Amanda Knox

[LadyBeagleEyes]

Her appeal is being heard at the moment, and there is a good chance she'll be freed.
So who did kill Meredith?
If she and her ex boyfriend are deemed innocent, I hope the Italian police will continue to look into the case and get some justice for her.
I don't understand why they say the DNA is flawed, or have Knox's parents just managed to hire some very smart lawyers?
It's such a sad case.

[RedRubyBlue]

All I want to hear is a coherent and accurate report of where she and her boyfriend where that night.

They both lied and lied and lied.

She implicated an innocent man and then retracted that story.

She tried to find an alibi that could fit and she failed. She had two choices.

Tell the truth?

Or tell lies?

The truth would lead her to jail and the lies led her to jail.

One year of her sentence was for slander against the police for 'hitting her' yet she could not pick out the police woman who commited this act.

If she were innocent then she would have told the truth and be a free woman.

The Friends of Amanda Knox want her freed at any price. Her guilt they will deal with back home safely in the USA.

And I fully expect that the FOA will take over this forum as they have Wikipedia, Amazon etc etc

[ForYourDreamsAreChina]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/872391-teh-sad-case-of-Meredith-Kercher/AllOnOnePage

Might be worth a re-read for anyone not around at the time.

[fastweb]

and manipulated to fit a bizzare theory invented by the prosecutor.

----

But why would they ?

The first thing they did was arrest  Patrick Lumumba, who had the finger pointed at him by Knox. A black immigrant, a defendant made in heaven over here, with no risk of international outrage from the other side of the Atlantic.

Unfortunatly he had an alibi.Which the polcie did not seek to discredit, hide or disappear.

Then Guede happily replaces him and there is physical evidence to connect him.

Again you get to clear the crime without the hassle of American umbrage and the difficulty involved in bring a well connected, well heeled, fabulously lawyered defendant like Sollecito to trial and getting a conviction that can only be relied upon to stand stands after up to ten years of moving up the court system with appeals.

See this what doesn't make sense, if you take the least attractive triats and the known predudices of Italian police forces and tribunal into account and work it into a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in order to manipulate who is left to face the music, it makes more sense for Guede to been left to carry the can alone as evidence that implicated "troublesome" defendants got "lost" or "accidentaly tainted".

Take the conspiracy to even greater heights, at a poltical level The Orange One and the arch Leggisti in the coelition want to make political hay, then the last thing they would want to see is a black man exonerated at the expence of an american girl and a well heeled Italian lad. 

So if the system is as wholly corrupt as is being suggested in some quarters, the most likely result of a plot to hold people to account for what they didn't do, because it suits you, would be for Lumumba's alibi to be discreditied and present to the Italian public the bogy man of two immigrants, strangers to each other, who together and at random chose to brutalise, rape and murder a young women.

I've lived here for 16years. Italy is far from perfect. But its imperfections are not reflected in the idea that Knox and Sollecito were set up or picked to be the defendants to suit, while one immigrant walked free and the other one gets a tiny fraction of the public attention in a horrific crime. That would an Italy in a parrale universe where all the less attractive norms here are reversed.

[Gigondas]

Cloudy days they were implying it was an equivalent tragedy - if she is innocent then yes it ould be a tragedy if jail but an equivalent tragedy, no.

[WoodBetweenTheWorlds]

I am always amazed that people are so quick to make judgements about people they don't know! I honestly haven't a clue whether Knox killed Meredith Kercher or not, and I can only hope that the Italian justice system gets it right.

Whatever the outcome, I do not believe in trial by the media. :(

[Sylvana]

Rudy Guede acted alone. He broke into the house that night and killed Meredith when she returned home.

Knox was at Sellecito's flat, having sex and smoking joints.

Knox was interrogated for days without a lawer present, she didn't realise she was a suspect. She was young and naive and because she didn't have the language she didn't realise they were building a case around her and Sellecito. The cops were under pressure to get someone for a crime that attracted worldwide headlines.

It was the police who tried to implicate Patrick Lumumba and after hours of interrogation they asked her could he have been at the crime scene, Knox found herself saying he could have been threre. Knox and Sellecito then went on to implicate each other -again under interrogation from the police.

Very stupid yes, but does that make them murderers ? No.

Innocent people have been locked up for years for crimes they didn't commit. We have seen it in this country, so it does happen.

I don't particularly like the way Amanda Knox behaves, she comes across as immature and unfeeling but I wouldn't like to see anyone sent to prison for 26 years for a crime they didn't commit.

[fastweb]

The cops were under pressure to get someone for a crime that attracted worldwide headlines.

Then why did they not disappear Patrick's alibi, or create evidence against him in the way they are accused of creating against K/S ?

Or why did they not drop the case against the couple when they got their hands on G and he quickly capitulated into a fast track trial in order to gain a lesser sentence, with a much lessened possibility of being found innocent ? One sole defendant, slam dunk trial, case closed, let the other two go, make the whole media spotlight go away. Blame K/S for being insistant in their stories and pointing the finger at innocent parties as the cause of raising suspition that was proven unfounded. All over.

A consiracy theroy has to make some kind of sense and in this case your proffered theory is so full of holes you could drive the entire Treni Italia through it.

[fastweb]

tje entire STOXK of Treni Italia even

[fastweb]

third time lucky

STOCK

[Highlander]

Trial by media......

Look at the photo of Knox and Sallecito on the BBC website. Knox looking coyly from behind her hair; a plain photo of Sollecito.

[Highlander]

Sorry, look at the photos chosen by the BBC....

[DuelingFanjo]

I agree with Freaklikeme

[Sylvana]

Then why did they not disappear Patrick's alibi, or create evidence against him in the way they are accused of creating against K/S ?

Because Patrick Lumumba was a respectable businessman who ran a pub in the town for years. Numerous witnesses come forward to say he was in his pub the whole night, after which he closed up and went home to bed with his wife and baby (his perfectly credible alibi).

I'm sure the police would have pinned it on him too, if they could have, but they had to release him when it became apparant that trying to implicate him would be a non-runner.

Patrick's life was ruined after this. The man's business went down the tubes. He blames Amanda Knox and who could blame him ?

But that still doesn't make her a murderer.

[Sylvana]

An excellent article on the whole case can be read here:

www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-neverending-nightmare-of-amanda-knox-20110627

[ForYourDreamsAreChina]

The Italian prosecutors today have asked that the 26 yr sentence be raised to life.

[pointythings]

FWIW, and it isn't a lot, I always got a feeling that Amanda Knox was found guilty because she had a colourful sex life, and not for too many other reasons. Meredith Kercher was the Madonna, therefore Knox had to be the whore.

Does the Italian legal system work on the concept of reasonable doubt? If so, she should be freed.

[lalalonglegs]

I think Amanda Knox had bugger all to do with it and I've yet to hear anyone pin a motive much less evidence on her. I've never understood the intense dislike of her by many. This article is excellent and argues that, given the evidence against her, Knox wouldn't have been prosecuted in the UK, much less tried. Italy has a lot going for it but it's legal system is a joke.

[fastweb]

because Patrick Lumumba was a respectable businessman who ran a pub in the town for years. Numerous witnesses come forward to say he was in his pub the whole night, after which he closed up and went home to bed with his wife and baby (his perfectly credible alibi). 

--

Patrick Lumumba is a black immigrant (plus point 1 on the "set somebody up for expediancy in Italy" tally). 

His alibi consisted of his wife (plus point 2, wives are an easy target to be tainted as lying to provide an alibi) also an immigrant ( hurrah! even easier on painting her a liar front), and the single patron who had never been in the bar before and did not know PL personally (plus point 3, eye witnesses are unreliable m'lud OR scare personally uninvested alibi off by insinuating that maybe he was in it with PL and they should take a closer look at his movements that night as well)

According to AK's supporters the police were prepared to indulge in pressuring, hitting and coersing AK during interrogation to the point that she was so confused and disoreinted as to the hypothetical nature of the conversation (partly due to an alleged police inflicted head injury) that she named PL, provided a vital clue as to his motive, saw him enter her home, and heard him rape and kill her flatmate while she sat at the kitchen table.

If one accpets the above as truth, or any of the other claims as to what the police did to set up K&S,  then it it makes no sense to conclude that a far easier target, who....

