Tough questions for US student in Italy sex-murder trial

Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 7:23 AM Posted by Beijing News


American student Amanda Knox on Saturday fended off tough questioning in her trial over whether she helped kill her British housemate who refused to join in a group sex session in Italy.

Prominent public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini grilled the 21-year-old exchange student accused of taking part in group sex play that turned violent with the stabbing death of Meredith Kercher, 22.

In a testy exchange, Mignini questioned Knox's assertion that interrogators had extracted false statements from her by 'bullying her', calling her a "stupid liar."

She repeated the charge that a policewoman had twice hit her on the back of her head, which Italian police have strongly denied.

Knox gave a description of hours of questioning in which she said that she was told that if she did not tell the truth they would "throw me in jail for 30 years."

Defence lawyers repeatedly objected during Mignini's examination, accusing him of badgering the defendant and asking her leading questions.

Mignini focused on Knox's assertions that her false statements -- notably, that her part-time employer Patrick Lumumba was the killer -- were the result of "suggestions" during aggressive police questioning.

"Was Patrick's name indicated after they saw her SMS message to Lumumba or just like that?" Mignini asked, sparking a heated row with the defence team that judge Giancarlo Massei had difficulty quelling.

Knox said she became so confused after "a steady crescendo ... of 'I don't know,' 'you're a stupid liar,' 'maybes,' and 'imagines' that ... I was led to believe I had forgotten things."

She added: "When I said 'Patrick' I actually started to imagine a kind of movie, images that could have explained the situation, Patrick's face, then Perugia's Grimana square, then my house" on the night of the murder.

When asked about her behaviour at the police station, where she did yoga and stretching exercises at one point: "Everyone deals with tragedy in his own way. I'm always trying to feel less stress. ... I know I may appear spacy, but that's how I am."

Defence lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova asked Knox about an element of the probe that initially seemed to seal the case for the prosecution: the discovery of a knife belonging to the American at Sollecito's flat.

In a wiretapped telephone call with her mother, she talked of her concern after learning about it while in custody.

"I was worried because for me it was impossible. I didn't know how it could be there," she said.

Knox had said on Friday that harsh questioning had also driven her to state that she was at home at the time of the murder and could hear Kercher scream.

Instead, Knox said, she spent the night with Sollecito at his flat, where they smoked marijuana, had sex and watched a movie.

The two have been held since a few days after Kercher was found semi-nude with her throat cut in the house in the walled medieval town of Perugia that she shared with Knox.

Kercher's family are seeking 30 million euros 25 million pounds, 40 million dollars from the alleged killers.



Schalit

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