You’re buying her side of the story whole. Least you could do is back it up.
The prosecution in this case seems to have completely fucked it up. Doesnt mean that suddenly everything Amanda Knox says is gospel.
The only torture aspect in this would be the alleged head beatings. And, as I said, if proved, that might be enough to get a dismissal of the case. Apparently she cant prove it.
The rest: feeling oppressed while being interrogated, or screamed at. Please…
She sounds a lot like she’s going to pull every lever to make the Italian police look bad (and that’s the prerogative of the Italian police): the accumulation of it, without anything backing it up, reeks slightly of shit.
It seems to me that you are bringing some kind of filter into this discussion. I don’t feel obliged to play whatever game is going on inside your head.
I agree with you with respect to not necessarily believing Amanda’s side of things. I even thought about qualifying my post to indicate something to that effect. I don’t have enough knowledge of the case to really speculate, to be honest.
That aside, supposing what she claims happened, happened, I think it’s torture to beat someone about the head, to deprive someone of sleep, food, water for extended periods of time (14 hours) - this would also depend on when she arrived at the station - she could have conceivably been up for quite some time (Wiki states that all of this **started **at 11pm). It’s also not entirely clear whether or not she was allowed to go to the bathroom during the 14 hours. She said “I was treated as a person only after I made a statement. Period. That was when I was brought something to drink, when they let me go to the bathroom.”
Again, I stress that I’m almost completely unfamiliar with the case and I can’t honestly say whether I find what she says plausible or not. It appears (according to the wiki) that her version of events is contradictory - so there is room to doubt.
**If **all that happened was that she was screamed at and that she felt oppressed, I don’t think I would classify that as torture. Cumulatively though if what she says happened, did happen, I think I would classify it as torture.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
The Italian Supreme Court later found that Knox’s human rights were violated because the police did not read her her legal rights, appoint her a lawyer or provide her an official interpreter and that her signed statement was inadmissible for Knox’s and Sollecito’s criminal trial.
[/QUOTE]
Though I am quite sure that she would be all up for a “few” vindication drinks and a “few” assorted speedbumps (“Si, Una Piccola”) just as soon as her fine ass is out of the prison gates, I sure hope she pays her folks back with some of her interview/book royalty money, as apparently her Mom & Dad (who are long divorced) have together spent around $1,000,000 on her legal defense, both having sold their homes to raise cash for Amanda’s use…
Whether what she says is true is one thing, but whether what she says happened to her would (if true) be “torture” or at the least well out of line is another. Where do you come from that interrogation for 14 hours without food or water or sleep or a lawyer is OK?
Further, the fact that you keep responding while apparently deliberately ignoring the "deprived of food or water or sleep for 14 hours " thing suggests for some reason you don’t really want to get to grips with the allegation.
She lived in Perugia and went to the University for Foreigners Perugia. Doesn’t mean she was as familiar with Italian accents as a native, and Italian hasn’t been a single language for hundreds of years.
Add to that that the English-language press is split between Brits and Yanks. British victim, Yank suspect. And the trial is in a Napoleonic-Code country with a wildly different legal system than that used in the Anglophone world, so all kinds of prejudices and reactions come into play.
On the face of it, she looks plausibly guilty to me, the American press seem to be making her out to be a victim out of some twisted nationalism, I don’t really know I can trust all the slanderous stuff said about the prosecutor being a looney, there’s a language barrier keeping me from seeing the Italian side.
But that’s the thing: there’s a language barrier keeping me from seeing the Italian side. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know that the prosecutor isn’t a looney. There are some pretty kooky lawyers in backwaters of my country, so I grant it could be.
And motive seems unclear.
So I don’t really believe she did it. I hope that if she didn’t, she’s acquitted, and the prosecutor is embarrassed enough to change his ways or be relieved of office.
I’m sorry for my laziness here, but I scanned that website and couldn’t find what you are talking about. Since I only scanned it, I’m willing to tentatively accept what you say here, but does the 15 hours without sleep also include 15 hours without water, food, and (potentially) bathroom breaks?
From what I’ve read, the prosecutor has a very bad relationship with Occam’s Razor.
In the Mostro di Firenze case, you have what looks *exactly *like a serial killer at work. This could mean:
a) it’s a serial killer, or
b) it’s a huge Satanic cult, so powerful that they’ve hidden all evidence of their very existence, slaughtering people for sacrificial rituals so secret that all evidence of their very existence has been expunged.
Every time you fail to find any particle of evidence at all to support theory b), this could mean:
a) it’s a serial killer, or
b) the conspiracy is even more powerful and more far-reaching than you previously imagined.
This guy went for b) all the way.
From what I can see, he did the same in the Meredith Kercher case. Here you have what looks like a break-in, assault and murder. It could be a) a break-in, assault and murder by a known burglar who left his DNA at the scene, or b) a wild sex game among total strangers that turned into a frenzied attack on a girl who refused to participate. And probably there was a satanic cult involved.
I don’t have a clue whether Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito did anything. I doubt anyone will ever know, since the whole case has been thoroughly confused by crazy coming from all sides.
This. I read the Monster of Florence book before this case even happened, and saw how the prosecutor had a bad case of the crazes–like someone upthread noted, a lot like the satanic child-abuse nonsense in the '80s here in the US.
I had no opinions one way or the other about this case till I read a recent book on it (and yes, of course the book, was biased). I did a little further looking, and there just does not seem to be *anything *linking Knox and her boyfriend to the murder, while the already-jailed killer admitted he was there, and his DNA evidence practically spells out “I did it.”
Very Hitchcockian. Tippi Hedren as Amanda (with chic French twist), Louis Jourdan as her boyfriend, Suzanne Pleshette as Meredith, and . . . hmm, there weren’t any black people in Hitchcock movies.
Oh yeah, but that just shows that the Italian “Supreme Court” has cleaned the mess of the Italian prosecution. So, all evidence that might have been collected out of this (and mind you it seems that the Italian SC has gone with the “you cant show you followed procedure, and so tainted your evidence”) cant be used against the accused.
So, anything about torture? Unless not having a translator is now an act of torture.
14 hours without sleep is torture?? I understand she is a student, but I think I’ve just tortured myself that way all week. And all month. And most of the year.
With regard to only the sleep claim, from my understanding, she was taken in at 11pm and then not allowed to sleep for 14 hours. So, she could have been up for quite some time depending on when she got up in the morning.
In theory, yes. However, it’s very rare for the Court of Appeals to admit new evidence. Usually the judges just examine the evidence given before the Tribunale.
Well, that might make her look less like Pollyanna to some Italian (or American) moralists, but repeatedly lying to the police in the murder investigation of the woman you lived with probably was a little more damaging to her public persona than the revelation that naughty, nasty ol’ Amanda sometimes gets her dainty little fingers sticky…
Blaming an innocent man for a brutal, savage murder (a black guy, no less) is also not going to earn anyone, especially an entitled American Princess (at least that’s how the local press paints her) the “Bella Mia Di Perugia” award either…
So you were up till 11pm then started 14 hours of interrogation without food or sleep or water all week? Sorry but you are just making yourself look more and more like you just have some sort of pre-determined position and are unable to move away from it, because each time someone points out the whole package, you pick out one single thing and suggest it wasn’t too bad. You aren’t fooling anyone, you know, except yourself. There is just no point in posting such nonsense. Get to grips with what she says happened and deal, or go away.