Lablanc's watch was set to Californian time right? Well if the difference between Borginia and California was 9 hours, that would make Borginia in the area of England, rather than Northern Europe like AAI and AJ both say.

This wasn't a problem in the Japanese version though. From Japan to Norway/Sweden is 9 timezones.
If I'm wrong please correct me.

No, it's correct. UTC-8 and UTC+1 for Los Angeles and most of Europe, respectively. (For that matter, go check case 1-1. Paris to Los Angeles, 9 hours.) That's standard time for both; I don't know if there's a difference between how Europe and the US do any kind of Daylight Savings Time in the summer.

http://www.onepointed.com/dan/images/time_zone_map.jpg

count 9 to the right of the yellow Los Angeles time, and you get most of Europe.

Why would she? Plus if you recall the safe wasn't open when you first arrive on the scene, there's no indication that Manny had ever been inside the safe since the key was stolen all those years ago. Furthermore isn't the knife first found in 'key' form? This would mean Yew would have switched it back to it's key form and planted it on him since he couldn't have done it being dead at the time.

Pierre, think for a minute about what you're saying. Franziska had a page of a document that matched the other two inside the safe. Are you really trying to argue that the document was seven years old? And that Manny went all this time, keeping the safe in his office with his treasures and documents inside it, completely unable to open it? That's... just ridiculous.

And regardless, of course Yew would have returned the key. She was a member of the smuggling ring. That's why she stole the key in the first place - to return it to where it belonged so the operation could continue.

I know it sounds ridiculous but I don't see why Yew would have needed to return the key. If Alba and Manny were vying for power and Manny had been stashing smuggled objects away for himself....presumably she'd seen the contents of the safe when she'd stolen the key before. Therefore she tipped off Alba as to what Manny was doing and thus explaining Alba's knowledge of Manny's misdeeds. Also explaining how Alba knew he could use the key and contents of the safe to point to Manny as the smuggling Ringleader. The key was Manny's thing alone not something the organisation necessarily knew about at least until the Yatagarasu stole the key and Calisto reported it to her boss.

Uh and so what, they let him keep working with them for seven years before Alba decided "oh I guess I better kill him now"? Come on. Your explanation actively contradicts with the facts and creates the very contradiction you stated in the first place of why Manny had the key. The fact that he did have the key proves that it was returned to him. You're trying to manufacture a situation where that's a contradiction when it does not in fact exist at all.

Pierre, you are assuming that Alba and Manny were battling for power when the key was returned.
But that was seven years ago! At this time, there was no tension between the two men and Manny was
supposed to keep some important papers in his safe. That's why when the key was stolen the ring must have
been in big touble, not being able to use its own papers. So Yew was sent to retrieve the key.

Geez guys I was only seeking an answer but it seems like this has turned into a debate. Fine, but what makes you think she had time to drop the key off at the Cohdopian embassy? After Case 4 she was a wanted criminal and Badd is no slacker plus she had to spend a good deal of time with Agent Lang to build up trust. She has a very finite amount of time, where she is highly likely to be caught, where she stays in the country to drop off the key before leaving to start a new life with Interpol from which point she wouldn't have a chance until years later as she was bound to Lang's unit abroad. Still I suppose 'she returned the key' is plausible. So she returned the key in this small gap of time before leaving, then later on she replants the key on his body to pin him as the head of the smuggling ring? That's what you're saying?

Isn't it possible that Manny Coachen could have approached her and she returned the key then?

Manny probably couldn't leave the embassy, you heard what Palaeno was like, Manny did EVERYTHING more or less he couldn't imagine life without him.

Well, "everything" certainly can't pertain to only things inside that building. He may actually have been able to help, say, by phoning Calisto, bringing her a presidential vehicle (tinted windows and all) and bringing her back to his office while he had a quiet moment debriefing her. It actually also seems likely he suggested her to be Agent Lang's assistant as her next cover ID. Keep in mind the whole embassy was sort of a covert base of operations for the ring (though only a few people knew it)

However, I can't deny the timing of Manny attacking Alba and when or whether the safe was opened seems very difficult to explain.

Well then, it's possible that Yew could have given the key back to Manny through Ambassador Alba when Allebahst and Babahl were still one country. We don't know when the split happened so we can assume that she returned the key to Alba - the then-Ambassador-to-Cohdopia - , who then passed it off to Manny, before the split and before she joined Interpol.

