Meredith Kercher case

[jason_c]

Guede at his trial claimed to be innocently in the bathroom while the killing occured and that there were 2 people present who fled when he came out. Recently, at appeal, he specifically named Knox.

The phone calls are off a site called "truejustice.org" that specializes in anti-Knox/Sollecito rumors. A lot of what has been cited as evidence in this thread comes from there and a lot of it simply isn't true. It's not a bad source to use as a starting point, because they do collect a lot of links. But anything seen there needs to be independently verified because they're not bothered with accuracy if it makes the defendents look bad and they wear their bias like a badge of honor.

"Independently" verified by a CBS documentary, relatives of Amanda Knox, or her defense team.

[John Hacker]

"Independently" verified by a CBS documentary, relatives of Amanda Knox, or her defense team.

I know it's a shocking concept, but the defense is allowed to rebutt evidence. Ideally I'd like to see transcripts, but until they're available I'll look at as many sources I can. Even ones without any credibility whatsoever like "truejustice" and Migini.

[scarletpimpernel]

The Micheleti Report

John Hacker,

The Ministry of Justice in Rome posted -the entire Micheleti report- on their website. Many thousands of Italian speakers have been to that website and read the report in full.

The U.K. and U.S. mainstream media pretty much ignored the Micheleti report.
Even today. Few American journalists seem to realize that the report even exists.

The article I also read in the Independent On Sunday 6th of December 2009.
Page 11. by Greg Walton lists a summary of the prosecution case like follows.

* The discovery of a kitchen knife with Knox's DNA on the handle and Meredith Kercher's on the tip, implicated her in the killing.

* Knox's statement to police placed her at the scene of the crime the night that Meredith Kercher was killed.

* Positioning of genetic material on the knife, suggested it had been used to puncture skin and was not the result of normal domestic use.

* PHONE RECORDS SHOW KNOX SPOKE TO RUDY GUEDE " SEVERAL TIMES"
BEFORE AND AFTER THE MURDER. Guede was sentenced to 30 years in jail for his role in the killing in 2008.

* Knox and co-accused Raffaele Sollecito faked a burglary by breaking a window.

* Knox was alleged to have purchased lingerie and other items shortly after the death and reportedly performed gymnastics while waiting to be questions by investigators.

* She was overheard having an explicit conversation about having " Wild Sex" with Sollecito shortly after the incident and was seen on CCTV kissing him.

* She initially blamed a Congolese barman, Patrick Lumumba, for the death but he later proved his innocence.

By Greg Walton from The Independent On Sunday 6th of December page 11 on NEWS.

John, above Caz has posted long excerpts of the Micheleti report. Micheleti was the Judge who made this thorough and authoritative document, he presided on the Guede Trial and if you read the links that Caz had provided above you will find how the judges reasoned his sentencing report.

[scarletpimpernel]

The fact that Guede only changed his story to implicate Knox after he went on appeal and its implications has been pointed out to ScarPimp before. As well as the fact that the phone calls he keeps saying happened never did.

But he is not one who lets facts get in the way of his arguments.

Ally,

It is more complicated than that.

Read the Micheli Report, excerpts posted by Caz above. If you are serious about knowing how the judge who presided on Guede's trial arrived at his conclusions... you only have to read the links kindly provided by Caz above.

It just seems to me, that you are just asking Caz to provide this or that without you NOT even bothering to read any of it. Until you do, you will finally begin to understand why the jury quite rightly arrived at this convinction sentence on the three murderers and believe you me, when I tell you, it will be the same verdic when the appeals come here in October.

[Ally]

[QUOTE=scarletpimpernel;109848]Ally,

It is more complicated than that.

No, it's not. Things are either factual or not factual. You provide a lot of non-factual evidence.

Read the Micheli Report, excerpts posted by Caz above. If you are serious about knowing how the judge who presided on Guede's trial arrived at his conclusions... you only have to read the links kindly provided by Caz above.

The vast majority of the links provided by Caz above are to a bias and propaganda slander-fest that have been against Knox from day one. They gossip, slander and distort and they aren't interested in the truth at all. They are interested in promoting their agenda.

Much of what is claimed is out and out NOT factual and disproven, but who cares? The Italian public and media made up their mind a long time ago, and god know facts have never been sufficient to change the minds of believers.

It just seems to me, that you are just asking Caz to provide this or that without you NOT even bothering to read any of it. Until you do, you will finally begin to understand why the jury quite rightly arrived at this convinction sentence on the three murderers and believe you me, when I tell you, it will be the same verdic when the appeals come here in October.

