Knox Appeal: Guede & Two Other Inmates Provide Shocking Testimony

Today’s courtroom proceedings lived up to the hype, and once again provided a shocking new twist. Three more inmates took the stand today—one of them was Ivory Coast drifter, Rudy Guede, who has been convicted along with Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Guede was called as a witness to deny the story of convict, Mario Alessi, who told the last hearing that Guede had told him that Knox and Sollecito were not involved. Guede entered the courtroom in handcuffs and sat 15ft. away from Knox and Sollecito.


Guede denied that he had said Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were not involved in the killing, and he read aloud the letter that he had written back in 2010. In the letter, Guede also denied the claims of Alessi, writing that (convicted child killer) Alessi’s claims were “the ravings of a sick and twisted mind, his ravings are the dreamed-up, untrue declarations of a monster.” Guede ended the letter by writing that the murder was “…a horrible homicide of a splendid young girl, Meredith Kercher, by Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.”

Defense lawyers said they did not know of the existence of the letter from the spring of 2010 before it was read in court today. This is quite shocking because it was something that I and TJMK had reported last week (TJMK has also posted this letter about a year ago as well). How could such high-profile defense teams not have known of this evidence?

Under cross-examination, Guede said he had written what he always believed. “The truth is what I wrote in that letter,” Guede said, but it “is not up to me to say who the killer was.”


Throughout Guede’s testimony today he was eyeballed by Knox and Sollecito. At one point Knox tried to interrupt his testimony and make a statement; but Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman said she would have to wait until Guede was done and had left the courtroom. Judge Hellman denied Knox the right to confront Guede directly. He said that she would have to wait until Guede was done and had left the courtroom.

After Guede had been escorted out of the courtroom, Knox stood up and made a spontaneous statement in Italian. “I am shocked and anguished by these declarations....he knows we weren’t there,” she told the court. “He knows we had nothing to do with it,” Knox said. “The only time that Rudy Guede, Raffaele Sollecito and I were in one room together was in a court room...He knows what the truth is. I don’t know what happened that night,” she added.

Sollecito stood next and addressed the court. “I've never seen him, don't know him...don’t know how he indicates me with Amanda Knox,” asserted Sollecito. He said that he and Knox have been fighting “these shadows” for four years. “[Guede] has destroyed our lives," Sollecito said and asked, “What position am I meant to defend if this boy doesn't answer (questions)?”


Each hearing thus far has had moments of the bizarre and surreal. Today, this would be provided by the testimony of two other Inmates—Alexander Illicet and Cosimo Zaccari—called as witnesses for the prosecution. Both inmates claimed that, while in prison, they overheard other inmates speaking of a plot among to testify in exchange for money and benefits; those other inmates, they claim, were the ones who came forward to testify at the last hearing. The person they heard was arranging things, they said, was Sollecito’s attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, who heads up Italy's parliamentary justice committee.

Inmate Alexander Illicet from Serbia Montenegro said Luciano Aviello had agreed to pin the murder on his brother “in exchange for 158,000 Euros—money Aviello desperately needed to pay for a sex change he had been wanting.”

Inmate Cosimo Zaccari—who is in jail for fraud, libel, criminal conspiracy and receiving stolen goods—said Aviello had confided that he was “contacted to create confusion in the trial.” Zaccari testified that Aviello told him he had been offered €70,000 ($62,400) by Giulia Bongiorno.

When asked about these accusations by reporters after the session, Bongiorno adamantly denied them, vowing to take legal action against her accusers. Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, called the statements of the two inmates, “extremely credible.” Bongiorno responded by saying, “We are beyond the realms of the reasonable,” adding, “Not even the prosecutors appear to believe this story and I will be reporting this libel.”

On June 30, the forensic experts will submit a report to the court detailing their examination, and they will testify to these findings at the next hearing, which is scheduled for July 25. Closing arguments should begin in early September, with a verdict expected in October.

A Future Projection of Rudy Guede’s Highly Anticipated Testimony on 6/27/11

(Click HERE for all details on Monday's hearing)

The presiding judge in the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito appeals trial, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman, has order Rudy Guede to testify on 27 June 2011. Judge Hellman ordered Guede’s testimony in response to the testimony of Mario Alessi at the last hearing. On the stand, Alessi told the court that Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito are innocent, when they allegedly spoke in a prison conversation back in November 2009.

