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Seraph
 Posted:
Mon Dec 03, 2007 6:27 pm |
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Hello George, we will have to stop meeting like this 
Kercher suspect to be extradited
Rudy Herman Guede was arrested in Germany
A German prosecutor has agreed to extradite to Italy a man suspected of involvement in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, originally from the Ivory Coast, was arrested in Germany on 20 November.
Italian police suspect he played a role in the death of the 21-year-old student on 1 November in Perugia.
Miss Kercher, of Coulsdon, London, was found stabbed in a house she shared with Amanda Knox - now also a suspect.
Italian Raffaele Sollecito, 23, is also a suspect and he and Miss Knox, 20, failed in a bid to be released from jail as the inquiry continues.
Date not yet set
A third man - Congolese bar owner Diya Lumumba - was briefly held in jail but then released, although he is still a suspect in the case.
Prosecutors in Germany had delayed extraditing Mr Guede as they wanted assurances that if he received a life sentence his case would be reviewed after 20 years.
But, following a hearing on Monday in Koblenz, prosecutor Norbert Weise said: "The extradition can take place as soon as Italian authorities agree to a date for the hand-over," AP news agency reported.
An international arrest warrant for Mr Guede was issued about 19 November after Italian detectives identified him as a suspect.
They had planned to arrest him as he crossed the border back into Italy, but a German ticket inspector detained him for fare-dodging.
Bloody fingerprints found on Miss Kercher's pillow and on toilet paper in her bathroom have been reported to match those of Mr Guede.
Mr Guede has previously told German court officials that he had not been involved in Miss Kercher's death.
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 894
Location: United Kingdom
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| gwen
Posted:
Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:36 pm |
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Suspect in British Student Murder: 'I Can Name Her Killer'
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
A suspect due to be extradited to Italy in connection with the murder of British student Meredith Kercher can identify her killer, his lawyer has said.
Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, is expected to be flown from Germany to Italy on Thursday after he was caught travelling on a tram without a ticket two weeks ago.
Police in Perugia investigating the death of Kercher, 21, know he had been at the scene because his bloodied fingerprint was found on a piece of toilet paper and a pillow.
"Rudy saw the killer and is capable of identifying him," said his lawyer Valter Biscotti, during an interview on Italian TV. "Rudy told me that he saw a man coming out of Meredith's bedroom, who was smaller than him.
"There was a struggle and he knows he was Italian. The man said to him in Italian: 'You're a black man, you will get the blame.'
"This person had a knife in his hand. Rudy tried to help Meredith but then he heard noises outside and fled.
"What we have to remember here is that Rudy is telling the truth, a difficult and uncomfortable truth but he is determined to come to Italy to tell the truth."
Mr Biscotti added: "Rudy's actions from the outside may seem unjustified but if you look inside you will see that he was in a very difficult situation.
"But he did get a towel and try and stop the blood from Meredith's wound before leaving the house."
Guede was meeting his father Roger in prison at Koblenz jail - their first meeting for four years.
Two other suspects, Meredith's housemate Amanda Knox and Knox's then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, are in custody in Italy in connection with the case.
Under Italian law, Knox and Sollecito could be held for up to a year and they have failed to persuade judges to free them on bail.
Lawyers for a third man, bar owner Diya Lumumba, have asked a prosecutor to clear him of suspicion because he maintains he was at his pub, not at the students' apartment, when Meredith was killed.
Earlier this week, Knox, 20, was reported to have changed her story, claiming Sollecito woke up in the middle of the night to attack her house-mate.
She accused Sollecito, 24, of sexually assaulting Miss Kercher, cutting her throat and then returning to plant the American's fingerprints on the knife used, the reports added.
Murder suspect Rudy Hermann Guede, right, with fashion designer Giorgio Armani in image from Facebook.com.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314962,00.html
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14465
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| George
Posted:
Wed Dec 05, 2007 8:15 am |
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Amanda Knox, the American flatmate of Meredith Kercher, the British student murdered in Perugia, wrote an affectionate letter to her Italian boyfriend shortly before accusing him of the killing.
The letter to Raffaele Sollecito was among Ms Knox's prison writings seized by police as potential evidence against her. Its contents were leaked today to Il Messaggero, the Rome daily newspaper.
In the letter Ms Knox, a language student from Seattle, wrote in Italian: “Dear Raffaele, how are you? I don't want to talk about the case, but today I learned I could write you a letter.”
She added: “I would understand if you think it's a good idea not to reply. I am well. This is crazy, no? I could never imagine this situation, yet here we are.”
