US Tourists! Boycott Italy Until They Leave Amanda Knox the F**k Alone [View all]

[McCamy Taylor]

American tourists! Hit Italy where it hurts---it's tourism pocketbook. Americans should just "say no" to trips to Venice, Rome and Florence until the Italian Supreme Court backs off Amanda Knox. The case is simple. A British woman invited a guy to her apartment. The guy killed her and fled. Italian police decided to pick a convenient scapegoat, an African man. They hauled in the dead woman's roommate, badgered her for 12 hours until she finally signed a statement which she could not read, accusing the African of doing the killing. Only problem was, the African had an alibi. And the real killer was caught and he confessed. Leaving one very mad African and an Italian police force with racist egg on its face. No problem. They would claim that Amanda was the one who insisted on blaming the African. But they had to come up with a reason why she would finger the wrong man. Again, no problem. They offered the killer a plea deal if he would implicate the roommate and her boyfriend in the killing. Easy way for the Italian police to escape a charge of racism. The hard part was trying to pin the murder on the roommate with no evidence except the testimony of the killer (who got a reduced sentence for fingering Amanda). So, the prosecutor in the case decided to use the old "Satan made her do it" to explain why she would kill her roommate for no apparent reason. The dead girl's parents in England fueled the flames by insisting that their daughter (an adult) would never, ever ask a man to her room. And the British press seized Amanda's nickname "Foxy" which means "cute" in the US but "bad" in England. The Italian courts threw out the original conviction. Now, in an about face, they have upheld it again. No word about any new evidence. Seems extremely political to me, as in the prosecutor is scared that Amanda will tell all in a book/movie that will make him look like the Spanish Inquisition on LSD. So, anyway, I am not going anywhere near Italy, until they show some common sense and prove to me that will not throw me or my family members to the wolves in order to cover up their own racism and incompetence. And remember, this could happen to any American citizen in that country---unless the people who depend upon tourism dollars make themselves heard.