The defense in the Meredith Kercher trial have rebuffed the DNA forensic evidence put forward by the prosecution claiming that it was contaminated by the experts who gathered it.
Merdith Kercher, the 21-year-old student from Surrey who was on exchange Erasmus programme in the Italian town of Perugia was found brutally murdered. Her wind pipe was crushed and the body displayed a cut to the throat.
The two main suspects, Amanda Knox, a friend of the victim, and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, are currently being tried for the murder. Rudy Hermann Guede has already been convicted and sentenced to 30-years in prison as his blood was found on the body of the victim making his complicity in the murder incontrovertible. Patrick Lumumba, the owner of the bar in which Knox was employed, was also erroneously implicated in the murder but all charges against him were later dropped.
The knife found in Sollecito’s flat had Knox’s DNA on the handle and the blood of the victim on the blade; this however, is not believed to be the murder weapon, which has not yet been found. The wound on Kercher’s neck which provoked the hemorrhage that finally killed her did not match the knife found in Sollecito’s flat.
The prosecution brought forward the available DNA forensic evidence, but this was attacked and mocked by the defense. They argued that the DNA forensic evidence presented in court was contaminated because the single-use gloves worn by experts gathering the DNA samples were in fact worn multiple times. The defense also noted how a blood-stained bra clasp was only found after a second investigation of the crime scene, thus clearly showing that the forensic investigation was executed with negligence.
Despite the allegations made by the defense, the Judge in charge of the case rejected these claims saying that the evidence was nevertheless, incriminating. This made the Judge’s final verdict, which will not be official till the New Year, clear to Knox and Sollecito. The two will be sentenced to prison. Knox still fervently asserts that she was Meredith’s friend and would never have hurt her.