DNA test on weapon in new Knox trial ordered
Appeal court rejects defence request for new evidence
FLORENCE, ITALY— The Florence appellate court hearing U.S. student Amanda Knox’s third trial in her roommate’s murder agreed on Monday to run additional DNA tests on the presumed weapon, but rejected more than a dozen other defence requests for new testimony or evidence.
On the trial’s opening day, presiding Judge Alessandro Nencini said the court agreed to test one DNA trace not previously examined on the knife that prosecutors allege killed British student Meredith Kercher; the trace had previously been deemed too small to test.
In March, Italy’s highest court ordered a new trial for Knox and her Italian co-defendant, ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, after overturning their acquittals in Kercher’s November 2007 killing.
The Supreme Court of Cassation blasted the 2011appeals court acquittal, saying it was full of “deficiencies, contradictions and illogical” conclusions.
Knox, now a 26-year-old University of Washington student in Seattle, has not returned to Italy for the current trial, nor is she compelled by law to do so. Sollecito, now 29, likewise did not attend the trial, as is permitted in Italy.
A third man, Rudy Guede, was convicted in the slaying and is serving a 16-year term.
That court found that Guede had not acted alone.