Unflushed toilet ‘may have caused Knox to kill’

An Italian prosecutor has demanded that an appeal court find Amanda Knox guilty of the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, a killing he argued may have been rooted in arguments about cleanliness and triggered by a toilet left unflushed by the only man now in jail for the murder.

Prosecutor Alessandro Crini called for 26-year sentences for Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her co-defendant and former boy-friend, following more than 10 hours of closing arguments over two days. Knox and Sollecito deny any involvement in the killing.

Mr Crini departed from past scenarios by suggesting the crime was not so much sexually fuelled but an act of physical violence with a sexual expression. He alleged Knox and Sollecito acted in concert with another man in an explosion of violence sparked by tension between Knox and Ms Kercher.