Ian Leslie

October 9, 2011

IN THE weeks following the discovery of Meredith Kercher’s body, Italian police found no physical evidence linking Amanda Knox to the murder. But then, they didn’t need it: they could tell Knox was guilty just by looking at her.

”We were able to establish guilt,” said Edgardo Giobbi, the lead investigator, ”by closely observing the suspect’s psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation. We don’t need to rely on other kinds of investigation.”

Little about Knox’s behaviour matched how the investigators imagined a wrongfully accused woman should conduct herself. She appeared too cool and calm, they said – and yet also oddly libidinous. One policeman said she ”smelt of sex”, and investigators were particularly disturbed by a YouTube video that showed Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in each other’s arms outside the cottage in which Kercher was murdered, as the investigation proceeded inside.

In fact, the video is anything but sexy. Knox, looking wan and dazed, exchanges chaste kisses with Sollecito, who rubs her arm consolingly. But the police professed shock.

Knox later explained to Rolling Stone magazine, via an intermediary, that she had been pacing up and down when Sollecito pulled her on to his knees to comfort her. The only strange thing about this is that an explanation for simple physical affection became necessary.

The Italian police’s overheated interpretation of Knox’s behaviour was a particularly pungent manifestation of a universal trait, one that frequently leads criminal investigators and juries astray: overconfidence in our ability to read someone else’s state of mind simply by looking at them.

But it’s not just police or legal professionals who make this error. We all have an inherent bias towards assuming that we can discern a person’s inner mental state simply by observing them.

Amanda Knox wasn’t able to communicate her thoughts and feelings directly, either to the police or to the wider public. Her Italian, at the time of the murder, was poor, and her arraignment meant that she could not speak to the media. But there were plenty of pictures to go on. There was, therefore, an even greater emphasis on her expressions and physical behaviour than there would normally be in such a situation.

This focus on the superficial shaped not just Knox’s fortunes in the original trial, but her reputation around the world.

It is astonishing how quick we are to draw conclusions about how a person ought to look or behave in circumstances we have not ourselves even come close to experiencing. How many of us have returned to our home after a night away to discover that our flatmate has been brutally murdered? How many of us can know what it feels like to be at the sharp end of a punishing interrogation, in a foreign country, carried out by men in uniform who seem absolutely convinced that they know what happened, who are as certain as we are confused, fearful and exhausted? None of us. Yet we feel free to blithely pronounce, from a great distance, on whether someone in this situation is ”acting weird” or not.

Our unwillingness to devote much effort to understanding how others might actually think or feel is exemplified by the popular assumption that Knox’s initial admission to police that she had been present at the scene of the murder, and her false implication of the bartender, Diya ”Patrick” Lumumba, revealed a guilty conscience. ”She lied!” declared her critics, slamming the collective gavel in condemnation.

But, of course, we know, empirically, that under the extreme duress of an intense interrogation, a terrified person will say almost anything the police want them to say.

Amanda Knox’s face proved her misfortune. It was pretty enough to incite the fantasies of Italian cops and tabloid editors, and just expressive enough to provide a richly textured canvas for a public all too willing to pronounce on the soul it concealed.

By Nick Squires, in Perugia and Nick Allen in Seattle

05 Oct 2011

Amanda Knox insisted she was “not the monster of Perugia” in notes she wrote down in prison as her crucial appeal over the murder of Meredith Kercher drew to a close.

The notes offer a fascinating insight into Miss Knox’s state of mind as she waited to hear whether a jury in Perugia would uphold her 26-year sentence for murdering Miss Kercher or, as they did on Monday, overturn the conviction and find her innocent.

“I am not the monster of Perugia,” the 24-year-old American insisted in handwritten notes as she composed her final, crucial declaration of innocence to the appeals court in Perugia, which she read out in court just before the jury retired to consider its verdict.

It was an apparent reference to the Monster of Florence, the nickname for a notorious serial killer who shot dead and mutilated courting couples whom he stalked in country lanes and woodland surrounding Florence during the 1970s and 1980s.

The gruesome murders, which spread fear in Tuscany and were never solved, were the subject of a bestselling book, ‘The Monster of Florence’, by Douglas Preston, an American journalist, and Mario Spezi, an Italian crime reporter.

“The development of the appeal highlights the fact that the evidence against me is either unreliable or circumstantial,” Miss Knox wrote on one sheet of lined paper, part of a bundle that was obtained by the Italian press.

The disclosures came as Miss Knox broke down in tears as she gave her first public reaction to her acquittal of the murder of Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon in Surrey.

Miss Knox, looking pale and somewhat bewildered, sobbed as she gave a brief statement on her arrival at Seattle airport.

Stepping into a room packed with media and well-wishers, she was unable to contain her emotions as cheers broke out.

Wearing a long grey cardigan and black leggings with her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a cross around her neck, she sat down behind a podium with tears streaming down her cheeks.

She made a prayer sign and mouthed “thank you” to those in the crowd carrying “Welcome Home” posters. Standing to speak, she said: “They are reminding me to speak in English, because I’m having problems with that.”

Struggling to maintain her composure she went on: “I am really overwhelmed right now. I was looking down from the aeroplane and it seemed like everything wasn’t real.

Her father Curt returned home without her and said the family was determined to keep her whereabouts a mystery for the moment.

He said the press conference at the airport had been the first moment she realised the enormity of media interest in her case. Mr Knox said she “needed her space” and had not agreed to any media deals. “She has been in a concrete bunker for four years,” he said.

On Monday an Italian court overturned her 2009 conviction for murdering 21-year-old Miss Kercher.

Also cleared was her former boyfriend, Rafaele Sollecito, leaving Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede as the only person convicted in a killing that investigators believe was carried out by more than one person.

Miss Kercher’s family has refrained from criticising Knox or Sollecito but has said repeatedly that Meredith had been forgotten in the media frenzy.

After a statement lasting less than a minute Amanda Knox goes into hiding as the world waits to hear from her. She was whisked away from Seattle airport to a secret location.

At the family home in a quiet suburb near Puget Sound there was a large blue and green Welcome Home sign and white balloons outside on a neat lawn.

Mr Knox was cheered by neighbours and friends who had gathered at the house.

He said his daughter wants to resume her studies at the University of Washington, and he vowed to fight any further action by Italian prosecutors “to the end.”

Mr Knox added: “Amanda needs some time to readjust. She’s overwhelmed. I can’t begin to describe to you what’ it’s been like. It will be nice to see what normal life is like again.”

He said it was the best day of his life to have his daughter back on US soil. He also confirmed that she had not yet signed a big money interview deal, and no counselling has been lined up. “She’s a strong person,” he said.

Mr Knox added: “You won’t find her.”

Miss Kercher’s killing is now considered “unsolved” following the acquittal of Miss Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the appeals judge who freed them has said. The murder “will remain an unsolved truth”, said judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann.

“What is important for me to say is just thank-you to everyone who has believed in me, who has defended me and supported my family.

“My family is the most important thing to me right now and I want to go and be with them. Thank you for being there for me.”

She had earlier nodded repeatedly when her lawyer asked people to remember Miss Kercher in their prayers.

Miss Knox, who spent four years in prison before being freed, clutched the hands of her mother Edda Mellas and sister Deanna during the press conference.

She had earlier sat with her mother on the upper deck of a British Airways flight from Heathrow.

Following her public statement she was taken from Seattle airport to an undisclosed location.

