Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, Seven Years of Injustice

Written by Italian Journalist, Francesco Luna

English translation completed by Injustice Anywhere Forum member, Teddy.

The 2nd November 2007 was a clear bright day like today. Amanda Knox was twenty years old and was happy, while she crossed Piazza Grimana square and arrived at via della Pergola, in Perugia. She had left her new boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, sleeping in bed in the small apartment on Corso Garibaldi and was returning to the little isolated villa that she shared with her friends Meredith, Filomena and Laura. The young American girl from Seattle, in Italy for just a little more than one month, didn’t know that from that moment she would soon enter into a dark tunnel of horror, made up of blood, absurd accusations, bogus evidence, violence, psychological pressure, deception, mass media lynching, years of imprisonment, conviction, acquittal and then conviction again. She didn’t imagine that the poor, oblivious Raffaele was about to end up with her in that deadly grip.

The recounting by the mass media of the court proceedings for the murder of poor Meredith Kercher and the convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is an embarrassment for Italian justice and is a black page for the Italian and English newspapers. Rarely in a civilized country has one seen so many errors, so much bullying, abuse, so many lies communicated to the media and published without a minimum of critical corroboration. Two normal kids were depicted as despicable people, condemned in the media, trapped by nonexistent evidence and thrown in prison for four years like murderers. Only a courageous verdict delivered in 2011 by Judge Hellmann allowed the two unfortunates to leave prison, but their ordeal was not over. With a new, paradoxical decision, in which they unduly entered into the merits of the case, the Supreme Court annulled the acquittal in 2013. And indeed it ordered a new conviction, challenging all logic, which was promptly provided by the Assize Court of Appeal of Florence in January of this year.

In the meantime, the real, sole murderer of Meredith, Rudy Guede, saw his conviction reduced from thirty to only sixteen years of imprisonment, thanks to his accusations against Amanda Knox, the real victim of this abhorrent witch hunt. And thanks to his opportunistic legal choices, he could leave prison already this year.

Italy has one last chance to close with dignity this small despicable story. The Supreme Court will decide next March 25th. The outlook is not at all good, it’s useless to hide it. It’s clear that the truth about Meredith Kercher’s death is of very little importance. Everyone knows that it was only Rudy Guede that murdered her. All that counts is the reputation of the lousy investigators and many journalists, who abandoned their duty towards critique and truth to obtain a few miserable and slanderous scoops. But above all else, at this point there is a whole system at stake, that has chosen to protect itself and the careers of police, judges and journalists. If they continue to ignore the awful error made, convicting Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for a murder which they are not responsible for, the system will perhaps save itself, but the life of two innocents will be sacrificed. If they will have the courage to admit the error, perhaps it will be necessary to apologize, but we will have shown, despite everything, to still be a civilized country.