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Amanda Knox 'did the splits, a handstand, then burst into tears after she was arrested'
Nick Pisa in Perugia and Kiran Randhawa27.02.09
AMANDA Knox "did the splits and a cartwheel before bursting into tears after being questioned," an Italian policeman said today.
The 21-year-old's bizarre behaviour came in a police station on the night she was arrested over the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, a court in Perugia was told.
Giacinto Profazio, the first of a dozen police and forensic officers to give evidence against American Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, also on trial, said the pair were questioned all night.
"I heard that on the night Knox and Sollecito were arrested she was in a room at the police station sitting on his knee," he said.
"I was also told that she did the splits and a cartwheel in one of the rooms at the station. Then later, after being questioned all night, she burst into tears."
Both are accused of the murder and sexual assault of Miss Kercher, 21, who was found semi naked and with her throat slit in her bedroom in the house she shared with Knox on 2 November 2007.
Miss Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was on an exchange programme from Leeds University and had been in Italy eight weeks when she was murdered. The prosecution claims she was killed after she refused to take part in a drug-fuelled sex orgy and her death was made to look like a break-in.
Dressed in tight denim jeans and a purple top, Knox appeared more sombre than usual today. In earlier hearings she flashed a wide smile at the judge, her father and her legal team every time she was led into court.
At the last hearing, on Valentine's Day, she shocked the court by arriving in an oversized white T-shirt with the slogan "All You Need is Love" across it.
Mr Profazio, a former head of the flying squad in Perugia who now leads the Narcotics Division in Rome, told the court how he thought the house could have been broken into.
"A window was pointed out to me which was broken and which was said to have been the point of entry but I thought it was strange as it would have needed a superhuman effort to climb up to it," he said.
"I noticed that there was a much easier way into the house at the back, via a terrace. There was a chair and table on the terrace and it would have been a lot easier to get in this way."
He also told the court Knox and Sollecito's mobile phones were switched off "practically at the same time" between 8pm and 8.30pm on the night of the murder, and said a 30cm kitchen knife was discovered after a search of Sollecito's house.
"When the results came back they said that there was DNA from Meredith on the blade, while on the lower part towards the handle there was DNA from Knox," he said.
The court heard this month from seven of Miss Kercher's British friends, who described Knox's behaviour after the murder as "cold and unemotional".
But before the hearing started Knox's father, Curt, said: "The fact that we are going to hear from 12 police and forensic officers leads me to believe that there is weakness in what they have to say." Knox and Sollecito deny the charges and their defence teams say the DNA evidence against them is contaminated and flawed. The trial continues.s
