Raffaele Sollecito HARDtalk

They'll be a full bulletin at the top of the hour. Now it is time for

Welcome to HARDtalk, six years ago, a young English student Meredith

Kercher was murdered in Italy. They investigated and judicial process

that followed was fundamentally flawed. Two people, Meredith's

American flatmate Amanda Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito

spent years in prison. Two years ago, they were acquitted on appeal.

Later this month, they would be retried by a fresh appeal Court in

Florence. Our guest Florence. Our guest today is

Raffaele Sollecito. His story has made lower at headlines around the

world, how will it end? Thank you for giving me this

opportunity. You have been through Thank you for giving me this

murder then acquitted Thank you for giving me this

going back. It is not the prospect, it is reality. September 30. You

look calm. How do you feel? I always look calm, because it

personality. I am quite tranquil. I normally positive about situations.

How I feel, it is hard to explain, but it is very helpful because I

feel my life is still beyond the trial for a long—lasting time. There

is this destiny or weird situation where it is playing with my life.

You call it a bad nightmare that does not seem to have an end. Is it

a nightmare that replays the central moment every day in your head? Is

there a day that goes by where you do not reflect about what happened

on the 1st of November 2007 when Meredith Kercher was brutally

murdered? I don't think every day about it. I know what happened to me

and Amanda are today. I don't know what happens to Meredith that they,

which is quite different. We are completely off this crime. I always

think about what brought me inside think about what brought me inside

this nightmare and this ordeal. this nightmare and this ordeal. The

people who were so interested to bring me inside this nightmare. They

want me to be there. Yes, that is an interesting point,

long years. How does it make you fresh appeal at the

long years. How does it make you feel that Meredith's family still

think that you should go before another trial? I am very sympathetic

to their suffering, because I cannot imagine... I have lost my mother,

but it is different. To lose my sister, for instance, I think it

will get completely crazy. On the other side, I am begging to look at

the logic and fact of the situation, don't stick by... What framed us

was... The prosecution love so much and there are still somebody there

who loves this which has no ground at all. You beg, as you say, you beg

everybody, including the Meredith Kercher family to look at the

facts. Let's go back to the facts that we know from November 2007 when

Meredith's body was found brutally murdered in the flat that she shared

with your girlfriend, Amanda Knox. You and Amanda have always said that

you were not fair on the night that she was killed. But the reason, it

seems to me, that the police did not believe you and chose to regard you

as targets of their investigation was that in the days that followed

the murder, your story and Amanda's story seemed to contradict each

alibis, but they don't they seemed alibis, but they don't they seemed

to fall apart. Why is The process is quite complicated. I cannot

experience too. We were asked to be in

first day. Me and Amanda, we were the only ones who were the first

people inside the apartment the concentrating on us at first because

day after the murder. concentrating on us at first because

of that. Then, they asked Amanda and me, mostly Amanda, about Meredith's

life as Amanda was the closest person to Meredith at that time.

They were friends. Basically, they concentrated on Amanda, because she

was the person who knew much better than anybody else Meredith's life

and that as a starting point for them to do an investigation. The

reason... Yellow mac know. Became convinced that there was something

about you and Amanda that did not hang together and that your story

was questionable was because you said, after intense questioning,

that you didn't believe Amanda was with you on the night of the murder,

you signed a statement to that effect. Amanda then signed a

statement saying that she had statement saying that she had

actually been in the flat. I was reaching the point, I'm just telling

you that process. After six days, we were asked to go to the police

station again. For me, that was the second time that I was questioned.

