Post date: Sep 30, 2013 10:32:45 PM
The first day in the Amanda Knox retrial concludes in Italy with judges ordering checks on previously untested DNA trace; while Patrick Lumumba, whom Knox falsely implicated for the murder, says she should attend the hearings if she is innocent.
FLORENCE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 30, 2013) (RAI POOL) - An Italian judge presiding over the fresh murder trial of American student Amanda Knox on Monday (September 30) ordered new DNA tests on the knife that prosecutors say was used to kill her British roommate in 2007.
Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are facing a second appeal trial against their 2009 convictions for the murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher after Italy's supreme court quashed their 2011 acquittals.Neither appeared in court on Monday for the first hearing in the new appeal, and Knox, now back home in Seattle, has said she will not be returning to Italy.
Judge Alessandro Nencini will also hear new testimony from jailed Naples mafia member Luciano Aviello, who previously claimed his brother killed Kercher. He is due to appear in court on Friday (October 4).
The new checks on the presumed murder weapon - a kitchen knife found in Sollecito's house - will examine a trace that has previously been untested because experts said it was too small to produce reliable results.
The court will also assess photographs of Sollecito's nail-bitten fingers which the defence have presented.
Italy's supreme court overturned the acquittal of Knox and Sollecito in March, citing "contradictions and inconsistencies", and paving the way for the new trial.
Kercher was found with more than 40 wounds, including a deep gash in the throat, in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a picturesque town in central Italy's Umbria region that attracts students from around the world.
26-year-old Knox has always denied involvement in the killing. She told U.S. television this month that "common sense" told her not to return to Italy for the new appeal. She is not obliged to attend and can be represented by her lawyers, who said she is watching the retrial closely from home inSeattle.
"Amanda has sent us a message and we replied to her, trying to reassure her over the undisputed value, balance and competence of the appeal court of Florence," Knox's defence lawyer Luciano Ghirga told reporters at the end of the first day of the retrial.
Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner whom Knox initially falsely accused of the murder, told reporters she should attend the hearing if she was innocent.
Lumumba, who was briefly jailed and then cleared, said in 2011 that Knox's accusation had destroyed his life.
"I would tell her, because I've read a comment from her in which she said that she doesn't trust the Italian justice system because they can make mistakes, I could say the same because I served time in prison but I'm here. I don't say "I will run away". I'd like to tell her that if she is not guilty, she should get on a plane and come here," he said.
Sollecito who has also always protested his innocence, plans to attend some of the hearings, his father Francesco said, adding he was confident his 29-year-old son's innocence would be confirmed.
"We don't want to defend ourselves from this trial, we want to defend ourselves in this trial. We want that it is made clear and proven that Raffaele Sollecito has absolutely no responsibility for the crime and in fact was not even present in that house," Sollecito's defence lawyer Luca Maori told reporters outside the courthouse.
The judge rejected additional requests from the defence team, who wanted tests of semen stains found on a pillow at the crime scene and a re-examination of call logs on Kercher's mobile phones.
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for the Kercher family, said there was already sufficient evidence stacked against Knox and Sollecito and the supreme court's decision to throw out their acquittals had reinforced his view.
"I believe that the decision of the court is based on the fact that this trial is full of elements, elements of circumstantial evidence, as we all know, elements that the court will now be able to evaluate thoroughly and totally with great calm," he said as he left Monday's hearing.
Maresca handed over a letter to the judge from Kercher's family excusing their absence in court on Monday, citing health problems. Her family have welcomed the new trial.
If found guilty, Knox could appeal again to Italy's supreme court. If that failed, Italy could request her extradition.
When explaining its decision to overturn the acquittals, the supreme court said the appeals hearing that freed Knox and Sollecito failed to take all the evidence into consideration.
It noted that the one person still in jail for the murder, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, who is serving a 16-year sentence, was unlikely to have committed the crime alone.