-did not have access to expensive lawyers
-did not carry the heightened  risk of a sustained level of continued international media attention that k&S did
-was severly disadvantaged in the court of public opinion due to the colour of his skin and his status as an immigrant

.....was somehow immune from similar shady/violent/coerisve alleged tactics on  the part of  the police to disappear his albi, leaving him as a handy scapegoat that would most likely reduce the long term level media glare.


Patrick's life was ruined after this. The man's business went down the tubes. He blames Amanda Knox and who could blame him ?

Quite. I hope the ?40,000 he sucessfully sued AK for and the compo that should come his way from the Italian authorities goes some way to helping him start over. But how do you recover from what he went through on an emotional and mental level ?

But that still doesn't make her a murderer

I have made no comment about innocence or guilt.

I was pointing out that the conspriacy theroy proffered, K&S set up, to get the case put to bed asap for the sake of ending negative media attention focused on Italy, makes no sense.

Not when you consider that the police had TWO gift horses at their disposal. 

One let go despite the relative ease of fitting him up (when compared to the relative complexity of fitting up K&S).

Got the other one bang to rights, yet still chose to plough ahead with fitting up K&S, despite that being a cast iron guarentee of negative media attention for years to come if they get a guilty verdict, and an international outcry of vast proportions if it comes to light that evidence was manufactured, manipulated or planted.

I think the police and the prosecution focused on K&S becuase they absolutly believed, and still believe, they did it.

The courts get to decide if the evidence presented is sufficient to support that belief, or not.

[Sylvana]

I think the police and the prosecution focused on K&S becuase they absolutly believed, and still believe, they did it.

The police were so determined to pin the crime on K&S that they didn't look for any other suspects (bar Lumumba). They were convinced the bloody footprints left all over the crime scene were Sellecito's. It was only when the forensics came back weeks later proving the footprints did not belong to Sellecito that they started searching for the real killer (Rudy Guede).

But they wouldn't back down. They went ahead trying to prove K&S were involved by putting forward flimsy, tainted evidence.

The courts get to decide if the evidence presented is sufficient to support that belief, or not.

As all the physical evidence points to Guede as the sole killer I would hope the courts make the right judgement this time.

[SansaLannister]

I guess it remains to be seen. If she and Sollecito are innocent, then here is hoping this comes out, because they have spent time in prison unnecessarily. They have their lives, and if they are found to have been convicted in error then they should walk free to pursue what is left of those lives, however long it might be. It is for the court to decide. Having been in similar courts, I know, it is not an easy process.

I do hope the focus remains on Meredith Kercher, a young woman who was savagely sexually assaulted and murdered in her own home, and on whoever did this to her, and that whoever did this to her does not go unpunished.

She could have been anyone's daughter, and, knowing someone who used to lecture her, the impact on her family is forever. It must dominate every single day her own mother and father draw breath, it would mine, as a mother.

Her mother has only recently been able to appear before the public, and even then with her other daughter doing most of the talking.

This woman did not deserve what she got, no more any person slain in such circumstances.

[KellyKettle]

What's Sollecito doing? Is he appealing his conviction too?

[Sylvana]

Yes, Sellecito is appealing too.

[fastweb]

"The police were so determined to pin the crime on K&S that they didn't look for any other suspects"

And I ask again, why ?

Why scapegoat a couple that are guarenteed to INCREASE the glare of international spotlight, and maintain that spotlight for years, given the snail like pace of Italian justice,  in order to get rid of the media glare and reduce the potemtial for the countries force being seen in a negative light internationaly, asap ?

As picking scapegoats go over here, well off (S), well connected (S), white (both) pretty (K), international media attracting people (K), have not so far appeared to be a firm fave of the Italian police.

As a conspiracy theory it flies in the face of all the known and well documented flaws of the front line of the Italian justice system. It is totally illogical when you consider that the most likely reaction to the combo of K&S as primary suspects would have been "oh fuck, that's the next decade ruined by stress, insinuation, worldwide critisim and my career/pension being a political scapegoat if it doesn't end well for the Italian Nation's bella figura on the world stage."

