "What happened at 7 Via della Pergola, in Perugia, on the night of November 1-2, 2007?"
Over the last 4+ years, more than 20 TJMK posts, with more than 400 comments, have addressed the subject of possible scenarios and timelines for those events. They represent a lot of thought and many are worth reading if you haven't come across them before.
This post is the first in a series that will reappraise the more probable speculations, using the current state of our information.
Coordinated Universal Time
Because our objective knowledge of the actual events is inherently limited, but the cumulative evidence is overwhelmingly large, each post will focus on a different aspect of that evidence, starting with the most reliable, accurate, and precise facts – the UTC Telephone Traffic Records created by the telephone systems of Italy, the USA, and the UK.
UTC [Coordinated Universal Time], "…is used for civil timekeeping all over the Earth's surface…"
Therefore, for example, the timings of the mobile-phone, and landline-phone calls between Sollecito, in Perugia, Sollecito's father Francesco, in Bari, and Sollecito's sister, in Puglia, are precisely recorded – their Start, End, and Duration timings – but not their content. The Locations of the phones at those times are also detectable.
It's almost as if the phone-users are wearing criminal-offender ankle-monitors.
The same goes for all the other civil-calls relevant here, including those between Knox, in Perugia, and her mother in Seattle.
As will be demonstrated, Knox & Sollecito falsehoods are decisively exposed as such by UTC and there are many open questions which they havent yet been made to confront.
Coordinated timekeeping is crucial. Uncoordinated timekeeping can result in the reporting of events before they have even occurred.
For example there were extensive extrajudicial arguments about the time-of-arrival of the Postal Police. I counted over 100 refs to this in the various books about the murder.
The water-leak and RS phone records for the night
Here is the UTC-recorded Telephone Traffic of Raffaele Sollecito's mobile phone beginning with the entire day of 1.11.07 [from Massei Translation beginning p. 318]:
− 00:00:39 an outgoing call, just after midnight
− 00:57 an incoming SMS 319
− 14:25 an incoming call which lasted 58 seconds
− 16:50 an incoming call, coming from the mobile phone of the father, lasting 214 sec.
− 16:56 another call from the father (64 sec.)
− 20:42:56 call from the father (221 seconds):
This last is the conversation which Dr. Francesco Sollecito referred to, made at the end of the film he had just seen in the cinema, which the father recommended to the son, at which point Raffaele informed his father of the problem with the water leak in the kitchen.
The whole water-leak story is based on statements from the Defendants and their familial relatives. There is no separate proof.
Open questions: Is this story an elaborate, and so-far successful, obfuscation? What leaked? What stopped the leak? Is thewater-leak story linked to the knife? Is it linked to the time-of-death.
More open questions: The incriminating kitchen-knife was scrubbed-clean? Well, almost. Where was it scrubbed? When was it scrubbed? It was assumed the knife was scrubbed in Sollecito's sink.
Suppose (as TJMK reader Domingo recently conjectured): "they deliberately disconnected the u-bend tube to make sure that it was cleaned out and that there was no DNA residue trapped there…" and that they did have difficulty reconnecting it properly, hence the leak."
That would be AFTER the murder. While trying to eliminate DNA-residue, that residue would now be all over the floor of a place Meredith had never been. Hence the elaborate obfuscation?
Would Father Sollecito agree to indicate that the water-leak had occurred BEFORE the murder? Of course he would. From the Massei Report with regard to the day of 2.11.07
− 06:02:59 Sollecito Raffaele received the SMS from his father wishing him a good night; from the evidence of the mobile phone record printouts of Dr Francesco Sollecito, it was shown that the sending of the message occurred at, as has been said, 23:41:11 of 1.11.07. This was the last SMS sent from that mobile phone during the whole day of 1.11.07 [page 342]
Here is Amanda Knox, in the e-mail dated November 4, 2007: "We did not go out."
Soon thereafter, she and Raffaele also left and went to Raffaele's house' to watch a movie, have dinner and spend the evening and the night at home)wrote re night of Nov. 1-2, 2007 [Massei p.63] "
Here, spontaneously, not under any alleged police pressure, Knox publicises her alibi.
− 09:24 Raffaele Sollecito received a phone call from his father lasting 248 seconds.
Open questions: What were Raffaele and his father discussing for over 4 minutes? Didn't Raffaele know they had killed Meredith? Weren't the phones already dumped? Wasn't the break-in already faked? Hadn't the clean-up been in-progress?
In Honor Bound (Kindle Locations 400-403). Sollecito acknowledges this call, writing:
"My father called my landline a little before nine thirty the next morning to make sure we would be ready for our day trip to Gubbio. I was too groggy to talk. I'd been up several times in the night— listening to music, answering e-mail, making love— and wanted only to go back to sleep. Amanda got out of bed and said she was going home to shower and crawled back under the covers."
− 09:29 another call was received lasting 38 seconds.
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?
− 09:30 the father called Raffaele; the call connected to the Vial Belardi sector 7 cell (the best server cell for Corso Garibaldi 30)
No apparent response – and probably not a private-signal.
- 12:35: Raffaele's mobile phone contacted a service centre for a phone [credit] recharge (the cell used was that of Piazza Lupattelli sector 7, which gives coverage to the little house on Via della Pergola 7. The signal in question does not reach Corso Garibaldi 30, which instead is served by the signal from Piazza Lupattelli sector 8)
− 12:38: Vodafone sent a message of confirmation of phone [credit] recharge (Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell, good for Via della Pergola 7)
− 12:40: incoming call from the father's mobile phone (lasting 67 seconds; connection through Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell, compatible with the Sollecito's presence near the little house)
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?
− 12:50:34 outgoing call directed at mobile phone 347-1323774 belonging to Vanessa Sollecito, sister of the defendant; duration 39 seconds. Connection to Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell 320
Open question: What were Raffaele and Vanessa discussing ?
− 12:51:40 Raffaele Sollecito called '112' to inform the Carabinieri of the presumed theft in Romanelli's room (duration 169 seconds; connection to Via dell'Aquila 5-Torre dell'Acquedotto sector 1 cell, which covers Via della Pergola 7)
− 12:54: a second call by Raffaele to '112' (57 sec.; connection to Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell)
− 13:40:12: incoming call from the father (94 sec.; Via dell'Aquila 5-Torre dell'Acquedotto sector 1 cell)
− 13:50: the father called for 178 seconds (Piazza Lupattelli sector 7 cell) [343]
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing for 3 minutes now?
− 14:33: the father called for 21 seconds (as above)
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?
− 17:01: the father called for 164 seconds; cell used is that of Via Cappucinelli 5/A sector 2, corresponding to the location of the Perugia Police Station .
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?
− 17:42: the father called for 97 seconds (as above).
Open question: What were Raffaele and his father discussing now?
With regard to Raffaele Sollecito's landline home phone (No. 075-9660789)
− on 31.10.07 Raffaele received *a call+ from the father's fixed line (No. 080-3958602) at 22:14 for 44 seconds
− on 1.11.07 *he+ called the father's house at 00:02:41 for 262 seconds
− on 3.11.07 at 14:16 note was made of two attempted incoming calls from the father's fixed line.
For the entire day of 1 November and then of 2 November, Raffaele Sollecito's fixed line was not affected by any calls, either incoming or outgoing. "
(To be continued.)
Archived in Public evidence, The timelines, The witnesses, Knox alibis hoax, Knox book hoaxes, Sollecito's alibis, Sollecito book hoaxes
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Wednesday, May 01, 2013
A Welcome To New Arrivals #1: An Experienced Trial Lawyer Recommends How To Zero In On the Truth
Posted by Some Alibi
[Merediths window is seen on the top floor of the house in the lower foreground]
This briefing was first posted with slightly different opening paras at the start of the annulled Hellmann appeal. New arrivals often tell us this helped them the most.
If you've come to this website because of the Amanda Knox book and interview, then welcome. Like all of us who come to this case, you have one key question: did they do it? The Knox book and interview seriously cherrypick the case, and perhaps haven't helped you at all.
On the Internet, you will find people who are passionate in their defence of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito; and you will find people who are passionate in their support of an exceptionally talented girl who died, of a fine justice system previously untainted by PR, and of the prosecution's very strong case.
My own arrival
Placing my own cards on the table here: as a twenty-plus year practising trial lawyer, I am firmly a part of that latter camp. But it wasn't always that way.
It was information – evidence – that changed my views. What became very clear to me, early on, was that very few people in the English-speaking world are aware of anywhere near all of the evidence in this case.
I had thought I had grasped the core of the case, but I had not. The case is deep and complex, and like many criminal cases, the complete facts behind it have been only sketchily reported in the media. Even less-so in the US and UK.
Huge swathes of recent developments have not been reported in English at all except here on TJMK. This post and this post for example are extremely key but all those facts can still only be read in English here.
The unanimous jury
I am sure that we all agree that no trial jury, in any murder case, given the awesome responsibility of adjudicating on (young) people's lives for a multi-decade period of imprisonment, condemns people lightly.
It should be a matter of logic that the evidence presented against the accused must have been deep and satisfied the 6 lay jurors and 2 judges on the case in 2009 for them to pronounce that huge judgement. That doesn't mean that there couldn't be the possibility of a mistrial, but clearly the evidence presented must have been substantial.
In this, we've already hit the first problem. Some supporters of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will tell you there's no evidence against them.
This is patently silly. No jury ever convicts people and sends them to prison for 24 plus years without being quite convinced of the case against them. Miscarriages of justice do happen, but the idea that there is "no evidence" can be summarily dismissed.
The only question is whether the evidence is sufficient, true and accurate.
The voluminous evidence
So is the evidence enough to convict beyond a reasonable doubt? The six lay jurors and two professional judges thought so, clearly. What you realise, when you come to the facts of the case, is that the evidence is based not around a single key event but on multiple points.
It can be astonishing to realise that the case is based not only on DNA evidence but also on cellphone evidence and computer records and further yet on multiple conflicting and contradicting versions of what happened that night from the mouths of the accused, not to mention falsely accusing an innocent man of responsibility for murder causing his incarceration.
The wealth of evidence is actually extremely unusual for a murder case. It goes way beyond the volume of evidence resulting in a death sentence in the quite similar Scott Peterson case.
The Massei Sentencing Report
What is absolutely new to the English speaking legal world is that the reasoning for the trial conviction can be read in an extremely detailed 440+ page trial report online.
This trial report is back front-and-center now in light of the Supreme Court's March decision to anull the first appeal. You can read an effective executive summary by the PMF translation team here.:
It was my privilege to play an extremely small part in that translation and summary work. People from four different continents with backgrounds in forensic science, law, academia and a host of other disciplines participated in the work.
The Knox PR campaign
If you are new to this case, you will likely be shocked how much evidence there is against the convicted parties. Amanda Knox's family have spent over $1m and involved a professional PR agency called Gogerty Marriot to suggest otherwise in the English-speaking media.
You might wonder why an innocent person needs a million dollar PR campaign on their part. Make yourself a coffee and read the conclusions at the end of Judge Massei's report. It will take you about 15 minutes. Up until you read this report, almost everything you watch, hear and read is PR spin and is quite deliberately positioned to make you believe there is no case.
When you complete it, I believe you will have a very different take. That 15 minutes could change your ideas about everything you thought you knew about the Meredith Kercher case.
A quick tour of the evidence
Consider as you read this what is your own possible explanation for each of the following:
- the DNA of Raffaele Sollecito on Meredith's bra-clasp in her locked bedroom;
- the almost-entire naked footprint of Raffaele on a bathmat that in *no way* fits that of the other male in this case – Rudy Guede;
- the fact that Raffaele's own father blew their alibi that they were together in Raffaele's flat at the time of the killing with indisputable telephone records;
- the DNA of Meredith Kercher on the knife in Raffaele's flat which Raffaele himself sought to explain as having been from accidentally "pricking" Meredith's hand in his written diary despite the fact Meredith had never been to his flat (confirmed by Amanda Knox);
- the correlation of where Meredith's phones were found to the location of Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guedes's flats;
- the computer records which show that no-one was at Raffaele's computer during the time of the murder despite him claiming he was using that computer;
- Amanda's DNA mixed with Meredith Kercher's in five different places just feet from Meredith's body;
- the utterly inexplicable computer records the morning after the murder starting at 5.32 am and including multiple file creations and interactions thereafter all during a time that Raffaele and Amanda insist they were asleep until 10.30am;
- the separate witnesses who testified on oath that Amanda and Raffaele were at the square 40 metres from the girls' cottage on the evening of the murder and the fact that Amanda was seen at a convenience store at 7.45am the next morning, again while she said she was in bed;
- the accusation of a completely innocent man by Amanda Knox;
- the fact that when Amanda Knox rang Meredith's mobile telephones, ostensibly to check on the "missing" Meredith, she did so for just three seconds - registering the call but making no effort to allow the phone to be answered in the real world
- the knife-fetish of Raffaele Sollecito and his formal disciplinary punishment for watching animal porn at his university – so far from the wholesome image portrayed;
- the fact that claimed multi-year kick-boxer Raffaele apparently couldn't break down a flimsy door to Meredith's room when he and Amanda were at the flat the morning after the murder but the first people in the flat with the police who weren't martial artists could;
- the extensive hard drug use of Sollecito as told on by Amanda Knox;
- the fact that Amanda knew details of the body and the wounds despite not being in line of sight of the body when it was discovered;
- the lies of Knox on the witness stand in July 2009 about how their drug intake that night ("one joint") is totally contradicted by Sollecito's own contemporaneous diary;
- the fact that after a late evening's questioning, Knox wrote a 2,900 word email home which painstakingly details what she said happened that evening and the morning after that looks *highly* like someone committing to memory, at 3.30 in the morning, an extensive alibi;
- the fact that both Amanda and Raffaele both said they would give up smoking dope for life in their prison diaries despite having apparently nothing to regret;
- the fact that when Rudy Guede was arrested, Raffaele Sollecito didn't celebrate the "true" perpetrator being arrested (which surely would have seen him released) but worried in his diary that a man whom he said he didn't know would "make up strange things" about him despite him just being one person in a city of over 160,000 people;
- the fact that both an occupant of the cottage and the police instantly recognised the cottage had not been burgled but had been the subject of a staged break-in where glass was *on top* of apparently disturbed clothes;
- that Knox and Sollecito both suggested each other might have committed the crime and Sollecito TO THIS DATE does not agree Knox stayed in his flat all the night in question;
- the bizarre behaviour of both of them for days after the crime;
- the fact that cellphone records show Knox did not stay in Sollecito's flat but had left the flat at a time which is completely coincidental with Guede's corroborated presence near the girl's flat earlier in the evening;
- the fact that Amanda Knox's table lamp was found in the locked room of Meredith Kercher in a position that suggested it had been used to examine for fine details of the murder scene in a clean up;
- the unbelievable series of changing stories made up by the defendants after their versions became challenged; Knox's inexplicable reaction to being shown the knife drawer at the girl's cottage where she ended up physically shaking and hitting her head.
In conclusion
This list is not exhaustive. It goes… on… and on… and on… And yet, those supporting Knox, many of them intent on making blood money, will tell you that's all made up, all coincidental.
Really? Does the weight of all that evidence sound made up to you?
If so, it must be the most over-rigged criminal case in the history of crime. Unlikely beyond all and any reasonable doubt.
Judge Massei's report explains why the jury found the defendants guilty. I truly expect you will be astonished at the amount of evidence if all you've done is watched a film or read a few press reports.
For any questions thereafter, please join us and post them on truejustice.org or perugiamuderfile.org . You'll find here a host of good people who are all working on a totally volunteer basis, in memory of the only victim of this crime.
Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher. RIP.
Archived in Public evidence, The timelines, Real crimescene, DNA and luminol, The two knives, Other physical, The computers, Cellphone activity, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Massei prosecution, Knox alibis hoax, Sollecito's alibis, No-evidence hoax, Guede good guy hoax
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Monday, August 20, 2012
Dissecting The Hellmann Report #4: The Contortions To Dismiss Witness Quintavalle
Posted by Cardiol MD
[Above: Images of Mr Quintavalle's Conad store; he serves at far left, his cashier serves at far right]
Scroll down here for previous posts in this series.
Mr Quintavalle owns the Conad franchise at the lower end of Via Garibaldli, about halfway between Meredith's place and Sollecito's. Judge Massei in his trial sentencing report had stated this about Mr Quintavalle on page 83:
This Court deems that the testimony of Quintavalle is reliable. It was discovered that Inspector Volturno did not ask Quintavalle if, on the morning of November 2, he saw Amanda Knox in his shop.
He was asked – so Quintavalle recalled - about purchases made by Raffaele Sollecito. Mr. Quintavalle did not say anything about having seen Amanda Knox on the morning of November 2, 2007 in his shop because he was not questioned about this and because, as indicated by Quintavalle himself, he considered this fact to be insignificant.
This post exemplifies how the Hellmann-Zanetti web of deception uses a flood of reasons-to-doubt in its attempt to discredit Massei's conclusion that Quintavalle was a reliable witness. Remarkably, the judges did not even recall Mr Mr Quintavalle, and mostly they work from the brief summary of his testimony in Massei's report and little else.
Quintavalle's testimony is key to the guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito, and contrary to Hellmann-Zanetti's improper purpose; therefore they proceeded to systematically "disprove" Massei's conclusion, stating this on page 39:
Indeed, Quintavalle asserts that she left without having purchased anything.
Verbatim from the hearing of March 21, 2009:
The Hellmann report here proceeds to selectively quote the hearing-transcript in a manner contrary to the usual and customary English-language meaning of "verbatim". It may be that Hellmann-Zanetti meant to indicate that only the words they did quote were verbatim, and that their ellipses indicated innocent omissions. However the effect of their omissions is not innocent.
…If they had asked me…also because, I repeat, I, when the young lady came into my store, I did not see her leave with anything, because when she passed by and passed by again, when she left and I saw her, out of the corner of my eye I saw her leaving, I did not see that she had a shopping bag or anything in her hands.
PRESIDING JUDGE [PRESIDENTE]: You are speaking of the morning of November 2?
ANSWER: The morning of November 2. I don't know if she bought anything, I don't know. My cashier doesn't remember if she bought anything, I am not able to say whether she bought something or not…"
If one wanted to maintain that perhaps Quintavalle is wrong, because she actually did purchase something, it would be correct to observe that if he could be wrong on this point, and also about the clothing she was wearing, then he could also be wrong about the identification of the young woman [giovane] as Amanda Knox.
Finally, the testimony of the witness Quintavalle does not seem reliable, and, in any case, represents an extremely weak piece of circumstantial evidence."
