Amanda Knox is no man-eater, lawyer says

PERUGIA, Italy?? American student Amanda Knox was a young woman in love when jailed for the murder of a roommate in an Italian university town, nothing like the man-eater portrayed in court, a lawyer for her ex-boyfriend said on Tuesday.

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Raffaele Sollecito's lawyer likened Knox to cartoon femme fatale Jessica Rabbit and said she was a besotted young woman who barely spoke Italian when she was accused of killing her British roommate. She was sentenced to 26 years in jail.

Knox, 24, has been described as "diabolical," a "witch" and a "she-devil" during three days of a court hearing into an appeal against verdicts that found her and Sollecito guilty of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2007 during a sex game gone wrong.

Story: Knox a 'diabolical she-devil,' Italian lawyer says

"Knox could be compared to Jessica Rabbit," said Giulia Bongiorno, a lawyer for Sollecito. "She may appear to be a man-eater. In reality, she was a faithful woman in love."

Jessica Rabbit is a voluptuous but faithful femme fatale from the 1988 movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," where she famously says "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

Video: Lawyer: Amanda Knox is a ?she-devil? (on this page)

Bongiorno argued there was no evidence linking her client with the murder, saying he was implicated in the crime just because he happened to be dating Knox at the time.

Kercher's half-naked body with a slit throat and more than 40 wounds was found in November 2007 in a pool of blood in the apartment she shared with Knox in the hilltop Umbrian town popular with foreigners studying Italian.

Lawyers for a civil plaintiff in the case ? a man from Ivory Coast who Knox says is to blame for Kercher's murder ? have described Knox as a "spell-casting witch" who devoted her life to sex, drugs, and alcohol. Curt Knox, Amanda's father, was present in the courtroom and became visibly upset as the lawyers made accusations about his daughter, reported NBC's Keith Miller.

"The all-out assault on Amanda's character and who she is was so over-the-top, it was incredible," Curt Knox told NBC. "It was really tough to listen to and it was tough for Amanda to listen to as well."

Verdict expected in coming week
A verdict in the trial is expected at the end of the week or early next week. Knox's family has said they are hopeful she will walk free after nearly four years behind bars thanks to a forensics review that discredited two pieces of DNA evidence used to convict the Seattle student and her ex-boyfriend.

Story: Friend: Knox can't eat, sleep as verdict nears

The American student has won sympathy from many in the United States, where she is widely seen as an innocent abroad who fell into the clutches of an unfair justice system.

Kercher's family is expected to travel to Perugia in the next week to hear the court's decision, NBC reported.

Kercher, 21, was stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox. Knox and Sollecito insist they spent the night at his house the night of the murder, watching a movie, smoking pot and having sex. The movie they said they were watching, "Amelie," led Bongiorno in the original trial to compare Knox to the title character, an innocent girl intent on doing good.

Bongiorno also looked at DNA evidence linking her client to the crime, most notably an alleged trace on the bra clasp of the victim.

Prosecutors maintain that Sollecito's DNA was on the clasp of Kercher's bra as part of a mix of evidence that also included the victim's genetic profile. A court-ordered review of evidence, carried out by independent experts, said the attribution could not be certain and highlighted the risk of contamination on the clasp, which was collected from the crime scene 46 days after the murder.

The review significantly weakened the prosecution case, giving the defendants hope that they might be freed after four years behind bars.

Bongiorno said "that piece of evidence must be considered unusable."

Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede from Ivory Coast. Italy's highest criminal court has upheld Guede's conviction and his 16-year prison sentence. Guede also denies wrongdoing.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44683510/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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