A judge in the retrial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito has ordered a new DNA test on the knife alleged to have been used in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
The first day of the hearing took place in Florence, Italy, but neither defendant was in court, Skynews reports.
The test on the weapon was requested by prosecutors who won an appeal against the acquittal of Knox and Sollecito, who have already served four years in prison for the crime.
The judge has agreed to test one DNA trace not previously examined because it had been deemed too small.
A court-ordered review in the first appeals trial discredited DNA evidence on the kitchen knife linked to 21-year-old Kercher.
The court also agreed to hear testimony from a jailed Mafioso who has implicated his brother in the murder, but rejected most of the other defence requests for new testimony or evidence.
American student Knox, 26, repeatedly said she would not travel from Seattle for the retrial, nor is she compelled to do so by law.
Her former boyfriend Sollecito, a 29-year-old Italian IT graduate, is following proceedings from the Caribbean, where he is on holiday, said his father.
“I will be informing Raffaele of what happens on the phone after the hearing,” said Francesco Sollecito.
He added he would be attending every hearing in the appeal trial, which is expected to last until Christmas.
Sollecito’s father denied suggestions in the media that his son was dipping into a fund he had set up for contributions to his legal expenses.
Knox’s decision to not be present in court was criticised by Patrick Lumumba, the former barman who Knox initially accused of taking part in the murder of Kercher in Perugia.
“Knox is afraid – she knows she has responsibility for the death of poor Meredith,” he said in court.
As the hearing got under way, the presiding judge turned down a request from Knox’s lawyers to exclude Lumumba as a civil plaintiff from the trial.
Knox’s defence lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said there was a risk of an “infinite trial,” since the charge of murder has no statute of limitations.
Sollecito’s lawyer Giulia Bongiorno asked the court to accept only “reliable evidence,” saying the intense media attention on the case had affected the previous trials.
Bongiorno asked the court to reconsider Kercher’s mobile phone as key evidence, calling it the “black box” of the trial, which could prove her exact time of death due to two “anomalous”, incomplete calls around 10pm on the night of November 1 when she was killed.
Francesco Maresca, a lawyer representing the Kercher family, handed the judge a letter from the family, explaining their absence from the session on health grounds.
The letter also said, ‘’We desperately want to uncover the truth and find justice for Meredith, who was brutally taken away from us.
“Nothing will bring back our beautiful Meredith and we will always have her in our hearts and in our memories but we need to know what happened, she deserves, at least the dignity of the truth.”
Punch
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