In this Sept. 26, 2008 file photo, American murder suspect Amanda Knox is escorted by Italian...
In this Sept. 26, 2008 file photo, American murder suspect Amanda Knox is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers to Perugia's court at the end of a hearing, central Italy. Italian news reports on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008 say Knox, who is suspected in last year's slaying of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher, has again proclaimed her innocence. The news agencies, reporting from Perugia on a closed-door court hearing Saturday, said Amanda Knox greeted the judge in Italian, then spoke in English to deny any role in the slaying. Knox, her former Italian boyfriend, and a young man from the Ivory Coast are all suspects in the murder of the British student. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, files)
(AP)
Italian prosecutors on Saturday accused an American student of fatally stabbing her British house mate in a Satanic rite and asked a court to put an alleged African accomplice in prison for life, defense lawyers said.
The American, Amanda Knox, 21, proclaimed her innocence at the closed-door hearing in the Umbrian university town of Perugia and accused police of hitting her and calling her a liar during an interrogation, defense lawyers said.
At his lawyers' request, a fast-track trial is being conducted for Rudy Hermann Guede, the Ivorian accused in the case. He has acknowledged being in the bedroom where Meredith Kercher's body, stabbed in the neck and lying in a pool of blood, was found in November 2007 in the house she rented with Knox.
Fast-track trials sometimes result in lighter penalties. But prosecutors asked the court to convict Guede and mete out Italy's stiffest punishment — life imprisonment. Italy has no death penalty.
The court deciding Guede's fate is also hearing arguments on whether Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, should stand trial for the slaying. A ruling is expected by the end of October.
All three suspects have denied wrongdoing.
Prosecutors on Saturday "laid out a scenario like from some crime novel," Sollecito's lawyer, Luca Maori, said by telephone after the seven-hour hearing.
Prosecutors "alleged it was some kind of Satanic rite, with Amanda allegedly first touching Meredith with the point of a knife, then slitting her throat, while Sollecito held her by the shoulders, from behind, Guede held her by an arm" and tried to sexually penetrate her, Maori said.
One of Knox's lawyers, Carlo della Vedova, told reporters that prosecutors had laid out "a presumed scenario" with no hard evidence to justify putting his client on trial.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, contacted by The AP, declined to elaborate on his allegations Saturday about the slaying nor comment on his request for life imprisonment for Guede.
