Amanda Knox, the American student accused of involvement in the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, told police after she was arrested that she was “very confused” about who had cut her housemate’s throat but insisted that she was not the killer.

In a rambling three-page statement, leaked to the Italian press yesterday, Ms Knox appears to have tried to redirect police suspicion to her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The day before, she had accused Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner.

“Who was the real murderer?” she wrote. “Why did Raffaele lie? What made me think of Patrick?”

Mr Lumumba, who spent two weeks in prison, was released this week for lack of evidence. He said that he would never forgive Ms Knox for telling police that she had heard Ms Kercher screaming while Mr Lumumba was in her bedroom.

New witness 'saw Meredith suspects together'

Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede were see at the house in Perugia where the American student died

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• Murder in Perugia

BACKGROUND

• Meredith Kercher: Q&A

• New DNA not from Meredith suspects

• Timings crucial to Kercher murder investigation

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Ms Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, South London, was found dead on November 2 in her bedroom at the cottage that she and Ms Knox shared with two Italian women. No trace of Mr Lumumba’s DNA was found in the room, or anywhere else in the cottage.

Il Messaggero reported yesterday that an unnamed woman professor who lives in the area had told police that she heard a “terrifying scream of fear” as she was passing the cottage at 2am. This would appear to be at odds with the official time of death, which police pathologists orginally put at between midnight and 2am but then moved back to between 10pm and midnight.

The paper said that a female student who lives near the murder scene had testified that she heard “strange noises” from the cottage garden at 1am, while another had said that a “coloured man” rushed past her from the direction of the cottage at 10.30pm.

In her statement Ms Knox claimed that Mr Sollecito had confided to her that in the past he had used cocaine and acid and that he suffered from depression. Mr Sollecito claims that on the evening of the murder he was at his computer until 1am, but police tests are said to have disproved this.

Ms Knox admitted that she and Mr Sollecito had smoked marijuana on the day of the murder, but she could not remember if they had read, studied or made love. She did remember having taken a shower together. She said that her memory of events was confused partly because of the drug but also because she was “in a state of shock and exhausted”.

She wrote: “I have serious doubts about the truth of my declarations. This is all very strange, I know, but what happened is as confusing for me as anyone else.”

She said that on the evening of the murder she had been at Mr Sollecito’s flat, and they had eaten a meal. “After supper I noticed blood on Raffaele’s hand, but I had the impression it might have come from the fish we ate.”

Tests on a kitchen knife found in Mr Sollecito’s flat, which police believe is the murder weapon, have revealed Ms Kercher’s DNA on the tip and Ms Knox’s DNA near the handle, but no trace of Mr Sollecito’s DNA. Ms Knox’s handbag, in which the knife is believed to have been transported from Mr Sollecito’s flat to the cottage and back again to be cleaned, was subjected yesterday to forensic science tests.

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