Pirlo’s performances turn back the clock

By Calvin Palmer

One of the highlights of Euro 2012 has been the vintage and sublime performances of Italy’s Andrea Pirlo. I use the term “vintage” for good reason because Pirlo is a throwback to how football was played in the 1970s.

Italy’s midfield genius Andrea Pirlo. Picture courtesy of theoriginalwinger.com.

As a Stoke City fan, I can’t help but see the similarity between how Pirlo plays the game and one of the most skillful and creative players ever to wear the red and white stripes of the Potters. I am of course referring to that wayward footballing genius, Alan Hudson.

Pirlo like Hudson has the skill and talent that is granted to only a few players in any given generation. He is not the kind of player who covers every blade of grass but he is always available to take a pass from a teammate. On occasions when he is put under pressure in the middle of the park, his skill is such that an attempt to dispossess him usually results in a free-kick. Hudson’s playing style was exactly the same.

The consummate skill of Pirlo is combined with an amazing footballing vision. He may be involved in a couple of interchanges with a colleague and then will suddenly unleash a 30-yard pass that splits the defence and puts a teammate clean through on goal. Hudson’s footballing vision was similar.

Pirlo also has the appearance of a player from the 1970s, with his shoulder-length hair rather than sporting a haircut straight out of the pages of The Beano or a hairstyle that is kept in place with a bottle or two of hair gel.

Where the similarity between Pirlo and Hudson ends is their respective international careers. Pirlo has been a regular for Italy since 2002 and has 88 caps. Hudson’s appearances for England were restricted to just two games – the memorable 2-0 defeat of West Germany in 1972 and the 5-0 drubbing of Cyprus in the same year.

At the peak of Hudson’s playing career, England were coached by Don Revie, the former manager of Leeds United. Revie’s old style management and preference for players who never stopped running immediately put him at odds with Hudson and Hudson was not the kind of person to keep his opinions to himself. Consequently, Hudson’s international career ended almost as soon as it started.

What was lost to the international stage was enjoyed by Stoke City fans for two glorious seasons, from 1974 to 1976, during which Hudson played the best football of his career.

Hudson returned to Stoke City for the 1984-85 season and helped the club avoid relegation from the First Division. The legs may not have been as strong but the skill and vision were still there.

If I had to choose between Pirlo and Hudson, I would go for the Italian. Earlier I referred to Hudson as a wayward genius. Pirlo seems more psychologically together to cope with the pressures of the game. Pirlo also has a better goal-scoring record than Hudson.

For me, and a great many others, Pirlo is already the player of the Euro 2012 tournament. In tomorrow’s final against Spain he has the opportunity to consolidate that accolade.

When Italy held Spain to a 1-1 draw in the Group C match, I saw them as the dark horse of the tournament. They have continued to impress me with every game and I see no reason why they cannot go on to beat the reigning champions and emerge as Euro 2012 winners. All it will take is Pirlo’s artistry, hard work and a little luck.

Convicted mafia member claims his brother killed Meredith Kercher

By Calvin Palmer

Like a bad Hollywood film script, an imprisoned Italian mobster is claiming that his brother and not Amanda Knox murdered British student Meredith Kercher.

Luciano Aviello, 41, who is serving a 17-year sentence for being a member of the Naples-based Camorra mafia,, told Knox’s lawyers that his brother, Antonio, murdered 21-year-old Kercher and asked him to hide the knife used to kill her.

Aviello said his brother showed up to his house wearing a bloodstained jacket the night of the murder saying he broke into a house and killed a woman.

“I had everything under a little wall behind my house and covered it with soil and stones,” Aviello said. “I am happy to stand up in court and confirm all this and wrote to the court several times to tell them but was never questioned.”

Aviello claims he wrote to the court three times to give his testimony, but was ignored.

The claim may offer fresh hope to Knox, who in December was convicted of murdering the Leeds University student and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

It will form part of an appeal that her lawyers are preparing and that is expected to be heard in the autumn in Perugia, Umbria, where the crime took place.

Kercher’s half-naked body was found on November 2, 2007, lying in a pool of blood in a bedroom in the cottage she shared with Knox.

Aviello is from Naples but was living in Perugia at the time of the murder.

He alleged his brother and an Albanian man named Florio broke into the hillside cottage. Kercher saw them and started screaming. His brother tried to silence her by putting his hand over her mouth but she resisted and he allegedly ended up fatally stabbing her.

Aviello insists that the two men convicted alongside Knox of the murder – her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede, a local drifter – are also innocent of the crime and should have their jail sentences of 25 years and 16 years quashed.

