knew they were being submitted to a scientific test – these students, I say, were shown a film sequence. In this sequence a woman was seen leaving a supermarket with a trolley. A young man approached the woman from behind, seized a handbag lying on top of the trolley and made off with it. The three groups were asked to give an account of what they had seen, but in answer to different questions. The first group was asked ‘Did the thief barge into the woman?’ The second group was asked ‘In what way did the aggressor push the woman?’ The students of the third group were simply asked to tell what they had seen. Needless to say, in the film there had been no push and no barging.
“I think you will already have guessed the result of the experiment. Among the students of the third group – those who had simply been asked to give an account of the facts – only 10 per cent or just over spoke of a bump or any kind of physical contact between the aggressor and the woman. Of the students of the first group only 20 per cent spoke of a shove. While in the second group – to whom the most strongly suggestive question had been put – almost 70 per cent of the answers spoke of the non-existent contact. As in the case of the children, moreover, all those who spoke of it embroidered their accounts with details about the manner, the violence and the direction of this non-existent shove.
“Need I say more? Do we have to waste more words in explaining how far the manner of conducting an interrogation can influence not only the answers but the very reconstruction of the memories of the person being interrogated? I think not.
“We have now understood how vital it is to know which questions – and in what order, at what speed, in what tone of voice – have been put to a witness in his most important deposition, which is his first.
“In this case this vital information is denied us, because in the carabinieri report we only read: ‘Witness replied.’
“Replied to what question? What questions?”
I raised my voice slightly. It was not my practice, but the jury were beginning to tire, and just as I was approaching the crucial point. I simply had to keep them alert.
“We have said that if we do not know what the question was, we cannot say if the reply is genuine, or has been influenced or even manipulated. We will never be able to say because of that examination, that first examination of the witness Renna, all we have is a brief summary. We can only make conjectures. But in making them there is one fact we must not overlook. A fact that occurred before our eyes, during a hearing, in this trial. And that fact is the cross-examination of Renna. In the course of which we learned a series of very important things on the basis of which to assess the reliability of this witness. Which does not mean to assess whether the witness is lying or is telling his
“I will summarize these points. Signor Renna does not like non-European citizens and wishes the police would do something about them. Signor Renna does not know Abdou Thiam very well if – having two photographs of him in his hand and being in the same courtroom – he fails to recognize him. Signor Renna, finally and consequently, doesn’t have much of a memory for faces and does not find it easy to distinguish between one non-European citizen and another. From his point of view ‘they are all niggers’, to use the very words he used himself in replying to a question from the defence.”
I was about to launch one of the decisive offensives, so I paused once more and gave the court at least twenty seconds. They had to wonder why I had stopped speaking and give me all the attention they could, after so many hours in the courtroom. When I started again, I pitched my voice higher. It had to be clear that we had reached the climax.
“And on the basis of the statements of this witness, these statements from a dubious source – dubious on account of what we have said concerning the first interrogation by the carabinieri – the public prosecutor is asking you to inflict a sentence of imprisonment for life.
“Bear in mind that to inflict not life imprisonment but even a single day in prison, you must
“We may speak of certainty in the reconstruction of an occurrence when every other alternative hypothesis is implausible and must therefore be rejected. Is that the case here? Is it implausible to think, for example, that Renna saw someone else that afternoon, not Abdou Thiam, in view of the fact that for him ‘niggers’ are all alike? Is it implausible to think that this witness was in some way mistaken? This witness who – mind you – failed miserably before your eyes to recognize the photographs. Could he not be mistaken? Can you with untroubled mind entrust your entire decision, and the whole life of a man, to the declarations of a witness whose fallibility has been revealed before your very eyes?”
A pause. Seven, eight seconds.
“And please take note: even if against all the evidence you still choose to maintain that Renna’s account is reliable, this would not amount to proof of the defendant’s guilt.
“Because the other evidence against him isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
And I went on to examine the statements of the two Senegalese, the results of the searches and all the rest of the evidence.
I spoke of the mobile-phone records. Even if we agreed to speak in terms of the famous “verisimilitude”, I said, the prosecution’s reconstruction didn’t hold water. In fact it was almost grotesque. The prosecution held that the defendant had returned from Naples in the grip of a raptus, and had gone to Capitolo with the insane intention of kidnapping, violating and killing little Francesco. In that case he was mad. Because only madness could account for such preposterous behaviour. In which case, why had he not been subjected to any psychiatric examination? If to explain his behaviour it was necessary to fall back on mental illness, then this illness should have been ascertained. Otherwise that hypothesis remained simply an attempt to influence the court.
I raised all these points fairly briefly. The jurors were tired, and I was convinced that when the moment came to decide they would primarily discuss Renna’s evidence.
So I began to wind up. To end at the point from which one started gives the idea of completeness and lends strength to an argument. So I believe.
“Verisimilitude or veracity, ladies and gentlemen. Probability or certainty. The choice ought not to be difficult. But instead it is. Because if on the one hand there is the perception – which I am sure we all share – that this trial has produced no answer, on the other hand there is the feeling of dismay at the idea that a horrible crime can remain unpunished, without a known culprit. It is an intolerable idea, and one that brings with it a very grave risk.”
At that moment Cervellati re-entered the courtroom. He sat down and propped his head on his right hand, using the hand as a kind of barrier. Between him and me. His gaze was ostentatiously directed at a point in the courtroom high up on the left. Where nothing was.
It was the position closest to turning his back on me that was physically possible with the tables and chairs arranged in parallel rows.
I thought he was a turd and carried on.
“The risk is that we may try to rid ourselves of this anguish by finding not
“Without – having – done – a – thing. Let me repeat that: without – having – done – a – thing.
“Some may not share the categorical tone of my statement. Very well. Everyone is entitled to doubts. I am the defending counsel and for many reasons I am convinced of the innocence of my client. You have the right not to share this certainty. You have a right to your doubts. You have a right to think that Abdou Thiam could be guilty, despite what his counsel says.
“He could be guilty. Despite the absurdity of the reconstruction put forward by the prosecution, you have the right to think that the defendant could be guilty.
“He
“Verdicts of guilty, however, are not written – cannot be written – in the conditional mood. They are written in the indicative, they affirm certainties. Certainties!
“Can you make affirmations of certainty? Can you say it is
