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Amanda Knox Released From Italian Prison Due to Poor DNA Handling and Analysis
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Tuesday, October 04, 2011
The poor handling of DNA evidence played a major role in the appeal of American student Amanda Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, and led to her release from a prison in Perugia, Italy after spending 4 years in prison.
An Italian appellate court judge ruled that the prosecutors used substandard methods and contaminated the evidence. Prosecutors had alleged that evidence of Knox's blood was found on a knife used to kill her roommate, 21-year-old British college student Meredith Kercher. But the microscopic amounts of DNA found on the knife, as well as on a bra clasp, were thrown into doubt after a report from independent experts criticized the Perugia police's handling and analysis of the materials The two experts said below standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the attribution of DNA traces, both on the blade and on the bra clasp, which was collected from the crime scene 46 days after the murder.
Read the article here.
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