Knox to learn if she will walk free as appeal verdict due

ALMOST four years after her imprisonment for the murder of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox will learn today whether she may walk free.

Following an 11-month appeal against her conviction and 26-year prison sentence, the young American is counting down the final hours before an Italian court in Perugia determines her fate.

Prosecutors have fought a desperate battle to keep her behind bars for the killing they claim marked the gruesome finale to an extreme sex game forced on British student Kercher.

Knox, 24, claims she had nothing to do with the violent death of the young woman she shared a house with while both were studying in Italy. But others are adamant she is lying and played a leading role in the crime, accompanied by her well-to-do Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede.

The proceedings have brought a series of attacks on Knox’s character, as defence and prosecution lawyers went into battle.

Religion, sex and race have been woven into the courtroom showdowns of recent days, with the kind of imagery and rhetoric unfamiliar in Irish courts deployed against Knox.

The spectre of the “Madonna/whore” caricature has been raised and she has also been compared with a witch.

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, the man behind the sex game theory, meanwhile appeared to dangle the race card before the jury. Guede was described in his closing speech as a “poor black man” while white, middle class Knox and Sollecito were “of good families”.

The case has been closely watched by the scores of international journalists who have converged on the medieval city. There has been intense speculation about the huge sums reportedly offered for interviews with Knox, should she be released.

But the Kercher family feels the true victim, Meredith, has been all but eclipsed by the relentless focus on Knox.

Sollecito, 27, is hoping the appeal jury will overturn his guilty verdict too.