Amanda delivered her heartfelt appeal to a sympathetic courtroom.
Headlines painted Amanda in sordid light.
Meredith Kercher
Meredith’s family, pining for justice.
trial. Systematically, the Knox defense team walked and talked Judge and Jury of the Appeal Court through the case. Teir arguments rested on the absence of physical evidence tying Amanda Knox to the crime or crime scene; there was also no motive. No evidence. No motive. All the
prosecution had was their theory of sex games gone wrong (when neither victim nor the accused had any history of having ever indulged in that kind of sexual activity)… but the Prosecution had Amanda’s “confession”. Tis too refuted as having been obtained under duress. In the end, it was Amanda’s own defence, her heartfelt appeal delivered in a small voice and in perfect Italian – one amongst four other languages she had learnt while in prison - that rang out in that small Italian Court and resonated around the world; an appeal so clearly the cry of a soul wronged that caught the world’s attention, and eventually won her the freedom she had begged for.
www.fswmag.com
Te first time she addressed the
Court directly, her back was stiff; her hands were tightly clasped before her. She started tentatively in tremulous Italian. Occasionally she paused, struggling to compose herself. “For more than three and a half years, I have been in prison as an innocent person,” she told the Court. “Tis has been extremely frustrating for me. It has been draining. I don’t want to remain there, unjustly, for my entire life. I recall the beginning of this whole thing, when I was free. I think of how young I was then, how I didn’t understand anything...” In
the airy pomposity of the
courtroom and following on months of bureaucratic delays that forced her to stay in prison all through summer (Italian courts don’t meet until mid- September), Amanda’s small voice, powerfully expressed her raw suffering shook everyone in court that day including the world’s press camped there to cover the personal drama unfolding before them.
AMANDA SPOKE AGAIN AT THE CLOSING Speaking more confidently this time and occasionally pausing for breath, overwhelmed by so much being at stake, she nevertheless made an impassioned plea for freedom. “Esteemed people of the court, it has been said many times that I am a person different to what I am. I am the same person I was four years ago, the same person – the only thing that distinguishes me from four years ago is the four years that I have suffered. “ been betrayed.I have had to face accusations, injustice and suggestions without foundation and I am paying with my life for something that I did not do.
“I am not what they say I am. I am
not perverse, violent, disrespectful towards life, people. Tese things do not apply to me and I have not done the things that have been suggested. “I did not kill, I did not rape, I did
not steal. I was not there. I was not present at this crime.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011 | F ENGSHUIWORLD 19
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