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Is Giuliano Mignini God? Does he have some advantage over the whole of Italy that bends this ancient culture to his will? How can he, and his Clan, continue to influence the Italian courtrooms with his preposterous sexually oriented theories? Or perhaps the question I should be asking is why are Italian courts so willing to trust the word of this man?
A public official with a checkered past. A public official who was found guilty for Abuse of Office in 2009 because he was caught red-handed wiretapping his own peers in Florence. He is notorious for haranguing and/or jailing the media in Umbria and Tuscany. He has thrown innocent people in prison with no evidence of a crime, except what was concocted in his own head. Repeatedly. More than 25 times in a 15-year period.
The very same public minister who was recently promoted to Prosecutor General of Perugia. Even more power? Really?
How does he do it? How is it that the Italian Supreme Court and the 2nd Appeal court cannot even reject this frippery? It’s clearly obvious to a growing number of spectators that the dogged pursuit of Amanda Knox, a young and vulnerable member of my own community, and her equally young and vulnerable friend, Raffaele Sollecito, is a vendetta.
Giuliano Mignini was the public prosecutor of Perugia, Italy, when, in 2007, he literally took my friend’s daughter ‘hostage.’ The Italian criminal justice system continues to hold both her and Raffaele hostage for no apparent reason than Saving Face.
As if brutta figura was actually saving face, right?
Amanda Knox is from my community, the Greater Seattle Area, and is well known by many, many of my friends. She is not a sexual predator. She is not a murderer. She is not the person that Giuliano Mignini created for the tabloid press. She IS a young woman who was shamed before a global audience for nothing more than being young, for exploring life, exploring sex, exploring the world. Amanda was an innocent 20-year old, a late bloomer in the opinion of her entire family and her hundreds of friends in Seattle. And frankly, their word counts far more than some strange man in Perugia, Italy.
Amanda is not the “Madonna-Whore” that Mignini is fixated on, Raffaele is not a dog, a sex slave, or a mindless drone.
They are both good people, kind people. Amanda is grief-stricken for the loss of Meredith Kercher, who once was a new and very dear friend. She is sorrowful and anguished for Meredith’s family. She feels a deep, solemn sadness about what befell both her and Raffaele and her boss, Patrick Lumumba.
And she feels needlessly guilty, though none of this was truly her fault. After all, she is a victim of injustice.
Yet her emotions, her feelings, were swept aside as if they did not matter in the least because Giuliano Mignini objectified her. Denied Amanda her humanity. Humiliated her. And called her a murderer. He convicted her in a farcical trial with no proof.
Only gossip, only innuendo. Only unprovable factoids. Only what seems to be a very creepy obsession by the entire prosecutorial team from 2007 to present.
As a mother myself, I am concerned for my friend’s daughter and to think a member of the judiciary tossed her in prison with nothing more than his own depraved and sick sexual fantasy as evidence? Treated her like she didn’t matter? Treated her like it was all right to use her to save his own sorry ass? Sorry, I meant his job. I hope it’s OK with Ground Report that I called him an ass. But I digress. Anyway…
I am sickened, I am angry. I am disgusted by this infamous Sex Game Gone Wrong conjecture.
I am disgusted on behalf of my friends and I am disgusted on behalf of the poor Kercher family. I cannot believe the Italy that I have always loved could let this happen. I cannot believe that Italy could let nothing more than a dirty old man’s audacious speculations about a murder become an erotic spectacle. I cannot believe that Italy has allowed this man to hold so much power over innocent lives. And not just the Kerchers or Amanda or Raffaele, but the dozens that came before them as well. And whomever will come after them if he is not stopped. If his clan is not stopped. These are not thousands, not hundreds, only a few.
Surely Italy can control just a few?
Which brings me back to asking why is he so powerful? Why is Italy pandering to him? Why did the Italian Supreme Court (ISC) rubber stamp the prosecution’s appeal and drag the poor Kerchers, drag Amanda and Raffaele, back into this sick and twisted fantasy concocted by Giuliano Mignini?
By rubber stamp I mean that the recently released ISC motivation practically copied and pasted the Galati-Costagliola Appeal presented to the court in 2012 on behalf of the Perugian prosecution team (which Mignini has been in integral part of since 2007). Let me show you some examples.
FROM THE FEBRUARY 2012 GALATI-COSTAGLIOLA APPEAL:
Sex Game Gone Wrong:
“…Ms Knox who had been materially involved in killing Meredith in the course of an erotic game, after there had been an argument arising from monetary reasons…”
Staged Break-In:
“…Sollecito knew of the staged burglary at the crime scene and that he betrayed himself by also saying to the Carabinieri that nothing was missing…” “From this circumstance, together with the other evaluations mentioned in relation to the staging of a crime, the CA (Courts of Assize) had dealt with as a consequence that the defendants were the authors of the break-in, with the aim of simulating an attempted theft.”