Guede was sentenced to 30 years for his role in the murder of Meredith Kercher, and he took the stand at Knox and Sollecito’s original trial, but refused to testify, as his appeal was still pending. Subsequently, Guede’s sentence was reduced to 16 years upon appeal and Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation upheld the verdict. So, since Guede no longer faces any further legal implications from any future statements, what will he say in his upcoming testimony?

It is clear that Guede was angered by Alessi’s statements, misquoting his involvement, if a conversation of this nature ever took place to begin with. Nonetheless, in a letter written by Guede on 3 July 2010—in response to Alessi’s claims—he wrote:

“It must be said that all I have heard in recent days in the media, about what has been falsely stated by this foul being by the name of Mario Alessi, whose conscience is nothing but stinking garbage, are purely and simply the ravings of a sick and twisted mind, his ravings are the dreamed-up, untrue declarations of a monster who sullied himself with a frightful murder in which he took the life of an angelic little human being…[Alessi] is telling lies about things that I never said to him…”

Guede closed the letter by writing:

“And finally I wish that sooner or later the judges will recognize my complete non-involvement in what was the horrible murder of the splendid, magnificent girl who was Meredith Kercher, by Raffaelle Sollecito and Amanda Knox.”

Back in 2009, Amanda Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas, claimed—on the Larry King Live Show—that:

“when he [Guede] was on the run and police were secretly wiretapping him, and he was talking to a friend of his, the friend said, ‘you know, they think Amanda was there,’ and he goes, ‘oh, I know who Amanda is and she was absolutely not there’” (Minute 3:28).

But this is a clearly false statement by Mellas, one of several she has made throughout this process. There were two calls made by Guede, both via Skype, which were recorded by police while he was on the run. In the first conversation, Guede claimed that he “wasn’t even there” at the cottage on the night of the murder. In the second conversation, Guede was reading a newspaper excerpt regarding the murder, which mentioned a rumor that Meredith’s clothes were put in the washing machine after she was murdered. In response to this, Guede says to his friend, “so if that really did happen, Amanda or Raffaele did it. Do you understand? That must have been them, if it really happened.” Guede explains to his friend that Meredith was “dressed” when he last saw her; “she had a pair of jeans on and a white shirt and a woolen thing.”


The calling of Alessi to the stand by the defense may have backfired on them in a major way. Now, Guede will take the stand, and there is a possibility that his unbridled testimony will be requested by Judge Hellman (i.e. his testimony on all facets of the story, not just a rebuttal to Alessi's accusations). This could spell disaster for the two defendants; however, it is very likely that if Guede sways from his original version, he may not be seen as a credible witness.

Out of the three suspects in the case—Knox, Guede, and Sollecito—Guede has told the most credible version of events. This is not to say that his version is credible, by any stretch of the imagination; but compared to Knox and Sollecito’s many versions, Guede’s comes off sounding the best, in my opinion. So, the question remains: what will Guede say on the stand come Monday?

Guede’s Version:

Aside from the one Skype conversation that Guede had with a friend, which was recorded by police (detailed above as the “first” conversation), Guede has always maintained the same story. In a nutshell, Guede has said that he had met Meredith on a few occasions prior to Halloween. According to Guede, it was on Halloween night that he and Meredith planned to meet up the next night at the cottage. Once there, Guede claims that he and Meredith got to talking and fooled around a bit. Guede claims that they both wanted to have sex, but had no condoms, so he resisted.

Also, Guede said that Meredith had been upset at some point when she checked her underwear drawer—where she normally hid her money—and found that her money had been missing, and she suspected that Amanda may have taken it. According to Guede, Meredith shouted, “The money is gone! The money is gone! When Amanda comes back, I have to talk to her.” Guede said that Meredith informed him that she and Amanda had been quarrelling a lot about issues that she had with Amanda.


Guede then said that he went to the bathroom for about five-minutes or so. In that time he claims that he heard the doorbell ring and then minutes later he heard a “really loud scream” (all while he was listening to music on his iPod). Guede then asserted that he got worried and rushed out of the bathroom to see what the fuss was, not even pulling his pants up all the way in his haste. When he got closer to Meredith’s room he saw a man, but didn’t get a good look at him because it was so dark.

Guede could tell that the man was Italian because he didn’t have an accent. Guede explained that he and the man wrestled a bit before the man fled, screaming, “Black man found guilty!” He tried to save her, but she was bleeding very badly. Fearing that the police would not believe his story and think that he did it, Guede fled into the night, leaving poor Meredith Kercher to drown in her own blood.