That makes more sense as I highly doubt she'd be able to return it straight to Manny. Especially since she would only have had about a day or so to escape the Police perimeter. Remember Badd and the other police force were highly suspicious of Manny that day at court and they all kept a firm eye on him. If an incident had happened I imagine they'd still be keeping a close watch on him. Also it creates a further problem if Cohdopia had split when Manny went to get the key as I can't see Palaeno overlooking the fact Manny is using presidential cars and protection for a random woman.

Byrne stole the key from the embassy. Obviously Manny needs that key, since he keeps important things in there. And he had it with him to stab Alba, so at some point between using it to kill Byrne and it appearing at the scene, Calisto returned the key to Manny. They were on the same side (at first) and it belonged to him, so there was no reason for her not to do this. 7 years is plenty of time for that even with the cops on your tail.

Moreover let's not forget that the ring is more powerful than the police. Whatever they did to get the
key back safely, it must have been very easy for such a powerful organization.

Though Calisto couldn't drop it off after joining interpol since she'd be bound to Lang being his secretary and all.

No one is saying she did. Though I don't see why it would have been impossible anyway--she's his secretary, that doesn't mean they spend every making moment together. At some point she would have had vacation time, or just happened to be in LA, or could have just mailed it to Manny. There are a million different ways it could have happened.

How was Lang able to get Alba fired? This came at a point when the suspicion on him was only building, and he had only confessed to self-defense. I imagine you would need a lot of suspicion on him to get his country's authorities to immediately make such a drastic move. I might have missed something in Lang's dialog though.

Lang said something about Alba "having to thank the video tape showing Manny kill Yew" for that.
My guess is that Lang linked Alba to that murder with the medal that appears on the tape. Alba was the only one to ever earn such a medal in his country after all.

I know, I realized that as soon as I posted it. heh. I was thinking about it because I was confused with Kay's age (it says she's 17 in case 5 but I thought she was 7 in case 4 and 14 in case 2?) and I did the math from there. Now I'm completely confused.

The ten years is since the original KG-8 case. Case 4 (a.k.a. "the second KG-8 case") is seven years ago.

Kay's age, not Fran's age

What's weird about Kay's age? Kay is 17 in cases 3 and 5 and 10 in case 4, which makes perfect sense considering that case 4 takes place 7 years before cases 3 and 5.

I'm confused. We prove that the murder knew about the key/knife, and that the Yagaratsu(sp?) knew about the key/knife, so the Yagaratsu must be the murderer. But nowhere do we PROVE that Yew knew about the key's hidden feature, or that Yew is the Yagaratsu.

The game muddles this point up pretty badly - she says later that she was told about the hidden knife but she didn't need to... she could've just feigned ignorance and just thought it was a key in the same way that Badd and Faraday Snr. thought it was just a key too.

Yeah, ok, she confesses but she need not have done, right?...

a lot of what Yew says doesn't make sense - i.e. the Yagaratsu was always aware of security devices and never left evidence, both of which she contravened, so I'm guessing she can't have been the Yag. Even so, it was a weird way to leave case 4.

When Edgeworth meets Oldbag, he says "how could this happen two days in a row?". The last time Edgeworth saw Oldbag was in case 3, which happens at least two days before case 5, as case 1 happens between them, and he doesn't meet Oldbag there.

Case 1 takes place in the middle of the night. Edgeworth goes through Case 3 one day, returns to his office that night after midnight (making it the next day), goes through Case 1, and then goes through Case 5 later the same day.

About the TV Videotape Gunshot thing, after the "shot" and Badd, Calisto and Gumshoe came in, they saw the bodies, their focus (at least Badd and Gumshoe) obviously wasn't on the TV, but calling 911, informing the rest of the people in the building, and making sure nothing else was happening. Anything else wouldn't matter. Also, no one else was in the hallway at the time. Calisto probably volentary stayed behind to "make sure nothing gets disturbed" while Badd and Gumshoe did the rest. Calisto could then shut off the tape and the TV while "watching the bodies."

I didn't actually see the original post about it, but...I think the fact that the tape was still running IS a contradiction that presents a problem to the killer in a very real way. If you'll remember, when you examine the TV, it goes to loud static without anyone touching it. That's the VCR running out of tape and going back to "INPUT" mode.

Trust me, Badd is not enough of an idiot to leave a defense attorney in charge of the crime scene involving the murder of her client. Pretty much the first thing any detective would do is lock down the scene so no one touches anything.

Even though they both were part of Yatagarasu and Badd didn't suspect Calisto of anything? Maybe Badd thought since they were in a courthouse, nothing would be disturbed. Though now that I think about it, if Calisto was in the room, she probably would have just taken the tape out of the room, and hid it in the same way Jacques Portsman hid the tape. So she probably wasn't in the room. Think I was just confused.