Giulia Bongiorno has defended a prime minister and a football star. But it was in representing a 31-year-old computer science graduate named Raffaele Sollecito that solidified the former rightwing politician\u2019s reputation as one of Italy\u2019s most formidable defence attorneys.
\nOn Friday night Bongiorno, 49, was temporarily stunned by the news that the high court had thrown out all the charges against both her client and his former girlfriend, Amanda Knox, in the murder trial of Meredith Kercher. Hours earlier, she had forcefully argued that Sollecito was an innocent \u2013 even harmless \u2013 young man who had been caught up in circumstances that were larger than him, much like Forrest Gump.
\nThe speech lasted nearly two hours, even though lawyers were supposed to have limited their arguments in the court of cassation to 20 minutes.
\nWhen she arrived in court that morning she criticised prosecutors for bringing the case, saying they had convoluted a story out of cherrypicked facts in order to satisfy their version of events. \u201cIf you take the Bible and divide it into many parts, you can put together a pornographic book from its pieces,\u201d she told a throng of journalists. It was a retort to a prosecutor\u2019s earlier claim that all of the pieces in the British university student\u2019s murder fitted together as if in a photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
\nIt was not the first high-profile case for Bongiorno. The attorney became famous for her defence of Giulio Andreotti, the former Italian prime minister who was found guilty in 2002 of complicity in a mafia-linked hit against a journalist, Mino Pecorelli, in 1979. Andreotti was eventually acquitted of all charges.
\nBongiorno is also known as a staunch advocate of women, including working on behalf of the victims of domestic violence.
\nIn 2008, when Silvio Berlusconi became prime minister again after a sweeping victory by his conservative Forza Italia party, Bongiorno was considered a possible candidate for justice minister. But she did not shy away from criticising the former PM following revelations about his infamous \u201cbunga-bunga\u201d sex parties.
\n\u201cIt is not the wild parties we are against,\u201d she said during a 2011 protest against Berlusconi. \u201cIt is their use as a selection process that we oppose.\u201d It was a reference to the billionaire\u2019s promotion of models in his government.
\nBongiorno did suffer one significant defeat. She failed to save Francesco Totti, the Roma footballer, from a three-game suspension after he was seen spitting on a midfielder in 2004.<\/p>\n