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Grounds for appeal: the evidence Knox will contest
Amanda Knox’s lawyers have several grounds on which to fight an expected appeal against her conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher
Nobody believes me and I don't understand why. I've always told the truth. It wasn't me who killed Meredith," Amanda Knox told her lawyers shortly after she was sentenced on Friday night to 26 years for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
The American student will have another chance to put her case during two appeal hearings. The first, which will be heard by a judge but no jury, will not begin for at least three months. Until then she is expected to remain in Capanne jail outside Perugia. Meanwhile, her legal team will construct an appeal focussing on what they consider the key failures of the prosecution:
The DNA controversy Leading DNA specialists in the US have questioned the validity of the Italian forensic evidence, which claims to have identified incriminating DNA on a kitchen knife found at the apartment of Knox's boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and on Meredith's bra strap. It is not surprising Knox's DNA was on the knife - she prepared dinner with Sollecito. Besides, they say, the knife does not match a bloody imprint found on bed linen and could not have inflicted at least two of the wounds on Kercher's neck. They claim the real murder weapon is yet to be found.
Character assassination Amanda Knox had no criminal past - her worst offence growing up in Seattle was noise violation - and yet prosecutor Giuliano Mignini called her 'Luciferina' (the she-devil). It was conveniently forgotten that her nickname, Foxy Knoxy, referred to her prowess on the soccer field, not her sexual activities.
SHODDY POLICE INVESTIGATIONFilm of the police investigation shows evidence, such as Kercher's bra, on which incriminating DNA was found, being scuffed around the floor of Kercher's apartment for weeks before it was sampled. Bloody footprints are also shown being wiped off tiles with a cloth. A day later, investigators tried to place where the footprints had been using photographs of the scene.
Rudy Guede's criminal backgroundThe Ivorian who was convicted last year in a separate fast-track trial, and sentenced to 30 years in jail, may have been a police informant, according to members of Knox's defence team. This would explain why Guede was never arrested after various reports of his burgling houses in Perugia were ignored by local police. Guede is also alleged to have told a friend by Skype when he was on the run in Germany that Knox wasn't at the house at the time of the murder. Why did he change his story after he was arrested?
The police interrogationKnox's parents, Curt and Edda, have claimed that Amanda was threatened by police and, on at least two occasions, slapped across the face by her interrogators. ·
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Funny thing with you Peter is I've read your comments and you seem to be a glass half full guy. Cast iron evidence seems to be in short supply for a lot of this case but you'd rather not give the benefit of the doubt regarding an Italian and his then current lover at the time. The most damning evidence seems to be with Guede since he did sleep with her it seems and plenty of his DNA was left at the scene. Are you saying Guede isn't guilty?
Guede is also alleged to have told a friend by Skype when he was on the run in Germany that Knox wasn't at the house at the time of the murder. Let's have that as cast iron evidence shall we, since this article makes great store of it. The writer also forgot to mention Guede is black so must be guilty. Parents 'claimed' she was slapped, so she claimed she was slapped when telling her parents she was innocent. She would wouldn't she?
If this is all they have, the appeal won't last long.