Knox's ex-boyfriend addresses court

PERUGIA, Italy — An Italian student accused of sexual violence and murder in the death of a British student told a court Friday that he was innocent and the victim of a terrible judicial mistake.

Raffaele Sollecito addressed the court in Perugia, central Italy, shortly before the first witnesses testified about finding Meredith Kercher's bloodied body in her locked bedroom.

Sollecito is on trial along with Amanda Knox, a University of Washington student from Seattle who is his former girlfriend. They are charged with murder and sexual violence in Kercher's slaying. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Kercher was found stabbed to death Nov. 2, 2007, in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia where they were both exchange students.

"It all seems unreal; I've got nothing to do with it," Sollecito told the court. "I'm not a violent person, and the thought of hurting somebody has never crossed my mind."

Sollecito said he hardly knew Kercher and that he had only just started dating Knox.

"I feel I am the victim of a judicial mistake," he said.

In the first testimony of the trial, chief postal-police inspector Michele Battistelli told the court he'd been sent to the apartment where Kercher and Knox lived after receiving a report that Kercher's cellphone had been found nearby.

Friends who gathered at the apartment told police that it was suspicious that Kercher would part from the phone and that her bedroom door was locked, since she only locked it when she left for trips back home, Battistelli testified.

After the door was broken down, "There was quite a lot of blood," he said. "I saw (Kercher's) foot sticking out from the duvet, and given the color and the fact that she didn't move, I thought I'd call the emergency-sanitary service."

Battistelli said he didn't actually enter the room since, as a postal-police inspector, he didn't have any right to intervene. However, other witnesses testified Friday that he did enter the room and possibly touched the duvet.

The defense has argued that the crime scene was contaminated during the investigation. As a result of the conflicting testimony, the judge ordered the witnesses to take the stand again Saturday.

Battistelli also said that Knox and Sollecito, whom he met at the crime scene, appeared "surprised, but calm."

Sollecito responded, saying he had remained close to Knox because she was "very shocked and cold."

Knox was in court as was her father, Curt Knox. The two exchanged a few words from a distance during the breaks and hugged tightly at the end of the hearing. Knox was nearly in tears when she was taken out of the courtroom.

"She seems fine," Knox told The Associated Press. But shortly afterward, with tears in his eyes, he said, "It's obviously a very stressful time for her.

"I told her to stay strong. I want her exonerated from everything," he said.

Francesco Maresca, who represents Kercher's family, said he was satisfied with the outcome of Friday's hearing.

On Saturday, Kercher and Knox's roommate Filomena Romanelli, and Giacomo Silenzi, an Italian man who used to date Kercher, are to take the stand.

A third defendant in the case, Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede, was convicted last year of the same charges and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Guede, who had also denied wrongdoing, underwent a fast-track trial at his request.