Examples of Hellmann-/Zanetti's flood of Reasons-to-Doubt [That AK/RS are Guilty] :
From Hellmann-Zanetti pages 39-43:
Another piece of evidence [uno degli elementi] on which the Court of first instance based its conviction of guilt is represented by the testimony of the witness Quintavalle, owner of a grocery store in Corso Garibaldi, not far from Sollecito's house but also just a few minutes from via della Pergola: he in fact asserted that he saw, early in the morning of November 2, a young woman enter[sic] his store after having waited for it to open, whom he later recognized as Amanda Knox.
According to the prosecution (and to the Court of first instance), this circumstance proves that, contrary to the alibi she gave, she did not sleep at Sollecito's house until late in the morning, but went very early to Quintavalle's store, as she urgently needed to acquire a cleaning product suitable to clean the house in via della Pergola of her own traces and those of Raffaele Sollecito, before the police could intervene and take samples, since it was inevitable that sooner or later the alarm would be given because of what had happened.
In reality, even under the assumption that the circumstance is true, this would be a weak piece of circumstantial evidence, incapable in itself of proving guilt even presumptively; but in any case this Court holds that the testimony of the witness is not very reliable, in particular in what concerns the identification of the early‐morning client with Amanda Knox."
(1) Reason-to-Doubt #1: "…INCAPABLE IN ITSELF of PROVING guilt even presumptively…."
The reader is being steered away from a level of doubt that is beyond-reasonable, and towards the territory of reasonable-doubt-that -AK/RS-are-Guilty.
"INCAPABLE IN ITSELF" improperly isolates the issue from all the other considerations which should simultaneously-be-taken-into-account.
"PROVING" improperly implies an inappropriate standard of 'certainty'.
….this Court holds that the testimony of the witness is NOT VERY RELIABLE, in particular in what concerns the identification of the early‐morning client with Amanda Knox.
Logically "not very reliable" does not exclude "reliable" but Hellmann-Zanetti presumably don't intend to concede that Quintavalle is reliable; this betrays Hellmann-Zanetti's extreme bias and determination to exclude Quintavalle's damning identification of [their client?] Knox.
Later on page 38:
In fact, he presented himself to the police only a year later, following intense urging by a young apprentice journalist….."
This is a misleading reference to Antioca Fois; see Massei page 84:
He later spoke about having seen Amanda Knox because a young man who used to live above his shop, who he knew, Antioco Fois, had just graduated and had become a freelance reporter for the newspaper Giornale dell'Umbria. When he passed him, he would sometimes ask: "But do you know anything? Did you see something? Did you hear something?"
So one day Quintavalle told Fois that he had seen Amanda Knox on the morning of November 2; later he decided to go to the Public Prosecutor's Office because Antioco Fois convinced him that this fact might be important.
So the "intense urging" was more like friendly exchanges with Quintavalle's neighbour, a former lodger.
(2) Reason-to-Doubt #2: "In fact, he presented himself to the police only a year later…."
Readers are invited to mistrust Quintavalle because he belatedly told this to the police for an untrustworthy reason, steering them further away from a level of doubt [with regard to Knox/Sollecito guilt] that is beyond-reasonable, and further into territory that is reasonable-doubt of their guilt.
Later still on page 38:
Now, what actually happened more than a year before Quintavalle presented himself to the police is absolutely not irrelevant, for the purpose of evaluating the reliability of the witness, especially from the point of view of the genuineness of his memories and the exactness of the identification.
(3) Reason-to-Doubt #3: "absolutely not irrelevant, for the purpose of evaluating the reliability of the witness"
This double-negative statement further invites Readers to regard Quintavalle as unreliable because his memories are false, and his identification of Knox is too inexact. Steering Readers yet further into a level of doubt of Knox's guilt that is reasonable-doubt.
Yet further down on page 38:
…..this was a witness who – taking into account what he himself explained – took a year to convince himself of the precision of his perception, and the exactness of the identification of Amanda Knox with the girl that he saw, although he was able to appreciate the relevance of his testimony already in the days immediately following the murder.
(4) Reason-to-Doubt #4: "..took a year to convince himself…"
From Hellmann-Zanetti page 36:
…..took a year to convince himself of the precision of his perception, and the exactness of the identification of Amanda Knox with the girl that he saw, although he was able to appreciate the relevance of his testimony already in the days immediately following the murder.
Repetition of reader-invitation to regard Quintavalle as unreliable, because his perceptions are not precise enough for Hellmann-Zanetti, and his identification of Knox was too inexact even though he knew at that time that his testimony was crucially relevant.
The reader is being steered even further away from belief that Knox and Sollecito are guilty towards the territory of reasonable-doubt-that -AK/RS-are-Guilty.
Are we there yet? Is there reasonable-doubt-that-AK/RS-are-guilty NOW?!
(5) Reason-to-Doubt #5: "Quintavalle cannot maintain that…"
Near the bottom of Hellmann-Zanetti page 38:
...from the testimony of Inspector Volturno at the hearing of March 13, 2009, it turned out that Quintavalle and his employees and other shopkeepers in the area were shown photographs of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, and were asked in particular to mention any possible purchases of cleaning products on the part of the couple, as this was a precise focal point of the investigation. Thus, Quintavalle cannot maintain that he did not mention what he saw on the morning of November 2 to Inspector [53] Volturno because he did not think it was a relevant circumstance.
Readers are yet further invited to mistrust Quintavalle, because his failure to "mention" everything he had seen, and his idea of "a relevant circumstance" were unacceptable to Hellmann-Zanetti.
That's already five reasons to doubt on the first Quintavalle page alone.
See also Hellmann-Zanetti page 42:
....according to Quintavalle's own statements – he only caught a glimpse of the girl, first out of the "corner of his eye" and then from a bit nearer for a few moments, but never from the front (verbatim from the hearing of March 21, 2009: "Yes, then she entered, I saw her let's say like this, three quarters left, three quarters of the left side. I didn't see her from the front…"
And Hellmann-Zanetti page 43:
"....when she left and I saw her, out of the corner of my eye I saw her leaving,"
Hellmann-Zanetti are now reduced to semantic quibbles about Quintavalle's use of words to describe his visual-angle-of-view when he looked at Amanda Knox's face.
But see Massei page 83:
This young woman remained impressed in his memory because of her very light coloured eyes, azzurri [light blue]. …. she could have been 1.65 to 1.67metres tall. Her face was bianchissimo [very light skin colour] and she apparently was about 20-21 years old.
And see Massei page 84:
...it is worth observing that the witness gave a precise description of what he saw on the morning of November 2 and also provided a description of certain physical features of the woman he saw (light blue eyes and pale face) which, together with the unusual time, may well have fixed in his memory what Quintavalle said he saw.
So by selective omissions of the contents of the Massei Report, based on the 4-dimensional observations of the Massei trial hearings, Hellmann-Zanetti use a 2-dimensional record of the Massei Proceedings, and semantic quibbles about Quintavalle's angles of visual observation, to discredit Quintavalle's testimony.
Even though Quintavalle - who the Hellmann-Zanetti jury never even saw - had testified convincingly at trial that it was Amanda whom he saw in his shop at opening-time on November 2, 2007, and he had held up well under cross-examination.
Enough already? Isn't this a contorted flood of Reasons-to-Doubt-That-AK/RS-are-Guilty? Do you now believe that Quintaville is an unreliable witness?
If you now believe that Quintaville is unreliable, then Hellmann-Zanetti will have accomplished their mission.
[Below: Conad is at right and School for Foreigners at back. RS's place maybe 500 meters behind, up the hill]
Archived in Those who were charged, Amanda Knox, Those officially involved, Public evidence, The timelines, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann critiques
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Giuseppe Castellini Speaks Up For A "Kind Homeless Man Of Many Aspects"
Posted by Jools
Giuseppe Castellini (above) is the editor of the Journal of Umbria in Perugia. Throughout the case he and his various reporters have done amazing, fearless work.
Today he writes movingly about the sad passing in prison of the honest and brave free spirit Antonio Curatolo, who had been charged during the appeal on a minor eight-year-old charge, apparently at someone's insistence.
Our lives crossed on the path of the tragic murder of Meredith Kercher. And, somehow, we were no longer separated. Even though, rather than crossing paths, in time they've run parallel courses. Up to Friday, when death took him away, at the age of 56. And in his passing we (I speak in the plural because the same sentiment is felt by Francesca Bene, Luca Fiorucci and Antioco Fois, the colleagues who have been following the Meredith case and who met him), we feel deeply saddened.
Antonio Curatolo was no saint. But he had his candour, his naturalness, his humanity and his inner rectitude. Sometimes, I felt he was perhaps dissociated. The homeless romantic and anarchic that reads a lot and has a self-taught culture, living on the edge of society by choice, but who "struggles along" not always in a limpid way. A stray cat, clever and naïve at the same time. Tough and kind, profoundly honest, and at the same time illicit.
I remember when we were informed that a homeless man told someone (who then informed us) that he had seen on the night of the murder Amanda and Sollecito in the Piazza Grimana in Perugia, when as usual he was reading while sitting on a bench in the piazza. The story is well known: Amanda and Sollecito are at the edge of the basketball court, and Raffaele sometimes gets up and leans over the guard rail.
An important testimony, because they had said they were asleep at that time. I remember the contact, the meeting, making him repeat continuously until he was exhausted, what he had seen. Trying to make him contradict himself, to see if what he was saying was true.
A good relationship was born in those days. We spoke about other things apart from the Meredith case, things in general. We got to know each other, we talked about our lives, so many things. And, eventually, it was not very difficult to convince him to tell the investigators what he had told us.
Even though we had to insist (with him, but also with the other witnesses that we found) on surpassing that anti-State Italian mentality in which everyone goes about his business, and that if you rather trust the State you'll end up in trouble. He testified, and since his testimony was very important (he was defined by the media, with a bit of exaggeration, the "super-witness"), he was "grilled" very thoroughly.
But he essentially repeated the same story. So much so that the defence teams of Amanda and Raffaele, in the end they stirred in the direction of Curatolo maybe having seen the two youngsters, but not on the night of the murder. His version fully convinced the GUP Judge Micheli (who pointed out that no one could dare question his story because of the mere fact that Antonio had chosen an unusual way of life) and also convinced the judges of the First Instance trial.
Not those judges of the appeal, though, according to whom all the witnesses - especially if found by journalists – were either mythomaniacs, or were prompted to exaggerate by the suppose desire at all costs for a journalistic scoop by reporters (showing, if I may say so myself, a strong cultural retardation of the judges and a very provincial point of view - far from the reality – toward the print press and, more generally, media).
Antonio, as mentioned, was not a saint. His relationship with drugs not only bears witness to his admission that he was a heroin addict, but also the legal troubles related to possession of drugs with intent to sell. An accumulation of small penalties that brought him under house arrest and in prison. Although he proclaimed his innocence. The last time I saw him, some months ago, was when I met him in the street and I accompanied him to the small flat he had rented in Corso Cavour. To complete the house arrest penalty, he told me.
But seeing him enter into that small apartment, after seeing him in the cardboard houses that he was building here and there, gave me the sad impression of a little bird entering a birdcage.
In short, I loved him, despite some aspects of his life. When I saw him we smiled. And they were smiles of men sincere with each other. I had affection for him. His sins, I'm sure, have been forgiven.
May the earth of the grave rest lightly on you, Antonio.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, The wider contexts, Perugia context, Reporting, media, movies, V good reporting
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Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sixteenth Appeal Session: Lawyers For Patrick Lumumba And Victim's Family Weigh In
Posted by Peter Quennell
1) Lawyers for Patrick Lumumba
A translation of the Umbria24 TV station report kindly provided by main poaster Tiziano.
By Maurizio Troccoli
The civil parties are playing the last cards too in the Mez trial, represented by the lawyers of Meredith Kercher's family and those of Patrick Lumumba, the young man who ended up in gaol with Amanda and Raffaele, because he was accused of being the author of the murder by the young American.
A few days before the sentence, which should come on Monday, and the reconstructions of what happened that night between the 1st and 2nd November, 2007 in the cottage in via della Pergola in Perugia, go on stage. A bloody murder which has seen the two ex-lovers condemned to 26 years prison for Amanda, and 25 for Rafaele at the first stage [trial}.
Patrick Lumumba was set free after a few days of detention thanks to an "iron clad alibi" which put him in a different place from "the house of horrors", that is to say in his night spot, together with a Swiss professor, Roman Mero, who witnessed this, thus helping the young man to get back his freedom.
That testimony was sufficient to convince the magistrates - notwithstanding the accusations of Amanda - of his "complete non-involvement in the facts", which originated in the questioning at the Perugia police headquarters on November 6th, 2007.
Patrick is still waiting for justice to be done, to be compensated for what was taken from him, for payment for the person who was stained by such a serious crime which sees him as "the second victim of this tragedy", as his defender Claudio Pacelli said this morning. "Patrick has paid a lot, not only for his imprisonment but also for the damage to his image, said Pacelli. "My client ended up in the newspapers and on TV all over the world as the author of the murder of the young Englishwoman."
"During the appearance of my lawyer - [Patrick] says – it is as though I had gone back, reliving that really sad period. We hope that justice is done. Today I relived those moments - the night when the professor came to the pub saying that he wanted to say good-bye because that next day he would be going back to Zurich," Lumumba said, "However he came to save me, with neither I nor he realising this."
"Amanda falsely accused an innocent person - lawyer Pacelli affirmed - exclusively to avoid being discovered. A classic scheme. Amanda is a consummate actress, a very intelligent girl, astute and cunning. One who really knows how to inspire the emotions of whoever is listening to her."
And the fault of what happened to the damage of Patrick resides completely in "the young American, Amanda", whose profile the lawyer drew in court, defining her "an explosive mixture of drugs, sex and alcohol."
He added, "Quite the opposite of sweet, she has a split personality, fresh-faced, the daughter everyone would like, Saint Maria Goretti, and then with her histrionic side [she is] an impostor, she is a she-devil, satanic, diabolic, addicted to borderline behaviour.
What Amanda says when she claims that Patrick's name was suggested to her by the police is a huge lie. She was the one to arbitrarily choose to point to Patrick as the guilty on, in order to distance herself from suspicion," the lawyer said further.
2) Lawyers for the victim's family
[translation to follow]
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann 2011+, The wider contexts, Perugia context, Amanda Knox
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Carla Vecchioti and Stefano Conti In Perugia Seen Enjoying Their 15 Minutes Of Fame
Posted by Peter Quennell
Archived in Public evidence, DNA and luminol, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Hellmann 2011+
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Saturday, June 18, 2011
Today's Desperate Moves By The Defense Lawyers Seem To Have Backfired On The Two Defendants
Posted by willsavive
Cross-posted here from my own website Savive's Corner.
Order of business
Just as expected, five inmates testified to in an Italian court that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent, to the best of their knowledge.
According to Barbie Nadeau (author of the Beast Book Angel Face) security was tight in Perugia today, as a string of blue prison vans pulled into the back parking lot of the central courthouse carrying some of Italy's most notorious convicts.
1. Mario Alessi
First to the stand was Mario Alessi who is serving a life sentence in Italy for kidnapping and killing 17-month old, Tommaso Onofri, in 2006, was called by Sollecito's defense team. Almost immediately after taking the stand, Alessi turned pale, became ill, and had to step down. After nearly an hour he finally returned to tell his story.
Alessi, who was being held in the same prison as Rudy Guede, testified that the Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito are innocent, speaking in prison conversations in November 2009, a month before the Knox and Sollecito were convicted.
Alessi said Guede approached him during recreation time at the Viterbo prison. "Rudy links arms with me, inviting me to take a walk with him, he has something important to tell me," Alessi told the court. He quoted Guede as saying he was worried because "I don't know whether to tell the truth or not," and that the truth "is altogether different from what you hear on TV."
Alessi then testified that Guede said he and a friend went over the house with the intent of having three-way sex with Meredith Kercher. When she refused, the scene turned violent. Alessi said Guede told him he had gone to the bathroom and upon coming back he had seen his friend holding Kercher to the ground.
Eventually, "a knife appeared, almost out of nowhere," Alessi said, quoting Guede as saying that it was pointed at Kercher's throat. Kercher began fighting, according to Alessi, and her throat slit got slit in the process. Guede tried to rescue her, Alessi said, but his friend stopped him.
Alessi testified (translation by Jools) that…
"Guede asked me what benefits he would get if he told the truth. He then said that he had met Meredith in a bar with some friends of his – one was called The Fat One. He said that one had got drunk and that he had followed Meredith home to see where she lived. A few days later he said he and this drunk friend went back to the house to see Meredith. They asked her if she would like to have a threesome and she had told them to leave.
Rudy said he then went to the bathroom and that when he came back the scene was very different. He said that Meredith was on the floor, back down, and that his friend was holding her down by the arms. He said that they swapped positions. Rudy then told me that he had put a small ivory handled knife to her throat and that it had cut her and his hands were full of blood. He said that his friend had said: 'We need to finish her off or we will rot in jail.'"
Note: The bold statement above is a huge inconsistency, because, by all accounts (Knox as well as others who lived in the cottage), Guede already knew where Meredith was living—he had been to the cottage twice before that. According to Alessi, Guede did not reveal the identity of his alleged accomplice.
Alessi said he and Guede had developed a friendship in prison but eventually Alessi broke it off as he realized that Guede "said two innocent people were in jail" but did nothing about it. Alessi then contacted the lawyers representing Sollecito. Of course, being the humanitarian that he is, Alessi claims that he tried to convince Guede to "tell the truth."
Upon cross-examination, Kercher family lawyer Francesco Maresca held up a photo of the child Alessi murdered (Tommaso Onofri) and asked him, "Do you know who this is?" "No," Alessi replied, looking away. Italian media report that he also denied he is serving a life sentence.
Three more fellow Viterbo prison inmates were called to back up Alessi's story, including police informant Marco Castelluccio, who took the stand behind a blue cover, guards around him. Castelluccio said he heard the story about Knox and Sollecito's innocent mostly from Alessi. He said on one occasion, however, he heard Guede say from a separate cell that Knox and Sollecito were innocent.
2. Luciano Aviello
Another prison inmate Luciano Aviello [42] who has served 17 years in jail after being convicted of being a member of the Naples-based Camorra, testified today that his brother Antonio and his colleague had killed Meredith while attempting to steal a "valuable painting."
Aviello said that the Albanian—who offered his brother "work" in the form of a robbery—had inadvertently jotted down the wrong address, and they instead went to the house where Kercher and Knox were living, and they were surprised by Meredith's appearance. According to Aviello, his brother and the Albanian man then committed the murder and fled.
Aviello is from Naples, but was living in Perugia at the time of the murder. He claims that his brother, who is currently on the run, was staying with him in late 2007 and on the night of the murder he returned home with an injury to his right arm and his jacket covered in blood.