She told him the police and prison guards were kind to her and she had a cellmate “who washes my clothes and calls me ‘little girl' (bimba).” Ms Knox has since been moved to a cell with three other inmates and allowed greater freedom of movement within the jail.
Last Friday a judge refused separate appeals from both Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to be released, ruling that they must remain in custody. The two did not meet at the court.
In the letter Ms Knox told Mr Sollecito her mother and father had arrived in Perugia, adding: “My mother is beautiful, no?” She told him she did not watch television news about the case because “the journalists say things they know nothing about”.
Shortly afterwards, however, Ms Knox began a prison diary in which she alleged that Mr Sollecito himself may have raped and killed Ms Kercher. She claimed she had fallen asleep at Mr Sollecito's flat after smoking cannabis and was asleep at the time of the killing, although she has twice admitted she was at the scene of the crime; once, in a statement to police, and again to her mother, in a conversation recorded by police without her knowledge.
In the diary she wrote: “This could have happened: Raffaele went to Meredith's house, raped her and killed her and then, having come back home, pressed my fingerprints (I was asleep) onto the knife.” Investigators have found Ms Knox's DNA near the handle of a kitchen knife found in Mr Sollecito's flat, and Ms Kercher's on the tip.
In none of her prison writings or police statements does Ms Knox refer to Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, from the Ivory Coast, who is expected to be extradited to Italy from Germany at the end of this week on suspicion of involvement in the killing. Police say his DNA is on Ms Kercher's body, and his fingerprints were found on her bloodstained pillow.
Mr Guede's lawyers said he knew who the real assassin was and would tell Italian police “all he knows”. He has claimed Ms Kercher was killed by “an Italian I didn't know” while he was in the toilet with stomach pains after eating a kebab. Police suspect that Mr Guede, who a record in Perugia and Milan as a small-time drug pusher, was one of several men said by witnesses to have a relationship with Ms Knox.
Detectives investigating the murder believe one of the many points of tension between Ms Knox and Ms Kercher may have been an argument over stolen money. Bank checks have shown that Ms Kercher withdrew €250 (£180) to pay for her rent two days before she died.
However, her landlord has told police that the money, due on 1 November, the day of her death, was never paid. Police have disclosed that €215 was found on Ms Knox when she was searched.
Mr Guede has told German police he had consensual sex with Ms Kercher, who became angry when she found money missing from her bedside drawer and told him she believed Ms Knox has taken it to pay for drugs.
The Times
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 78
Location: Europe
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| George
Posted:
Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:50 am |
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Rudy Hermann Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant suspected of involvement in the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, has claimed that two people carried out the attack, one of whom he was “confident” he would be able to recognise.
Mr Guede, 20, who has joint Italian nationality, is awaiting extradition to Italy from Germany, where he was arrested after the killing of Ms Kercher on November 1. Legal sources said he could be extradited tomorrow or Friday.
He has admitted to German police and his Italian defence lawyers that he was at the cottage where Ms Kercher was murdered on the evening of November 1, but insists that he did not kill her. He claims an Italian man he did not know, described as shorter than himself and with brown hair, attacked Ms Kercher and slit her throat while he was in the bathroom. He says he tried to rescuscitate the dying girl, who managed to utter the sound “af” as a clue to her killer. Today, however, it emerged that Mr Guede had told his father, Roger, that there was another person at the scene of the crime.
“I want to return to Italy as soon as possible and tell what I know,” he told his father in his prison cell at Mannheim, according to Il Messaggero, the Rome daily. “I want to indicate who Meredith's murderer was. I saw him, I would recognise him again. He was not alone, there was someone else.” He did not say whether the other person was male or female.
He told his father, whom he had not seen for four years: “I swear it was not me. I was with Meredith, we kissed each other and went a bit further. Then I felt ill and went to the bathroom while listening to my iPod.” He repeated his earlier story, that he had heard Meredith scream and had emerged to find the unknown Italian with a knife in his hand; they grappled and he suffered a cut to his right hand.
He said he had heard the Italian say to the second person: “I found a Negro in there; they will think he's guilty.” He said that, at this, he had taken fright and fled. As he left the house he saw a small car leaving.
He said he thought he would recognise Ms Kercher's assailant even though the light had been dim, with the only lighting in the bedroom from Ms Kercher's bedside lamp. He said he had gone home and changed because there was blood on his shoes, and after wandering around for two days he had left Perugia “because I was afraid. I was in that house, and I didn't think anyone would believe me. I'm still afraid”.
He repeated that Ms Kercher had complained that €250 was missing from her bedside drawer and had accused Amanda Knox, her American flatmate, of stealing it to buy drugs. Ms Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian boyfriend, are in prison in Perugia, suspected of involvement in the sexual assault and murder.