There are so many shades of the Franzoni case (as well as many other high profile cases) here, blinding media glare, an intense external pressure to find a less explosive, divisive, hot potato defendant, a defendant pointing fingers at less well heeled/well connected people claiming they did it, outlining their potential motives (but unlucky in the lack of availbale black immigrants in order to make the more cynical form of blame shifiting kick into gear), much muddying of the waters in the court of public opinion thanks to external opinions as to the value/validity/existance of evidence, half the country deciding that watching CSI left them qualified to evalute and opine on the quality/value of the forensics. And the insistance of the family that Franzoni was being scapegoated by incompetant police/prosecutors who couldn't be arsed to investigate properly and just grabbed the first easy taget they could, despite Franzoni being the polar opposite of an easy target (white, mother of the small victim, well heeled, well connected etc. etc.) and her being charged guarenteed extensive, long term, more intense media scruitiny, aspertions and large scale critisim being the police/prosecutor's lot for years to come as a best case scenario, actual harm to careers/pensions at worst.

So I am less inclined to assume that the choice of stratagy to discredit the police/prosecution emented from K's family and think there is every possibility that both her and S's defence teams are playing the "do the same thing again and again while expecting different results" game.

Which IMO  was a very high risk stratagy, considering how in other high profile cases it has not only failed to secure a sucessful outcome, it has led to defendants, (and their family members) being charged within the criminal justice system and found guilty of additional charges, like defamation and "legal process fraud" which probably translates as perjury or trying to pervert the course of justice, or similar) AND both defendants and their family members having to cough up massive damages  via the civil court to the alternative suspects they shove into the spotlight.

So by all means carry on insisiting that the police/prosecution have no real belief in K&S's guilt (and merely decided to choose scapegoats that would guarentee them the worst case scenario of potentially a decade of media glare and worldwide critisim from the international court of public opinion, to the detriment of of their state postion and pension and liberty if, under the intense scruinity, their deliberate scapegoating was revealed) if it suits.

It won't make one whit of difference to the final outcome,  if the evidence presented is considered suffcient up to three times over. Other than result in additional charges being upheld against K&S, and charges brought against their family members/freinds who have been persuaded by the defence team to be the mouth peice of the smear campaign against the police/prosecution/random person they accused of the crime,  without any solid evidence to support their proclamations.


Just like it has done in the past.

Personally, being a white, well connected in legal terms, well heeled (once the extended family is factored in) forign media attracting sort of immigrant, I'd rather be accused of a crime here, rather than the UK, (and certainly more than the States).

[Sylvana]

I already explained why. The police wouldn't back down. And it would expose them as imcompetent, bungling amateurs that they are.

The evidence against Rudy Guede is as follows:

Rudy admitted he was in the room.

Rudy's DNA was found all over the crime scene.

Rudy's DNA was found in and on Meredith's body (sexual assault).

Rudy's DNA along with Meredith?s blood, was found on Meredith's purse.

Rudy's excrement was found in the toilet.

Rudy's shoe prints, set in Meredith?s blood, were found in the bedroom and hallway.

Rudy's handprints, in Meredith?s blood, were found on a pillow case in Meredith's room and on her wall.

Rudy had a cut on his right hand that was still visible when he was arrested.

Rudy fled the country.

All of the evidence at the crime scene pointed to Rudy Guede. Amanda and Raffaele left no evidence at the crime scene. Why ? Because Amanda and Raffaele were not there.

Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher and he acted alone.

[Sylvana]

The only physical evidence put forward by the prosecution against K&S was a tiny piece of Sellecito's DNA which was found on a severed bra clasp found in Meredith's room.

The defense argued that the DNA on the clasp was contaminated when it was left on the floor for 47 days after the murder. The clasp contained DNA from several different people other than Meredith and Sellecito, proving that it was indeed contaminated. This piece of evidence has been proven to be competely useles.

Other evidence that would have proved Sellecito's innocence was destroyed by the police. Sellecito told the authorities that he was active on his computer at the time of Meredith's death. Sellecito's browsing history would have provided valuable information. This history was erased when the police at the station decided to use Sellecito's computer to surf the web!

This was just another example of the extremely poor evidence handling in this case.