Flanked by two prison guards, Aviello described how his brother had entered the house Meredith shared with Knox and had been looking for the painting when they were disturbed by a woman "wearing a dressing gown."
"My brother told me that he had put his hand to her mouth but she had struggled," Aviello testified. "He said he got the knife and stabbed her before they had run off. He said he had also smashed a window to simulate a break in." Aviello said his brother had hidden the knife, along with a set of keys his brother had used to enter the house. "Inside me I know that a miscarriage of justice has taken place," he asserted.
Consequently, Aviello had been in the same jail as Sollecito and had told him: "I believe in your innocence."
Knox's lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, visited Aviello in Ivrea prison near Turin back in May 2010 and videotaped his statement and included it in their appeal request.
Under cross examination from the prosecution it emerged that Aviello had also been convicted seven times of defamation to which he angrily replied: "That's because all of you, the judiciary are a clan."
As Aviello testified, Knox—dressed in an ankle length floral pattern white dress and blue top—listened intently, occasionally making notes or discussing points with her lawyer.
A comment
So many convicts, which one to believe, if any?
Rudy Guede will now get a chance to rebut all of the above at the next appeal hearing on 27 June. This may be the worst-case scenario that the pussyfooting Knox and Sollecito defenses tried to avoid for three years. Did Knox realize?
Oh yes, it's true! Judge Hellman has ordered Guede's testimony to counter that of Mario Alessi. Guede will be heard alongside two fellow-detainees and two Perugia officers. June is shaping up to be a real "scorcher" in this appeals trial.
Guede had refused to speak on the stand in the original trial of Knox and Sollecito, because his appeal was still ongoing. Now, with Guede's final appeal completed with Italy's Court of Cassation; a real surprise could be in store.
Archived in Those officially involved, The defenses, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann 2011+, The Alessi hoax, The Aviello hoax
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Today's Star Witness For The Defense Mario Alessi Looks To Be Up To His Neck In Trouble
Posted by Peter Quennell
Main reporting on the testimony of Mario Alessi will be available later today. Already the Italian media are reporting on what looks like a slow moving train-wreck for the defense.
1) Alessi's nervous and defiant claims on the witness stand that Guede told him Sollecito and Knox were not involved sounded distinctly hollow.
2) The prosecution ripped into him during the cross-examination phase and left him squirming and evasive on his claims.
3) The prosecution announced that the police have already investigated him for false claims, and a request for his prosecution has been sent to Viterbo.
4) The lawyer for the victim's family also ripped into him with a description of his murder of a baby, with an image of the baby being presented to the court.
5) Alessi then developed some sort of health condition with low blood pressure as one of the symptoms, and was briefly treated.
6) Alessi seemed to be trying to opt out from any more interrogation on the stand, but Judge Hellman ordered him to come back.
Baby killer Mario Alessi is one of the least liked characters in Italy, in part because before he was arrested he was seen on TV saying "who could have done such a horrible thing?"
Attempts to hoodwink the Italian public and courts never seem to go over very well.
Added: Luciano Aviello next took the stand. He is the Naples mafia snitch who claims that his missing brother and one other murdered Meredith.
It will be interesting to see if any photographs surface of Aviello. There are no recent shots. Barbie Nadeau tweeted from the court that he looks about 12 years old.
If he cannot produce Meredith's keys or a knife that he claimed he buried at his brother's request, he too will be toast and also facing more charges.
Archived in Those officially involved, The defenses, Trials 2008 & 2009, The witnesses, Hellmann 2011+, The Alessi hoax
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Saturday, April 30, 2011
Barbara Benedettelli: Campaigner For Victims And Families Says Italian System Denies Them Justice
Posted by Peter Quennell
You can see the problem. Many Italians now think that their justice and penal systems lean too far in the direction of perpetrators getting every possible break.
We have posted often on how tough things are for Italian police and prosecutions, and how many hurdles they have to jump through. There is great caution built into the process before cases ever go to trial, and then there are two compulsory rounds of appeal.
There are proportionally very few perpetrators in Italians prison by global standards, and when there in prison they are given quite a nice time, trained to perform usefully when released, and very often get out of prison early.
Seemingly very humane. But this does carry high costs. There is quite a high proportion of recidivists (perps who do their crime over again) and there are often almost unbearable pressures on victims' families, as Meredith's father John Kercher has several times described.
On top of all this, there is the growing western fascination with perps, and in many cases their elevating to popular cult-worship status.
Barbara Benedettelli is a writer and columnist and the editor of the popular "Top Secret" program on Rete4 TV of which her husband Claudio Brachino [image at bottom] is the host.
Her latest book (only in Italian) is called "Victims Forever". She talks of various prominent perps (one of whom is the convicted babykiller Mario Alessi. who may be a defense witness of all things in the Knox and Sollecito appeal) and various forgotten victims.
Barbara Benedettelli has been interviewed by Maria Rosaria De Simone for Italia Magazine
Barbara, tell me about your latest book, "Victims Forever."
In this book, I put all my soul into it. I was completely absorbed, I have worked tirelessly. It's the outcome of numerous interviews that I made with the relatives of those who were torn from life prematurely. Life is the greatest gift that we possess and it is important that we learn to respect it. We can not devalue it, treat it as waste paper. We can not despise it. Life must be defended. That 's what I tried to highlight.
Who are the 'victims forever' you speak of?
The victims are always the relatives of those who were killed. Killing a person is to kill an entire world, destroying the lives of family members who are sentenced to a life of pain. The murderer after serving his sentence can still have a future. Relatives of the victims do not.
They are sentenced to a life in pain. In the book I wanted to give voices to these victims. It covers eight stories.
I saw that the book contains interviews with relatives of the victims.
Yes, the book includes dialogues spoken in confidence, and the correspondence I received from relatives who live a life torn apart. They are trying to make their voices heard in order to receive justice, and instead they feel forgotten, mistreated and poorly tolerated by our justice system.
I approached them only to discover a world that I not even remotely imagined. I came into their lives on tiptoe, I saw their pain, the disillusionment of discovering that the murderer, in the process, is transformed from a ruthless criminal into a "poor victim" who is well treated, carefully supported, and spoiled to give him, after a detention not adjusted to the brutality of the crime, a new life, a new possibility for the future and a rehabilitation.
In the Italian criminal justice system, the victims and the relatives of the victims, who have lost their greatest asset, matter very little.
It cares far more for the wellbeing of the murderer, his recovery, his return to the social system. And with this mindset, I found that victims and their relatives do not receive justice.
We have a 'system of rewards' and if the murderer demonstrates a desire to involve themselves in re-education, we reduce by forty-five days every six months of the sentence. And we add a number of other benefits.
The book denounces a system that does not respect the victims in their need for recognition of their dignity, their value.
The penalties that are imposed on the offenders should be proportionate to the offense. A man who committed a murder, resulting in a final death, a road of no return, should receive an appropriate sentence, because what he did can not be erased, nor can there ever be reparation.
Instead, our Constitution, with the intent of an educational purpose and the rehabilitation of prisoners into society, has since 1975 triggered a series of benefits for good behavior, leading to numerous reductions of sentences for those convicted.
This is pervasive. It results in assurances for the inmate that leads to a serious imbalance. A murderer is often out of prison very soon, not having fully served his sentence, often emerging unaware of the seriousness of the crime he committed.
Relatives of the victims not only feel that their loved one is killed for the second time by a justice that they consider unjust, but often have to live with the terror of meeting the murderer on the streets of their country, proud and with the eyes of those who got away and without any gesture or sign of repentance.
In my book, the relatives of the victims complained that today in our justice system there does not exist any certainty of punishment.
Can you give some examples?
Take the case of four young boys, Alex Luciani, Daniela Traini, David Corradetti, and Eleonora Allevi. In 2007, they were going to get ice cream.
A Rome boy who was drunk while driving a minibus mowed them down.
Well, consider how much pain, how many people were destroyed that night: the boys, their friends, their parents, their brothers, all those who loved them. Yet all this could all have been avoided. The murderer, Marco Ahmetovic, the previous year had attempted a robbery at a post office. Should he not have been in prison?
Of course, he should have been in prison. And how did it work out?
The taker of four young lives, Ahmetovic, was given six years and six months in prison. He was initially under house arrest in a residence by the sea with a friend, and then released because the house did not meet the standards.
There is no certainty of punishment, as you say. Not only is the sentence not appropriate for the offense that was committed, but even that is not properly served.
Yes, this is an insult to the relatives of the victims. I'll give you another example. Remember little Tommaso Onofri? [The baby murdered near Parma, Sicily, by Mario Alessi.]
How could I forget? His case has been watched throughout Italy with bated breath ...
I interviewed his mother, Paola. She is a woman destroyed. The closer you get to her, the more you feel her pain and are overwhelmed. Paola calls for justice, justice before any thoughts of re-education, to punish, to emphasize that the life of a child has value.
Destroying that has a price: that of freedom. This price, the price of liberty, must be paid by the murderer. In 2006 Paul had a family and that now no longer exists.
Two men kidnapped Baby Thomas, who was seventeen months old, and they killed him without mercy. Mario Alessi and Salvatore Raimondi, these are the names of the killers.
And Antonella Conserva [Alessi's wife and] was their alleged accomplice. Alessi was sentenced to life imprisonment. Raimondi, he was given twenty years, he has benefited from the fast-track trial [same as Guede's] despite the brutality of the crime.
We keep waiting for the decision of the Court of Appeal in Bologna. [The Supreme Court of Cassation referred the wife's case back to them.] The woman's defense team seeks to demonstrate that she was not involved despite the evidence.
"I declare myself innocent," she says. Meanwhile there is only one certainty, that the family will never see again Tommy Onofri that they killed."
Mario Alessi had already had trouble with the law.
Indeed, this is another important point.
Alessi had a conviction for first and second-degree sexual assault. In 2000 a young couple in their rural home was attacked by two unknown men armed with a gun and a knife. The girl was brutally raped. And the rapist was the very same Alessi, who was arrested but released after only nine months after expiry of the period of detention.
After two convictions for rape, Mario Alessi was turned out and free to go and kill the little Tommaso Onofri.
This is the scandal of the Italian justice ...
Yes, a scandal and you could tell a long sequence of stories like that.
How did you feel to spend so much time with the relatives of the victims?
It 's hard. Their pain becomes your own, you're totally involved.
However there is one thing you can say. Relatives of the victims asked for the certainty of punishment for the murderers through my book, but I have not read in them hatred, resentment and fury. Only pain and grief.
I remember that you entered into politics ...
I went into politics. I was full of projects, I thought I could change the world. I thought I could help those who are weakest, those who are less fortunate.
Unfortunately, I encountered the harsh realities of politics. I found myself alone in my battles. I am too idealistic, I do not go over well with this policy.
And in all this your husband Claudio Brachino [the host of Top Secret, image below] helped you?
Claudio is a wonderful man. Always over the years we worked together. He has always supported me. He's also a loving father. He respects my work and my need to carry out my work in complete independence.
Claudio is not only a true professional, but he is also very sensitive and is proud of what I'm doing. Even my two sons are, who I love with all my heart, and who I have rather neglected during the writing of this book. Especially in the final stages. I was very busy and unbearable.
Maria Rosaria De Simone adds: I read her book, "Victims forever." Barbara Benedettelli's work is valuable not only for the way she conducted the interviews and the reflections of high compassion, but also she uses the Italian language fluently and is full of interesting styles. Very nice also is the foreword to the book by Rita Dalla Chiesa, who recalls the day when she learned of the murder of her father, Carlo Alberto. An excerpt.
This is for More Victims. A book in which the soul of the writer shows through and seems naked, stripped at times. Pages that reflect strong feeling, the passion of civil pain but also the love for life, interspersed with the complaints toward a system that allows double, triple, endless injustices. These make these people, in fact, Victims Still.
Not only once, but whenever a court fails to follow up, a murderer intrudes again in those lives that are torn, injured, deprived of any human right. Every time we, the people, public opinion, politicians, judges, writers, forget that the effect of a murder does not end with the death of a human being irretrievably "deleted", but continues in those who survive the death. Because a human being is an entire world. A world full of meaning, history, and other people.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, The Alessi hoax
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Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Defenses' Possible But Extremely Unlikely Star Witness Is Once Again Back In The News
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above: Mario Alessi. The defenses' possible get-out-of-jail-free card.
That is if he actually agrees to testify in face of possible perjury charges, can do so credibly, and can weather a withering cross-examination from the prosecution which has already investigated his claims - and a possible reappearance of Rudy Guede on the stand.
Mario Alessi's claim is that Rudy Guede confessed to him in their cell that he actually carried out the crime against Meredith with two others, not Sollecito and Knox. Guede has very adamantly denied this, and remains seething and maybe likely to hit back hard.
Alessi, a carpenter, actually has some assets in Sicily where he lived and where he murdered a baby boy. But he applied for legal aid for his trial and appeals and he got it - a lot of it. The total is nearly $200,000.
The prosecution then appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court of Cassation that Italian taxpayers should not be stuck with this very large tab. Yesterday the Supreme Court disagreed.
And so Alessi gets to keep his property in Sicily, and Italian taxpayers are indeed stuck with the large tab. Confidence boosting? The Perugia prosecution probably hopes so…
Archived in The witnesses, The Alessi hoax
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Friday, April 08, 2011
A Witness Icognito: Could Outnumbered Knox And Sollecito Defenses Be Forced To Resort To This?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Luciano Aviello is the so-called Camorrah Supersnitch from Naples. He has not been photographed in two decades.
When he testifies in court, he does so from behind a curtain, so that back in his cell he can sleep easier. Perhaps make that: can stay alive.
The beautiful scene below is of Alba, north of Genoa and south of Turin in northwest Italy, where Luciano Aviello may or may not be in the prison there. Nobody seems to know for sure.
We first described what is know of Luciano Aviello back here in June of last year, along with some excellent satire.
Aviello explosively emerged as a possible key defense witness - the US and UK media made a really huge deal out of this - when he claimed that his missing brother was the real murderer, along with two others.
And that Aviello knew where some evidence was hidden (not yet actually unearthed).
As with the hapless Mario Alessi, on whom we posted earlier this week, Luciano Aviello was interviewed not only by the defenses, but also by Prosecutor Mignini and Ms Comodi.
The Italian police also investigated his claims - and they did a surprise search of his prison cell. Nothing is known of what the police and prosecution found out, which makes Aviello something of a one-man minefield.
Even in the middle of last year, Luciano Aviello did not sound too credible.
Here now is an excellent new profile of Aviello and the credibility of snitches like him. It is by Mike La Sorte, a professor emeritus at the State University of New York. Mr La Sorte includes this:
On November 1, 2007, in the Italian city of Perugia, Meredith Kercher was murdered. A trial was held and Amanda Knox was found guilty of the crime and imprisoned. At the time of the murder Luciano Aviello was out of prison and living in Perugia with his brother, Antonio. Returning to prison for extortion, Luciano from his cell in the Spring of 2010 came forward to announce that the true slayer of the victim was Antonio.
"Yes," he declared, "it was my brother who killed Meredith during the commission of a break-in. I can produce the weapon of the crime and the keys to the house." This generated international attention and got Avellino into the newspapers. His confession gave the defense the excuse to reopen the case to review the evidence. [Actually the mandatory appeal was already pending.]
Camorra expert Gigi di Fiore said of him: "Aviello is a strange person. He has had several contacts with the Anti-Mafia Commission and was judged to be less than truthful, a confused youth in search of publicity. He would want to exchange information for protection but had little to offer. His story is an emblematic event of no merit."
Why could Luciano Aviello's testimony on his claimed murderous brother (who presumably does know what he looks like) really, really matter to the besieged Knox and Sollecito defenses if it is believed?
These are the reasons:
- 1) The Supreme Court of Cassation has already accepted that overwhelming evidence proves THREE people - Guede and two others - all attacked Meredith.
2) There are literally hundreds of evidence points pointing to Rudy Guede and Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito - in fact MORE point to Knox and Sollecito.
3) Despite the absurd claims of the dispirited conspiracy panel at Seattle University Monday night, not one evidence point - NOT ONE - points to anyone else.
The defense lawyers actually get along well with Mr Mignini, and they know that the justice professionals have really done an okay job. They have never once claimed that any evidence was fabricated, or that investigators made things up, or beat or starved Amanda Knox, or performed any other criminal act. They seriously need to finger other perps.
So. Look forward to welcoming the colorful if invisible Mr Aviello. We sure do look forward to seeing you. Or not, as the case may be.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, The Aviello hoax
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Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Harsh Language For Possible Defense Witness Mario Alessi From The Supreme Court Of Cassation
Posted by Peter Quennell
Mario Alessi is the jailhouse snitch who claims that Rudy Guede told him that Guede and two others murdered Meredith.
That if believed would leave Knox and Sollecito in the clear. But if the Knox and Sollecito defenses put him on the witness stand, it might destroy their appeal like a hand grenade.
Why? Well, the prosecution interviewed both Alessi and Guede in prison and they further investigated Alessi's claims - and have never made those results public. Alessi's own lawyer does not believe him and she has publicly urged him not to get on the stand to repeat his claims.
She presumably fears he might get slapped with perjury charges and end up spending even more years behind bars - he is already serving a life sentence at Parma Prison which normally means 30-plus years.
The Supreme Court has just issued a ruling on the appeal of Alessi's wife wife Antonella Conserva. It says that as she was not present at Mario Alessi's horrific killing of Baby Tommy when the baby would not stop crying, her 30 year sentence is not properly supported in law.
Her case is referred back to the Appeals Court in Bologne where the first-level appeal must be repeated. Meanwhile Alessi looks even more disreputable. And the other possible witness with an alternative theory is Luciano Aviello who has a well-established record of lying.
More and more it is looking now like Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito may be forced to take the witness stand in last-ditch efforts against their appeals totally failing and their getting awarded even tougher sentences.
Little else is going their way these day - the DNA review and and Mr Curatolo's testimony are expected to still remain creditable, and even if they don't they are only two drops in a large evidence bucket.
If either do take the stand (and if they don't, much will be made of that, even though Italian law says it shouldn't) Kermit's cross-examination questions are waiting.
Archived in The witnesses, The Alessi hoax
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Monday, March 28, 2011
Sixth Appeal Hearing: Andrea Vogt On The Testimony Of The Witness In The Square
Posted by Peter Quennell
[Above and below: north side of Piazza Grimana showing the benches where Mr Curatolo normally sits]
Click here for Andrea Vogt's report for the Seattle PI from the appeals court.
One of the case's most colorful and controversial characters, Curatolo, 53, has spent many a day sitting in the small public Piazza Grimana square near the university where college students come to play basketball, buy hashish and hang out….