The court in Perugia, which last Friday rejected appeals by Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito to be released today, said Ms Kercher had been killed by "those who knew her well" and that "more than one person" had taken part in the assault. Giving its reasons for sending the suspects back to jail, the court said the "hypothesis of an act of group violence" had been "reinforced" during the inquiry following Ms Kercher's death nearly five weeks ago.The ruling described Mr Sollecito as a young man with a fragile temperament who was impressionable and easily led. His version of events — that he spent the evening and night of the murder at his flat — was "unpardonably implausible".
The judges said they had concluded that Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito were together at 8.40 on the evening of November 1 and spent the night and the following morning together. The kitchen knife found at Mr Sollecito's flat was almost certainly the murder weapon, and had been cleaned with bleach in an attempt to wash off blood.
The court said Ms Knox was "without inhibitions" and could strike again if freed. "The role of Amanda cannot be secondary" the judges said. "She is a young woman with a multiform personality". She had a capacity for self dramatisation "which one might call fatal".
Mr Guede is expected to arrive at Rome airport from Germany tomorrow morning before being transferred to the prison in Perugia where Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito are being held.
Ms Knox initially accused Patrick Lumumba, another African immigrant in Perugia, of the murder, but later withdrew this. Mr Lumumba was questioned and released for lack of evidence. He was questioned again on Tuesday but exercised his right to remain silent, saying he had already given a full account of his movements to police that proved his innocence.
Mr Guede came to Perugia with his father at the age of 5. He speaks fluent Italian. His father returned to the Ivory Coast when he was a teenager and Mr Guede was taken in by a local family, who found him work. However, they severed relations with him after he was detained by police several times for minor drugs offences.
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 78
Location: Europe
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| George
Posted:
Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:04 am |
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Amanda Knox, the American student suspected of involvement in the killing of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, has hit back at her portrayal in the media as a sex and drugs crazed "monster", while admitting she sometimes "went wild" and "did things I now think were wrong".
In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica from her prison cell conducted through her lawyer, Ms Knox said she would defend herself when questioned again by the investigating judge on Monday by "explaining the contradictions" in her previous testimony. "I hope they finally believe me," she said.
The funeral of Ms Kercher, who was knifed to death and sexually assaulted on November 1, is due to be held on Friday in Britain. Ms Knox has been held at Capanne prison outside Perugia since November 6 together with Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian boyfriend, also a suspect.
She was it was cold in her cell "and I'm always trying to cover myself up, but I'm always shivering". She confirmed that whereas she was initially with one other female prisoner, she was now in a cell with three women. "We keep each other company, but each of us has her own problems to worry about."
She said what she missed most was music. "When they let me out into the courtyard, I sing out loud and I try to stay in the sun as much as possible before going back into the artificial light of the cell."
Asked if she feared a heavy sentence for murder, she said: "I am not worried. The love of my parents and confidence in my lawyers are not only helping me to bear this situation, they also lead me to hope there will be a positive solution to the inquiry."
She said: "For a girl of twenty like me, born on the other side of the ocean, it isn't easy to be locked up for over a month in an Italian prison. It's make me feel terrible that people think I killed Meredith, just as the things they said in the newspapers and on TV about me and my family hurt me too.
"My mother was taken to pieces by the Anglo Saxon papers, and they described me as if I were a monster."
She said the media had "talked about me without even knowing me". Ms Kercher's friends have testified that Ms Knox led a wild life style and had many men friends, La Repubblica said, adding: "So, who is the real Amanda Knox?" She replied: "A girl of twenty who came to Perugia to learn Italian after she had studied Japanese. I have had boyfriends, just like other girls of my age. I remember them all. Some were important, others weren't.
"In Italy I felt intoxicated by freedom: sometimes I went a bit wild. Sometimes I did things that now I think were wrong."
But she said: "All that comes from my youth and my enthusiasm for life. It certainly doesn't come from some obscure and evil side of my personality." Ms Knox said it was also untrue that she "quarrelled every day" with Ms Kercher.
"Meredith was sweet and sensitive. I liked living with her. We were friends even if each of us had their own lives. I had lunch with her at our house on November 1, we told each other what we had done the night before, at Halloween. I had been with Raffaele, she had gone to a disco with a group of English friends. I remember her telling me she had had a lot of fun.
She was a nice girl. She loved life. Its makes me feel terrible to think what happened to her."
She said she often thought that "if I had been at home that evening perhaps I would be dead now too". Asked about her relationship with Raffaele Sollecito, she said: "It was, or perhaps I should say is, one of the most intense relationships of my life. I have never believed that he accused me, nor have I ever thought that he might be Mereith's killer."
