'We still want justice for Meredith', says Kercher's mother
The mother of Meredith Kercher today said she still wanted "justice for my daughter" as a legal bid for freedom by two people convicted of killing her neared a conclusion.
Arline Kercher spoke out as Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's appeal against their convictions reached its final stages in Italy.
Meredith, 21, of Coulsdon, Surrey, was found semi-naked with her throat cut in the house in Perugia which she shared with American student Knox, 24. Knox is serving 26 years for the murder and Sollecito 25 years.
Their appeal has heard that a report by two forensic science experts criticised the police investigation which led to their 2009 convictions.
Today prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola began his summing up by asking the jury to decide the verdict as if they were "the parents of Meredith, a serious and discreet girl who was stopped from living by Amanda and Raffaele".
He said there had been an "obsessive media campaign that had instead made people feel as if they were the parents of Amanda and Raffaele, two kids from good families kept in jail by the stubbornness of the prosecution".
Turning to the damning report, he said it was a "falsification of the reality of science" to dismiss the amount of Meredith's DNA on the blade of the knife and on a bra clasp.
Fellow prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told the appeal: "I still carry in my memory Meredith's open eyes. I will carry that inside me forever."
He added that much of what had been reported was "fiction", telling the jury: "You must forget all this media attention - much of it has taken a position against the prosecution. Shamefully the victim has been forgotten because of the media's attention on the two accused."
He showed pictures of Meredith, telling the jury: "Look at the wounds caused by the knife." Earlier in a statement to Italian TV, Mrs Kercher said she would accept the verdict, adding: "In these four years we have never stopped thinking about her [Meredith].
It's as if she was here with me still. I'm not bothered about the names of who was convicted, Rudy, Amanda, Raffaele. What counts for me is that my daughter was murdered by someone who in the first trial was found guilty and sentenced."
Meredith's sister Stephanie said: "There are no photos of Meredith in the papers or on the TV, it's all on Amanda and Raffaele, the focus has shifted on them." There is a expectation that Knox and Sollecito, 27, will be cleared of the 2007 murder in a verdict next month.
