commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We’re on the edge of our seat but the Italian court stubbornly proceeds at it’s own slow pace. It been approximately 2645 days since Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered on Nov. 1, 2007. We are now on the fourth proceeding and second appeal and there is still a fifth proceeding, the final appeal, to go. Whatever happens at this juncture could still be overturned at the last moment.
At the first trial, the prosecution relied on a sex games gone wrong theory that was ridiculed upon appeal. This time around it made no such mistake. The current prosecutor, Alessandro Crini, slipped (in)delicately from the sex theory to the alimentary canal theory. This is a nasty shift that we’ve had no choice other than to stomach up till now. Emphasis on the up till now. In her closing arguments on Thursday, Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyer, Giulia Borngiorno, extracted her client and the American girl, Amanda Knox, from the digestive tract and instead focused on a boy and girl in the throes of a tender and rather chaste first love.
The Associated Press reports:
Borngiorno made it clear that that the young lovers had no motive for the crime and that their romance was just 9½ days old when Kercher’s dead, half-naked body was discovered.
“The relationship between Amanda and Raffaele was tender, just bloomed, and it had nothing to do with a 50s-something’s searching for thrills,” Borngiorno said.
The two, she said, liked to cuddle and rub noses like Eskimo kisses, which she called “unca nunca.”
Borngiorno’s strategy is ingenious, a shrewd gesture that moves her client and the American girl from the original decadent libertine space in which they had been cast (the sex games), as well as the banal and demeaning “floating turd” theory which was front-and-center in the present hearing, to a far more fresh and romantic space that most of us, if we are lucky, remember from our early forays into the realm of love.
“Unca nunca has nothing to do with bunga bunga,” Borngiorno said. This elicited a rare moment of laughter — no doubt a welcome after the long quarrelsome day. The reference to former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s infamous parties with scantily clad would-be showgirls was unmistakable and provided a moment of needed comic relief.
Borngiorno’s overall theory is that Knox and Sollecito were blamed by authorities for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher to calm any fears that a monster was loose in their Italian university town. Arrests had to be made and quickly and Sollecito, and Knox were identified as suspects in a “record” four days after the murder. The Perugian authorities wanted to dispense with any fears “that a stranger, a monster, could have entered a house and murdered a student.”
By redeeming Knox and Sollecito on the symbolic/mythical level by transforming them from libertines into virtuous young people tasting the sweetness of life in a gentle and innocent manner, Borngiorno does her best to distance the defendants as far from the monster label as she possibly can.
But still , no matter how convincing Borngiorno’s character rebuilding exercise of both Knox and Sollecito may have been, any identification of “stranger” with “monster” cannot be good for Amanda Knox. Her best hope is that by being inextricably linked to Raffaele Sollecito, she will be helped by any sympathy the court may have for Sollecito. Although if convicted, she could apparently face more time than Sollecito, it’s hard to imagine her being convicted if her Italian counterpart is acquitted. Throughout Borngiorno’s presentation, which was presented with slides and videos, Sollecito sat placidly at her side, temporarily safe in her ring of power.
Borngiorno was careful to point out that when the authorities decided to arrest Knox and Sollecito, they lacked both of the two key bits of evidence that are now being used against them — Meredith Kercher’s bra clasp and the infamous kitchen knife with the microscopic bits of DNA evidence.. The implication is that the two young people were held without sufficient evidence which, if true, would taint the case from its inception.
Borngiorno made the following additional points:
- Sollecito had never met Rudy Guede before the crime “and it is absurd to think that they met that night.” If this is true, it makes little sense that Sollecito would help Guede perform the dark deed.
- Borngiorno attacks the multiple assailant theory and stated that the knife found at Sollecito’s house was too large to have been the murder weapon.
- The defense lawyer discredited the “bloody footprint on the bathroom rug” evidence.
“There was an enormous error in the print attributed to Sollecito,” said Borngiorno.
Key of course is the clasp ripped from Kercher’s bra – the only piece of evidence linked to Sollecito that was found in Kercher’s bedroom. Borngiorno points out that it had originally been photographed on Nov. 3, 2007, under a pillow at the scene of the crime, but it hadn’t been cataloged at that time. Instead, when it was finally collected into evidence 46 days later, it was found underneath a rug. During the interim, according to Bongiorno, more than 30 people had entered and wandered around the crime scene.
“The clasp was 1.5 meters (4½ feet) from where it was 46 days later. It means someone or something moved it,” she said.
Borngiorno presented another slide indicating that the clasp appears to have been stepped on between the first and second inspections.
She also showed a video of the search of the room when the clasp was found, which suggests sloppy forensic work. The investigator’s gloves were apparently dirty and the clasp was placed back on the ground of the much traveled room for a photograph before it was secured in an evidence bag.
Rebuttals by both sides are scheduled for Jan. 20th. Final deliberations come 10 days later on Jan 30th and a verdict is likely that day.
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Despite the strength of Borngiorno’s presentation, I am still worried. But my concern is dwarfed by that of Amanda Knox. Unca nunca or not, she is clearly very worried and is showing signs of mental strain.
In apparently unrehearsed and perhaps ill-advised remarks to Meo Ponte, the La Repubblica correspondent who has been covering the Kercher murder case for the past six years, in an unrecorded Skype interview ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Knox stated that she would “become a fugitive” if the decision went against her and that once everything had blown over, she would like to talk to Meredith Kercher’s parents.
Neither of these statements are particularly good form at this stage in the proceedings and one can’t help wondering why she is even talking to the Italian paper.
But the big question is whether Italy would request extradition if Knox is ultimately convicted. At this time, no one can answer that question, or if they do, they’re not talking.
Meanwhile, Amanda Knox is suffering. This case is with her every hour of every day. It is now day 2,645 (give or take a day) since that dreadful day when Meredith Kercher was brutally slain. It is approximately 2,641 days since her arrest.
And we are still far from an ultimate decision.