In recounting why she was innocent of the murder of Miss Kercher, the American wrote that she had “no history of violence/mental disturbance”.

She said that she “didn’t run away” from Perugia when Miss Kercher’s half-naked body was found on the floor of her bedroom in the house she shared with Miss Knox in Perugia, noting that only “the wicked flee”.

Her family said throughout the four-year saga that the fact that Knox remained in Perugia and co-operated with police was a sign of her innocence.

They said that had she been guilty she could easily have left the Umbrian hill town in the days before the murder and her arrest.

Her father Curt returned home without her and said the family was determined to keep her whereabouts a mystery for the moment.

He said the press conference at the airport had been the first moment she realised the enormity of media interest in her case. Mr Knox said she “needed her space” and had not agreed to any media deals. “She has been in a concrete bunker for four years,” he said.

On Monday an Italian court overturned her 2009 conviction for murdering 21-year-old Miss Kercher.

Also cleared was her former boyfriend, Rafaele Sollecito, leaving Ivorian drifter Rudy Guede as the only person convicted in a killing that investigators believe was carried out by more than one person.

Miss Kercher’s family has refrained from criticising Knox or Sollecito but has said repeatedly that Meredith had been forgotten in the media frenzy.

After a statement lasting less than a minute Amanda Knox goes into hiding as the world waits to hear from her. She was whisked away from Seattle airport to a secret location.

At the family home in a quiet suburb near Puget Sound there was a large blue and green Welcome Home sign and white balloons outside on a neat lawn.

Mr Knox was cheered by neighbours and friends who had gathered at the house.

He said his daughter wants to resume her studies at the University of Washington, and he vowed to fight any further action by Italian prosecutors “to the end.”

Mr Knox added: “Amanda needs some time to readjust. She’s overwhelmed. I can’t begin to describe to you what’ it’s been like. It will be nice to see what normal life is like again.”

He said it was the best day of his life to have his daughter back on US soil. He also confirmed that she had not yet signed a big money interview deal, and no counselling has been lined up. “She’s a strong person,” he said.

Mr Knox added: “You won’t find her.”

Miss Kercher’s killing is now considered “unsolved” following the acquittal of Miss Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the appeals judge who freed them has said. The murder “will remain an unsolved truth”, said judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann.

Deepa Babington

Tuesday, Oct. 04, 2011

American student Amanda Knox headed for home on Tuesday after spending four years in an Italian jail, leaving the family of Meredith Kercher to express their anguish at being no closer to the truth about her murder.

Ms. Knox left Rome shortly before midday for London where she and her family were due to board a connecting flight to their home in Seattle, airport officials said.

The 24-year-old had broken down in sobs on Monday after an appeals court in Perugia ruled she and her former boyfriend, Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito, should be freed immediately.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday they would appeal against the ruling and Ms. Kercher’s disappointed family said the search for who killed the British student in 2007 would go on.

“We’re still absorbing it. You think you’ve come to a decision and now it’s been overturned,” Meredith’s morther Arline told reporters at a news conference.

The prosecution will now appeal to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest appeals court.

Ms. Kercher’s sister Stephanie said they would wait for the written explanation of the acquittal verdict in the hope that all the killers would eventually be found.

“Once we’ve got the reasons behind the decisions for this one, then we can understand why they have been acquitted of it and work towards finding those who are responsible,” she said.

“That’s the biggest disappointment — not knowing still and knowing that there is someone or people out there who have done this.”

Ivorian drug dealer Rudy Guede is serving a 16-year sentence for his role in the murder. But investigators believe more than one person held Ms. Kercher down while she was stabbed and had her throat cut.

Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Ms. Kercher during what prosecutors had said was a drug-fuelled sexual assault.

Ms. Knox has not spoken in public since but she thanked her supporters in a letter to an Italian-American foundation that was published by Italian news agency Ansa.

British Prime Minister David Cameron urged people not to forget Ms. Kercher’s parents.

“Those parents … had an explanation for what had happened to their wonderful daughter, and that explanation isn’t there … I think everyone today should be thinking about them and how they feel,” he told ITV.

Outside the court on Monday, hundreds of people whistled, booed and shouted “shame, shame” and “bastards” at the courtroom and at U.S. television crews.

The appeal trial gripped attention on both sides of the Atlantic. There was an outpouring of sympathy and outrage from many in the United States who regarded Knox as an innocent girl in the clutches of a medieval justice system.

But with another appeal, Ms. Kercher’s family said the lack of clarity made it hard for them to come to terms with the killing.

“It’s still very difficult to speak in terms of forgiveness until we know the truth,” said Meredith’s sister Stephanie. “Until the truth comes out we can’t forgive anyone because no one’s admitted to the crime.

“It may be a case of waiting years to get to the truth, we just have to wait again now.”

The verdict was an embarrassment for the prosecutor and Italian police investigators. Independent forensic investigators sharply criticised scientific evidence in the original investigation, saying it was unreliable.

Ms. Kercher’s half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds, was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Ms. Knox in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia where both were studying.

Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito, 27, said they were innocent.

Mr. Sollecito, who had been held in a separate jail near Perugia, also left custody immediaterly after the verdict.

The court upheld a conviction against Ms. Knox for slander after she had falsely accused barman Patrick Lumumba of the murder. It sentenced her to three years in prison, a sentence which she has now served.

Ms. Kercher, a Leeds University student, was on a year-long exchange programme in Perugia. Her murder brought a flood of unwelcome attention to the medieval town in central Italy that her family said she loved.

The murder investigation showed she was pinned down and stabbed to death and evidence suggests Mr. Guede did not act alone.

Prosecutors had said Ms. Kercher resisted attempts by Ms. Knox, Mr. Sollecito and Mr. Guede to involve her in an orgy. Their case was weakened by forensic experts who dismissed police evidence that traces of DNA belonging to Ms. Knox and Ms. Kercher were found on a kitchen knife identified as the murder weapon.

The experts also said alleged traces of Mr. Sollecito’s DNA on the Briton’s bra clasp may have been contaminated.

The defence argued that no clear motive or evidence linking the defendants to the crime had emerged, and said Ms. Knox was falsely implicated in the murder by prosecutors determined to convict her regardless of the evidence.

Kercher’s family looks for answers after Knox freed .

By Deepa Babington

Tue Oct 4, 2011

The family of British student Meredith Kercher said on Tuesday their ordeal would not end until they found out the truth about her murder, after Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted by an Italian appeals court.

Stephanie Kercher, Meredith’s sister, said they would first wait for the court’s written explanation of Monday’s verdict.

“Once we’ve got the reasons behind the decisions for this one, then we can understand why they have been acquitted of it and work toward finding those who are responsible,” she told a news conference.

“That’s the biggest disappointment, not knowing still and knowing that there is someone or people out there who have done this,” she said.

The acquittal of Knox and Sollecito leaves Rudy Guede, an Ivorian drifter and drug dealer, as the only person convicted of the killing which investigators believe was committed by more than one person.

Kercher’s body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in her throat, was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with U.S. student Knox in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia, where both were studying.

DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito was discredited by experts but questions remain over who, other than

Guede, was involved in the attack in which Kercher was pinned down and stabbed.

“I understand the courts agreed that he wasn’t acting alone,” Kercher’s brother Lyle said.

“Of course if those released yesterday are not the guilty party, we are now obviously left wondering who is the other person or people.

“For us it feels very much like being back to square one. And the search goes on to find out what truly happened,” he said.

