:00:00. > :00:04.They'll be a full bulletin at the top of the hour. Now it is time for
:00:04. > :00:22.Welcome to HARDtalk, six years ago, a young English student Meredith
:00:22. > :00:25.Kercher was murdered in Italy. They investigated and judicial process
:00:25. > :00:29.that followed was fundamentally flawed. Two people, Meredith's
:00:29. > :00:36.American flatmate Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito
:00:36. > :00:41.spent years in prison. Two years ago, they were acquitted on appeal.
:00:41. > :00:44.Later this month, they would be retried by a fresh appeal Court in
:00:44. > :00:49.Florence. Our guest Florence. Our guest today is
:00:49. > :00:50.Raffaele Sollecito. His story has made lower at headlines around the
:00:50. > :01:27.world, how will it end? Thank you for giving me this
:01:27. > :01:31.opportunity. You have been through Thank you for giving me this
:01:31. > :01:41.murder then acquitted Thank you for giving me this
:01:41. > :01:51.going back. It is not the prospect, it is reality. September 30. You
:01:51. > :02:01.look calm. How do you feel? I always look calm, because it
:02:01. > :02:06.personality. I am quite tranquil. I normally positive about situations.
:02:06. > :02:17.How I feel, it is hard to explain, but it is very helpful because I
:02:17. > :02:30.feel my life is still beyond the trial for a long—lasting time. There
:02:30. > :02:34.is this destiny or weird situation where it is playing with my life.
:02:34. > :02:40.You call it a bad nightmare that does not seem to have an end. Is it
:02:40. > :02:45.a nightmare that replays the central moment every day in your head? Is
:02:45. > :02:50.there a day that goes by where you do not reflect about what happened
:02:50. > :02:55.on the 1st of November 2007 when Meredith Kercher was brutally
:02:55. > :03:00.murdered? I don't think every day about it. I know what happened to me
:03:00. > :03:14.and Amanda are today. I don't know what happens to Meredith that they,
:03:14. > :03:17.which is quite different. We are completely off this crime. I always
:03:17. > :03:26.think about what brought me inside think about what brought me inside
:03:26. > :03:34.this nightmare and this ordeal. this nightmare and this ordeal. The
:03:34. > :03:43.people who were so interested to bring me inside this nightmare. They
:03:43. > :03:49.want me to be there. Yes, that is an interesting point,
:03:49. > :04:01.long years. How does it make you fresh appeal at the
:04:02. > :04:08.long years. How does it make you feel that Meredith's family still
:04:08. > :04:16.think that you should go before another trial? I am very sympathetic
:04:16. > :04:24.to their suffering, because I cannot imagine... I have lost my mother,
:04:24. > :04:30.but it is different. To lose my sister, for instance, I think it
:04:30. > :04:39.will get completely crazy. On the other side, I am begging to look at
:04:39. > :04:50.the logic and fact of the situation, don't stick by... What framed us
:04:50. > :04:55.was... The prosecution love so much and there are still somebody there
:04:55. > :05:02.who loves this which has no ground at all. You beg, as you say, you beg
:05:02. > :05:07.everybody, including the Meredith Kercher family to look at the
:05:07. > :05:12.facts. Let's go back to the facts that we know from November 2007 when
:05:12. > :05:17.Meredith's body was found brutally murdered in the flat that she shared
:05:17. > :05:24.with your girlfriend, Amanda Knox. You and Amanda have always said that
:05:24. > :05:29.you were not fair on the night that she was killed. But the reason, it
:05:29. > :05:33.seems to me, that the police did not believe you and chose to regard you
:05:33. > :05:40.as targets of their investigation was that in the days that followed
:05:40. > :05:43.the murder, your story and Amanda's story seemed to contradict each
:05:43. > :05:52.alibis, but they don't they seemed alibis, but they don't they seemed
:05:52. > :06:00.to fall apart. Why is The process is quite complicated. I cannot
:06:00. > :06:09.experience too. We were asked to be in
:06:09. > :06:11.first day. Me and Amanda, we were the only ones who were the first
:06:11. > :06:12.people inside the apartment the concentrating on us at first because
:06:12. > :06:28.day after the murder. concentrating on us at first because
:06:28. > :06:34.of that. Then, they asked Amanda and me, mostly Amanda, about Meredith's
:06:34. > :06:42.life as Amanda was the closest person to Meredith at that time.
