KEY POINTS:
The trial of Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend has begun with a media frenzy erupting amid the studied indifference - revulsion might be a better word - of the city of Perugia.
After a wait of 15 months, during which she flashed before the cameras for only a few seconds between police van and courtroom, finally the world was able to gaze its fill on "Foxy Knoxy".
What did we see? A nice-looking, preppy American student, delighted that the long wait is over and that at last she is facing the judge and six jurors who will determine her fate.
Knox, 21, and Raffaele Sollecito, 24, who sat a few feet from her throughout the occasionally impassioned, frequently tedious seven-hour hearing on the first day of the trial, are accused of murdering Amanda's English flatmate, Meredith Kercher, in their flat in Perugia.
Kercher's death is alleged to have been the culmination of an orgy that went horribly wrong. But although the murder has been headline news in Italy for more than a year, the public seating was all but empty on Saturday.
The appetite for titillating gossip about the vivacious young American is clearly huge, but the city where the terrible events of the night of November 1, 2007, unfolded does not want to know.
Perugia's mayor, Renato Locchi, claimed that the lack of interest was a measure of his citizens' maturity.
"After hearing about the murder of Meredith Kercher for more than a year, they can't take any more," he said. "They can't wait for justice to be done and the whole thing to be over."
The deeper reason is that this is not an Italian crime but a foreign one. The victim and two of the three alleged killers are foreign, and the context is Perugia's University for Foreigners.
The only spectator on the first day of the trial was retired schoolteacher Teresa Marcucci, 63.
"This crime has upset me so much," she told daily newspaper La Stampa.
"I feel a sense of pain for the poor victim, and an enormous pity for the young people in the dock.
"It seems to me that Raffaele was chased into trouble by Amanda."
And Amanda? "To see her laughing that way - even if she didn't commit the murder, she's not behaving well."
In Italy's eyes, Amanda Knox can do nothing right. She is so open and spontaneous that Italians are convinced she must have something to hide. On Saturday she sauntered into court wreathed in happy smiles.
The obvious explanation - that she was at last out of her cell and on her way - was too simple.
Alleged killers
* American Amanda Knox, 21, and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, are alleged to have killed British student Meredith Kercher when an "extreme" sex game went badly wrong in November 2007. They deny the charges.
* Kercher, 21, was found partially naked under a duvet in the home she shared with Knox.
* Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede was sentenced to 30 years in prison last year after being convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher.
- INDEPENDENT
