THE REAL VICTIM

Meredith

Well, well, well, in one of the most bizarre twists one could imagine in any criminal trial, Amanda Knox has now been acquitted of involvement in the murder in Italy eight years ago of her flatmate Meredith Kercher (a twenty-one year old Londoner)  – this judgment squashing the conviction, came in her final Appeal to the Court of Cassation in Rome [the Supreme Court]. In a ridiculous saga of a trial that beggars belief, she has been convicted twice of the murder, served four years in an Italian goal, been ‘un-convicted’ twice now, and has been free for over three years, living back home in the USA.

The utter shock comes not from the final result, but from the incongruous fact that it was the Supreme Court itself that previously decreed that the lower appeal court had got it wrong before, when they had decided that Miss Knox was not guilty of the murder, and it told them to redo it (and of course the lower court  then duly found her guilty). Logic had suggested therefore that her final appeal would fail and that her conviction would stand, since the Supreme Court rarely overturns a conviction, and had seemed to have already made-up its mind on this matter.

The closing odd outcome of this torturously long Italian process, tells us all one thing –  that justice has NOT been done here, doesn’t it? Either, a young woman’s life (Amanda Knox) has been unfairly blighted forever (for she will never now have a normal life, because the nightmare of what has happened to her will never go away, nor be forgotten), or the true killers of Meredith Kercher have not faced due justice – which denigrates the memory of the poor innocent dead girl, whose life was snatched away (no life for her is there? No peace now for her family either).

One has to wonder if public opinion, the massive American PR campaign in favour of Knox, and their wild claims of a witch-hunt, and persecution by a flawed anti-American legal system in Italy, has played any part in the legal proceeding, doesn’t one? Whatever, the Italian justice system certainly comes out of all this with zero credibility whatsoever, wouldn’t you say? It now stands internationally belittled instead of being the respected legal apparatus of a major European country.

Raffaele Sollecito, Italian ex-boyfriend of Amanda Knox, was also cleared of murder by the same Supreme Court. In apparent accordance with the law the reasons for the judgement haven’t been given yet, but will released in about three months time.

[Unfortunately the memory of & name Meredith Kercher will be lost to the public’s recall both sides of the water (as it is to all intents and purposes already)  – after all, victims are always the first to get forgotten, aren’t they?]