Wednesday, April 30, 2014

ITALIAN COURT EXPLAINS REASONS BEHIND FOXY KNOXY CONVICTION

Meredith Kercher’s death was the result of a fight between her and Amanda Knox over money, rather than the result of a sex-game gone awry

I have never been convinced that Amanda Knox did not kill her roommate Meredith Kercher in their Italian apartment in 2007. She was not the angel depicted by the media and her parents and friends. And I always thought the criticism of the Italian courts by American legal experts was unwarranted.

The report by the Italian court explaining why Foxy Knox was convicted again during the second trial makes a lot of sense. It reveals that two knives were used to kill Kercher and that multiple persons participated in the murder, two doing the knifing and the other(s) holding her down.

AMANDA KNOX AND MEREDITH KERCHER FOUGHT OVER MONEY ON THE NIGHT THE BRITISH STUDENT WAS MURDERED ‘BY MULTIPLE AGGRESSORS’ ITALIAN COURT PAPERS REVEAL
Wounds showed she was held down and stabbed by 'multiple aggressors

By Chris Pleasance

Mail Online
April 29, 2014

The Italian court that reconvicted Amanda Knox of Meredith Kercher's murder says the two exchange students fought over money on the night of Kercher's death.

The appellate court in Florence issued a 337-page explanation for its January guilty verdicts against the American and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

The court said that a third person convicted in the murder, Rudy Hermann Guede, did not act alone, saying Kercher's wounds indicated 'multiple aggressors'.

It noted that at least two knives were used to attack 21-year-old Meredith Kercher and that there were also finger imprints on her body, indicating she had been restrained - ruling out the possibility that Guede was the only attacker.

The court said there was ample evidence of a bad relationship between the two roommates, despite Knox's attempts to play down differences in court.

It cited statements by Guede under police questioning that Kercher had blamed Knox for taking money from the British student's room.

'It is a matter of fact that at a certain point in the evening events accelerated; the English girl was attacked by Amanda Marie Knox, by Raffaele Sollecito, who was backing up his girlfriend, and by Rudy Hermann Guede, and constrained within her own room,' the document said.

The court said it was not necessary for all of the assailants to have the same motive, and that the murder was not attributable to a sex game gone awry, as it was out of Kercher's character to have ever consented to such activity.

The release of the court's reasoning opens the verdict to an appeal back to the supreme Court of Cassation. If it confirms the convictions, a long extradition fight for Knox is expected.

She has been in the United States since 2011 when her earlier conviction was overturned.

Ms Kercher, 21, was found dead in a pool of blood on November 2, 2007 in the apartment she and Knox shared in the town of Perugia.

Her partially-clothed body was discovered under a bed-sheet and a forensic test later showed evidence of sexual activity in the hours before she died, leading to the theory that the death was part of a sex-game gone wrong.

In 2008 Rudy Guede is found guilty of Miss Kercher's murder and sentenced to 30 years behind bars. He had requested a separate trial after rumours Knox and Sollecito would attempt to frame him.

In January 2009 Knox and Sollecito are put on trial, and in December the same year the pair around found guilty of murder and sentenced to 25 and 23 years in prison, respectively.

In 2010 Knox appealed her sentence, and in 2011 appeared in court to argue that she had been the victim of a 'huge mistake'. Her lawyers argued that DNA evidence had been corrupted by lack of proper equipment.

On October 3, Knox and Sollecito are freed after a court upholds their appeal. Knox travelled back to her home in Seattle, while Sollecito remained in Italy.

However, last year Italy's highest court overturned the appeal decision, and the case was once again back in court, though Knox refused to appear.

On January 30, an Italian appeals court convicted the pair of murdering former roommate Kercher for a second time - a ruling the pair are again appealing.

'I am frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict,' Knox wrote after the ruling. 'Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system.'

Sollecito did appear in court for the appeal and, after they were reconvicted, was found in a hotel near the Italian border before having his passport revoked.

At the time, Stephanie Kercher that she felt her sister 'had been forgotten' in the media storm surrounding Amanda Knox, and added her family had struggled to keep their memories of the 21-year-old alive.

After originally being cleared, Knox returned to America. Since her reconviction she has so far refused to go back to Italy to serve her sentence, saying she will have to be extradited 'kicking and screaming'.

Prosecution lawyer Manuela Comodi has previously said it would have been 'impossible' for just one person to have killed her.

'One person couldn't, all at the same time, hold Meredith still and hold back her hands - because there are very few defensive wounds - inflict those wounds with a smaller knife and then give her the fatal blow with the larger knife. It is impossible. Not even Superman could do it,' she said.

'The principal evidence was mixed blood traces from which were extracted mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith. The only explanation for that mix is that Amanda was bleeding and touched objects that were covered in Meredith's blood. There's no other explanation.'

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