Alleged killer of British student 'had neck wound'

An American student accused in the stabbing death of her British roommate had a scratch on her neck hours after the killing, a witness testified today at the murder trial in Italy.

Laura Mezzetti, an Italian woman who shared an apartment with victim Meredith Kercher and defendant Amanda Knox, told the court she saw the scratch on November 2, 2007, at the police station where they were waiting to be questioned.

Miss Kercher’s body had been found earlier that day in their apartment in Perugia.

“Amanda had a wound to her neck and I noticed it because it was known that Meredith had been killed by a wound to her neck,” Miss Mezzetti told the court. “She had a scratch to her neck.”

Miss Mezzetti said she observed Knox’s scratch from a few yards away. She described the wound as “vertical, less than 1-centimetre thick,” red in colour and gestured that it was under her chin.

“I was afraid that Amanda, too, might have been wounded, I was worried and I looked at it really intensely,” Miss Mezzetti said.

In comments after the hearing, Knox’s lawyer and her father downplayed that testimony.

Prosecutors allege Miss Kercher was the reluctant object of a sex game that ended violently on November 1 when she was stabbed in the neck.

Knox, a 21-year old from Seattle, and Raffaele Sollecito, a 24-year-old Italian who was her boyfriend at the time, are being tried on charges of murder and sexual violence. They deny wrongdoing.

Another man, Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede, was convicted last year on the same charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Guede, who had also denied wrongdoing, had requested and received a fast-track trial.

Miss Mezzetti said she did not see any scratch when she saw Knox on October 31, 2007, during breakfast at the apartment, and that she did not see Knox again until two days later at the police station. She said the scratch was different from a love bite, which would be “purple and more round.”

Miss Mezzetti told police in November that she had seen the scratch, but she had failed to mention it in several previous interrogations by police. Asked why she had not mentioned it before then, Miss Mezzetti said she thought everybody else would have noticed it.

Knox’s lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, said his client had nothing more that a little mark on her neck. “This is a witness giving a medical assessment,” he said.

The defendant’s father, Curt Knox, told reporters after the hearing that the doctor who gave his daughter a full-body medical examination after her November 6, 2007 arrest “did not make a single note related to a scratch in the neck”.

“When we go to the next phase that’s what you will hear,” he said, adding it was “probably a hickey.”

Appearing in court on Valentine’s Day, Knox sported a bright T-shirt with “All You Need Is Love” scrawled across the front in large pink letters.

Speaking for the second straight day to the court, Knox said she was hurt by recent testimony from witnesses, including by her Italian roommates. Witnesses said Knox did not always leave the toilet clean, prompting Miss Kercher and other roommates to complain.

“I’m sincerely disappointed,” she said, speaking Italian. “This cleaning issue was vastly exaggerated. I have talked about it with the other girls, but there was never conflict.”

Knox insisted that relations in the house were good.

Yesterday Knox addressed the court and said: “I am innocent. I’m confident that everything will come out and that everything will work out.”

Speaking in Italian Knox did not refer to assertions that she showed no pain following Miss Kercher’s death, and she made no references to her relationship with the victim.

Instead, in a casual, almost amused tone, Knox said she wanted to explain the presence of a sex toy – a pink rabbit-shaped vibrator – in the Perugia house she shared with Miss Kercher.

Witnesses said Miss Kercher had expressed unease over a bag Knox kept in the bathroom containing condoms and a vibrator.

“It was a joke,” Knox told the court. “It was a present from a friend before I came to Italy,” she said. She gestured with her hands to indicate the size of the toy, which the presiding judge, Giancarlo Massei, translated as about 10cm (4 inches).

During the hearing, witnesses said Knox showed no distress and cuddled with Sollecito at the police station while waiting to be questioned after Miss Kercher’s body was found.

“I found Amanda’s behaviour very strange and I found it quite difficult to be around her,” said Robyn Butterworth, who was at Leeds University with Miss Kercher. “Everybody was upset and she didn’t seem to show any emotions.”

“We were all crying. I didn’t see her crying,” Miss Butterworth added.

She said Knox and Sollecito fooled around as they waited.

“I remember Amanda sticking her tongue out at Raffaele,” Miss Butterworth said in English, her testimony translated for the court. “They were talking and joking, kissing and cuddling.”

Amy Frost, another witness who was also at the police station, said Knox “made faces,” such as crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out. She was “giggling” and kissing Sollecito, said Miss Frost.

“She didn’t show any sadness. She wasn’t crying. She seemed quite angry and a bit frustrated and sometimes happy,” said another one, Natalie Hayward.

Both Knox and Sollecito have attended the court sessions escorted by police. Sollecito told the court in an earlier hearing that he was the victim of a judicial mistake.

The witnesses yesterday testified about how they learned of Ms Kercher’s death and what Knox and Sollecito said at the police station.

According to Miss Butterworth, Knox said: “How do you think I feel? I found her.” She quoted Knox as saying Miss Kercher was “in the closet covered by a blanket”.

At one point, Knox said Miss Kercher “(expletive) bled to death,” according to Miss Butterworth. Miss Hayward also quoted Knox as saying Miss Kercher would have “died slowly and in a lot of pain”.

Miss Kercher was found with a stab wound in the neck in a pool of blood under a duvet in her bedroom.

Yesterday’s line-up of witnesses, mostly Ms Kercher’s British friends, also talked about a problematic relationship between Ms Kercher and Knox. Some broke into tears as they recalled their friend.

In a separate development overnight, Italian police arrested an Albanian man in Perugia who is among the key witnesses cited by the prosecution, the ANSA news agency and local media reported. He was picked up on drug charges and cocaine had been found in his apartment, the reports said.

The man has told prosecutors he saw Knox, Sollecito and Guede together the night before the slaying in front of Knox’s and Kercher’s apartment.

He already testified during a preliminary hearing and had been scheduled to appear in later court hearings.