When questioned by prosecutors, he said he remembered seeing Knox and Sollecito having "an animated discussion" in the square, which overlooks the villa where Kercher's body would be found the next day. It was not raining that night, he said, when asked about the weather. The following day the Carabinieri came around to ask him if he had seen anything, he recalled, and he had watched as forensic crime scene investigators worked around the house.
"Are you sure that the day after you saw those two discussing in an animated way you were questioned by the Carabinieri and saw the police at Via della Pergola in their white suits?" asked Mignini.
"Very sure," Curatolo said. "As sure as I am that I am sitting here."
But minutes later, in questioning by Sollecito's lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, Curatolo also said he had seen young people in masks and getting on buses to go to the discos. The distinction is important because Halloween was Oct. 31 and there were likely students in costumes, getting on shuttles to go to the discos on the outskirts of town.
Kercher, however, was killed on the evening of Nov. 1, 2007, which is All Saints Day, a somber holiday in Italy, when it is less likely there were any festivities.
"I think it is clear that he does not have a lucid memory," said a member of Knox's legal team, Maria del Grosso, after the hearing. "And I think it was demonstrated today that he is not a credible witness."
However, prosecutors and the lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, maintained the testimony was in line with previous statements.
"He repeated exactly what he said during the first trial. We still believe he is reliable."
Good neutral report, as you'd expect, from Andrea Vogt who is the American reporter most consistently in the courtroom. All the other reports in English seemed to include a lot of fluff from the defenses.
We'll have an analysis post on this hearing and the DNA testing in Rome later today or tomorrow.
Below: Mr Curatolo's preferred benches are at the far left there. If Sollecito did watch the gate of the house on the night he'd need to be to the far right there. The gate can easily be seen from there.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, The Massei Report, Hellmann 2011+
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Sunday, March 13, 2011
Fifth Appeal Hearing: Testimony On Club Closings And Buses Leaves Credibility Of Eyewitness Intact
Posted by Peter Quennell
The shot above from the front of the School for Foreigners is of Piazza Grimana.
Click for a larger image. You can see the square with the benches at extreme left and right, and at rear the basketball court where Rudy Guede played. At the back there at the far right are the stone stairs down which Knox and Sollecito may have entered the park.
The many traversing buses mostly stop right in front here and they would block most of that view.
It is hard for us to see the defense witness testimony from six witnesses - one nightclub owner apparently refused to show - that several clubs were closed and several buses not running as any big deal.
In this post below we mentioned that Judge Micheli at Rudy Guede's trial in October 2008 had accepted the testimony of Mr Curatolo because he said it was the night before the police descended on Meredith's house and the square.
Judge Masse's court also used this as a pointer to Mr Curatolo's credibility and the Supreme Court of Cassation in denying Guede's ten appeal grounds also endorsed the testimony as good.
Here now is a repeat of our report on Mr Curatolo's day in court by our man in the court at the time, StewartHome2000, almost precisely two years ago (29 March 2009).
He is a fixture in Perugia. He is a vagrant that spends most of his time hanging around Corso Garibaldi (the street where Sollecito lived) and Piazza Grimana (the piazza in front of the School for Foreigners within eyeshot of the gate of Meredith's house on Via della Pergola).
The crowd murmured as he was helped in by court assistants, uncleaned and dressed in an old jacket and winter knit hat. His skin was dark against his long un-groomed white hair, beard and mustache. But once he opened his mouth, you knew that this guy was no slouch. He spoke clearly, concisely and directly, and was very certain of what he saw.
His testimony never swayed and was consistent even under cross examination. In short, his appearance was one thing, his articulate convincing testimony was another.
He stated that he has been a regular hobo (for lack of a better term) around that part of Perugia for about 8-9 years. He testified that he was in Piazza Grimani around 9:30-10:00pm when he saw across the piazza two people, a man and a woman. He described them as a couple from the way they were sitting next to one another.
He was asked to describe them and he turned and looked at Amanda, just a few feet away, and said calmly, "it was her", and then looked at Sollecito and said "and him." He stated that having been in that area he had seen them before separately, but this was the first time he saw them together. But he was certain it was them.
He said also that, although he did not watch them all the time, he did see them again "poco prima di mezzanotte" or "just before midnight" at the same place. He originally said that they were there from 9:30 through midnight, but clarified that they were there at 9:30-10:00pm and may have left around 11-11:30 and then returned to be there just before midnight.
After midnight, he left the piazza to go to the park and sleep.
The next day, he arrived at his faithful piazza around 12:00pm, and eventually, around 1:30 or so, he saw the carabinieri pass by, and the police and crime scene staff, and stated that he watched them at the scene, including the CSI people dressed in the full-white suits.
Under cross-examination, Sollecito's lawyer Ms Buongiorno may have thought she had an easy target. But in fact he held up extremely well. She asked, "how could you possibly know it was 9:30?" and he responded "Because the sign next to the piazza has a digital clock. I look at it often to check the time".
He stated that "when I sat on the bench to read I looked at my watch and it was just before 9:30pm….and I saw them shortly afterwards." He said he knows what he saw, and he saw those two! No more questions.
Buses and nightclubs were not even mentioned in this comprehensive report. They were not even brought up by the defenses to rebut Mr Curatolo's timeline two years ago.
The defenses again seem to be clutching at straws.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann 2011+
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Friday, March 11, 2011
Fifth Appeal Hearing: What Will Be On The Agenda Tomorrow In Court
Posted by Peter Quennell
Scheduled for tomorrow are seven witnesses for Sollecito's defense, which is trying to prove that the eyewitness in the park, Mr Curatolo, got his dates wrong.
One of the ways in which Mr Curatolo identified the night on which he says he watched Knox and Sollecito sitting and talking in the park and periodically peering in the direction of the gate of Meredith's house was by the presence of some buses.
They may have been the buses which climb up the very narrow Via Ulise Rocchi from the square to some clubs further up. However many, many other buses also pass through that square.
The defense hopes to land its first blow on the prosecution's case by showing that on the night those nightclub buses weren't there - that the clubs were closed that night for the holiday, and so the nightclub buses were nowhere to be seen.
Is this crucial? We think not. Mr Curatolo is useful in establishing a possible timeline for the night, but not for much more than that. The prosecution have never given the slightest hint that they believe anything like their whole case hangs on him.
And in Rudy Guede's brief trial in October 2008 Judge Micheli accepted Mr Curatolo's testimony as valid because he said he saw Knox and Sollecito on the night before all the police descended on Meredith's house and the square.
Judge Micheli examines the evidence of Antonio Curatolo. He says that although Curatolo mixes up his dates in his statement, he does have a fix on the night he saw Amanda and Raffaele in Piazza Grimana sometime around 11:00 to 11:30pm. Curatolo is certain it was the night before the Piazza filled up with policemen asking if anyone had seen Meredith.
In his evidence, he says they came into the square from the direction of Via Pinturicchio and kept looking towards the cottage at Via della Pergola from a position in the square where they could see the entrance gate.
Judge Micheli reasons in his report that their arrival from Via Pinturicchio ties in with the evidence from Nara Capazzali that she heard someone run up the stairs in the direction of that street. He also reasons that they were likely watching the cottage to see if Meredith's scream had resulted in the arrival of the police or other activity.
Acceptance of his testimony is already endorsed by two appeals courts, including the Supreme Court of Cassation, and all the decisions and all the evidence from all three courts now get ported into the Knox-Solleito appeal.
You can see photos of the square here and the view down to the gate of Meredith's house here.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann 2011+
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Sunday, February 27, 2011
Five Sleepers For The Knox And Sollecito Defenses That Could Make Matters Even Worse
Posted by Peter Quennell
[Above: Knox defense lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova and Sollecito defense lawyer Luca Maori]
The situation actually seems tougher for the defenses than even the very stark facts in the post below suggest. Here are some sleepers.
1) All the DNA tests could go against them, Amanda Knox's DNA might be confirmed on Meredith's bra or bra clasp as several DNA witnesses believed it was, and if the opening of the knife handle is permitted, Meredith's DNA might be discovered in there.
2) The defenses hope to destroy the timeline of Curatolo the eyewitness in the park by proving there were no nightclub buses operating that night. But Judge Micheli said that in accepting him as credible his statement that he saw the two in the park the night before all the police activity at the house was enough, and did not even mention any buses. The Hellman court might agree.
3) Prosecutors interviewed and investigated both Alessi and Aviello but never revealed what they found out. If the defenses call them as witnesses, as they desperately need to in light of the Supreme Court of Cassation position below that Guede and two others were involved, they could be destroyed in cross examination and end up facing perjury charges and longer prison terms as a result.
4) The Hellman court might discount the Massei scenario that Guede just happened to be there for a reason not explained, and just started to molest Meredith with two others nearby, who then just oddly chose to join in on his side with some handy knives. The prosecution and Judge Micheli both believed the hazing of Meredith was probably a Knox-driven initiative. The prosecution could make this a main argument in the requested waiving of the mitigating circumstances the Massei court allowed.
5) Sollecito and/or Knox could insist on mounting the witness stand despite counsel advice and in trying to explain the alibis and cellphone and computer happenings and a few other things might collapse under cross-examination - their first unrestrained cross-examination in this process.
Raffaele Sollecito's superstar lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, now on maternity leave, may not be heard from again. And Sollecito still seems to be maintaining some separation and not giving Knox any help with her fifth alibi.
Archived in The witnesses, The Alessi hoax, The Aviello hoax
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Inaccurate Report By The Associated Press Carried By Over 2,000 Media Sites Is Now Corrected
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above is one inaccurate headline. The witness Curatolo has NOT been convicted of drug dealing. No reason to be feeling encouraged. .
1) From the original A&P release last Saturday
That Antonio Curatolo, the eye-witness in the park, had already been convicted was maybe mischievously planted by Luciano Ghirga (image below) the hands-on lawyer for Amanda Knox.
Or maybe he just made a mistake. This wrong fact was then widely quoted in commentary and blog posts. Total search hits are over 2,000.
A defense lawyer for Amanda Knox, the U.S. college student serving a 26-year prison sentence for the murder of her British roommate, expressed optimism Saturday that a drug charge conviction of a prosecution witness might help the American in her appeal in Italy.
The defense always maintained that Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man in the university town of Perugia, wasn't a credible witness, Luciano Ghirga told The Associated Press in Rome.
Perugia court offices were closed Saturday, and officials could not be reached to confirm Italian news reports that Curatolo had been convicted earlier in the week for dealing drugs. It wasn't immediately known what his sentence was or if he had been jailed….
"We have always said that he was not a credible witness," Ghirga said, referring to Curatolo. "It was the court that held he was credible." The drug charge conviction "will be an additional thing to help prove the witness is not credible," Ghirga said in a phone interview.
2) From the A&P correction issued today.
This release states that Curatolo has NOT been convicted. As of noon New York time on Tuesday the number of sites carrying this correction is less than 1,000.
ROME — In a Jan. 15 story about a prosecution witness in the Perugia murder trial of U.S. college student Amanda Knox, The Associated Press, relying on information from a lawyer, erroneously reported that the witness, Antonio Curatolo, had been convicted on a drug charge. Curatolo has been ordered to stand trial on a drug charge, but has not been convicted.
The defenses are seeming pretty desperate. Understandably so. Luckily for justice for Meredith, in Italy as in the US and UK the defenses cannot use a mere charge against a witness to discredit them on the stand.
Archived in The witnesses, More hoaxers
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Saturday, December 11, 2010
Proposed Defense Witness Aviello Cell Searched: Could Be Setback For Defenses
Posted by Peter Quennell
[Above: So-called supersnitch Luciano Aviello as he looked maybe 20 years ago]
The defenses could be about to find that neither of their requested key witnesses will be willing to mount the stand.
The Italian media are reporting that the prison cell of Luciano Aviello has just been searched. Aviello is the supersnitch from Naples who has a history of falsely accusing others to try to give himself a break.
We have been remarking for a while that both Aviello and the baby killer Mario Alessi could face perjury charges and another few years on their sentences if the police can uncover evidence that if either testify, they committed perjury on the stand.
Both prospective witnesses were interrogated in prison by both the defense teams and the prosecution. The defense claims after their interrogations always sounded pretty desperate. The prosecution have never ever revealed what they heard.
The purpose of the Aviello search was stated to be related to a possible charge of calunnia which in effect is criminal defamation of others. Possibly Aviello's cellmate snitched. That sure would be ironic.
Let us take a leap in the dark here. Do Italian authorities REALLY not like people who lie in the course of criminal proceedings? Whether on the stand or in the mass media?
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, The Aviello hoax
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Monday, November 01, 2010
Report #1 On Perugia: I Meet A Very Decent Brave Man
Posted by SomeAlibi
I walk the journey to the cottage from where Meredith and Sophie parted ways at the Via Del Lupo. Time from there to the cottage is 5 minutes at a leisurely pace. I video the journey for proof.
As I finish, I decide to walk up Via Scortici with the wall of the basketball court to my left, just to prove to myself that it isn't what sane people would normally do (they go round the basketball court on the stairs of the Via Della Pergola which is why Amanda saw Rudy, practising on the basketball court, daily).
Managing not to get spread against the wall by a slowly passing car which honks at me for my patent stupidity, I come to the bottom corner of Piazza Grimana by the news-stand. The entrance to Corso Garibaldi, Raffaele's road, is five metres away.
I turn round to look at the entrance to Piazza Grimana and see the figure of a man on crutches with shoulder-length white grey hair poking out from the bottom of a striped bobble hat walking away from me and towards the steps. Is it? I cross quickly and go round the top of the basketball court, along the pavement of Via Pinturicchio trying to look down to see if I can identify him. If it's who I think it is, I haven't been able to find him in previous days.
The man is dressed in a white and blue ski jacket and moves purposefully, even with the crutches. He goes to the steps of Via Della Pergola and heads down towards the cottage. But then he does a right and disappears into Via Melo which is half way down the steps and leads to an area of public garden. I go down after him, down the steps, and turn into Via Melo too. I try to take a picture but inadvertently engage video mode. That has to go quickly – I need to catch him.
I walk past a woman and then overtake him. As I do, I look back at him naturally as if just with a friendly passing nod. I allow my 'spontaneous' surprise to stop me.
"Mr Curatolo?" I say, in my best very English sounding Italian. He looks at me in a friendly way. His eyes are bright, unbothered, looking straight at me. He furrows his eyebrows minutely at me.
"Curatolo" he says with a pronunciation which is different from mine but in ways in which I'd never be able to explain. "Yes, I'm Curatolo" he says in Italian.
His voice is soft, clear, his diction precise, also unbothered, and he looks at me calmly.
I smile at him and nod, mostly to myself. I size him up for a couple of seconds. I reach out to shake his hand which he does so unhesitatingly, taking if from the crutch at his side. As I draw close to him, I hate myself for doing it, but I use an old trick a policeman taught me and breath in deeply through mouth and nose. It looks like a normal inhalation, which of course it is, but I'm smelling him. There isn't the slightest wiff of alcohol or smoke about him, not from today or last night, completely corroborating the precision of his speech.
My spoken Italian, worse than my understood, will now let me down but I will try in Italian and English combined. He replies only in Italian.
"Thank you," I say, shaking his hand, "Meredith Kercher; what you saw – so important." I point to my eyes as I do so.
"Ah, Meredith Kercher," he replies, understanding my action and nods. "Are you a friend?" he asks.
Well that's a complex one. "Yes, in a way", I reply, waggling my hand from side to side in the universal language of 'kind of'.
"Ah, I see. That is a good thing," he replies.
"Thank you," I say again, patting my chest with the flat of my hand. "Many people say thank you. Many people."
He nods.
"It is my pleasure," he says in that calm voice again. Then he shrugs with those crutches of his but in a very measured way. "I saw what I saw" he says simply.
I look him straight in the eyes throughout the whole conversation. He doesn't once break eye contact back – never - and I particularly note it when he says those final words. I look at him some more and I nod again.
"I know you did," I say.
But this time I really do know it, with certainty. And since Raffaele and Amanda never said they went to the basketball court on the previous night and did what Curatolo saw them doing, I know when he saw them too.
"For you, sir," I say and give him a twenty euro note to help him through today.
I ask if I might possibly take a quick picture, just to prove it happened, and he graciously says yes. I take a single one and then I shake his hand once more. I pat him on the back and smile a last time.
And then I say a final thank you and goodbye. I haven't got the Italian to talk to him further but more than that, I want him to know that sometimes people say thank you and mean it without wanting anything else.
I walk off back towards Piazza Grimana and out into a little sunshine on an otherwise grey day as the bells start to chime out one o'clock.
Seeing the three disco buses last night after 11pm helped, about what happened that night in the square. But this meeting helped me more. I've dealt with more liars than most people have had hot breakfasts: I know the deeply credible ones, the squirming ones, I know the lies of drug addicts and thieves and other types more innumerable than I care to mention. He's none of these things whatsoever. He is calm, measured, collected and together, softly spoken; a man with dignity even if he is down on his luck.
Curatolo saw what he saw, and now, as I start walking with a smile on my face, I know he did too.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, The wider contexts, Perugia context
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Monday, September 20, 2010
Explaining The Massei Report: All Judges, Lawyers And Witnesses At Trial Jan-Dec 2009
Posted by Storm Roberts
[Above: Dr Giancarlo Massei, the president of the Court]
Our intention with this new series of posts is to show how thorough the trial was, and how compelling the Massei Report on the grounds for the Knox-Sollecito sentence is.
At the beginning of the trial, the witness counts were considerable: approximately 90 for the prosecution, 60 for the civil plaintiffs, 90 for the defence of Raffaele Sollecito, and 65 for the defence of Amanda Knox.
However, a large number of witnesses for both Amanda Knox and for Raffaele Sollecito were removed from the witness listing. Thus the actual number of people testifying was lower than originally expected.
Here is a comprehensive list I have compiled, made by going through the Massei Report, picking out the witnesses, and noting what they testified about. If I had the information available, I have noted where a witness was specifically called by the defence of either of the then defendants.
Officers Of The Court
- Judges: Dr Beatrice Cristiani and Dr Giancarlo Massei, the president of the Court.
- Prosecutors: Public Ministers Dr Manuela Comodi and Dr Giuliano Mignini.
- Interpreter for Amanda Knox: Dr Anna Baldelli Fronticelli.
The Legal Teams:
- For the family of Meredith Kercher: Francesco Maresca and Serena Perna.
- For Diya "Patrick" Lumumba: Carlo Pacelli.
- For Aldalia Tattanelli (the owner of the house): Letizia Magnini.
- For Amanda Knox: Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova.
- For Raffaele Sollecito: Giulia Bongiorno, Daniela Rocchi and Luca Maori.