:06:42. > :06:49.They were friends. Basically, they concentrated on Amanda, because she
:06:49. > :06:54.was the person who knew much better than anybody else Meredith's life
:06:54. > :07:01.and that as a starting point for them to do an investigation. The
:07:01. > :07:04.reason... Yellow mac know. Became convinced that there was something
:07:04. > :07:08.about you and Amanda that did not hang together and that your story
:07:08. > :07:11.was questionable was because you said, after intense questioning,
:07:11. > :07:16.that you didn't believe Amanda was with you on the night of the murder,
:07:16. > :07:18.you signed a statement to that effect. Amanda then signed a
:07:18. > :07:24.statement saying that she had statement saying that she had
:07:24. > :07:28.actually been in the flat. I was reaching the point, I'm just telling
:07:28. > :07:32.you that process. After six days, we were asked to go to the police
:07:32. > :07:36.station again. For me, that was the second time that I was questioned.
:07:36. > :07:46.For Amanda, it was the fifth time that she was questioned. We never
:07:46. > :07:58.had lawyers by our side, because we were not under investigation. We
:07:58. > :08:02.were not suspected, at all. When we were there, and for me it was the
:08:02. > :08:09.second time, the first time I told the truth. The first time, there are
:08:09. > :08:10.statements that I gave to the police where I said that I spent the night
:08:11. > :08:17.with Amanda at my apartment. I'd mac with Amanda at my apartment. I'd mac
:08:17. > :08:25.I know. It is a simple seems to be a time when the police
:08:25. > :08:29.stopped regarding you as a witness, Why did you change your story? I
:08:29. > :08:40.proximity, and became convinced didn't want to change my story. They
:08:40. > :08:47.put me there and they asked me the question is will stop. They started
:08:47. > :08:58.saying, Amanda is telling a lots of lies, where were you that day? They
:08:58. > :09:04.were asking me to get to the police station late at night and I didn't
:09:04. > :09:14.know the reason why, but I was tranquil and they would never ask
:09:14. > :09:20.me... Add—ins know why they need me. They twisted the reality, they
:09:20. > :09:26.didn't want me to realise what they were talking about, because I didn't
:09:26. > :09:35.know anything and just saying what happened that day, which day? All of
:09:35. > :09:39.the days were all the same. So, you became confused. I became completely
:09:39. > :09:44.confused. I understand what you confused. I understand what you were
:09:44. > :09:48.detail of the case, I just want to detail of the case, I just want to
:09:48. > :09:54.focus on one other element that people would want me to ask you
:09:54. > :09:58.about and that is simply this. Your behaviour and Amanda Knox's
:09:58. > :10:03.behaviour in the hours and the days that followed the discovery of the
:10:03. > :10:05.murdered body of Meredith Kercher seemed strange. It seemed strange to
:10:05. > :10:10.the police and to other friends of the police and to other friends of
:10:10. > :10:13.Meredith's. They all commented on how you didn't seem very concerned.
:10:13. > :10:31.you and Amanda kissing just hours We saw
:10:31. > :10:31.and pulling faces, even as she was facing more questioning. Why is it
:10:31. > :10:46.that you and she behaved in that facing more questioning. Why is it
:10:47. > :10:51.not just randomly say all of this together. The kissing, right after
:10:51. > :10:59.the murder, was not a passionate kiss, it was to comfort her as she
:10:59. > :11:02.was alone. I didn't kiss her, it was a short kiss, it was not a
:11:03. > :11:14.long—lasting kiss like a passionate one. The instance, the cartwheel in
:11:14. > :11:17.the police station, she was waiting for five hours, alone in the
:11:17. > :11:23.corridor, and there was nobody there for five hours and she didn't know
:11:23. > :11:33.that there was somebody watching her. So, basically, I wasn't there,
:11:33. > :11:36.but I realised that what she did was because of doing nothing for hours,
:11:36. > :11:41.she felt the need to stretch her body. Those
:11:41. > :11:48.she felt the need to stretch her body. Those behaviours, are
:11:48. > :11:49.completely and randomly don't mean anything about the murder. Don't
:11:49. > :11:56.mean anything about the murder, understand what you are saying. But
:11:56. > :12:01.you have had a long time to reflect and in a recent book that you wrote
:12:01. > :12:08.back he could be accused of, at that back he could be accused of, at that
:12:08. > :12:12.time, being naive and reckless. Looking back, how do you believe you
:12:12. > :12:20.were reckless and how did that play into the police's growing conviction
:12:20. > :12:27.surreal. Everything was surreal. I surreal. Everything was surreal. I
:12:28. > :12:35.didn't see Meredith's body, I didn't realise anything. I didn't realise
:12:35. > :12:51.everything that was around me. You I talk about me, I didn't
:12:51. > :12:51.everything that was around me. You are 23. Boast 23—year—olds...If
:12:51. > :12:57.they were seeing a murder like that, they probably would have
:12:57. > :13:08.regarded your point, but I am saying that I
:13:08. > :13:10.did not realise as I did not see the scenes, I didn't see the scene of
:13:10. > :13:18.the murder, I didn't know the murder, I didn't know
:13:18. > :13:22.Meredith... Let me ask you. We are talking about you, not Amanda Knox
:13:22. > :13:24.and I think in the course of this interview we will discuss how you
:13:24. > :13:30.always, in the end, been always, in the end, been
:13:30. > :13:33.characterised as the boyfriend, Amanda Knox's boyfriend, that was
:13:33. > :13:44.true during the investigation and the trial. Here is the question
:13:44. > :13:49.based on that, you couldn't really say that you knew Amanda Knox very
:13:49. > :13:54.well, you couldn't really trust Amanda Knox as you had only known
:13:54. > :14:01.her for nine days. Did it ever cross your mind that Amanda Knox could
:14:01. > :14:06.have been involved in some way? Basically not, because realise after
:14:06. > :14:09.a while that that night, the night they were talking about, was the
:14:09. > :14:19.night we spent the night together. I've realised that she was with me,
:14:19. > :14:24.woman for nine days and yet for the woman for nine days and yet for the
:14:24. > :14:28.last six years, your name and hers have been tied together. Does it
:14:28. > :14:30.strike you as strange that still, even today, with the retrial and the
:14:30. > :14:34.appeal coming up, you and Amanda appeal coming up, you and Amanda
:14:34. > :14:48.Knox are still, in a sense, ties together? It bores me.It bores you?
