AMERICAN STUDENT Amanda Knox broke her silence in an Italian court yesterday, telling judges and jury that she took no part in the killing of her flatmate Meredith Kercher and was confident of being cleared.
“I am innocent,” she rose to tell the Perugia court in fluent Italian. “I have faith the truth will come out.”
Ms Knox (21) took advantage of her right under Italian law to address the court, as seven of Ms Kercher’s fellow British exchange students lined up to describe Ms Knox’s “strange” behaviour the day Ms Kercher was found fatally stabbed and lying in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor.
Ms Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, both on trial for the murder, had “kissed and joked” at Perugia’s police station, said Robyn Butterworth (23).
“There was laughter. She stuck her tongue out at Raffaele. They moved their chairs. She put her feet up on him, they were kissing and cuddling.”
Both defendants deny the charges. Ms Knox told investigators she returned from a night at Mr Sollecito’s flat in Perugia on November 2nd, 2007, to find Ms Kercher’s bedroom door locked and bloodstains in the bathroom, where she took a shower.
She did not enter Ms Kercher’s bedroom when the door was finally opened in the presence of the police, but Ms Butterworth said that when a second British friend, Natalie Hayward, commented at the police station that she hoped Ms Kercher had not suffered, Ms Knox replied: “What do you think? She f...ing bled to death.”
Taking the stand, Ms Hayward said Ms Knox explained she had been given a description of Ms Kercher’s corpse by Filomena Romanelli, who shared the Perugia house with them.
But then, speaking to her stepfather on the phone, “Knox said ‘I found her in the cupboard and she was covered in a blanket’, which confused us,” recalled Ms Hayward.
Ms Knox’s father, Curt, told journalists before the session it was natural that Ms Knox had claimed to know about the state of Ms Kercher’s body.
“What is lost here is that there were six people there talking about it, both outside the house in the car to the police station,” he said.
Prompted by the prosecutor, Ms Butterworth said Ms Kercher had criticised Ms Knox for leaving their shared bathroom dirty and had been “uncomfortable” about Ms Knox leaving out a washbag containing contraceptives and a vibrator.
Ms Knox said the vibrator was a “joke” gift from a friend.