[above: Amanda Knox's legal team]
The following is a list of witnesses and a brief note as to the evidence they presented. I am not detailing their arguments here, merely indicating the areas the witnesses were heard in. For full details of the evidence and the court's arguments please read the Massei Report in full and the summaries coming up.
- Amanda Knoxtestified while not under oath at the request of her defence and the legal team representing Diya Lumumba. Her testimony was heard on 12th and 13th June 2009. Raffele Sollecito made a couple of interventions from his seat beside his three lawyers, but he did not get up on the stand.
- Mrs. Elisabetta Lana and her son, Alessandro Biscarini. They discovered two mobile phones, both belonging to Meredith Kercher (one was registered to Filomena Romanelli, Meredith's flatmate), in their garden at Via Sperandio.
- Dr. Filippo Bartolozzi - at the time Manager of the Department of Communications Police for Umbria - Dr. Bartolozzi received the mobile phones from Mrs Lana, the first at approximately 11.45 to 12.00hrs on 2nd November 2007, the second at approximately 12.15 to 12.20 hrs. He traced the first phone to Filomena Romanelli and, at noon, despatched two officers to her address to investigate why her phone was in Mrs. Lana's garden.
- Inspector Michele Battistelli and Assistant Fabio Marzi - the two officers despatched by Dr. Bartolozzi. They arrived at 7 Via della Pergola at a little after 12.30 hrs - they found Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito sitting outside the house. They gave evidence about the circumstances leading up to the discovery of Meredith's body and with regards to securing the scene whilst awaiting the Carabinieri and Scientific Police.
- Filomena Romanelli who was Meredith's flatmate gave evidence regarding the phone she had lent to Meredith. She also detailed when she had moved into the flat at 7 Via della Pergola and the living arrangements. She told of her plans for the 2nd November and how a worrying phone call from Amanda Knox led to her calling her back and returning to her home earlier than planned. A key point of Ms. Romanelli's evidence was her disagreement with Amanda Knox over when Meredith locked her door - Ms. Romanelli stated that Meredith had only once locked her door and that was when she had returned to England for a few days.
- Paola Grande, Marco Zaroli and Luca Altieri - the other young people who were at the property when Meredith's body was discovered. Mr. Altieri broke down the door to Meredith's room.
- Laura Mezzetti - the fourth flatmate in the upstairs flat at number 7 Via della Pergola. She testified with regards to the living arrangements and also that Amanda Knox is an early riser, a "morning person".
- Robyn Butterworth, Amy Frost, Sophie Purton and Nathalie Hayward - Meredith's friends from England. They testified as to when they last saw Meredith and described the behaviour of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito at the Police Station in the evening of 2nd November 2007. They also testified that Meredith had no plans after returning home at around 21.00 hrs on 1st November other than to study and have a rest as they had been out late the previous night and believed that they had classes the next day. Meredith's friends did not know of Rudy Guede and had not heard Meredith mention his name.
- Giacomo Silenzi, one of the young men living in the flat underneath Meredith's flat. He was Meredith's boyfriend.
- Stafano Bonassi, Marco Marzan and Riccardo Luciani the other tenants of the downstairs flat. Along with Mr. Silenzi they testified as to the the interactions between themselves and the girls upstairs, the gatherings they held, the fact that Rudy Guede was known to Amanda Knox. They testified as to Rudy Guede's actions at their house. They gave evidence of having met or known of Raffaele Sollecito and his relationship with Amanda Knox.
- Giorgio Cocciaretto a friend of the young men in the downstairs flat testified with regards to knowing Rudy Guede through playing basketball and having seen him at the 7 Via della Pergola house when both Meredith and Amanda Knox were present.
- Rudy Guede availed himself of his right not to participate in the trial of Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito. Judge Massei details Rudy Guede's involvement based upon the evidence available in order to complete the reconstruction of events of 2nd November as he was charged alongside Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
- Marta Fernandez Nieto and Caroline Espinilla Martin - two young ladies living in the flat above Rudy Guede, they testified than on the night of 31st October they had been in the presence of Rudy Guede and that the only girl they saw him dance with was a "blonde girl with long smooth hair".
- Gioia Brocci from the Questura of Perugia who testified with regards to a trail of shoe prints leading from Meredith's room to the exit of the flat getting fainter as they went. Ms. Brocci also testified as to the lack of signs of climbing on the wall below Filomena Romanelli's window. She also collected evidence from the bathroom next to Meredith's room.
- Sergeant Francesco Pasquale testified as to the possibility of breaking into the flat though the window in Filomena Romanelli's room. Sergeant Pasquale was a consultant for the defence.
- Maria Antonietta Salvadori Del Prato Titone, Paolo Brocchi, Matteo Palazzoli and Cristian Tramontano testified with regards to previous incidents involving or possibly involving Rudy Guede.
- Edda Mellas , Amanda Knox's mother. She testified as to communications with her daughter on the 2nd November amongst other things.
- Antonella Negri a teacher at the University who taught Amanda Knox and who testified as to her diligence as a student.
- Francesco Sollecito, father of Raffaele Sollecito. He testified as to his son's character and about his communications with his son. He also spoke of his son's relationship with Amanda Knox.
- Antonio Galizia, Carabinieri station commander in Giovinazzo, the Sollecito family's home town. He testified that in September 2003 Raffaele Sollecito was found in possession of hashish.
- Jovana Popovic testified as to the presence of Amanda Knox at Raffaele Sollecito's home at two points in time on the evening of 1st November 2007.
- Diya "Patrick" Lumumba was Amanda Knox's employer at "Chic". He testified that he has sent her a text message excusing her from work on the evening of 1st November.
- Rita Ficcara Chief Inspector of the State Police - to whom Amanda Knox delivered a written statement composed whilst she was awaiting to be transferred to Capanne Prison.
- Antonio Curatolo - Mr. Curatolo testified as to having seen Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito at the basketball court in front of the University (the Piazza Grimana) in the evening of 1st November 2007.
- Maurizio Rosignoli - who runs a kiosk in the Piazza - testified with regards to the timing of buses at the Piazza Grimana thus corroborating times in Mr. Curatolo's evidence.
- Alessia Ceccarelli - who worked managing Mr. Rosignoli's kiosk - gave evidence as to Mr. Curatolo's presence in the Piazza.
- Marco Quintavalle, who runs the shop "Margherita Conad", testified he had seen Amanda Knox at 07.45 hrs on 2nd November, she was waiting for him to open his shop, she went to the section of the store that had items such as groceries, toilet paper and cleaning products but he did not serve her at the till so could not specify what she bought if anything. He testified that he knew Raffaele Sollecito as he was a regular customer.
- Officer Daniele Ceppitelli gave evidence with regards to the 112 calls made by Raffaele Sollecito at 12.51 and 12.54 hrs on 2nd November. In these calls Raffaele Sollecito declared that nothing had been stolen from the flat.
- Nara Capezzali, Antonella Monacchia and Maria Ilaria Dramis gave evidence of unusual sounds and activity coming from the area around 7 Via della Pergola - namely a scream and the sound of running footsteps.
[one of Sollecito's three lawyers with Sollecito]
Expert Witnesses
- Dr. Lalli, the Coroner, he performed the post mortem and ascertained the cause of death and a "time window" when death was likely to have occurred. He put the time of death between 20.00 hrs on 1st November 2007 and 04.00 hrs the following day.
- Dr. Domenico Giacinto Profazio was head of the Perugia Flying Squad at the time of Meredith's death. He gave evidence regarding the investigative procedures and safeguards including the physical security of the property.
- Dr. Marco Chiacchiera, deputy director of the Perugia Flying Squad also gave evidence regarding the scene and investigation.
- Monica Napoleoni, Deputy Commissioner of the State Police gave evidence regarding the scene and investigation. She also testified as to Raffaele Sollecito's desire to remain with Amanda Knox.
- Mauri Bigini a chief inspect at the Flying Squad confirmed the evidence given by Profazio and Napoleoni.
- Armando Finzi a chief inspector at the Flying Squad gave evidence regarding the examination of Raffaele Sollecito's flat and the collection of the knife which is now termed "the Double DNA Knife" (Exhibit 36).
- Stefano Gubbiotti and Zugarini Lorena confirmed the evidence regarding the search of Raffaele Sollecito's flat.
- Dr. Giunta from the Scientific Police in Rome directed the detection of latent prints at the scene.
- Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni from the Scientific Police in Rome collected biological trace evidence for analysis. She also performed the analysis of DNA evidence and testified extensively on all aspects of DNA - from the background science, through the collection and the testing methods employed to the analysis.
- Professor Mauro Marchionni, Dr. Vincenza Liviero and Professor Mauro Bacci, the three consultants appointed by the Public Ministers to analyse the forensic medical evidence testified as to various aspects of Dr. Lalli's report including the cause of death, timing of death, the sexual assault and the wounds. They reported on the degree of compatibility of the knife - Double DNA Knife, Exhibit 36 - with the wounds suffered.
- Professor Gianaristide Norelli, the consultant for the civil party, is a forensic police doctor. He testified with regards to the time and cause of death and the sexual assault against Meredith. He testified as to the degree of compatibility of the Double DNA Knife with the wounds suffered.
- Professor Francesco Introna, a consultant appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence testified with regards to the forensic medical evidence (cause and time of death, the sexual assault). His opinion is that the murder was committed by one person and that the Double DNA Knife was not the weapon used to inflict the large wound on the left of Meredith's neck. He hypothesised that Meredith was already undressing at the end of the day when she was surprised by her sole attacker who attacked from behind.
- Professor Carlo Torre, a consultant appointed by Amanda Knox's defence testified with regards to the same areas as described above. In his opinion the Double DNA knife was not the knife used to inflict the large wound on the left of Meredith's neck. He believed a stabbing from the front was the most likely dynamic, and he saw nothing that would lead him to believe there was more than one attacker.
- Professor Vinci, a consultant appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence, he testified with regards to the stains on the bed sheet -which appeared to be made in blood, outlining a knife. Professor Vinci also testified with regards to footprints found in the flat.
- Dr Patumi, a consultant appointed by the defence of Amanda Knox, testified with regards to the neck wounds suffered and also with regards to the genetic evidence as detailed by Dr. Stefanoni.
- Professor Anna Aprile, Professor Mario Cingolani and Professor Giancarlo Umani Ronchi, all independent consultants appointed by the judge (GIP) at the preliminary hearing. Professor Aprile testified specifically on the question of the sexual assault, Professors Cingolani and Umani Ronchi again considered the evidence with regards to the cause and time of death and the compatibility of the Double DNA Knife with the large wound on the left of Meredith's neck.
- Dr. Torricelli, the consultant for Meredith Kercher's family, testified and gave her opinion on the genetic evidence as detailed by Dr. Stefanoni.
- Dr. Sarah Gino, a consultant appointed by the defence of Amanda Knox, testified and gave her opinion on the genetic evidence as detailed by Dr. Stefanoni.
- Professor Tagliabracci, a consultant appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence, testified and gave his opinion on the genetic evidence as detailed by Dr. Stefanoni. He also gave evidence with regards to the effects of certain drugs.
- Marco Trotta, Claudio Trifici and Gregori Mirco officers of the Postal Police, gave evidence with regards to the seized computer equipment and also with regards to internet activity at the home of Raffaele Sollecito.
- Mr. Fabio Formenti, the technical consultant appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence - observed the Postal Police's analysis of the computer equipment.
- Dr Michele Gigli and Dr. Antonio D'Ambrosio, consultants appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence, testified with regards to the computer and internet evidence.
- Chief Inspector Letterio Latella gave evidence with regards to mobile phones and how they pick up signals from base stations which cover certain areas, he also testified with regards to the call records of the mobile phones of the defendants, victim and others. He detailed how a connection to the network was picked up by the base stations and how the location of the phone can be approximated through knowing which base station was used. He was able to tell the court which connections to Meredith's two phones were made from her own flat and which from Mrs. Lana's garden.
- Assistant Stefano Sisani provided evidence with regards to both landline telephone services and mobile phone services.
- Bruno Pellero an engineer appointed by Raffaele Sollecito's defence to give evidence with regards to telephonic communications.
- Dr. Lorenzo Rinaldi, Principal Technical Director of the State Police, director of the three sections which compose the Identity Division of the ERT, gave evidence regarding shoe prints and footprints (including those highlighted by the use of luminol.
- Chief Inspector Pietro Boemia, who worked alongside Dr. Rinaldi.
- Chief Inspector Claudio Ippolito a consultant who reported on shoe prints - appointed by the public minister.
[Background: the Judges and jury (lay judges) for the trial]>
Archived in Those officially involved, Police and CSI, The prosecutors, The defenses, The judiciary, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, The Massei Report
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Aviello Story Seems To Show The Amanda Knox Team Now All But Concedes Her Guilt
Posted by Peter Quennell
Now SERIOUSLY grasping at straws.
The Sollecito defense latched with alacrity onto baby-killer and jailhouse-snitch Mario Alessi three months ago.
This seemed to have been widely taken in Italy as a sign of the Sollecito defense's desperate weakness, rather than as a get-out-of-jail-free trump-card for Raffaele Sollecito.
Several weeks ago the Amanda Knox defense latched onto Camorra clan-member and jailhouse snitch Luciano Aviello.
With a lot less alacrity though - his various stories have been around for a long time. This seemed to have been widely taken in Italy as a sign of the Knox defense's desperate weakness,
Luciano Aviello, who is now in prison, and his brother Antonio, now on the run, are or were connected to the Camorra (NBC Dateline report above) which is Naples's equivalent of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. The Camorra is in some ways the older, larger and badder of the two arms of the Italian mafia.
Luciano Aviello and Antonio Aviello were living in Perugia at the time the crime against Meredith took place. Over a year ago, our poster Catnip posted this translation of a report from Italy on the Perugia Murder File board.
Saturday 09 May 2009
Prisoner writes: 'I know real murderer's name'
"I know the real name of Meredith's killer, a fellow-brother Albanian friend of mine told me, and it's not Raffaele Sollecito." Luciano Aviello is Raffaele Sollecito's ex-cellmate and, now, maybe encumbering his admirer, is writing another letter to Court of Assize president Giancarlo Massei.
A few weeks ago he had sent a letter in which he claims to have asked two of his friends to break into the murder house to prove that anybody could have done so. Yesterday, the page count of his letter jumped to five, and the tone was angrier.
He's had it with journalists, because they've referred to his less than clear past, and because they wrote about his previous never-proven-true "revelations" on various important and dramatic criminal cases (like the disappearance of little Angela Celentano).
He's had it with the police too, in whom he confided his secret about Raffaele's innocence and who didn't even give him the time of day.
He maintains that, actually, he has a letter written by an Albanian friend, which contains the real name of the murderer, and he wants to speak only to the court president, Giancarlo Massei, to reveal it to him.
Even the lawyer on the civil side of the case, Francesco Maresca, acting for the Kerchers, remains skeptical: "That letter ought to be re-read carefully: it's not flour from his grainsack*".
* This is a proverbial phrase (non è farina del suo sacco = "it's not grist from his own mill") meaning it wasn't written off his own bat, and that other hands contributed to it.
And there is a video of a Sky News Italy report in Italian dated 21 April 2009 which in effect says "this isn't any big deal'.
In Italy, Luciano Aviello and his kaleidoscopic claims thereupon went onto the back burner.
Fast forward to several weeks ago, when the Knox defense engages in a high-profile, noisy flurry of activity to get a deposition from Luciano Aviello.
This time, Luciano recalls, it was actually his own missing brother who did it, and he himself buried some clothing and some keys.
Casting total doubt on everything Luciano Aviello ever says, his hometown newspaper Il Mattino in Naples comes out with this report. It is our translation.
"The Meredith Case - A Mariano Clan Supergrass Pops Up: "Amanda Is Innocent"
By Gigi di Fiore
In the newsroom of the Mattino he seemed at ease. Luciano Aviello was [20 years ago] just over twenty years old, and had asked to recount his experience as a "streetwise youth in the Mariano Camorra clan".
In an earlier time, a war was in full swing in the Spanish Quarter [of Naples] between the Mariano clan, the "picuozzo" [another name for this clan after the "picuozzo" or cord around a monk's habit] and the Di Biase family, also known as the "faiano".
The DDA (Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia or Distict Anti-Mafia Directorate) did not yet exist, but Federico Cafiero de Raho was already employed as prosecutor in the investigations into organized crime.
It was he who dealt with that bloody war. Twenty years later, Aviello had become a news-magazine character. Now in his own words, he claims to have a rolet in the Perugia trial for the Meredith Kercher case as a "decisive" witness.
On 19 April of last year, he addressed two little hand-written pages to the President of the Court of Assizes of Perugia, Giancarlo Massei. He declared himself ready to tell the truth, and revealed that he had twice given some friends of his the task of breaking the seals on the house where the crime took place.
On 31 March of this year, Amanda Knox's defense team video-recorded the declarations made by Aviello, who is now 41 years old. As the weekly news-magazine "Oggi" writes, he said: "It was my brother who murdered Amanda [sic]. I can recover for you the knife used in the crime and the keys of that house".
This fellow arrived on the third floor of via Chiatamone [Editor's office of the Mattino] wearing casual clothes with a pretence of elegance: he never retracts anything, always seeking to find suitable words to best describe his "revelations".
Contact lenses, slim, a cousin killed because he was affiliated to the Mariano clan, Aviello spoke, revealing an outline personality, in a shadow world of braggadoccio, always on the sidelines of the dealings and violent acts of those in power among the clans of the Quarter at that time.
He ended up in jail, having confessed to a murder. It wasn't true, but they had promised him 5 million lira, a lawyer and an annuity.
The clan didn't respect the pact, and so he began to talk freely. Enticed by the good life, he began to act as a gofer/go-between selling "black lottery" tickets. He felt important. He earned 500 thousand lira per week.
It wasn't bad. Then he did "embassies" [message-running], little services, but never great criminal leaps. The clans considered him "not very trustworthy".
He was implicated in the investigation into the Spanish Quarter Camorra, and convicted.
Today, Federico Cafiero, now deputy prosecutor and DDA Coordinator for the investigations into the Caserta province clans, says of him: "He was altogether untrustworthy, although every so often he would invent a new one [new story]. A revelation, as he would call it, which would subsequently reveal itself to be out and out nonsense".
Such as when he said that he knew where Angela Calentano was to be found, or that he knew the hideouts of the main fugitives of the D'Alessandro di Castellammare clan.
For his "revelations" against Tiziana Maiolo, ex president of the Justice Commission of the Chamber, he was hit with a trial, in 1997, for calumny.