She repeated her earlier claim that she and Mr Sollecito spent the evening of the murder at his flat "and slept there until morning".
She said she had never asked him to lie on her behalf. "We hadn't known each other very long, but ours was a deep relationship. We were always together during those terrible days after the discovery of what happened to Meredith, even at the police station.
"We supported each other, trying to give each other courage. Both of of us were stunned by the tragedy of Meredith's absurd death, a tragedy we were unable to explain to ourselves.
"Now I and Raffaele are both suspects, both of us are in prison. I have tried to write to him from here but I don't think he got my letter. I only wanted to tell him that I never believed he had accused me, and that I had never accused him."
Witnesses have said that Ms Knox appeared "strangely unmoved" after Ms Kercher's body was discovered, and that she and Mr Sollecito were seen shopping for "sexy lingerie" the following day. Asked why she had "confessed" to police at one point that she was present when Ms Kercher was murdered and had stopped up her ears in order not to hear her flatmate's screams, Ms Knox replied: "In reality I have never confessed anything."
She added: "I had nothing to confess. I said those things that are now used against me while I was in a state of great confusion. There was a crowd of people around me who were all talking so fast and they were asking me question after question. I could hardly understand what they wanted from me. I tried to reply but my grasp of Italian is what it is. That's why I asked to be allowed to write things down and they gave me paper and a pen."
She said she had written her statement "to fix on paper the images that were passing through my head, to understand what was reality and what was fantasy. Now I realise that I achieved the opposite effect". She said she was still writing "to try and get my memories back, to re-order my thoughts so I will be able to tell the judge my truth about Meredith's death".
She made no mention of Rudy Hermann Guede, the third key suspect in the murder, who was extradited to Italy from Germany last Thursday, even though police say Ms Knox and Mr Guede exchanged mobile phone calls both before and after the murder. Mr Guede admits he was at the house on November 1 but denies he killed Ms Kercher and claims he saw the "real murderer".
When questioned by investigators in Perugia last weekend however, he went back on his earlier claim that he could "identify" the killer, saying he had focused on the knife the murderer was carrying and had not seen his face. He did not mention Ms Knox as being present at the house.
Mr Guede, who fled to Germany after the death of Ms Kercher, was arrested after being caught travelling on a train without a ticket. While awaiting extradition he wrote a twenty page account of what he witnessed, his lawyers said.
In the memorandum Mr Guede, an immigrant from the Ivory Coast who also has Italian nationality, says that when he arrived to meet Ms Kercher at her house on the evening of November 1 there was "a car with its headlights on and two men talking to each other". He said one of the men was short - "he came up to the height of my eyebrows" - and the other was speaking "Italian-American".
In the memorandum Mr Guede said: "My memories of that night are now clearer...If I close my eyes I see only red, I have never seen so much blood. All that blood on that sweet face." He added that if he had been "a real man" he could have saved Ms Kercher's life, but instead he panicked and fled. "My fear of being blamed was stronger than my desire to save Mez."
He said that when he left the cottage Ms Kerchers bedroom door was open and she was still dressed in a white pullover and blue jeans. When police found her body on November 2 she was semi naked.
Police say Mr Guede's fingerprints were found on Ms Kercher's bloodstained pillow, and his DNA on her body and vaginal tampon. "If he didn't kill the English girl he certainly saw a lot since he was undoubtedly there," the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero commented.
Mr Guede maintains that he was in the bathroom when Ms Kercher was attacked, and emerged to fight briefly with her killer. On arrival at Rome airport last Thursday before his transfer to Perugia Mr Guede showed photographers a wound on his right palm, which he claimed was the result of the fight with the assailant.
Meanwhile lawyers for Mr Sollecito denied that a kitchen knife found in his client's flat was the murder weapon. Police say the knife had been cleaned with bleach but has traces of Ms Kercher's DNA on the tip and Ms Knox's DNA near the handle. The defence lawyers said the real murder weapon had yet to be found.
In a memorandum written in his cell and leaked to the Italian media Mr Sollecito said the idea that Ms Knox xould have left his flat, murdered Ms Kercher and returned was "ridiculous". He said he had panicked when he saw TV news reports on the discovery of the kitchen knife - "my heart leapt into my throat" - but had calmed down when lawyers assured him it could not be the murder weapon.
He said the presence of Ms Kercher's and Ms Knox's DNA on the knife could be explained by the fact that they had all cooked together in his kitchen - apparently forgetting that he had earlier told police he only knew Ms Kercher by sight and that she had never been to his flat.
Last week a court in Perugia described Ms Knox as "cunning, theatrical and self-assured", and said she was so "detached from reality" she could "strike again" if released. In a 35-page explanation of their decision to keep Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito in jail the judges also described Mr Sollecito as impressionable and easily led.
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 78
Location: Europe
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| pax
Posted:
Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:30 am |
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Meredith Kercher was brutally murdered. I hope it can be sorted out who the heck did it. Every suspect seems to be claiming amnesia or diminished capacity.
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Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 16074
Location: Wish You Were Here
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| gwen
Posted:
Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:04 pm |
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December 14, 2007
Meredith Kercher suspect 'met flatmate on night of killing'
Rudy Hermann Guede was extradited from Germany
Italian prosecutors believe that Rudy Hermann Guede, a suspect in the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, had a rendezvous not with Ms Kercher on the night of the killing, as he claims, but with Amanda Knox, her American flatmate, because she owed him money for drugs.
Mr Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant who was extradited from Germany last week, is due to appear today before a judge reviewing his detention. Sources close to the investigation said that in explaining why Mr Guede should not be freed Giuliano Mignini, the chief prosecutor, would offer a reconstruction of the crime revolving around drug dealing.
Police believe that Mr Guede, who is being held in the same prison as Ms Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian boyfriend, supplied hashish to them both. Both have admitted "being high" on cannabis on the day of the murder, though both maintain that they were at Mr Sollecito's flat the whole evening and night and not at the cottage where the killing took place.
Mr Guede, who has a record of minor drugs offences in Italy, has told police that he met Ms Kercher by arrangement, and that she complained to him that Ms Knox had stolen money from her bedside drawer to pay for drugs. Prosecutors suggest this is a distorted version of what actually happened: that Mr Guede and Ms Knox met at the cottage, that Ms Knox took Ms Kercher's money to pay him, and that Ms Kercher walked in at "the wrong moment". In the ensuing confrontation Ms Kercher was sexually attacked and her throat was cut.
In a memorandum written while he was in custody in Germany and leaked to Italian papers Mr Guede said that Ms Kercher had complained to him at their rendezvous at the cottage that Ms Knox was a "drugged up tart". Police believe she may indeed have used such words, but in the presence of Ms Knox herself as well as Mr Guede. Il Messaggero, the Rome daily, said that the alleged role of Mr Sollecito in the murder as reconstructed by the prosecutors remained unclear, though police believe that the murder weapon was a kitchen knife from his flat.
A woman who lives opposite the cottage has told police that she heard screams coming from it at about 11pm, after which "at least two people" emerged and fled "in different directions". She said she had gone to sleep about 9pm or 9.30pm, and had been woken up by the scream and the running. "I didn't look at the time, but I think it was a couple of hours after I went to sleep".
Police said that this contradicted Mr Guede's account, in which he claimed he had stayed behind to try and help Ms Kercher after the assailant had fled. He said that he been in the bathroom with stomach pains when the murderer entered the cottage which Ms Kercher and Ms Knox shared. He had heard "terrible screams" and on emerging had seen " a figure with his back to me in her bedroom. He turned round. It was an Italian man, I know this because he insulted me and did not have a foreign accent."
He said that the man had a knife in his hand "and tried to strike me with it. I tried to defend myself with my hand." The assailant had rushed out of the house, saying "a black man found is a guilty man". Italian reports said that Mr Mignini would argue that this account was "improbable and contradictory" and designed to cover up Mr Guede's own alleged "criminal actions".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3052246.ece
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14465
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| Seraph
Posted:
Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:18 pm |
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LONDON (AP) — A British student who was killed nearly six weeks ago in the Italian apartment she shared with an American roommate was buried Friday in a private funeral in south London,
Several hundred mourners, including dozens of classmates, sang hymns in tribute to Meredith Kercher's life during an hour-long service at the packed Croydon Parish Church.
Kercher, 21, was found with her throat cut in the city of Perugia on Nov. 2. Her body was flown home nine days later, but her family was only given the go-ahead to bury her two weeks ago, when Italian police said they would not conduct a second autopsy.
The Leeds University student had traveled to Perugia in August to study at the city's University for Foreigners. She was assaulted and stabbed in the apartment she shared with her roommate, Amanda Marie Knox of Seattle.
Knox has been detained along with her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, of Italy, and Rudy Hermann Guede.
On Friday, a court in Perugia ordered Guede to remain in jail while the investigation continued in Kercher's slaying. Guede, an Ivory Coast native who lives in Perugia, appeared before the court at a closed-door hearing but did not make any statements, according to defense lawyer Walter Biscotti.
DNA testing has confirmed that Guede had sex with Kercher the night of the slaying. The 20-year-old has acknowledged he was in Kercher's room the night she died, but said he did not kill her.
Biscotti said the judges did not give any reason for ordering Guede to stay jailed but are expected to do so in the coming days.
Lurid details of their private lives gleaned from social networking Web sites filled the British tabloids after her killing.
The funeral service included an address by Kercher's brother, Lyle, a poem read by her sister Stephanie, and a rendition of her favorite song, U2's "With Or Without You."
Among the floral tributes Friday was a small bouquet with a card marked: "The City of Perugia."
Dozens of members of the media, including camera crews from Italy and the United States, gathered outside the Anglican church to cover the service.
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 894
Location: United Kingdom
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| Seraph
Posted:
Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:17 am |
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From Times OnlineDecember 18, 2007
Quizzed over Meredith Kercher agony', Amanda Knox breaks down
American student Amanda Knox, 20, who has allegedly confessed to involvement in the sex killling of exchange student Meredith Kercher,21, from Croydon, who was found dead, stabbed with a pocket knife, in her apartment in Perugia, Italy
Richard Owen in Rome
Amanda Knox, the American student suspected of involvement in the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, broke down and cried during questioning when asked how she could possibly know so much about Ms Kercher's "death agony" if she was not there.
Ms Knox, questioned yesterday by Giuliano Mignini, the chief investigating magistrate in the case, broke down again - this time "hysterically", with "shaking fits" - when asked why she had accused Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner in Perugia for whom she worked part time, Italian reports said today. Mr Lumumba was arrested but later released for lack of evidence, although he remains "under investigation".
The chaplain at the prison where Ms Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian boyfriend, and Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian immigrant, are being held, had earlier said she was "prepared to tell the truth". Although she has at times in the past admitted she was at the cottage she shared with Ms Kercher, during the six hour interrogation she insisted on her original claim that she was at Mr Sollecito's flat all evening and all night.
Asked how she explained the presence of both hers and Ms Kercher's DNA on the kitchen knife thought to be the murder weapon, Ms Knox replied "I don't know, I can't understand it". She said "Mez" - Ms Kercher's nickname - had never been at Mr Sollecito's flat, where the knife was found. Il Messaggero said she appeared unaware that Mr Sollecito has claimed that he, Ms Knox and Ms Kercher had cooked together in the kitchen of his flat.
Mr Mignini reminded Ms Knox that when first questioned at Perugia police station as a witness the day Ms Kercher's body was discovered, she had told other witnesses she had seen Ms Kercher lying next to the wardrobe with a wound to her throat which had cause her to die "in slow agony". She had given a similar description of the scene to Marco Zaroli, the boyfriend of Filomena Romanelli, one of two Italian female students who shared the cottage with Ms Knox and Ms Kercher.
Although Ms Kercher's body was found on other side of the bed, police forensic scientists have concluded that it was dragged there, and that she was in fact murdered in front of the wardrobe by having her throat slit while on her knees. Asked how she could have known this if she was not there, Ms Knox began to cry and refused to reply.
She appeared similarly "confused" when confronted with the testimony of Robyn Butterworth, one of Ms Kercher's fellow British students at Perugia, who said that at the police station Ms Knox had appeared "strangely unmoved" by Ms Kercher's death and "proud" of having "found" the body. Her lawyer said Ms Knox had "exercised her right not to speak" for the rest of the interrogation.
Police believe Ms Knox accused Mr Lumumba to cover up for Mr Guede, the third suspect in the case, whose bloody fingerprints were on Ms Kercher's pillow and who has admitted being at the cottage during the murder while denying he committed it himself. Sources close to the investigation said it was striking that Ms Knox never mentioned Mr Guede at all, "as if he did not exist", when in fact they knew each other and had exchanged mobile phone calls before and after the killing.
Mr Guede's situation appeared to worsen at the weekend after it emerged that traces of his DNA had also been found on the fasteners of Ms Kercher's bloodstained bra. Police said it appeared the bra had been ripped off. After the killing Mr Guede fled to Germany, where he was arrested and extradited back to Italy.
Corriere della Sera reported that Edda Mellas, Ms Knox's mother, and her former husband Kurt, Ms Knox's father, were having problems finding rented accommodation in Perugia because "no-one wants to rent to anyone linked to the Meredith Kercher case". Ms Knox's parents, who have vowed to stay near their daughter until the case is resolved, are at present lodged in the village of Mantignana, near Lake Trasimeno, 15km from the town.
