Knox, 21, took the stand for the first time on Friday, after being arrested in November 2007 shortly after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, 21, in Perugia, Italy. Speaking in English and fluent Italian, Knox said that on the night of the murder she was at her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's house and that the two smoked marijuana, watched Amélie, had sex and fell asleep, reports the New York Times. When she returned the next morning, she says the door to her apartment was open and Kercher's door was locked, and eventually she decided to call the police. Four days later she and Sollecito were arrested on charges of murdering Kercher in a sex game gone awry and tampering with the crime scene to make it look like a robbery.

Knox testified that during her interrogation, police said the "wanted a name" and pressured her to accuse her boss at the bar where she worked, Patrick Lumumba, of the crime. According to MSNBC, Knox said a policewoman hit her twice in the head:

"Do you remember? Do you remember? And then boom! On the head," Knox said, mimicking the slap in court. "I went: mamma mia! And then again, another boom!" ... "It didn't hurt, but it frightened me," she said of the slaps.

After hours of questioning and what she described as "a steady crescendo... of 'I don't know,' 'you're a stupid liar', 'maybes', and 'imagines' that..." she gave written testimony saying she was in the kitchen blocking out Kercher's screams while Lumumba committed the murder. Knox says she wrote the statements in an attempt to focus her thoughts after police spent hours trying to put ideas in her head. "I wasn't sure what was my imagination and what was reality," she said.

Knox explained:

When I said "Patrick" I actually started to imagine a kind of movie, images that could have explained the situation, Patrick's face, then [Perugia's] Grimana square, then my house on the night of the murder.

Lumumba has been cleared by prosecutors and is suing Knox for defamation.

Prosecutors asked Knox why she told her mother that she felt bad about sending Lumumba to prison in a bugged phone call from prison, but failed to tell police he was innocent. She said she didn't trust the police anymore because in her first few weeks in jail she was tested for HIV and told she had AIDS, before another test two weeks later proved she was negative, reports The Independent.

Knox also told her mother she was concerned that police found her kitchen knife at Sollecito's house. Forensic experts testified that it has Kercher's DNA on the tip and Knox's on the handle, but she said she wasn't upset because she knew it was the murder weapon. "I was worried because for me it was impossible. I didn't know how it could be there," she said. Attorney Anne Bremner, spokeswoman for Friends of Amanda, told Time that video from the crime scene proves police collected evidence incorrectly, and that the kitchen knife actually, "doesn't match an outline of the knife on the bed."

During cross examination on Saturday, Knox was asked by prosecutors to reveal details about her personal hygiene, sex life and drug use. She told them that she slept with Sollecito the first time she met him, and she was questioned about a $279 municipal citation she received for a party she and her friends held at the University of Washington, asking if the party involved "alcohol, drugs, people throwing rocks" and "naked people inside." Knox said the citation was just a noise violation.

She also denied that she was friends with Rudy Guede, the 22-year-old Ivory Coast native who has already been jailed for 30 years for murdering and sexually assaulting Kercher, the BBC reports. On Friday Guede told the press from prison, "You know you were there, Amanda, tell the truth."

In a sad concidence, Knox's testimony this weekend coincided with what would have been her college graduation. Knox's family and friends will testify for the defense next, with her mother, Edda Mellas, taking the stand on Friday.

In the video below from the Today show this morning, Curt Knox says he thinks his daughter stood up well to aggressive questioning from prosecutors.

American Testifies In Her Murder Trial In Italy [The New York Times]
Amanda Knox: Slain Woman Was a Friend [MSNBC]
Knox In The Witness Box: 'I Did Not Kill Meredith' [The Independent]
How Strong Is The Evidence Against Amanda Knox? [Time]
Lawyer Challenges Knox Testimony [BBC]

As you'll recall, Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, are accused of murdering and sexually assaulting British student Meredith Kercher, who was found semi-naked with her throat cut in her bedroom in the house she shared with Knox in November 2007. Rudy Guede, 21, from the Ivory Coast, was already convicted of Kercher's murder and rape and sentenced to 30 years in prison in October. Prosecutors say that Sollecito and Knox held Kercher down while Guede raped her in a sex game gone wrong.

While Sollectito and Knox are both standing trial, not surprisingly, the Italian media frenzy has focused on Knox. "Foxy Knoxy" was the highest ranked woman in an Italian "personality of the year" poll in December, and the BBC reports that the Italian media has treated her as a "Lady Macbeth figure." Yesterday, much of the court proceedings dealt with how to handle the case considering the intense public interest. Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for Kercher's family sought to have the proceedings closed to the public and media, "to protect the memory and dignity of the victim and the Kercher family have lost a child." Prosecutors were not opposed to a closed trial, but the defendants wanted the case public. "We are going to demonstrate that there is no evidence against Raffaele Sollecito," said his lawyer, according to The Sun. The judge ruled that the trial will remain open, and more than 150 press passes have been issued for the court.

Earlier this week, the Kercher family appealed to the court to have a book about the case impounded, according to The Guardian. The book is based mainly on Knox's diaries, which were confiscated by the police, and reveals details about the students drinking and partying lifestyle. The publishers refused to stop distribution of the book, saying in is already in circulation. The author says that the book doesn't influence the trial because the diaries are part of evidence that will be submitted in court.

Knox and Sollecito have already been in jail for 14 months, and the trial could drag on for as long as a year, since in Italy only one to two hearings are held per week. Six members of the jury, three men and three women, were sworn in today and 250 witnesses are lined up to testify. Italy does not have the death penalty, so if convicted, the pair would face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Foxy Knoxy Appears In Court [The Sun]
Italy Focuses On 'Foxy Knoxy' As Trial Opens [BBC]
Meredith Kercher Murder Trial To Be Held In Public, Judge Rules [The Guardian]

If you'll recall, Guede had the most damning evidence against him, as his bloody handprint was found beneath Kercher's dead body. If Guede has been convicted, why are Knox and Sollecito still being brought up on charges?

According to Time, "Knox's sexual history has been widely reported, with prosecutors linking her past to their allegation that the victim was forced into an orgy. (Even last week, Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera reported that Knox had to fend off lesbian advances of a fellow prisoner.)" In addition, prosecutors believe that Knox and Sollecito held Kercher down while Guede attempted to rape her. Besides Knox's "slutty" past and some circumstantial evidence (like Knox's DNA found on the knife that killed Kercher — a kitchen knife from their shared apartment that Knox would have used for cooking), there is no clear reason why prosecutors have stumbled on this particular series of events as the explanation for Kercher's death.

Meredith Kercher's poor family is mildly heartened by Guede's conviction. "It's important to remember that at the end of day we're here because our sister Meredith was murdered. 'Pleased' is not the appropriate word, 'satisfied' is the best we can say," Meredith's brother Lyle told reporters.

When Amanda Knox heard she would be standing trial for Kercher's murder, she burst into tears. For now, her lawyers are trying to get Knox out of the Italian prison where she's been held for the past year and into a hostel run by a Catholic charity. If she's found innocent, as at this point is truly seems she is, I hope Knox gets a boatload of money to write a memoir about this surreal and awful period of her life.

'Foxy' Amanda Knox to Stand Trial in Italy Murder [Time]
The Accused [Radar]
Meredith Kercher's Family 'Satisfied' After Drifter Rudy Guede Is Jailed For 30 years [Telegraph]

Earlier: Murder Suspect Amanda Knox Accused Of Satanic Orgy Plot

Lawyers for Knox's side say that this is a mere "presumed scenario" with no real evidence to back it up. Many media reports, including a thorough Radar feature, note that prosecutor Mignini has had it out for Amanda Knox since the murder occurred.

As discussed last week, Radar's Sarah Horne reported that, "Lisa Pasko, a criminology professor at the University of Denver who specializes in young women who commit violent crimes, has been following the case and does not believe that Knox participated in Kercher's murder…She likens Mignini's behavior to that of the very vocal prosecutor in the Duke rape case, former Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong, who improperly leaked information to the media in order to beef up his case against the accused lacrosse players."

Amanda herself took the stand during a closed-door hearing today in Perugia, and proclaimed her innocence. An obviously emotional Knox told the court "Meredith was my friend… I had no reason to kill her." As for the other two men allegedly involved, Rudy Hermann Guede has requested a "fast-track" trial and has admitted to being in the room when Kercher died. Though Knox and Sollecito have no prior records, the Radar article pointed out that Guede is a "petty criminal who had a history of home invasions with a knife," and according to the Guardian, a pillow with Guede's bloody hand print was found beneath Kercher's body. The case against Sollecito seems to be based mostly on the fact that he liked violent Japanese Manga comics that depicted murder scenarios.

Kercher's parents are lodging a claim for financial compensation in the aftermath of Meredith's death, and according to the Daily Mail, their lawyers will argue that "'this was a particularly violent crime and that all three [Knox, Sollecito and Guede] were present and responsible for her death."

U.S. Student Accused Of "Satanic" Slaying [AP via CBS News]
The Accused [Radar]
Knox Accused Of Stabbing Meredith [Guardian]
Meredith's Parents Lodge Claim For Murder Damages After Court Is Told She Was Attacked For Refusing To Take part In Drug-Fuelled Orgy [Daily Mail]

Earlier: True Crime