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Original poster

to think that the people on here who were condeming Amanda Knox should apologise?

259 replies

margerykemp · 03/10/2011 20:57

Some of the language used by some people on here was really appauling.

Hang your heads in shame!

OP posts:
Portofino · 06/10/2011 20:55

As I just posted on the other thread:

The police KNEW that a black man had been at the crime scene. Can you give one reason at all that AK should freely suggest her boss was there - even if she was totally guilty? Why him?

So either she was there, and she would surely have identified the correct person under pressure....., or she wasn't there, and the police (after hours of interrogation without translator, or lawyer) told her repeatedly that they knew that PL WAS there and asked her to imagine a certain scenario where he and she were in the apartment.

So it was established that PL was NOT there. If AK WAS there, and was broken down under pressure, why not say that it was Guede - who definitely WAS there.

If she WASN'T there, as the appeal judge and most other sensible people believe, WHY would she finger PL? There is no earthly reason for her to do so, unless the police brought him into it.

She was 20 years old and had been a foreign country for 2 months. I have lived abroad for 5 years and am 43. If anyone took ME in for questioning without a lawyer and translator and kept me up all night, I would be terrified and would not understand the nuances between hypothetical and real.

pickledsiblings · 06/10/2011 21:02

'would not understand the nuances between hypothetical and real'

i think you're over-reaching here portofino

Portofino · 06/10/2011 21:16

Um why? I live in a foreign country and have done for some time. There are nuances in language that you have to be fluent to get. I would NOT want to be interviewed by the police without a translator. I get stressed when I have to go the commune and ask for certificate of our family set up for the school. I need to go and get a Belgian driving licence and have been putting it off for 2 years. Foreign authorities can be scary enough just to deal with in day to day life.

bananaistheanswer · 06/10/2011 21:21

If she WASN'T there, as the appeal judge and most other sensible people believe, WHY would she finger PL? There is no earthly reason for her to do so, unless the police brought him into it.

So why did the appeal judge find her guilty of slander then? If you are so convinced that AK was worn down, manipulated, intimidated, confused, denied her rights, a lawyer and an interpreter, and was in no way responsible for PL being implicated, why has she been found guilty of slander by the same judge who deemed her completely innocent of murder, and acquitted her? Your arguments make no sense. If all the reasons you give to absolve her of any blame in PL being implicated, why would a judge who deemed her innocent of murder, not be able to see past the 'manipulation' as you put it?

Portofino · 06/10/2011 21:32

I can't speak for the judge and jury panel. I work on logic. There is NO evidence that she committed murder. With regards to the "confession" - well there is nothing - nothing was recorded. It is a simple her vs them thing. There is no info now that wasn't there then. Nothing has changed quite simply. No new information or evidence. So I guess you have no reason to overturn the original judgement. The 2 things should be separate really.

bananaistheanswer · 06/10/2011 21:52

There was something though, she signed a statement. A statement she knew was false as she wasn't there when Meredith was killed. If there was nothing she could hardly be convicted of slander could she? Where is the logic in her being convicted of slander based on nothing? Dismissing her conviction for slander as though it is an irrelevance really makes no sense at all. A 3 year jail sentence isn't nothing.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 21:57

She signed a statement under duress imho. Not the first time this has happened. She retracted it in the morning.

bananaistheanswer · 06/10/2011 22:10

So why was she found guilty of slander if the statement was signed under duress? Why was she not able to persuade a judge/jury who acquitted her of murder, that she signed a statement under duress, and was not responsible for implicating PL? Absolving her of all responsibility in this really does come across as blind faith, not logic.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:15

Because there was NOTHING she could do or say to prove it one way or the other. All she can say is that she didn't do it. Yes, it doesn't make sense, but the whole thing from start to finish doesn't make sense. Like I said, she can come up with no new evidence to challenge the conviction. So nothing has changed, so that cannot overturn it.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:18

The 2 charges are separate things. They should not have been tried together. In the UK it would not be allowed. The prosecutor was very clever doing both trials concurrently as it meant he could introduce the inadmissable evidence quite legitimately into the main criminal trial. The Kerchers were also represented by his mate in a civil action at the same time.

wewantaramp · 06/10/2011 22:22

Apology...........? I dunno. I think the media encourage this kind of witch hunt. I know that I was never sufficiently convinced that she was to blame.
But that doesn't mean that she was innocent.

pickledsiblings · 06/10/2011 22:26

what i don't understand is the presence of rs's dna at all - was this discredited as in 'it was not there'

wewantaramp · 06/10/2011 22:28

Not sure........but the dna was discredited in general. That is inexcusable.

bananaistheanswer · 06/10/2011 22:30

The only comment I've read so far from the judge is both he and the jury involved in the acquittal 'went with their conscience' and that the judge felt there was 'political will' to convict AK of murder because she was american. No idea how accurate that is, but with that thinking and mind set behind the acquittal, I do seriously question how AK was unable to persuade that same judge that she was forced to implicate PL, and that the statement she signed was given under duress. I think that if you accept the acquittal of murder from the appeal, then it's hard to argue that the conviction for slander is wrong, unjust or unsound.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:38

I think we have to wait for the post-appeal judgement to know what the judge thought. I don't believe they were acquitted because AK was american or that politics came into it. Apparently the Italian appeals process lets you only challenge the weakest evidence, so they have a higher percentange than average of overturning of conviction on appeal. That could be genuine, or could be that they lock more people up on dodgy evidence initially. Who knows?

pickledsiblings · 06/10/2011 22:41

rs sort of fitted a 'psychopathic' profile whereas ak did not, all of that completely bypassed the media , unless I missed it.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:42

pickled - the sample was contaminated. It supposedly had RS's dna but also other unidentified dna. It had been in the dust for 46 days. It would be very strange that if he was involved he left a tiny trace on her bra clasp but nowhere else in the house.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:43

Pyschopathic profile for RS? Are you just making that up?

scottishmummy · 06/10/2011 22:49

what clinically accepted robust assessment was used to determine psychopathic profile?

the diagnosis murder school of psychiatry perhaps

Portofino · 06/10/2011 22:52

I just snorted limoncello out of my nose. So wasteful..... Grin

yousankmybattleship · 06/10/2011 22:53

Haven't read all this but I have yet to see anything that convinces me that she is innocent. She was released because faults were found in the evidence gathering. I hope she at least has the decency to lay low now she's home.

pickledsiblings · 06/10/2011 22:54

He was "taciturn, introverted, shy.... watched many
films‛ and educators at the boy?s ONAOSI college were shocked by a film ?very
much hard-core ... where there were scenes of sex with animals‛ at which next they
activated a monitoring on the boy to try to understand him. (p.130 and 131, hearing
27.3.2009, statements by Tavernesi Francesco). He had the habit "of carrying in his
pocket a penknife"

This is what I'm talking about and I did say sort of...

I just meant that he fitted the profile more than AK, that's all.

scottishmummy · 06/10/2011 22:58

tosh.youve gleaned some salacious reporting and from that formed a quasi-diagnosis.

Portofino · 06/10/2011 23:00

Yes - he was a bit geeky, hadn't had many girlfriends and carried a penknife. Yet we are to believe that instead of that penknife that he always carried, he brought over his fecking big kitchen knife to take part in a "sex game that went wrong". They did find his penknife in his bedroom afterwards. It played no part in the evidence.

pickledsiblings · 06/10/2011 23:03

agree with you on the quasi-diagnosis bit but the quote is from the translated Court Sentence.

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