Tag Amanda Knox

Rogue cops in Perugia

In 2007, Monica Napoleoni was the head of the “homicide squad” in Perugia (Umbria, Italy). Lorena Zugarini was a senior member of that unit. They were both active participants in the railroading of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the…

Good news from Rome, at last

I did not expect Italy’s supreme court (Cassazione) to acquit both Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito outright: I was, in fact, rather skeptical that Knox’s conviction would be reversed at all, and did not hope for a straight acquittal “for…

At the mercy of a self-governing judicial mafia

From Edward Luttwak’s interview with Il Giornale, February 2013. Available; on the paper’s website; a pdf of the original available here;.  Previously quoted in this post. All translation errors are mine. Title: “Italy? A country where liberty is limited by…

When a judge is more dangerous than a mafioso

Diego Gambetta, a professor of sociology at Oxford and the author of Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate, explains his findings: An unexpected result of my research on the mafia was to find out that mafiosi are quite incompetent at doing anything… Mafiosi…

The ben trovato school of jurisprudence

Nina Burleigh, the author of The Fatal Gift of Beauty (which I have quoted before), writes in Newsweek ahead of the final ruling by Italy’s supreme court due next Wednesday in the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito case (which she…

Science be damned, Italian edition

Reading Nina Burleigh’s book* on the malicious prosecution of Amanda Knox in Italy, The Fatal Gift of Beauty, I am struck over and over again by the offensive indifference to fairness and integrity displayed by Italy’s judicial apparatus. In particular,…

Hostages of corrupt states

Yesterday, the Moscow City Court affirmed the trial court’s verdict and sentences in the case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg. Alexei Navalny received a suspended sentence of 3.5 years but Oleg Navalny, who is already in jail, was…

Three female portraits

I have come across at least two comparisons of Amanda Knox to Isabel Archer, the protagonist of The Portrait of a Lady, a great American novel by Henry James. I had tried reading James before but found him boringly pedantic.…