The prosecution has wound up its case against Amanda Knox by saying that “fortunately” she and her Italian former boyfriend could not be executed for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
It was a reminder that, in her US home state of Washington, Knox would risk lethal injection or even the gallows if her appeal were rejected. Last week, the prosecution asked for the sentences passed on Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to be increased to life.
“They killed [Kercher] for nothing,” said prosecution counsel Manuela Comodi. “But they killed her. And it is for that reason they should be found guilty and given the maximum sentence which, fortunately, in Italy is not the death sentence.”
The tangled case, which has fascinated amateur detectives the world over, is due to end on Monday. In line with Italian court practice, each of the parties has a final chance to sway the two professional and six lay judges who will decide.
Comodi was speaking after her colleague Giuliano Mignini, who oversaw the original investigation, made an emotional speech in which he claimed, as evidence of the appellants’ guilt, their reaction to gruesome images of the murder scene shown in court.
“At the trial, Amanda never looked at them. Never. Raffaele looked every so often with one eye – icy, expressionless. Here … Amanda had her eyes cast down. Raffaele looked away,” said Mignini. “These are little things that are important.”
He went on to tell the court the Knox family had spent a million dollars on their campaign to establish her innocence. And, to the visible astonishment of defence lawyers, he ended by quoting a US tourist in Perugia, who had apparently said: “They are guilty — but will get away with it.”
The defence argument is that a third person, Rudy Guede from Côte d’Ivoire, who has been convicted of the murder, killed Kercher on his own during a break-in. Mignini described him as a “poor black man” having earlier, pointedly, referred to the appellants as being “of good families”.
The prosecution argued the defence had yet to explain two points: evidence that a broken window in the flat Knox shared with Kercher could not have been smashed by an intruder because the shutters were closed, and footprints in the bathroom that could not have been Guede’s.
Comodi said they were Sollecito’s, adding: “They didn’t belong to Martians.” – guardian.co.uk