Multiple Attackers:
“The Ivorian citizen (Rudy Guede) has regularly made the declarations that he could have freely made, responding to the questions by the defenders of the accused on the contents of the letter sent to the television station, in which he was accusing Ms Knox and Sollecito of being present at the scene of the crime and of being the authors of the homicide.”
FROM THE MARCH 2013 ITALIAN SUPREME COURT (ISC) MOTIVATION:
Sex Game Gone Wrong:
“…Amanda killed, in the course of an erotic game and also because of an economic issue…”
Staged Break-In:
“Illogical reasoning in relation of the call to the Carabinieri on the morning of 2.11.2007, when Sollecito said that there was no theft and nothing was missing…” “…Sollecito used the word correctly “theft,” as a synonym for removal; Sollecito proved to be informed about the real situation…” “The Court of Appeal considered that there may be least two and more persuasive arguments that undermined the supposition that Sollecito and Knox could not have had an interest to simulate the theft.”
Multiple Attackers:
“…Guede said in a letter sent to a television station that the “two lovers were present at the crime scene and participated in the murder”…
In essence the ISC seems to be turning back the clock to 2007 when the Mignini Clan accused Amanda and Raffaele of murdering Meredith Kercher in what was coined the “Sex Game Gone Wrong” theory. That they Staged a Break-in to cover up the crime and that they were aided by the “hapless bystander” Rudy Guede.
Except for one glaring, incandescent fact.
Guede is the only person who’s DNA was found at the crime scene. His hand prints, footprints and shoeprints in Meredith’s blood were all over her room and down the hallway leading out her front door. His cellular DNA was all over her body and inside her body. His excuse? They were “on a date” and he “tried to save her” after Amanda and Raffaele killed her. The problem for Guede and the prosecution is that none; not a single, infinitesimal speck, of Amanda and Raffaele’s DNA is at the scene. Mignini claims that the university students miraculously cleaned up ONLY their invisible DNA molecules and left Guede’s behind. Riiiiiight. Amanda and Raffaele cleaned up only their DNA in a literal blood bath without disturbing the rest of the scene.
Solo Dio può farlo.
The Italian Supreme Court basically mimicked the Galati Appeal. As shown above, the prose is so close to identical that this is a shocking miscarriage of justice at the highest level. The Kercher, Knox and Sollecito families were expecting this case to be given the fullest consideration under the scope of the law, not treated like a joke.
It’s as if one child copied another’s homework and passed it off as their own.
If the ISC really did pander to Mignini then it must be true that they are trying to save face by covering for one of their own. In my opinion, therefore, the Supreme Court has proven itself to be brutta figura and untrustworthy. That the highest court in Italy would cover for a prosecutor who has shamed their own legal system to such a degree that it makes the squabbling US Congress look exemplary…..well that is a low mark indeed for Italy.
And for the Italian people held captive under such a crushing and debilitating system? Reform is needed badly.
The mind-boggling case of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito has become a depraved sexual joke that will no doubt haunt Italy for decades. The world is witnessing a potent cocktail, shaken not stirred, one part echoes of a repressed fascist regime and one part sexually exploitative misogyny. Why in the world the Italian justice system seems to be willingly allowing the sexual fantasy of one man to determine the next several years in the lives of innocent people is completely beyond comprehension.
I want answers dammit!! *slams fist into palm*
The judges wanted an “Osmotic Evaluation” of the case. The conclusion of the report states, in part: “The result of this kind of osmotic evaluation will be decisive not only in demonstrating the presence of the two defendants at the crimescene, but also in possibly identifying Guede’s co-conspirators, confronted with the range of situations that might be hypothesized, from an original agreement on the death option, to the modification of a plan which envisioned only the involvement of the young Englishwoman in an undesired sexual game, to the simple use of force in a group-led erotic game which exploded out of control.”
In fact, the judges mention this unusual choice of wording twice more: “On this point the court must make a closer examination with these regulations, as well as an evaluation of the data in the wider line of reasoning of osmotic clues.” And “Once again, the judgment reflects the fragmented vision, where the pieces had been made to connect with each other, they could provide the result of their osmosis and could lead to a more complete assessment.”
So the judges looked at the pile of papers in front of them, decided that it was so tall that “most of it must be right” so they declared Raffaele and Amanda guilty of murder. Again.
What the judges failed to do after their “evaluation,” which included the six-year-and-counting denial of evidence to the Defense, was Reverse Osmosis.
In the practical application reverse osmosis is used to purify water. Perhaps the judges should have applied more ‘pressure’ (follow the law) to the ‘permeable membrane,’ (evaluating each piece of evidence) so the water molecules (the truth) would pass through, but not the debris (the lies).
Sadly, this step was not done. The 2nd Appeal court bowed to Public Prosecutor Mignini and this case is still dirty, unfit for human consumption.