Their justice system makes ours look positively brilliant.

If I were Amanda I would disappear. Italy has ZERO proof. Now they've turned to pulling false evidence out of their ass.

of Kercher to try to convict Knox. I wonder how much they are paying these supposed witnesses to repeat exactly what they want them to? The Italian judicial system is corrupt and willing to plant evidence to get a conviction as well as try the case publicly.

That's how nuts it is. The evidence points to Rudy Guede as the killer. And they reduce his sentence if he would implicate Knox and Sollicito. It's nuts.

I mean you would think Italy would just want this to go away. I don't know if this is maybe how they normally operate. Maybe they are embarrassed and too afraid to admit they were wrong. Or maybe they really do believe Knox is some criminal mastermind that murders her roommates during sex games while trafficking drugs on the side?

If this was in an American courtroom, she would have been acquitted a long time and this would all be over with. Thank god for the 5th Amendment.

In the second appeals trial, the judges were ordered to use as evidence against Amanda and Raffaele the "stipulations" that were made in an entirely unrelated trial -- the fast track trial of Rudy Guede. They got him to stipulate to being in the house while the two others carried out the murder. Of course he agreed to the stipulations, because they reduced his part in the murder (he was just a bystander, according to the stipulations) AND lowered his sentence by a third.

But the even worse part is that Amanda and Raffaele were denied the right to have their attorneys question Guede at THEIR trial. The stipulations were unquestioned and unquestionable, because the high court had already accepted them as FACTS in Guede's trial. And then the high court required the 2nd appeals court hearing Amanda and Raffaele's case to use these "FACTS" against them. (And the high court said that the first appeals court -- the Hellman court -- was wrong not to use these "facts" against the students.)

As screwed up as our own justice system sometimes is, this case is as blatantly unjust as anything I've ever seen.

Fortunately, there is a European Court of Human Rights that takes appeals. And one of the requirements according to the European Convention of Human Rights is that all defendants have the right to have those who testify against them questioned. Hopefully this case will be a slam dunk in the ECHR, if it ever gets there.

Of course you know governments don't like to be questioned on "facts." But how do you have a fair trial if the defense can't question the accusations made by a witness? That's the whole point of cross-examination. The whole thing is a circus.

And the European tabloids or British press have been beyond crazy with the story. I don't think a week goes by that the Guardian or Telegraph doesn't post some type of article about Knox even if nothing relevant to report. I know we Americans have high profile cases that we become really wrapped up with sometimes. But this is like a marathon of smears. She probably wont be able to ever leave the US again...certainly not to an EU country.

she might be able to travel again someday. I hope it does.

How do you get to make up new evidence after the trial and not subject the evidence to cross examination

Yeah, that's the ticket--the Mafia. Along with her wife, Morgan Fairchild.

This story is a rehash of rumors that were flying in the tabloids in 2007. Everyone then heard about how Amanda had sex with a guy on a train. The prosecutor was making the claims about him and cocaine years ago, but of course it has nothing to do with Amanda. She was tested for drugs and had none in her system, and neither did Raffaele -- except for the marijuana that they admitted to. And no one is suggesting the cocaine guy was involved in Meredith's murder.

I think you've nailed it with the idea that the purpose of this claim now is to help Italy with extradition -- to weaken support in the US for Amanda.

And for Raffaele, who has been an honorable man throughout all of this -- despite what the tabloids want people to think lately.

You know what else they're doing? Someone set up a fraudulent twitter account in the name of a public relations agency in Seattle, and has been putting up fake press releases damaging to Amanda. As if even the agency that she used to make her press appointments has deserted her now. Someone else published a long story (repeated in places like Radar) claiming that sources connected with Amanda's family said that Amanda was about to throw Raffaele under the bus. The whole story was a lie, but the writer claimed he had sources, so the website trusted the writer and published it. Later, the website got pushback, and so they tried to contact the supposed sources, and found out they were all fake. But the story is still going the rounds on Radar, etc., even after it was totally discredited.

It is sickening to see the ends to which some evil people are willing to go to throw two obviously innocent young people into prison.

And is trying to restore the American mob's Italian roots.

. . . .again.

Did she also run for mayor and organize a high school cheating ring there?