Friday, November 19, 2010

If its not American Justice...it's not Justice, ask Ed Smart...

Amanda Knox's conviction was 'biased, unjust and breached international law': Lawyers launch murder appeal

By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 3:37 PM on 19th November 2010
Appeal: Lawyers for Amanda Knox claim her conviction for murdering Meredith Kercher was biased, unjust and contravened international law
Appeal: Lawyers for Amanda Knox claim her conviction for murdering Meredith Kercher was biased, unjust and contravened international law
Amanda Knox's conviction was biased, unjust and in breach of international law, her appeal lawyers will argue next week.
No motive was ever given for why the 23-year-old murdered British student Meredith Kercher and ‘mere hypotheses’ were used to reach the guilty verdict, they claim.
Her lawyers will call for a complete review of all forensic evidence and for her sentence to be overturned.
Knox was jailed for 26 years last December for the killing of Miss Kercher, 21, who was found semi-naked and with her throat cut in her bedroom of the house they shared in the Italian hilltop town of Perugia.
In a strongly-worded appeal, her legal team will argue that the conviction was against Italian and international law because it was so flawed.
They will claim that because of the amount of attention focused on the case, the decision was biased and not a fair trial.
‘The court has grossly violated these principles (of law) and has therefore committed serious noncompliance and misapplication of assessment criteria,’ the papers read.
‘This alters the very nature of the ‘fair’ and ‘just’ process.’
Knox’s legal team claim that too many assumptions were made during the trial which undermined the case against her.
‘The motive, the fundamental aspect of the factual existence of the serious criminal acts, is largely absent in the assessment of evidence and more erroneously absent in the written ruling,’ they claim.
Murder scene: Ms Kercher, 21, was found with semi-naked with her throat cut in a house she was sharing with Knox in Perugia, Italy
Murder scene: Ms Kercher, 21, was found with semi-naked with her throat cut in a house she was sharing with Knox in Perugia, Italy
Killed: Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the murder of the British student. Her lawyers have said there were too many assumptions in the trial
Killed: Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the murder of the British student. Her lawyers have said there were too many assumptions in the trial
Miss Kercher, from Coulsdon in South London, was murdered in November 2007 during a year-long student exchange programme to Perugia.
Besides Knox, her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, was convicted of murder and sexual assault and given 25 years in jail, while Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, 23, was initially sentenced to 30 years but this was reduced on appeal to 16 years.
Knox has assembled a tougher legal team for her appeal which includes veteran criminal lawyer Theodore Simon to argue that evidence collected in the flat was contaminated and led to flawed DNA results.
They have also seized on the trial judge’s inclusion of a mystery second knife in his ruling which he said was the one which inflicted the fatal wounds on Miss Kercher.
Such a weapon was never found - the only knife discovered at the scene did not match the injuries on the victim’s body.
‘The existence of a second knife never came up in the trial,’ Knox’s lawyers write.
‘To justify the injuries on the body of the poor victim that may not have been inflicted by the available knife entered into evidence cannot be done by arbitrary additions like introducing a fantasy knife.’
Last week Knox appeared in court accused of slandering Italian police officers during her original trial.
The American student claimed officers had hit her round the head during an interrogation after Miss Kercher’s body was found semi-naked with her throat cut in the girls’ Perugia flat.
Seven police officers who questioned her are now suing her for slander.
Her case recently won the support of former FBI investigator Steve Moore who said the evidence in the case was ‘flawed and manipulated’ and may have been planted.
Knox’s appeal hearing is due to resume next Wednesday.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331304/Amanda-Knox-appeal-Murder-conviction-unjust-breached-international-law.html#ixzz15kPQaHV3


Comment: Quote: Her case recently won the support of former FBI investigator Steve Moore who said the evidence in the case was ‘flawed and manipulated’ and may have been planted.
Knox’s appeal hearing is due to resume next Wednesday.

'Evidence' there IS NO evidence in the Smart case just the word of 'Americas mormon girl' flawed and manipulated.