Amanda Knox pleads against ‘killer’s mask’ at end of Meredith Kercher murder trial

Today the judges and six-member jury retire to consider their verdict, with the defendants having now spent two years in prison. Their deliberations are expected to take 12 to 18 hours.

The American thanked not only her lawyers and family but also the prosecutors who have demanded a life sentence. “They are trying to do their work even if they do not understand,” she said. “As regards the decision to keep me in prison these two years, I can confess that I feel confused, sad and frustrated.”

In his last remarks in this marathon trial, however, Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the Kercher family, claimed that the British student had been murdered by Ms Knox, Mr Sollecito and Rudy Guede, an immigrant from the Ivory Coast, after they reached “the point of no return” in a drug-fuelled sexual assault.

Ms Kercher, 21, a Leeds University exchange student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found with her throat cut on November 2, 2007, at the hillside cottage she shared in Perugia with Ms Knox and two Italian women. Guede was convicted last year of taking part in the crime and given a 30-year sentence.

All three had attacked Ms Kercher in a step-by-step crime, Mr Maresca told the court. Ms Kercher’s resistance to the “sex game” had led to pressure, threats and finally violence and torture, with a knife used to inflict wounds on her throat.

The prosecution put its closing arguments last week, showing the court an animated film reconstruction in which Ms Kercher was forced to her knees in her bedroom, with

Mr Sollecito holding her down, Guede attempting to have sex with her from behind and Ms Knox holding a knife to her throat.

Mr Maresca said the wounds inflicted had reached the point where the three had to decide whether to stop, in which case they would be identified by Ms Kercher and punished for the assault, or to silence her.

“They finished her off. Why did they do it?” Manuela Comodi, the deputy prosecutor, asked, adding:

“I have often asked myself that. We live in an age of motiveless violence.”

The prosecution has claimed that Ms Knox killed her flatmate in an act of “hatred and revenge” after the two women fell out.

The defence said that Ms Knox and Ms Kercher were friends and that they had had exchanged chatty texts up to Hallowe’en, the night before the murder. It argues that DNA evidence putting Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito at the crime scene is flawed or contaminated, and has asked for full acquittals. The prosecution has asked for life sentences for both accused, with Ms Knox serving the first nine months in isolation.

In a dramatic late twist, the lawyer for Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner falsely accused by Ms Knox of being the killer, read out an extract from a “confession” written by the American while she was being questioned as a witness after the murder.

In it she admitted being at the scene of the crime and said that she had sat in the kitchen covering her ears to muffle Ms Kercher’s screams. Mr Lumumba, who was arrested but released without charge after two weeks, is suing Ms Knox for defamation.

The so-called confession, which was displayed on a giant screen used to show evidence in court, was ruled inadmissible as evidence before the murder trial by the Supreme Court on the ground that it was made without a lawyer or interpreter present.

However, Mr Lumumba’s compensation claim is being heard as an integral part of the trial, and the “confession” is considered relevant to his claim.

Mr Lumumba’s lawyer said that Ms Knox had known details of the crime “which only someone who was there could have known” and that she had accused his client in a desperate attempt to shift the blame.

In a day of final speeches Mr Sollecito appealed to the judge and jury to “save my life”.

He said: “I did not kill Meredith and I was not in that house. With every day that passes I hope the real culprit will confess. I ask you to give me back my life. I am involved in an absurd business of which I know nothing.”

Prosecutors had accused Ms Knox of killing out of hatred and revenge after she fell out with her British flatmate over hygiene, missing cash and Ms Knox’s love life. “But what was my motive?” he asked.

He denied he had been dominated by Ms Knox “like a dog on a lead . . .

If Amanda had asked me to do something I did not agree with I would have refused.

“I am not and have never been a violent person. Why would I want to commit something so horrible as murder? You are deciding my life. I am not living a nightmare any more but something far more dramatic.”

Outside the court Mr Sollecito’s father, Francesco, a professor of medicine from Bari, told The Times: “After two years there are only two certainties in this case — that Meredith is dead, and that Rudy Guede has been convicted. All the rest is hot air.”

The timetable for justice

— Italian justice is often criticised for being slow, cumbersome and inefficient. But in the Meredith Kercher murder trial it has moved relatively swiftly, with a judgment approaching two years after the crime

— According to Giuliano Mignini, the chief prosecutor, below, the two judges and six jurors are likely to announce their verdicts 12 to 18 hours after they retire this morning

— The lengthy sitting, court sources say, is not only because of the serious nature of the offences, but also because the judges and jury have to consider not just one crime but several. Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito are accused of murder, sexual assault and theft.

— The court has to consider a claim for compensation, too, by the owner of the cottage in Perugia where the murder took place - he had been unable to let the property - and a demand for damages by Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bar owner who was falsely accused by Ms Knox of being the killer.

— Under the Italian system, Mr Lumumba’s claim forms an integral part of the trial.

— There will be no adjournments. The jury must sit until it reaches their verdicts. A majority decision is enough

— If acquitted, Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito will return briefly to jail and will be freed once the prison has been formally notified of the court’s decision. Ms Knox would then be expected to return to Seattle, with Mr Sollecito going back to his home in Bari If convicted they will stay in jail pending the first of two appeals, likely to be heard next autumn