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 894
Location: United Kingdom
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| Seraph
Posted:
Sat Dec 22, 2007 4:57 pm |
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Meredith Murder: Friends To Be Quizzed
By Nick Pisa
In Rome Updated:16:04, Saturday December 22, 2007
Police and prosecutors have called six friends of murdered British student Meredith Kercher back to Italy to question them again as part of the investigation.
Meredith was stabbed to deathThey will be spoken to after further contradictions appeared in evidence given by the victim's US flatmate Amanda Knox, who is being held on suspicion of murder.
Among the six Britons are Meredith's best friends Sophie Purton, Amy Frost and Robyn Butterworth, who have already described Knox's questionable behaviour to police.
In particular, Miss Butterworth told officers how she was struck by how Knox, 20, seemed to boast about finding Miss Kercher's body as they all waited in Perugia police station to speak to officers.
Miss Butterworth said: "She was talking at the top of her voice, saying she found the front door open and she went into the bathroom and saw blood on the floor.
"I remember Amanda kept going on about how she found the body. It was as if she was proud to have been the one who found it.
"She was saying how she had seen Meredith's body reflecting in the mirror of a wardrobe.
"I remember thinking her behaviour was very strange. It was as if she wasn't bothered at all. Her behaviour also struck other friends who were there."
Murder suspect Amanda KnoxMiss Butterworth said Miss Kercher had told her that Knox often brought men back to their flat. And she said the flatmates fell out because Knox did not flush the toilet.
The Leeds University exchange student said she was one of the last people to see Miss Kercher alive.
They watched a DVD with two British friends a couple of hours before she was killed last month.
The other three friends to be questioned are Jade Bidwell, Natalie Hayward and Helen Power.
All six are expected to return to Perugia early in the New Year and be quizzed by Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and the city's flying squad chief Giacinto Profazio.
A prosecution source added: "From their statements we know that Knox told them that Meredith had died slowly from a stab wound to the neck.
"The question is how did she know this particular detail, as only police and the killer would have been aware."
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Joined: 13 Jun 2006
Posts: 894
Location: United Kingdom
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| hubbahuba
Posted:
Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:03 pm |
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Foxy Knoxy 'gave herself away by revealing a murder detail
Foxy Knoxy 'gave herself away by revealing a murder detail only the killer would know'
By NICK PIZA
23rd December 2007
A suspect in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher gave herself away by revealing details only the killer would know, Italian police said yesterday.
Amanda Knox, 20, told friends of Miss Kercher that she died slowly from a stab wound to the neck.
A prosecution source asked: "The question is, how did she know these particular details as only police and the killer would have been aware of them?"
Knox, an American who called herself Foxy Knoxy on a website, has been in custody for more than six weeks on suspicion of murdering her 21-year-old flatmate in the Italian city of Perugia.
Police and prosecutors now plan to reinterview six of Miss Kercher's British friends about Knox when they return to Perugia next month.
One, Robyn Butterworth, has already told detectives that Knox seemed to be boasting about finding her flatmate's body as they waited in Perugia police station in the aftermath of the killing.
Miss Butterworth, a Leeds University exchange student like Miss Kercher, said in a statement: "She was talking at the top of her voice, saying she found the front door open and she went into the bathroom and saw blood on the floor.
"I remember Amanda kept going on about how she found the body. It was as if she was proud to have been the one who found it.
"She was saying how she had seen Meredith's body reflected in the mirror of a wardrobe.
"I remember thinking her behaviour was very strange. It was as if she wasn't bothered at all. It also struck other friends who were there."
Knox's Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 23, and Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, are also being held.
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** Banned **
Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 822
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| gwen
Posted:
Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:20 am |
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Italian Suspect in Death of British Coed Attends Hearing
Monday, January 21, 2008
ROME — An Italian suspect in the killing of a British student attended a hearing Monday in central Italy, where a judge appointed an expert to examine his computer as well as those belonging to another American suspect and the victim.
A handcuffed Raffaele Sollecito, 23, was escorted into the courthouse in the central town of Perugia for the closed-door hearing, where he gave the password to his laptop, lawyer Marco Brusco said.
Sollecito and Amanda Knox, his American girlfriend at the time of the killing, have been in custody since their Nov. 6 arrest in the slaying four days earlier of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.
The suspects have not been formally charged, but a judge said they could be held for up to a year while the case was being investigated. Knox did not attend the hearing on Monday.
Kercher, a student from Leeds University in England and enrolled for a year of study in Perugia, was found dead Nov. 2 in the apartment she shared with Knox. She died from a stab wound to the neck, and prosecutors said she was killed resisting a sexual assault.
Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede is also being held as a suspect in Perugia, following his extradition from Germany. Another suspect, Congolese pub owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, was released from jail but has not been formally cleared.
All suspects deny wrongdoing.
On Monday, the judge appointed an expert to examine the laptops of Sollecito, Knox and Kercher, Brusco said. The expert is expected to deliver the results within 70 days.
Sollecito has said he was at his own apartment in Perugia the night of the slaying, working at another computer. Sollecito's lawyers have said that analyses on his computer show he had been logged on. But prosecutors say police have proven only that the computer was connected to the Internet, but not accessed by anyone overnight.
Sollecito told the judge on Monday that he had not used his laptop since July, Brusco said.
Sollecito has said he did not remember if Knox spent the whole night with him. Both suspects have given confused recollections and conflicting statements and said they had smoked hashish that night, according to court documents.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324204,00.html
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14465
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| Hannie
Posted:
Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:21 am |
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Foxy Knoxy threatened man with knife day before Meredith murder, says new witness.
Murder suspect Amanda Knox threatened a man with a knife just 24 hours before the body of a British student was found murdered, a new witness claimed today.
An Albanian has told police and prosecutors that Knox, 20, was with her boyfriend and fellow suspect Raffaele Sollecito, 24, when the terrifying incident took place.
He said that he was parking close to the house murder victim Meredith Kercher, 20, shared with Knox - who called herself Foxy Knoxy - when his car nudged a waste container.
He claims this provoked an argument with Knox, who eventually pulled a knife on him.
Police in Perugia are investigating the November 1 murder of Meredith, who was found semi-naked in a blood-spattered apartment, having apparently been the victim of a violent sexual assault.
The unidentified witness said: "I've only come forward now because I was scared.
"I spoke with a lawyer before coming to see you but in the end I realised it was important.
"The evening of 31st October I arrived in my car close to the house on Via della Pergola.
Victim: Meredith Kercher had throat cut
"As I was parking my car I hit a rubbish dumpster - a second later I saw two people, a man and a woman, who were behind it and they came towards me shouting.
"We started arguing and then all of a sudden the girl pulled out a knife, she was shouting at me and pointing it at me.
"I am certain it was Amanda Knox, with her was Raffaele Sollecito.
"Then out of the darkness emerged another man, it was Rudy, the three of them were together."
The sensational new evidence was being kept secret but was leaked and today prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said: "This is a very serious matter.
"This statement was a secret and now it is in the public domain. I am not prepared to say anything else about it."
Police sources however said that particulars of his statement including the fact it had been raining that night had already been checked and proved correct.
A source close to the investigation added: "He is a Albanian with a regular residents permit and he has no record.
"His story is being taken seriously as it proves that all three suspects knew each other.
"Knox and Sollecito have denied knowing Rudy but this man's statement puts them together and with a knife 24 hours before poor Meredith was murdered.
"It also suggests that the three were out there armed with a knife and already planning this murder when they were disturbed and it was put back a day.
"He is being taken as a serious and credible witness."
continues.....;
http://tinyurl.com/2ya4oa
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li'l Shango's Mommy
Joined: 23 Mar 2006
Posts: 22087
Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
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| iquitos
Posted:
Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:10 am |
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this is fascinating
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/dempsey/archives/131443.asp
Crime novelist Doug Preston on Meredith Kercher's murder
Interview by Candace Dempsey. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Doug Preston is only too familiar with Judge Giuliano Mignini, the pubblico ministero (public prosecutor) holding UW honor student Amanda Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede as suspects in the Nov. 1 murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy.
Preston is a journalist as well as a New York Times best-selling novelist and "student of crime."
His newest book, The Monster of Florence, is a nonfiction tale about the infamous serial killer who plagued Florence during the 1970s and 1980s and was never caught. It will hit bookstores in June.
Preston first encountered Mignini, one of the prosecutors in the Monster case, when he started researching the crime. Mignini didn't appreciate Preston and his writing partner, Mario Spezi, poking into the facts. He had Spezi arrested and thrown into Capanne prison, where the three Meredith suspects are also housed, and accused him of being the Monster of Florence himself. Spezi has since been freed.
Preston was forced to leave Italy. An experience he recounts in The Monster of Florence.
"When I lived in Italy, I was the target of an investigation by Mignini in which he tapped my cell phone, bugged my writing partner's car and hauled me down to Perugia for an interrogation," says Preston. "He accused me of obstruction of justice, perjury, planting false evidence and even being an accessory to murder. I am still under indictment in Italy for a string of secret crimes." (continues)
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beady eyed rat
Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 14475
Location: nowhere man
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