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ITALIAN prosecutors have summed up their case against American exchange student Amanda Knox in the 2007 murder of her British housemate citing "irrefutable" scientific evidence.

DNA and other forensic evidence linking 22-year-old Knox to the gruesome crime in the central Italian university town of Perugia is "irrefutable and well corroborated," said deputy prosecutor Manuela Comodi.

As the trial of Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend at the time, was drawing to a close, Mr Comodi and lead prosecutor Giuliani Mignini were expected to demand life sentences for the pair for the killing of Briton Meredith Kercher.

They are accused of engaging in a sexual misadventure also involving an Ivorian immigrant, Rudy Guede, who has already been convicted separately in the case in a so-called "fast-track" trial. He is appealing his conviction and 30-year prison sentence.

Mr Mignini's summing up on Friday pushed Knox to tears as he depicted the native of Seattle, Washington, as the driving force in the murder.

Knox "harboured hatred" for Kercher, and led Sollecito, now 25, and in a drug-fuelled sexual assault against her that became "an unstoppable crescendo of violence," Mr Mignini alleged.

In Mr Mignini's reconstruction of the murder on the night of November 1, 2007, Knox dealt the first blow, pushing Kercher's head against the wall, then trying to strangle her and strike her with a knife.

Mr Mignini asserted that Guede held Kercher down while Sollecito and Knox inflicted fatal wounds to her neck.

Police found the 21-year-old from Coulsdon, south of London, the following day, semi-nude in a pool of blood with her throat cut in the house in Perugia, a medieval walled city in central Italy, that she shared with Knox.

The gruesome murder sparked sensational headlines in Britain, fed by rampant rumours as well as repeated leaks to an eager press corps during the investigation, eclipsing the hard facts that incriminated Knox, Mr Mignini said.

"Detectives seeking fame, bloggers and mystery writers conducted a sort of parallel trial" in the media, he said.

"But the trial is being carried out in this courtroom alone," he added.

Knox and Sollecito, who both proclaim their innocence, have been held since a few days after the murder.

Central to the prosecutors' case is the supposed murder weapon, a knife found in Sollecito's apartment allegedly bearing Knox's DNA on the handle and the victim's DNA on the blade.

Mr Mignini says that the couple also made a botch of faking a burglary attempt by breaking a window in the cottage the two exchange students shared with two Italian women.

Kercher's family are seeking €30 million ($40 million) from the alleged killers.

Knox's part-time employer at the time of the murder, bar owner and musician Patrick Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is suing Knox for defamation.

She initially implicated Lumumba in the murder, and Perugia police held him for two weeks before releasing him without charge.

Two judges and six jurors will decide the fate of Knox and Sollecito, who could face life in prison if convicted.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating on December 4, with a verdict expected the following day in the trial that began January 16.

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concept		evidence	hits	links
	$drugwar_propaganda 85% [news] [concept]	$propaganda_theme1 $propaganda_theme2 $propaganda_theme3 $propaganda_theme5		Classic Modern Drug Propaganda Themes in Chemical Prohibition Drug War Propaganda (book)
	$propaganda_theme1 85% [news] [concept]	"immigrant" "drug addicts" "addicts"	5	Hated Groups (propaganda theme 1) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/druguse.htm http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm http://www.narcoterror.org/
	$propaganda_theme2 50% [news] [concept]	"violence" "murder" "killers" "crime"	12	Madness,Crime,Violence,Illness (propaganda theme 2) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/crime.htm http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm Distortion 18: Cannabis and Mental Illness
	$propaganda_theme3 50% [news] [concept]	"American"	1	Survival of Society (propaganda theme 3)
	$propaganda_theme5 70% [news] [concept]	"baby" "teen"	3	Children Corrupted (propaganda theme 5) http://www.drugwarfacts.org/adolesce.htm
	$drugs 90% [news] [concept]	$various_drugs
	$various_drugs 90% [news] [concept]	"drug-fuelled" "drug"	3
	$youth 70% [news] [concept]	$propaganda_theme5		http://www.ssdp.org/ http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm
	$school [news] [concept]	"university"	1	http://www.ssdp.org/

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