Case vs. Amanda Knox called farce

Dr Sollecito makes an 11 hour round trip by car every week to visit his 27-year-old son in prison in the central Italian city of Terni.


The journey from Bari in Puglia gives him plenty of time to think about his son's future, much of which rests on the verdict expected on Monday.


Having spoken to Dr Sollecito several times before on the telephone, I was not prepared for the steely silence that greeted me when I introduced myself in a cafe near the court room in Perugia.


Accompanied by his second wife, Raffaele's stepmother, he agreed to talk later, and once court proceedings ended for the day, remained true to his word.


'Sensitive'
When asked how his son is feeling, he said: "He's scared. He feels confident, but at the same time scared... Although things seem to have been going well in this appeal, he's very frightened".


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It's been four years of no life, nothing more and nothing less”


Dr Francesco Sollecito
Dr Sollecito is a urologist by profession, and has also acted as a medical expert in some trials - so he knows how things work and has good contacts.


All of that has helped him in his quest to prove his son's innocence.


He even went to the lengths of finding the exact model of trainer that matched the shoe print found in the apartment in which Meredith Kercher was murdered to prove it was not his son's shoe.


"Among the Italian journalists covering this, there is a feeling that she will be found not guilty, which is quite an accomplishment when you realize there was this tsunami of tabloid coverage for years, calling her a she-level, promiscuous, drug-using, manipulator, (saying) she held the knife that killed Meredith Kercher, and on and on.


"That entire case is false. That entire case has crumbled around the prosecutor's ankles. So, it's looking good for Amanda."


What changed from the first trial?


"What happened this time,' says van Sant, "was the judge ordered that a scientific panel review the evidence. They discovered 54 major mistakes by the crime scene investigators, and they also -- which we reported three years ago -- they also determined that the DNA evidence wasn't DNA evidence at all. The piece of evidence that really damned Amanda was the notion that her DNA was on the handle of the knife and the victim's DNA was on the blade, but what was really on the blade was residue from - rye bread, and I kid you not.