An Italian court has allowed new evidence in the trial for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, in a boost for American defendant Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Knox and Sollecito are appealing against prison sentences of 26 and 25 years respectively for their role in the killing, which prosecutors say was the result of an extreme sex game that turned violent. Twenty-one-year-old Kercher was found half-naked and with her throat slit in a flat she shared with Knox in the university city of Perugia.
In an unusual move, the Perugia court said on Saturday it would hear new witnesses and also new expert evidence concerning the knife allegedly used as the murder weapon.