Amanda Knox's Long Nightmare Comes To An End

Amanda Knox is the college student who was wrongly convicted in Italy for the 2007 murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.  Having closely followed the case, the characters, the evidence and the facts, I became convinced early on that she was completely innocent of the crime.  That goes the same for her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, who was convicted along with Knox in 2009.

There was never any evidence of Knox and Sollecito's involvement.  No fingerprints, no DNA, no motive, no witnesses.  However, Giuliano Mignini, a prosecutor with a bad reputation for frivolous indictments dreamed up a "sex-game-gone-wrong" scenario in which Knox and Sollecito participated with one Rudy Guede to slash Meredith's throat.  The scenario's only basis was Mignini's dirty mind.

The real murderer-rapist-burglar was a black thug named Rudy Guede, whose DNA was all over the crime scene.  He received a sentence of only 16 years.  When he was being monitored on Skype, talking to a friend, he told that friend that Knox and Sollecito were not there.  He told other cell-mates the same thing:  the unlucky couple had nothing to do with the crime.  Mignini ignored it.  The two were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of around 25 years each.  They appealed.

In an appeals trial in 2011, forensic experts testified to the inadequacy of evidence to convict the two, and they were declared innocent and set free.  This didn't set well with a higher court in Rome, who ordered a third trial with a pre-selected verdict:  guilty as determined by the first trial.  Knox and Sollecito appealed to the Italian Supreme Court, who this week declared the two innocent, and even more, not only "not guilty by lack of evidence" but stated categorically that the two did not commit the crime.

Knox and Sollecito spent four years in prison for a crime they did not commit.  Knox was also convicted of defamation of her former barroom boss, Patrick Lumumba, for signing a statement that Lumumba killed Kercher.  However, she signed the statement, written not by her, but for her, by the Perugian police, after intense and abusive interrogation all night, without sleep or food.  She signed their statement under extreme duress, and repudiated it the next day after a few hours of sleep.  This unjust conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court, perhaps as insurance that she could not sue for the false imprisonment she was made to endure.  Because of that, she "owes" Lumumba around $54,000 in damages.  I hope she never pays a dime.

The players in this drama who deserve disgust and shame are as follows:

1.  Giuliano Mignini, the corrupt prosecutor who engineered the debacle in court.  May he suffer the shame and dishonor he richly deserves, for the rest of his miserable life.

2.  The fanatical "guilters," those people fanatically devoted to preserving the convictions, in spite of the total absence of evidence of guilt.  This includes a large number of Brits, who are incapable of logic or objective evaluation of the facts.  I suspect their anti-American prejudices are a large factor in their disgraceful attitudes.  I hope this final verdict sticks in their craws and gives them enormous amounts of stomach acid.

3.  The parents of Meredith Kercher, whose displaced anger and need for revenge has made them devoted to preserving the wrongful convictions.  Meredith Kercher was a fine, lovely young woman whose murder was a tragedy, and whose loss to the world is enormous.  However, her parents have covered themselves in shame, yearning as they did for a surrogate to punish for Meredith's death, while the real murderer was given a light sentence and soon will be free to walk the streets again.

4.  Ann Coulter, whose uninformed attacks on Knox displayed her considerable ignorance of the case and the facts.  She loved to label Knox as "convicted murderer Amanda Knox."  Now it is "acquitted innocent Amanda Knox."  Will Coulter apologize for her error?  Don't hold your breath.

Congratulations to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Solecito, two young college students whose lives were trashed by the corrupt, inefficient and deeply flawed Italian system of justice.  May their long-awaited healing begin, and may they get on with their lives and find peace.

Related Article:  Italian Court Throws Out Knox Conviction Once and for All.