Former lovers guilty of murdering British student

FORMER lovers Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were last night found guilty of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher during an extreme sex game.

American Knox, 22, and Italian Sollecito, 25, are expected to launch an appeal against the verdict.

Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito 25.

Prosecutors said the pair killed 21-year-old Miss Kercher in what began as a sex game and ended with Sollecito holding her down while Knox cut her throat with a six-inch kitchen knife.

They committed the killing in Perugia, Italy, with small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede, 22, who was jailed for murder and sexual violence last October for 30 years.

After the verdict, Knox’s father, Curt Knox, left court ashen faced. Asked if his family would appeal, he said: “Hell, yes.”

Knox and Sollecito were told they must pay a total of €5 million to the Kercher family as compensation for Miss Kercher’s murder.

Knox was told she must also pay €40,000 compensation to Patrick Lumumba, for defaming the local barman when she falsely accused him of the murder.

The semi-naked body of Leeds University student Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in her room in Perugia in November 2007.

She had been sharing a house with Knox, who was also a student, on her year abroad in the Umbrian hilltop town.

Police are still not certain why Knox, her then boyfriend Sollecito and Guede were all at the house in Perugia together, although they suspect that a drugs transaction was behind the meeting.

Knox bowed her head and burst into tears as the verdict was read out. Her lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, put a comforting arm around her as she wept.

Her family held hands as they waited for the verdict. Their faces fell as they learnt of Knox’s fate and her sister Deanna Knox wept uncontrollably

As Knox was led out of court a loud sob was heard.

Sollecito looked impassive while Miss Kercher’s family appeared composed.

Knox’s family left court in tears and fought their way through the dense crowd of journalists.

Miss Kercher’s family’s lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said the family was satisfied with the verdict.

He said: “They got the justice they were expecting. We got what we were hoping for.”

Mr Maresca added: “With what we got with the Guede sentence last year, we have obtained truth and justice for this tragic event.”

It is understood the Kercher family will speak at a press conference at a hotel in Perugia at 11am local time (10am GMT).

On the face of it Amanda Knox was the most unlikely of killers.

The pretty American student from a respectable family seemed to have everything going for her: looks, plenty of friends and the wherewithal to travel the world at a young age.

But behind the smiles and innocent looks lay what Italian prosecutors said was a she-devil whose aggressive self-regard caused her to build up an implacable hatred of the studious Briton who shared her apartment in Perugia.

Meredith Kercher was a hard-working pleasant young woman who had little in common with Knox.

Knox, in her short time in Italy had already managed to snare herself a local boyfriend and was in touch with the seamier side of life there, on personal terms with known drug dealer Rudy Guede.

Police believe she felt that Miss Kercher somehow looked down on her behaviour and general lack of standards which only encouraged her irrational dislike of the Briton.

One night in November 2007 her hatred, probably fuelled by drink and drugs, boiled over into murderous rage.

Knox, Sollecito and Guede cornered Miss Kercher in her room and what began as some kind of sex game ended with Guede and Sollecito holding her down while Knox cut her throat with a six-inch kitchen knife.

In panic afterwards they clumsily tried to make the death look like part of a burglary gone wrong – breaking the window in Miss Kercher’s room to look like forced entry, but doing it from the inside which was soon spotted by police.

And Knox’s odd behaviour after the discovery of the body immediately arose suspicions.

While waiting to be questioned at the police station, she was reported to have performed a cartwheel and done the splits.

During her police interrogation, she went on to accuse an innocent man of the murder, bar-owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba who employed her as a barmaid.

Lumumba’s lawyer Carlo Pacelli described Knox as a “talented and calculated liar, who had gone out of her way to frame Patrick”.

He added: “It was a ruthless defamation that destroyed Patrick as a man, husband and father. By naming him she hoodwinked the officer in charge of the investigation.”

Lumumba spent two weeks in custody before being completely cleared by several witnesses who saw him at his bar the night of the murder.

None of this, prosecutors argued, was the behaviour of an innocent woman.

When Knox was arrested she was thrown into the spotlight already shining on Perugia, and every detail about her life was seized on by those fascinated with this young, female murder suspect.

Originally from Seattle, Washington, her good looks and the lurid headlines about her sex life splashed across newspapers made her a transatlantic object of fascination.