Knox's plea for release rejected

PERUGIA, Italy -- University of Washington student Amanda Marie Knox tearfully proclaimed herself innocent of her roommate's slaying in a court appearance Friday, but the emotional plea failed to sway a panel of judges.

The three judges rejected appeals for the release of Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, upholding an earlier ruling that the suspects can be jailed for up to a year while the murder investigation continues.

Knox, 20, and Raffaele Sollecito, 23, arrived at the hearing about 9:30 a.m. in separate police vans, blue lights flashing.

They were ushered separately into the Perugia courthouse through a back door while a third police van with an apparent decoy -- a suspect in an unrelated case -- pulled up in front, greeted by dozens of journalists and camera crews.

Knox appeared before the judges in pants and a light-colored jacket, her hair swept away from her face in a neat French braid. Flanked by her lawyer, Luciano Ghirga, and an interpreter, she spoke in English.

"Amanda made a brief statement proclaiming her innocence," Ghirga said afterward. He described her emotional state as "a bit tense."

"We are happy and hopeful because we were able to argue the case that the evidence against Amanda is not grave, and therefore ask the judges to free her."

Knox, Sollecito, and Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, are suspected in the slaying of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old exchange student from Leeds University in England. She was sexually assaulted and left to die in the apartment she shared with Knox after her throat was cut, police say.

All three suspects deny wrongdoing. They have not been formally charged with a crime.

Chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini argued Friday that Knox and Sollecito are serious flight risks and face "grave indications of guilt."

In his 35-page written statement to the court, Mignini cited key pieces of forensic evidence found at Knox's cottage and Sollecito's apartment.

Knox initially said she wasn't in her home when Kercher was killed, but instead went back the next morning to find the door ajar.

But prosecutors say a drop of Knox's blood, found in the bathroom, places her at the scene of the crime.

At one point, Knox reportedly changed her story and told prosecutors that she was in the apartment during the attack and had to cover her ears to drown out Kercher's screams in another room.

Investigators said they found an 8-inch kitchen knife in Sollecito's home with traces of Kercher's DNA near its tip and Knox's DNA near the handle.

A well-known forensic expert, Carlo Torre, a professor of legal medicine at the University of Turin, is collaborating with Knox's defense lawyers, according to sources close to the case.