:14:48. > :14:57.Yes, because want to move on. It has lasted six years. It is an offer me.
:14:57. > :14:59.—— enough for me. For years in prison, for our crime that you
:14:59. > :15:05.among the rapists and the mafiosi in insisted you did not and could not
:15:06. > :15:12.among the rapists and the mafiosi in prison, with whom you had to share
:15:12. > :15:31.very nice to me. Some of the are people who helped me.
:15:31. > :15:38.very nice to me. Some of the prisoners, I became a mascot for
:15:38. > :15:44.them because I am in educated, unlike the medium population. You
:15:44. > :15:50.were unusual in the prison? I was, because it was a maximum security
:15:50. > :15:53.prison. When you got the news that the appeals court had ruled that you
:15:53. > :15:56.had to be leased and your conviction had been overturned, your father
:15:56. > :16:02.said something interesting. He said, what we hope for is that he may
:16:02. > :16:11.return to anonymity. If that is what you wanted, white if you decide to
:16:11. > :16:16.write a book? —— why did you decide. I've wrote the book because there
:16:16. > :16:24.was a lot of misinformation and misinterpretation of the facts.
:16:24. > :16:28.After the acquittal, the After the acquittal, the
:16:28. > :16:35.exoneration, still people were saying things that were completely
:16:35. > :16:41.wrong. I'm just thinking about the decision you took to write the book.
:16:41. > :16:48.How much were you paid? Cannot disclose the amount. —— I cannot. It
:16:48. > :16:51.is very private. I was paid for is very private. I was paid for the
:16:51. > :16:55.work and I'd deserved all of it work and I'd deserved all of it for
:16:55. > :16:59.my debt. I still have debts, legal fees. We have spoken about Meredith
:16:59. > :17:01.Kercher's family and the degree to fees. We have spoken about Meredith
:17:01. > :17:07.Kercher's family and the degree to which you can empathise with them.
:17:07. > :17:09.We know from public statements that they were not happy when Amanda Knox
:17:09. > :17:14.We know from public statements that received a large sum of money for
:17:14. > :17:15.writing a book. It is fair to say that they would not
:17:15. > :17:25.consider their feelings in the way they heard that you were writing
:17:25. > :17:28.consider their feelings in the way you make decisions? I am telling the
:17:28. > :17:35.story about the experience I've story about the experience I've
:17:35. > :17:44.passed through. I'm writing a book about the case. Why am telling the
:17:44. > :17:54.truth —— I am telling the truth about what I've experienced. I've
:17:54. > :18:01.wrote an explanation because the attention on this case was worldwide
:18:01. > :18:11.and this book about me worldwide, so why have the right to talk about
:18:11. > :18:17.myself. —— I have the right. You are Italian, unlike Amanda Knox. You
:18:17. > :18:18.have written about your concerns about the Italian judicial system
:18:19. > :18:21.and how you feel that it failed you, and how you feel that it failed you,
:18:21. > :18:25.and yet your family still lives and how you feel that it failed you,
:18:25. > :18:31.Italy, and you now face the prospect of this new appeals trial in
:18:31. > :18:38.Florence on September the 30th. Do you feel sufficient confidence in
:18:38. > :18:48.that process to go back to Italy and face that trial? I will be back, but
:18:48. > :18:54.the first hearing will tell us everything. If you know the system,
:18:54. > :19:01.you will understand. The Italian system, the judges, if they are
:19:02. > :19:11.convinced of something, that becomes the truth, whatever it is.
