Raffaele Sollecito talks about the "fake" evidence against him and Amanda Knox
That quote is from Raffaele Sollecito's recent interview with 48 Hours correspondent Peter van Sant. Sollecito argued there is no forensic evidence - not one atom of DNA evidence -that connects him to the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy.
Yet Sollecito and his American co-defendant, Amanda Knox, spent four years in prison for the murder. They were acquitted in October 2011 at the end of a lengthy appellate trial.
Their acquittal came largely as the result of testimony from two court-appointed forensic experts. The prosecution in the case had earlier claimed that Sollecito's DNA was found on the metal hook of Meredith Kercher's bra clasp, which was found at the murder scene.
In July 2011, the two independent forensic experts testified that the bra clasp DNA was unreliable. The experts pointed out two critical problems with the evidence. One, the bra clasp was left at the murder scene for six weeks before police collected it. Two, when it was finally retrieved, photos revealed police used dirty gloves to handle the clasp.
As a result, the independent forensic experts testified that any DNA evidence on the bra clasp was unreliable; it could have come from contamination or mishandling.
But there was a third, probably even bigger, problem with the DNA.
Under cross-examination, one of the court-appointed forensic experts, Carla Vecchiotti, told the court that had she done the original DNA analysis, she would not have been able to match Sollecito to any of the DNA on the bra clasp.
In Vecchiotti's opinion, none of the DNA profiles on the bra clasp matched Sollecito's. Somehow, that part of Vecchiotti's testimony failed to make it into the media coverage of the trial.
So as you watch Peter van Sant interview Raffaele Sollecito about his new book, "Honor Bound," and you hear the former murder defendant say, "In the end, there is not my DNA on it", it may be more than defense spin.
It very well may be scientific fact.