Knox And Sollecito Absent From Kercher Retrial

By Tom Kington, in Florence

The retrial of Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito over the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has begun in Italy, but neither defendant has been in court.

American student Knox, 26, repeatedly said she would not return to Florence from Seattle, nor is she compelled to do so by law.

Her former boyfriend Sollecito, a 29-year-old Italian IT graduate, is following proceedings from the Caribbean, where he is on holiday, said his father.

"I will be informing Raffaele of what happens on the phone after the hearing," said Francesco Sollecito.

He added he would be attending every hearing in the appeal trial, which is expected to last until Christmas.

Sollecito's father denied suggestions in the media that his son was dipping into a fund he had set up for contributions to his legal expenses.

Raffaele Sollecito is on holiday in the Caribbean

"The holiday was provided by a supporter," he said. "We have raised $25,000 (£15,000) and haven't touched it."

Knox's decision to not be present in court was criticised by Patrick Lumumba, the former barman who Knox initially accused of taking part in the murder of Miss Kercher in Perugia.

"Knox is afraid - she knows she has responsibility for the death of poor Meredith," he said in court.

As the hearing got under way in Florence, the presiding judge turned down a request from Knox's lawyers to exclude Mr Lumumba as a civil plaintiff from the trial.

Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito requested an array of new expert opinions and evidence to reach a definitive verdict, including examining the handle of the knife that was the purported murder weapon and the handling of the crime scene.

Knox's defence lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said there was a risk of an "infinite trial," since the charge of murder has no statute of limitations.

Sollecito's lawyer Giulia Bongiorno asked the court to accept only "reliable evidence," saying the intense media attention on the case had affected the previous trials.

Knox and Sollecito during the investigation

Ms Bongiorno asked the court to reconsider Miss Kercher's mobile phone as key evidence, calling it the "black box" of the trial, which could prove her exact time of death due to two "anomalous", incomplete calls around 10pm on the night of November 1 when she was killed.

Francesco Maresca, a lawyer representing the Kercher family, handed the judge a letter from the family, explaining their absence from the session on health grounds.

The letter also said: ''We desperately want to uncover the truth and find justice for Meredith, who was brutally taken away from us.

"Nothing will bring back our beautiful Meredith and we will always have her in our hearts and in our memories but we need to know what happened, she deserves, at least the dignity of the truth.

''The only way that our pain and suffering can begin to be alleviated is to obtain as clearly as possible an understanding of the tragic events of November 1st 2007.''

The new trial is being held in a modern appeal court building on the fringes of Florence, a stark contrast to Perugia's medieval court building where hearings have previously been held.

Amanda Knox cries after hearing she has been acquitted

In 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of killing 21-year-old Miss Kercher two years earlier in the student flat the two women shared in Perugia.

A third man, Rudy Guede, was convicted over the murder and is serving a 16-year jail term. A court found that Guede had not acted alone.

The latest trial is expected to re-examine forensic evidence to determine whether Knox and Sollecito helped kill Miss Kercher.

An appeals court acquitted the two suspects in 2011, citing weaknesses in DNA evidence.

The pair, who at that point had spent four years behind bars, were released, and the American flew back home.

But in March this year, Italy's supreme court overturned the acquittal, citing what it said were "shortcomings, contradictions and inconsistencies" in the appeal court's verdict, and ordered a retrial.

A new appeal verdict will now be reached before the case returns to the supreme court.

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