Meredith Kercher: Sister Talks Of 'Terror'

The sister of murdered British student Meredith Kercher has spoken of the "fear and terror" she must have felt on the night she died.

Stephanie Kercher made the comments in a documentary about Amanda Knox, who was reconvicted of killing the 21-year-old in the Italian town of Perugia last month following a second trial.

Only one person - Rudy Hermann Guede - is currently in jail for her murder after Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, successfully appealed against their original guilty verdicts.

Knox returned home to the US and has so far refused to go back to Italy to serve her jail term, saying she will only be extradited "kicking and screaming".

The documentary, Is Amanda Knox Guilty?, hears from lawyers and experts from both the defence and the prosecution teams.

It also contains the audio of Knox's prison interrogation after her arrest, when she was asked why she told police that her manager from the bar where she worked had committed the crime.

Ms Kercher told the programme she feels her sister "has been forgotten" in the media storm surrounding Knox.

She said: "Mez has been forgotten in all of this. The media photos aren't really of her.

"There's not a lot about what actually happened in the beginning. So it is very difficult to keep her memory alive in all of this.

"Everything that Meredith must have felt that night. Everything she went through.

"The fear and the terror and not knowing why. She didn't deserve that. No one deserves that."

Speaking of the last time she saw Meredith alive as she prepared to study in Italy, Ms Kercher added: "She was excited about coming to Italy, looking forward to learning about Italian culture.

"She really fought to be here. She wanted to be here.

"We were just talking on the sofa and having a little cuddle of goodbye and I just remember her suddenly crying and saying that she was going to be sad to go...

"I remember being quite taken aback and I thought 'don't make me sad, I'll miss you but you'll go and have fun'."

Meredith's brother Lyle told the programme: "Anybody losing anyone close is hard, losing someone so young and the way we did is obviously 100 times worse, and on top of that to have all the media attention that has gone for so long makes it very difficult to cope with."

Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found with her throat slashed in her bedroom at the house she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007.

In January Knox, who did not attend her second trial, was sentenced to 28 years and six months while Sollecito was jailed for 25 years.

The pair were originally found guilty of murder in 2009, and were handed jail terms totalling more than 50 years before being cleared two years later.

Guede is serving a 16-year sentence.

Is Amanda Knox Guilty? airs at 9pm on Monday on BBC Three.

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