Botched probe landed Knox in jail — lawyer

Perugia, Italy: American student Amanda Knox was a naive young girl wrongly imprisoned for murder because of a botched police investigation and a tireless campaign to paint her as a monster, her lawyer told an Italian court yesterday.

Knox is appealing a 2009 verdict that found her guilty of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher during a drug-fuelled sex game that went wrong. Kercher's half-naked body was found in 2007 in a bloody pool in the apartment the two shared.

The Seattle student was sentenced to 26 years behind bars.

Sexual assault

Her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and an Ivorian drifter were also jailed over the murder. But much of the focus in the case has been on Knox, who prosecutors allege led the sexual assault and held the knife that slit Kercher's throat. Wrapping up the defence case, Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova pointed to errors in the probe by police and urged a panel of lay and professional judges to look beyond the image of Knox created by the media and the prosecution.

"She was a girl who was quite different from how she has been depicted," he told the court. "How many times have we heard Amanda Knox saying ‘Why don't they believe me?'"

Knox has visibly lost weight since her last trial and has appeared frail in her latest appearances in court.

A verdict in the trial could come as soon as Monday, with the Knox family optimistic their daughter will walk free from an Italian prison that has been her home for nearly four years.

Their hopes have been boosted by a forensics review that criticised traces of DNA found on a kitchen knife and Kercher's bra clasp — evidence used to convict Knox — and attacked police for sloppy handling of crime scene material.