For Amanda, it was the fifth time that she was questioned. We never

had lawyers by our side, because we were not under investigation. We

were not suspected, at all. When we were there, and for me it was the

second time, the first time I told the truth. The first time, there are

statements that I gave to the police where I said that I spent the night

with Amanda at my apartment. I'd mac with Amanda at my apartment. I'd mac

I know. It is a simple seems to be a time when the police

stopped regarding you as a witness, Why did you change your story? I

proximity, and became convinced didn't want to change my story. They

put me there and they asked me the question is will stop. They started

saying, Amanda is telling a lots of lies, where were you that day? They

were asking me to get to the police station late at night and I didn't

know the reason why, but I was tranquil and they would never ask

me... Add—ins know why they need me. They twisted the reality, they

didn't want me to realise what they were talking about, because I didn't

know anything and just saying what happened that day, which day? All of

the days were all the same. So, you became confused. I became completely

confused. I understand what you confused. I understand what you were

detail of the case, I just want to detail of the case, I just want to

focus on one other element that people would want me to ask you

about and that is simply this. Your behaviour and Amanda Knox's

behaviour in the hours and the days that followed the discovery of the

murdered body of Meredith Kercher seemed strange. It seemed strange to

the police and to other friends of the police and to other friends of

Meredith's. They all commented on how you didn't seem very concerned.

you and Amanda kissing just hours We saw

and pulling faces, even as she was facing more questioning. Why is it

that you and she behaved in that facing more questioning. Why is it

not just randomly say all of this together. The kissing, right after

the murder, was not a passionate kiss, it was to comfort her as she

was alone. I didn't kiss her, it was a short kiss, it was not a

long—lasting kiss like a passionate one. The instance, the cartwheel in

the police station, she was waiting for five hours, alone in the

corridor, and there was nobody there for five hours and she didn't know

that there was somebody watching her. So, basically, I wasn't there,

but I realised that what she did was because of doing nothing for hours,

she felt the need to stretch her body. Those

she felt the need to stretch her body. Those behaviours, are

completely and randomly don't mean anything about the murder. Don't

mean anything about the murder, understand what you are saying. But

you have had a long time to reflect and in a recent book that you wrote

back he could be accused of, at that back he could be accused of, at that

time, being naive and reckless. Looking back, how do you believe you

were reckless and how did that play into the police's growing conviction

surreal. Everything was surreal. I surreal. Everything was surreal. I

didn't see Meredith's body, I didn't realise anything. I didn't realise

everything that was around me. You I talk about me, I didn't

everything that was around me. You are 23. Boast 23—year—olds...If

they were seeing a murder like that, they probably would have

regarded your point, but I am saying that I

did not realise as I did not see the scenes, I didn't see the scene of

the murder, I didn't know the murder, I didn't know

Meredith... Let me ask you. We are talking about you, not Amanda Knox

and I think in the course of this interview we will discuss how you

always, in the end, been always, in the end, been

characterised as the boyfriend, Amanda Knox's boyfriend, that was

true during the investigation and the trial. Here is the question

based on that, you couldn't really say that you knew Amanda Knox very

well, you couldn't really trust Amanda Knox as you had only known

her for nine days. Did it ever cross your mind that Amanda Knox could

have been involved in some way? Basically not, because realise after

a while that that night, the night they were talking about, was the

night we spent the night together. I've realised that she was with me,

woman for nine days and yet for the woman for nine days and yet for the

last six years, your name and hers have been tied together. Does it

strike you as strange that still, even today, with the retrial and the

appeal coming up, you and Amanda appeal coming up, you and Amanda

Knox are still, in a sense, ties together? It bores me.It bores you?

Yes, because want to move on. It has lasted six years. It is an offer me.

—— enough for me. For years in prison, for our crime that you

among the rapists and the mafiosi in insisted you did not and could not

among the rapists and the mafiosi in prison, with whom you had to share

very nice to me. Some of the are people who helped me.

very nice to me. Some of the prisoners, I became a mascot for

them because I am in educated, unlike the medium population. You

were unusual in the prison? I was, because it was a maximum security

prison. When you got the news that the appeals court had ruled that you

had to be leased and your conviction had been overturned, your father

said something interesting. He said, what we hope for is that he may

return to anonymity. If that is what you wanted, white if you decide to

write a book? —— why did you decide. I've wrote the book because there

was a lot of misinformation and misinterpretation of the facts.

After the acquittal, the After the acquittal, the

exoneration, still people were saying things that were completely

wrong. I'm just thinking about the decision you took to write the book.

How much were you paid? Cannot disclose the amount. —— I cannot. It

is very private. I was paid for is very private. I was paid for the

work and I'd deserved all of it work and I'd deserved all of it for

my debt. I still have debts, legal fees. We have spoken about Meredith

Kercher's family and the degree to fees. We have spoken about Meredith

Kercher's family and the degree to which you can empathise with them.

