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ROME - Fourteen months after the brutal killing in Perugia of British student Meredith Kercher, the former lovers accused of her murder will take the stand tomorrow as one of Italy's most eagerly awaited trials gets under way.
Court officials in the university town said that 130 newspapers and TV stations from around the world had applied for press passes to the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
More than 250 witnesses are expected to be called and the jury will hear the testimony of 20 investigators and dozens of forensic, genetic and computer experts.
The jury must decide whether Sollecito, 24, and Knox, 21, are guilty of killing Knox's housemate Kercher, the 21-year-old exchange student from Coulsdon, southern England, who was found in her bedroom semi-naked and stabbed in the throat on November 2, 2007.
Both suspects say they spent the night of the murder at Sollecito's flat in Perugia, while prosecutors claim they murdered Kercher in a sex game that got out of hand.
A third suspect, Rudy Guede, a drifter from Ivory Coast, whose bloody handprint was found near Kercher's body, opted for a fast-track trial and was sentenced to 30 years in prison in October.
Since her arrest, Knox has become a semi-celebrity. The Seattle student's prison diaries have been leaked to newspapers and, in a poll of dubious taste, she was voted woman of the year by viewers of one Italian TV station this month.
A book about the murder published in Italy features a close-up of her face on the cover, while a prison film in which Knox recites Shakespeare was banned from a Perugia film festival in December after a political outcry.
Sollecito, a student from a well-to-do family, has also exerted a powerful fascination over the Italian public. As bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic row over the case, he has written a regular column from his cell for a newspaper in his home town near Bari.
Since his conviction, Guede has divided his time between planning his appeal and releasing his poetry to his lawyers for publication.
The defence teams of Knox and Sollecito are expected to argue that Kercher's injuries, including 47 bruises and knife wounds, were caused by one male assailant - Guede.
In a report sent to the pre-trial hearing, an expert hired by Knox's legal team said the wounds pointed to "one robust man attacking from the front, who wounds, who pushes the girl to the ground, who immobilises her by straddling her, who grabs her neck with bare hands and then stabs her in the neck".
Knox's lawyers and experts working for Sollecito's legal team returned last week to the house Kercher shared with Knox to show that a lone killer could have broken a window to enter the house, a version of events disputed by investigators, who claim that Knox, Sollecito and Guede smashed the window from inside to fake a burglary.
Pre-trial judge Paolo Micheli, who sent Knox and Sollecito to trial while condemning Guede, has said he found the single killer theory "rather difficult" to prove. Micheli did, however, describe as "fantasy" the theory hatched by magistrate Giuliano Mignini that Knox, Sollecito and Guede wanted to involve Kercher in an orgy inspired by "rites, Halloween parties and manga comics".
To bolster their case, defence lawyers have been enrolling last-minute witnesses, Italian newspaper Il Giornale dell'Umbria wrote.
According to its sources, an American university lecturer will vouch for Knox's good character and a Perugia plumber will apparently testify that Sollecito was having problems with a leaky kitchen sink, prompting him to mop his floor because it was flooded and not, as prosecutors maintain, because he was covering up traces of Kercher's blood.
Apart from parades of character witnesses, the trial will focus on key genetic evidence. Sollecito's DNA was found on Kercher's torn bra strap, and Knox's DNA was traced, alongside Kercher's, on a knife in Sollecito's kitchen.
According to his lawyer, Sollecito is relieved that his trial is about to begin. "He is happy that the trial is finally starting, but extremely unhappy that he has spent over a year in jail waiting for it," said Marco Brusco.
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer representing Kercher's family, said Sollecito would need to be patient. "Every shred of evidence must now be heard in court and the trial will run until July or even September," he said.
The verdict will be left to six jury members and two judges. The jurors' first task will be to assist senior judge Giancarlo Massei as he decides whether to allow journalists to follow the trial or to keep them out, as has been requested by the Kercher family.
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