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Amanda Knox has returned to court to challenge her conviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher - with new experts reviewing key forensic evidence.
Knox was jailed for 26 years for the brutal murder of student Meredith Kercher, 21, who was found semi-naked with her throat cut in her bedroom in the house they shared.
The American's former boyfriend, computer studies graduate Raffaele Sollecito, 25, was also found guilty and given a 25-year sentence. He is also appealing.
Knox walked into court dressed in a cream jumper and looked apprehensive as she was led to her seat flanked by prison guards.
She exchanged smiles with friend Madison Paxton and stepfather Chris Mellas, who were at the back of the court, before being briefed by her defence team.
Madison said of her friend: "She is confident in herself and in the truth but it's hard for her as she has already been convicted for something that she didn't do."
When asked how Knox had coped with spending her fourth Christmas in jail, Madison replied: "To her it was just another day - the whole situation is so painful for her that she can't let one day affect her more than any other."
Madison also spoke sarcastically of key witness Antonio Curatolo, whose evidence has been called into question, saying: "A drug dealer is being seen as credible while Amanda, a nice, sporty student is guilty."
Last month Knox broke down in tears at the hearing in Perugia after appeal judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman granted a DNA review of the evidence used to convict her and Sollecito - particularly on a kitchen knife and bra clasp.
The original trial heard how the 12-inch knife was found in Sollecito's flat with DNA - genetic material not blood - from Knox on the handle and Meredith on the blade.
Also key to the conviction was a bloodied clasp from Meredith's bra on which DNA from Sollecito was said to have been found but in both cases defence lawyers said the results were so low they should not have been admitted.
Experts from Rome's La Sapienza Stefano Conti and Carla Vecchiotti are being officially appointed to carry out the review which will take between two and three months to complete.
Knox's lawyer Luciano Ghirga said the review was "an important step" and a "victory in the search for truth," while prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said it would show "once and for all the good work of the investigators".
Defence lawyers will also question the reliability of Curatolo, who said that he saw Knox and Sollecito by the house the night of the murder.
He had told the court he remembered the night "clearly" as he saw student revellers queueing up to catch buses to nightclubs on the outskirts of the city.
However, defence lawyers have established that he could not have as the night Meredith was murdered was a bank holiday with venues shut and no buses running.
They are also expected to bring up a charge of drug dealing that Curatolo, 53, faces and which is due to go to trial later this year - he has been a key witness in two previous Perugia murder trials.
Curatolo said he saw Knox and Sollecito "chatting animatedly" on a basketball court in a square close to the house and that he saw them "around five times" between 9.30pm and midnight the night that Meredith was murdered.
During his evidence he pointed to the couple, who have always insisted they were at home the night Meredith was killed and did not leave until the following morning.
Prosecutors are also appealing at the hearing and are looking to have the sentences against Knox and Sollecito increased to life.
Meredith, a Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was in Italy as part of a year-long exchange programme with her European Studies degree and had only been in Perugia two months when she was killed in November 2007.
SKYNEWS
1 Comments
The evidence against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito is overwhelming. They gave completely different accounts of where they were, who they were with and what they were doing on the night of the murder. Neither Knox nor Sollecito have credible alibis despite three attempts each. All the other people who were questioned had one credible alibi that could be verified. Innocent people don't give multiple conflicting alibis and lie repeatedly to the police.
ReplyDeleteThe DNA didn't miraculously deposit itself in the most incriminating of places.
An abundant amount of Raffaele Sollecito's DNA was found on Meredith's bra clasp. His DNA was identified by two separate DNA tests. Of the 17 loci tested in the sample, Sollecito’s profile matched 17 out of 17.
According to Sollecito's forensic expert, Professor Vinci, Knox's DNA was on Meredith's bra.
Amanda Knox's DNA was found on the handle of the double DNA knife and a number of independent forensic experts - Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni, Dr. Renato Biondo and Professor Francesca Torricelli - categorically stated that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade. Sollecito knew that Meredith’s DNA was on the blade which is why he twice lied about accidentally pricking her hand whilst cooking.
There were five instances of Knox's DNA mixed with Meredith's blood in three different locations in the cottage.
Knox tracked Meredith's blood into the bathroom, the hallway, her room and Filomena's room, where the break-in was staged. Knox's DNA and Meredith's blood was found mixed together in Filomena's room, in a bare bloody footprint in the hallway and in three places in the bathroom.
Rudy Guede's bloody footprints led straight out of Meredith's room and out of the house. This means that he didn't stage the break-in in Filomena's room or go into the blood-spattered bathroom after Meredith had been stabbed.
The bloody footprint on the blue bathmat in the bathroom matched the precise characteristics of Sollecito’s foot, but couldn’t possibly belong to Guede. Knox's and Sollecito's bare bloody footprints were revealed by luminol in the hallway.
It's not a coincidence that the three people - Knox, Sollecito and Guede - who kept telling the police a pack of lies are all implicated by the DNA and forensic evidence.
Amanda Knox voluntarily admitted that she was involved in Meredith's murder in her handwritten note to the police on 6 November 2007. After she was informed that Sollecito was no longer providing her with an alibi, she stated on at least four separate occasions that she was at the cottage when Meredith was killed. At the trial, Sollecito refused to corroborate Knox's alibi that she was at his apartment.
Knox accused an innocent man, Diya Lumumba, of murdering Meredith despite the fact she knew he was completely innocent. She didn't recant her false and malicious allegation against Lumumba the whole time he was in prison. She admitted that it was her fault that Lumumba was in prison in an intercepted conversation with her mother on 10 November 2007.