Prosecutors say they will appeal against the acquittal verdict, which they say has left many issues relating to the murder unclear.

“I wasn’t surprised but I was disturbed by it,” prosecutor Manuela Comodi told reporters.

“It seems to me that all anyone’s talked about, even before the trial began, was how the two accused were going to be acquitted.”

The Kerchers have maintained a low profile throughout the trial. Knox’s supporters ran a well-organized campaign to convince the wider public of her innocence.

The victim’s family has refrained from any criticism of Knox or Sollecito but has said repeatedly that Meredith has been forgotten in the media frenzy over the young American.

“What happened to my daughter Meredith is every mother’s nightmare,” her Indian-born mother Arline said.

“We’re still absorbing it. You think you’ve come to a decision and now it’s been overturned.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron urged people not to forget Meredith Kercher’s family.

“Those parents … had an explanation for what had happened to their wonderful daughter, and that explanation isn’t there … I think everyone should be thinking about them and how they feel,” he told ITV.

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

Oct. 3, 2011

American Amanda Knox received the one verdict that has set her free to go home with her family to Washington state, but mental health experts say the 24-year-old’s traumatic journey is far from over.

Since her conviction in the murder of British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007, Knox has said that she longs to go home and daydreams of catching up on Harry Potter movies and lying in the grass of her Seattle back yard.

After spending four years in a cramped cell in an Italian prison, Knox appeared elated but emotional as an appeals court in Perugia overturned her 26-year sentence.

But her pale face and thinning hair show the toll prison life has taken on the young woman psychologically.

Even before her fate was sealed, cameras showed her nervous breathing and a face buried in hands, ready for the heaving tears that would follow.

“She still has had a horrific experience and her sense of trust in police and in people is gone,” said Ann Rosen Spector, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University. “Some people may still believe she did it and will treat her differently. Her name is well known.

“It will take time to get back to normal,” said Spector, a clinical psychologist who specializes in depression, stress and anxiety issues. “She lost four years of her life.”

Amanda Knox, the US national accused of the 2007 murder of her housemate Meredith Kercher, arrives in court as her appeal trial resumes in Perugia, Sept. 30, 2011.

Knox was found guilty of slandering Perugia police for claiming during her trial that the police abused her and cuffed her on the back of her head.

In the past months, the carefree college student has seemed increasingly more fragile and less naive. Her parents, Edda Mellas and Curt Knox, have told ABC that she has broken out in hives and is having trouble sleeping and eating.

Her father told CNN recently that, “We’ll take her home and find out what kind of trauma she’s experienced in prison — even if she wants to talk.”

Knox arrived in Italy in 2007, a 20-year-old college student eager to learn another culture, thousands of miles from her Seattle home. But only months into the first semester, her apartment roommate, Kercher, was brutally murdered.

Knox and her then-Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested for the murder, and a jury in Perugia, Italy, eventually found them guilty. Sollecito’s conviction was also overturned.

The American press has been sympathetic to the kooky, free-spirited Knox, who is now fluent in Italian. But local accounts have been searing, calling her an “angel face with icy eyes”

“This is really traumatic for her,” said Judy Kuriansky, an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “She is going to be just as wrecked as Casey Anthony — the trial and the lurid details — the accused sex play and throat slashing and a drug-filled orgy. This will continue to follow her forever.”

“There is no way she will have a normal life,” said Kuriansky. “No matter where she goes, they will think of her as Foxy Knoxy.”

Knox has also faced harsh judgment from her murdered roommate’s family. John Kercher contended the trial was fair and was critical of the way the press has given Knox “celebrity” status.

“I lost a friend in the most brutal inexplicable way,” Knox said in her statement to the jury. “My trust, my full trust in the police has been betrayed. I had to face absolutely unjust charges, accusations and I’m paying with my life for something that I did not commit.”

Fours of Isolation Took Toll on Amanda Knox

Even if Knox decides to eventually finish college, she will have challenges, according to Spector. “She was on a very clear path and she has gotten off that path.”

“She will have some catching up to do, not to mention post-traumatic stress,” said Spector. “She will have dreams, waking up back in prison again. She will have low trust issues. It will be a long time before she is secure in her own skin.”

Prison itself changes a person, according to “Personalities change after enduring stress,” said George Everly Jr., associate professor of psychology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“Personalities change after enduring stress,” he said. “You take someone’s freedom away, restrict their activities and what they do. Captivity, in short, is very stressful and there is the possibility that it will have a long-term adverse effect — not just psychological, but physical health, as well.”

Everly said if 100 people are exposed to trauma, only about half of them will develop post-traumatic stress. “Part of the answer is how a person perceives it,” said Everly. “If she is truly innocent or believes herself to be innocent, then it is devastating.”

Knox’s parents said they had hoped her life could return to some normalcy, after celebrating all the missed birthdays and holidays. They have alternated paying her visits in prison, but for the appeals trial, the whole family descended on the small town in Umbria.

“Four years ago I was four years younger, but fundamentally I was younger because I had never suffered before four years ago,” Knox told the jury. “Because of four years ago, I didn’t know what tragedy was. It was something I would watch on television. That didn’t belong to me.”

“I want to go home,” she said. “I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want my future to be taken away from me for something I didn’t do. Because I am innocent. Just like he is innocent. We deserve freedom. We didn’t do anything not to deserve freedom.”

Like Knox, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, now 27, was convicted in 2008 on sexual assault and murder and given a 25-year sentence.

He testified before an appeals court that the when he met Knox, she was “beautiful, happy, vivacious and sweet.” He said their short time together was “a beautiful time in my life. Idyllic.”

“We were free from everything,” he said in court, as Knox’s mother and sister burst into tears. “Our only wish was to spend the night cuddling in tenderness. This was our wish.”

Knox’s family has confirmed that their daughter has broken out in hives and is have difficulty sleeping and eating in prison.

Alan Kazdin, director of Yale’s Parenting Center, said the isolation of prison could have a long-term impact on Knox’s physical health.

“You don’t ever get over it,” he said of the prison experience.

“I don’t know her personally — her strengths and weaknesses, being in a strange land in a strange country, even though she is conversational in Italian, but she could experience extreme isolation and it could have an impact on her morale and she could be really traumatized by it,” said Kazdin. “Trauma doesn’t always come from an acute activity like war or rape.”

“The stress of isolation can have an enduring impact on people’s immune systems, particularly warding off bacteria and fighting off inflammation and is implicated in a wide range of diseases,” he said. “She is at risk.”

Normally, when people are under stress, it subsides and life goes back to normal. “But when it carries on, the changes are real,” said Kazdin. “Young children who are stressed all the time have more disease and die younger. This is not tiny stuff. Will she suffer that?”

“Youth gives her body resilience, but she has less experience in coping skills,” he said. “The mental and physical go together. You can get depression, trauma, stress and illness in the normal process of enduring stress and isolation.”

Amanda Knox acquitted of murder .

October 4, 2011

American Amanda Knox has been acquitted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher after breaking down in an Italian court and pleading for mercy in a dramatic end to her four-year legal battle.

There were cries of “Shame! Shame!” and “Murderer!” from an angry crowd outside the courtroom immediately after the verdict on Monday.

The decision overturns the 24-year-old’s convictions for the grisly killing of her housemate Kercher on November 1, 2007 in the university town of Perugia in central Italy where both young women were studying.

