Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito guilty verdict annulled by Italian court

[DuelingFanjo]

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Always thought they were completely innocent and often argued their case on here.

Feel very sorry for the Kercher family who have been dragged through years of shit.

Shame that Guede will be out soon.

and Meredith had 47 cuts and bruises, and three were considered to be possible defensive wounds.

As someone else has said either in this thread or another are you seriously suggesting that it wold be impossible for a man of Guede's stature to kill alone.

as Holly said, there was some v inappropriate and strange behaviour that has not been explained. In addition to a history of 'hazing, an American college tradition.
All deeply odd as is the Italian justice system.

oh yes and attempting to implicate an innocent man....
hmmm

here is some information RE the wounds. Don't read if they are likely to upset.

"All told, the horrible injuries to Meredith Kercher were fully consistent with an assault by a strong man who swiftly overpowered her. "

This whole case has put me off ever visitng Italy.

They don't have the judicial system I'd expect of a developed western nation.

themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Myths_debunked

Jackieharris bit drastic not wanting to visit Italy because of this case. It's lovely there! Ironically, one of my friends is moving to Perugia (she is Italian, but from the south) in September this year for work reasons. I am unsure if she is aware of this case..will ask her next time we're in contact.

If she is from the south, then unless she has lived in some weird kind of bubble, then of course she will be aware of the case. For 8 yrs the case has been covered on TV every few years as the various trials are held. And Raffaele Sollecito is also from the south.

The Italian judicial system is actually very fair to the person on trial I always think. I am sure AK/RS are pretty damn glad that there are so many stages, or they'd still be in prison.

It's the investigation stage that seems so messed up, and also the fact that for every high profile case such as this one, it's the same lawyers you see, over and over. Irrespective of how good they are as lawyers, I do wonder, as they drift from talk show to talk show just how much they truly believe in what they are doing and how much is "oooh another high profile telly opportunity, let me at it".

Explanation of AK's behaviour?

She was in a foreign country with an imperfect grasp of the language and her flatmate who she'd known for, what, a month, gets brutally killed and she's subject to hours of interrogation without a lawyer.

No one knows how they would react.

themurderofmeredithkercher.com/Myths_debunked

This looks like a wikipedia page. Is it?

Each "side" has a comprehensive website, steff. I think that's the "guilty" side's one.

The 'hoax attack' duelling was allegedly some prank at university (hazing) but it, like all things, was manipulated by the media. As far as slandering Patrick goes, she has served three years, that ought to be enough. It would have been nice however, had he been paid his compensation. That hasn't happened yet.

So when people talk about the hoax 'attack' they actually mean the fake burglary joke she and others played on housemates?

Yes, I think so, DF.

Maybe if it was handled correctly there wouldn't be an annulment

If the evidence had been handled correctly and Kercher's DNA had been found on the blade of the kitchen knife things would certainly look very different. However the prosecution case is so full of holes that it seems extremely unlikely there was ever any of Kercher's DNA on the knife.

I don't believe he (Guede) has a record for anything

He has a conviction for being in possession of stolen goods.

We know AK tried to get an innocent man done for murder

After 50 hours questioning over 4 days with no lawyer present, no recording of the interviews and with an interpreter who apparently believed her role was to assist police rather than simply interpret Knox made statements in the early hours of the morning (1.45am and 5.45am) implicating Lumumba. At the time the police believed Lumumba was involved. It is common in miscarriages of justice to find that the person convicted has been pressured into making false statements which coincide with the current police theory at the time but are subsequently found to contain major factual errors. Knox's statements were ruled inadmissible for the murder case. It would be far more accurate to say the police tried to get an innocent man done for murder.

In the UK it would not have been possible for Lumumba to sue Knox for slander. In Italy he was able to do so. However, in order to pursue this case he had to change his testimony. He was initially very supportive of Knox and claimed he had suffered serious mistreatment by the police, very similar to the claims made by Knox. It was only when he was unhappy with the compensation awarded for wrongful imprisonment that he turned on Knox. Much of the things he now says are directly contrary to evidence he gave in court. Note also that he was reportedly paid 70,000 Euros by the Mail on Sunday for an interview.

This looks like a wikipedia page. Is it?

No. It is a site using the same software as Wikipedia which therefore has a similar look and feel. The site is run by people who clearly believe Knox and Sollecito are guilty and will ignore any evidence to the contrary. It contains many inaccurate statements. The "myths debunked" page is itself full of factual errors. As far as this site is concerned the report of the court-appointed independent experts doesn't exist. This report thoroughly discredited the DNA evidence. It ignores the fact that the courts said the police were wrong to interview Knox without a lawyer. It ignores the fact the court criticised the behaviour of the interpreter during Knox's interrogation. It implies Knox's interrogation was only 2 hours long and ignores the previous 40+ hours of interrogation, much of it in the early hours of the morning. I could go on but there is little point. I do not regard this site as having any credibility as a reliable source of information.

I also think that AK would've had no idea that her statement would be slander as she had no lawyer

as the police have been criticised for not providing access to a lawyer, I imagine if she'd had one, the lawyer would've said, "if you mention any names and they are later shown to be not involved, that could be perjury/slander" - as PRH says, that wouldn't be the case here and almost certainly not in the US either. RS had much more background knowledge of Italian systems and had a sister in a branch of the police so was at an advantage.

DuelingFanjo

The link you posted on the 2nd April was littered with spellings of American/English. Not OED English spellings.

RedCheckedTablecloth - It is an American site. It is therefore unsurprising that it uses American spellings. In what way is this relevant?

redcheckedtablecloth...so Americans use American spelling? Who knew?

Great post prh

I would also say that I think it is impossible to judge someone's innocence/guilt on their behaviour in the aftermath of a traumatic event. All people will behave differently and shock will make some people behave in a way that others consider inappropriate. I still remember all the nonsense about the McCann's and how Kate McCann must have done something because she was wearing earrings or didn't cry enough - it really is crazy.

Most of what we heard about Amanda Knox came from the tabloids and wasn't even evidence that was brought to trial. Odd behaviour reported by the British friends of Meredith Kercher came months later and by this time they had been convinced she was a murderer, which does create a huge potential for confirmation bias - and minor incidents suddenly look like 'strange behaviour'

I find it hard to really judge anyone that I've not met and only read about in the tabloids - I always remember a friend of my sister's who died in a car accident. We were in Australia when we heard and my sister was very upset, which resulted in us going out and drowning our sorrows and I think we ended up dancing on the table in some dreadful place in Cairns. Can you imagine what the tabloids would have done if Amanda Knox had gone out and got drunk, which is likely what I might have done if my 20-year-old self had been in a similar situation? I think most young women could have been vilified in a similar way for fairly normal young adult behaviour

AK was alone without family and close friends who had known her for a long time, she was suddenly in the eye of a horrific storm in a foreign culture and had never had any encounters with the police or courts of her own country let alone Italy. Her stepdad had been against her studying abroad because he thought her still too naive and immature. I have not followed this case in detail but clearly taking a dislike to someone due to their apparently odd behaviour is not enough to convict them.

She may have spent a lot of time cuddling up to her boyfriend RS directly after the murder was discovered as she had noone one else to go to for any emotional support.