Lawyer for ex-suspect: Knox a 'she-devil'

PERUGIA, Italy, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Amanda Knox, the U.S. student on trial for murder in Italy, destroyed the life of a former suspect, his lawyer said Friday, calling her a "she-devil."

Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are on trial in Perugia. They allegedly killed Meredith Kerchner, a student from a London suburb who was sharing a house with Knox in the Italian hill town.

Carlo Pacelli addressed the court Friday on behalf of Patrick Lumumba, an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo who owned a bar in Perugia, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported. Pacelli called Knox "beautiful, intelligent, cunning and shrewd."

"'Who is the real Amanda Knox?" he asked the court. "Is it the one we see before us here, all angelic? Or is she really a she-devil focused on sex, drugs and alcohol, living life on the edge?"

Lumumba was arrested based on Knox's first statements to police. He was released after two weeks when investigators found he had an alibi.

Lumumba, who has sued Knox, was ruined as a "a man, a father and a husband," Pacelli said.