In what media sources are calling her last chance for freedom, Amanda Knox will make her case to an Italian appeals court Dec. 11 that she's innocent of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher.
While "Foxy Knoxy" was once a lighthearted, complimentary nickname assigned to Knox in recognition of her soccer-ball stealth, the nickname turned derisive during her trial. In it, she was portrayed as a sex-obsessed drug user and possible satanist. She was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Now the tide of public opinion has turned as the evidence used to convict Knox comes under intense scrutiny. The prosecutor in her case, Giuliani Mignini, was himself convicted of abuse of process and sentenced to 16 years in prison in connection with another murder case after her trial. According to Knox's supporters, Mignini has a history of making unsupportable claims that murder suspects are involved in satanic cults. He has also sued Knox and her sympathizers, including her parents for alleged slander when they spoke out about the case. The prosecution even appealed her lengthy sentence, saying it wasn't long enough.
But it's not only possible prosecution bias at issue. The DNA foundation for the case against Knox has been rejected by multiple experts.
Here is a timeline of key events relating to the Amanda Knox case:
2005: Amanda Knox graduates from Seattle Prep, enrolls in University of Washington.
Fall semester 2007-08: Spending junior year abroad in the Perugia region of Italy, Amanda Knox rooms withMeredith Kercher, a British student, and two Italian girls, Filomena and Laura. She dates Raffaele Sollecito and works part-time in a bar owned by Diya "Patrick" Lumumba.
Nov. 1, 2007: Meredith Kercher is found dead in the students' apartment. The crime is discovered after Knox reports a break-in, saying she returned home from spending the night with her boyfriend to find the door open, window broken, a small amount of blood in the bathroom and Kercher's bedroom locked. The other two roommates were away visiting family.
Nov. 6, 2007: Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Patrick Lumumba are arrested for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Under intense pressure and without counsel, Knox made a confession she later recanted as well as an accusation against Lumumba. Lumumba is released after his alibi that he was working at the bar is substantiated by customers.
Nov. 20, 2007: Rudy Guede arrested in Germany after an international manhunt for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Guede had been on police radar in connection with multiple recent burglaries. His bloody handprint is on Kercher's pillow and on and inside her body.
Oct. 29, 2008: Guede is convicted after a fast-track trial and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Guede claimed that he was in the apartment to go on a date with Kercher whom he'd met the previous evening. At trial, he claimed he and Kercher made a failed attempt at consensual sex and while he was in the bathroom cleaning up, the killing took place in the bedroom. He implicated both Knox and Sollecito. In Dec., Guede's sentence was reduced to 16 years, with the judge noting that he was the only defendant to apologize to Kercher's parents.
Jan. 16, 2009: Trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito begins.
Dec. 4, 2009: Guilty verdict announced against both defendants. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25.
AP – In this undated photograph provided by Security Traders Association of New York, Mark Madoff is shown. …
by Biodun Iginla, BBC News– 4 mins ago
NEW YORK – The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoffhanged himself by a dog leash in his apartment Saturday after two years of "unrelenting pressure" following his father's arrest in a multibillion-dollar fraud that enveloped the entire family, law enforcement officials and a family attorney said.
Mark Madoff was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of investors of their life savings, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. His 2-year-old son was sleeping in the next bedroom, the officials said.
Mark Madoff, who reported his father to authorities the day after he confessed his fraud to them, has never been criminally charged in the investigation that has snared a half-dozen Madoff employees. He and his brother Andrew have said they were unaware of their father's crimes. But they have been remained under investigation and been named in multiple investor lawsuits.
Mark Madoff's lawyer, Martin Flumenbaum, said the 46-year-old had taken his own life Saturday.
"This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy," Flumenbaum said in a written statement. "Mark was an innocent victim of his father's monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo."
The law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the death, said that Mark Madoff's wife Stephanie, who is in Florida with another son, became concerned about her husband after he sent an e-mail to her Friday night or early Saturday morning that someone should check on the 2-year-old child with him.
She asked her father to check on the home, where he found Madoff's body; the child was sleeping in a bedroom unharmed. A dog was also found in the apartment, the officials said.
Bernard Madoff, 72, swindled a long list of investors out of billions of dollars. He admitted that he ran his scheme for at least two decades, cheating thousands of individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors. Losses are estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.