Two years ago, he fired off his biggest tale yet: he accused a public prosecutor from Potenza in the famous trial on "dirty robes" between Catanzaro and Salerno. He was given an audience by the prosecutor Rosa Volpe in Salerno.
He had announced revelations. His contradictions were immediately exposed.
On those occasions also, the sources of his stories were newspaper articles or gossip with his cell-mates. Such as Raffaele Sollecito, or Gennaro Cappiello for the "dirty robes" investigation.
A compulsive liar, a seeker of publicity?
Twenty years ago, Aviello seemed to be a self-centred person, proud to present himself as a witness to "important facts". But he never managed to arrive at a scheme of constant collaboration.
For various crimes, he has so far served 17 years in jail. Now the Perugia case appears. Who knows?
Our poster SomeAlibi seems to have had the last meaningful word on the absurdity of this tale. SomeAlibi posted this rather devastating satire on the PMF forum.
I can see it now..
Ghirga: "Well thank you Mr Luciano Aviello, that testimony I think the court will find extremely interesting concerning why Amanda Knox couldn't have done the murder because it was your brother who was responsible. Despite the fact he's missing. But thank you and I believe we're finished."
Luciano Aviello (quietly): "We ain't finished"
G: "Uh?"
LA: "So, about this de-fa-may-shun thing."
G: "Uh?"
LA: "She didn't do it."
G: "Sorry?"
LA: "She didn't dooo it."
G: "But Mr Aviello we brought you here to talk about the murder not the—"
LA: "—see it sounds like you ain't hearing me too good. Perhaps you need a little airation of your ears to help you with that. How would a 22 millimetre hole strike ya? She didn't say nothing. She didn't doooo it, capice?"
G: "But, she said it in interview. And in court. I mean, we were all there"
LA (putting tooth-pick on witness stand) "See, now you are making me repeat myself and I don't like that at all, no I don't. But I am a tolerant man, so maybe once more for luck ok? She didn't dooooooooo it."
G: "All of us were there!... She doesn't actually disagree she said it…. hello… Mr Aviello… hello… what are you…. what are you doing… why are you counting?"
LA: "Now requiring this many pine boxes ain't going to be ecologically acceptable my friend, so I suggest EVERYONE here learns to listen up real good ok?"
Court (all): "Huh?"
LA: "Repeat after me. She didn't dooooooooooooooooo iiiit"
Court (all): "Like hell she didn't"
LA: "Wise guys, huh?"
Well… that certainly went very well! This all reads like an Italian movie called in English Johnny Stecchino by Italy's favorite funny actor Robertio Benignii He accidentally finds himself confused with a mafiosos in Sicily, sees his days are very numbered, and starts talking fast. Very fast..
He gets out of it, somehow, but the real mafioso still takes the hit. Nice knowing you, Luciano…
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Appeals 2009-2015, Hellmann 2011+, Raff Sollecito, Sollecito team, The Aviello hoax
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
Claimed Guede Confidant Mario Alessi Has Been Moved Two Hours North To Parma Prison
Posted by Peter Quennell
Nice city, Parma. Famous for good food. Where the prosciutto hams come from.
The French singer on the video is Juliette Greco. The French generally love Italy, the fifth most visited country in the world (it is also the fifth largest industrial producer). Tourists from France and Germany constitute the largest national groups.
Not that he is likely to enjoy it very much. But it is reported that Mario Alessi has just been moved from the Viterbo prison north of Rome to the prison in Parma.
The newspaper website Viterbo Daily reports that this was a precautionary move by the Prisons Department, in the light of the bitter disagreement between Guede and Alessi as to whether Guede confided to Alessi that he had a companion along on the night Meredith died.
Alessi's claim has been met in Italy with great scepticism, and it seems unlikely that the two ever even talked. No-one else has made a similar claim. Those grasping at straws argued that Guede also confided in a priest and a nun, but they seem to have gone awol.
Alessi is serving 30 years and if it can be proven that he lied under oath in his testimony to prosecutors Mignini and Comodi, he could see his term extended by several years.
Our next post (a complex one) hopefully later today looks again at Rudy Guede's role in the case.
Archived in The witnesses, The Alessi hoax
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Friday, March 12, 2010
Behind Mario Alessi's Own Trial And Life Sentence: The Kidnap And Murder of A Baby Boy
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above: Mario Alessi and his wife Antonella Conserva at trial in Parma, Sicily, in 2008.
A notorious and very cruel case. A masked Mario Alessi kidnapped a baby at gunpoint, and 20 minutes later beat him to death with a shovel. He received a life sentence and his wife Antonella 30 years.
Here on the People You'll See In Hell website is one apparently quite accurate English-language report of their crime.
Tommaso Onofri was a beautiful baby who lived with his mum, dad and older brother in a country house near Parma, Italy. The evening of March 2nd, 2006, seemed a normal one at Onofri home. The family was having dinner, and 17-month-old Tommy was in his usual place for this time of day, sitting in his high chair.
Suddenly, two men with their faces covered by balaclava burst into the room. The family, terrified and thinking they were being robbed, wisely told the pair of bandits, "Take whatever you want." But this was no robbery – no, it was much worse than that. To everyone's shock and surprise, instead of taking money or jewels, one of the men pulled the baby out of the high chair,and the two intruders ran off with little Tommaso Onofri.
The Police and news media went mad about this case. The Onofris seemed like such a normal family, without secrets, and they were not rich. Nobody ever asked for a ransom. Little Tommy was an epileptic baby who needs daily medications, but days passed and there was no trace of the child or the kidnappers.
Investigators looked at every angle. They found traces of child pornography in Mr. Onofri's computer, and for a short time police suspected him, but it turned out there was no evidence to support the theory that he was connected to the disappearance of his son.
Then, police checked on a man who worked in the Onofri house as a builder, some days before Tommy was kidnapped. His name was Mario Alessi and he'd done time for sexual assault; some years before, he raped a girl in front of her boyfriend.
But now he was a free man, and he had a wife and a son. Police interrogated him, and Mario Alessi became the first legitimate suspect. But again, they had no evidence and were forced to release him.
He went back home and did an interview with his wife for an Italian TV show (for money, I suppose). Video cameras went to their house, they showed what fine, upstanding people the Alessis were, how suspecting them was a huge mistake. "You shall not touch children!" said Alessi to millions of fellow Italians on TV.
Some days later, he, his wife, Antonella Conserva, and another builder who worked with Mario Alessi, Salvatore Raimondi, were arrested for the kidnapping of Tommaso Onofri. But where was little Tommy? Antonella ConservaIt seemed to everyone that now that the case was over, the baby should now be back in his mother's arms.
Finally, in April of 2006, one month after the disappearance of little Tommy, Mario Alessi confessed. He led the police to a river not far from the baby's country home. The police found the body of 17-month-old Tommaso Onofri buried in a shallow grave at the bank of the river, in high state of decomposition. It turns out he was murdered just 20 minutes after he was taken from his highchair.
Here's how police say this crime took place. Mario Alessi and Salvatore Raimondi planned the kidnapping. They had decided to kidnap the baby because they did some work for the Onofris and mistakenly assumed they were rich. The original plan called for them to give the baby to Alessi's wife, Antonella Conserva, to care for him, while they made arrangements to ransom Tommaso.
But something went terribly wrong: Alessi took the baby and ran off on a motorbike. First he heard police sirens closing in behind him, then he saw police cars on his road, and he started to get nervous. Little Tommy couldn't stop crying and Alessi began to panic, so he went down to the river. Finally, fearing the police would hear the baby's cries, Mario Alessi took a shovel and beat Tommaso Onofri to death. He buried the body in the sandy soil at the bank of the river.
Mario Alessi was condemned to life in prison. His accomplice, Salvatore Raimondi, got 20 years (he was the first to confess and he had chosen an abbreviated process), and Antonella Conserva was sentenced to 30 years".
Amanda Knox and Raffele Sollecito: please meet your new best friend from hell…
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Jailhouse Snitch With "New Evidence" Doesn't Seem To Be Widely Believed
Posted by Peter Quennell
Andrea Vogt as usual has the best report. Key excerpts:
1) Claims by a fellow prisoner oif Rudy Guede
In a bizarre development Friday, attorneys for Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox's former boyfriend, deposited a new piece of evidence in the slaying of British student Meredith Kercher—the deposition of a Sicilian bricklayer serving a life sentence in the same prison as Rudy Guede in Viterbo, Italy.
In the statement, deposited Friday and obtained by the seattlepi.com, the fellow convict claims Guede confided in him that Knox and Sollecito were innocent and that the murder was committed by a friend of Guede's who had gone to Kercher's house for a threesome.
Mario Alessi, 38, is currently serving a life sentence in connection with the brutal kidnapping and murder of Tommaso Onofri, a 2-year-old boy from Parma known as Tommy, whose high-profile disappearance and murder in 2006 shocked the nation….
Sollecito's attorneys requested authorization from the Bologna Court of Appeals and sent their legal assistants to videotape Alessi's statement in Viterbo, where he is detained in the same sex crimes section of the prison.
In the statement, Alessi claims three other prisoners can confirm his declarations. He said he wrote several letters to Sollecito's attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, because he felt the need to tell her what he had heard from Guede during their open air breaks.
Buongiorno is a noted lawyer from Sicily who is also a parliamentarian and heads a governmental justice commission. On many occasions Guede said explicitly and clearly that Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were completely extraneous to this homicide, he said in the deposition.
Around the time of Guede's appeal, Alessi claims Guede confided in him that the murder was actually committed by a friend of his, who had joined him at Kercher's for a threesome, which she resisted. Alessi gives a detailed description of the scene as he claims was described to him by Guede: with Kercher getting wounded as he tried to get away from her knife-wielding attacker. While Guede tried to stem the bleeding, the friend said "we'd better finish her off or we'll both rot in prison," according to Alessi's account.
The friend then stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and fled, leaving Guede to try to stop the bleeding, Alessi claims. Later, the two saw each other in the disco, where the friend gave Guede money to flee to Germany, Alessi claims he said. The name or identity of the friend Alessi said Guede was referring to was not given. Guede's attorney, Walter Biscotti, drove to Viterbo on Saturday to speak with Guede, who emphatically denies the conversation ever took place.
2) Denials by Guede, his lawyers, and prison authorities
In the strongest terms possible, Rudy denied ever having talked to Alessi about these matters, Biscotti said. Alessi's appeal of his life sentence was denied, so he is not credible. He is doing what those who are desperate do grab onto someone else in desperation. But Guede is bothered by the fact that he is always being dragged into the middle, Biscotti said.
Authorities who interrogated Alessi in the Onofri case said Saturday that they do not believe he can be considered reliable and had given misleading declarations in the past.
Archived in The witnesses, The Alessi hoax
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Friday, February 05, 2010
True Justice Is Rendered For Patrick Lumumba (Sort Of)
Posted by Tiziano
Above and below: Patrick Lumumba's Le Chic Bar which Amanda Knox managed to drive out of business.
More images here including several shots through the glass.
Knox was prosecuted by the Republic of Italy, not by Lumumba, on a calunnia charge and her prison sentence was extended when she was found guilty of that.
Explanation of calunnia
The charge of calunnia (art. 368) has been commonly translated as "slander" in the English/US media. This translation is incorrect, however, as calunnia is a crime with no direct equivalent in the respective legal systems.
The equivalent of "criminal slander" is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone"s reputation. Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.
The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence. Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint, while calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.
The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code: while diffamazione is in the chapter entitled "crimes against honour" in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties, calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled "crimes against the administration of justice", in a section that protects public powers.
Now Terni In Rete confirms his government compensation for his several weeks in Capanne and some damaging badmouthing.
February 4th, 2010
By Adriano Lorenzoni
The fourth criminal session of the Court of Cassation has established that the sum of eight thousand Euros is fair compensation for Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese involved in spite of himself in the murder of the English student, Meredith Kercher.
Lumumba was dragged into involvement by Amanda Knox, and precisely because of her statements spent 14 days in prison. Then the elements gathered by the investigators completely exonerated him. For that unjust imprisonment Lumumba had requested damages of 516 thousand Euros.
In the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox was condemned to 26 years imprisonment, her ex-fiancé, Raffaele Sollecito to 25.
Knox, precisely for her false accusations against Lumumba, was condemned to the payment of damages of the sum of 50 thousand Euros with an interim award, immediately applicable, of ten thousand Euros. Neither Lumumba nor his lawyer wished to comment on the decision of the Court of Cassation.
Knox took the stand for two days during her trial, of course, trying to explain why she did what she did to her kindly former employer.
She only seemed to dig herself in deeper.
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Amanda Knox
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
The False Accusation By Amanda Knox Against Patrick Lumumba
Posted by The Machine
This incisive video by our main poster ViaDellaPergola explores Amanda Knox's accusations against Patrick Lumumba - made even though she knew very well he had then been at his bar.
These accusations resulted in Patrick's arrest and imprisonment on the morning after the night that she first voiced them. Knox first made the claims as a WITNESS and so no lawyer was present, and so the statement was not entered into evidence.
But later on 6 November 2007 when she was in her prison cell as a SUSPECT she wrote her claims all out again. This purely voluntary written statement (alibi version 4) by definition puts her at the scene of the crime.
This written statement WAS entered into evidence - and not retracted or modified in any way until all believability had flown, and Patrick was already back home with his family.
In fact, it was not until she was on the stand on June 12 and 13 2009 that Amanda Knox came up with Alibi Version 5. This is the one never supported by Sollecito - where she claimed she was at his place all night. Amanda Knox STILL has no alibi that stands firm.
Knox is being prosecuted by the Republic of Italy, not by Lumumba, on a calunnia charge.
Explanation of
The charge of calunnia (art. 368) has been commonly translated as "slander" in the English/US media. This translation is incorrect, however, as calunnia is a crime with no direct equivalent in the respective legal systems.
The equivalent of "criminal slander" is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone"s reputation. Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.
The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence. Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint, while calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.
The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code: while diffamazione is in the chapter entitled "crimes against honour" in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties, calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled "crimes against the administration of justice", in a section that protects public powers.
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Amanda Knox, Knox-Mellas team
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Friday, November 27, 2009
The Summations: Patrick Lumumba's Lawyer Describes Defamation By Knox As Ruthless
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click here for Nick Pisa's noon report from the courtroom. Some excerpts:
Today the lawyer acting for bar owner Patrick Lumumba, who Knox blamed for the murder, was harsh in his judgement of the American student.
Lawyer Carlo Pacelli described Knox as a 'talented and calculated liar, who had deliberately gone out of her way to frame Patrick.'
Mr Pacelli recalled how Knox had told police she 'covered her ears as Patrick murdered Meredith. This was all a lie, his destiny at that moment was marked.
'It was a ruthless defamation that destroyed Patrick as a man, husband and father. By naming him she hoodwinked the officer in charge of the murder investigation.'
Mr Lumumba was held for two weeks in custody before being released without charge after witnesses came forward to say he was at his Le Chic bar the night Meredith was murdered.
Mr Pacelli added: 'Who is the real Amanda Knox ? Is it the one we see before us her, simple water and soap, the angelic St Maria Goretti (a teenager made a saint by the Catholic Church after she was murdered by an attempted rapist)?
'Or is she really a she devil, a diabolical person focused on sex, drugs and alcohol, living life to the extreme and borderline -is this the Amanda Knox of November 1st 2007 (night Meredith was murdered).'
As he spoke, Knox could be seen writing notes to herself on the pad before her.
'Conclusions drawn before knowing anything,' she wrote, before adding: 'In prison you don't become a better person you become worse unless you have a inner light that guides you.'
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, The psychology, Amanda Knox
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Friday, October 02, 2009
Apartment Below Meredith's Is Re-Tenanted And Hers Will Be Too Soon
Posted by Peter Quennell
[click above for larger image]
The Italian news service AGI has a report on the re-renting of the house that includes this:
Apparently annoyed but amused. one new tenant [of the basement apartment] did not want to talk to reporters. A few days ago, he rented the apartment with two other students…
''No money, no declaration. I want three thousand euros" said the boy in imperfect English when jokingly speaking to reporters who were waiting outside the house on Via della Pergola…
He knows of the attention that will be paid to him by journalists because he has chosen not to live inside the Perugia old sity in an ordinary house, but instead in one that became the scene of a heinous crime for which a trial still proceeds.
The boy, about twenty years old, perhaps Spanish, went out in the afternoon and returned home at around 4:00 pm bringing a small bag, a trolley with two bags, a bag for PC and a backpack.
After closing the green gate behind him which gives access to the house, he stayed home for about ten minutes and then went out again.
Dressed in jeans and a red and blue shirt with a "9" printed on the back and the word ''Espana'' on the front, he seemed more amused than intimidated by the presence of the journalists. The young man reiterated his unwillingness to speak…
Then, along with three friends, probably all Spanish, he headed out again for a nearby bar to get some coffee takeaways to bring back to the new apartment.
On entering the house the four young men dragged the kitchen table and some chairs outside and they then set to talking quietly, with some amused glances reporters in the garden opposite the front door.
And the Italian news agency APCOM has a report that a Perugia estate agency is in several ongoing negotiations to rent out Meredith's apartment, now extensively refurbished.
The house is owned by a retired woman who lives in Rome and who seems to be dependant on income from it to pay her way. We believe the Italian government made a payment to her for the period the house was sequestered - for most of the time it was sequestered at the request of the defenses.
That one of the apartments is again tenanted by students suggests there was no hike in the rent. But the value of the property seems certain to zoom soon in light of this proposal and might one day come down to make way for more parking in the area.
Our poster Kermit created a great Powerpoint show on the house's rather strange history.
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, The wider contexts, Perugia context, Amanda Knox
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Friday, September 18, 2009
Trial: Defense Expert Tries To Claim Sollecito-Sized Footprint Is Guede's
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click above for the Daily Express's full report. The relevant section:
A bloody footprint found at the house where a British student was killed in Italy was wrongly attributed to one of the defendants in the case, a forensic expert has testified at the murder trial.
The footprint was found on a bathroom rug in the house in Perugia where Meredith Kercher was killed in November 2007.
Prosecutors have attributed it to Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who is on trial on murder charges with Amanda Knox, his girlfriend at the time. Both defendants deny wrongdoing.
In his testimony, expert Francesco Vinci compared detailed pictures of the footprint on the rug with images of Sollecito's feet, arguing that the sizes and shapes "absolutely don't match".
"Differences, one by one, can be seen," said Vinci, who is a witness for Sollecito's defence.
According to Vinci, the footprint is "compatible" with the foot of a third man, Rudy Hermann Guede, who was convicted in a separate trial last year and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
In effect then, the claim is that Guede was participating with bare feet in the cleanup of the crime scene some time after the death of Meredith - although precisely what he cleaned up is unclear, as strong evidence of his presence remains.