It is not known what has motivated Aviello to point the blame at his brother, although defendants who cooperate with Italian police and prosecutors can often expect their jail sentences to be reduced.

Hmmm, I wonder if that could be his motivation? I should imagine that  Luciano is also bored in prison and this story is a good way of getting back into the limelight.

The whereabouts of Antonio Aviello are unknown. Now, isn’t that convenient?

If Knox’s lawyers fall for these allegations, my advice to her would be, hire new lawyers before the appeal is heard.

And my second piece of advice would be, get used to life in prison, you are going to be there for a long time.

Still, on a slow news day, it makes for an amusing, if ludicrous, read on a par with a London Double-decker being found on the moon and Elvis Presley being seen stacking shelves in Walmart.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and New York Daily News.]

Amanda Knox and former boyfriend found guilty of murder

By Calvin Palmer

American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito have been found guilty of the murder of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox, 22, was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Sollecito, 25, received a sentence of 25 years.

Kercher, of Couldsen, Surrey, was an exchange student from  Leeds University and shared a flat with Knox in the Italian city of Perugia.

When she refused to take part in a drug-fueled sex game in November 2007, she ended up having her throat cut.

Police found her semi-naked body covered by a duvet. Her bedroom door was locked but the window had been broken.

Kercher’s body showed signs of bruising, and tests revealed evidence of sexual activity shortly before her death – but a post-mortem examination could not confirm she had been raped.

At first police believed Kercher had been killed as the result of a botched burglary but further investigation revealed the room had been made to look like a burglary had taken place.

Police arrested Knox and Sollecito whom prosecutors accused of killing Kercher because she had refused to take part in an extreme sex session.

A pathologist’s report said Kercher’s death was slow and painful because despite the fact that her throat was cut, the blow did not sever her carotid artery.

Prosecutors claimed that Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of the likely murder weapon – a kitchen knife found in Sollecito’s house – and that traces of Kercher’s DNA were on the blade.

Knox and Sollecito were remanded in custody shortly after the killing, when they gave conflicting statements over their whereabouts on the night of the murder.

Sollecito said he was at his flat in Perugia using his computer, and he did not remember whether Knox spent the whole night with him or just part of it.

Rudy Hermann Guede, 22, who has joint Italian and Ivory Coast nationality, was convicted last year of her murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is appealing against his conviction.

Knox and Sollecito are also thought likely to appeal against their convictions.

[Based on reports by The Guardian and BBC News.]

Knox’s hatred of room mate triggered ‘an unstoppable crescendo of violence’

By Calvin Palmer

The hatred American Amanda Knox harbored for British exchange student and room mate Meredith Kercher led to “an unstoppable crescendo of violence” that resulted in the British girl’s murder, an Italian court heard today.

Chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini summed up the prosecution’s case in a trial that has lasted almost a year.

Knox, 22, a University of Washington student, from Seattle, and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, are standing trial for the murder of 21-year-old Kercher, from Couldsen, Surrey, on the night of November 1, 2007. They both deny any wrongdoing.

Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, 22, was convicted for his role last fall in a separate trial and sentenced to 30 years. His appeal also began this week.

Mignini argued that Knox initiated a scuffle that degenerated into a beating, sexual assault and eventual stabbing, went on to alter the crime scene to create a clumsily staged burglary and rape, then fell into a self-made trap of inconsistencies and fibs.

“The first accusers of Amanda and Raffaele were they themselves,” he said.

Mignini clearly painted Knox as the mastermind of the crime, an aggressive young woman who harbored hate for her goody-two shoes English roommate and exerted powerful influence over the other two male suspects, who were infatuated with her.

He said Knox bitterly resented the fact that Kercher had complained about her keeping a vibrator and condoms in full view in their bathroom and her habit of bringing men back to the house they shared in the medieval walled town of Perugia in Umbria.

“We don’t know what they intended to do once in the house,” he said “Perhaps there was a discussion, a fight over money or behavior that got out of control. Or perhaps after smoking hash, they decide to include Meredith in an extreme sexual game, and it was the moment for Knox to vindicate herself in a situation that bit-by-bit got more and more violent.”

Knox, dressed in her favorite red, hooded Beatles sweatshirt and jeans, grew increasingly emotional as Mignini described in detail his reconstruction of Kercher’s slaying and wept quietly twice during the course of the afternoon.

“It is Amanda who started the fight, which triggered an unstoppable crescendo of violence, and it is Amanda who plunged the knife into Meredith’s neck,” Mignini said. “It is Amanda who later covers the cadaver with a blanket — a form of pietas, of respect for the victim. An unknown male would not have any need to cover the body. As a woman, and friend, she couldn’t stand to see that nude, battered cadaver that she was responsible for.”

