They repeatedly told the police a pack of lies in the days after Meredith’s murder.

On 5 November 2007, Knox and Sollecito were confronted with proof that they had lied and were given another opportunity to tell the truth. However, they both chose to tell the police even more lies.

Sollecito’s new alibi was shattered by computer forensic evidence and his mobile phone records.

Knox accused an innocent man, Diya Lumumba, of murdering Meredith despite knowing full well that he was completely innocent. She didn’t recant her false and malicious allegation against Lumumba the whole time he was in prison. She admitted that it was her fault that Lumumba was in prison in an intercepted conversation with her mother.

Knox’s account of what happened on 2 November 2007 is contradicted by her mobile phone records.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito both gave multiple conflicting alibis. Neither Knox nor Sollecito have credible alibis for the night of the murder despite three attempt each. At the trial, Sollecito refused to corroborate Knox’s alibi that she was at his apartment.

Rudy Guede’s bloody footprints led straight out of Meredith’s room and out of the house. He didn’t lock Meredith’s door, remove his trainers, go into Filomena’s room or the bathroom that Meredith and Knox shared.

He didn’t scale the vertical wall outside Filomena’s room or gain access through the window. The break-in was clearly staged. This indicates that somebody who lived at the cottage was trying to deflect attention away from themselves and give the impression that a stranger had broken in and killed Meredith.

Guede had no reason to stage the break-in and there was no physical evidence that he went into Filomena’s room.

The scientific police found a mixture of Amanda Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s blood on the floor.

There was no physical evidence that Rudy Guede went into the blood-spattered bathroom. However, the scientific police found irrefutable proof that Knox and Sollecito tracked Meredith’s blood into this bathroom.

Amanda Knox’s DNA was found mingled with Meredith’s blood in three different places in the bathroom: on the ledge of the basin, on the bidet, and on a box of Q Tips cotton swabs. Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s blood had united into one single streak on the basin and bidet which means they were deposited simultaneously.

Sollecito left a visible bloody footprint on the blue bathmat.

According to two imprint experts, the woman’s bloody shoeprint on the pillow under Meredith’s body matched Knox’s foot size. The bloody shoeprint was incompatible with Meredith’s shoe size.

Knox’s and Sollecito’s bare bloody footprints were revealed by luminol in the hallway. Knox’s DNA and Meredith’s DNA was found mixed together in one of the bloody footprints.

An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito’s DNA was found on Meredith’s bra clasp. Sollecito must have applied considerable pressure to the clasp in order to have left so much DNA. The hooks on the clasp were damaged which confirms that Sollecito had gripped them tightly.

Amanda Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of the double DNA knife and a number of independent forensic experts – Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo and Professor Francesca Torricelli – categorically stated that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade.

Sollecito knew that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade which is why he twice lied about accidentally pricking her hand whilst cooking.

The defence experts were unable to prove that there had been any contamination. Alberto Intini, head of the Italian police forensic science unit, pointed out that unless contamination has been proved, it does not exist.

Amanda Knox voluntarily admitted that she involved in Meredith’s murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007. She stated on at least four separate occasions that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed.

The English translation of Judge Massei’s sentencing report can be downloaded from here:

http://www.perugiamurderfile.org/viewtopic.php?p=53735

Well, sure. I do think, though, that we should take into account that a significant percentage (25% by some measures) of wrongful convictions involve the wrongly accused confessing to the police. I also think that a prosecutor’s track record is relevant. Mignini seems to come up with ‘satanic ritual’ theories remarkably often.

On Purves: I think that her piece is badly judged, and above all, incredibly mean. Having set up her little moralistic fable, she makes assertions about the two people who’ve just been convicted and suggests that they got what was coming to them. But what she says about Sollecito and Knox just isn’t supported by facts. What’s more, there’s reason to think that British newspaper reporting in general had influence on the trial. Does Purves want in on that?

That said, the crux of the difference in our interpretations is merely on which party of the interrogation one ascribes the untruths to. I hardly think that allows you to pretend that any crystalline jurisprudence is carrying you to the moral high ground.

Let’s hope, rather, that instead of trying to get off scot-free, the perpetrators might describe what actually happened that night so that an appropriate sentence could be handed down.

What you miss entirely here is the concept of burden of proof.

First of all, nobody was convicted for ‘sexual adventurism’. I don’t imagine you could be arguing that the demonstrable instability in the personalities of the primary suspects was irrelevant, considering your mention of the ‘crazy’ prosecutor’s zeal.

What’s more repeatedly lying about your whereabouts is a perfectly rational refusal to incriminate oneself, so no need to reach for arguments ad absurdum of ‘febrile sexual obsession’.

Using tabloid moralism from entirely another country as corroboration for it being a witch-hunt is really a stretch. I wonder if your other posts have been using evidence as specious? Thankfully perhaps, emotion doesn’t tend to blur opinions on global money supply.

Yes, the evidence points to their being more inciters and accessories to the murder than perpetrators, but then a harsh sentence is the risk they took when they refused to cooperate with the investigation. Being punished for choosing not to plea bargain might be tough but hardly grounds for outrage.

Countless African-Americans have been sent to their deaths on less incriminating evidence, to even less notice from both your blog and prosperous, white America. Is the socioeconomic and racial circling of the wagons really so hard to see? Let’s hope, rather, that instead of trying to get off scot-free, the perpetrators might describe what actually happened that night so that an appropriate sentence could be handed down.

But it seems to me that the Italian judicial system should:

(a) Tighten restrictions on prejudicial press reporting;

(b) Stop prosecutors from telling crazy stories to juries without supporting evidence. Or disbar crazy prosecutors, period. This particular prosecutor – Mignini – has form in that he’s currently being prosecuted himself for feeding the press his satanic rituals theory about the ‘Monster of Florence’ killings.

And I’d call it a stake burning in that the prosecution called for the harshest penalty available – life imprisonment, with the first part of the term to be served in solitary.

Let’s hope it gets resolved at appeal.

Considering how poorly the Italian justice system often works (especially in political and Mafia trials), this case seem to have been treated within reason. I can’t detect any scandalous burning at the stake. IMHO etc. But lets see what the higher courts are going to rule. Worst case (shockingly for Brits or Amis) last exit opportunity for the convicts might be provided by a European court. But I think the Italians have the ability and will to handle this.

If on the other hand you mean, am I sympathetic to Neil Acourt, et al., given what the Daily Mail says and given the absence of any conviction for Stephen Lawrence’s murder, then then the answer is yes, to some extent. But some of these characters carry other convictions, don’t they? It’s not as though I’d be likely to choose them as friends.