Appeal opens into Knox sex murder conviction

A NERVOUS looking Amanda Knox began her appeal yesterday against her conviction for the sex-murder of a British student in the medieval Italian city of Perugia in 2007.

Knox, a 23-year-old from Seattle who was jailed for 26 years for the murder, gripped the edges of the sleeves of her blue cardigan and nodded while talking with her lawyers.

“We feel as though we have a very good case,” her stepfather Chris Mellas said ahead of the hearing.

“She’s going to go home,” said Mellas, who has been living in Perugia since September to help Knox prepare for her appeal.

Mellas said the wait for the appeal had been “difficult” for Knox, who was a student in the city at the time of the killing.

Yesterday’s hearing lasted only 15 minutes and the appeal court judge scheduled the next hearings for December 11, December 18 and January 15.

The result of the trial is expected some time next year.

“The conviction is wrong. We’re starting again from scratch,” Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, told reporters after the hearing.

Ghirga said the defence would focus on DNA evidence linking Knox to the crime scene that he said had been questioned by three scientific opinions.

The lawyer said Knox’s mother and father would be at the hearing on December 11 and said he expected the trial to conclude in February or March. Asked about her health, he said: “She looks terrible. She’s very thin.”

Knox was sentenced last year for killing Leeds University student Meredith Kercher in the cottage they shared in Perugia as part of what prosecutors described as a drug-fuelled sexual assault.

Prosecutors have said they will seek a longer sentence for Knox — of up to 30 years in prison — if the conviction is upheld by the court.

Knox’s boyfriend at the time of the murder, Raffaele Sollecito, who was sentenced to 25 years for the murder, is appealing at the same time.