Commentary by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
This report regards the notorious murder of a foreign student in a flat, at Perugia, which Amanda Knox shared with her boyfriend and two other female students, on Nov. 2, 2007. The recent court ruling regards two signed statements she gave to the police, without the assistance of a translator, in which she signed an accusation against Lumumba, which she did not know was true, at the time. She claims she did not know what she was being asked to sign — a fact, which I can from experience testify to, since in an Italian police station, if you are not fluent in Italian, the Carabinieri or State Police, attempt to get you to say something which convicts yourself or another person whether it be true or not. From that they use a false confession or accusation to extort further compliance.
In this case, a charge of defamation was brought against Knox, apparently to cover the crime of the officers involved in extorting a false confession from a confused woman, emotionally disorientated by the horrific events of that night. — Now that she has been found guilty, and lost her appeals, it would be a good time to apologize to Patrick for her failure to allow herself to be coerced into defaming an innocent man.
However, it boggles the mind of non-Italians, that making a false statement in a police station during an investigation could be classified as defamation. In other countries it would be considered obstructing justice or simply “making false statements” to the police.
I wonder if her legal team understood that they could impugn the testimony she was asked to sign by bringing a charge against the officers who co-signed it as preparers and witnesses. The fundamental problem is, here, that in Italy, you are not allowed legal counsel when being interrogated, and thus, you have no witnesses to any claim you make against the officers in your presence. And according to Italian law, where there are more witnesses to one side of the claim than the other counter-claim, the side with more witnesses, even if they are previously convicted criminals, wins.
I learned these things when the Italian State Police took me to their station near the Vatican, on Feb. 11, 2019, after being tasked by the then Secretary of State of Vatican City to squash any demonstrations in favor of Pope Benedict XVI. They wrote up a charge against me and attempted to force me to sign it, which I refused. But they gave me a copy of it, and since it accused me of being neither an Italian Citizen nor a Franciscan, with documents indicated to me by my attorney, I returned to the station the next day and told their superior that if the charge was not removed, my attorney would sue them for making a false report. The report was immediately destroyed.
Thus, I think, that if Knox had immediately returned to the station the next day with an attorney and filed an affidavit that she did not know what she was signing on the day before, because of her incompetence in Italian, she and Patrick Lumumba would have never gotten into this trouble.
Knox was put on trial for the murder and exonerated. Likewise, her boyfriend. The actual perp was identified by his own DNA, convicted, and after 15 years released having completed his sentence.
I can make no comments regarding the points of Italian law, knowing nothing about it.
But I remember the case well and have to say that Knox always gave me the impression that she was a devious narcissist.