Interview With Former FBI Agent Defending Knox Has Repercussions in Italy
Lawyer for Rudy Guede, also convicted in Kercher death, blasts agent interview.
ROME, Sept. 6, 2010— -- The case of Amanda Knox continues to elicit strong reactions on both sides of the Atlantic, as the U.S. student waits in an Italian jail to appeal her December 2009 conviction for the murder of her British roommate.
After former FBI agent Steve Moore came forward in the United States last week, appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America" and other U.S. shows to defend Knox's innocence, Italian newspapers picked up on the interviews with banner headlines.
"Amanda, new accusations from the U.S.," read the leading daily Corriere della Sera Saturday. "A former FBI agent, who carried out a private investigation, tells American TV: 'Rudy Guede is the murderer and evidence was manipulated to make her [Knox] look guilty,'" according to the subtitle.
That was too much for Walter Biscotti, a lawyer representing Rudy Guede, the third person -- along with Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito -- convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007.
An indignant Biscotti contacted ABC News in Rome today in response to the headlines.
First of all, he said, he wanted to speak in defense of the Italian judicial system.
"I think it is only right that I speak out in favor of the Italian justice system, of which I am a part," Biscotti said, "and of the courts of Perugia in particular.
"Even if they ruled against me, I cannot accept that our judicial system be treated this way," said Biscotti, defending the centuries-old reputation of the Perugia courts.
He pointed out that the building where the trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher was held had been the seat of the first university for judicial studies in Europe -- in 1308 -- before Christopher Columbus arrived in America.
"Ask yourselves what Americans were doing at that time in America," Biscotti said.
Biscotti took offense with statements made by Moore, a 25-year FBI veteran with international experience, implying that evidence was planted during the crime scene investigation.
"He said that investigators manipulated the evidence, an affirmation that would get you arrested in a minute, if you said it in Italy," Biscotti told ABC News.
