Amanda Knox Speaks Out in Court

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Amanda Knox Speaks Out in Court
Though she won’t testify, Knox made a spontaneous declaration during an appeal hearing today, lashing out at her dubious accuser. Barbie Latza Nadeau reports from Italy.
June 27, 2011 11:41 AM EDT

In a day marked by emotional high points, bizarre twists, and questionable lawyering, Rudy Guede confirmed his previous accusation that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito killed Meredith Kercher on Nov. 1, 2007. Knox and Sollecito are in the midst of their appellate trial, hoping to be freed by the fall. Guede, whose 30-year sentence was reduced on appeal to 16 years for his part in the murder, was called to testify after several inmates claimed he exonerated Knox and Sollecito during prison-yard conversations. During the course of his testimony, he denied ever speaking to any inmates about Kercher’s murder, refuting last week’s testimony entirely. Then he confirmed the contents of a letter he sent to his lawyers in March 2010, in which he says it is Knox and Sollecito, not him, who are responsible for Kercher’s murder. “It’s not up to me to say who killed Meredith Kercher,” the letter states. “I’ve always said who was there that damned night in that house.”

Neither the defense nor prosecution wanted Guede to say too much in court. He is not exactly a credible witness. Unlike Knox and Sollecito, whose forensic link to the crime is highly contentious, Guede’s DNA was prevalent throughout the murder room, and his feces were found in the apartment toilet. But he is the only person to ever admit being in the house the night Kercher was killed, and therefore his testimony is considered vital in this phase of the process. Before his arrest, he told a friend during a monitored Skype conversation that Knox was not involved in the murder. Then he changed his story and said the two were at the house and that he presumed they were the killers. Credibility issues aside, his placing them in the house on the night of the murder is not exactly something they wanted the jury to hear, so it is even more surprising, then, that Knox’s own lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, pushed Guede to talk about the fateful night. “I know what I know. I saw what I saw,” Guede told the court when pressed for clarification.

Knox is not scheduled to testify in her appellate hearing, but she can make a spontaneous declaration at any time. Once Guede was seated in the witness stand, Dalla Vedova announced that she wanted to speak, perhaps to make a plea directly to Guede to finally tell the truth. But the judge referred to court protocol, and since Guede was already on the stand, he prohibited her from speaking until he had left the courtroom. She then nervously addressed the court. “I am shocked and anguished by his declarations,” she said after Guede left the stand. “The only time the three of us have ever been together is in a courtroom. He knows we were not there.”

Sollecito then made his own plea to the court that Guede was lying. He apologized for being nervous, and then explained that Guede has been repeating the same story about seeing him and hearing Knox in the shadows that night. “He is lying. He knows the truth,” Sollecito told the court. “We have been here for almost four years now. Our lives are destroyed...”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/27/amanda-knox-appeal-hearing-raffaele-sollecito-waffles.html