He was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, after confessing his crimes to his family.
The scandal put a harsh light on members of the family. The financier's brother, Peter, played a prominent role in the family's company. Mark and Andrew Madoff both worked on a trading desk at the firm, on a side of the business that wasn't directly involved in the Ponzi scheme.
In February, Mark Madoff's wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal.
A year ago, the court-appointed trustee trying to unravel Madoff's financial affairs sued several relatives, including Peter, Mark and Andrew, accusing them of failing to detect the fraud while living lavish lifestyles financed with the family's ill-gotten fortune.
The lawsuit accused Mark Madoff of using $66 million he received improperly to buy luxury homes in New York City, Nantucket and Connecticut.
A call to Bernard Madoff's attorney was not immediately returned Saturday. Calls to the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office were also not immediately returned. Previously, spokespeople for the brothers had repeatedly denied that they had any knowledge of their father's crimes.
Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence in North Carolina after admitting the fraud in late 2008 to his family and later the FBI. Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said Saturday she didn't have specific information on whether Bernie Madoff had been informed of his son's death or would be allowed to attend a service. In general, she said, inmates are informed of a relative's death as soon as the institution is made aware of it and the bureau does allow furloughs for prisoners to attend memorial services.
A police officer stood guard in the lobby of Madoff's 12-story luxury loft apartment in SoHo Saturday morning. An official from the medical examiner's office arrived in a van Saturday morning. The medical examiner will determine the cause of death.
BREAKING NEWS ALERT: Madoff Son Found Dead of Apparent Suicide Topic: madoff, bbc news, suicide
by Suzanne Gould, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla According to the New York police, Mark Madoff, a son of Bernard Madoff, has been found dead inNew York Cityof an apparent suicide. Mark Madoff and his brother, Andrew, were under investigation but hadn't faced any criminal charges in the massivePonzi schemethat led to their father's jailing.
It was an extraordinary sight, even by White House standards.
Two presidents at the podium in the White House press room, discussing Democratic infighting over a tax cut extension plan.
Then, an even more extraordinary sight: President Obama leaving, former President Bill Clinton behind to hold court with reporters for 20 more minutes.
"I'm going to let him speak very briefly," Obama said. "And then I've actually got to go over and do just one more Christmas party. So he may decide he wants to take some questions, but I want to make sure that you guys hear it from him directly.
Replied Clinton: "Thank you very much, Mr. President. First of all, I feel awkward being here, and now you're going to leave me all by myself."
Obama left the press room right after the 11 minute mark; the news conference lasts 32:09.
The two presidents decided on the spur of the moment to speak with reporters following a nearly 90-minute in the Oval Office. Reporters were notified less than 10 minutes before the show started.
Clinton endorsed Obama's proposal to temporarily extend all the George W. Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest Americans. While Democrats are protesting that last item, Clinton echoed Obama's argument that the package also includes unemployment benefits and other tax breaks that benefit the middle class.
Both noted that Republicans will take over the U.S. House next month, and be in a position to dictate the terms of any revised deal.
"I think this is a much, much better agreement than would be reached were we to wait until January," Clinton said "And I think it will have a much more positive impact on the economy -- so for whatever it's worth, that's what I think."
Obama chimed in,"that's worth a lot!"
The two presidents also discussed how to deal with a Congress controlled by the other party, something Clinton experienced and which Obama will have to face next month.
After Clinton took a question on last month's Democratic election defeats, Obama announced: "I've been keeping the First Lady waiting for about half an hour, so I'm going to take off ...
Clinton said, "I don't want to make her mad, please go."
Then the former president took questions on ... what to do about private credit markets ... Obama's political standing ... Democratic criticism of the tax cut deal .... Haiti ... the budget deficit ... and U.S. political divisions.
In the middle, came this question:
QUESTION: Mr. President, I get the feeling that you're happier to be here commenting and giving advice than governing.
FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Oh, I had quite a good time governing ... (laughter) ... I am happy to be here, I suppose, when the bullets that are fired are unlikely to hit me, unless they're just ricocheting.
If not a transfer of power, the whole show seemed at least a temporary handoff. An embattled president, fresh off an electoral shellacking and struggling to sell a controversial tax deal to members of his own party, turned to a former president who, exactly 16 years ago, was struggling to right his own presidency after a defeat of almost similar magnitude.