Her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, who was appealing with Knox, was also acquitted of the charges, leaving only one person convicted – local drifter Rudy Guede, who like the other two has always denied murder.

Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25 in the original trial. Guede is serving out a 16-year sentence after exhausting his appeals.

The 21-year-old Kercher was found half-naked in a pool of blood on the floor of her bedroom in the cottage she shared with Knox. Her body was covered in knife wounds and bruises and investigators found traces of a sexual assault.

In the reconstruction of the crime put forward by prosecutors during the appeal trial, which began in November 2010, Kercher was sexually assaulted by Guede and then held down by Guede and Sollecito while Knox wielded the knife.

Knox initially told police she was there at the time of the murder and falsely identified the owner of a local bar where she worked as the killer.

But she later argued that the statement was only given under heavy questioning and has since said she was at Sollecito’s house the whole night.
“I did not kill, I did not rape, I did not steal. I wasn’t there,” the tearful Seattle native told the court earlier on Monday as her family wept, before the eight-person jury retired to consider the dramatic verdict.

“I am paying with my life for a crime I did not commit,” an ashen-faced Knox said, speaking in almost flawless Italian with her hands sometimes joined as if in prayer in a hushed courtroom and other times holding the bench for support.

“I want to go home. I want to return to my life,” she said in a statement that she had to interrupt frequently as she struggled to contain her emotions.

“I am not the person they say I am. I am not into perversion and violence,” she said, after her accusers told the court that she was a “she-devil”.

Kercher’s family meanwhile complained their loved one had been “forgotten” in a case that has focused on the figure of Knox and they lashed out against what they called a ‘‘large PR machine’’ working to secure Knox’s acquittal.

“The brutality of that night, everything Meredith went through, the fear, the terror, she didn’t deserve that,” Kercher’s sister Stephanie said, wiping away tears in a media conference in Perugia ahead of the verdict.

“Mez has been forgotten in all of this. It’s difficult to keep her memory alive. We’re here today to find justice,” she said, urging jurors to ignore the “media hype”.

Four hundred journalists are covering the trial in Perugia.

Appeal verdicts that overturn the original case are relatively rare in Italy but Knox’s defence had the upper hand for much of the appeal, particularly after independent experts cast serious doubt on some crucial DNA evidence.

Sollecito also spoke before the verdict, saying: “I have never hurt anyone in my life.”

He took off an arm band with the inscription “Free Amanda and Raffaele” and presented it to the court as a symbol of their innocence.

Under the Italian justice system, the eight-person appeal court jury that issued the ruling included main judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann himself, another judge and six jurors from the general public.

Prosecutors had asked for the sentences to be increased to life in prison because of the lack of a motive for the killing.

Oct. 3, 2011

It was said many times that I’m a different person from the way I look. And that people cannot figure out who I am. I’m the same person I was four years ago. I’ve always been the same.

The only difference is what I suffered in four years. I lost a friend in the most brutal inexplicable way. My trust, my full trust in the police has been betrayed. I had to face absolutely unjust charges, accusations and I’m paying with my life for something that I did not commit.

Four years ago I was four years younger, but fundamentally I was younger because I had never suffered before four years ago. Because of four years ago, I didn’t know what tragedy was. It was something I would watch on television. That didn’t belong to me.

I had never faced so much fear and tragedy and suffering. I did not know how to face that. I didn’t know how to live that, deeply. How I felt when we found out that Maddy had been killed, I couldn’t believe it. How that was possible, first of all, then fear, because the person whom I shared my life with, who had the bed next to mine had been killed in our home. And if I would have been home that night, I’d be dead. I would have been killed just like her. The only difference is I was not there. I was with Raffaele, at Raffaele’s place.

I had no one. He was everything to me at that moment. At that very moment at that moment in time I had him.

And another thing was my passion. I had a sense of duty before justice. I had a sense of duty before authorities which I trusted because they were there to find out who the culprit was, there to protect us. I blindly trusted them wholly, completely, absolutely. And when I made myself available up to the point of utter exhaustion those days, I was betrayed starting Nov. 5. I wasn’t, I wasn’t only stressed. I was manipulated.

I am not what they say I am,the violence, the spite of life, the life of someone that was not mine. And I didn’t do what they say I did. I didn’t kill. I didn’t rape. I didn’t steal. I was not there.

I remember the guy that we met in the apartment downstairs, but I didn’t know him even by name. He was just someone around, a face. He was not a person that I had some contact with. So when they say, ‘Oh, you knew him,” I never did what they said that I did. They also say that that’s what happened, but just like this. It’s not like that.

I was untidy. We had a good relationship. We were all available to each other. I shared my life, especially with Meredith. We had a friendship. We were friends. She was concerned for me. She was always kind to me. She cared about me.

Maddy was killed, was murdered and I always wanted justice for her. I’m not escaping truth. I never escaped. I’m not fleeing from justice. I insist on the truth. I insist after four hopeless years. My innocence, our innocence is true. It deserves to be defended and acknowledged.

I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want my future to be taken away from me for something I didn’t do. Because I am innocent. Just like he is innocent. We deserve freedom. We didn’t do anything not to deserve freedom.

I have all the respect for this court, for the care shown during our trial. Thank you.

Amanda Knox: what happens next?

john hooper

Monday 3 October 2011

Judges are considering whether to overturn Knox and Raffaele Sollecito’s convictions for murder, sexual assault and theft.

The judges have retired to consider their ruling. When will they come back?

No one can tell. But the presiding judge, Claudio Pratillo Hellmann, told the court it would not be before 8pm local time.

Who takes the decision?

Hellmann has two votes. The other professional judge has one. Then there are six lay judges: ordinary citizens drawn by ballot from among the residents of Umbria, the region of which Perugia is the capital. They have one vote each.

So the lay judges could outvote the professionals?

In theory, yes. In practice, they are heavily influenced by the so-called giudici togati (robed judges).

What do they have to decide?

More than you might imagine. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were jointly convicted on five charges: murder; unlicensed possession of a lethal weapon; sexual assault; theft (of the €300 [£257]and two mobiles stolen from the flat Knox shared with Meredith Kercher and two Italian women); and, finally, trying to cover up the crimes by simulating a robbery (the break-in by way of a smashed window, which the defence says was genuine and perpetrated by Rudy Guede).

In addition, Knox was convicted of criminal slander (identifying her employer, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba as the killer in a statement she later withdrew). The appeal is against all six convictions. The judges will probably look at each in turn.

So the appellants could be acquitted of some charges and not others?

Absolutely. One possible outcome is that Knox and Sollecito are cleared of murder, while Knox’s appeal against the slander charges is turned down. She was given a one-year sentence for that, and has served almost four times that amount of time in jail, so she would walk free.

A much stranger outcome, but one that cannot be discounted, would be if they were acquitted of murder, but had their appeals against the cover-up charge rejected. That would leave a big cloud hanging over them.

Any other variations?

Plenty. Under Italian law, there is more than one kind of acquittal. Two do not apply to this case. The others are full acquittal and acquittal for lack of proof, the latter being similar to the so-called “third verdict” of “not proven” available under Scottish law: the court is not saying the accused is innocent, but that there is insufficient evidence to the contrary.

This could offer a way out that would save the face of the Italian police and prosecutors, by implying they were quite right to bring charges, while releasing two young people against whom the evidence is no longer as strong as it once appeared.

What happens if Knox and Sollecito are acquitted?

They will return to their respective prisons to collect their belongings. But they should be free in hours, and the word in Perugia is that Knox will immediately leave the country.