It just seems to me you are making **** up again, your usual MO. First I haven't asked Caz to provide anything. Second, I will bother to read those parts of it that are FACTUAL. I will not wade my way through disproven lies just because you people still want to cling to it as "evidence" even though it's long since been disproven.

[John Hacker]

John Hacker,

The Ministry of Justice in Rome posted -the entire Micheleti report- on their website. Many thousands of Italian speakers have been to that website and read the report in full.

The U.K. and U.S. mainstream media pretty much ignored the Micheleti report.
Even today. Few American journalists seem to realize that the report even exists.

Quite a few papers covered the report in fair detail when it came out and it certainly was enlightening. It's not particularly relevent of course, because Knox and Sollecito were not on trial there. It did have a few things that certainly made me take notice though:

• He felt that there was more than one attacker based on the number of wounds (I have to wonder if this was his first criminal trial)
  He felt that all 3 were involved and that the crime was not-premeditated (Even given the weight that the prosecution gave to the cell phones turned off hours before the crime and the fact that the alleged murder weapon came from Sollecitos flat)

While the whole thing hasn't been translated into English so I've not read it in detail, little things like that certainly raised an eyebrow.

The article I also read in the Independent On Sunday 6th of December 2009.
Page 11. by Greg Walton lists a summary of the prosecution case like follows.

Let's take this point by point....

* The discovery of a kitchen knife with Knox's DNA on the handle and Meredith Kercher's on the tip, implicated her in the killing.

A knife that was arbitrarily selected out of a drawer full of knives based on "instinct". It had no markings or stains that would have called attention to it. The sample of what was allegedly Kercher's DNA was of too low a count to allow for reliable testing. An open letter signed by 9 DNA experts stated that in the US, testing wouldn't even have occurred on a sample that bad.

* Knox's statement to police placed her at the scene of the crime the night that Meredith Kercher was killed.

A statement given after 50 hours of questioning over a 5 day period in a foriegn country where she had minimal language skills at the time. I'm surprised it took that long for them to get to hear what they wanted to hear.

* Positioning of genetic material on the knife, suggested it had been used to puncture skin and was not the result of normal domestic use.

What sort of normal domestic use gets DNA on the tip?

* PHONE RECORDS SHOW KNOX SPOKE TO RUDY GUEDE " SEVERAL TIMES" BEFORE AND AFTER THE MURDER. Guede was sentenced to 30 years in jail for his role in the killing in 2008.

As has been pointed out numerous times on this thread, there weren't any calls between them. There were rumors to that extent at the beginning, but nothing was ever introduced into evidence on it and even TJ.org has stopped repeating that one.

IT DID NOT HAPPEN.

* Knox and co-accused Raffaele Sollecito faked a burglary by breaking a window.

That's not evidence. That's what we call a conclusion. And it's not one that's supported by the facts. The argument that a ten pound rock was too heavy to throw 13 feet is absurd. The side of the window that glass falls on depends on many factors and isn't a realiable indicator of what side it was hit from.

And most significantly, the one person we can put in the room with Kercher is Guede. And he's got a history of burglery and entry by (Gasp!) breaking windows.

* Knox was alleged to have purchased lingerie and other items shortly after the death and reportedly performed gymnastics while waiting to be questions by investigators.

Buying underwear when you've been locked out of your flat by the police is the NORMAL THING TO DO. I can't help but think that the people who find significance in her doing so would point to her dirty underwear as proof of guilt had she not. In any case, it wasn't offered as evidence.

As far as gymnastics? Yes, not reportedly, she did turn a cartwheel at the police station.

* She was overheard having an explicit conversation about having " Wild Sex" with Sollecito shortly after the incident and was seen on CCTV kissing him.

I love this one. I really do. Yes, they were kissing. As far as the "wild sex" goes, it sure made the tabloid rounds. But very few carried a follow up when it turned out that the conversation that she was having with Sollecito was in English. A language that the clerk did not speak or understand. Not offered as evidence obviously.

I am curious though. Let's pretend it was true. How long after a roommate is murdered is one supposed to abstain from sex if you're innocent? 3 days? A week? A month? Should she enter a convent?

Sex after a stressful incident is a typical reaction. Many people take refuge in it. I can certainly imagine wanting closeness after such a thing happening.

* She initially blamed a Congolese barman, Patrick Lumumba, for the death but he later proved his innocence.

Yes, in the interrogation I covered earlier. Stress or not that was inexcusible and she should be punished for the damaged caused to Lamumba. Absolutely.

By Greg Walton from The Independent On Sunday 6th of December page 11 on NEWS.

Greg really needs a refresher on what evidence is and probably should stop doing his research in the tabloids...