The three alleged killers tried to cover up the crime by smashing a window in the house with a rock in an attempt to convince investigators that the murder was committed by a lone burglar, Mignini said in his closing arguments.

The Italian police who investigated the crime scene have told the court their suspicions were aroused by the fact that glass shards lay on top of clothing lying scattered on the floor, suggesting that the window was broken after the room was ransacked, not before.

“All of this was done to channel suspicions on to a stranger,” Mr Mignini said. “The key to the mystery is in that room.”

Not only was the window visible from a nearby road, making it an odd point of entry for a burglar, but nothing in the room was stolen.

Mignini is expected to ask for lengthy prison sentences for Knox and her former lover when the court resumes. A verdict is expected in the first week of December. If convicted by a panel of two judges and six jurors, the pair could face life imprisonment.

Knox’s laywer Carlo Dalla Vedova dismissed Mignini’s closing argument.

“This was a very suggestive presentation, but this is the court of assize, so you need actual proof to condemn someone,” said Carlo Dalla Vedova.

When asked about Knox’s emotional response during Mignini’s dramatic reconstruction of the crime, Dalla Vedova said “It’s two years she has been in prison, of course it is trying for her.”

Knox’s stepfather, Chris Mellas, was present in the courtroom, but had no comment.

Co-prosecutor Manuela Comodi will present summations of the forensic evidence in court tomorrow.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Seattle Post Intelligencer.]

Guede tells court of ‘piercing scream’ after Knox and Kercher argued

By Calvin Palmer

Rudy Guede, convicted last year of killing British exchange student Meredith Kercher, today addressed a court in Italy as he launched his appeal against his 30-year prison sentence.

Guede, 22, told the court in Perugia he heard Kercher and Amanda Knox, her American room-mate, arguing over money in the bathroom of the house that they shared. Minutes later he heard a “piercing scream”.

The court is expected to reach a verdict on Knox, 22, of Seattle, and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 26, early next month. They both deny any wrongdoing.

Guede was born in the Ivory Coast but emigrated to Italy as a child and was described as a drifter at his fast-track trial.

He told the court he went to the Leeds University student’s house on the evening of November 1, 2007, but started to feel queasy, having eaten a kebab the night before. He went to the bathroom and started listening to his iPod. Over the sound of the music he heard an argument between Kercher and Knox.

“I heard Meredith’s and Amanda’s voices, arguing about some money missing,” he said. “I was listening to music but halfway through the third track I heard a piercing scream.”

He said he rushed into Kercher’s bedroom where he saw a man, whom he later suggested could have been Sollecito, who tried to stab him with a knife.

Staggering back into the hallway, Guede said, “The man said: ‘Let’s go. There’s a black guy in the house.’”

Guede said he heard people leaving the house and looked out of the window where he saw a silhouette he later identified as Knox.

Knox maintains she spent the night of the murder at Sollecito’s house elsewhere in Perugia.

Sollecito has said he home working at his computer that night. He said he does not remember if Knox spent the whole night with him or just part of it.

Guede told the court he tried to save the life of Kercher, who was by now lying in a pool of blood with her throat cut. He tried to stem the flow of blood with towels, but then panicked and left the house.

“Seeing Meredith in these terms was agonizing,” he said. “She was dying. She tried to tell me something, but I couldn’t understand her. I held her hand, I asked her what had happened. … In that moment, I entered into a state of shock”.

He fled the house and a few days later left the country. He was arrested on a train in Germany and extradited back to Italy.

“I want to let the Kercher family know that I did not kill or rape their daughter,” he said. “I was not the one who took her life.”

The prosecution claims that during a group sex game, Sollecito held the Briton by the shoulders while Miss Knox threatened her with a knife and Guede sexually assaulted her. Knox then allegedly stabbed Kercher, from Coulsdon in Surrey, in the throat.

Guede became a suspect after his fingerprint was found in bloodstains on Kercher’s pillow, and other DNA traces were recovered on her body and in the lavatory bowl.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Associated Press.]

GPS typo sends pair of Swedish tourists 400 miles off course

By Calvin Palmer

Two Swedish tourists aiming to visit the Italian paradise island of Capri ended up 400 miles off course thanks to misspelling the name in the car’s navigation system.

Instead of scenic views of the azure Mediterranean, the pair found themselves in the industrial landscape of Carpi in northern Italy.

Angelo Giovannini, a spokesman for Carpi Town Hall, near Modena, said today the couple drove into the main square last week and asked the local tourist office how to reach Capri’s famed Blue Grotto sea cave.

