Prosecutors demand life imprisonment for Knox (Reuters)

PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors asked a court on Saturday to extend American student Amanda Knox’s jail term to life for murdering her British housemate in a frenzied sex game that went wrong.

Knox, a 24-year-old from Seattle, is serving a 26-year term after being found guilty in 2009 of murdering Meredith Kercher with her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

Prosecutors also asked for Sollecito’s 25-year jail term to be increased to life imprisonment.

Her hair in a pony tail, Knox — flanked by her lawyers and a prison official — sat motionless and displayed no emotion as prosecutors read out the request for a life term. An equally impassive Sollecito sat a few places away in the courtroom.

Kercher’s half-naked body with a deep stab wound in the throat was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a university town in the Umbrian hills. Prosecutors say Knox handled the knife that killed the English student.

Knox’s father said his daughter had been prepared for the prosecutors to demand she be locked away for life.

“It’s never easy when ’re on trial for r life essentially but yesterday was just pure character assassination and today was more technical,” said Curt Knox. “So she’s holding up, and she’s strong and she’ll be ready.”

Wrapping up the prosecution’s case in Knox’s appeals trial, prosecutor Manuela Comodi launched a vigorous defense of DNA evidence used in the trial, holding up a white bra in court at one stage to make her point.

Much of the trial has focused on a review by forensic experts. This shed doubt on DNA evidence found on Kercher’s bra clasp and a knife identified as the murder weapon, boosting the American’s hopes of being freed.

But as the trial neared its end, prosecutors have argued there is more than enough damning evidence against Knox and blamed the media for portraying her as a victim of a botched justice system.

A CHEF WHO CAN’T COOK

Comodi focused her attack on Saturday on the credibility of the experts behind the review. She said they were unwilling to embrace new technologies and had little field experience.

“Would entrust the marriage of r only daughter to a cook who knew all the recipes by heart but has never cooked?” Comodi asked the panel of lay and professional judges.

She then tried meticulously to tear the report apart, including its conclusion that traces of Sollecito’s DNA found on Kercher’s bra clasp could have been due to contamination.

If contamination had occurred, DNA belonging to others would also have been found on the clasp, Comodi argued.

A claim that Sollecito’s DNA could have made its way on to the clasp because it was on Knox’s underwear that was washed together with Kercher’s bra seemed highly improbable given the laundry was washed at a high temperature, she argued.

Pulling out a white bra from her bag, Comodi said Sollecito’s DNA ended up on the clasp when he pulled one end of Kercher’s bra strap and cut off the bra with his other hand.

She also attacked the review’s contention that traces of starch found on the knife identified as the murder weapon suggested it had not been washed, which in turn meant that it could not have been used to murder Kercher.

Comodi, however, argued that the knife was “spotlessly clean” and that the traces of starch stemmed not from cutting potatoes or bread but from talc in gloves used by police.

The court is expected to hear on Monday from lawyers for Kercher’s family and Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner Knox had accused of committing the murder.

A verdict in the appeals trial is expected after concluding arguments from the defense at the end of next week, nearly four years after the murder stunned Italy.

Rudy Guede, an Ivorian drifter with a criminal record, is also serving time for taking part in Kercher’s murder.

All three found guilty have maintained their innocence.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)

— ’re ’s , . : A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens.