Integrity of Irish justice system at stake
Both were 21-year-old students and housemates at the time of Kercher’s murder near the Italian city of Perugia. They had known each other for less than two months.
Knox is expected to make a fortune from her story. But the outcome of the appeal also means that Kercher’s family have yet to attain closure. One man has been convicted of the stabbing that ended the life of their loved one, but the consensus is that others were involved. The family are also distraught at the PR campaign that was driving Knox’s appeal.
Meredith’s sister, Stephanie, told the media last week that their family’s loved one had been forgotten in the circus surrounding the trial and appeal of Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, who was also acquitted.
“It’s very difficult to keep her memory alive in all this,” said Stephanie. “We want to find the truth; we want to find justice for her. Without a final ending it’s very hard to forgive anything at this stage.”
Since the verdict, one of the appeal judges made the unusual move of stating that Knox and the ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito may know who was involved. Knox has also admitted that she falsely accused a local bar-owner of the killing.
In all the media furore, one salient point to emerge is that both British and American opinion on the case called the Italian justice system into question. The Kerchers were told initially that their daughter’s murder was an open-and-shut case. Now they have discovered that the evidence was very shaky.
Amanda Knox’s family and supporters long claimed that her initial conviction was a miscarriage of justice. When she was convicted in 2009, US Senator Maria Cantwell made the extraordinary move of criticising how the Italians do their business.
“I am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial,” she said at the time.
“The prosecution did not present enough evidence for an impartial jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms Knox was guilty.”
Some might consider the expression of these sentiments as a bit rich coming from a US lawmaker. However the Italians operate, they don’t execute people on flimsy evidence, as has been shown to be the case in the US, most recently with Troy Davis, who was put to death 10 days ago. But then, Amanda Knox is an attractive, well-connected, wealthy white woman, rather than a poor, illiterate black man.
Despite the reservations of American and British observers, there was never any question of trying to interfere in the Italian justice system.
A murder committed on Italian soil is the Italians’ business, whatever the nationality of the victim or alleged perpetrator. Interference simply wouldn’t be tolerated by government or the media in Italy. That’s how relations between developed and democratic nations exist, or, at least, you might think so.
On the same day that Knox was released, a team of French detectives flew into Cork Airport. Their arrival was greeted by, among others, an RTÉ camera crew. The story received prominence on the 9pm news, on which the detectives’ progress through the terminal was tracked with something approaching awe.
The detectives are here to investigate the murder of a Frenchwoman, in which the self-proclaimed chief suspect is an Englishman. The murder occurred nearly 15 years ago in West Cork.
Sophie Toscan du Plantier was bludgeoned to death in December 1996 near Schull. She was a mother of one, a film producer, and well-connected to the French establishment.
Ian Bailey, a British journalist living in the area, was identified as a suspect within a fortnight. He was arrested twice about the killing, but never charged. The DPP has studied the case on three occasions and has not recommended prosecution. Quite obviously, there is not enough evidence to even bring a suspect to trial.
French opinion on the case and the circumstances surrounding it has been scathing. That, combined with the influence of Du Plantier’s family, has led to a long campaign for justice for Sophie.
The sentiment behind such a campaign is entirely understandable.
Fifteen years down the line, the French are conducting their own investigation into the killing. Bailey’s extradition was requested and granted by the High Court earlier this year. The decision is being appealed.
The latest move is the arrival of the detectives. Their brief is to conduct an investigation through an examination of the crime scene and the interviewing 31 witnesses. Effectively, they are engaged in doing the work of the gardaí — a decade and a half after the Irish force completed its investigation.
According to sources connected to the case there is not one scintilla of new evidence. The French simply want to do things their way, and the only conclusion can be that they are unhappy with how the Irish authorities dealt with a crime on Irish soil.
Would it happen elsewhere? What if the British authorities told the Italians that the whole case around the murder of Meredith Kercher was a disaster, and that in order to attain justice the Old Bill wanted to apply its forensic skills? What if the Americans had said initially that the evidence gathered by the Italian authorities was deeply flawed, and required the application of the principles of fairness and justice, for which Uncle Sam is well known? How would such representations have been received by the Italians? Most likely with a not-so-polite and very firm two fingers.
What if the daughter of a prominent Irish family was murdered in London, and the investigation or any prosecution appeared flawed to Irish eyes? Would the Brits welcome An Garda Síochána’s finest across to conduct their own investigation?
Yet the arrival of the French police in Co Cork last week was greeted with open arms by both the authorities and the media.
The French are being accompanied and assisted by the gardaí as they attempt to build a case that was beyond the capabilities of the Irish authorities. The case being pursued for a crime committed on Irish soil does not have to conform to the standards required by the Irish criminal justice system.
This is no longer about the plight of Bailey. What is at issue is the integrity of the Irish criminal justice system.
Bad enough that we have lost our economic sovereignty; are we now being subjected to the stripping of the country’s values, as expressed through the criminal justice system? And there’s not a peep out of anybody, politicians, media, or the representative bodies for lawyers or the gardaí.
It’s high time there was some proper debate about what is unfolding.
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