DNA EVIDENCE CONTESTED IN KNOX APPEAL

ROME -- Amanda Knox won a crucial legal victory Wednesday [June 29] as an independent forensic report said that much of the DNA evidence used to convict the American student and her co-defendant in the murder of her roommate is unreliable and possibly contaminated.

The review's findings that DNA testing used in the first trial was below international standards will undoubtedly boost Knox's chances of overturning her murder conviction.

Knox was convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering [Meredith] Kercher -- a Briton with whom she shared an apartment while both were exchange students in Perugia -- and sentenced to 26 years in prison. Her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years.


--From wire reports; The St. Augustine Record, June 30, 2011, p. 5A.