The Murder of Meredith Kercher and the Trial of Amanda Knox

billysumday — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:31:32 -0800

"In just a few days, a verdict is expected in the trial of Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old Seattle exchange student on trial in Italy for the throat-slashing murder of her British roommate two years ago. ... The trial in the Umbrian college town of Perugia has dragged on just short of a year. As this week’s closing arguments showed once again, the case has very little to do with actual evidence and much to do with the ancient Italian code of saving face. ... What century is this? Didn’t Joan of Arc, the Inquisition and our own American Salem witch trials teach civilized nations a thing or two about contrived sexual hysteria with a devil twist?" - Timothy Egan, New York Times. [previously] Full Wiki for Murder of Meredith Kercher. Even though a man named Rudy Guede, a drifter who fled the country after Kercher's murder, has already been tried and convicted of the murder Meredith Kercher, a separate prosecution rolls on in an effort to convict Amanda Knox (from Seattle, WA) and Raffaele Sollecito (from Perugia, Italy). Guede originally stated that he was alone with Ms. Kercher on the night of the murder and saw a lone Italian man kill her, but later changed his story to implicate Knox and Sollecito. "Mr Guede, who fled to Germany after the murder but was arrested and extradited back to Italy, has until now claimed that Ms Kercher was attacked by an intruder while he was in the bathroom, and that he then struggled with the intruder, who he did not know and who was armed with a knife. He also said in earlier testimony that he had heard the voice of a woman outside the house." The case against Knox and Sollecito rests largely on statements Knox made during a 30-hour interrogation, during which she claims she was harassed and beaten. Prosecutors are also attempting to link the crime with violent comic books and Manga found at Sollecito's apartment. "Italian prosecutors allege that the lethal wound was inflicted by Knox while Kercher was held down by Guede and Sollecito. The prosecution points to violent literature, such as comic books, that they found in Sollecito’s apartment. Prosecutors allege that manga comics found in Sollecito's apartment recounted tales of killing female vampires on Halloween night and that many of the details in the comics were similar to the scene police discovered. Kercher had attended a number of Halloween parties dressed as a vampire the night of 31 October." Knox had initially incriminated a man named Patrick Lumumba, who was later found to be innocent. He is currently suing the family of Amanda Knox for half a million dollars. Knox later apologized to Lumumba and expressed relief when he was released. "...when Lumumba's airtight alibi got him released from jail, after a couple of weeks, Knox wrote ecstatically about it in her prison journal ("Patrick got out today! Finally! Something is going right!") and later wrote of her remorse at ever having implicated him, saying it was under extreme duress and a result of police 'brainwashing.'" Complicating matters further, the prosecutor in the case, Giuliano Mignini, has recently faced his own, separate trial in which he was tried for abuse-of-power charges relating to a separate trial. Though most all of the focus of the trial has been on the American "femme fatale" Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito is also in jeopardy of spending a lengthy period of time in prison. In turn, his family has recently been accused of using their vast influence in Italy to get detectives they found hostile taken off the case. More articles about Knox by Timothy Egan of the New York Times. He is a staunch defender of Amanda Knox and his articles reflect that opinion. A brief review of the comments to Egans' first column "An Innocent Abroad," reveals that not everyone believes in the innocence of Amanda Knox. There has been much speculation that Knox's family has been orchestrating an extensive PR campaign from the States. A webpage dedicated to finding justice for the death of Meredith Kircher, True Justice, casts a more skeptical eye on the case and the claims made by Egan.

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The Murder of Meredith Kercher and the Trial of Amanda Knox

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