The Drudge Report headline on this news conference: PresidentObama Clinton.
Amanda Knox says she's innocent of murder charges Topic: amanda knox, bbc news, italy mur
by Natalie de Vallieres, BBC News EU Desk, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
– 27 mins ago
ROME – Amanda Knox, the American jailed in Italy for the murder of her British flatmate, insisted at the second hearing of her appeal trial on Saturday that she was innocent, and said it was a mistake to keep her in prison.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison in December 2009 for her part in the killing of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher after what judges said was a frenzied sex game that spiraled out of control.
Her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and another man, Rudy Guede, were also convicted for their roles in the murder.
"I and Raffaele are paying with our lives for a crime we did not commit," an emotional Knox told the court on Saturday. "It's unjust that I have spent three years in prison. It was all a mistake," she added, speaking in Italian.
Knox, 23, appeared in court in a grey sweater for the second hearing in her appeal, which began on November 24. She broke down in tears as she sympathized with Kercher's family.
"I am very sorry that she is not here any more, I also have younger sisters and the thought of losing them terrifies me," she said.
Kercher died in November 2007. Her half-naked body was found locked in her blood-splattered bedroom in the house she shared with Knox and two other students in the university town of Perugia.
She had a deep stab wound in the throat.
Prosecutors accused Knox of persuading Guede and Sollecito to take part in an extreme sex game involving Kercher, which turned violent. They said Knox was furious at Kercher for criticizing her for promiscuity and a lack of cleanliness.
Knox, whose case drew huge interest around the world, said on Saturday that a false image had been painted of her. "I am not a mean, devilish, uncaring or violent person, I have never been that girl," she said.
Family and friends of Knox, and some U.S. media, have said her conviction was a miscarriage of justice.
Further hearings in the appeal trial are scheduled for December 18 and January 15.
by Xian Wan and Biodun Iginla, BBC News. Xian reported from Beijing
Inflation in China has risen to a 28-month high, sparking warnings of new interest rate rises.
The inflation rate, measured by the consumer price index, rose 5.1% year-on-year in November, an increase that was above market expectations.
On Friday, China had reported much stronger than expected export growth in November, adding to inflation fears.
Inflation has in the past caused unrest in China, where poor families spend up to half their incomes on food.
The government has said it will take strong action against anyone found to be manipulating food prices.
It has taken a number of measures to try to tighten its monetary policy and boost the supply of key goods.
Beyond expectations
In October, the central bank announced the first interest rate rise in nearly three years and analysts say another may be needed.
Shen Jianguang, an economist with Mizuho Securities, told Reuters news agency: "At least one interest rate rise is needed for this year... if you see inflation but no rate hike, people will doubt the determination to fight inflation".
The 5.1% November rise was the biggest since June 2008, and follows a sharp hike on the October rate of 4.4%.
The government's full-year target is 3%.
NBS spokesman Sheng Laiyun told the AFP agency: "Price rises in November are beyond many people's expectations. It will take some time for the [anti-inflationary] policies to be implemented and show clear effects."
China implemented a $586bn stimulus package two years ago which many analysts believe was the catalyst for the inflation rises.
WASHINGTON — In the spirit of the holiday season, President Barack Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans is becoming a Christmas tree tinseled with gifts for lobbyists and lawmakers. But that hardly stopped the squabbling on Friday, with... Read more
BEIJING — As much of the world on Friday focused their eyes on the empty seat in Oslo that starkly represented the absence of the Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, a lone Chinese blogger posted the image of a chair on the country’s most popular microblogging site.
Within minutes, it had been deleted by a censor’s unseen hand.
That small gesture of solidarity with Mr. Liu, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for “subversion of state power,” is largely emblematic of China’s sweeping effort to quash any expression of sympathy for a man whose plight has captivated the world.
All mentions of the pageantry at the award ceremony on Friday were scrubbed from the Chinese Internet, and the relatively small number of people who have access to overseas news outlets such as BBC and CNN saw their television screens go black in the days leading up the ceremony. On Friday night, the most discussed topics on Sina, the largest news portal, included plunging temperatures and flight delays at Beijing’s airport.
