"To the prosecution she is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: “both a [saint] and a demonic, satanic she-devil.” But in closing arguments at Knox’s appeal case in Perugia on Tuesday, her defence lawyer compared her to Jessica Rabbit, the sultry cartoon character suspected of murder in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Knox isn’t a manipulating, sex-obsessed “femme fatale” as her accusers charge, lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said in her closing arguments. Knox is rather like raven-haired cartoon temptress — just drawn that way.
Bongiorno said Knox has been unfairly portrayed over the course of the media-hyped, four-year case."
REPORTER ALYSHAH; THE TORONTO STAR
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"Amanda Knox, the 24-year-old U.S. student convicted of murdering her roommate, has been painted as both a manipulative temptress and naïve innocent at her appeal trial in Italy this week," the Toronto Star story by reporter Alyshah Hasham published earlier today under the heading, "Amanda Knox: She-devil or Jessica rabbit? A defense lawyer has told a court to see Amanda Knox, the American student convicted of killing her roommate, not as the "femme fatale" her accusers describe but rather as a loving young woman," begins.
"To the prosecution she is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: “both a [saint] and a demonic, satanic she-devil,” the story continues.
"But in closing arguments at Knox’s appeal case in Perugia on Tuesday, her defence lawyer compared her to Jessica Rabbit, the sultry cartoon character suspected of murder in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Knox isn’t a manipulating, sex-obsessed “femme fatale” as her accusers charge, lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said in her closing arguments. Knox is rather like raven-haired cartoon temptress — just drawn that way.
Bongiorno said Knox has been unfairly portrayed over the course of the media-hyped, four-year case.
Two years ago, the Seattle native was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the Nov. 1, 2007 sexual assault and brutal murder of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, where they were studying Italian.
Knox’s former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, a former student at the University of Perugia, was also convicted in the joint trial, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Both convictions are currently being appealed.
The sensational trial in Italy painted the murder as part of a drug-fuelled sex game that included Knox, Sollecito and another man, Rudy Guede.
An animated reconstruction of the murder scene played by the prosecution at the original trial shows Knox getting into a fight with Kercher as Sollecito held a knife. Guede held Kercher from behind and reached a hand into her underwear.
Sollecito ripped Kercher’s bra off, said the original prosecutor Giuliano Mignini who believed the two men were competing for Knox’s attention. Then, he said, Knox stabbed Kercher in the throat, one of 43 stab wounds found on Kercher’s body.
“Who is Amanda Knox?” said attorney Carlo Pacelli in court on Monday. “Is she the mild-looking, fresh-faced person you see here, or the one devoted to lust, drugs and alcohol that emerges from the court documents?”
However, the defence called the DNA evidence used in the trial useless.
“In the room of the crime, there are no traces of either Amanda or Raffaele. This is the absolute truth,” said Bongiorno, according to the Guardian.
The alleged trace of Sollecito’s DNA on Kercher’s bra clasp, collected 46 days after the murder was evidence “torn apart by the experts’ report,” she said.
The review significantly weakened the prosecution case, giving the defendants hope that they might be freed after four years behind bars.
The lawyers also pointed out that Knox accused a bar owner in Perugia, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, of murdering Kercher. He was later cleared.
Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas, blames the false accusation on the Italian police, according to CBS News.
“The police are the ones that told her ‘We know he was involved, we know he was there, we know you were with him,” she told CBS News. “After, I don’t know, 12 hours no food, no rest, the hitting, the screaming, the shouting, the terrorizing of her, she finally said, ‘Well ok, maybe this, maybe that.’”
If Knox and Sollecito are acquitted, a lawyer from the prosecution told an Italian news agency that it would appeal to Italy’s highest court, the last level of appeals.
In a Monday night interview with CNN, Amanda Knox’s father Curt Knox said that his daughter found the words of the prosecution “extraordinarily hard to listen to.”
“What I find very hard to believe is how this person can start calling her that when he’s never even talked to her, never met her,” he said. He added that his daughter has been losing weight and is having trouble sleeping.
He said that Knox will be able to address court before the jury begins deliberations, something she has been thinking about for three months
“This is really her final opportunity to express her heartfelt thoughts as it relates to how she’s being judged and the fact that she had nothing to do with this horrific crime and that Meredith was her friend.”
The defence is expected to complete its final arguments on Thursday, according to CNN.
A verdict is expected next week after jury deliberations.
The third man involved in the case, Rudy Guede, a drifter from Cote D’Ivoire, has exhausted his appeals process, according to the Telegraph. He is serving 16 years in prison."
The story can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
