Family seeks €25m for Kercher's murder

Lawyers for the family of Meredith Kercher, the English exchange student murdered in Perugia last November, demanded compensation of €25m (£19.5m) from her three alleged murderers in a court in the city yesterday.

The sum was calculated on the basis of €5m per surviving member of the family. The lawyers said they were in agreement with the prosecutor who finished his summing-up of the case on Saturday, charging that the 21-year-old Surrey student was killed in a premeditated Halloween rite postponed from Halloween night when the Italian students with whom Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher shared the upper floor of the cottage where they lived near the centre of Perugia organised a dinner.

A prominent lawyer in Rome said the €25m demand was a "sensational" figure "designed to make news". He added: "It's an absolutely unheard-of sum. Compensation demands in Italy are calculated on the basis of how much people earn and their standard of living. With all respect to the poor girl, that sum doesn't reflect her level of affluence. Even €5m would be a lot. Perhaps it's connected to the moral suffering of the family, but claims in Italy are not normally connected to that."

The civil case against the alleged killers is tied to the criminal case, and they could be liable to pay if found guilty of the murder.

Ms Kercher died from loss of blood in her bedroom in the cottage last November, after being stabbed twice in the throat. In prosecutor Giuliano Mignini's reconstruction before the Perugia judge, he claimed that she had been forced to all fours by Ms Knox, Rudy Guede and Raffaele Sollecito, then Mr Guede tried to have sex with her while grasping her by the neck, Mr Sollecito stopped her from moving, and finally Ms Knox fatally stabbed her. He claimed they were inspired by Japanese manga comics involving vampires found in Mr Sollecito's house, and by Mr Sollecito's proclaimed desire for "strong experiences."

Lawyers for the defence, who will make their own statements later in the week, claimed Mr Mignini's story was fantastic and without basis in fact. In court on Saturday, Ms Knox said that Ms Kercher was her friend and that she had no reason to kill her.

Also in the closed court session yesterday, the lawyer for Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese musician and bar manager named by Ms Knox as Ms Kercher's murderer, demanded damages for defamation from Ms Knox, claiming that her allegations had destroyed him "as a man, a husband and a father". Mr Lumumba spent weeks in jail under investigation but the evidence of a Swiss academic who was drinking in the bar Mr Lumumba ran on the night of the murder resulted in him being cleared of any involvement and released.

Mr Guede, the only one of the three accused who has admitted being in the flat at the time of the murder, is undergoing a fast-track trial while the judge is also assessing whether the evidence against the other two accused is strong enough to send them for a full trial. On Saturday, the prosecutor demanded a life sentence for Mr Guede.