To those outside China, the government’s response to the Norwegian committee’s decision to give Mr. Liu the Nobel Peace Prize was remarkable for its bombast and audacity.
Beijing dispatched its diplomats to warn countries against sending envoys to the ceremony, while the Foreign Ministry and state media issued a steady drumbeat of invective, describing the prize as a Western plot to hold back a rising China and branding the award’s supporters as “clowns.” On Friday, Global Times, a populist tabloid affiliated with the party-owned People’s Daily, called the event a “political farce” and Oslo a “cult center.”
But while such outbursts may have provoked snickers around the world, the stern-faced men who run China’s government may have the last laugh. Minxin Pei, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College in California, said those who focus solely on the damage done to Beijing’s global image are missing the point. In the end, he said, the only opinions that matter are those held by China’s 1.3 billion citizens.
“After Tiananmen, China suffered three years of international isolation, but it recovered,” he said, referring to the violent crackdown of pro-democracy protesters in 1989. “The regime’s approach to the Nobel was strategic. They know the world will come calling again because China and its economy cannot be ignored for long.”
After the prize was announced, China’s censors promptly took measures to stymie the spread of the news via the Internet and text messaging, while police agents began detaining and harassing liberal colleagues and supporters.
But once they realized they could not control the debate beyond their nation’s borders from seeping into China, Mr. Pei and other analysts say, senior leaders decided to tailor their message to the domestic audience. Although the Chinese government has become increasingly adept at controlling information available to its 440 million Internet users, several people with knowledge of the government’s deliberations said the Nobel Prizepresented propaganda officials with a daunting challenge: how to smear what many ordinary Chinese see as honor, without fanning interest in Mr. Liu.
Within a few days of the announcement, China’s Politburo met to complete a game plan: Mr. Liu would be painted as a traitor and the Nobel committee’s decision would be officially labeled a “plot by Western enemy forces, headed by the United States,” according to a veteran journalist at a party-run media outlet who had knowledge of the deliberations.
Wielding rhetoric redolent of the Maoist era, a succession of commentaries soon appeared that played on nationalistic sentiment by highlighting Mr. Liu’s affiliation with an American pro-democracy group. Others pulled quotes from an interview he gave to a Hong Kong magazine in 1988 in which he described colonialism as the antidote to China’s problems. (Supporters say his remarks were incendiary to make a point about China’s dysfunction.)
In every article about him, Mr. Liu was described as a criminal who had been tried and convicted by the nation’s justice system.
At the same time, the censors assiduously removed information about Mr. Liu not approved by the propaganda ministry, including any mention at all of Charter 08, the pro-democracy manifesto that he helped shape and that led to his conviction.
The intense media controls appear to have had the desired effect. According to the veteran party journalist, an official survey of university students taken since the prize was awarded found that 85 percent said they knew nothing about Mr. Liu and Charter 08.
Although it is not clear exactly when the survey was taken, that figure was partly borne out Friday in conversations with more than three dozen people across the capital, many of them students at two of the country’s top universities. One student said she thought the Nobel recipient was the Dalai Lama (he won in 1989) and another insisted that the award ceremony had long since taken place. Most said they had no idea who Mr. Liu was, but a handful quietly voiced support for him and his ideas.
Even if they did not know his name, those who were aware that a Chinese citizen was the recipient said they agreed with the government that his selection was a plot to embarrass China.
Xiao Feng, 27, said she thought the recipient had probably done something to harm the nation. “I think this year’s prize is a little bit unfair,” she said. “From what I can tell, its purpose is to humiliate China.”
China has said the awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is a "political farce".
China's foreign ministry said the move by the prize committee in Oslo "does not represent the wish of the majority of the people in the world".
There were standing ovations at the ceremony in Norway for Mr Liu, who was represented only by an empty chair.
The committee's chairman called for the immediate release of the dissident.
Thorbjorn Jagland praised China for lifting millions of people out of poverty, calling it an "extraordinary achievement".
But he warned China that its new status as a leading world power meant Beijing "must regard criticism as positive".
In response, the foreign ministry in Beijing said in a statement: "We resolutely oppose any country or any person using the Nobel Peace Prize to interfere with China's internal affairs or infringe upon China's legal sovereignty."
