Pair go on trial over murder of British student

MORE than a year after the death of Meredith Kercher, her American roommate Amanda Knox and Knox’s former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, go on trial today on charges of murder and sexual violence.

The killing of the 21-year-old British woman — allegedly while fighting off a sexual attack — shocked Italy and cast a dark cloud over the privileged world of young people studying abroad.

Knox, aged 21, from Seattle, and Sollecito, aged 24, will face an eight-member jury in a tiny courthouse in the picturesque medieval city of Perugia, 184km north of Rome.