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Except British Barristers specialising in extradition law such as Gemma Lindfield agree with Dershowitz's legal analysis regarding the extradition should she be found guilty in the Italian Court of Cassation (the Final Court) next year.
It's really irrelevant what British Barristers believe. What do Aruban magistrate's believe? It would be as relevant.
It's really irrelevant what British Barristers believe. What do Aruban magistrate's believe? It would be as relevant.
Gemma Lindfield specialises in extradition law, so her nationality is not relevant. London being a global centre for many types of legal specialists and legal knowledge.
Gemma Lindfield specialises in extradition law, so her nationality is not relevant. London being a global centre for many types of legal specialists and legal knowledge.
US Professor of Transnational Law Julian Ku explains the situation in relation to the Knox case and 'Double Jeopardy'.
Under the US extradition treaty with Italy, double jeopardy is not a valid reason to deny extradition; plus, there's precedent: In 1997, the US extradited a man to Turkey even though he had been convicted of rape only on appeal.
There is a reason that the United States and every other nation on this planet handles extradition on a case-by-case basis: Not every situation is exactly the same. Sometimes, the country demanding extradition isn't looking for actual justice. If Knox is extradited, it will be because the people of Italy demanded it, not because the Italian authorities actually believe she is guilty.
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Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University School of Law also thinks she will be extradited if it's merely a legal ruling rather than a political one, as does fellow US Law Professor Julian Ku, and both agree that Knox should be extradited.
And that is exactly what the Amanda Knox case is: Political and not legal. The Italian media spent so much time and effort turning Knox into the Wicked Witch. This extradition is nothing but a witch hunt to satisfy popular opinion. The Italian people only think that it's about justice because their media did such a great job of convincing them that Knox's guilt was so absolute. Now it's 100% a political move with the Italian powers that be trying to save face with their own people after letting Knox go free. Do you honestly think they give a crap about Knox's guilt or innocence anymore? This is 100% about obeying the will of the people and nothing more than that.
If the US extradited a man to Turkey in 1997, I expect that the US believed they were doing the right thing and that he would be treated fairly. Amanda Knox can hardly expect a fair trial at this point. The Italian government has no choice, they have to find Knox guilty. Period. The Italian people will accept nothing less.
No new evidence has surfaced. The DNA evidence from Knox is hardly a surprise since the scene of the crime was the apartment that she shared with Meredith Kercher. Of course your are going to find DNA evidence that she was there. Do you think that you don't leave DNA evidence all over the place that you live in your own home or apartment? If the murder weapon was a knife from the kitchen Amanda shared with Kercher, then Amanda's prints are going to be all over it -- from everyday cooking and preparing food. But no evidence has ever been presented that definitively linked Knox to the crime itself.
There is a reason that the United States and every other nation on this planet handles extradition on a case-by-case basis: Not every situation is exactly the same. Sometimes, the country demanding extradition isn't looking for actual justice. If Knox is extradited, it will be because the people of Italy demanded it, not because the Italian authorities actually believe she is guilty.
And that is exactly what the Amanda Knox case is: Political and not legal. The Italian media spent so much time and effort turning Knox into the Wicked Witch. This extradition is nothing but a witch hunt to satisfy popular opinion. The Italian people only think that it's about justice because their media did such a great job of convincing them that Knox's guilt was so absolute. Now it's 100% a political move with the Italian powers that be trying to save face with their own people after letting Knox go free. Do you honestly think they give a crap about Knox's guilt or innocence anymore? This is 100% about obeying the will of the people and nothing more than that.
If the US extradited a man to Turkey in 1997, I expect that the US believed they were doing the right thing and that he would be treated fairly. Amanda Knox can hardly expect a fair trial at this point. The Italian government has no choice, they have to find Knox guilty. Period. The Italian people will accept nothing less.
No new evidence has surfaced. The DNA evidence from Knox is hardly a surprise since the scene of the crime was the apartment that she shared with Meredith Kercher. Of course your are going to find DNA evidence that she was there. Do you think that you don't leave DNA evidence all over the place that you live in your own home or apartment? If the murder weapon was a knife from the kitchen Amanda shared with Kercher, then Amanda's prints are going to be all over it -- from everyday cooking and preparing food. But no evidence has ever been presented that definitively linked Knox to the crime itself.
There was abundant DNA found all over Kercher, and the scene, not just some minuscule traces requiring highly specialized and sophisticated methods to retrieve, but it belonged to Rudy Guede. Guede left not only his DNA, but also his fingerprints, the bloody palm print and also his shoe prints. No trace of anything that could be associated with Amanda Knox was found at the actual crime scene, no fingerprints or footprints, no fiber evidence, no DNA. How did she and Solicito manage to remove all of their DNA from a horribly violent, bloody murder scene? If they were involved, their DNA would be all over the bedroom, and Kercher, just as Guede's DNA was.
