Shockingly open venerdi 7th ottobre 2011

It has been the case of the century - Amanda Knox and some other people (I am being deliberately bathetic here) have spent 4 years in jail for a crime they did not commit. Or did they?

4 years ago, a young British student was murdered in Perugia, a town in Umbria, about a couple of hours south east of Siena. Her throat was cut after a night out. Several people were accused, including Amanda Knox who become a media sensation, due to the fact that she was young, attractive, american, and had what the british and american press love to work with - a saucy past, very much into sex games, and also had a great moniker "Foxy Knoxy".

Some years ago, three people were found guilty of the murder - Foxy Knoxy, her Italian boyfriend and another fella. There has been a review and and after a very protracted court case in Perugia, Foxy Knoxy, I will call her Amanda (and her boyf, well, ex-boyf), has been released.

The statement read by the judge was "Non hanno commesso il fatto" - "they have not done the thing". The DNA evidence on the knife used to kill the poor girl was proven to be of such poor quality that it should not have been sufficient to prove guilt.

This leaves of course a very unfortunate situation for the parents and family of Meredith Kircher - the girl who was killed - who still have no answer as to what happened (of course, ignoring the fact that Rudy Guede is still incarcerated for the crime). "Vogliamo la verita' su Meredith lotteremo ancora per avere giustizia" - "we want the truth on Meredith we will fight on to have justice". "Movente troppo fragile ed errori sul DNA cosi' sono crollate le prove dell'accusa" - "Motive too weak and errors in DNA evidence caused the collapse of the case against the accused".

Despite all this, the Italians are not happy. In fact, in the same headline which stated that they did not commit the crime, the second part read "Fischi e urla in piazza: vergogna" - "whistles and yells in the town square: shame". The Italians are not happy, and apparently did not take Amanda to heart the same way that the british and american press did. Her final plea in Italian, was well scripted and very well said, with a good accent - as you'd expect after living in an Italian prison for 4 years (at this point I am fighting extremely hard to avoid trite references to my job as being in an Italian prison - anyway - at least she can now speak Italian and will make some money out of her experiences!). But no - the Italians seem to not like her. Mind you, Italians don't really like Americans at the best of time, from what I've seen. In fact, a few months ago we were at a friend's (British) place for a barbeque. Later in the afternoon one of the Italian's had to go and pick up her mum from somewhere and brought her along to the party. She was a real character - so much fun, full of beans and life. Absolute Italian through and through, probably very typical Tuscan - poor, but heart of gold, and of course, does not speak a single word of English. Interestingly enough, as she was introduced to all the people at the party - British, Aussie, German, USA. She politely said hello to all of us but when she was introduced to Dawn - the only American - she smiled and rolled her fingers in the Italian symbol for money. This was absolutely shocking and really tells you a lot about how normal Italians and certainly Italians who live in tourist areas, think of the yanks.

However, the most shocking piece of this, in my mind, came out yesterday. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8809514/Amanda-Knox-judge-She-may-know-the-real-truth.html

The judge of the case has come out and said he thought that Amanda Knox could know who the real killer is. In fact, "the judge stressed in a television interview in Italy last night that the verdict handed down by the appeal court was a reflection of the “the truth that was created in the trial.” “But the real truth could be different,” he said, adding: “They (Miss Knox and co-accused Raffaele Sollecito) could also be responsible, but the proof isn’t there.”"

This has left me frankly speechless, it is in complete opposition to the statement at the conclusion of the trial, and the ability for a judge to come and say this I find disgusting. Is this a reflection of the pointless respect to authority in Italy? Berlusconi is a jerk, but noone does anything about it, because he has power. Working with Italians, there is pointless amount of "respect" to people who are older, or at a higher level in the work organisation is frankly disgusting, as well as being extremely annoying. Whilst I appreciate the respect in society, at work it makes certain things absolutely impossible. Of course, when you buck the trend and start swearing and shouting at Italians who are senior to you it gets quite funny. Managed to make someone cry yesterday in the office with this behaviour, which I was pleased with, because you have to stop Italians thinking like Italians to get any work done.

Back to Foxy Knoxy - she said that she struggled to speak in English when she got back to america, and if you look at her hand gestures in the picture that I've attached, she has clearly really picked up the Italian way of speaking and expressing herself. I hope that she hasn't gone too far, as it can be hard to express yourself in English after picking up all these Italian memes and hand gestures. I do wonder if some of the deference that they have to authority is related to the language and the body language - you can learn so much from just watching any group of Italians chatting to each other animatedly. There is no need to actually speak any Italian - observing hand gestures without speaking any English you can follow any conversation. Come se dice in Italiano? Non lo so, ma in francese e cosi' - "Vive la difference!"