Amanda Knox trial continues

Published 10:15 am Friday, March 20, 2009

PERUGIA, Italy — The cell phones of two defendants in the murder of a British student killed in Italy remained inactive the night of the murder, witnesses testified today.

Investigators say having their cell phones turned off made their whereabouts untraceable. Defense lawyers contend that the cell phone data were inconclusive.

The session in the trial over the November 2007 stabbing death of Meredith Kercher was largely devoted to analyzing evidence recovered by police and telecoms experts from the cell phones of both the victim and the defendants.

The victim’s roommate, former University of Washington student Amanda Knox, and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are on trial for the murder. The two, in jail in Italy since shortly after the murder, deny wrongdoing.

Police inspector Letterio Latella, who analyzed the data, said Knox’s and Sollecito’s cell phones showed no activity on the night of the crime. His testimony confirmed previous witness accounts and provided details of the cell phones’ traffic.

In lengthy testimony supported by PowerPoint slides, Latella said Sollecito’s cell phone remained inactive between 8:42 p.m. Nov. 1 and 6:02 a.m. Nov. 2, when he received a text message from his father.

Latella suggested that the cell phone had been turned off because the text message had been sent the night before. He said there were no reported glitches in the network that night, and other cell phones active in the area appeared to function properly.

Knox’s cell phone was inactive between 8:35 p.m. Nov. 1 and 12:07 p.m. Nov. 2, according to Latella, who studied documents provided by the phone operators. At 12:07 p.m., Knox’s called Kercher’s British number.

Kercher, who was stabbed in the neck and lying in a pool of blood, was found in the apartment she shared with the American in the late morning of Nov. 2. Her two cell phones were discovered in a neighbor’s garden.

Based on the autopsy and accounts by Kercher’s friends of when she ate dinner with them that night, the 21-year-old woman is believed to have died between 9 and 11 p.m. Nov. 1, according to court documents.

Prosecutors allege that Kercher was stabbed to death during what began as a sex game. They already won the conviction of a third person implicated in the case, Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast. The man, who also denied wrongdoing, was sentenced to 30 years in prison at a separate trial last year.

Sollecito, 24, has maintained he was at his own apartment the night of the murder. He said he was working at his computer, though one witness testified recently that there was no sign of Sollecito using his computer during the hours Kercher was killed.

Knox, 21, has given conflicting accounts. Eventually, she said she wasn’t home.

Phone records showed she exchanged text messages with the Congolese owner of a pub where she used to work part-time, Latella and other witnesses said.

The messages Knox sent at 8:35 p.m. to the man, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, said: “Sure. See you later. Have a good night!” said Simone Tacconi of the telecommunications branch of Rome police. The message was written in Italian.

Lumumba was detained for two weeks in November 2007 after he was implicated by Knox. He has since been cleared and is seeking defamation damages from Knox.

On Thursday, police reported that intruders had broken into the house of the murder, the second time in a month.

The intrusion was noticed during a routine inspection Thursday, when police realized that a window had been broken.

In February, intruders ransacked the house in Perugia and left four kitchen knives and some candles in various rooms. This time the intruders didn’t leave anything behind but moved things around, according to local reports.

Lawyers and court officials turned down a police request to putting metal bars on some windows in the house, which is still under police wraps.