‘I DIDN’T KILL MY FRIEND, MEREDITH’

“I said what I did because I was hit around the head and they told me that I would go to prison for 30 years. I was under pressure and I was exhausted.” 

But prosecutor Giuliano Mignini dismissed her claims, telling the hushed courtroom: “We are seeing here the crocodile tears that we saw during her questioning last year.”

Police believe Meredith’s death was made to look like a burglary by Knox, her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, and African drifter Rudy Guede, 21.

Mignini is tomorrow expected to describe how Knox held one knife while Sollecito wielded another as Guede held Meredith down in a violent attack.

He said the motive was “sexual” after Meredith had refused to take part in an orgy and that “all three were at the scene and involved in her death”. 

The trio were brought to yesterday’s hearing in three prison vans.

Prosecutors believe the intended night for the murder was Hallowe’en.

Just 24 hours before her death, Meredith and her friends had attended a party dressed as vampires.

Several violent Japanese manga comics which detailed the murder “of female vampires on Hallowe’en night” had been found in Sollecito’s apartment, the court heard.

Scenes from the comics showed naked women dead on the floor and blood on the walls – images very similar to the scene that greeted police when they discovered Meredith’s body. 

Albanian witness Herukan Kokomani has already told the court that he saw Knox, Sollecito and Guede acting suspiciously outside the house where Meredith was killed on November 1. 

Her body was found the next day when police broke into her bedroom after being called to the house by Knox and Sollecito. The lovers claimed to have discovered a break-in.

But Mignini pointed to video footage that showed police arriving at the house at 12.30pm after finding a mobile phone belonging to Meredith in nearby undergrowth. 

Sollecito’s first call to the police was made after the officers had arrived, Mignini told judge Paolo Micheli. 

The court also heard yesterday how American Superior Court judge Michael J Heavey, based in Knox’s home state of Washington, had written to Italian police and prosecutors, 

criticising their handling of the case. 

The judge said he was “convinced of Amanda’s innocence” and said she could not be a killer “despite having an unusual personality”. Mignini accused him of “interference” and trying to “pressurise investigators”.

Tomorrow the prosecution will ask for a 30-year sentence for Guede, who has opted for a fast-track trial. They will also ask that Knox and Sollecito be sent for a full trial early next year.

Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, died two months after arriving in Perugia as part of her degree in European studies.