:19:11. > :19:17.Basically, what happens is candidly random for
:19:17. > :19:24.The first hearing will be very The first hearing will be very
:19:24. > :19:26.technical. So why will not be —— I will not be doing it. But in the
:19:26. > :19:36.core of the core of the trial, I am Italian and
:19:36. > :19:37.noticed that you have spent a lot of time out of Italy since being
:19:37. > :19:42.noticed that you have spent a lot of released.
:19:43. > :19:47.time in Switzerland and the United States. I suppose there is the
:19:47. > :19:51.Italy, where, if the worst happened there is no
:19:51. > :19:54.Italy, where, if the worst happened from your point of view, and after a
:19:54. > :19:59.long process of appeals trial, they decided that you were guilty, the
:19:59. > :20:04.safest place for you to be might be in that third country. Have you
:20:04. > :20:14.thought about that? Basically, I'm not thinking about the worst case.
:20:14. > :20:20.I'm thinking in a positive manner. I have a clear conscience and the
:20:20. > :20:24.facts are there. But do not want to put you in a corner, but can you say
:20:24. > :20:29.to me, clear and simple, that you guarantee that when this trial
:20:29. > :20:35.becomes very pressing and decisions are going to be made, that he will
:20:35. > :20:36.be there in Italy? —— you will be there. I can tell you that will be
:20:37. > :20:42.in Italy. —— I will be in Italy. in Italy. —— I will be in Italy.
:20:42. > :20:46.Something that interesting about your presence in
:20:46. > :20:50.the UK, you have said that you would like the chance to visit Meredith
:20:50. > :20:58.Kercher's grave. You are in Britain right now. Is that something you
:20:58. > :21:04.will try to push you? —— her shoe. Yes, but they do not feel that this
:21:04. > :21:06.is the right moment. I wanted to do that when everything was over. But
:21:06. > :21:11.it is still not over. At this it is still not over. At this
:21:11. > :21:19.particular moment, particular moment, I am not
:21:19. > :21:21.comfortable enough to do that. Have you made any effort to contact and
:21:21. > :21:25.reach out to the family? Yes, I did. reach out to the family? Yes, I did.
:21:25. > :21:41.I've wrote a letter. The letter reach out to the family? Yes, I did.
:21:41. > :21:47.from Claire positive. —— they are representative. What did you say?In
:21:47. > :22:00.the first period, the first week, after we were arrested I ask them, I
:22:00. > :22:05.said I felt a lot of sympathy and compassion for Meredith's family,
:22:05. > :22:07.and told them at that time that was and told them at that time that was
:22:07. > :22:16.confident that the truth will come out very soon. I told them that was
:22:16. > :22:23.not responsible. —— I was not responsible. So why would like to
:22:23. > :22:34.talk to them, and did not get a response. My family, after the
:22:34. > :22:37.exoneration, my sister who speaks English tried to approach Meredith
:22:37. > :22:42.Kercher's family, and they did not want to talk. It is fair to say that
:22:42. > :22:44.none of this would have happened to you if you had not met Amanda Knox
:22:44. > :22:53.in Perugia six years ago. I in Perugia six years ago. I
:22:53. > :23:03.understand that point. Do you know wish that you had not met Amanda
:23:03. > :23:09.Knox? No. I mean, I do not take anything to her. It is not her
:23:09. > :23:19.fault. This nightmare is not her fault. You can tell from the
:23:19. > :23:20.statements, there were statements, and you can listen to the
:23:20. > :23:27.recordings. Until you have recordings. Until you have
:23:27. > :23:33.experienced an interrogation with nobody on your side, but all the
:23:33. > :23:35.bullies against you, you will never get it. You will never understand it
:23:35. > :23:40.completely. Because of that bond, is the
:23:40. > :23:46.between you and Amanda Knox? —— is between you and Amanda Knox? —— is
:23:47. > :23:50.there still. There is a normal friendship. We did not know each
:23:50. > :23:52.other. It was not just a blossoming romance, a teenage romance. We did
:23:52. > :24:01.not know each other. And now we each other a little bit better, just
:24:01. > :24:09.a little bit. And we are friends, we are normal friends. You have called
:24:09. > :24:14.the six and nightmare throughout this interview. Do you see an end to
:24:14. > :24:17.this nightmare? —— you have called this experience a nightmare. I do
:24:18. > :24:24.not know. Irony do not know. —— I not know. Irony do not know. —— I
:24:24. > :24:31.really do not know. I am still trying to see the light. Somewhere,
:24:31. > :24:34.it is somewhere but do not know where. Raffaele Sollecito, thank you