Accused tells murder trial: Police forced me into false accusations

Published on Friday 12 June 2009 22:13

THE American accused of murdering British student Meredith Kercher took the witness stand for the first time yesterday, telling a court that police pressured her into implicating a former bar owner in her death.

Amanda Knox, 21, speaking in English and perfect Italian, appeared calm and composed as she told the crowded court in Perugia that she had nothing to do with Miss Kercher's murder.

Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found dead in her bedroom on 2 November 2007 in the cottage she shared with Knox and others on her year abroad in the Italian town.

Her throat had been slit and her semi-naked body was partially covered with a duvet.

Prosecutors accuse Knox and her Italian former lover, Raffaele Sollecito, 25, of killing the Leeds University student after she refused to participate in a sex game.

Knox, dressed in white and with her hair tied back, arrived for the hearing flanked by two female warders.

Known as "Foxy Knoxy" in the British press, she is called "Angel Face" by Italian media.

Knox attracted the attention of the police for changing her story in the hours after Miss Kercher's murder – at first claiming to have been at Sollecito's house and then saying she was at the murder scene before reverting to the original version.

Before that she had told police that she "had covered her ears as she vaguely remembered Patrick Lumumba killing Meredith".

Mr Lumumba, 38, a bar owner from the Ivory Coast, was arrested and held for two weeks before being released without charge and he is bringing a slander case against Knox.

In her opening statements Knox described how she had met Rudy Guede – who was convicted of Miss Kercher's murder last year – through friends and then gone to a party with him.

Knox told the court how she had been pressurised by the police into making false statements.

She said the interrogation process had been "very long and very difficult".

"They began to ask me the same questions they had already asked me when it happened. For instance could I imagine the person who had killed Meredith and I still don't know."

She added: "As they questioned me they called me a 'stupid liar'. They said I was protecting someone but I wasn't protecting anyone, I didn't know how to respond to them.

"I told them I had been at Raffaele's house, they said it wasn't true but I said it was and they still called me a stupid liar.

"From that point on I was very scared as they were treating me so badly and I didn't know why."

Mr Lumumba's lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, raised his voice as he asked Knox why she had named his client as the killer, but she remained calm and composed.

"I was under a huge amount of pressure," she said. "They were telling me that they were going to put me in prison and that I was protecting someone.

"I could not understand why they were so sure that I knew everything so in my confusion I started to imagine that maybe I was traumatised."

She added: "Under pressure I imagined a lot of different things.

"The police suggested to me Meredith had been raped. They hit me twice before I gave them the name Patrick (Lumumba)."

The trial began in January and a verdict is expected after a two-month summer break.