John, above Caz has posted long excerpts of the Micheleti report. Micheleti was the Judge who made this thorough and authoritative document, he presided on the Guede Trial and if you read the links that Caz had provided above you will find how the judges reasoned his sentencing report.

I looked through Caz's links that there were no excerpts. Just some creative interpretation from our friends at TJ. If anyone can provide a link to a translated copy I'd love to read it, but as I indicated above, I find his reasoning to be more than a little suspect and as he wasn't trying Knox or Sollecito, not hugely relevent.

Caz,

I haven't forgotten your post :-) But Scarlet's was quicker to deal with and since there's overlap there will be less to sort out in yours.

Peace.

[scarletpimpernel]

Hello John:

It would appear that you are right about that telephone record, maybe being a rumour. Although I had the impression that it was through this that the Italian police made the connection between Guede and the couple, Sollecito and Knox. If the telephone record was not the connection... how did the police know that Guede had been at the scene of the crime ? Since he didn´t live there to start with. Specially as Amanda had already incriminated another black man that wasn´t Guede.
Can you see what I mean ?

[Archaic]

Hearsay

Excellent work, John.

As regards the lingerie store incident, yes, Amanda was locked out of her residence by the police and was not permitted to take her personal items. Her other clothes are back home at her parents' house 5,500 miles away. She's a college student and has to attend class. Obviously she had to go shopping in order to replace a number of necessary items.

The clerk who claimed to hear Amanda & Raffaele talking about their plans to "have wild sex" has absolutely no evidence to back this up. Such a claim would not be admitted or even mentioned in an American court-room, because it is blatant 'Hearsay'. In other words, NOT evidence.

Obviously, anybody can make up anything.

>> It would be very interesting to know if the Italian tabloids paid this clerk for his sensational story.

Best regards, Archaic

[scarletpimpernel]

Hello John:

In the links that Caz provided it does have translated pages that judge Michelin wrote in his 106 page report and he was the judge that presided on Guede´s trial and reasoned that there was enough evidence there to bring Sollecito and Knox as well. He was also on the last hearing of Knox and Sollecito trial. Whole pages of his report were published in the Italian newspapers. The final part of his report will be published in March of next year. But a complete report of what has happened so far in the trial can be read in the Ministry of Justice website on this case.

If you read the link provided by Caz, you will also find that there is a British journalist who has read the entire report and written on one of the respected newspapers so maybe this is where you can read it. If I have time, I will re-read the link myself and try and make a note of this journalist and try and get the links about what he has written of the judges report.

[John Hacker]

Hello John:

It would appear that you are right about that telephone record, maybe being a rumour. Although I had the impression that it was through this that the Italian police made the connection between Guede and the couple, Sollecito and Knox. If the telephone record was not the connection... how did the police know that Guede had been at the scene of the crime ? Since he didn´t live there to start with. Specially as Amanda had already incriminated another black man that wasn´t Guede.
Can you see what I mean ?

He left fingerprints all over the place and he had a criminal record, given that the DNA found didn't match Sollecito's they went for him like a shot. They got that one right.

[John Hacker]

Hello John:

In the links that Caz provided it does have translated pages that judge Michelin wrote in his 106 page report and he was the judge that presided on Guede´s trial and reasoned that there was enough evidence there to bring Sollecito and Knox as well. He was also on the last hearing of Knox and Sollecito trial. Whole pages of his report were published in the Italian newspapers. The final part of his report will be published in March of next year. But a complete report of what has happened so far in the trial can be read in the Ministry of Justice website on this case.

If you read the link provided by Caz, you will also find that there is a British journalist who has read the entire report and written on one of the respected newspapers so maybe this is where you can read it. If I have time, I will re-read the link myself and try and make a note of this journalist and try and get the links about what he has written of the judges report.

I went back through the links and did not find translated pages, just TJ's spin on what they said. As they're clearly not an impartial source I'm not going to take their opinion without a whole lot of salt...

[Malkmus]

Rudy left not only a fingerprint and shoeprint, but feces in the toilet that nailed him very quickly. You have to realize that no one had implicated him until the the fingerprint and DNA evidence obviously pointed him out. Authorities would never have thought to apprehend him since his name never came up, until the fingerprint itself identified him and led to his capture weeks later (Not Amanda or Rapahelle's testimony which never mentioned him)

[Ally]

But of course since they had already hinged their whole belief system on Knox and Sollecito, they just couldn't let it go, and rather than tossing it, they just incorporated Guede.

