PERUGIA, Italy, March 27 (UPI) -- A witness who linked U.S. student Amanda Knox to the scene and night of her roommate's killing in Italy admits being a heroin user.
Knox's defense team hopes to use Antonio Curatolo's admission on the stand in Perugia Saturday to help the Seattle native's appeal, Seattlepi.com reports.
Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are appealing their 2009 murder convictions for the death of Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher Nov. 1, 2007.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25. Co-defendant Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years, cut to 16 on appeal.
Curatolo frequents a plaza near Perugia University where students come to play basketball, buy hashish and hang out, he says. He has been a witness in two previous homicide cases.
"I consider myself an anarchist," he said Saturday, "and I chose this lifestyle."
He admitted being a regular heroin user in 2007 but said he remembered seeing Knox and Sollecito in "an animated discussion" in the square, next to the home where Kercher's body was found the next day.
"I think it is clear that he does not have a lucid memory," said one of Knox's lawyers, Maria del Grosso. "He is not a credible witness."
