Will latest twist in this tragic tale be an ending at last for victim’s family?

The family of murdered student Meredith Kercher are travelling to Italy to hear the outcome of an appeal by two of her killers. Sheena Hastings reports.

ANOTHER sad journey to Italy for the Kercher family. This could be the final scene in the emotional four-year saga that began when their beloved Meredith, a student at Leeds University, was found dead in her bedroom in the beautiful hilltop city of Perugia. Meredith had been the victim of some sort of bungled sex game forced on her by her American flatmate Amanda Knox, and Knox’s then boyfriend Raffaelle Sollecito, now aged 24 and 27.

The pair were jailed for the murder in 2009 but have appealed against their convictions and are expected to hear the verdict on Saturday or early next week. The Kerchers have attended the appeal hearing several times since it began 11 months ago, and hearing re-examination of their daughter’s last hours must have been excruciating. How many times must they have also wished that Meredith, a European Studies undergraduate, had never set foot in Perugia or answered an ad that led her to share a house with Knox.

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When a fresh-faced Amanda Knox arrived in the city four years ago, she was one of thousands of American students enjoying being young, free and single away from home. But her life changed overnight when she became caught up in one of the most high-profile murder cases of recent years and shot to international infamy. Her nickname, “Foxy Knoxy”, on social networking site MySpace was assumed to be a reference to her sex appeal and was adopted by the media. In fact it was borne out of her skills on the football pitch, her friends and family insisted. This was just one of the many ways in which the world got Knox wrong, her supporters said. Originally from Seattle, she was a University of Washington student who went to Italy to study.

Not long after arriving in Perugia she developed a relationship with Italian IT graduate Raffaele Sollecito. The night Meredith Kercher had her throat cut, Knox said she was at her boyfriend’s house, smoking marijuana and having sex. But on November 6, 2007, she was arrested in connection with the killing.

Knox denied any wrongdoing, and during a lengthy police interrogation eventually pointed the finger at local bar owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba. Explaining how she came to make the false accusation, she later told jurors she had been confused and under pressure. Knox was to spend the next four years in jail, all the while protesting her innocence.

On October 28, 2008, Judge Paolo Micheli decided she and Sollecito should stand trial. So began a further 13-month wait behind bars for the pair, interrupted only for a couple of days a week when they attended the many hearings in the lengthy judicial process. Knox told the court how surprised she had been when police interrogated her after the murder and how bad she felt about implicating Mr Lumumba, who employed her as a barmaid.

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She was in shock, she said, when she heard about the gruesome death of her housemate, and could not believe what had happened. Contrary to what had been suggested, she had enjoyed a good relationship with Miss Kercher, and the two of them would discuss literature, eat out and enjoyed Perugia’s annual chocolate festival together. Knox’s family and friends have been vocal in their support for her, and vehemently rejected the portrayal of her as a wild child fuelled by alcohol, drugs and sex.

Neither Sollecito nor Knox shed a tear when the body was discovered, the court heard. In the aftermath of the murder, the couple were also filmed by TV cameras, kissing near the murder scene. The Italian protested his innocence throughout and, on the first day of evidence in February, he stood up and told the court he found it hard to kill a fly. He was not a violent person, he said, and claimed he had been the victim of a “judicial error”. In any case, he insisted, he and Knox had not been together for long enough to want to include others in their sex life.

Knox and Sollecito were found guilty of murder and sexual violence and were sentenced to 26 years and 25 years respectively, but they set appeals in motion almost immediately. A third person, small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast, had been separately jailed for the murder and sexual violence. His 30-year sentence was cut to 16 years on appeal.

Knox and Sollecito’s appeal began in November last year, and in its final days Knox was labelled a lying, sex-loving she-devil by lawyer Carlo Pacelli, representing Diya Lumumba. Echoing the vivid language he used at the end of the original trial, Mr Pacelli asked the court: “Who is Amanda Knox? 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?” Sollecito’s lawyer hit back by insisting that Knox was in fact a loving young woman rather like the faithful cartoon character Jessica Rabbit, not the “femme fatale” described by her accusers.

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The wheels of justice grind exceedingly slowly in Italy, but the ordeal of the appeal has not been without small victories and glimmers of hope for the former lovers and their families. In December, their case was given a boost when they succeeded in their bid for a full review of the forensic evidence used to convict the couple. Jurors in the original trial had heard prosecution claims that DNA found on a knife allegedly used in the murder, and on the clasp of Miss Kercher’s bra, incriminated the pair. But this evidence was fiercely disputed by the defence, who said it was inconclusive and argued it may have been contaminated during analysis.

They appeared to be vindicated when experts told the court that the forensic scientists involved had made a series of glaring errors. The genetic evidence was tainted by the use of a dirty glove and failure to wear protective caps, the experts claimed. Defence lawyers have also argued that the prosecution’s case was based on hypotheses and that any motive for the murder was lacking. Their case was further helped when a key prosecution witness gave conflicting reports during the appeal process about whether he saw Knox and Sollecito near the crime scene on the night of the murder.

Rudy Guede, who had been convicted in separate proceedings, caused an upset for the defendants when he gave evidence for the prosecution confirming the contents of a letter he wrote to his lawyers last year containing a direct accusation against Knox and Sollecito. But despite this glitch, the Knox camp could be forgiven for feeling cautiously optimistic as the appeal nears its conclusion.

In the last hearing before closing arguments began, the court rejected a prosecution request for new DNA tests, deeming them unnecessary. By this stage, even the prosecutors appeared to be admitting defeat, with one, Manuela Comodi, reportedly saying she could envisage the pair being cleared.

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The prosecutors too have appealed, as they can in Italy, because the sentence fell short of their demand for life in prison. But by the time the last day of evidence was heard, they were said to lack confidence that the original verdict would even be upheld.

In Italy those convicted of crimes are entitled to two appeals, meaning cases can drag on for many years without a final resolution. No-one would want two young people to spend a quarter of a century behind bars on the basis of faulty evidence, but if Knox and Sollecito are cleared, the Kercher family will be left with many questions that may never be answered.