"guilty by association"?
I love that idea.
Funnily enough, in this case, there was a good attempt at that.
On three of Mignini's cases, when he has had trouble linking a defendant to a particular place, a local tramp and heroin addict (Mignini's "star witness") has suddenly remembered seeing the defendant in just that place.
Well, in this case, Amanda and Raffaele had no association at all with Rudy Guede. Why would they be having a "sex game" together??
For Mignini's "sex game gone wrong" theory to hold water, Mignini's needed to create some sort of association with Rudy Guede.
Step forward, Mignini's usual "star witness".
After a visit from Mignini, the tramp suddenly remembered that he HAD seen Amanda and Raffaele with Guede. He gave evidence that he had seen them in the square together. He remembered it very clearly, because they were with a group of other students getting on and off buses in the square.
Unfortunately, the Defence called a witness from the bus company, who confirmed that, on the day that Mignini's "star witness" had seen amanda, Raffaele and Rudy Guede with the students getting on and off buses, it was a public holiday, and no buses had been running.
Lesson for Mignini ...
If you are trying to wrongly convict innocent people by using a fake "witness", you should do your homework, and make sure that the story you ask your "witness" to tell doesn't have a major flaw.
By the time of the Appeal, the heroine addicted tramp, Mignini's "star witness", was in prison.