Amanda Knox Pledges her Innocence to the Italian Court
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October 3, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
In a final plea, Knox and Sollecito say they are innocent of Meredith Kercher’s murder. They now await the verdict.
Amanda Knox, convicted for the murder of UK student Meredith Kercher, has made an emotional plea to the Italian court. In a speech given on Monday morning, she protested her innocence and urged the jury to grant her freedom.
“I want to go home to my life,” she told the court. “I don’t want to be deprived of my life, my future, for something I have not done.
“I am paying with my life for things I did not commit.”
Knox, 24, was arrested in 2007, after British university student, Miss Kercher, was sexually assaulted and killed in her bedroom. The two girls were sharing a cottage in Perugia, Italy, during a study year abroad and Knox, alongside her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, was convicted and sentenced in November 2009.
Knox, from Seattle, US, was sentenced to 26 years imprisonment, whilst Sollecito was sentenced to 25.
During her plea, Knox argued that she was manipulated by the Italian police after a long night of interrogation.
“I trusted them [police] blindly, and when I made myself available, to the point of exhaustion in those days, I was betrayed,” she said. “On the night of 5-6 November, I wasn’t just stressed and pressurised, I was manipulated.”
Defence lawyers have pointed to flawed evidence in the original trail, included insufficient DNA results, which have been dismissed by two independent court-appointed experts.
They also point to Knox’s continual denial of the murder.
“I am not who they say I am,” she told the court today. “The perversion, the violence, the lack of respect for life – I did not do the things they are saying I did.
“I did not kill, I did not rape, I did not steal. I was not there.”
Knox’s ex-boyfriend also appealed to the court today. He denied ever accusing the US student of Miss Kercher’s murder and claimed that all convictions against him were “totally untrue”.
“I’ve never done anyone any harm. Never. In my whole life,” he said.
Knox and her ex-boyfriend have now been returned to jail where they await the jury’s final decision. The verdict is expected to be announced on Monday evening.
Meanwhile, the family of Miss Kercher have arrived in Perugia for the hearing. According to a BBC correspondent, they feel their daughter has been “completely forgotten”, with all the media attention now on Knox.
By Catherine Rees
[Image courtesy of Joe Gratz]