And that would be the end of it?

No. Within 90 days, the judges must submit their written verdict and the various parties would then have 45 days in which to take the case to Italy‘s highest appeals court. Under Italian law, the prosecution as well as the defence can lodge an appeal. But it is usually on a point of law or procedure.

By then, though, Amanda Knox would be the other side of the world.

Yes. But, despite what the prosecutor said in court (astonishingly, without being corrected by the judges), Italy has an extradition treaty with the US. So if the lower court decision were reinstated, in theory, the Italian authorities could ask for her to be returned.

Amanda Knox appeal: Meredith Kercher’s sister says it’s hard to forgive murderer of ‘forgotten’ sister.

3 Oct 2011

Meredith Kercher’s sister, Stephanie, said it would be “very difficult” to forgive anyone for the British student’s murder today as she awaited the outcome of an appeal hearing.

Stephanie Kercher said her sister had been “hugely forgotten” in the furore around the appeal launched by American student Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito over the November 2007 killing in Perugia, Italy.

Sitting alongside her mother Arline and brother Lyle, she told a press conference: “It is very difficult to keep her memory alive in all of this.”

Miss Kercher said forgiveness “does not come into it” at the moment.

She went on: “It would be very difficult to forgive anything at this stage.

“What everyone needs to remember is … the brutality of what happened that night, everything that Meredith must have felt that night, everything she went through, the fear and the terror, and not knowing why.

“She doesn’t deserve that, no-one deserves that.”

Meredith’s mother Arline refused to say whether she believed Knox killed her daughter but said she trusted the Italian justice system.

She added: “You have to go by the evidence because there is nothing else. What I want, what they want doesn’t come into it.

“It is what the police have found, what the science has found, what the evidence is and that’s all you can go on.

“It is to find out what happened to Meredith and to get some justice really.”

Two judges and six jurors are considering whether to overturn the murder convictions of Knox, 24, and Sollecito, 27.

Knox made a heartfelt plea for freedom today, telling the appeal court: “I have paid with my life for things I did not commit.”

Sunday Oct. 2, 2011

Prosecutors have portrayed Raffele Sollecito as a “dog on a leash,” helplessly under the sway of Amanda Knox, his girlfriend of only six days when they became the main suspects in the 2007 murder of her British roommate.

Sollecito and Knox were convicted together in 2009; he received 25 years to her 26. And they are co-defendants again as they seek to overturn the guilty verdicts in an appeals trial. A decision is expected Monday.

Despite their intertwined legal fates, the 27-year-old Sollecito has become the forgotten defendant in the 4-year-old saga.

Even in Sollecito’s native Italy, it is Knox who commands the most media attention. Two prominent celebrity and gossip magazines, “Oggi” and “Gente,” put Knox on their covers during the final week of arguments in the appeals trial, and newspapers characterize him as being in the background.

Not even prosecutors have portrayed Sollecito as the main protagonist in the murder of Meredith Kercher on Nov. 1, 2007. According to their version, Sollecito held Kercher from behind while Knox stabbed her and another man tried to sexually assault her. Ivorian immigrant Rudy Guede was convicted in a fast-track trial and saw his sentence cut from 30 years to 16 years on appeal.

Attention during the investigation focused intensely on the two young female roommates as the world and prosecutors searched for a motive. Knox was portrayed as sexually promiscuous and lacking inhibition, while at the same time working hard to support herself and trying to learn Italian; Kercher was depicted as more serious and studious, who had at the end of her life began to chafe at her American roommate’s sloppiness.

The good girl/bad girl dichotomy drove headlines across the globe, while Sollecito — the mild mannered boyfriend — was largely overlooked in a supporting role.

It’s a role that his defence lawyer plays up. Sollecito is the son of a wealthy doctor from southern Italy who hired a crack legal team to defend his son. It’s led by Giulia Bongiorno, who successfully defended former Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti on charges of mafia association.

“It’s not by chance that Raffaele arrived in this trial as the boyfriend. Nothing connects Raffaele to the crime,” Bongiorno said in her closing arguments last week. “With a girlfriend, you usually get a family. Raffaele got a murder.”

She said the few pieces of evidence in the “Amanda-centric” trial relate to Knox, not to Sollecito.

“Nothing connects him to the crime,” Bongiorno said.

During the investigation, Sollecito’s wavy hair, innocent and lovelorn gaze through rimless glasses led some to liken him to Harry Potter. He was depicted as being in her thrall, and pictured embracing Knox outside of the hillside cottage where Kercher was murdered as investigators searched for evidence inside.

Sollecito was the pampered son of a well-off father. He had his own apartment in the university town where the norm was squalid shares. He drove an expensive car and had a maid.

Prosecutors have presented a darker side to the coddled image. His cash flow enabled him to indulge in drugs. He had a collection of sexually violent Japanese manga cartoons. Media also turned up a photo of him from a social networking site dressed as a mummy and brandishing a meat cleaver — a pose which friends immediately dismissed as a prank.

Sollecito also collected penknives, and carried one with him when he was first questioned by police in Kercher’s death.

His double-edged penknives have never been connected with the murder, although prosecutors allege a single-edged 31-centimetre (12.5-centimetre) knife found in his kitchen drawer some 20 minutes by foot from the scene of the crime was the murder weapon. His DNA was not found on the kitchen knife, but prosecutors have based their case largely around the finding that Knox’s was found on the handle and Kercher’s on the blade.

The most incriminating evidence against Sollecito is his DNA on the clasp of Kercher’s bra, which had been detached from the garment and recovered from the scene several weeks after the murder.

An independent expert review allowed in the appeals trial concluded that the results on both the blade and bra clasp may have been contaminated. Such a review was not permitted in the earlier trial — and has raised defence hopes of acquittals on appeal.

The review concurred that the genetic profile on the knife’s black plastic handle could be attributed to Knox. Her defence has pointed out that she had prepared food at Sollecito’s apartment.

Sollecito was awarded a degree in computer sciences after defending his thesis on genetic programming before a panel of professors who came to the prison. He even helped the prosecutor once when his computer jammed during the original trial. For a while, he wrote letters to a local media outlet in southern Italy, addressing supporters at home with “Dear friends of the square,” where he shared musings about his time in prison.

More than 1,000 days in prison have hardened Sollecito. His hair is cut short. His gaze is more concentrated. But his lawyers say that his cool appearance should not be confused with detachment.

“To paint him as cold, with icy eyes, is not fair. He keeps his feelings to himself out of respect, but inside there is much more,” defence lawyer Donatella Donati said in the final defence rebuttal on Friday.

On the eve of the appeals verdict, Sollecito was studying for an exam next week, his defence lawyer Luca Maori said. Sollecito’s father has characterized him as frightened but confident.

Knox, meanwhile, attended Mass in prison Saturday afternoon and called her grandmother in Seattle. Prison chaplain the Rev. Saulo Scarabattoli said she was calm and collected.

In Amanda Knox Appeals Trial, Italian Defendant Takes a Backseat

 
October 02, 2011
Prosecutors have portrayed Raffele Sollecito as a “dog on a leash,” helplessly under the sway of Amanda Knox, his girlfriend of only six days when they became the main suspects in the 2007 murder of her British roommate.

Sollecito and Knox were convicted together in 2009; he received 25 years to her 26. And they are co-defendants again as they seek to overturn the guilty verdicts in an appeals trial. A decision is expected Monday.

