commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Amanda Knox has been living the School of Hard Knox ever since that fateful day in Perugia when she and others discovered Meredith Kercher’s dead body in the upstairs apartment she shared with Meredith and two older Italian women.
The hardest knocks have been the two convictions, first in Perugia and more recently in Florence, and the four years Knox served in an Italian prison. At the Florence trial, it was observed that during closing statements, the prosecutor Alessandro Crini seemed to be tipping the scales against Knox, apparently viewing her as substantially more guilty than Raffaele Sollecito.
On her blog, earlier this month, Amanda Knox did her best to control possible damage to their united front: “It has been claimed that, in this most recent round of closing arguments and in interviews since the latest guilty verdict, Raffaele and his defence attorneys have finally betrayed their resentment and started to put distance between him and me legally and personally.
“This is not the case. Actually, Attorney Bongiorno’s closing arguments and Raffaele’s latest statements pinpoint and attack a fundamental weakness in the prosecution’s case against both Raffaele and me that has been ignored for far too long: Raffaele is not a slave.
“Raffaele has plenty of reason for resentment, but not against me. The only reason he has been dragged into this is because he happens to be my alibi.”
Knox said that Sollecito had recently e-mailed her stating:
“I don’t want to be punished for, nor have to continue to justify, those things that regard you and not me.
“Obviously the evidence demonstrates both of our innocence, but it seems that for the judges and the people this objectivity is of no importance.”
Knox’s attempt to rationalize this development in a manner supportive of Sollecito is, of course, commendable.
This week, however, a new knock has sounded in the engine compartment of this peculiar matter – Raffaele Sollecito, it appears, has taken affirmative steps to distance himself from Knox.
News.com writes:
Amanda Knox’s ex- boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito has revealed he has unanswered questions about her behaviour after the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher.
In an interview that aired on Italian TV, Sollecito said that Knox left his house the morning before Kercher’s body was found and when she returned hours later, she seemed “very agitated”. She said her front door had been broken into and that she had found spots of blood in the bathroom.
Although some will disagree (people disagree about everything in this infernal case), it can be argued that Knox’s trip back to her apartment was the first time she and Sollecito had been separated since they retired to his place the previous evening to smoke cannabis, make unca nunca, and do whatever else young people do when wrapped in the rapture of youthful desire.
In his interview, some of which aired on the Today show in the US, Sollecito didn’t seem to be in an unca nunca mood.
“Certainly I asked her questions,” he said. “Why did you take a shower? Why had she spent so much time there?”
Logically enough, the interviewer asked the skeptical Italian what answers Knox provided to these questions.
“I don’t have answers,” he replied, which presumably means Knox didn’t provide adequate or satisfactory answers.
In the eyes of NBC legal analyst Lisa Bloom, Sollecito seemed to be distancing himself from Knox with these latest comments.
“He’s saying that there’s some evidence that may apply to her that doesn’t apply to him.”
Is Sollecito suggesting that Knox messed with the evidence during her extended trip to her apartment? Possibly so, but consider these simple possibilities:
1) Knox and Sollecito spent the whole evening at his apartment and took no part in the killing.
2) Knox and Sollecito were at the American girl’s apartment at around the time of the murder and took part in the slaughter.
3) Either Knox or Sollecito separately left the Italian’s apartment during the evening, went to Knox’s apartment and took part in the murder.
In the event it was #3, it stands to reason that the other party would have probably divulged the fact that one of them left Sollecito’s place during the evening, thus suggesting the party who left could be guilty of the murder; meanwhile, the one who remained behind, distances himself or herself from the murder.
Now it wouldn’t make much sense for Sollecito to have gone alone to Knox’s apartment, so if someone did go alone it was most likely Knox unless Raffaele chivalrously made the trip to run an errand for her and took part in killing Meredith Kercher in the process? No, whatever happened, it didn’t come down that way.
If — and I’m not saying this is what happened – Knox left Sollecito’s apartment during the evening, went to her place, took part in the murder and then returned to Raffaele’s apartment, it makes some sense that she could have gone back to her place in the morning to tidy up a bit.
But if she had left during the evening, as stated previously, Sollecito would have been aware of it and probably divulged it to protect himself, unless he was asleep and didn’t know she had left. But up to this point, to the best of my knowledge, he’s said nothing of the sort.
Therefore, this attempt on his part to distance himself from Amanda by casting doubt on her activities during her morning trip to her apartment seem a bit mean-spirited. Is he hoping to get his sentence reduced by a few years because Knox may have tampered with the evidence, obstructed justice, if you will? I guess anything is possible at this point.
I still believe, however, that his is essentially a package deal. If Sollecito’s second conviction is overturned at the next appeal, Knox’s conviction will also be overturned. And vice-versa. And if their convictions are not overturned, Sollecito probably will get a somewhat shorter sentence…but it will still be awfully long.
Meanwhile, Amanda Knox must be reeling even more than usual from this most recent Hard Knock. One wonders how many more such knocks she can stand.
Click here to view our earlier Hard Knocks post: