Knox claims police beat her during murder probe

AN American student accused of murdering her British roommate took the witness stand for the first time yesterday, telling the court she was beaten by police and confused when she was questioned in the days after the killing.

Amanda Knox also repeated that she spent the night of the killing at the house of her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, in Perugia, central Italy.

Prosecutors contend that Knox, an exchange student from Seattle, and Sollecito killed 21-year-old Meredith Kercher on November 2, 2007, in the apartment she shared with Knox during what began as a sex game.

After the killing, she accused Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, a Congolese man who owns a pub in Perugia, of being the culprit. She was called to testify both in her own defence and in a civil case brought by Lumumba.

“The declarations were taken against my will, so everything that I said was said in confusion and under pressure,” Knox said under questioning by Lumumba’s lawyer. “They called me a stupid liar; said I was trying to protect someone. I was not trying to protect anyone. I didn’t know what to respond. They said I left Raffaele’s home, which I denied, but they continued to call me ‘stupid liar’.”

She said that everyone was “yelling at me” and “saying they’d put me in prison for trying to protect someone”.

At one point, Lumumba’s lawyer asked whether police had beaten her so that she would say that Kercher had been raped before dying. Knox replied: “Yes.”

Police have repeatedly denied any misconduct. Knox has claimed in the past that she was beaten.

She spoke both in English and Italian, occasionally pausing to take a breath, her voice shaky at times.

Sollecito has said he was at his own apartment, working at his computer. He said he does not remember if Knox spent the whole night with him or just part of it.

Lumumba was jailed briefly in the case, but he is no longer a suspect and is seeking defamation damages from Knox.

Knox’s father, Curt Knox, said his daughter looked “confident in what she wants to say”.

“She has nothing to hide,” he said during a break. He hoped people could now see a “different Amanda”, than how she has been portrayed by the media so far.

Knox and Sollecito have been jailed since shortly after the slaying. They could face life imprisonment if convicted of murder. A verdict is expected in the trial after a summer break.

A third suspect in the case, Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede, was found guilty of murder and sexual violence and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was given a fast-track trial at his request, and his appeal is set to start in November. He also denies wrongdoing.