Twenty four year old Amanda Knox made one last plea for her life today, in front of the Italian jury that will decide whether or not the doubts experts have cast on the DNA evidence that was used to convict her in 2009 of the 2007 murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, are enough to overturn her conviction.
“I did not do the things they say I did. I did not kill, rape or steal. I was not there,” Knox said in Italian, according to Reuters.
“I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I do not want to be punished. I do not want to be deprived of my life for something I did not do, because I am innocent.”
Knox and Kercher were both exchange students at the time of the killing, living together in Perugia, Italy. The Italian police cast a picture of Knox as a sex crazed, “she devil” who drove her then boyfriend and another man, drug dealer Rudy Guede, to kill Kercher when she refused to take part in an orgy.
Knox barely spoke Italian at the time of the murder, and she claims that was manipulated by the police from the first moments of the investigation. She has certainly been villified by the Italian prosecutors, who have called her a range of improbably melodramatic names in their attempt to convince the jury that the fact that she had no motive to kill her roommate makes it more important to convict her, rather than casting doubts on her guilt.
“I am not what they say I am,” she said, according to Reuters, as she attempted to fight back against suggestions that she was some kind of nymphomaniac, femme fatal.
“I am paying with my life for things I did not commit,” she added, beginning to shake as she fought with tears.
“I insist on the truth, I insist after four desperate years on our innocence,” she concluded.
The verdict is expected to be returned at 8pm, GMT. Stay tuned!
