Originally Posted by
stevenash
FIVE REASONS KNOX IS INNOCENT
1) Lack of motive.
There still seems to be no convincing motive for the murder.
Prosecutors said tensions between Knox and Miss Kercher had reached boiling point over disagreements about housework, hygiene and boyfriends. They claimed Knox was driven to rage by jealousy towards her British flatmate. But it seemed far-fetched to claim that such relatively minor differences would lead Knox to kill.
2) Lack of DNA.
None of Knox’s DNA was found in the bedroom in which Miss Kercher was stabbed to death. The prosecution claimed that Knox’s DNA was on the handle of the presumed murder weapon, a kitchen knife, and Kercher’s genetic material on the blade, linking the American to the killing.
They also said that Sollecito’s DNA was found on the clasp, which had been cut or torn off the bra, proving that he took part in the attack too.
But a review of the evidence by two independent experts from La Sapienza University in Rome found that the DNA traces were too low to be reliable and so small that they could not be retested.
The bra clasp was only found six weeks after the initial crime scene investigation, by which time it had been kicked around the floor of Miss Kercher’s bedroom, leading to a high risk of contamination.
3) No witnesses.
The prosecution struggled to come up with witnesses who could place Knox and Sollecito at the scene of the crime. A homeless drug addict, Antonio Curatolo, told the initial trial that he had seen Knox and her boyfriend arguing on the night of the murder near the scene of the crime. But during the appeal he gave confusing and contradictory evidence, mixing up dates, and admitted to regularly using heroin, further undermining his credibility.
Even Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast-born drifter who was also convicted of the murder, initially said that Knox was not in the house on the night of the murder. He changed his story a few months after his arrest, saying that on coming out of the bathroom he had grappled with a stranger, who could have been Sollecito, and that he saw Knox’s silhouette outside the house.
4) Doubts over the murder weapon.
Police and prosecutors said Miss Kercher was killed with a 6.5 inch long kitchen knife found in Sollecito’s apartment. But the blade of the knife did not match two out of three of the wounds to her neck.
Nor did it match a bloody, knife-shaped smear on Miss Kercher’s bedclothes. The trial judge said that two knives must have been used; the second has never been found.
5) The false confession.
The defence said that when Knox "confessed" to being in the house on the night of the murder and could remember hearing Miss Kercher scream, she was traumatised and acting under extreme psychological pressure after an all night interrogation by police. Knox told the trial that during the questioning she had been cuffed around the head by an officer and told that if she did not start cooperating she would face decades in jail. She was questioned without a lawyer being present and at the time she knew only basic Italian.