Prediction:

Guede will likely stick to this story, if he will even have a chance to get to it, or he risks losing credibility. This may all be premature, however, as the judge may only allow the avvocatos (lawyers) to question Guede in regard to Alessi’s testimony. It is unlikely that Judge Hellman will allow the testimony at length, but if he does; this might be a very big turning point in the outcome of this trial.


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Knox Appeal: Inmates Testify “Knox is Innocence”

Just as expected, five inmates testified to in an Italian court that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are innocent, to the best of their knowledge. According to Barbie Latza Nadeau, (author of the Beast Book Angel Face), security was tight in Perugia today, as a string of blue prison vans pulled into the back parking lot of the central courthouse carrying some of Italy’s most notorious convicts.

First to the stand was Mario Alessi, who is serving a life sentence in Italy for kidnapping and killing 17-month old, Tommaso Onofri, in 2006, called by Sollecito’s defense team. Almost immediately after taking the stand, Alessi turned pale, became ill, and had to step down. After nearly an hour he finally returned to tell his story.

Alessi, who is being held in the same prison as Rudy Guede, testified that the Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito are innocent, speaking in prison conversations in November 2009, a month before the Knox and Sollecito were convicted. Alessi said Guede approached him during recreation time at the Viterbo prison. “Rudy links arms with me, inviting me to take a walk with him, he has something important to tell me,” Alessi told the court. He quoted Guede as saying he was worried because “I don’t know whether to tell the truth or not,” and that the truth “is altogether different from what you hear on TV.”


Alessi then testified that Guede said he and a friend went over the house with the intent of having three-way sex with Meredith Kercher. When she refused, the scene turned violent. Alessi said Guede told him he had gone to the bathroom and upon coming back he had seen his friend holding Kercher to the ground. Eventually, “a knife appeared, almost out of nowhere,” Alessi said, quoting Guede as saying that it was pointed at Kercher’s throat. Kercher began fighting, according to Alessi, and her throat slit got slit in the process. Guede tried to rescue her, Alessi said, but his friend stopped him.

Alessi testified that…

"Guede asked me what benefits he would get if he told the truth. He then said that he had met Meredith in a bar with some friends of his – one was called The Fat One. He said that one had got drunk and that he had followed Meredith home to see where she lived. A few days later he said he and this drunk friend went back to the house to see Meredith. They asked her if she would like to have a threesome and she had told them to leave."

"Rudy said he then went to the bathroom and that when he came back the scene was very different. He said that Meredith was on the floor, back down, and that his friend was holding her down by the arms. He said that they swapped positions. Rudy then told me that he had put a small ivory handled knife to her throat and that it had cut her and his hands were full of blood. He said that his friend had said: ‘We need to finish her off or we will rot in jail.’”

Note: The bold statement above is a huge inconsistency, because, by all accounts (Knox as well as others who lived in the cottage), Guede already knew where Meredith was living—he had been to the cottage twice before that. According to Alessi, Guede did not reveal the identity of his alleged accomplice. Alessi said he and Guede had developed a friendship in prison but eventually Alessi broke it off as he realized that Guede “said two innocent people were in jail” but did nothing about it. Alessi then contacted the lawyers representing Sollecito. Of course, being the humanitarian that he is, Alessi claims that he tried to convince Guede to “tell the truth.” Upon cross-examination, Kercher family lawyer Francesco Maresca held up a photo of the child Alessi murdered (Tommaso Onofri) and asked him, “Do you know who this is?” “No,” Alessi replied, looking away.

Three more fellow Viterbo prison inmates were called to back up Alessi’s story, including police informant Marco Castelluccio, who took the stand behind a blue cover, guards around him. Castelluccio said he heard the story about Knox and Sollecito’s innocent mostly from Alessi. He said on one occasion, however, he heard Guede say from a separate cell that Knox and Sollecito were innocent.


Another inmate, Luciano Aviello [42]—who served 17 years in jail after being convicted of being a member of the Naples-based Camorra—testified today claiming that his brother Antonio and his colleague had killed Meredith while attempting to steal a “valuable painting.” Aviello said that the Albanian—who offered him “work” in the form of a robbery—had inadvertently jotted down the wrong address, and they instead went to the house where Kercher and Knox were living, and they were surprised by Meredith’s appearance. According to Aviello, his brother and the Albanian man then committed the murder and fled.

