Prosecutor Accuses Knox of Satanic Murder

Italian prosecutors today accused an Amanda Knox of fatally stabbing her British house mate in a Satanic rite and asked a court to put an alleged African accomplice in prison for life, defense lawyers said. Knox, a 21-year-old American, proclaimed her innocence at the closed-door hearing in the Umbrian university town of Perugia and accused police of hitting her and calling her a liar during an interrogation, the AP reports.

At his lawyers' request, a fast-track trial is being conducted for Rudy Hermann Guede, the Ivorian accused in the case. He has acknowledged being in the bedroom where Meredith Kercher's body, stabbed in the neck and lying in a pool of blood, was found in November 2007 in the house she rented with Knox.The court deciding Guede's fate is also hearing arguments on whether Knox and her former boyfriend should stand trial for the slaying. (More Amanda Knox stories.)