An Italian prosecutor asked an appeals court in Perugia Saturday to increase American Amanda Knox's sentence for killing her housemate to life imprisonment.
Prosecutor Giancarlo Costagliola also urged that Knox, 24, be given six months of solitary confinement, ABC News reported. Costagliola said Knox's former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito should be sentenced to life with two months in solitary.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years and Sollecito to 25. They were found guilty of killing Meredith Kercher, a British student spending a year in Perugia, during a drug-fueled sex game while the two women were sharing a house in 2007.
Defense lawyers are to present their closing arguments next week, followed by a rebuttal.
Prosecutors also tried to discredit two court-appointed forensic experts who reviewed DNA evidence and found it wanting. Prosecutor Manuela Comodi said they are professors of forensic evidence rather than practicing investigators, The Guardian reported.
"Would you entrust the wedding reception of your only daughter to
someone who knew all the recipes by heart but had never actually
cooked?" Comodi said.
Experts also doubted evidence found on a knife prosecutors say is the murder weapon.
Comodi said the entire review was "embarrassing, inappropriate, and presented in a hostile way."
Also during closing arguments, prosecutors likened Knox to Nazis, saying the media coverage surrounding the woman reflects Nazi propaganda, CBS reported.
"She's been experiencing a negative character assassination for more than two years, especially at the very beginning of this whole case. It's very interesting to have the prosecution now consider the media and this whole situation turn on them, and all of the sudden it's a Nazi situation," said Knox's father Curt.
Curt Knox said he expects his daughter to address the court before the appeal goes to the jury.
"She has been thinking about that for probably upwards of three months now and going over different things," Curt Knox said. "It's something that is going to be very personal to her because she's literally on trial for her life as well. So, I mean, it's going to be very heartfelt and it's probably going to be very tough as parents to listen to as well."
Source: UPI