We know from public statements that they were not happy when Amanda Knox

We know from public statements that received a large sum of money for

writing a book. It is fair to say that they would not

consider their feelings in the way they heard that you were writing

consider their feelings in the way you make decisions? I am telling the

story about the experience I've story about the experience I've

passed through. I'm writing a book about the case. Why am telling the

truth —— I am telling the truth about what I've experienced. I've

wrote an explanation because the attention on this case was worldwide

and this book about me worldwide, so why have the right to talk about

myself. —— I have the right. You are Italian, unlike Amanda Knox. You

have written about your concerns about the Italian judicial system

and how you feel that it failed you, and how you feel that it failed you,

and yet your family still lives and how you feel that it failed you,

Italy, and you now face the prospect of this new appeals trial in

Florence on September the 30th. Do you feel sufficient confidence in

that process to go back to Italy and face that trial? I will be back, but

the first hearing will tell us everything. If you know the system,

you will understand. The Italian system, the judges, if they are

convinced of something, that becomes the truth, whatever it is.

Basically, what happens is candidly random for

The first hearing will be very The first hearing will be very

technical. So why will not be —— I will not be doing it. But in the

core of the core of the trial, I am Italian and

noticed that you have spent a lot of time out of Italy since being

noticed that you have spent a lot of released.

time in Switzerland and the United States. I suppose there is the

Italy, where, if the worst happened there is no

Italy, where, if the worst happened from your point of view, and after a

long process of appeals trial, they decided that you were guilty, the

safest place for you to be might be in that third country. Have you

thought about that? Basically, I'm not thinking about the worst case.

I'm thinking in a positive manner. I have a clear conscience and the

facts are there. But do not want to put you in a corner, but can you say

to me, clear and simple, that you guarantee that when this trial

becomes very pressing and decisions are going to be made, that he will

be there in Italy? —— you will be there. I can tell you that will be

in Italy. —— I will be in Italy. in Italy. —— I will be in Italy.

Something that interesting about your presence in

the UK, you have said that you would like the chance to visit Meredith

Kercher's grave. You are in Britain right now. Is that something you

will try to push you? —— her shoe. Yes, but they do not feel that this

is the right moment. I wanted to do that when everything was over. But

it is still not over. At this it is still not over. At this

particular moment, particular moment, I am not

comfortable enough to do that. Have you made any effort to contact and

reach out to the family? Yes, I did. reach out to the family? Yes, I did.

I've wrote a letter. The letter reach out to the family? Yes, I did.

from Claire positive. —— they are representative. What did you say?In

the first period, the first week, after we were arrested I ask them, I

said I felt a lot of sympathy and compassion for Meredith's family,

and told them at that time that was and told them at that time that was

confident that the truth will come out very soon. I told them that was

not responsible. —— I was not responsible. So why would like to

talk to them, and did not get a response. My family, after the

exoneration, my sister who speaks English tried to approach Meredith

Kercher's family, and they did not want to talk. It is fair to say that

none of this would have happened to you if you had not met Amanda Knox

in Perugia six years ago. I in Perugia six years ago. I

understand that point. Do you know wish that you had not met Amanda

Knox? No. I mean, I do not take anything to her. It is not her

fault. This nightmare is not her fault. You can tell from the

statements, there were statements, and you can listen to the

recordings. Until you have recordings. Until you have

experienced an interrogation with nobody on your side, but all the

bullies against you, you will never get it. You will never understand it

completely. Because of that bond, is the

between you and Amanda Knox? —— is between you and Amanda Knox? —— is

there still. There is a normal friendship. We did not know each

other. It was not just a blossoming romance, a teenage romance. We did

not know each other. And now we each other a little bit better, just

a little bit. And we are friends, we are normal friends. You have called

the six and nightmare throughout this interview. Do you see an end to

this nightmare? —— you have called this experience a nightmare. I do

not know. Irony do not know. —— I not know. Irony do not know. —— I

really do not know. I am still trying to see the light. Somewhere,

it is somewhere but do not know where. Raffaele Sollecito, thank you