All the supposed evidence against them is based on questionable forensic methods, and a coerced "confession." She lied, but the police guided her lie during a very lengthy interrogation process in which she had no legal representation and was not fluent in the language. She has served her time for the one thing she is guilty of, falsely accusing Patrick Lumbada, but the police also have some guilt in that.
She never had a shot at a fair trial. She is hated in Italy, the prosecution and media have declared her to be an evil, sex crazed American murderer, and the jurors are encouraged to read all the media they can on the case.
"The question of how far media intervention affected the jury in the latest trial was answered by Judge Nencini the day after the verdict. He admitted that the jurors discussed the case daily with their family members and friends when they went home at night. While at home, they were ‘bombarded with information’ – in other words, unverified gossip printed in tabloids and not presented in court. This literally was a trial by tabloid."
There is a reason that the United States and every other nation on this planet handles extradition on a case-by-case basis: Not every situation is exactly the same. Sometimes, the country demanding extradition isn't looking for actual justice. If Knox is extradited, it will be because the people of Italy demanded it, not because the Italian authorities actually believe she is guilty.
Extraditions are normally handled in respect of the legal terms of the extradition and not on an adhoc basis, especially murder cases. As I have already pointed out, many leading extradition lawyers and academics have already stated that legally Amanda Knox should be extradited under the terms of a treaty the US Signed in good faith. As for the Italian Judicial System, it is not some type of third world court as portrayed by some in the American media, indeed if anything it over scrutinises cases.
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Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
And that is exactly what the Amanda Knox case is: Political and not legal. The Italian media spent so much time and effort turning Knox into the Wicked Witch. This extradition is nothing but a witch hunt to satisfy popular opinion. The Italian people only think that it's about justice because their media did such a great job of convincing them that Knox's guilt was so absolute. Now it's 100% a political move with the Italian powers that be trying to save face with their own people after letting Knox go free. Do you honestly think they give a crap about Knox's guilt or innocence anymore? This is 100% about obeying the will of the people and nothing more than that.
It's not political at all, there is plenty of evidence relating to Amanda Knox.
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Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
If the US extradited a man to Turkey in 1997, I expect that the US believed they were doing the right thing and that he would be treated fairly. Amanda Knox can hardly expect a fair trial at this point. The Italian government has no choice, they have to find Knox guilty. Period. The Italian people will accept nothing less.
The case is before the Italian Courts and has nothing to do with the Government, it will go before Italy's Highest Court the
Court of Cassation.
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Originally Posted by godofthunder9010
No new evidence has surfaced. The DNA evidence from Knox is hardly a surprise since the scene of the crime was the apartment that she shared with Meredith Kercher. Of course your are going to find DNA evidence that she was there. Do you think that you don't leave DNA evidence all over the place that you live in your own home or apartment? If the murder weapon was a knife from the kitchen Amanda shared with Kercher, then Amanda's prints are going to be all over it -- from everyday cooking and preparing food. But no evidence has ever been presented that definitively linked Knox to the crime itself.
The case doesn't just relate to DNA evidence, although their is mix DNA patterns of blood mix linking to Knox and Kercher,
footprints and DNA relating to specific objects such as a bra and knife.
Extraditions are normally handled in respect of the legal terms of the extradition and not on an adhoc basis, especially murder cases. As I have already pointed out, many leading extradition lawyers and academics have already stated that legally Amanda Knox should be extradited under the terms of a treaty the US Signed in good faith. As for the Italian Judicial System, it is not some type of third world court as portrayed by some in the American media, indeed if anything it over scrutinises cases.
Amanda Knox was set free due to lack of evidence of her guilt. No new evidence implicating her has surfaced. I would hardly call that overscrutinizing. I'd call that politicians and courts bending to popular outrage and nothing more.
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It's not political at all, there is plenty of evidence relating to Amanda Knox.
What evidence? We have a cop whose gut feeling said she's guilty -- which was the entire reason they forced a confession out of her. We have all the DNA and fingerprint evidence that anybody leaves around their living space. But do we have any compelling forensic evidence that clearly implicated Knox in the murder? None that I've seen, but if you know more than me on the matter, please do share. The hard compelling evidence in this case implicates Rudy Guede and nobody else.
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The case is before the Italian Courts and has nothing to do with the Government, it will go before Italy's Highest Court the Court of Cassation.
And that court has no choice. They cannot afford the public uproar that would result from a not guilty verdict. Amanda Knox has zero chance of getting a fair trial in Italy. The deck is completely stacked against that happening.
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The case doesn't just relate to DNA evidence, although their is mix DNA patterns of blood mix linking to Knox and Kercher, footprints and DNA relating to specific objects such as a bra and knife.
It all comes back to the same underlying problem: Amanda Knox lived there and the Italians are quite intentionally not bothering to take that into account. They need her to be found guilty. The Italian people will accept no other outcome. They are quite blatantly fudging all the rules that would normally apply to this sort of circumstance.