Despite their intertwined legal fates, the 27-year-old Sollecito has become the forgotten defendant in the 4-year-old saga.

Even in Sollecito’s native Italy, it is Knox who commands the most media attention. Two prominent celebrity and gossip magazines, “Oggi” and “Gente,” put Knox on their covers during the final week of arguments in the appeals trial, and newspapers characterize him as being in the background.

Not even prosecutors have portrayed Sollecito as the main protagonist in the murder of Meredith Kercher on Nov. 1, 2007. According to their version, Sollecito held Kercher from behind while Knox stabbed her and another man tried to sexually assault her. Ivorian immigrant Rudy Guede was convicted in a fast-track trial and saw his sentence cut from 30 years to 16 years on appeal.

Attention during the investigation focused intensely on the two young female roommates as the world and prosecutors searched for a motive. Knox was portrayed as sexually promiscuous and lacking inhibition, while at the same time working hard to support herself and trying to learn Italian; Kercher was depicted as more serious and studious, who had at the end of her life began to chafe at her American roommate’s sloppiness.

The good girl/bad girl dichotomy drove headlines across the globe, while Sollecito — the mild mannered boyfriend — was largely overlooked in a supporting role.

It’s a role that his defense lawyer plays up. Sollecito is the son of a wealthy doctor from southern Italy who hired a crack legal team to defend his son. It’s led by Giulia Bongiorno, who successfully defended former Italian Premier Giulio Andreotti on charges of mafia association.

“It’s not by chance that Raffaele arrived in this trial as the boyfriend. Nothing connects Raffaele to the crime,” Bongiorno said in her closing arguments last week. “With a girlfriend, you usually get a family. Raffaele got a murder.”

She said the few pieces of evidence in the “Amanda-centric” trial relate to Knox, not to Sollecito.
“Nothing connects him to the crime,” Bongiorno said.

During the investigation, Sollecito’s wavy hair, innocent and lovelorn gaze through rimless glasses led some to liken him to Harry Potter. He was depicted as being in her thrall, and pictured embracing Knox outside of the hillside cottage where Kercher was murdered as investigators searched for evidence inside.

Sollecito was the pampered son of a well-off father. He had his own apartment in the university town where the norm was squalid shares. He drove an expensive car and had a maid.

Prosecutors have presented a darker side to the coddled image. His cash flow enabled him to indulge in drugs. He had a collection of sexually violent Japanese manga cartoons. Media also turned up a photo of him from a social networking site dressed as a mummy and brandishing a meat cleaver — a pose which friends immediately dismissed as a prank.

Sollecito also collected penknives, and carried one with him when he was first questioned by police in Kercher’s death.

His double-edged penknives have never been connected with the murder, although prosecutors allege a single-edged 31-centimeter (12.5-centimeter) knife found in his kitchen drawer some 20 minutes by foot from the scene of the crime was the murder weapon. His DNA was not found on the kitchen knife, but prosecutors have based their case largely around the finding that Knox’s was found on the handle and Kercher’s on the blade.

The most incriminating evidence against Sollecito is his DNA on the clasp of Kercher’s bra, which had been detached from the garment and recovered from the scene several weeks after the murder.

An independent expert review allowed in the appeals trial concluded that the results on both the blade and bra clasp may have been contaminated. Such a review was not permitted in the earlier trial — and has raised defense hopes of acquittals on appeal.

The review concurred that the genetic profile on the knife’s black plastic handle could be attributed to Knox. Her defense has pointed out that she had prepared food at Sollecito’s apartment.

Sollecito was awarded a degree in computer sciences after defending his thesis on genetic programming before a panel of professors who came to the prison. He even helped the prosecutor once when his computer jammed during the original trial. For a while, he wrote letters to a local media outlet in southern Italy, addressing supporters at home with “Dear friends of the square,” where he shared musings about his time in prison.

More than 1,000 days in prison have hardened Sollecito. His hair is cut short. His gaze is more concentrated. But his lawyers say that his cool appearance should not be confused with detachment.

“To paint him as cold, with icy eyes, is not fair. He keeps his feelings to himself out of respect, but inside there is much more,” defense lawyer Donatella Donati said in the final defense rebuttal on Friday.

On the eve of the appeals verdict, Sollecito was studying for an exam next week, his defense lawyer Luca Maori said. Sollecito’s father has characterized him as frightened but confident.
Knox, meanwhile, attended Mass in prison Saturday afternoon and called her grandmother in Seattle. Prison chaplain the Rev. Saulo Scarabattoli said she was calm and collected.

Oct 1, 2011

Though Amanda Knox‘s first murder trial concluded in 2009, the drama from the case was far from over. Below are 20 key moments from Knox’s appeal of her conviction for the killing of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher.

1. In April 2010, prosecutors filed an appeal requesting a harsher sentence of life in prison for Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Knox was initially given a 26-year-term while Sollecito received 25 years.

2. Days later, Knox’s lawyers filed a 200-page appeal of her murder conviction.

3. Before the appeal trial began, Kercher’s father wrote an angry op-ed in the Britain’s The Daily Mail newspaper, saying that while Amanda Knox has become a celebrity, his dead daughter had been labeled nothing more than a murder victim. “She has become ‘Meredith Kercher, murder victim,’ not Meredith Kercher, our lovely, intellectually curious daughter,” he wrote.

4. Disputed DNA evidence was crucial to convicting Knox in 2009 but in December of the following year, a judge ordered an independent review of the evidence, prompting the Knox family to erupt in sobs of relief. The initial trial court had refused to allow an independent review.

5. Knox’s defense team scored another victory when the judge announced that he would allow several witnesses that the defense hoped would refute testimony that placed Knox and Sollecito near the house on the night Kercher was killed.

6. In March, defense lawyers cast doubt on the testimony of one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, Antonio Curatolo, a 53-year-old homeless man with a history of drug use and heroin dealing. Curatolo claimed during the murder trial he saw Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, near Knox and Kercher’s cottage the night of the murder. He said he thought it was Halloween because students were wearing costumes and buses were taking them to discos for Holloween. The murder occurred the night after Halloween, throwing his testimony into doubt.

7. In late May, 11 Italian legislators signed a petition calling for a review into whether the Knox criminal investigation was conducted properly.

8. Also in May, Knox gave a tearful statement in court. “I remember how I was young and how I did not understand anything and the most important thing is that I do not want to stay in prison unjustly for all my life,” she said.

9. Rudy Guede, who has also been convicted of Kercher’s murder, wrote a letter to his lawyer saying that Knox and Sollecito were present at the killing. After the letter was read in court in June, Knox testified that the only time she, Sollecito and Guede were together was in the courtroom.

10. In late June, a court-appointed panel of DNA experts concluded that key DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito may have been contaminated. What was identified as Kercher’s DNA on the knife, they said, may have actually come from rye bread.

11. Some in the courtroom laughed as they watched video of police investigators breaking protocols for DNA collection as they handled DNA evidence. The video showed forensic police picking up Meredith Kercher’s bra clasp, handing it to one another, placing it back on the floor, photographing it and then picking it up again.

12. On Sept. 7, Manuela Comodi, one of three prosecutors in the Knox case, conceded “a possibility” that Knox and Sollecito could win the appeal of their murder conviction. “I would find it very serious if they were set free,” she told ABC News.

