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Amanda Knox in court in Perugia, Italy today. AP Photo/Stefano Medici/PA

Defence lawyer compares Amanda Knox to Jessica Rabbit

Knox is no femme fatale, according to her lawyer, “she’s just drawn that way”.

A DEFENCE LAWYER told an Italian court today that Amanda Knox, the American student convicted of killing her roommate, isn’t a manipulating, sex-obsessed “femme fatale” as her accusers charge, but is rather like Jessica Rabbit — just drawn that way.

In closing arguments before an appeals court, lawyer Giulia Bongiorno compared Knox to the cartoon character, contending that Knox had been unfairly portrayed over the course of the media-hyped, four-year case. She said the 24-year-old American is instead a loving young woman who simply displayed immaturity and naivete at the time of the 2007 slaying.

Knox was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering Meredith Kercher, a British student in Perugia, and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who was Knox’s boyfriend at the time of the crime, was convicted of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years.

They both deny wrongdoing and have appealed their 2009 convictions. A verdict in the appeals case is expected in early October.

Knox “is not bad, she’s just drawn that way”

Today, Bongiorno likened Knox to the voluptuous character in the “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” film.

“Jessica Rabbit looks like a man-eater, but she is a faithful and loving woman,” Bongiorno said. Paraphrasing a famous line from the movie, Bongiorno said Knox “is not bad, she’s just drawn that way.”

Bongiorno is Sollecito’s lawyer, but, with the fates of the two defendants intertwined, she discussed Knox’s role in the case at length.

By the media as well as in court, Knox has either been described either as a manipulative “she-devil” or as an innocent girl caught in a judicial inferno in a foreign land. Bongiorno said she was really an immature girl who had just started dating Sollecito.

“One should not mistake tenderness for sexual obsession,” Bongiorno said, adding the two liked making faces at each other.

“How do you reconcile that with the ‘Venus in Furs’ image?” — another reference Bongiorno threw in to a literary character who enslaved her lover. Bongiorno told reporters after the session that she had given a copy of the book — a 19th-century Austrian novella — to Knox, who reads avidly in prison, according to her family and supporters.

Kercher, 21, was stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox, in what prosecutors say had begun like a sexual assault.

Knox and Sollecito insist they spent the night at his house the night of the murder, watching a movie, smoking pot and having sex. The movie they said they were watching, “Amelie,” led Bongiorno in the original trial to compare Knox to the title character, an innocent girl intent on doing good.

Bongiorno also looked at DNA evidence linking her client to the crime, most notably an alleged trace on the bra clasp of the victim.

Prosecutors maintain that Sollecito’s DNA was on the clasp of Kercher’s bra as part of a mix of evidence that also included the victim’s genetic profile. They also say Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of a kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon, and Kercher’s DNA was found on the blade.

A court-ordered review of evidence, carried out by independent experts, said much of that evidence was unreliable. It highlighted the risk of contamination, especially on the clasp, which was collected from the crime scene 46 days after the murder.

The review significantly weakened the prosecution case, giving the defendants hope that they might be freed after four years behind bars. Speaking of the clasp, Bongiorno said “that piece of evidence must be considered unusable.”

Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede from Ivory Coast. Italy’s highest criminal court has upheld Guede’s conviction and his 16-year prison sentence. Guede also denies wrongdoing.

Read: Prosecutors criticise media ‘obsession’ with Amanda Knox >

Read: Lawyer: Knox is a ‘demonic, satanic, diabolical she-devil’ >

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    Mute Crocodylus Pontifex
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    Mar 1st 2022, 3:31 PM

    Come on students of UCD, don’t tell us you have forgotten what a full scale student protest is

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    Mute Jonathan O'Riordan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 3:37 PM

    @Crocodylus Pontifex: normally you can’t prevent them marching- not one to the Chinese embassy in last two years Spend some time with us at Orwell Road too

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    Mute Jonathan O'Riordan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 3:36 PM

    Good man Ben- proud of you.

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    Mute Bopper Bops Holland
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    Mar 1st 2022, 3:55 PM

    @Jonathan O’Riordan: he resigned from one position

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    Mute Bopper Bops Holland
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    Mar 1st 2022, 3:57 PM

    @Bopper Bops Holland: and a part time one at that

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    Mute Jonathan O'Riordan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 5:23 PM

    @Bopper Bops Holland: so he is still making a point, more than most

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    Mute Alan Leahy
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    Mar 1st 2022, 4:04 PM

    Does his resignation come with a pay cut or is it the same pay package, now with less responsibility?

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    Mute Tony Harris
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    Mar 1st 2022, 4:36 PM

    @Alan Leahy: Might it be a mealy mouthed resignation?

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    Mute diarmuid
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    Mar 1st 2022, 5:45 PM

    You might mention that he’s a director of the Irish Defence and Security Association, a lobby group for the arms industry in Ireland.

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    Mute Jonathan O'Riordan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 8:30 PM

    @diarmuid: don’t see the relevance, but glad to hear that Ireland is making €38m off software and technology as an industry. If not us then it would be someone else

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    Mute Fergus Quinlan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 5:56 PM

    The western media have won the day….war has come in one door as truth and reason fled out the other..NATO…who have worked hard for this moment …wine and dine with the arms salesmen…

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    Mute Jim Monaghan
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    Mar 1st 2022, 4:55 PM

    Russia treats Ukraine in the same way the USA treats Cuba. It is the equivalent of Ireland to Russia. The invasion has to be opposed. Putin’s war of aggression has damaged us all. Aside for economic consequences, it could lead to a world war.

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    Mute Roger Bond
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    Mar 1st 2022, 6:35 PM

    @Jim Monaghan: Do you remember the Cuba crisis where America threatened Nuclear war if Russia didn’t get out of Cuba.
    Russia now doesn’t want NATO, US with bases in Ukraine.

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    Mute Disco Inferno
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    Mar 1st 2022, 6:39 PM

    @Roger Bond: that’s because the USSR had placed and threatened to place, nuclear arms facilities on thr Island of cuba, so its not the same, not by a long shot

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    Mute Ivan Connolly
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    Mar 1st 2022, 8:45 PM

    @Disco Inferno: the USSR was placing nuclear weapons in Cuba because the US had placed them in Turkey. So it was tit for tat only the US weren’t going to have any tat and instead threatened all out war. Russia’s anxiety regarding Ukraines potential membership of NATO is that the US will place missile systems, which they have already placed in other NATO countries, which are capable of neutralising Russia’s nuclear deterrent and therefore unbalancing the MAD status quo. Their reasoning is sound but their actions are appalling. But the world has a history of powerful countries acting appallingly simply because they can. There are other countries with whom we are closely aligned who have acted in the exact same manner but do not receive our condemnation. The wests hypocrisy is also appalling

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    Mute Colm O'Leary
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    Mar 2nd 2022, 6:44 AM

    @Roger Bond: do you? Remember the Cuban missile crisis or is it something you’ve just read about in your schoolbooks so you “know” about it! History is different if you’ve lived through it to what shows up in books 40 or 50 years later when the hindsight is 20/20 and everyone has died….

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    Mute Gerard Collins
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    Mar 1st 2022, 4:59 PM

    Delores Cahill!?

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