Why the Knox Verdict will be worthless if it is won in the media and not in the courtroom

There is a great piece in the First Post this morning reflecting on the latest scenes from the Court of Appeal in Perugia.

The verdict is expected in about a week's time but as Nigel Horne argues

so unrelenting has their campaign for public opinion been that, if Amanda Knox does get off, there will be a suspicion in some quarters that the Knox camp simply won a propaganda war and that the jurors were swayed by the media coverage

.

He adds that what is troubling are the tentacles of the Knox campaign.

Not only are Amanda's extended family and the Seattle-based PR agency Gogerty Marriott involved in professing her innocence, but there are many others - Knox activists, or Friends of Amanda - involved on the fringes, including a group intent on bringing down the prosecutor who won Knox's conviction, Giuliano Mignini.

Indeed

This lobbying has built to a crescendo in recent days, to the extent that the Knox camp appears 100 per cent confident she will win her appeal and anyone who questions this has not got their head screwed on.

The events must be difficult for the Kercher family who must have thought that they had closure on this when the verdicts were handed down in December 2009.