Aviello (pictured above as a teenager) is from Naples, but was living in Perugia at the time of the murder. He claims that his brother, who is currently on the run, was staying with him in late 2007 and that on the night of the murder he returned home with an injury to his right arm and his jacket covered in blood. Flanked by two prison guards, Aviello described how his brother had entered the house Meredith shared with Knox and had been looking for the painting when they were disturbed by a woman “wearing a dressing gown.” So many convicts, which one to believe, if any?

“My brother told me that he had put his hand to her mouth but she had struggled,” Aviello testified. “He said he got the knife and stabbed her before they had run off. He said he had also smashed a window to simulate a break in.” Aviello said his brother had hidden the knife, along with a set of keys his brother had used to enter the house. “Inside me I know that a miscarriage of justice has taken place,” he asserted. Consequently, Aviello had been in the same jail as Sollecito and had told him: “I believe in your innocence.”


Knox's lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, visited Aviello in Ivrea prison near Turin back in May 2010 and videotaped his statement and included it in their appeal request. Under cross examination from the prosecution it emerged that Aviello had also been convicted seven times of defamation to which he angrily replied: "That's because all of you, the judiciary are a clan.” As Aviello testified, Knox—dressed in an ankle length floral pattern white dress and blue top—listened intently, occasionally making notes or discussing points with her lawyer.

Rudy Guede will now get a chance to rebut all of the above at the next appeal hearing on 27 June 2011. Will he drop the bomb on both defense teams?

This may be the worst-case scenario that the pussyfooting Knox and Sollecito defenses tried to avoid for three years. Did they realize?

Oh yes, it’s true! Judge Hellman has ordered Guede’s testimony to counter that of Mario Alessi. Guede will be heard alongside two fellow-detainees and two Perugia officers. June is shaping up to be a real “scorcher” in this appeals trial. Guede had refused to speak on the stand in the original trial of Knox and Sollecito, because his appeal was still ongoing. Now, with Guede’s final appeal completed with Italy’s Court of Cassation; a real surprise could be in store.

Today's hearing, if nothing else, proves that both defense teams have abandoned the lone wolf theory--or they are at least willing to strongly entertain the idea that more than one person committed the murder. Not a good sign for either defense team, because it sends a confusing message that they are not committed to their earlier theory: that Guede was the sole assailant (7th paragraph).

Stay tuned here for continuing coverage...

Also posted on TrueJustice.org

Knox Appeal: More Defense Dilly-Dallying

The wheels of justice are again moving slowly, as the appeals of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito resume with little progress. Today the defense expressed optimism outside the courtroom that a drug charge conviction of a “key prosecution witness” Antonio Curatolo, 53, might help Knox in her appeal. One of Knox’s lawyers, Luciano Ghirga, told The Associated Press in Rome that Curatolo, a homeless man in the university town of Perugia, wasn't a credible witness.

In the first trial Curatolo testified that he spent most of his time around Corso Garibaldi (the street where Sollecito lived) and Piazza Grimana (the piazza in front of the School for Foreigners where the basketball court is located). On the night of the murder he told the court that he witnessed Knox and Sollecito in the park several times that night (between 9:30p.m., and midnight), which contradicted their statements—that they spent the entire night at Sollecito’s flat. Although homeless, Curatolo’s precise and well-spoken testimony was seen as credible by most that are familiar with it.

Still, Luciano Ghirga said, “We have always said that he was not a credible witness, it was the court that held he was credible.” The drug charge conviction “will be an additional thing to help prove the witness is not credible,” Ghirga said in a phone interview. Perugia court offices were closed Saturday, and officials could not be reached to confirm Italian news reports that Curatolo had been convicted earlier in the week for dealing drugs. It wasn’t immediately known what his sentence was or if he had been jailed.

The defense is again reaching for straws here and journalists continue to mislead the public when they claim that Curatolo is a “key prosecution witness.” In fact, Curatolo’s testimony was just another hole in Knox and Sollecito’s Swiss-cheese alibi. Curatolo’s drug charges stem from events that allegedly occurred nearly eight-years ago, bringing to mind the questions: why has it taken so long to charge and convict this man and why wasn’t there enough evidence back then to charge and convict him? It will be interesting to see what evidence there is against him for these charges of selling heroine; photographs of him talking to a drug addict in Piazza Grimana will prove nothing.