13. Earlier this month, Meredith Kercher’s sister Stephanie pleaded with the Perugia court to consider “every single (piece) of evidence.” “It is extremely difficult to understand how evidence gathered with care and presented as valid at the original trial now risks becoming irrelevant,” she wrote in a letter.

14. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini began his summation last week by almost immediately presenting the jury with a slideshow that included photos of Kercher’s naked, slashed body and a close-up of her fatal neck wound. Several jurors looked away.

15. Mignini also said there had been “heavy interference” in the trial, a reference to the recent press coverage of the appeal, and urged the panel to proceed with their deliberations in a “rigorous way.”

16. Attorney Carlo Pacelli, who represents Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, a Congolese man who owned a bar where Knox worked part-time, called Knox a “she-devil” with “double soul… on one side angelic,” but on the other side “satanic, diabolic.” During her interrogation by police, Knox implicated Lumumba in Kercher’s death, telling police she had a “vision” that he was present the night of the murder. Knox later recanted, saying police had confused her.

17. During the prosecution’s two-day summation last week, prosecutor Manuela Comodi accused the court-appointed DNA experts, who are forensics professors, of lacking competence and the necessary experience to critique her investigators. “Would you entrust the wedding reception of your only daughter to somebody who knows all the recipes by heart but has never actually cooked?” she asked.

18. Sollecito’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno began Knox’s defense by saying she was not an evil vixen, but rather more like Jessica Rabbit, the sexy yet tender and loving heroine of the partially-animated 1988 film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” The character’s catchphrase in the film was, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

19. Amanda Knox’s lawyer called the prosecution’s claims that a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment was the murder weapon — the knife that court-appointed DNA experts said may have actually contained DNA from rye bread, not a person — was “total imagination.”

20. One key moment is yet to come: Knox and Sollecito are scheduled to address the court at the conclusion of the appeal. Knox is expected to give her statement in Italian.

Media swarms to Italy as Knox verdict nears .

Saturday Oct. 1, 2011

PERUGIA, Italy — Inside the courthouse, dozens of cameramen, photographers and reporters elbow their way around to get the best view of Amanda Knox. Outside, TV satellite trucks line the cobblestone streets of this central Italian town.

The media have descended on Perugia by the hundreds to cover the highly anticipated verdict in the appeals trial of Knox, the photogenic young American convicted of murdering her British roommate. They tweet away in the courthouse, run around to get the latest soundbites by the lawyers, and stake out the Knox family hangouts for interviews.

Their presence is evident along the posh Corso Vannucci, where residents sip coffee or taste the city’s famous chocolate. Local newspapers regularly report about the big networks coming to town, and even the court president has had to address TV requests for live coverage of the verdict, expected Monday.

“During the break, the media interviews the media about the media… ” tweeted Barbie Nadeau, a Rome-based American reporter who covers Italy for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. “This trial is not about the murder of Meredith Kercher anymore, it’s about how to cover it.”

The case has spurred some 20 books, with at least another one coming out next month; thousands of articles; a TV movie; and at least one feature film — based on Nadeau’s own book “Angel Face” — in development, starring Academy Award winner Colin Firth.

With young and attractive defendants, a brutal murder and tales of sex and drugs, the case immediately captivated audiences worldwide. Kercher’s body was found in the house she shared with Knox on Nov. 2, 2007; Knox and her co-defendant and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested four days later.

Today, there are 412 journalists accredited with the Perugia tribunal, many from American, British and Italian news outlets — the nations that have followed the case most closely. But representatives of Dutch, French and German media are also present.

Knox has commanded most of the attention, her face gracing magazine covers, her life the subject of countless reports, her looks in court invariably scrutinized. Knox’s family has been doggedly pleading her case in front of the cameras, and Knox is expected to address the court briefly when the trial resumes Monday.

“The ratio of media tension to the news importance of this case is completely out of line,” Nadeau said. For many people, she said, with each trial hearing “it was almost like tuning in to the next episode of a reality TV show.”

“A lot of people just got their weekly Knox fix and we, the media, kept it alive,” Nadeau said.

In the aftermath of the killing, TV cameras kept showing footage of Knox and Sollecito hugging and kissing outside the crime scene and police inspecting the house. Newspapers were soon filled with reports of the out-of-control lives of foreign students in Perugia, a university town about 180 kilometres north of Rome.

The role of the media has been so prominent that all parties discussed it in their closing arguments. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini has lamented what he said was media interference and an increasingly strong campaign in support of Knox. Defence lawyers said Knox had been unfairly portrayed.

The media are feverishly making plans in case of an acquittal: Cameramen and photographers are to be positioned at Capanne prison where Knox has been held, and speculation over who will get that first interview with Knox is rife.

When not working, journalists fill the city’s restaurants and cafes, such as favourite hangout Bottega del Vino, a cozy wine bar and restaurant.

“At their tables, the journalists keep talking about it,” said Luigi Alfano, the restaurant’s director. “They all have their ideas, and they stick to them.”

By PHOEBE NATANSON

Sept. 30, 2011

In a final push to keep Amanda Knox in an Italian prison for life, a prosecutor likened the murder of Knox’s roommate to a senseless crime like teens burning a homeless man or kids bullying a handicapped child.

The prosecutor also said that Knox is lucky that Italy does not have the death penalty.

The appeal by Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of Knox’s British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, has been a week-long barrage of emotional summations by both sides.

Knox, who could be set free or returned to prison for life when a verdict is announced Monday, has been compared to a sex obsessed “she devil” on one hand and the sexy but tender cartoon character Jessica Rabbit who has been “crucified” in the media.

Today, it was the prosecution’s turn at rebuttal and Knox’s attorney felt obliged at one point to pat her on the back and put his arm around her for a few minutes as she was depicted as a senseless thrill killer.

Manuela Comodi, one of several prosecutors who went over the evidence today, addressed the criticism that the case has struggled to determine a motive for Knox, 24, and Sollecito, 27, slashing Kercher’s neck. The prosecutors have settled on no motive.

“Motive?” Comodi asked today. “Why do mothers kill their children? Why do young people burn a bag-man? Why do kids bully a handicapped kid in class? There are lots of examples I can bring.”

Amanda Knox Trial Nears End

“They [the defendants] are young, and they killed for nothing, for no reason. They are young, Meredith was young too. I ask that they be given the maximum sentence, which luckily in Italy is not the death penalty,” Comodi said.

Knox, who has been in prison for four years, is serving a 26 year prison sentence. Sollecito was given 25 years.

Another member of the prosecution team, Giuliano Mignini, took issue with the claim by Knox’s lawyers that Knox was “crucified” by media leaks from prosecutors and police during the investigation and initial murder trial.

Mignini cited instead what he called the Knox family’s “expensive public relations operation” to win support for her, and urged the jury to not be swayed. The Knox family has said they hope to take her home to Seattle if the verdict is thrown out.

“An acquittal would mean an escape abroad and no justice in this case. It’s up to you to bring justice,” he told the jury.

A third person, local drifter Rudy Guede, has also been convicted of taking part in the murder during a separate trial. Guede has exhausted his appeals and is serving a 16 prison sentence.

Prosecutors today tried to discount a Skype call with Guede that was monitored by police shortly after Kercher’s killing in which Guede said the Knox and Sollecito were not present for the murder.

Lead prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola said that call was not admissable because it was not made with the proper court authorization.

Comodi and Mignini both defended the investigators’ forensic work. A bare footprint that had allegedly been wiped clean just outside Kercher’s bedroom was revealed by chemicals and matches Sollecito, they argued.

