The Interrogation of Amanda Knox

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

References: