David Gill ("Looting Matters" Blog) has a link to this short news item about Italy's trial against Robert Hecht and Marion True starting up again. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/arts/design/24arts-TRIALRESUMES_BRF.html?_r=2&ref=design Gill asks whether the resumption of the trial will herald a new round of repatriation claims. See: http://lootingmatters.blogspot.com/2009/01/rome-trial-resumes.html
I rarely agree with Gill, but I do agree with his implicit suggestion that this trial (now going into its fourth year!) is at this point probably meant to help validate any efforts to seek further repatriations as much as anything else.
The real question is whether the trial has gone on so long that it will be increasingly viewed as a farce. Certainly, whatever problems there may be with the US legal system, our Constitutional protections would preclude such never ending show trials like that going on in Rome. God Bless America!
Given the result of the trial against Amanda Knox, I wonder whether Italy are only capable of show trials.
ReplyDeleteA guy did confess to the German police that he was alone in the house where the British woman was murdered. Only when he was returned to Italy and the Italian police gave him some beating, he pointed at Amanda Knox and her boyfriend.
It was a setup to boost someones career. Nothing less