In a day of legal theatrics, defence team ridicules prosecution case and tells jury not to let sympathy blur their judgement
The judges and jurors who will decide whether Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend stay in jail for much of the rest of their lives for the murder of Meredith Kercher were told on Thursday not to let sympathy for the victim's family blur their judgment.
The lawyer for the Kercher family had repeatedly stressed this week the horror of the crime and the suffering of the victim's relatives. But that was not the point, said Knox's counsel, Carlo Dalla Vedova.
"Be respectful of the pain caused by the death of Meredith Kercher. But don't make the mistake of keeping two innocent people in jail," he declared. "Pain is not a legal argument."
His appeal came on a day of legal theatrics in which Knox's two lawyers trained on the prosecution case a relentless barrage of indignation tinged with ridicule.
Knox's other counsel, Luciano Ghirga, a portly attorney with a showman's touch, had his client stifling giggles as he poured scorn on a prosecution witness ? a homeless man who had contradicted Knox's alibi for the night of the killing.
Earlier, Ghirga appeared close to losing his temper as he accused the prosecution of irregularities in the conduct of the investigation and trial. Like Dalla Vedova, he repeatedly implied that the prosecutors and police ignored evidence that failed to support their theories.
He told the court that Knox was midway in age between his own two children and that her trial had caused him personal distress. He ridiculed the notion that Knox ? "the best sort of guest this city could have" ? would suddenly opt to take part in a vicious and bloody killing. As he ended the defence's summing up, he twice extended a hand towards Knox and caressed the back of her head. She leant forward so that her hair fell in front of her face, hiding it from view.
Dalla Vedova, an immaculately groomed Rome lawyer, wholly different from Ghirga, also hit an emotional note when he asked rhetorically how many times he and other members of her legal team, had heard Knox say: "Why won't they believe me?"
The Seattle student is appealing against a 26-year sentence for murder. Her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, who is serving a 25-year sentence is also appealing. A decision is expected on Monday after both appellants have addressed the court.
They are accused of taking part with a third man, Rudy Guede, in what a lower court decided was a drug-fuelled sex game that ended in tragedy when Knox slashed Kercher's throat while she was held by the two men. Guede, a small-time drug dealer, was convicted separately.
Dalla Vedova told the court his client had spent more than 1,000 days in prison because of "evidence that cannot stand up to other hypotheses". During that time, she had been "crucified ? impaled in the piazza" for a crime she never committed, he said.
On Monday, another lawyer at the appeal had branded the 24 year-old Knox an "enchanting witch". It was the latest of many religious or occult images to be deployed in a case that has also been laden with sexual allusion.
The appellants argue Kercher was killed by Guede alone after the Ivory Coast-born drifter broke into the flat she shared with Knox.
Dalla Vedova began a point-by-point examination of the case against the American by looking at a statement, made to police after an all-night interrogation.
She had not been given any legal assistance and, at the time she was no more than a ragazzina, a young girl, with scant knowledge of Italian on her first trip abroad, he said. Knox had come to Italy less than a month before to study, along with Kercher, at Perugia's university for foreigners. Much of the rest of the prosecution case, claimed her lawyer, was based on "conjecture".
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/amanda-knox-lawyers-hit-back
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