Italy Clears Knox and Sollecito of Murder

gatagato · #1 ● 03-28-2015, 04:53 AM

Italy's top court on Friday cleared Amanda Knox of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, bringing a sensational end to an eight-year legal drama.

Italy’s highest court annulled the second convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in 2007.
The decision ends a tortuous legal odyssey that lasted more than seven years and ultimately included two convictions and two acquittals for Knox and Sollecito.
Knox said she is “tremendously relieved and grateful” about the court’s decision, and thanked supporters. “To them, I say: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your kindness has sustained me. I only wish that I could thank each and every one of you in person.”
Kercher’s mother said she was “surprised and very shocked” by the decision, and the family is expected to make a formal statement on Saturday. “They have been convicted twice so it’s a bit odd that it should change now,” she said.
Sollecito is “happy and incredulous”, his lawyer told the Guardian, after the attorney herself ran from the courtroom shouting with joy upon hearing the judges’ ruling. “It’s a victory of justice. This was a mistake from the beginning,” Knox’s lawyer said.
Friends and supporters of Knox took to the streets in her hometown of Seattle, telling the Guardian they were “ecstatic” about the ruling. “It was long and excruciating and twisted journey,” one friend said. “Hopefully people will leave these poor people alone.”
The court’s ruling after more than 10 hours of deliberations has lifted any fears of further prosecution for Knox and Sollecito, and ended all speculation about possible extradition of Knox from the US. The judges’ reasoning in Friday’s decision will be released in 90 days.
The third suspect in the case, Rudy Guede, remains convicted without question and in prison serving a 16-year sentence.

Amanda Knox, who has been sensationally cleared over the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, has said she is “full of joy” over the decision, which ends nearly a decade of courtroom saga.
Italy's top court on Friday annulled the conviction of American Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of her British flatmate and fully acquitted her in a surprise verdict after three years and several appeals.
The brutal stabbing of 21-year-old Kercher, alleged sex games and multiple trials provided fodder for tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired books and films.
"I'm still absorbing the present moment, which is full of joy," an emotional Knox, 27, told reporters at a news conference outside her mother's Seattle home on Friday night. "I'm grateful to have my life back."

The Court of Cassation threw out the second guilty verdict against Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 31, for the murder, saying there was insufficient evidence to convict either of them.
Kercher, who was born in South London, was found stabbed to death in a house she shared with Knox in the medieval hill town of Perugia in 2007. Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, is serving a 16-year sentence for the crime, but judges in the previous trials ruled he did not act alone.
It had been widely expected that, even if the court overturned the previous convictions, it would order a retrial. Instead, both Knox and Sollecito are now definitively cleared.

"Meredith was my friend," Knox said, battling back tears. "She deserved so much in this life. I'm the lucky one."
Knox and Sollecito, who faced some 28 years and 24 years in jail, respectively, have both already served four years in jail after an original conviction in 2009.
The roundabout acquittals almost eight years after the murder are sure to stoke further controversy and questions about the Italian justice system, which has now twice overturned guilty verdicts in the case.
"We shouldn't have had to wait all these years, but we have a good decision today, so we are happy," Knox's Italian defence lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said in Rome. He added that when he called Knox in Seattle to tell her the news she was "crying with happiness."
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family, expressed very different sentiments.
"This is not so much a defeat for the prosecution as a defeat for Italy's justice system," he said outside the courtroom. "The judges said there is a lack of proof and whoever acted with Guede has not been found."
If the conviction against Knox had been upheld, it would probably have sparked a complicated legal bid by Italian authorities to try to have her extradited.
Knox, who returned to Seattle in 2011, and Sollecito have maintained their innocence throughout but Knox's lawyer Luciano Ghirga said before the verdict on Friday that his client was "very, very worried."
Following the 2011 acquittal, the Court of Cassation ordered a new trial. A Florence court convicted them again, saying the murder had been the result of a domestic argument, squashing the previous theory that it happened when a sex game went wrong.
In Friday's verdict, a previous three-year jail sentence given to Knox for falsely accusing Congolese barman Patrick Lumumba of the murder was confirmed. But as Knox has already served four years in prison this has no practical consequences for her.
Cries of jubilation could be heard from Knox's mother's house in Seattle where family had gathered to await the verdict. After the verdict was handed down, people could be seen rushing outside into the backyard with phones pressed to their ears, and later neighbors showed up with food and drinks.
Bill Knox, her grandfather, said by phone he was "relieved and ecstatic" that Knox could finally move on with her life in Seattle, where she has worked as a journalist at a newspaper and is engaged to a rock musician whom she has known since childhood.
"It's been a long time coming. I just want for her to be happy," Bill Knox said. "She is an exciting granddaughter."

