From upper left, Amanda Knox and RaffaeleSollecito, again being
charged with the murder of
Meredith Kercher, at 7 Via della
Pergola,
in Perugia, Italy. Is this
never-ending trial a sign that Italian justice
has gone terribly awry?
Knox Trial Shows in Italy, Guilty Fare Better than Innocents (Altri Mondi, Italy)
"What would happen if the Supreme Court overturned the
decision again? ... The trail process will have to begin anew. We will have to read further
reconstructions of the cursed scene. ... It appears at least that Amanda and Guede are involved, although no one has been able to
convincingly explain how they proceeded. But - what if they were innocent? ...
When the worst kind of clients for defense attorneys are the innocent, [rather
than go to trial], one is better off pretending to have come down with a
disease and being resigned to long therapy with an uncertain outcome, whatever
the truth is."
Amanda Knox: After a long trial process that most observers regard as seriously flawed, the world may never know how the life of Meredth Kercher came to an end. But what of the justice system in Italy, one of the world's leading Western nations?
According
to the Florence judges who convicted Amanda Knox and RaffaeleSollecito to 28 and 25 years in prison, respectively, for the murder
of Meredith Kercher, the young English student was
killed not with one, but with two knives, and not for having resisted a sexual act,
but in the midst of a quarrel over the theft of money and a credit card from
Amanda and Raffaele. These are the reasons for the
decision, announced April 29, and contained in 400 pages of reasoning,
deduction, induction, and shaky assertions that offer us little clarity about
the events surrounding the crime. A thriller, as it is called by the
magistrates, that no Italian publisher would agree to publish. Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito's defense
attorney, said there are at least ten errors per page, and that she is sure the
Supreme Court will erase everything.
I
feel a need to summarize the facts. The issue has been going on for too long
and we're now at the point that we think we know what happened six and a half
years ago, when in fact we have forgotten.
Meredith
Kercher, 21, winner of an Erasmus scholarship, had
been in Perugia for two months. She lived at 7 Via della
Pergola with other students. Among them was the American Amanda Knox with whom,
according to many witnesses, the rest didn't get along with because she was
messy and brought home too many men. On the morning of November 2, 2007, a
neighbor called police after finding two mobile phones in her garden. The
phones brought officers to Via della Pergola. They
found Amanda and Sollecito, engaged at the time, in
conversation with police that they themselves had called. In the house there
was the corpse of Meredith, the throat of which had been cut by someone during
the previous night. The couple provided several versions of what they were
doing while Meredith was being killed. Amanda, in particular, first said she
was in the kitchen when she heard something but didn't go to investigate. She
then changed her version and claimed to have been at Sollecito's
house watching television all night. She accused a Congolese named Lumumba who
owned a bar in Perugia. She didn't say a word about Rudy Guede,
who she met at least four times and whose footprints were found throughout the
house (including his excrement in the bathroom, which remained there for over a
year before being tested).
Guede is Ivorian and the third protagonist of
the crime
Guede asked for a "fast-track"
trial and judges gave him 30 years in prison. The reconstruction that sent Guede to what is for all practical purposes life in prison,
is quite different from the one behind the conviction of Amanda and Raffaele. According to the judgment, Guede,
and Ivorian, had immobilized Meredith by holding her left arm behind her back,
while Sollecito blocked her on the right. Standing in
front of her, Amanda crossed and recrossed the knife
blade over the victim’s throat, and at some point the blade was plunged in. The
crime is said to have occurred at the end or during a sexual orgy. Before or
even during, Guede had in fact forced Meredith to
have sexual intercourse. Doubts that arose at the time of Guede’s
conviction (October 28, 2008) and which remain, were ignored by every
judge who followed, with findings being altered based on evidence that no one
has ever entirely understood: the motive, which continues to be
unsubstantiated; the murder weapon, even the possibility that there were two;
and the roles of the four, the testimony of which resulted in very convoluted
reconstructions (actually forced) in order for events to make some sense. Let's
say that the American press, once they've read the 400 pages, will shred our
trial system, and at that point, if Berlusconi attacks the judges, he will look
a rude and pathetic old man.
What
do the 400 pages say?
After
the quarrel caused by Meredith's protestations about the theft, Raffaele and Amanda are thought to have stabbed Meredith
repeatedly with two knives. Meredith was also angry because of the behavior of Guede, who had soiled the bathroom. Here is the thing as
laid out in the jargon of the Appeals Court:
"It
isn't credible that group sexual activity began among the four," however,
it was a "sexual instinct" that guided Guede
as Amanda and Raffaele were acting aggressively with
the intent of humiliating the girl [Kercher].
"The attackers' intent to kill is obvious," and once Meredith was
stabbed, the two murdered her to prevent her from testifying against them. The
judges argue that there are traces of Sollecito's DNA
on Meredith's bra clasp and the knife with which Amanda is believed to have
stabbed her. [Sollecito's defense attorney] Bongiorno argues that there are no traces of Sollecito anywhere (and this is also apparent to us).
Posted
By Worldmeets.US
What
would happen if the Supreme Court overturned the decision again?
The
trail process will have to begin anew. We will have to read further reconstructions of
the cursed scene.
It
appears at least that Amanda and Guede are involved,
although no one has been able to convincingly explain how they proceeded. But -
what if they were innocent?
When
judges deal with us [people charged with a crime], and the worst kind of
clients for defense attorneys are the innocent, one
is better off pretending to have come down with a disease [than to go to trial] and being resigned to
long therapy with an uncertain outcome, whatever the truth.
