Amanda Knox, the American student on trial for murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy clashed with police in court over whether they mistreated her while she was being questioned after the killing.
Knox, 21, who shared the hillside cottage where the murder took place, with Kercher and two Italian women, was interrogated from midnight until 5:45 a.m. on the morning of Nov. 6, 2007, four days after the semi-naked body of Kercher was found under a duvet in her bedroom, the walls and floor of which were covered in bloodstains. Kercher's face was bloodied, her eyes were open and her bloodstained bra was at her feet, one of which was sticking out from the duvet.
Prosecutors claim that Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, her fomer Italian boyfriend and co-accused, and Rudy Guede, 21, an Ivory Coast immigrant, murdered Kercher in a sex game which ended with Knox stabbing her roommate in the throat.
Guede was given a 30-year sentence for the crime in a separate fast-track trial last October.
In the latest hearings, in which police investigators testified for the first time since the trial opened a month and a half ago, police officers told the court they had found a bloody shoeprint under Kercher's body "compatible" with Knox's shoe size.
Monica Napoleoni, head of the murder squad in Perugia, told the court the shoe size was between 36 and 38, and Knox wore a size 37. The footprint has not been matched to any specific shoe.
Napoleoni said she and other officers had seen Knox "doing cartwheels and the splits" while Sollecito was being questioned and she was waiting her turn. Ms Napoleoni said she found this "very strange". She said Knox and Sollecito "had a bizarre attitude throughout - they were laughing, kissing and pulling faces at each other.
When they were brought in after Kercher's body was found, Kercher's flatmates and British friends were very upset, but Knox and Sollecito seemed to be more interested in each other, she added.
"They were very indifferent to the situation and I found this quite disturbing considering that the body of a young girl had been found in such terrible circumstances," she said.
Rita Ficarra of the Perugia police narcotics unit said Knox was not given a lawyer because she was not at that stage being questioned as a suspect.
She said she told Knox that Sollecito had failed to back up her alibi, which was that she had spent the night of the murder at his flat.
"I told her if you tell me a lie one time, that is comprehensible, but if you lie again—even if it is a small lie— it makes you less credible." she had told the American student.
Click here to read more on this story from the Times of London.
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