A convicted child murderer testified today at the appeal hearing for Amanda Knox, saying that a fellow inmate had told him the American student had nothing to do with her British roommate’s murder.

Italy’s justice minister has ordered an investigation into why a man arrested over the abduction and killing of a toddler was not behind bars despite previous convictions in a rape and kidnapping case.

PROSECUTORS in the slaying of a toddler that has horrified Italians said yesterday investigators had believed until the bitter end that the boy might be alive and said his death constituted a “moral defeat”.