by Michael Mills
Although All Things Crime Blog has posted an article in which, citing his eminence grise, Professor M. Cherif Bousiouni, they suggest that Amanda Knox will not be extradited if her most recent conviction is upheld by the Court of Cassation, I personally doubt that the issue of the possible extradition of Knox is all that relevant, since it appears to me unlikely that Italy will request such extradition even if the conviction of the Nencini court is ultimately upheld.
It seems that since the acquittal of Knox and Sollecito by the Hellmann court in 2011, the whole case has become politicised, a sub-plot in the ongoing attempt of the anti-Berlusconi forces to use the Italian judicial system to overthrow him and the counter-effort of the pro-Berlusconi forces to discredit that system by accusing it of bias and corruption.
The Sollecito family is closely connected to the Berlusconi coalition through Raffaele’s aunt Sara, who is an activist for “Alleanza Nazionale”, the most right-wing Italian political party and a component of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia coalition. Furthermore, Raffaele’s main defence counsel, Giulia Bongiorno, was at the time of the the Massei court trial and during the appeal before the Hellmann court a parliamentary deputy for “Alleanza Nazionale” (she lost her seat early in 2013). Finally, Raffaele’s appeal of his conviction by the Massei court received public support from political supporters of the Berlusconi coalition.
It may well be that anti-Berlusconi elements within the Italian judicial system saw the decision of the Hellmann court acquitting Raffaele Sollecito as a political victory for the Berlusconi supporters who had backed the appeal, and therefore as a political defeat for themselves. That might explain why the Court of Cassation so readily and completely accepted the appeal by Mignini and the Perugia judicial establishment against the judgment of the Hellmann court, even though that appeal was based solely on the same evidence that had been comprehensively discredited by Hellmann.
It is noteworthy that the treatment of Amanda and Raffaele since the annulment of their acquittals stands in stark contrast to their treatment from the time of their arrest by the Perugia police in November 2007 until their acquittal by the Hellmann court in 2011. As the whole world knows they were kept in custody throughout the four-year period of the pre-trial before Micheli, the trial before Massei, and the appeal before Hellmann. The Court of Cassation, when it annulled the acquittals of the Hellman Court, might have ordered Amanda and Raffaele back into custody, but it decided not to do so.
Furthermore, even though the Nencini court has re-convicted them, it has not ordered their arrest but left them at liberty, pending their final appeal to the Court of Cassation. That suggests to me that the Italian judicial system is no longer particularly interested in the personal fates of Amanda and Raffaele, no longer intent on ensuring that they serve their sentences, but is concerned only with the political imperative of preserving its reputation against the assault being mounted on it by the Berlusconi forces.
For that reason, I suspect that the Italian authorities will not try all that hard to have Amanda Knox extradited, or to pursue Raffaele if he manages to slip away somewhere. A confirmation by the Court of Cassation of the verdicts of the Nencini court will be primarily a political victory, and that is all that the anti-Berlusconi forces need; enforcement of the sentences of Amanda and Raffaele would be superfluous in this context.
Please click below to view Michael Mills’ previous posts on the Knox-Sollecito murder case:
Under Pressure: A. Knox and R. Sollecito Find Meredith Kercher’s Body
How and Why Rudy Guede Was a Lone Wolf Assailant in the Murder of Meredith Kercher
Michael Mills is a retired Australian Public Servant. He is 66 years old, has a keen interest in history and current affairs, and posts regularly on online history forums. Like many, he was appalled by the recent re-conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, and after substantial intensive research, he has developed the theory of the case that he sets forth herein.