In any event, why does this piece of information make him any less credible? Moreover, the same people who are banking on this conviction to discredit him are the same ones who are banking on testimonies of the convicted baby killer and the convicted mobster—who have both been called as witnesses for the defense. Curatolo’s testimony stood up well and he was unflustered in the face of the lackluster and uncertain defense cross-examination. In strong contrast, defense witnesses Alessi and Aviello (baby killer and mobster)— who are both in prison and hoping for breaks—are almost certainly potential perjurers and may blink rather than take the stand and face perjury charges and longer sentences.

The big news that was anticipated for this hearing—information on the progress of the independent evaluation of the DNA evidence—was not reported on. Most likely it will be announced at the next hearing, which is scheduled for 22 January 2011.

Knox & Sollecito Get Early Christmas Present

The final hearing of 2010 took place today in Perugia, Italy for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s appeal. Amanda Knox entered the courtroom fearing the worst; walking-in with her head down, she was seen greeting a friend. Knox’s lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, took his normal stance before court, telling journalists that the case against her was “full of gray areas” and that it was “a huge miscarriage of justice.”

Last week Knox and Sollecito’s lawyers asked the appellate court in Perugia to overturn their murder convictions, requesting new witnesses and a complete review of the forensic evidence used against them in the original criminal trial. The defense maintains that DNA traces presented at the first trial were inconclusive and also contends they might have been contaminated when they were analyzed. Prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola had opposed the review request as “useless,” asserting that “this court has all the elements to be able to come to a decision.” Kercher’s family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, insisted that there is no need to review the forensics. “We have heard this all before,” Maresca told the court. “If we don’t trust the state’s analysis of forensic evidence, we’ll have to reconsider every trial.”


After just over an hour in his chambers, Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmen, assistant judge-Massimo Zanetti, and the six-person jury told the court that, in the interest of justice, they do need an independent review of at least some of the key forensic evidence—a bra clasp with Sollecito’s DNA and a kitchen knife with Knox’s DNA on the handle, and what the prosecution contends is Kercher’s on the blade. “If possible, the tests must be redone,” Judge Hellmen told the court. “If they can’t be re-tested, then the procedures must be closely examined.” The judge appointed two experts from Rome’s Sapienza University (Professors Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti) to review the evidence. The experts will be formally given the task at the trial’s next session on 15 Jan. 2011.

The judge also asked to hear several witnesses from the criminal trial including homeless man Antonio Curatolo, who testified that he saw Knox and Sollecito gazing over the house where Kercher was killed late the night of the murder. During the criminal trial, Curatolo testified that he also saw other students on a bus that night coming from a disco in town. Lawyers for Sollecito maintain that there was no disco that night, and that Curatolo was confused. Helmen wants to hear from the manager of the disco and the bus driver. This is important because Curatolo's testimony otherwise appeared concise, reliable, and very clearly articulated.


Helmen denied a request to examine a pillowcase found under Kercher’s body that had the footprint in blood that the prosecution attributed to Knox. That pillowcase also had a spot of semen that had never been tested. The defense wants the spot tested to see whose it is, but the prosecution maintains that it likely belonged to Kercher’s boyfriend Giacomo Silenzi. The judge decided that it was not relevant in this murder. The judge also denied the reexamination of the time of Kercher’s death. He reserved the right to call two witnesses the defense insists will set their clients free. The first is Mario Alessi, a convicted child killer who says Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito had nothing to do with the murder. The second is Luciano Aviello, a Camorra mobster who says his brother is the real assassin. The judge may or may not call these two witnesses.

Although today’s decision seemed like a glimmer of hope for the Knox and Sollecito camps, there is bad news to report for them as well. Two days ago Italy’s highest criminal court upheld the conviction and 16-year-prison sentence of the third person convicted in the murder, Rudy Guede of the Ivory Coast. The high court’s ruling, which cannot be appealed, is significant because it states that Guede took part in the slaying but did not act alone, prosecutors and lawyers said.

Tearful Beginning: Knox up to Old Tricks

Today was the first formal hearing in the appeal against conviction for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. No one is sure just how long the trial will be, but one thing is for sure; Amanda Knox has had enough of prison living. Knox, now 23, broke down several times as she delivered an emotional twenty-minute address to the court; her voice sometimes quavering as she claimed that she had nothing to do with Miss Kercher’s brutal death. Her nervous, rambling statement—reminiscent of the court address she made at her 4th preliminary hearing back on 18 October 2008—was once again a limited, evasive, non-explanation of an explanation. It was an “I didn’t do it but I am so sorry for Meredith and her family anyway” kind of address. The fragile yet defiant Knox insisted that she did not kill Kercher and pled with the judge and jury to give her back her “shattered life,” calling her conviction unjust and an “enormous mistake.”


On 2 December 2010, Meredith Kercher’s (the victim), father, John Kercher, wrote a letter in which he made a strong plea for the cruel, callous, and inaccurate PR games, of Knox’s family, to stop. The well informed Kercher family has remained singularly cool-headed, dignified, and truthful throughout. On the other hand, the Knox family has continued to lie about the basic facts of the case; and unlike Edda Mellas, Knox’s mother, they have read Judge Massei’s sentencing report.

During Knox’s address to the court, Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca walked out of the courtroom. Maresca later said he left because he wasn’t interested in comments he felt were “inappropriate, out of place and untimely.”


She went on to apologize to the Congolese bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, who spent nearly three weeks in jail after Knox told police he had killed Kercher. Lumumba was later cleared of all connection to the crime.

“Patrick: I'm sorry,” she said, turning in the direction of the courtroom where he was sitting with his lawyers. “I was naive and not at all courageous because I should have put up with the pressure that pushed me to hurt you. You didn't deserve what you went through and I hope you are able to find your peace.”

In a break after Knox’s statement, Lumumba told reporters that he felt her apology lacked sincerity, however. “If she had said it to me in the first weeks, after I got out of isolation, and we were both going in front of the judge, well then I would have believed her. But now, three years later, well, it seems like strategy. It's as if she's playing a card game and she's losing, so she’s playing every card she's got.”

Knox’s lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, in his formal requests later in the day, asked for a complete review of “dubious” forensics in the case, and criticized the first judge’s sentencing report as full of personal reflections and conjecture that resulted in “perhaps one of the biggest judicial errors to happen here in recent years.”


Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito requested the court hear testimony from two new witnesses, convicted child killer Mario Alessi, who was housed in a prison cell across from Rudy Guede and says he heard another version of what happened, and mafia snitch Luciano Aviello, who claims his own brother killed Kercher and asked him to hide the murder weapon. On Friday, Perugia police raided Aviello’s prison cell on the grounds that Aviello is slandering his brother with a false homicide accusation. Italian newspapers hinted that police had sequestered documents or letters from Aviello’s cell that show his story was fabricated, but the matter was not brought up in court.

The prosecution and civil parties give their arguments next Saturday (Dec. 18). Knox’s appellate trial is expected to last for several months, with hearings held only on Saturdays.

See video footage of today's hearing

Jailed Italian Mobster Says ‘Knox is Innocent.’

Another shocking and bizarre twist occurs in the Amanda Knox case. On 10 June, jailed Italian mobster, Luciano Aviello, claims that his brother killed Kercher during a botched burglary attempt. Last week, Knox’s defense team, Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luciano Ghirga, went to the Ivrea prison outside Turin where Aviello is serving 17 years for mob-related crimes. In a videotaped statement, Aviello told the lawyers that his brother, Antonio, went to his house the night Kercher was killed and asked him to hide a bloodstained knife and set of keys. The significance of that statement is that Kercher’s set of keys to the cottage have never been recovered, and the Mariette-knife that the prosecution claimed was the murder weapon was called ‘seriously flawed’ and ‘contaminated’ by several expert defense witnesses.

“It was my brother who killed Meredith on the night of November 1, 2007. Amanda, Raffaele and Guede are innocent,” Luciano Aviello, 41, told Knox's lawyers. "When he [Antonio] came to my house he had a bloodstained jacket," Aviello says in the statement. “He said he had broken into a house and killed a girl and then he had run away.” According to Aviello, his brother and a friend named Florio (an Albanian man) went into the cottage to steel paintings and found Kercher alone. Kercher began screaming loudly and Antonio says that he stabbed her and they ran off into the night. “My brother confessed the murder to me and gave me the blood-stained knife and a set of keys (to hide)." Aviello said that he hid the knife and keys under a wall behind the house in Perugia, Italy where he was living at the time. Antonio's whereabouts are unknown, but he is thought to be in Naples.

Aviello has come forward with this information several times in 2009, and it has been confirmed that Knox’s defense team has known about this information as early as March 2010. The lead Prosecutor in the case, Giuliano Mignini, said he was aware that Aviello wrote to the judge in the Knox case several times but the judge dismissed it. “There is nothing else to say,” Mignini told UK’s the Daily Mail. So now we will have to wait and see if Aviello can produce these two key pieces of evidence. Personally, I think that if this evidence existed they would have already been provided. Here we have another case of a convict trying to get in the news, much like the rantings on the case by another convict, Mario Alessi.

Questions:

Why would experienced/mob-related criminals rob a known college dorm house looking for expensive paintings? This just doesn’t hold water in my opinion. Where is the physical evidence in the house belonging to these new suspects? Then there is also the fact that Rudy Guede was there, by his own admittance, fingerprints and footprints (as well as his DNA found inside of Kercher’s vagina). Guede also said that he heard a woman’s voice by the door and saw her silhouette as she and the alleged perpetrated (who threatened him with a knife) fled into the night. Not sure how this will be explained. Did they then find Guede in the bathroom of the house and intimidated him into silence? Is Aviello’s statement fantastic or fantastical?

Knox’s appeal is supposed to begin sometime this fall, where Knox’s lawyers are expected to bring up these new claims. Now we must play the waiting game again to see what developments occur and if these key pieces of evidence will be produced.

Alleged Prison Confession Casts Doubts

Last week the Italian court released a 427-page report detailing the reasons for Knox and Sollecito’s convictions. This week, however, an allegation from a prison-mate of Rudy Guede’s says that Knox and Sollecito are innocent, because Guede told him so. On Friday the lawyers for Sollecito deposited video-taped testimony from a fellow convict of Rudy Guede, Mario Alessi, in which he says Guede confided to him in prison that Knox and Sollecito were not at the house when Kercher was killed, but rather another man was present. Mario Alessi is a convicted child murderer who is serving a life sentence in Italy for kidnapping and killing 17-month old, Tommaso Onofri, in 2006. Alessi is currently serving time in the isolation wing of the Viterbo maximum security prison in Italy, where they keep the convicted sex offenders.

Last month, in a videotaped statement sent to Sollecito’s defense lawyer (Giulia Bongiorno), Alessi claimed that Guede told him and two other prisoners that Knox and Sollecito were never at the crime scene. Alessi also said that Guede wasn’t alone, but that a male friend of his was there with him. This “other friend,” who Guede refused to identify, was the one who slit Meredith’s throat, according to Alessi. What made him come forward with these allegations? Alessi says that “He came forward for the children.” This is coming from a man who when first questioned by police—about the murdered toddler—went on Italian television and declared his innocence saying, “You shall not touch children!” One month later Alessi was leading police to the shallow, riverside grave where he had buried the child. So why should we believe a man who confessed on tape to beating a toddler to death with a shovel, because the child “was crying?” Moreover, why would Guede cover for this so called “friend” if the friend is the one that did the killing? AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, why was no evidence of this friend found at the crime scene? (Remember, they found numerous signs of Guede's presence).

Rudy Guede heard about Alessi’s allegations two days ago while in prison and released a statement saying that he “never talked with Alessi about Meredith Kercher’s murder.” In previous testimony Guede heavily implicated Knox and Sollecito: “Those two [Knox and Sollecito] must be condemned, because they are murderers.” Guede’s lawyers, Walter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile, met with him in prison in Viterbo yesterday, where he released a statement. Guede “denied in the most absolute way” the allegations of Alessi. Guede’s lawyers informed the media that they were in possession of several wiretapped moments of Guede in prison and have never heard him speak of the murder. Guede and Alessi were not noted as friends in prison. “How can we think that he would confide in Alessi?” Guede’s lawyers asked. The lawyers announced legal action against Alessi for the false allegations in the report. Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, released a statement on the matter, calling Alessi “a lier.”

Meanwhile, Sollecito’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno—who is also a politician—holds a seat in the Italian Parliament. Her timing in releasing the Alessi tape comes just a couple of days after the 427-page court report on the Knox and Sollecito convictions; despite the fact that she's been holding it for about a month. Investigations of the statements made by Alessi will be carried out in the coming days. Indeed the report was filed yesterday by Bongiorno with the Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Perugia.