The Interrogation of Amanda Knox

“The police system, the treatment of the accused and the relationship between prosecutors and courts are still stuck in 1930. The police consider all suspects as criminals, citizens are treated as pieces of dirt, often questioning degenerates into violence. The prosecutor plays to the Commissioner and does not bother to secure the rights of those being investigated. And the magistrate thinks it’s his duty to support the action of the prosecutor.” ~ Retired Italian Judge Edoardo Mori September, 2011

The interrogation of Amanda Knox is the key to understanding what went wrong in the Meredith Kercher murder investigation. For years the prosecution, certain tabloid hacks and blogs have tried to sow confusion about it. The obvious question people ask is: why did she name Patrick Lumumba? The answer to that is very easy to understand just by reading the transcripts of what the police and Amanda Knox said happened during the unrecorded all night questioning.

This page lays out the facts. Transcripts and documents are posted at the bottom.

See also:

Introduction

The questioning for both Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox started just after 10pm on the night of November 5, 2007. Amanda was seen by Detective Rita Ficarra in the waiting room talking to officers from the SCO around 10:30-11pm. Ficarra approached Amanda asking for the names of people who had been to the cottage or that Meredith knew and they went into a room to make a list. Amanda told them about Patrick Lumumba and a South African guy she remembered being in the downstairs apartment [Rudy Guede], but she didn’t know his name or phone number. This was at the prompting of Ficarra who’d been told the previous day by Stefano Bonassi that a guy he knew as ‘The Barron’ had recently been in his apartment and fallen asleep on the toilet. At no point was Amanda hinting the killer might be Lumumba or Guede [her alleged accomplice whose name she didn’t know] or anyone else.

At some point the police started going through Amanda’s phone and discovered a text message she sent at 8:35pm the night of the murder saying “Certo. Ci vediamo più tardi. Buona serata” [translation: Sure. See you later. Have a nice evening] and the text she was replying to had been deleted from the phones memory. That text was from Lumumba at 8:18pm saying she wasn’t needed at work. At around 12:30am an interpreter called Anna Donnino arrived. At the trial under cross-examination she admitted above all being a ‘mediator’ who had worked for the police for 22 years.

When the missing text and reply was discovered, the police thought they’d cracked the case. They interpreted “Sure. See you later. Have a nice evening” to literally mean Amanda had arranged to meet someone and she had been lying to them about her whereabouts. Whoever this Lumumba person was must be the killer and Amanda had been protecting him. It’s obvious at this point the police bullied an exhausted girl who barely spoke Italian into signing a statement that appeared to confirm their invented crime scenario of Amanda letting him into the cottage and he murdered Meredith. In the process they destroyed Amanda’s hold on reality which often happens in long, bullying interrogations that result in coerced statements. The testimony, as set out below, shows this clearly. This is why many countries now require interrogations to be recorded and insist that a lawyer is present.

It is nonsense to believe Amanda would act against her own interests and place herself at the crime scene at a time she was at Raffaele’s apartment watching the movie Amelie and seen there by Jovana Popovic. That makes absolutely no sense. There’s also no reason why Amanda would have had an emotional breakdown over an innocent text message unless the police were applying intense pressure and manipulating her.

Judge Hellmann described the interrogation like this in his motivation report:[1]

The obsessive length of the interrogations, carried out during [both] day and night, by more than one person, on a young and foreign girl who at the time did not speak Italian at all well, was unaware of her own rights, did not have the assistance of an attorney (which she should have been entitled to, being at this point suspected of very serious crimes), and was moreover being assisted by an interpreter who — as shown by Ms. Bongiorno — did not limit herself to translating, but induced her to force herself to remember, explaining that she [Amanda] was confused in her memories, perhaps because of the trauma she experienced, makes it wholly understandable that she was in a situation of considerable psychological pressure (to call it stress seems an understatement [appare riduttivo]), enough to raise doubts about the actual spontaneity of her statements; a spontaneity which would have strangely [singolarmente] arisen in the middle of the night, after hours and hours of interrogation: the so-called spontaneous statements were made at 1:45 am (middle of the night) on 11-6-2007 (the day after the interrogation had started) and again at 5:45 am afterward, and the note was written a few hours later.