John, since I told Scarlet three times the phone calls were bogus, and he didn't believe a word I said, and all you had to do was say it once in your deep manly voice, I have come to the conclusion that Scarlet is just another sexist macho male who doesn't hear a word a woman says (maybe he was on the Knox jury too). So could you do me a favor and point out to him that Amanda Knox didn't mention the bartender until the police mentioned him to her, based on their phone text conversation? And that it was the POLICE who initially tried to implicate him?

He keeps making so much of the fact that the man Amanda initially implicated was black, which he says proves she knew a black man was involved, but refuses to see the plain and simple truth that the POLICE were the first people to bring the bartender into it and not Amanda herself.

Maybe he just needs the facts repeated in tenor-bass before they'll sink in.

[scarletpimpernel]

Rudy left not only a fingerprint and shoeprint, but feces in the toilet that nailed him very quickly. You have to realize that no one had implicated him until the the fingerprint and DNA evidence obviously pointed him out. Authorities would never have thought to apprehend him since his name never came up, until the fingerprint itself identified him and led to his capture weeks later (Not Amanda or Rapahelle's testimony which never mentioned him)

Malkmus,

Except that you forget that Ms. Knox had already implicated another black man, an innocent man by the name of Lumumba of being at the scene of the crime. Why did she do this ? Why did she implicated a man that she clearly knew was not with her during the murder ?

This is when the detectives started questioning her if she was protecting someone else. ( which she was, since we know who that other black man was. Also, by that time, the police through the mobile records had found out, that Lumumba's phone signals were emited from another address, from his bar, so through these records Lumumba was able to establish his innocence.

You see... her telling this tale implicated her.

[caz]

First Caz, thanks for being the first person to put forth a reasoned statement concerning the facts you believe point to her guilt.

Hi Ally,

That's not quite true. There was no way for me to know whether I was reading and quoting ‘facts’, or a long series of lies, misinformation and conjecture. Evidence was asked for (I can't remember who asked but someone did, and it may of course have been a rhetorical question), so I tried to find out what was being claimed as evidence against the pair. Obviously I wouldn’t find much of that by looking at pro-Knox sources, would I?

The thing is, both Knox and Sollecito were convicted, whether we like it or not, so the defence team failed to demonstrate reasonable doubt, or a sceptical jury ignored it. We don’t know why that was. There has been biased reporting for and against the verdicts (although the sympathy votes do seem to be concentrated on Knox, when they should go to Knox and Sollecito in equal measure, unless I’m missing something). So bias by itself can be no indicator of where the truth lies, no matter how blatant that bias is.

Without inside knowledge we are left to judge the fairness and accuracy of each report from a variety of sources. In order to claim that something ‘simply isn’t true’ (as John H does) one must rely on the objectivity, accuracy and truthfulness of alternative sources of information. How is it possible to judge which sources are unbiased and providing us with the highest ratio of truth to BS? Even if you or John were to make a case for one source over another, how would I know you were being entirely objective in your choice or qualified to make it? It’s a tough call for all of us. But right now, Knox and Sollecito are the ones who need all the help they can get to undermine whatever it was that led the jury to convict them.

But of course, it's perfectly okay to discuss how she behaves and consider that helpful in establishing it? No I don't think so. If she as scared or brutalized into confessing, or accusing the bartender based on the actions of the police, that is in fact HIGHLY relevant.

Er, no. I said the opposite - that her public behaviour very obviously can’t help establish her guilt. But it sure as hell isn’t going to establish her innocence, is it? And that is surely her only goal. I only ever mentioned her behaviour in the context of it doing her no favours. I didn't say it was right or fair. It's totally unfair, but it can hardly have come as any surprise to her if she had been treated unfairly from the start. I’m not biased against her for grinning, or doing a cartwheel either. But it’s quite possible that the people who were there deciding her fate were. And if she really had been slapped around by the Italian authorities, you’d think she’d have been wary of giving anyone in that courtroom the slightest excuse to put the boot into her character as well.

Her claim that she was scared and brutalised into accusing an innocent man and saying that she heard the victim screaming would certainly be relevant to the safety of the conviction, especially if these statements were crucial to the prosecution’s case, or it could be verified that she was forced into telling lies. No doubt it will all be brought up again at appeal stage. Let’s hope it doesn’t make things worse rather than better. Lies have a habit of coming back to bite you, regardless of what made you tell them in the first place. If she lied due to her youth and unbearable pressure put on her to make something up, it still wouldn't establish that she wasn't involved and knew nothing.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Your attempt at reconstructing.

Er, I made no attempt at reconstructing anything, Ally. I was quoting there, as I thought you would have noticed from all those neat little ‘ ’ marks throughout my post. Were you too busy trying to read my own (unexpressed) views between the lines? I would expect better from you than that.