Like many of the defense's attempts at rebuttals, this sounds to us like a tragedy that is now playing out as farce.
In one of his clinically precise powerpoints Kermit already refuted this claim
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, DNA and luminol, The witnesses, Raff Sollecito, Sollecito team
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Friday, August 28, 2009
Maybe Why Meredith's House Was So Tough For Some Of The Police-Cars To Find?
Posted by Peter Quennell
Most of the police team seem to have made it with alacrity to 7 via della Pergola on the day after.
They have very fast cars and pretty good navigation. But one or two had to call in for directions.
This led to some ridicule among those who actually think that ridicule helps Amanda Knox.
Their fast route to the house is to head east up the hill from the Questura (if that is where they all came from). Then through Piazza Grimana by the School for Foreigners. And then down to via della Pergola, by way of the famous tee junction.
Click above for the route from Piazza Grimana down to the tee junction (the last several shots there are of the stone steps that Rudy ran up) and then click below for the street sign they would have encountered.
Via della Pergola heads down to the LEFT here. The street sign says that via San Antonio begins to the RIGHT here.
And Meredith's house is clearly off to the RIGHT.
Archived in Those officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, The locations, The timelines, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Saturday, July 18, 2009
Trial: ABC News Has The Only End-Of-Day English Report
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click above for Ann Wise's report. "Rejected offer to leave" seems rather misleading.
In some of the Italian reports it is observed that Knox was told very soon after the death of Meredith was discovered that she was not allowed to leave Perugia for the time being, so she really had no choice but to stay. Cousin Dorothy and Ann Wise seem not to have known this.
In fact all of the key witnesses including Meredith's English friends were told to remain in Perugia until the investigations were further advanced. Although it was very tough on them all because of a voracious media, they had to remain there for some weeks.
Only two witnesses were heard today - the second was the mobile phone specialist that Ann Wise mentions - leaving half a dozen witnesses to testify tomorrow or after the summer break.
We are told that the uncertainty about whether Judge Massei would be recovered enough to preside this Friday and Saturday resulted in several scheduling problems and forced absences. This is a busy press corps and few of them actually live in Perugia.
Apparently Judge Massei looked well and very attentive today, and interrogated the mobile phone specialist on his contribution to the timeline for the morning after.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Friday, July 17, 2009
Trial: Il Messagero Describes Testimony Of Knox Relative From Germany
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click above for the original report in Italian on the testimony of Aunt Dorothy.
The woman, who lives in Germany, said she listened to Knox on the phone after the murder, and found her "scared and confused."
Dorothy claimed to have suggested to Amanda to come to Germany, but she said 'no' because she wanted to be of help to the police and answer questions.
The relative of Amanda also said that the young American, before being arrested, wanted to "meet the father of Meredith to console him and tell him what she knew."
Other defense testimony today will focus on the mobile phones, the effects of smoking marijuana, and the nature of the knife Sollecito carried at all times.
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
Trial: Testimony Of Sollecito's Childhod Friends From Giovinazzo
Posted by Peter Quennell
The defense DNA experts Carlo Torre and Gino Sara have been postponed into next week.
Testifying today instead were five friends of Sollecito's. He was born in Giovinazzo on the flat and underpopulated south-eastern coast. Giovinazzo (images) is just north of Bari, where his father practices medicine.
Four childhood friends from there testified along with one who knew him in Perugia. Some translated excerpts:
Raffaele is a romantic, shy, kind, and always available, and honest with everyone…. The television described him as a womanizer, in fact he was shy and introverted.
He typically carries a knife in his pocket. For him it was a decorative object to be matched to his clothes. He was once wrapped in toilet paper with a meat cleaver and photographed for a joke.
He occasionally smoked a joint, but was not a habitual consumer of hashish, and would not use other drugs. The joints had a sedative effect and made him want to sleep,
Concerning his first sexual intercourse, he had told one of his friends he had been with a girl from Brindisi who lived in Perugia in 2004 or 2005.
Sollecito then issued a correction. "It was actually in 2007" he said through his lawyer.
The civil lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, made it clear that he was skeptical of much of the testimony.
Perhaps with good reason. Sollecito wrote in his occasional newspaper column in Bari that he was a virgin when he met Amanda Knox.
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Raff Sollecito, Sollecito team
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Friday, July 03, 2009
Trial: Not Even These Days Will Be Easy For The Defense Teams
Posted by Kermit
[Sollecito's lawyers Buongiorno and Mauri last October]
I wouldn't be overly concerned about the upcoming defence "experts", unless there's some statement like "and then the investigator picked up the bra clasp after picking his nose".
If I were on the jury, the first thing I would ask myself is "why are there Carabinieri - who are part of the state police structure - declaring against their brethren's work, the investigation done by the Polizia?".
Why? for two reasons: the different state police units all compete with one another for historical reasons. We have the same thing here in Spain between the Guardia Civil and the National Police. Organizations with different historical roots and overlapping roles which compete between themselves.
Something else to consider in the Perugia case - and probably more significant than competitiveness between police branches - is that Raffaele's sister is a Carabinieri, and the taped Sollecito Family phone conversations show her to be one of the most active members in behind the scenes "making water flow uphill" activities.
if I were Mignini, in my turn to cross-examine the Carabinieri witnesses, the first and only question I would have is: "are you aware that the sister of Raffaele Sollecito is also a Carabinieri like you, and that the immediate famly of the accused is under investigation for perverting the course of justice?".
It doesn't matter how they answer.
As regards Carlo Torre, for as respected as he is, I see him simply as an "outside defense expert", who is to be expected to counter the prosecution forensics. Carlo Torre is not a surprise figure who the Defence have just found, but he has been making comments in the press on behalf of Amanda's team for months now. I recall - I believe - that he has also been on Matrix or another TV show opining on the case.
The jurors know it and may well take the attitude of "well even though he's a respected scruffy old professor, he has been making PR noise for some time now in favor of Amanda, from months before the detailed technical data was released with the final investigation report".
Mignini could have one question for Torre: "Professor Torre, please tell the jury the first time you appeared on television or you were quoted in an article concerning this crime, where you expressed an opinion on the evidence".
He would give a date from over a year ago. In the John Follain The Times interview with Curt and Edda, they refer to Torre saying that Meredith's DNA on the Double DNA knife "could belong to half the population of Italy"
Okay, next week may be tough. It wouldn't be any other way, as it's the Defences' turn to bamboozle the jury with their smoke and mirrors show. But the jury knows that behind the curtain, there's a meek, weak Wizard pulling a few cables and levers.
The same creaky levers we've been hearing over and over for over a year and a half now.
[Knox's lawyers Sollecito's lawyers Ghirgha and Vedova last October]
Archived in Public evidence, The timelines, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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The Trial Resumes: The Court Agenda For Friday, Saturday And Monday
Posted by Peter Quennell
On Friday and Saturday Raffaele Sollecito's defense will interrogate several of the Carabinieri who will explain how they think the police made mistakes at the crime scene.
And on Monday the forensic scientist Carlo Torre will testify for Amanda Knox's defense team. Dr. Torre is one of the most prominent forensic scientists in Italy and some of those he has testified for have walked.
These witnesses may make a dent or they may not. It is common to have experts from within law enforcement who say, well, they would have done it another way.
Mr Torre may be more impressive but the forensics are only a fraction of the case and no-one else has undermined them so far.
And there is the endlessly confounding question hanging over Knox: who moved Meredith later - much later?
A whole day of prosecution evidence on the final day was offered on this belated rearrangement of the crime scene.
It may leave Mr Torre pretty stuck for an answer.
Archived in Those officially involved, Police and CSI, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Trial: Defense Witness Testifies To Occurence In Nearby Piazza The Next Day
Posted by Peter Quennell
AGI is reporting the testimony of the final witness for today. A quick translation:
Alessia Ceccarelli, the girlfriend of the owner of the newsstand in Grimana Square (above and below; house is down the hill) stated that she had noticed a "boy" on the morning of November 2 around 7:00-7:30 who shouted on his cellphone "kill you bitch'."
She remembered that the boy was wearing a white wool cap, a dark jacket and jeans, and had "dirty blood on the right hand."
AGI adds that this is a fact that already emerged in the past but which, according to investigators, was found to have no connection with the crime.
On the Perugia Murder File Forum our poster Brian has posted this comment.
This guy is a total red herring. He'd just had an argument with his girlfriend. She, somewhat forcibly, threw him out of the house and he shouted "kill you bitch" into his mobile phone.
He was seen by lots of people cursing and swearing while washing his bloody arm in the fountain. He was soon picked up by an ambulance and taken to hospital. He was a known junky.
Archived in Public evidence, The timelines, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Trial: Defense Witnesses On Scream On The Night And On Relationships.
Posted by Peter Quennell
Today a Tuesday is for the first time a trial date as the momentum speeds up before the summer break. A verdict has been predicted for the end of October.
L'Unione Sarda and AffarItaliaNI are reporting the testimony of the first two defense witnesses for the day.
Pasqualino Coletta from Rome was the driver of the car that would not start on the street above the house on the night in question and had to be towed away. He stated that he heard no scream or any sound of broken glass. He explained that he was on via Pergola between 10.30 and 11:00 pm and "was not attracted to anything in particular."
And Marzana Marco, a student who lived downstairs, stated that he noticed no friction between Meredith and her flatmate. He also described the two times that Rudy Guede had slept on the sofa of their apartrment.
Archived in Public evidence, The timelines, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Sunday, June 21, 2009
How The Media Should Approach The Case If Justice Is To Be Done And SEEN To Be Done
Posted by Hellodalai
The American media are really playing with fire here.
This is one of the most seriously misreported cases in recent history, and a line really needs to be drawn.
Much of the media are doing no digging, consulting no Italians, repeatedly recycling discredited sources and those with a vested interest in the outcome, stating facts that are not facts, ignoring other facts that really are facts, revealing no understanding of how the Italian judicial process works, and often depicting the Italian professionals with contempt.
And so far no-one is really calling them on it.
From this perspective, I have been reading all the articles and information on this case for the past few days. I too was very disappointed in the NY Time pieces by Egan. Rather than attempt to discuss the facts and evidence that are known so far, he painted "broad brush" strokes to argue that this trial is unfair.
The TIME magazine report just below - where the reporter basically allowed a Knox advocate to state her position unchallenged - is equally mediocre in terms of investigative and reporting quality. It was one of dozens that have done that.
Here is my own analysis of the case which I advance as the appropriate depth that EVERY reporter and print and TV analyst should aim to achieve before they start telling the rest of us what to think.
Egan points out that Amanda Knox had no motive to kill or participate in killing Meredith Kercher.
I agree that there seems to be little evidence on this issue. One roommate testified as to tensions between Amanda and Meredith. Roommate tensions are common, though, and rarely lead to murder.
Neither Rudy Guede, who has been convicted already, nor Raffaele Sollecito, who was Amanda's boyfriend of less than two weeks, seemingly had motives, either.
All three were young adults who liked alcohol, music, marijuana, and sex (although Rudy has been described as a petty thief and small time drug dealer; other reports state he had no criminal convictions). None seemed likely to erupt into a murderous rage.
One of the downstairs male students testified that Guede expressed some interest in Amanda and said that Meredith was beautiful. Sollecito wrote in a newspaper column that he was a 23 year old virgin when he met Amanda.
So Sollecito was vulnerable to Amanda's influence. Guede may have wanted to gain Amanda's favor. Add alcohol and drugs and group dynamics and - the threesome may have spun out of control.
Since the murder, Amanda's behavior could certainly be questioned. Who does cartwheels at a police station during an investigation of their murdered roommate? What defendant wears a shirt to their murder trial that says "All you need is love" when the prosecution is trying to portray them as someone with out-of-control sexual behavior?
If this case rested solely on whether Amanda had a motive to kill Meredith, I would agree with Egan's stance that the trial is unfair. Egan seems to stop at that issue, however, and seems unwilling to examine all the evidence objectively.
DNA Evidence
One of the better reports on the case included this statement:
"But perhaps more damning even than the knife was Stefanoni's testimony that a mix of Knox's DNA and Kercher's blood was found on the floor in the bedroom of a third roommate, Filomena Romanelli. While it might not be noteworthy to find mixed genetic traces of residents of the same house, Romanelli's room is critical in this crime.
Her window was broken with a large rock that prosecutors believe was used to stage a break-in. The mixed Knox-Kercher trace was found after investigators used luminol, a substance used in forensic science to bring out blood that had been cleaned up.
In addition, Stefanoni testified that a mixture of Knox's DNA and Kercher's blood was found on the drain of the bidet, on the bathroom sink, and on a Q-Tip box in the girls' bathroom."
That is FOUR different blood samples with mixed Knox-Kercher DNA. Yes, it does seem that the investigative methods were sloppy and not all samples may be reliable (I acknowledge that there are some problems with the prosecution's case).
But I have yet to read even one article where a reputable DNA expert can explain why sloppy police procedures would result in four separate mixed blood samples. I did read one explanation that Amanda bled from a pierced ear—thus providing some explanation, although weak, for why her blood may have been in the bathroom. That doesn't explain why her blood was in the bedroom of Filomena Romanelli (another of her roommates) or why her blood was found mixed with Meredith's - or why her blood would be recoverable from an area that had been cleaned after the murder to eliminate evidence.
Similarly, the DNA evidence from Sollecito, found on Meredith's bra clasp is not explained away by scientific reasoning. True, the police left the clasp in Meredith's room (which was sealed) for weeks and did not retrieve it, but DNA is not transferred by "flying DNA"; there is no "innocent" scientific explanation why Sollecito's DNA (not sloughed dead cells, which do not contain DNA) would affix itself to a bra clasp worn by the murder victim after the clasp had been torn from her body.
As to the DNA evidence found on the knife located in Sollecito's apartment, the DNA sample from Meredith was very tiny, according to reports, and the DNA from Amanda could be explained by her using the knife at Sollecito's apartment. (Sollecito explained Meredith's DNA by stating she had come to his apartment for dinner with Amanda and that he had accidentally pricked her. But no witnesses have been found who remember Meredith ever talking about going to Sollecito's apartment)
True, the knife is not the same size as most wounds on Meredith, but it is the same size as one wound. The knife showed evidence of bleach cleaning and some scratches (Sollecito's apartment showed a lot of evidence of bleach cleaning, even though his maid did not use bleach to clean).
Clean up motives and evidence
I have yet to see a careful review of the testimony and possible conclusions that may be drawn from the known facts and circumstantial evidence, including the clean up after the murder—which, to me, are very compelling.
The neighbor has testified that she heard a very loud, long scream that night (presumably Meredith's last), followed not long thereafter by the sounds of two to three different people running from the area (it was unusual to hear people running at that time of night). The neighbor was 69 and could not remember exactly the date she heard the screaming, but she was firm that it was the night before Meredith's murder was discovered.
It is not a stretch to link the screaming to Meredith, given that loud, long piercing screams are uncommon. Also, a murderer or murderers would realize that Meredith's scream may bring the police at any moment—so running from the crime would be expected.
The uncontradicted testimony is that there was a fair amount of effort to "clean up" the crime scene (the defense merely claims that Knox and Sollecito were not involved). It also appears that whoever came back for the "clean up" also broke a window in Filomena's bedroom (as mentioned, one of the two other roommates living upstairs; there were also four male students living downstairs in a separate unit), in an attempt to throw the investigating police off the scent.
Filomena testifed that she found clothes strewn around her room the next day and that she had left the room tidy. She testified that glass from the window broken in her bedroom was on top of those strewn clothes. If the window was broken by someone entering the home who was intent on rape and/or robbery, then the glass would not be on top of the clothes as those clothes would not have been under the window then (Filomena also testified that she had valuables in plain view in her bedroom and that none were taken).
The evidence suggests that someone placed these clothes around the room and THEN broke the window to "stage a scene" (as there is no explanation for why anyone would have any motive to randomly take clothes and throw them around a room).
Let's start with Guede first and the assumption that he came back to the home that night - either by himself - or with someone other than Amanda and Sollecito.
Guede's motivation to come back to the crime scene would be to clean up the most incriminating evidence against him and to stage this crime scene to lead the police in a direction away from him.
Guede left DNA inside Meredith, bled on Meredith's body, and left a bloody hand print on the pillow underneath Meredith's head. He also left feces in the bathroom toilet (the bathroom near Filomena's bedroom - -not the "bloody" bathroom between Meredith and Amanda's bedrooms). He would know that if he came back to clean. He would know that that evidence would be the strongest against him.
During this "clean up phase," the DNA inside Meredith, Guede's blood on Meredith's body, the bloody hand print, and Guede's feces in the bathroom toilet were all left untouched.
The "clean up phase" spent a lot of time in the bathroom next to Meredith's bedroom (it was also next to Amanda's bedroom), the hallway, and Filomena's bedroom, where the "break-in" was staged (it is possible at least part of this crime occurred in the bathroom, as Meredith's blood was found on the bathroom light switch when it was in an up position - meaning it was touched when the light was on. The bathroom had numerous droplets of her blood, some of which were commingled with Amanda's blood.)
Despite the cleanup in Filomena's bedroom, the police were still able to obtain DNA samples. Guede's DNA was not found in either the bathroom or Filomena's bedroom.
Six bloody footprints from bare feet were identified. One was visible to the naked eye in the bathroom and five were visible only after the police used luminol, which allows blood evidence cleaned by bleach to become visible under a special light. The luminol did reveal five bloody footprints that had been cleaned up (one shoe print was also found under Meredith's pillow - the print is consistent with the size of Amanda's shoe).
None of the six bloody footprints are consistent with the size of Guede's feet. All six of these footprints are consistent with the size of Amanda and/or Sollecito's feet.
Why would Guede concentrate his clean-up efforts on areas where there is little to no evidence from him and ignore the areas where there is substantial evidence of his involvement? Wouldn't he at least flush the toilet?
As to the staged "break-in," would Guede be motivated to set this up? If the police believed a "break-in" had occurred, would they then be led away from investigating Guede as a suspect?
If the police believed that a break-in had occurred, then they would focus on looking for someone who was either a complete stranger to Meredith or someone she would not readily admit to her home late in the evening if they knocked on her door unanounced. Guede was not a complete stranger. One of the four male students who lived in the separate unit downstairs testified that Guede sometimes came to the apartment of the four male students and met and talked to Amanda and Meredith there (the testimony is that Meredith dated one of those four male students).
The evidence suggests that Guede only slightly knew Meredith. So, Guede was not someone who could knock unannounced on Meredith's door late at night (at least 9:30—after Meredith talked to her mother) and be readily admitted.