Giovannini said: “Although Capri is an island, they did not even wonder why they didn’t cross any bridge or take any boat.”

He said the middle-aged couple, who were not identified, arrived from Venice and later set off to their planned destination in the Gulf of Naples, southern Italy.

[Based on a report by the Associated Press.]

Explosion after freight train derailment kills at least 15 people

By Calvin Palmer

A freight train carrying liquefied gas left the tracks last night causing an explosion that killed at least 15 people and injured 50 others in an Italian seaside resort.

The train ran into several homes in Viareggio, Tuscany, which were quickly engulfed in flames. The explosion caused two houses to collapse and it is feared one of the buildings had 18 people inside.

Of the 50 people injured, 36 are said to be in a serious condition. At least 30 people are said to be missing.

Two children, whose bodies have been recovered, were among the dead.

“We saw a ball of fire rising up to the sky,” said Gianfranco Bini, who lives in a building overlooking the station. “We heard three big rumbles, like bombs. It looked like war had broken out.”

The inferno occurred around midnight when a wagon came off the rails and the rear of the train smashed into houses next to Viareggio’s railway station, setting fire to a vast area.

“The cars flipped over on their sides on the rails and the gas spread out among the nearest houses before exploding,” said Antonio Gambardella, commander of the firefighters at the scene.

Hundreds of firemen from across the region were rushed to the area to help with the rescue operation and ensure remaining tankers do not catch fire.

They dug through the rubble of collapsed or burnt homes looking for casualties, while others wearing nuclear, biological and chemical threats fought to contain the blaze.

An estimated 1,000 people were evacuated from the area because of the danger of more explosions, said Luca Lunardini, the town’s mayor.

The train’s two engineers were only slightly injured and were questioned in hospital.

The state-owned railway company says that the accident was caused by failure of one of the bogies on a leading tank wagon.

Italy’s minister of transport, Altero Matteoli, has appointed a commission of inquiry.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Corriere della Sera.]                

British woman falls to her death on Italian mountain trail

By Calvin Palmer

A British woman fell 650 feet to her death in front of her husband yesterday while hiking in the Dolomite mountains in northern Italy.

Patricia Fletcher, 64, from Nantwich, Cheshire, died on the final day of a 10-day trip when she fell after reportedly slipping on snow.

The tragedy occurred in the municipality of Livinallongo del Col di Lana, in Belluno province in northern Italy.

Fletcher was in a group of five walkers, including her husband George, when the accident happened on a walking trail known as the the Ferrata delle Trincee, or “Way of the Trenches”.

The couple traveled to Italy with Collett’s Mountain Holidays, based near Royston in Hertfordshire.

Tom Collett, the firm’s managing director, said: “It is a very tragic event, and everybody here is devastated.”

After she fell, her husband and another member of the group scrambled down the mountain to reach her, Collett said.

But there was nothing they could do for her. Her body had to be recovered by helicopter.

The Fletchers were said to be fit and capable walkers who were keen on tackling high alpine trails during their holiday.

The Ferrata delle Trincee route is described as being of “medium” difficulty on an official Web site for the Dolomites, which states: “The most difficult section is to be found right at the start: a steep smooth slab. Good hiking boots make a world of difference on this volcanic rock.”

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Press Association.]

Amanda Knox takes the stand and protests her innocence

By Calvin Palmer

Amanda Knox gave evidence at her trial today during which she said she smoked marijuana and had sex with her boyfriend on the night British exchange student Meredith Kercher was murdered. She also claimed she was beaten by Italian police and forced into making false statements.

Knox, 21, from Seattle, and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, are standing trial for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher. Both deny any wrongdoing.

Dressed in a white shirt and pale ­trousers, Knox protested her innocence and said she was nowhere near the hillside cottage she shared with Kercher when the British girl was murdered on the night of November 1, 2007.

Knox told the court in Perugia, central Italy, she spent the evening with her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. After dinner, they went up to the bedroom.

“I sat on the bed, he sat at his desk, he prepared the joint and then we smoked it together,” Knox said.

“First we made love, then we fell asleep.”

The prosecution alleges that in a sex game that went wrong, Sollecito held down Kercher while a a third defendant, Rudy Guede, sexually assaulted her and Miss Knox stabbed her three times in the neck.

Guede, 22, originally from the Ivory Coast, was found guilty of being involved in the murder in a separate trial last year and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Knox told the court of the last time she saw Kercher hours before the murder. They had talked about the Halloween party of the night before and Knox noticed Kercher still had traces of makeup on her face, having dressed up as a vampire.