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...l-after-court/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...much-more.html
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/l...n-live-updates

Look, in all honesty I do believe they're guilty (with little doubts), but I'm HAPPY for this verdict because at this point it was the best thing to do.
The way the case was handled showed a lack of seriousness, clarity and professionalism In a class by itself.
Just to make an example, there's a video (made by italian wannabe CSI themselves) showing a cop collecting different samples using always the SAME gloves, virtually fucking up all the evidences that he was handling. That's NOT just being unprofessional: that's being fucking retarded, FFS!
The judges didn't even know what evidence was to take seriously and what to ignore, a DNA sample was collected 25 DAYS AFTER the murder.
SO, despite there was a huge amount of strong & super strong evidence, the ultimate proof, the smoking gun was missing.
This is why this verdict is correct.
This put the word end to a shameful, endless saga, which prolonged and worsened the pain of the relatives of the victim, and showed the level of underdevelopment of investigations techniques in Italy in all its glory.

Basically, investigators had ALL it was needed to put all the nails in the coffins of the two, but fucked it up all. These judges are NOT to be blamed, but... how about those who sentenced AK to 26 and Sollecito to 25 years imprisonment?
How can you go to sleep as if nothing happened after sending someone in prison for 25 years?

This case brought a series of improvement of the entire system of investigation, italian best crime scene investigators were sent to LEARN to US and UK, because that's all you need when you're unable to do your job: LEARN. Now, it's safe to say that we have a better system and more trained guys, but in order to do that they first needed to do an ass of themselves in front of the eyes of the entire world: Kudos, RIS di Parma.

There also something personal with me in this story: I remember that one day i commented an article on ANSA website (using my fake FB account as i will NEVER have a serious one):

"Midas is popularly remembered for his ability to turn everything he touched with his hand into gold: now RIS di Parma will be popularly remembered for their ability to turn everything they touch with their gloves into SHIT."

I got a PM (after a couple of minutes, not much time) by some NCO of Carabinieri telling me "You might want to edit or better delete your comment on the article blah blah blah serious consequences blah blah blah"

My reply "Hi: are you serious?"
His reply "Yes i am very serious"
My reply "Ah, ok, gimme just a couple of minutes"

I went back to the comment section of the aticle, and COPIED-PASTED his PM, including his first and last name.
And added "hey, see what i got, prolly is a prank, not sure, i asked him if he was serious and he told me he was."

Knowing that it would have caused a wave of angry messages (and not towards me of course), switched off the pc and went out for a walk to the beach with my gato to smoke one of the best joints i've ever smoked in my life.
When i returned home the were 400+ messages against the arsehole, someone at the end even hacked and defaced his FB profile and he was forced to apologize to me via Raccomandata (Registered mail) and the commander of the local station called me to express his solidarity with me: i've never had problems (so far) indeed with them.
I have the right to criticize their shitty work as much as i want since I AM PAYING THEM.
Six months ago I've paid (with MY money) 3,500€+ travel for a refresher course on telemetry systems applied to prevention of wildfires: this because i want but also i NEED to be updated. Now, i can do this (and unfortunately i'm not wealthy), these lazyarses were unable to do the same thing (with MY money)... and i have not even the right to express all my disappointment because of their I Know it all' attitude? Nah, they picked up the WRONG gato that time.

Pigeon · #2 ● 03-28-2015, 05:58 AM

Good

icheerthebull · #3 ● 03-28-2015, 08:31 AM

good call. They may be guilty and the reason they are free is because of shady handling of the evidence. Thats a great story Gato

not often you get a apology from the state

Oswald2001 · #4 ● 03-28-2015, 09:10 AM

There's something...'off'...about that girl.

'Guileful' doesn't even begin to cover it.

niknik · #5 ● 03-28-2015, 11:14 AM

This whole case is just weird. I hope she really is innocent, since they let her go. Be crazy if she did do it and kills again.

Clubhouse · #6 ● 03-28-2015, 11:37 AM

The whole thing has been a fuck up right from the first police to arrive on scene to the sham court room comedies.

TheCreeperBEATNGU · #7 ● 03-28-2015, 12:18 PM

This case was a weird one. I only watched one documentary on it a while back. It claimed the forensics/cops contaminated the scene. Then there was the perp they caught, yet they were still pointing fingers at Knox and her boyfriend? That's all I gathered from the documentary. Bizarre case.