Defense arrives for retrial

Raffaele Sollecito arrived at a Florence court on Thursday (January 9) as his defense team prepares to deliver the final summing up in a retrial of the murder case into the death of British student Meredith Kercher.

Sollecito was accompanied by his father as he arrived at the courtroom. He has pleaded for the judge to uphold his acquittal in the case.

American student Amanda Knox, 26, and her Italian former boyfriend Sollecito, 29, were convicted of murdering Kercher in 2009, in a verdict overturned in a subsequent trial.

Now the case is being tried again in a courtroom in Florence after Italy's Supreme Court quashed the acquittals in March, citing inconsistencies in the case. Both Knox and Sollecito have always maintained their innocence.

Kercher's half-naked body was found in 2007 with more than 40 stab wounds and a deep gash in her throat in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a picturesque town where both were studying as university exchange stude