Italian journalist is fall-guy as Knox prepares exclusive

AS THE FAMILY of Meredith Kercher mark the fourth anniversary of her death, cracks have appeared in the once united front put up by Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito as they scrabble to secure the best media deals for their story.

Since the pair were dramatically acquitted of Meredith’s murder a month ago, their families and representatives have been busy negotiating offers and trying to keep a lid on any minor scoops and photos that might dilute the media value of the grand exclusive when it comes.

After spending nearly four years in jail, Knox, 24, flew home to Seattle and has yet to speak publicly beyond her brief, tearful airport homecoming organised by her PR team in early October.

But Sollecito, 27, returned to Bisceglie, near Bari and apparently gave an interview to an Italian reporter in which he said that he phones and writes regularly to Amanda, who has invited him to Seattle. The Knox camp, and the media outfits they have been talking to, scrambled to distance themselves.
   
Alongside the interview, published in the most recent issue of the Italian glossy Oggi, was a posed photo of Sollecito wearing the coat he had loaned to Knox on the morning of 2 November 2007 when they were photographed outside the cottage in Perugia where Meredith’s body was found.  

The Oggi story, by veteran crime reporter Giangavino Sulas, Sollecito was picked up by a number of British papers and some news agencies in the US.
 
Sulas’s stories of police bungling and flattering portrayals of Knox and Sollecito during their appeal had made him quite the media ally, so it was hardly surprising that the Sollecito family should give him with an exclusive interview.

But within a day of the Oggi story being picked up in America, ABC television called it “all a lie” and quoted Raffaele’s father, Franceso Sollecito, as saying: “Raffaele has not spoken to any reporters since being released.”  An NBC producer also complained to a news organisation that ran the Oggi story, claiming NBC had fact-checked it and the interview had never happened.   

Clearly someone was keen to ensure this Italian “scoop” did not gain any traction in the US while the networks vie for the first big TV interview with Amanda.  

Contacted by The Week, Sulas said via email that not only did he definitely conduct the interview with Sollecito, but that the denials had prompted Oggi to file an official “counter denial” with Italian news agencies.
 
Sulas’s editor, Umberto Brindani, gave precise details of where Sulas met Francesco Sollecito on three occasions. At the third meeting, at the Pizzeria Fermata Facoltativa, Raffaele and his stepmother Mara were also present and the interview with Raffaele took place.

Sulas says he was also given the photo of Sollecito by the family.

It is not surprising the deeply indebted Knox and Sollecito families are keen to negotiate the best possible media deals. Knox’s parents claim to have drained their retirement funds, taken out second mortgages and racked up huge credit card debts to meet legal fees and the cost of flying back and forth from Seattle to Perugia. Sollecito’s family reportedly owe E350,000 for defence experts alone, never mind the lawyers’ bills.

But Sulas, one of the few Italian journalists to fight the pair’s corner, is clearly shocked to have been placed in the position of fall-guy. After all, many Italians are still smarting over the decision to acquit Knox and Sollecito.

Last week, Italy’s Under-Secretary for the Interior, Alfredo Mantovano, broke his silence in a scathing Q & A with political correspondent Arturo Celletti in the weekly women’s magazine, A.  

He defended the police and the forensic labs that his ministry oversees. And he questioned the qualifications of the two professors called as independent experts, calling for reforms of the system that allowed expert defence opinion to carry so much weight.

Had the murder happened in some US states, said Mantovano, Knox and Sollecito would “still be at some penitentiary waiting in line for their turn at lethal injection”. ·