China says that Mr Liu is a criminal, and insists that giving him a prize is an insult to China's judicial system.
Beijing has also waged a campaign in recent weeks to discredit the Nobel prize.
'China's Mandela'
During the award ceremony in Oslo, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read out a statement that Mr Liu had made in court during his trial in December 2009.
1989: leading activist in Tiananmen Square protests for democratisation; jailed for two years
1996: spoke out against China's one-party system; sent to labour camp for three years
2008: co-author of Charter 08, calling for a new constitution, an independent judiciary and freedom of expression
2009: jailed for subversion for 11 years; verdict says he "had the goal of subverting our country's people's democratic dictatorship and socialist system. The effects were malign and he is a major criminal".
"I, filled with optimism, look forward to the advent of a future, free China," said the statement.
"For there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom, and China will in the end become a nation ruled by law, where human rights reign supreme."
Honouring the new laureate, Mr Jagland placed the Nobel diploma on the empty chair marking Mr Liu's absence.
He compared China's anger at the award to the outcry over peace prizes awarded to other dissidents of their times, including South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
He said Mr Liu was dedicating his prize to "the lost souls from 4 June", those who died in the pro-democracy protests on that date in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
"We can say (Mr) Liu reminds us of Nelson Mandela," he said. The former South African president received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
The UN says it had information that China detained at least 20 activists ahead of the ceremony.
An image of Liu Xiaobo is being thrown on to the facade of the Grand Hotel in the centre of Oslo as night falls, after the city honoured this year's Nobel peace laureate.
For the first time in more than 70 years the peace prize ceremony has been essentially symbolic, with the recipient in jail and none of the close family members who would be entitled to receive the prize on his behalf allowed to leave China.
The most symbolic moment of all was when the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, placed Liu Xiaobo's medal on a chair on the podium that had been deliberately left empty.
It has been one of the most controversial peace prizes for years. To China, the award has diminished this prestigious prize. But to the Nobel committee, China's diplomatic offensive over the award only justifies the choice of Liu Xiaobo as a deserving winner.
A further 120 cases of house arrest, travel restriction, forced relocation and other acts of intimidation have been reported.
The BBC's English and Chinese language websites have been blocked, and BBC TV coverage was blacked out inside China during the ceremony.
Mr Liu, one of China's leading dissidents, is serving an 11-year sentence in a jail in north-east China for state subversion.
Police are stationed outside his home in Beijing where his wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest.
Chinese pressure
Geir Lundestad, the director of the Nobel committee, said 48 foreign delegations attended the Oslo ceremony, 16 countries - including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - turned down the invitation and the Chinese returned their invitation unopened.
Analysts say many of those who stayed away did so as a result of Chinese pressure.
However, Serbia - which had previously said it would not attend - announced on Friday that it would be sending a representative.
Beijing had sought to prevent anyone travelling from China to Oslo to collect the prize on Mr Liu's behalf.
The BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Oslo says that to the Nobel committee, Liu Xiaobo symbolises a message it was keen to send to China - that its growing economic strength and power do not exempt it from universal standards of human rights.
On the other hand, China said the committee had chosen a criminal convicted under Chinese law to serve the interests of certain Western countries, our correspondent says.
Charter 08
Liu Xiaobo first came to prominence when he took part in the Tiananmen protests.
He was sent to prison for nearly two years for his role, and has been a critic of the Chinese government ever since.
He was given the 11-year prison sentence in December 2009 for inciting the subversion of state power, a charge which came after he co-authored a document known as Charter 08.
The document calls openly for political reforms in China, such as a separation of powers and legislative democracy.
This year marks the first time since 1936 that the Nobel Peace Prize, now worth $1.5m (£950,000), was not handed out.
The BBC's Damian Grammaticas reports from the prison holding Liu Xiaobo
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Thursday again called for Mr Liu to be released "as soon as possible".
Last year's peace prize winner, US President Barack Obama, has also called for his release.
As well as putting Liu Xia, the Nobel laureate's wife, under house arrest, the authorities have put pressure on other activists and dissidents.
Some have been prevented from leaving the country, while others have been forced to leave their homes for the next few days, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders.
One of those to disappear, it said, was Zhang Zuhua, the man who co-wrote Charter 08.
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