Despite being descredited by two court appointed forensic experts, the DNA evidence on Kercher’s bra clasp was clearly from Sollecito, Comodi argued. His distinctive Y chromosone, she said, made it as different from other DNA as carbonara sauce is from amatriciana.

Rebuttals from other lawyers, including one for the Kercher family will continue today. The Kercher family has not been present during the appeals hearings, but are expected to arrive in time for the verdict on Monday.

Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito will make their rebuttals and the last to speak will be Sollecito and Knox who will make personal statements to the court. Knox’s family told ABC News that she has been working on her statement for more than three months.

The six jurors and two judges will make a decision by majority vote. If they are evenly split, Knox will be acquitted.

Kercher Family Remembers Beloved Daughter While Awaiting Knox Verdict.

September 30, 2011

Meredith Kercher would have been 25. She would have finished her degree at Leeds University and perhaps been preparing for another Halloween, a day she loved.

Instead, her family awaits an appeals verdict expected Oct. 3 against former roommate Amanda Knox, convicted along with the defendant’s former Italian boyfriend of murdering her four years ago.

The Briton’s gruesome killing has spawned one of Italy’s most sensational and closely watched trials. Yet to her family’s frustration, Kercher has been eclipsed in the public’s eye by Knox, as supporters of the photogenic 24-year-old American mount a high-profile campaign to free her.

By contrast, Kercher’s family has chosen to remain largely silent during the years of trial and appeal, quietly honoring her memory on the Nov. 1 anniversary of her death and her birthday Dec. 28. But they are growing increasingly agitated as the verdict approaches.

In one of the few TV interviews they have granted, Kercher’s sister Stephanie and mother Arline said attention should focus on justice for the victim, not Knox or her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

“In this whole case — going on four years — Meredith has been forgotten,” Stephanie Kercher said in a recorded interview on RAI public television this month.

“The attention has completely moved from Meredith to Amanda and Raffaele,” she said. “She was lovely, kind and we lost her.”

On her last Halloween, one day before her death, Meredith dressed as a vampire. Photographs, some of the last of her life, show her smiling brightly with red lipstick, a high-collared cape wrapped around her neck.

The young student fought hard for approval from her university to study in the charming medieval town of Perugia, arriving in September 2007. She was excited to have found a room with a view of the Umbrian landscape, court records show. She shared the apartment with two young Italian women and Knox, who moved in around the same time.

Kercher made friends fast, testimony in the first trial shows. Within weeks, she had a small group of British girlfriends with whom she went dancing or watched films, and she had started dating a young Italian living downstairs. Giacomo Silenzi has said they fell in love quickly, and has been left to wonder what the future might have held had she not been killed.

On the last night of her life, she ate pizza and apple crumble with a small group of friends, watched a movie and went home alone around 9 p.m., according to court testimony.

Meredith was 21 when she was found the afternoon of Nov. 2 sprawled naked on the floor of her locked bedroom, throat slashed, body covered in a blanket.

Prosecutors claim that she was murdered when a drug-fueled sexual encounter with the two defendants and a third man went awry. Rudy Guede, an Ivorian who lived in Perugia from age 5, is serving a 16-year sentence for his role in the murder.

Knox was sentenced to 26 years, Sollecito to 25. All three proclaim innocence.

Meredith’s father John Kercher, a freelance journalist, has said he refused to view her body, so he could remember as she was in life.

“I had last seen her a couple of weeks before, when she flew home to buy winter clothes. We met for a coffee and she showed me some boots she had bought,” John Kercher wrote in the Daily Mirror. “I want that to be the one memory of my daughter I hold in my mind for ever.”
She was the baby of the family, with three older siblings — two brothers and a sister.

She loved ballet and gymnastics, and had an orange belt in karate. She wrote poetry and stories.

People remembered her as being warm and generous, full of hugs, lending class notes to anyone who asked, and always rushing to help anyone who needed it.

After arriving in Perugia, she kept a cell phone with a British number to stay in close contact with her mother, who was in poor health.

Only one vice is ever mentioned. “She was always late, always running,” her mother Arline said on the RAI TV interview. “She was a girl full of life. She loved music, she loved to dance. She was full of joy in her heart.”

The degree the quietly studious Kercher would have been awarded in 2009 was granted posthumously. It was accepted by her sister Stephanie to a standing ovation at Leeds.

During rebuttals Friday, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said acquitting Knox would mean forever losing a chance at justice.

“We know what an acquittal means — a swift escape abroad,” he told the appeals court. “Escape we could no longer remedy.”

The prosecution detailed DNA evidence and other circumstantial clues as they had their last chance to talk to the jury. The rebuttals were continuing through the day.

While they cling to their memories, the Kercher family says it will continue to fight for justice — even as it delays their own process of healing.

The Kerchers have no doubts about whether Knox is guilty — and express rage that she’s garnering most of the attention.

“As a journalist myself, I know the reason why. Knox is young, attractive and female. To many, she seems an unlikely killer,” John Kercher wrote in The Daily Mail last December as the appeals trial got under way. “Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable.”

Knox killed her roommate for no reason: prosecutor.

By Deepa Babington

Fri Sep 30, 2011

Amanda Knox killed her British roommate “for no reason” and the American student and her former boyfriend should face the maximum penalty for their crime, her appeals trial was told on Friday.

Prosecutors urged the court to uphold Knox’s sentence for murder and said the 24-year-old would flee Italy if freed.

Knox, jailed for 26 years, and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are fighting their convictions for the murder of Briton Meredith Kercher in 2007. A verdict is due on Monday.

Knox and Sollecito should be kept behind bars for life, prosecutors said, and they reminded the jury of the gruesome nature of the crime. Kercher’s body was found with more than 40 wounds and her throat slit.

“They were young but they killed for no reason,” said prosecutor Manuela Comodi. “They killed for no reason and for this they should be given the maximum sentence, which luckily in Italy is not the death sentence.”

If the guilty verdicts are overturned, both would be freed immediately. Speculation has been rife that Knox would be whisked home to the United States, where the death penalty exists, if she is freed from the Umbrian prison where she has been held for nearly four years.

Any subsequent appeal by prosecutors or any re-trial might therefore take place in Knox’s absence.

“We know that if the verdict is overturned, there will be an immediate escape overseas,” prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told the court in rebuttals after closing arguments.

“As a result, even if this is the second of a three-step legal process in Italy, it is up to you to ensure justice.”

Kercher’s mother and sister are expected to attend Monday’s court session when the verdict is announced. They have kept a low profile since the murder, in stark contrast to the Knox family which has waged a tireless media campaign to free her.

Kercher was on a year-long exchange program in Perugia, a cobble-stoned town popular with foreigners studying Italian, when she was murdered.

Her family’s lawyer, Francesco Maresca, has described her as sunny young woman “full of life” who was killed during a brutal assault during which the 21-year-old was held down by her assailants.

Knox and Sollecito, who was jailed for 25 years, deny any role in the murder and say they spent the night of the crime in the Italian’s apartment watching a movie, smoking pot and having sex.

Sollecito’s father said his son was “very scared. But he is hopeful of the right verdict.”

“I am hopeful that the court has heard well the arguments presented in the appeals trial and has realized that there isn’t any evidence against my son and Amanda,” Francesco Sollecito told Reuters.

Rudy Guede, an Ivorian drifter with a criminal record, is also serving time for taking part in Kercher’s murder. He has also maintained his innocence.