PERUGIA, Italy, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- A prosecutor in the appeal trial of U.S. student Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend told an Italian court they should receive life prison sentences.
"They were young but they killed for no reason," said prosecutor Manuela Comodi. "For this they should be given the maximum sentence, which luckily is not the death sentence in Italy."
The Italian news agency ANSA said prosecutor Giuliano Mignini argued Knox would likely flee Italy if the court did not uphold a guilty verdict in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, Knox's former roommate, which would mean any appeal or retrial would have to be heard in Knox's absence.
The appeal trial is in the second step of a three-tier appeals process in Italy.
"As a result, even if this is the second of a three-step legal process in Italy, it is up to you to ensure justice," Mignini said in rebuttals after closing arguments.
Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito appealed their respective 26- and 25-year prison sentences in the death of exchange student Kercher, who was found partially nude with her throat slashed in 2007. Prosecutors have asked that their sentences be increased to life in prison. A man from Ivory Coast was convicted separately.
In Knox's appeal Thursday, lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said the media has "crucified" and "impaled" his client.
Dalla Vedova told the court Knox spent more than 1,000 days in prison because of "evidence that cannot stand up to other hypotheses," The Guardian reported.
"The only possible verdict is to acquit Amanda Knox," Dalla Vedova said, arguing "very serious mistakes" were made at her 2009 trial.
"Be respectful of the pain caused by the death of Meredith Kercher. But don't make the mistake of keeping two innocent people in jail," he said. "Pain is not a legal argument."
Dalla Vedova cited the "uncertainty" of DNA evidence in the prosecution's case that court-appointed experts later found unreliable.
Prosecutors say Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Guede, an immigrant from Ivory Coast, killed Kercher during a drug-fueled sex game, while lawyers for Knox and Sollecito suggest Guede was the sole killer.