Knox then had something to eat with her boyfriend while Kercher stayed in her bedroom.

“She left her room, said ‘bye,’ walked out the door,” Knox said. “That was the last time I saw her.”

The next morning Knox and her boyfriend went to the cottage and she thought it “strange’ that the front door was open.

“I called ‘Is anyone there?’ No one answered. I went to my room and changed, went to the bathroom and saw spots of blood there.

“I had a shower and on the way back to my room I saw blood on floor. I thought: ‘Hmm, strange.’

“I put on my clothes in my room, then I went to the other bathroom to brush my hair. I saw traces of feces in the toilet,” which she said she found disgusting.

“I called Meredith, who didn’t answer.”

She then called one of her two Italian flatmates, Filomena Romanelli, who returned to the house and found her window had been broken in an apparent burglary.

“We found Meredith’s door was locked,” said Miss Knox. “Filomena was saying ‘Mamma mia, it’s never locked!’. I said that sometimes Meredith locked it when she had a shower or when she went to England.”

A male friend broke down the door and found Miss Kercher’s half-naked body lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

“I heard there was a body in there. There was lots of confusion,” she said. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what had happened, couldn’t accept it.”

She repeated accusations that police hit her on the back of the head twice and placed her under enormous pressure to blame a Congolese barman, Patrick Lumumba, for the murder.

“The police called me a stupid liar who was trying to protect someone,” she told the court. “I was very scared, the police were treating me badly and I didn’t know why.”

Asked if she had been hit during her interrogation, she showed how she had been cuffed on the back on the head twice by a police officer. Perugia police have denied mistreating her.

Knox said she had named Patrick Lumumba “under the amount of pressure of everyone yelling at me and telling me they would put me in prison for protecting someone”.

Police had seized on a text message containing the English phrase, “See you later” Knox sent on the day of the murder to Lumumba, who was employing her as a bar worker. “They [the police] put the ­telephone in front of my face, told me to look at the message and said ‘you were going to meet someone’,” said Knox.

She said an interpreter at the interrogation suggested she was suffering from memory loss due to trauma. “In my ­confusion I started to imagine I was traumatised as they said,” she said.

Lumumba was briefly jailed but then found to have had nothing to do with the crime and is seeking defamation damages from Miss Knox.

Knox’s lawyers, Luciano Ghirga and Carlo dalla Vedova, then took over ­proceedings, with a seemingly well- rehearsed cross-examination designed to counter, one by one, the doubts raised about Knox’s character during the trial.

Knox spoke in Italian and seemed more at ease.

Asked why she repeatedly behaved strangely in the presence of police, once performing cartwheels while awaiting questioning, Knox said: “It was a way to release tension.”

Her much quoted nickname Foxy Knoxy was because of her skills as a defender in her school football team, she said.

She had written about her seven lovers in her prison diary only after she was mistakenly told she was HIV positive ­following a prison blood test.

A suspicious mark seen on her neck after the murder was merely “a hickey from Raffaele”, Knox said, laughing.

There will be a two month break in the trial over the summer and it is expected to last at least until the autumn.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.]

Michigan man held for questioning over death of pensioner in Florence

By Calvin Palmer

A 24-year-old man from Michigan, studying in Florence, Italy, was detained by police today for questioning about the death of an elderly Italian man.

Lead investigator Filippo Ferri said Johnathan Robert Hindenach, 24, of Charlotte, had consumed drugs and alcohol.

Hindenach was found in a quiet Florence street “covered with blood” about 200 yards from where the body of 62-year-old Riccardo Nistri lay in a storefront.

Nistri’s son alerted the police after he tried calling his father on his cell phone and heard an American voice pick up.

Media reports state Nistri was found with two cuts on his neck, possibly caused by shards from a broken mirror or piece of glass.

Hindenach was also wounded in the neck and was said to be in a confused state. He was taken to hospital and then to police headquarters for questioning.

When he left the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo hotel yesterday evening he was heard to shout that he wanted to kill someone.

Ferri said Hindenach had confessed to the crime after police questioned him. He said the man suffered from some type of psychological problems and had cut himself with a broken piece of a mirror after the killing.

After being taken to the hospital, Hindenach was taken to a Florence prison, where he remained in detention pending a hearing to confirm the arrest.

Florence police spokesman Gianpaolo Monastra said Hindenach had been in Italy for 16 days, along with a group of students and teachers on vacation, but not for a study abroad program.

Hindenach is an art major at Olivet College and spent a semester Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. He was one of eight Olivet College students and a professor taking part in a 16-day overseas art class.

[Based on reports by newsday.com, Il Messaggero and Libero-news.it.]