Now for some questions:

Who was lying about the phones both going off before the murder and back on again at 6am? Someone was, because Knox and Sollecito claimed to have slept in late that morning.

What is the evidence that one person could have held Meredith down without help and inflicted all the injuries she received before she died? What is the evidence against two knives being used, including the one recovered from Sollecito’s flat? What were the defence team doing, if they couldn’t show reasonable doubt that three pairs of hands were involved, and at least one blade that had Meredith’s DNA on it? How did Meredith’s DNA get on the blade of a knife that never left Sollecito’s flat? Was any explanation offered by Sollecito himself? Or was he relying on DNA buffs to show that the amount was too small to be identified conclusively as Meredith's? Assuming the profile didn't match Knox or Sollecito, whose was it and how did it get there?

Why do you think Sollecito did not take the stand? Was it because he had no believable explanation for evidence such as the victim’s DNA on that blade? Or was he more of a liability to the girlfriend he had only been with for a short time? 25 years is a mighty long time for an innocent man to regret not speaking up for himself.

What about the apparent staging of a lone intruder scenario and the whole clean-up process? Who was involved and why? What reason could Rudy Guede have had to stage anything if he was a lone intruder and had no witnesses? If he was the one to clean up afterwards, would he have left obvious signs of his presence, including his poo grinning up from the loo, and fatally incriminating signs of his involvement in the murder?

What are you saying about Knox’s mop and bucket story then? That it makes perfect sense to have carried them several blocks away to mop up some water spilled in Sollecito’s flat while cooking pasta the night before? Did anyone see her carrying them to and from the flat? Or did she say nothing of the sort and is it pure fabrication by some lowlife reporter? Was there no mop or bucket outside the murder house with Knox and Sollecito when the police turned up unexpectedly?

I don’t know why anyone was washing Meredith’s clothes (the morning after someone had knifed her to death and left her semi-naked on her bed ). But assuming the other housemate, Filomena, was right about whose clothes were in the still warm machine when she arrived, someone was washing them at a time when Knox and Sollecito were saying they couldn’t get into Meredith’s room and when nobody was supposed to know where she was or that anything had happened to her. It doesn’t make the person doing an absent Meredith this personal favour guilty of her murder, but it would be fairly crazy not to ask certain questions and expect some credible answers. Did Knox admit to washing those clothes or did she try to deny it? Does anyone know? Was anyone else at home when the machine was switched on? It was running when the police entered and Filomena arrived later.

Imagine the scene: there is no sign of Meredith stirring and her room seems to be locked. No reason on earth for anyone to suspect foul play unless they know what's behind that door. So what does Knox do in this blissful but temporary state of ignorance, before all hell breaks loose around her? Domestic chores. She fannies around with a mop and bucket to clear up spilled water over at Sollicito’s place, but leaves Guede’s poo floating in the loo where she apparently took her shower that morning. She also apparently decides to do a washload for Meredith in her absence, but she can’t get into her room to fetch any dirty clothes, or ask what needs washing. So the clothes are presumably already sitting in the machine or close by, waiting to be washed. If Meredith was wearing any of those clothes when she was attacked, then the question has to be how they got from the room to the machine afterwards - given the locked door - and why. Would Guede have bothered to do that if he had no intention of using the machine himself? He'd have been better off flushing the loo!

If Knox genuinely had no idea that her housemate was lying murdered in her bed or that the killer had tried to clean up after him, she was insanely unlucky to need a mop and bucket that morning and to do that washing, unwittingly adding to the killer’s earlier efforts to clean away potential clues.

A statement given after 50 hours of questioning over a 5 day period in a foriegn country where she had minimal language skills at the time. I'm surprised it took that long for them to get to hear what they wanted to hear.

Hang on. This may not translate over here, John. Meredith was in Italy for a year of study towards her degree at Leeds University, and no way would she have got there with minimal language skills in Italian. So what was Amanda Knox doing there exactly, and how was she doing it at all with only minimal skills in the language? But in any case, how could she be expected to respond, in a language she could barely speak, to questions she could barely understand? Italy isn't stuck in the Middle Ages, and without an interpreter she should have kept her trap shut or only spoken in English if she was struggling so badly with Italian. She seems to have had enough skill to finger her boss for the crime and describe Meredith's screams. Or was she allowed to use English just for the really incriminating bits? This is getting a tad silly now, John, and I doubt it's doing much to help her. I heard yesterday that she is becoming concerned about some of the 'support' she is getting. I'm beginning to see why she would be.

Love,

Caz
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