American student accused of killing British flatmate in Italy says police forced her to implicate innocent man in fatal stabbing

This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

Amanda Knox, the American exchange student accused of killing her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher, told a court in Italy today that police pressurised her into implicating an innocent man in the crime.

Giving testimony for the first time at the murder trial in Perugia, Knox explained why she had told police that Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese owner of a bar where Knox worked, was involved in the death of Kercher in November 2007.

"Everything [I] said was said in confusion and under pressure," Knox, 21, said today.

"They [the interrogating officers] were suggesting Patrick Lumumba so the first thing I said was, 'OK, Patrick'."

Before she named Lumumba, who was cleared after being detained for two weeks, the officers accused her of trying to protect someone, Knox said, adding: "When I denied that, they called me a stupid liar."

Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey, who was studying at Perugia University for Foreigners, was found in a pool of blood in a bedroom of the shared house.

Prosecutors allege she was killed during what began as a sex game, with Knox touching her with the point of a knife while her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, 25, Knox's Italian ex-boyfriend, held her by the shoulders.

Prosecutors have alleged that a third person, an Ivory Coast national, Rudy Hermann Guede, tried to sexually assault Kercher and then Knox fatally stabbed her in the throat. Guede was convicted of the murder in a separate trial last year and sentenced to 30 years' jail.

Knox initially said she was at home and covered her ears as Lumumba killed Kercher, a version of events she later retracted.

Asked by Lumumba's lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, why she had implicated his client, Knox spoke falteringly as she alleged police coercion.

"They told me try to remember what I apparently, according to them, had forgotten," she said, describing the "pressure of everyone yelling at me and having them tell me they were going to put me in prison for protecting someone that I wasn't protecting".

She said: "I couldn't understand why they were so sure that I was the one who knew everything and so in my confusion I started to imagine that maybe I was traumatised, like what they said. The declarations were taken against my will."

Prosecutors claim Knox's DNA was found on the handle of the likely murder weapon – a kitchen knife found in Sollecito's house – and that traces of Kercher's DNA were on the blade.

Knox said she had spent the night before Kercher's body was found at Sollecito's flat after Lumumba texted her and told her she was not needed for work that evening. She was shocked when she realised police suspected her, she added.

"Arriving in the police office I didn't expect to be interrogated at all," she said. "When I got there I was sitting on my own doing my homework when a couple of police officers came and sat with me.

"They began to ask me the same questions they'd been asking me all those days ever since it happened.

"For instance, who could I imagine could be the person who had killed Meredith, and I said I still didn't know."

Knox and Sollecito, who have been remanded in custody since shortly after the killing, have given conflicting statements over their whereabouts on the night of the murder.

Sollecito has said he was at his flat in Perugia, working at his computer. He said he does not remember if Knox spent the whole night with him or just part of it.

The two face life imprisonment if convicted of murder. The trial began in January and a verdict is expected after a summer break.

Guede was given a fast-track trial at his request. His appeal against the conviction is due to start in November.