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In an official statement of their grounds for overturning the convictions, the judges wrote there was a "material non-existence" of evidence to support the guilty verdicts, and that an association among Sollecito, Knox, and Guede to commit the murder was "far from probable"Some observers criticised the media for not describing the case accurately and dispassionately, as they believed it could influence the court case.[
Tell me, what has changed since this happened? Is there new evidence? Nothing has changed and it took 3 years for the highest Italian court to finally get around overturning the aquittal. Why?
Rudy Guede is the only person we know for certain to have been guilty. When admitting his guilt, he made no mention of Knox being present. When Guede did as he was told and changed his story to implicate Knox, he was rewarded by having his prison sentence reduced from 30 years to 16 years.
Seems to me that the Italian police looking into this murder were hell-bent on convicting Amanda Knox and this blinded them to any version of events where Amanda Knox did not participate in killing her roommate. See also: Guilty until proven innocent beyond all doubt and diproving every conceivable conspiracy theory that might come up.
There was plenty of DNA evidence in that house linking Knox to the knife and scene and none of it was ever judged to have been cross contaminated by the Italian Courts. It was also shown by forensic experts that there were numerous people involved in the murder rather than just one individual.
Knox initially confessed that she was in the house on the night of the murder and that she heard Miss Kercher scream, identifying a Congolese bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, as the assailant. She told the court during the trial that the confession was made under duress but then repeated the entire account in a five page memorandum the next morning. She later claimed Italian Authorities beat her, something which was strongly denied by everyone involved in the inquiry.
Lumumba was promptly arrested and spent two weeks in jail and Knox seemed quite happy for him to remain jail . It was only by chance that a Swiss businessman read about the case and came forward to say he had been talking to Lumumba in his bar on the night of the murder — offering him a rock-solid alibi. Lumumba has also always claimed Knox was the one behind the murder that night.
Knox then changed her story saying she was far away from the scene with her boyfriend at his place that night and that they watch the film Amelie on his lap top.
Sollecito could not back up Knox’s alibi on the night of the murder. Whilst she claimed she spent the evening with him, smoking marijuana, watching the French film Amelie and making love. Sollecito told police he could not remember if Knox was with him that evening or not.
Even assuming his memory was hazy because of the drugs, it seemed odd that a young man who had just embarked on a new relationship could not recall whether he had spent the night with his girlfriend or not.
Sollecito claimed he used his computer to download and watch cartoons and Amelie. But computer experts told the court that there was no activity on his laptop between 9.10pm on Nov 1, and 5.32am the next morning — the time frame in which the murder took place.
Knox and Sollecito turned off their mobile phones on the night of the murder, from around 8.40pm, and turned them back on at around 6am, inviting further suspicion.
A bedroom belonging to one of Miss Kercher’s Italian flatmates was ransacked on the night of the murder, with a window smashed with a rock. But police said the break-in was staged - broken glass from the window was found on top of clothes scattered on the floor, suggesting the window was broken after the contents of the room were messed up. Prosecutors accused Knox and her boyfriend of staging the break-in to make the killing look like a burglary that had turned into rape and murder.
Knox claimed that she slept in late the next morning but this was contradicted by a local shop keeper who clearly saw her very early next morning following Meredith's murder, when she came in to his shop allegedly to buy cleaning products such as bleach.
Then there is the The 3am call to her mother which she denied making, her table lamp locked in the murder room, the different accounts of the locked door, the witness who saw her and her boyfriend overlooking the cottage on the murder night and numerous other such evidence such as the fact Amanda Knox made two statements to Meredith's friends that the police found suspicious because they contained details that Amanda Knox should not have known. Indeed Meredith's roommate Natalie Hayward and other friends of Meredith's in Perugia at the time such as Amy Frost and Robyn Carmel Butterworth have always claimed they believe Knox to be the murderer.
Whilst Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his part in the murder, but has had his sentence cut to 16 years and who is eligible for parole later this year has always maintained that it was Knox who was in fact the murderer, and it will be interesting to hear his views once he is released and has nothing to lose.
There are people in US Prisons serving life for murder on far less evidence than Knox and Knox has proved her self to be nothing more than a blatant liar in the past, even accusing a man she knew to be innocent. So cold is Knox, that I honestly think she would have quite happily have seen Patrick Lumumba serve a life sentence for something she knew he hadn't done, and her behaviour throughout the case has been extremely questionable.
I am also not the only one to believe there is significant evidence, Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University School of Law also thinks there is significant evidence, as does fellow US Law Professor Julian Ku, and both agree that Knox should be extradited.
There is also a new motive for the crime been uncovered which further implicates Amanda Knox, with the Italian Courts to due to release this information shortly.
Finally the people I feel sorry for in all of this are the forgotten victims, Meredith and her family who have lost a much loved daughter and sister, and who have sat through the trial and having listened to the evidence fully support Knox's extradition.
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