The signed statements contain no ‘perpetrators knowledge’ or genuine information about the crime that only someone who was there would know. It’s remarkable reading the few short lines in the statements that the police rushed off and arrested Lumumba guns drawn rather than investigate and build evidence against him, and call him in for questioning and/or put him under surveillance. The police also seemed to have no interest in what he was wearing the of night of the murder or if she knew where his bloody clothes might be. They should have asked about this before they searched his apartment. They also failed to enquire about the murder weapon, who broke the window or ask any questions about who said what to whom before and after the murder. There’s nothing in the record to demonstrate the police tried to get even the most basic information about the crime from Amanda, though by then they’re supposed to have believed that she was there and witnessed it.

The police jumping to the wrong conclusion set off a chain reaction that led to the arrest and wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito ruining their lives, as well as the lives of their families and only compounded the grief and confusion of the victims family. Shortly after Patrick Lumumba was released he gave a paid interview to the Mail on Sunday saying the police had yelled racial epithets, beat him and threatened him with 30 years in jail if he didn’t confess.[2] This is exactly the same threat Amanda said they used against her in her third statement handed to the police on November 6. In February 2013, Lead Detective Monica Napoleoni was suspended for illegal access of the police database in order to threaten and intimidate a witness in another case.[3] The Supreme Court motivation report concerning Monica Napoleoni’s crime says this:[4]

“The ruling from the Court of Perugia concentrates on the position of Napoleoni and on the circumstances indicating her personal dangerousness”

What is Amanda Knox’s version of events?

November 6, 2007

This is an excerpt from Memoriale #1

In regards to this “confession” that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn’t remember a fact correctly. [….] However, it was under this pressure and after many hours of confusion that my mind came up with these answers. In my mind I saw Patrik in flashes of blurred images. I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming. But I’ve said this many times so as to make myself clear: these things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.

All I know is that I didn’t kill Meredith, and so I have nothing but lies to be afraid of.

November 13 & 17, 2007

Prison interceptions talking to her parents about the interrogation:

Curt Knox: I don’t think you’ve met Carlo yet.

Amanda Knox: No, I met him. We talked for about 15 minutes. He was there when he was in front of the judge and told me not to answer to anything. It was then when I discovered that the police was accusing me of helping the murder. And, I said: “Are you kidding? I have helped you! I have helped you and you scared me to death”. When I went to the police it was the worst things of my life, the worst experience of my life. A thousand times worse than any other experience of my life. I cannot explain to you how scared I was when I was in that room.

Curt Knox: Sure. Of course it was unpleasant ….

Edda Mellas: ( — )

Amanda Knox: Yes , I told him they beat me and he said: “What? They didn’t tell me that.” And I: “Well, they did.”

Edda Mellas: You just have to be careful about this because if we say … We can say that the police threatened you but if we say that you were beaten, then, technically, we have to file a complaint against the police, which at this time would only make things worse. And especially because you have no visible signs ..

Amanda Knox: I know

[…]

Amanda Knox: Yes! I was at the Police Station and was saying: “I do not think it’s right. I don’t think what is happening is right.”And they said: “No no, don’t worry. You will come to that realization”. The police acted with kindness towards me when they were taking me to jail and the following time I saw them, they accused me of participating in the murder. And I: “Wow! Justice … “. Oh, my God! They made me very sad because I was thinking of when you would arrive here, I was thinking “I could show Perugia to my mom, I know Perugia, I know what to do, I know where to go … I can introduce Raffaele to them. And now Raffaele is telling lies about me” and I feel … ” What’s going on?”. And I’m also confused by this… Raffaele … I met him a couple of weeks ago and we went out together, as a couple, for about two weeks. We went out together very often. Outside of school, I spent most of my time with him. I met a friend once when I was not with him, but I went out almost exclusively with him. And he is so sweet to me. He is kind, caring. He cooks for me, he always wants to help me, he hugs me, he’s always very nice.

[….]

Amanda Knox: Yes. The only reason why I said the other things is that I was confused, I was seriously terrified.

Edda Mellas: And they told you that he changed the story again?

Amanda Knox: He hasn’t changed the story. But it’s probably because they were doing the very same thing to him as well.

Edda Mellas: He must …

Amanda Knox: He has to tell the truth. Because if he tells the truth, I will be free. I mean, I don’t think I would be free. Even if we were to return to the original version, I believe they would still keep us here.

[….]

Mother: I believe basically they’re creating a big story saying they have some things instead now it comes out they don’t have anything.

Father: We have to think that there’s someone out there … and they are trying to… basically… to save the city’s image.

Amanda: They’d save the city’s image by getting the real murderer.

Father: Right!

Amanda: They were so delighted when… I don’t know, they were kissing each other, jumping with joy, and I was saying: “I don’t know…”

Mother: As the lawyers said, we can defend ourselves easily.

Amanda: Yes, indeed. I mean, I didn’t have a lawyer with me there (—).

Mother: But did you ask for a lawyer in that situation?

Amanda: No. Because I didn’t know I was suspected. They asked me questions and I responded to the questions. Then they said to me “No, you are a liar!” and me “What?”

Mother: Probably in that moment you should have asked for a lawyer!

Father: Eh, eh.

Amanda: Then a lady asked me if I wanted a lawyer. I said yes and she started to laugh, because I wanted a lawyer there. And me … “Ok”

December 17, 2007 

This is a short version (less than a minute) from the interrogation by Giuliano Mignini at Capanne prison.

October 18, 2008

Longer version audio from the pre-trial

Interrogation Myths

1. “Knox’s interrogation was at most two hours long, but realistically less than an hour, from 12:30 am to 1:30 am.”

Witness: Lead Investigator Edgardo Giobbi – Director Servizio Centrale Operativo

Defense (Del Grosso): I wanted to know if you were aware of the amount of time Amanda Knox spent in the Police Station from the 2nd to the 6th which was the date of the arrest.

Answer: You’re asking for the total time, can you be more precise?

Defense (Del Grosso): Was she called every day, did she spend a few hours each day there?

Answer: She did at least 3 or 4 witness questionings.

Defense (Del Grosso): For how long each time do you remember?

Answer: It depended on the information we needed to acquire. I don’t have a chronometer, I don’t go round with a chronometer.

Defense (Del Grosso): the question was if you know.

Answer: The longest was the last one.

Defense (Del Grosso p 206): Do you remember how long she was heard as a witness on the night between the 5th and the 6th?

Answer: If the lawyer said before that the Prosecutor arrived at 5:45 let’s say the end was at 5 [am] or a bit earlier, because obviously I had advised him to come here, to come to the Police Station, and the start will have been after 10 [pm] however on the times I can tell you that I haven’t memorized the court records.

Defense (Del Grosso): no, given that it’s not present in the court records, you have said, you have used the term of ordinary operations, now this operation, in the moment in which you suspend the record shouldn’t it have lead to the invitation to nominate a lawyer in respect of …

Answer: I called the Prosecutor to share with him this matter.

~Transcript May 29, 2009 (page 205-206)

2. “How Many Officers? Just Two. There are claims that Knox was intimidated by a large group of police officers who participated in the interrogation. According to Amanda’s own words these are also untrue, as only one female officer, and the interpreter, were present.”

Two officers were present for the signing of the statement but for the questioning Detective Lorena Zugarini testified there was various SCO officers. If you assume various means 2-3 including Ivano Raffo [SCO Rome] who never testified + Lorena Zugarini + Rita Ficarra + Anna Donnino that’s 5-6 officers plus head of homicide Monica Napoleoni coming and going. See testimony below.

3. “Amanda named Lumumba because Raffaele Sollecito dropped her alibi”

According to Amanda she was told Raffaele had dropped her alibi which confused her even more but according to the detectives and ‘mediator’, Anna Donnino, she wasn’t told at all and it played no part in what happened that night. There’s nothing in the testimony indicating what time that happened at either. Also the Italian Supreme Court ruling of 2013 makes no mention of an alibi being dropped as the reason for naming Lumumba.

Witness: Detective Lorena Zugarini

Question: Something of the sort. He no longer gives a big [sic] alibi; he removes the alibi, I don’t know: the operations concerning the little message found in Amanda’s telephone, did these occur after this communication?

Lorena Zugarini: Anyhow I tell you that when the Deputy Commissioner, or whoever entered inside that room on her behalf, it’s not that they spoke in front of Amanda, so Amanda could not hear the content of our discussions. After which, I honestly, I believe that the message was shown to Amanda after the presence of Deputy Commissioner Napoleoni or someone on her behalf.

~Transcript February 28, 2009

Witness: ‘mediator’ Anna Donnino

Ghirga: Do you remember if anyone originating from the room where Sollecito’s interview was in progress came into your room, where Amanda’s interview was in progress, and said, saying that Sollecito in some way, quote-unquote, had dropped Amanda’s alibi or some wording of the sort?

Anna Donnino: Let’s say that I saw it, I remember that Inspector Ficcara exited…

Ghirga: No I’m asking if anyone…

Anna Donnino: If anyone had come in then, no, no.

Judge Massei: So you remember Inspector Ficcara had left…

Anna Donnino: I remember Inspector Ficcara had left.

Judge Massei: But no-one who came in nor in particular if coming in said this?

Anna Donnino: Absolutely not.

~Transcript March 13, 2009

The Italian Supreme Court 

https://chieffireport.wordpress.com/conviction-of-knox-of-the-crime-of-calumny-2/

The coinciding assessments on this single point can be attributed to the solidity of the documentary evidence, given that the accused was “captured” [incartata, lit. “wrapped”] in the note of 11-6-2007, in which Knox wrote of “seeing Patrick as the murderer”, and in the transcript of the spontaneous statements given – albeit in the middle of the night – by the accused a few hours earlier, in which she implicated Lumumba as the perpetrator of the murder. This clearly occurred after Knox denied responding to the message sent to her by Lumumba, in which he told her that her services were not necessary in his bar that evening; so that when the contrary was demonstrated to her, she had an emotional collapse and formulated the false accusation.

4. “Amanda had no sympathy for Lumumba and what happened to him.”

November 10, 2007: From the prison conversations, Amanda clearly told her mother she felt awful about what had happened.

Amanda: And so it is not true. I said that only because I thought it could be true, because I imagined it. I did not say it to protect myself; and I feel horrible for this. Because I put Patrick in this horrible situation, he is framed in prison now, and it is my fault. It is my fault that he is here. I feel horrible. I did not want to do this. I just was frightened and confused, but now I’m not.

Edda: Ok, ok.

~ Galati/Costagliola Appeal page 101-102

The Facts

1. Amanda Knox was showing signs of fatigue and exhaustion leading into the interrogation.

Witness: Interpreter Aida Colantone – 4.00pm November 4, 2007

At a certain moment, I don’t know if I had gone away for a moment to speak with someone from the Flying Squad or something, in passing that room, returning to this room where I remember [Amanda] was alone, it was only her, and I was practically…I understood that this girl was truly fatigued, exhausted, she was tired because I practically found her, she was draped on a seat with her head reclined toward the wall, white in the face, with her eyes closed, white, I was very struck by her pallor and I understood that this girl was in bad shape.

~Transcript March 13, 2007 (page 88-89)

Wiretap: Amanda Knox talking to Annie Fuller – 6:19 pm November 5, 2007

Amanda: I spent all day at the Questura.

Interlocutor: For heaven’s sake! How did they treat you?

Amanda: Yesterday was very difficult, because when I went to the Questura they asked me some questions and when I responded they told me: “Are you lying? Are you sure that you’re not lying? Because if you’re lying you’ll get into trouble”. So, they took me to the house again and they wanted me to examine all the knives to see if any were missing. And just the fact of being in the house scared me to death, not to mention the fact of having to look through the knives.

~Carlo Pacelli closing arguments November 26, 2013 (page 188)

Witness: Detective Rita Ficarra – Around 11 pm, November 5, 2007

FICARRA: In Italian. I repeat that she speaks Italian. She only spoke Italian with me. I don’t understand a word of English, so… My colleagues confirmed that Sollecito was in another room and in that moment the substitute commissioner Napoleoni and other colleagues were hearing him. The girl continued to talk and said that she was fed up with the fact that she was recalled multiple times by the police and that she was simply tired. At that point I reprimanded her again because I said, “You’re tired, but you came tonight, and no one invited you here. You could have been resting.” Furthermore – I said – “you don’t understand that we’re talking about a murder, of a person who you say was your friend. You lived in the same house. It happened in your house. If the police calls you, put yourself in our shoes. We need useful information.”

~Transcript February 28, 2009

2. Amanda had been with the Police for 53.5 hours by the time she wrote her third statement on November 6.

Times and dates totaling 53.5 hours are taken from the 2010 Knox appeal document. The end time is based on the third statement [Memoriale #1] because that’s the one the prosecution was allowed to use for the murder charge. The Italian Supreme Court ruled the 1:45am and 5:45am statements inadmissible for Charge A. The 5:45 am statement could be used as evidence for Charge F – The Calunnia only.

Amanda Knox è stata sottoposta ad esame ed attività investigative e tra il 2 e il 6 novembre 2007, fino al momento del fermo, ha fornito sommarie informazioni e risposto a domande della A.G. come segue:

2 novembre 2007, ore 15.30 VENERDI’: totale ore ………….. 12,00

Verbale di sommarie informazioni della Knox, senza indicazione della chiusura. Testimoni fino alle 3.00 am del 3 novembre 2007

3 novembre 2007, ore 14.45 SABATO totale ore ……………… 8,00

Verbale di sommarie informazioni della Knox, senza indicazione della chiusura. Testimoni indicano fino alle 22,00.

4 novembre 2007, ore 14.45 DOMENICA: totale ore …………. 12,00

Verbale di sommarie informazioni della Knox, ed accesso alla villetta di Via della Pergola dalle ore 14.45 alle ore 21. Telefonata di Amanda alla zia dice 5 ore di interrogatorio in questura

5/6 novembre 2007, ore 01.45 LUNEDI’/MARTEDI’: totale ore ……..5,00

Verbale di sommarie informazioni della Knox inizio alle ore 22.00 del 5 novembre 2009.

6 novembre 2007, ore 05.45 MARTEDI’: totale ore ……………….3,45

Verbale di “spontanee dichiarazioni” della Knox con successivo breve memoriale. Dalle ore 1,45 alle 5,45 e memoriale alle ore 14,00.

In 5 giorni la Knox è stata sentita per un totale di circa 53,45 h. Per chiarezza di esposizione si riassume la tempistica delle indagini nei confronti della Knox relativa ai cruciali giorni 5, 6 novembre 2007:

Total: 53.45 hours

3. Lead Investigator Edgardo Giobbi and Chief Superintendent Giacinto Profazio monitored the interrogations from the ‘control room’.

The significance of this is we’re suppose to believe the interrogation wasn’t recorded yet they were watching it from another room, presumably via video and audio.

Ghirga: I remember that when Amanda was taken for the interrogation by others, you were in the control room with Profazio?

Giobbi: I was with Profazio in the control room the evening of the arrests.

Ghirga: So you weren’t present in the moment of the interrogation.

Giobbi: This being the evening?

Ghirga: No, here we have arrived at 5 in the evening, when you called both of them for investigative strategy

Giobbi: 5 in the evening

Ghirga: So you weren’t present when Amanda was interrogated?

Giobbi: No

~Transcript May 29, 2009 (page 201)

4. Edgardo Giobbi said he ordered them both in.

Note – This is a huge contradiction to the testimony of the other police and Amanda Knox herself who all said that only Raffaele was called in for questioning and she accompanied him. It was never clarified at the trials why he said this. [He was possibly showing off wanting to take credit for the arrests]

Answer: I gave direct orders to the investigators to bring them in, look I remember it really well, because it was the first time that we carried out a kind of, to do two witness questionings at the same time and I said to go and bring them in, I believe they were in a Pizza restaurant. I can tell you with mathematical certainty I remember perfectly to have arranged for this investigative strategy.

~Transcript May 29, 2009 (page 201)

5. Before anything had happened, Detective Rita Ficarra wanted the names of people Meredith knew or had visited the cottage.

Amanda told her Patrick Lumumba, Shaky, Ardak, Juve, PJ and Spyros. Ficarra asked her about a guy who had been in the downstairs apartment called “The Baron” aka Rudy Guede, but she didn’t know his name or number. At no point did she try to hint the killer was Lumumba or anyone else. Rita Ficarra recorded the names in a memo dated November 6, 2007. [See documents below]

Witness: Detective Rita Ficarra

Ficarra: Yes, to understand, as she told me things that I was not quick enough to write therefore I had necessarily written them later in a note. I’m coming to this to say that, on that evening, therefore, she understood my intentions and said to me: “Ok, I will tell you the names of other persons”. I invited her myself to look at her mobile phone, at the phone contacts list. I said: “Bring someone to your mind, remember someone”. It’s not possible that no one ever entered this house, or only two people. Tell me who might have known her.

So she ran through her contacts list and started to look at a series of numbers, then she remembered and said to me, “Look, it’s comes back, there were another four or five people that I know who knew her, some of these actually came to the house, some of them I brought in myself”. She gave me the references of telephone numbers and for some she also gave me other references of the area where he might live. In particular of Patrick Lumumba, she gave me the particulars of where, of the area where he might live.

[….]

Del Grosso: Why then did you say earlier that you referred to Rudy and it was on your own initiative to ask Amanda to talk about Rudy?

Ficarra:: To remember something about that subject. I asked her if she knew his name, because we didn’t have him identified yet in that moment. We didn’t know who he was. I knew he called himself the Baron by the downstairs boys, but we didn’t know his identity.

Del Grosso: Did Amanda know the Baron?

Ficarra: No. Amanda didn’t give us any indication. She said she simply didn’t remember.

~Transcript February 28, 2009

6. The trigger that sent everything pear shaped was the missing text and Amanda’s reply to Lumumba “Certo. Ci vediamo più tardi. Buona serata”. They accused her [mistakenly] of lying about where she was that night.

Witness: ‘mediator’ Anna Donnino

CDV Knox Defense: But the reference to the message how did it come about? What was the first question? Who brought out the message?

Anna Donnino: Because she was asked how come she had not gone to work that night.

CDV Knox Defense: And so?

Anna Donnino: And it came out that she had received a message from her employer who in fact told her that she did not have to go to work and everything snowballed from here.

[….]

Anna Donnino: I can tell you straight away because I remember it distinctly, she said she hadn’t replied to the message. Once though the message was shown to her obviously that was a plain lie!

~Transcript March 13, 2009

Witness: Detective Rita Ficarra

Ghirga: And your colleagues came from the other room?

Ficarra: Yes. From the office in which they were hearing Sollecito.

Ghirga:  You asked Amanda what she did that night. Is that right?

Ficarra: Exactly. Yes, yes.

Ghirga: So you take Amanda’s cell phone, or she gives it to you spontaneously. Could you specify if she give it…

Ficarra: She was asked to show her cell phone for verification and she gave it to us spontaneously, and with her, near her we started going through it…

[….]

FICARRA: Yes. Certainly. See you later. Good evening. (Certo. Ci vediamo più tardi. Buona serata). It was the only message of that evening, and we asked who this Patrick was, and this seemed to us an appointment, see you later, certainly, in response to another message. We did not find any messages received around that time, so we did not find the message to which she was responding. We found only that one sent by her. She, in the moment in which was, she was given the mobile into her hand, so it was said who is this person, so did you go out later or not, she said the name of Patrick Lumumba and gave the declaration that then …

FICARRA: We asked her what this message meant, because at seeing the message, it was a message of response to another, because otherwise you wouldn’t write certainly, would you? What was the tone of the message, if that meant she had an appointment, if then she left after receiving the message or remained at home, other than explain who was Patrick and confirm who he was.

~Transcript February 28, 2009

Witness: Detective Lorena Zugarini

Lorena Zugarini: Yes, there was Monica Napoleoni who every so often came there to see how it was going, and then told us that Raffaele Sollecito was not longer giving the big alibi as far as Amanda Knox was concerned.

Question: And the operation regarding the SMS message of which you spoke, came about after this information, shall we say, let’s call it information, communication.

Lorena Zugarini: I believe so, yes.

Lorena Zugarini: Well, so, Amanda Knox, she still had her cellphone with her because there was no reason to take it from her. Amanda Knox handed her cellphone to a colleague from the SCO, after she had said that she will write down the names with the telephone number] of the people who probably could have known Meredith Kercher to.

Question: So she handed over the cellphone to the individual from the SCO. Who was that person? Do you remember?

Lorena Zugarini: I don’t remember because there were various colleagues from the SCO around.

Question: So what did the person from the SCO do?

Lorena Zugarini: He took the cellphone and went out for a moment. I don’t know where he went because I remained inside the room. Shortly afterwards, he came back, and together with Amanda Knox, Rita Ficarra and a colleague from the SCO they started to scroll through the messages and they asked her , this one, who is it, this other one, who is it, and Amanda Knox was answering.

[….]

Question: She was shown the copy of the message taken from the cellphone?

Lorena Zugarini: The SMS on Amanda Knox’s cellphone.

Question: And then?

Lorena Zugarini: Yes, she was asked for explanations regarding the text, certainly, see you later, good evening [Certo, ci vediamo più tardi, buona serata]. We asked her who Patrick was. In that moment Amanda shed tears, whether she was crying sincerely, honestly, I don’t know, however she shed tears

~Transcript February 28, 2009

7. The police leapt to the wrong conclusion about what the text meant.

The Text: Certo. Ci vediamo più tardi. Buona serata.

Translation: ‘Sure. See you later. Have a nice evening!

To the police it meant literally “See you later” or “We’ll see each other after”. We know that’s what it meant to them because they altered the reply and it’s meaning in the declaration of arrest signed by Giuliano Mignini on November 6, 2007.

A text message was found to have been sent at 8:35PM of November 1st by KNOX’s number 3484673590 to 3387195723, that of her co-defendant Patrick, in which she wrote “Ci vediamo dopo” [“See you later” or lit: “We’ll see each other after”] thus confirming that in the following hours KNOX would find herself with Patrick in the apartment where the victim was.

~Decree for Arrest November 6, 2007

And that’s what Detective Rita Ficarra said it meant to her:

FICARRA: “Certo. Ci vediamo più tardi. Buona serata”. It was the only message from that night and we asked who was this Patrick. This seemed to us an appointment, we’ll see each other later, sure, in response to the other. We didn’t find messages received at that time, so we didn’t find the message that she was responding to. We only found the one sent by her. In that moment we gave her the phone in hand and we asked her who was this person, so she left later on or not? She gave the name Patrick Lumumba and gave the deposition that then…

~Transcript February 28, 2009

8. There was screams coming from the interrogation room.

Witness: Lead Investigator Edgardo Giobbi – Director Servizio Centrale Operativo

Edgardo Giobbi: The behaviours I have outlined, Mr Sollecito was let’s say in my opinion, because I was not present, as I’ve said earlier, I was a kind of an intermediate coordinator, that is, Profazio and I who were the ones who actually directed the investigation acquired updates from the operators and investigators that physically were doing the interrogations, however I have to say Amanda’s screams can be heard in the corridor of the Police Station even if the room is closed, Mr. Sollecito did not have the same behaviour, a behaviour much more elegant and calm.

~Transcript May 29, 2009 (page 191)

9. The so called interpreter, Anna Donnino, was a ‘mediator’ who had worked for the Perugia Police for 22 years.

Witness: Anna Donnino

Question: What work do you do?
Anna Donnino: I am the translation/interpretation reviser at the Perugia Police Station.
Question: For how long?
Anna Donnino: For more than 22 years.

Defence (Bongiorno): Still in cross-examination in the ambit of that night which has been discussed up until now. You have mentioned replying to my colleagues that you had spoken to Amanda about the fact that you have daughters, that you were woken at night etc to create a humane rapport. I ask you the reasons why for which your role was mere interpreter, therefore to translate, it was necessary to create a human rapport.

Anna Donnino: It was necessary Counsel, yes, because it is a thing that I do habitually and it is a fundamental thing because it also establishes a relationship of trust with the [168] person who one has next to one. I above all am a mediator, so I am not, as you say, a simple executor and a little machine that translates words. Beside me I have a person who however finds herself in the middle of people that do not speak her language, I am her channel and I feel a duty to establish a rapport that goes a little bit beyond the exquisitely technical thing. I do it habitually with everybody, I didn’t do it only that night, I do it all the time.

Question: I ask only what does “I’m a mediator” mean? Your role mustn’t be, at the moment when a formal statement is being done, with questions and answers, a mere translator or you… that is, define mediator better for me.

Answer: Being a mediator means that however I am able to also, by means of personal conversation. So I also make this my duty and carry them out.

Question: So in the ambit of your role in which you were mediator you then considered it worthwhile to recount to Amanda even your personal experience relating to the leg fracture etc.

Anna Donnino: Yes.

~Transcript March 13, 2009

10. Anna Donnino translated 600 letters of Amanda Knox but didn’t write down a single question during the interrogation.

Defence Ghirga: A question about the letters, but you translated these 600 letters, Dr Colantone translated them, you translated them… translated, looked at, made a précis of because first it seemed to be an activity of the prior witness, now it seems to be by your activity. This 600-letter correspondence, it’s not a fundamental question, did you do it together, dividing the work?

Answer: There are four of us interpreters at the Station and all of us worked, we all collaborated regarding this case and generally we team-work in the sense that we distribute the work, we check on the proceedings, so all of us know everything and also regarding these letters an analogous thing was done.

Question: If I show you Amanda’s 1:45 summary informations from the 6th, but I say to you there aren’t any questions, and I ask you: how come not one question was noted on the part of… not even the acronym ADR [“replies as follows”], nothing?

Answer: This I don’t…

Question: You’ve said that there were questions, you translated them, there’s not even one.

Answer: If there aren’t… [165]

President: Counsel is asking how come none of the questions were reported and not even the ADR?

Answer: I don’t know about this.

Documents

Description Document Description Document
Nov 6, 2007: Statement signed at 1:45 AM English – Italian Testimony: Interpreter Anna Donnino English – Italian
Nov 6, 2007: Statement signed at 5:45 AM English – Italian Testimony: Interpreter Aida Colatone Italian
Nov 6, 2007: Recanting the interrogation statement of Nov 6 Memoriale #1 Testimony: Detective Lorena Zugarini Italian
Nov 6, 2007: Declaration of Arrest English – Italian Nov 6, 2007: Rita Ficarra Memo November English – Italian
Nov 7, 2007: Recanting the interrogation statement of Nov 6 Memoriale #2 Times and dates Knox spent with police – Appeal doc Italian
Testimony: Lead Investigator Edgardo Giobbi Italian Carlo Pacelli Closing Arguments Italian
Testimony: Detective Rita Ficarra English – Italian Nov 2007: Amanda Knox prison interceptions English

References:

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