Compounding tragedy upon tragedy
Those who have been so quick to condemn Amanda Knox [“Knox ‘scared,’ still hopeful,” NWMonday, Dec. 14], it is crucial to note, have been completely unable to counter the enormous evidentiary gaps that make this conviction a fraud.
They are, however, able to pile on conclusory and judgmental observations about lifestyle and impairment. They are loathe to mention that any miscommunication on the part of Knox, who at that time did not speak fluent Italian, could have been avoided if the Italian police and prosecutor had provided her with access to legal assistance from the outset.
A lawyer should have headed off the Guantánamo-style interrogation that rendered a faulty confession and created the smoky haze of tabloid-fueled bias, which tainted the verdict.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini can add me to the growing list of those he has tried to bully because he is entirely responsible for orchestrating a theatrical farce, which has done nothing but compound tragedy upon tragedy.
— P. Scott Cummins, Seattle
Response to Italian letter writer
As Rita Dunn does in “A letter from Italy” [Opinion, Northwest Voices, Dec. 13], I too assumed Amanda Knox was guilty mostly because of her statement to the police implicating Diya “Patrick” Lumumba in the murder of Meredith Kercher.
But when there wasn’t one bit of credible evidence to tie Knox to the murder, I looked deeper.
Knox gave this statement about four days after the murder, and after 14 hours of interrogation without an interpreter or counsel. She did not come up with Lumumba’s name out of the blue.
Based on nothing more than a text message on the night of the murder in which Knox tells Lumumba that she’ll see him later, police devised a theory that Lumumba, Knox and her boyfriend had killed Kercher.
She was questioned with this theory in mind. It was the police themselves who first suggested Lumumba.
Apparently asked to imagine what might have happened and having been told that they had hard evidence against her, Knox told the police what they wanted to hear.
I think she was a frightened young woman trying to find an honest, but desperate, way to give the police what they wanted.
— Bonny Becker, Seattle