Guede had no motivation to stage a "break-in" because a break-in would in no way lead the police away from his scent. Plus, there is no evidence that Guede was ever in Filomena's bedroom where the "break-in" was staged. If he had participated in this staging, a footprint consistent with the size of his feet should have been illuminated by the police's luminol.
It wasn't.
Conclusions that jurors would normally draw from facts and the circumstantial evidence relating to the "clean up" and "break-in" point to someone OTHER than Guede participating in the "clean-up" and "staged break-in."
Let's now look at the assumption that Amanda and her boyfriend, Rafaelle Sollecito, were the ones who came back for the "clean up" and "staged break-in."
If Amanda and Sollecito were with Guede when the murder occurred (accounting for the extra footsteps running away shortly after the last scream of Meredith) and then came back to get rid of evidence of their guilt, their motivation would be to clean up their blood and DNA evidence and lead police away from their scent.
As for whether Amanda bled that night, another roommate of Amanda's and Meredith's, Laura, testified that she saw a a mark under Amanda's chin the day after the murder that was not there the day before the murder; Laura testified the mark was not a hickey as a hickey would have been purple and more round.
I have read two different comments on this issue from Amanda's father. One stated that the mark was merely a hickey and is evidence she spent the night with her boyfriend. Another was that a physician examining Amanda on Nov. 6th - -the murder occurred the evening of Nov. 1st - did not note a mark under the chin. (Interestingly, the police interrogating Amanda the next day did not report such a mark, either).
I then found a photo that was posted online taken of Amanda the day after the murder. It clearly shows a mark under her chin—and would account for her blood being found at the apartment.
If Amanda and Sollecito did the "clean up," they would be motivated to leave evidence of Guede's guilt and point the police in his direction.
Forensics don't show either way whether bleach was used to clean up Meredith and Amanda's apartment, though it was used in Sollecito's apartment AND on the knife found in his apartment containing the DNA of Meredith and Amanda.
The Conad store owner reported the presence of Amanda in the household cleaners part of his store early on the morning after the murder (when Amanda and Sollecito contend they were asleep) although rumored receipts for bleach were not presented at trial.
Meredith's body, which contained Guede's DNA and his blood (mixed with hers) was not cleaned and Guede's feces was not flushed from the toilet.
The bathroom, which even after the cleaning, contained Amanda's blood mixed with Meredith's and a bloody footprint which is consistent with the size of Sollecito's foot (trial testimony was that it was "likely" Sollecito's footprint), had a lot of cleaning activity.
The hallway and Filomena's bedroom, which even after the bleaching contained Amanda's blood mixed with Meredith's and bloody footprints, was the site of a lot of cleaning activity (these footprints were all consistent with the size of the feet of Amanda and Sollecito, but not consistent with the size of Guede's feet) .
The "cleaning" evidence, and conclusions which may be drawn from it, point to Amanda and Sollecito as participants.
Would Amanda and Sollecito have a motive to stage a break-in? Amanda obviously had a key to the unit and did not have to break into her own apartment. If there was no sign of a break-in, police would probably focus on people who had a key to the apartment or friends of Meredith she would readily admit to her apartment at 9:30 at night. If there was no sign of a break-in, police would question Amanda and Sollecito at length - and they would obviously know that.
Amanda and Sollecito had a strong motive to stage a break-in to focus police on looking for a stranger, or someone like Guede who only knew Meredith very casually.
What about the next morning? Let's first assume Amanda was innocent and she is being truthful when she testified that she did not come home until around 11:30 the next morning.
Amanda testified that when she came home around 11:30 a.m. that the apartment door was open, that there was visible blood in the bathroom (which would have been numerous scattered blood drops, a ten inch smear on the bathroom door, and a bloody footprint on the floor) and that there was feces in a toilet. Amanda says that she called out for Meredith and no one answered.
She then took a shower and went to Filomena's bathroom and used her dryer to dry her hair (this is the bathroom with Guede's feces; this toilet is different than American toilets in that it had a large flat area so that the standing water in the toilet did not submerge the feces) and returned to her boyfriend's apartment.
If Amanda were truly innocent when she arrived that morning, wouldn't she also try to open the door to Meredith's bedroom after Meredith did not answer, even when she banged on her door more than once? Amanda's fingerprints were not found on the door knob and she has never testified that she tried to open the door. Sollecito testified that when he arrived later with Amanda that he tried to open the door - and his fingerprints are on the door knob.
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she text Meredith, as she did several times two days before? Wouldn't she call both of Meredith's cell phones and let them ring to see if they were in her bedroom? (Phone records show she called each phone one time; one for three seconds and the other for four seconds, despite Amanda telling Filomena that day that she had called Meredith's cell phones and that the phones just kept ringing)
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she also call out for Filomena and Laura - because she would not know for sure if they might have returned that morning (she knew Filomena had spent the night in town and that Laura was in a nearby town)? Wouldn't she look into their bedrooms (Filomena's door was closed that morning, according to Amanda; Sollecito says it was open) and have noticed that Filomena's bedroom window was broken and her clothes were strewn about? (When Amanda first called Filomena she did not mention that Filomena's bedroom had been broken into).
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she have just flushed the exposed feces down the toilet?
If Amanda were innocent and truthful, wouldn't her hair three hours later look like it had been washed and blow dried that day? Look again at the photo posted above. It was taken about three hours after the alleged washing and blow drying. Is that the hair of a woman who washed and blow dried her hair three hours earlier?
Wouldn't Amanda have noticed that the lamp in her bedroom, which was the only source of light for that room, was missing? (Police later found it in Meredith's room). Wouldn't she have immediately noticed the missing lamp when she first entered her bedroom that morning so that she would have immediately either left the apartment without taking a shower or called the police to come over? (Police and phone records show that Sollecito didnt call them until 12:54, even though the Postal and Communications Police had been at the apartment with Sollecito and Amanda since 12:26 - the Postal Police unexpectedly showed up at the apartment because Meredith's cell phones had been found.)
People react differently to unexpected happenings and Amanda may not have done all of those things, but surely she would have done at least one of them.
If Amanda were truthful about showering and drying her hair, wouldn't her fingerprints be in both bathrooms? (Since these activities would have occurred AFTER the clean up). The police only found one of her fingerprints in her residence - on a glass in her kitchen.
As to this time frame, what about the recent trial testimony of Amanda's mother that Amanda told her in their first phone call that day that she thought someone was in her apartment? Cell phone records place that call at 12:47, some 21 minutes after the Postal Police arrived. (A nearby video camera documents that time, as does Postal Police log records; the defense has tried to argue that the Postal Police did not arrive until after 1:00 p.m., but do not have evidence for that position. In fact, Filomena testified that she arrived back at her apartment before 1:00 and that the Postal Police were already there.)
Postal Police testified that both Amanda and Sollecito were in Amanda's bedroom with the door closed at 12:47 - the bedroom with no lamp or overhead light (neither Amanda nor Sollecito mentioned to the Postal Police or Filomena when they emerged from that bedroom after many minutes that the only lamp in the room was missing).
Let's keep assuming Amanda was innocent. Would she have come back to her apartment with Sollecito, still not having called police, and then start a load of washing of Meredith's clothes? (The Postal Police said the washing machine was running when they entered; Filomena, who arrived a little later, said that the washing machine was still warm and contained Meredith's clothes.)
Amanda has testified that she got out a mop and bucket the first time she went to her apartment that day and took it back to Sollecito's because there was water on his apartment floor from water used in cooking pasta the night before (Sollecito said, however, that the water was from a broken pipe; Sollecito's diary written in prison talks of a dinner of stir fry mushrooms and vegetables).
Who has water spills from cooking pasta so large that the next day it is still puddled to the degree it needs to be mopped? Who voluntarily carries a mop and bucket several blocks to clean up water from cooking pasta the night before? (Especially a person who has been labeled in trial testimony as messy and unkempt in their cleaning habits).
If Amanda were innocent, wouldn't she and Sollecito have called the police after Sollecito tried to open Meredith's locked bedroom door and couldn't open it?
Instead of calling the police, Amanda and Raffaele went outside and stood next to the mop and bucket. Why didn't they just put the mop and bucket back up in the apartment when they first arrived? Why leave it outside the apartment? Why then go back out and stand next to the mop?
If Amanda and Sollecito were innocent, that means that Guede (and perhaps one or two accomplices) murdered Meredith, then ran away, and then came back at some point and cleaned up the crime scene PARTIALLY (but ignoring and leaving the most damning evidence against him) and THEN GUEDE CAME BACK that morning after Amanda had showered and left - so that GUEDE could do a LOAD OF WASHING of Meredith's clothes - presumably blood stained, all the while ignoring his feces in the toilet and his bloody hand print on the pillow under Meredith's body - only for GUEDE to then leave again right before Amanda and Sollecito arrived (so the washing machine would still be running when the Postal Police arrived a short while later).
What type of person or persons would come back to a crime scene to clean it up?
The most likely person to return to a crime scene for a clean up is someone who knows that they can do a clean up with little chance of being caught.
Guede might have known that the four male students downstairs were all away due to his occasional appearances there. But how would Guede know that Filomena and Laura, the other two upstairs roommates, would not come back either that night or in the morning?
Amanda and Sollecito, on the other hand, would know that everyone who lived in the house would be gone and that they could do a clean up that would take some time and have a good chance of not being caught in the act. Only the unexpected appearance of the Postal and Communications Police interrupted the mopping and cleaning (as there was still a ten inch blood smear on the bathroom door near Meredith's bedroom and numerous visible blood droplets).
No one else other than Amanda and Sollecito, and who may have been involved, had such knowledge.
The facts, testimony, and conclusions that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, including circumstantial evidence (that is what juries do all the time), lead me to believe that Amanda will be found guilty.
Let any reporter or analyst run the case through their minds at this depth and then make sure that at a minimum, they keep their cool and don't misrepresent.
When I read an article or blog in the New York Times or Time magazine, I expect thorough, well-reasoned, well-researched, investigative journalism. Judicial cases DEMAND it.
Instead, here I have found articles that IGNORED the evidence and some very mediocre journalism. What happened to journalistic standards? Where is the public outcry against the U.S. media's handling of this case?
For the sake of true justice, a line now needs to be drawn.
Archived in Crime hypotheses, Various scenarios, Public evidence, The locations, The timelines, DNA and luminol, The two knives, Other physical, The computers, Cellphone activity, The witnesses, The wider contexts, N America context, Reporting, media, movies, V good reporting, Knox alibis hoax, Sollecito's alibis, No-evidence hoax
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Friday, June 19, 2009
Trial: The Testifying Parents Of The Defendants Arrive At The Courthouse
Posted by Peter Quennell
[courtesy AP, click for larger image]
[courtesy ANSA, click for larger image]
Archived in Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Trail: TGCOM Reports On The First Of Edda Knox's Testimony
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click above for the report in Italian. A quick translation of the first testimony of Mrs Mellas:
After the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox never thought of leaving Italy. So said the mother of the young American, Edda Mellas, testifying before the Court of Assizes of Perugia.
The woman is responding assisted by an interpreter. She reported that her daughter had a good relationship with Meredith and the other flatmates…
Edda Mellas spoke of the conversation with Amanda in prison November 10. "She was feeling badly for the fact that Patrick had been dragged into this brutal story," she explained. "She felt badly for having advanced the name of Patrick"...
Archived in Public evidence, Cellphone activity, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Trial: Dr Sollecito Testifies About The Human Qualities Of His Son
Posted by Peter Quennell
Click image above for the first brief report from the Associated Press.
The father of an Italian man accused of killing a British student in Italy says his son was never violent and would not "hurt a fly"...
Francesco Sollecito told the court Friday that his son is not violent. He said his son liked to carry "small knives" in his pockets, a habit he picked up when he was younger.
This testimony is of less interest, perhaps, in the UK and the US than the Knox-Mellas testimony coming up. But Italy is following this with some fascination.
Why the interest?
Well, in part because Dr Sollecito and several of his family might come under indictment for interfering with the case.
Added: A quick translation of the testimony from TGCOM
He spoke of "gross errors that are causing his son to be in prison… [He] referred in particular to a shoe imprint attributed initially to his son but then found to be a Rudy Guede print.
"We were always convinced as to the absolute innocence and total strangeness of the allegations against Raffaele. We have been in compliance with the law, to find any way to help him."
[he] referred to a dossier prepared to show that the scene of the crime was amended by the forensic teams between the first and second visit.
Some images, such as those of the victim's body were then distributed by Telenorba and that possible illegal action is being investigated by the prosecutor of Perugia for breach of privacy and abetting.
Raffaele pampered Amanda Knox like a baby…. According to the Pugliese doctor "there was a nice story" between the two ex-lovers. "Raffaele talked with Amanda as he had never done with other girls."
And Nick Pisa reports further in the Evening Standard:
Mr Sollecito, from Giovinazzo near Bari, told the court: "Raffaele told me he had just started a beautiful love story with Amanda. He loved her and he adored her.
"He spoke to me about her in a way that he had never done about other girls. Raffaele had a certain affection towards Amanda."
Mr Sollecito also told the court that his son had a habit of carrying knives. When he was arrested in connection with the murder a flick-knife was found in his pocket.
He said: "It's a habit he has had since childhood. He grew up in the country and he always carried a knife. He is not violent, he would not hurt a fly. I had told him not carry a knife around."
The knife found on Sollecito is not the murder weapon.
Instead, a 30cm kitchen knife found at his house with DNA from Meredith on the blade and DNA from Knox on the handle is said to be compatible with the wounds to her neck.
Mr Sollecito is himself under investigation for leaking material relevant to the investigation to journalists in Bari and defended his actions in court.
He said: "To me and my family it is obvious that some very big mistakes have been made and my son is innocent. He has spent nearly two years in jail for something he did not do.
"Everything I did was in complete respect of the law. Once I saw the film of the scene from the first search after the murder and the subsequent one in December it was clear that mistakes had been made."
Mr Sollecito also said he knew his son had taken drugs in the past, adding that he had received a letter from police in Giovinazzo advising him about his son's drug habit.
Archived in Those officially involved, The defenses, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Raff Sollecito, Sollecito team
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Trial: La Nazione On Today's Testimony And The Testimony That Is To Come Next
Posted by Peter Quennell
La Nazione is one of Perugia's newspapers. Click above for their early report, in Italian.
1) On today's testimony.on what the blood traces suggest
Before Meredith died, she struggled to free herself from the constraint of one of the attackers, and she brought her left hand up to her devastated neck after the fatal knife attack. This is the evidence proven by the bloodstains found on the hand of the English student and, in particular, her index finger.
This is one of the elements that helps to reconstruct the dynamics of the crime conducted by the forensics experts of the Violent Crime Unit to be presented in today's depositions in their case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito accused of the murder and rape of their friend..
2) On the testimony scheduled to come next
The tight schedule of hearings ordered by the President of the Court, Giancarlo Massei, includes 5 and June 6 to hear the witnesses for the civil parties (lawyers Francesco Maresca and Serena Perna) who assist the victim's family.
Testifying on the 5th should be the advisers (legal and medical forensic geneticist) while on the 6th it will be the turn of Meredith's mother, Arline, and then her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle. They will talk about why she had chosen to study in Perugia, and the last telephone contacts before her murder.
On June 12th Amanda Knox is expected to be examined by her lawyers, Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova. The enigmatic Seattle student might still decide to escape the barrage of questions at the last minute.
On the 13th the first witness will be Patrick Lumumba, the civil party up against the American for libelous slander. And then the witnesses for the defenses will commence testifying.
Archived in Those officially involved, Victims family, Public evidence, DNA and luminol, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009
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Monday, April 27, 2009
Italian Media Is Reporting On The House Now The Owner Has It Back
Posted by Peter Quennell
Above: the panoramic view, from north-east to north-west, that Meredith would have looked out onto from her window.
The last shot above is approximately in the direction of her family and her home in the UK.
Meredith's room and other places in the house where there was still trace-evidence of her murder were cleaned over the weekend.
Her books, photos and other personal items, all of which her family want back, were long ago removed as evidence. They are in police custody and all will end up in their possession.
This afternoon the owner through her lawyer made the house available to the two other women who lived upstairs and the men who lived downstairs. They and their families and representatives were invited to come by and collect all their possessions.
ANSA reports that only Knox's father Curt Knox showed up.
Meredith's two flatmates Filomena and Laura did not appear, though it is believed that they still live in Perugia. Apparently none of the boys showed up either.
Knox's father filled a plastic bag and a suitcase with Amanda Knox's gear. He left the house in the rain. "Personal things of my daughter," he said to journalists without wanting to reveal what they were.
Apparently the items did include mountain-climbing gear. Knox to our knowledge had not done any climbing in Europe prior to her being arrested.
The interior of 7 Via della Pergola has apparently so far not been made available to any journalists. But it seems the owner has received big offers for exclusive pictures.
Craftsmen have already begun installing bars on the windows, to make the house more secure in the future. They are also assessing the interior work needed to make the place once again rentable.
A woman who was apparently the wife of one of the craftsmen entered the cottage with a holy picture. She left it in the room where Meredith breathed her last.
A pity that the owner seems less caring.
Archived in Public evidence, The locations, The witnesses, The wider contexts, Perugia context
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Friday, April 03, 2009
Trial: Andrea Vogt Reports On Patrick Lumumba's Testimony
Posted by Peter Quennell
Andrea Vogt is still providing her usual fine reports on the trial on the Seattle PI website.
Click above for her report late today on what Patrick Lumumba told the court of his experiences. He was the one fingered by Knox as the perp, and it took two weeks to get that charge refuted.
Knox is being prosecuted by the Republic of Italy, not by Lumumba, on a calunnia charge.
Explanation of calunnia
The charge of calunnia (art. 368) has been commonly translated as "slander" in the English/US media. This translation is incorrect, however, as calunnia is a crime with no direct equivalent in the respective legal systems.
The equivalent of "criminal slander" is diffamazione, which is an attack on someone"s reputation. Calunnia is the crime of making false criminal accusations against someone whom the accuser knows to be innocent, or to simulate/fabricate false evidence, independently of the credibility/admissibility of the accusation or evidence.
The charges of calunnia and diffamazione are subject to very different jurisprudence. Diffamazione is public and explicit, and is a more minor offence, usually resulting in a fine and only prosecuted if the victim files a complaint, while calunnia can be secret or known only to the authorities. It may consist only of the simulation of clues, and is automatically prosecuted by the judiciary.
The crimes of calunnia and diffamazione are located in different sections of the criminal code: while diffamazione is in the chapter entitled "crimes against honour" in the section of the Code protecting personal liberties, calunnia is discussed in the chapter entitled "crimes against the administration of justice", in a section that protects public powers.
Archived in Those officially involved, Public evidence, The witnesses, Trials 2008 & 2009, Reporting, media, movies, V good reporting, Amanda Knox
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