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Asked about her parents, Ms Knox said she spoke to her mother Edda often, "about all kinds of things. We cry together, and she makes me strong. We both hoped I'd be able to get out of prison on house arrest, but it didn't happen. Since I've been here I've been closer to them, and to my sister, and my stepsisters. I love them all very much and I miss everybody."

She said her father Curt "makes me laugh a lot, he tells me a heap of funny stories about the things that happen to him when he's in Umbria. Like when he gets lost coming to see me in prison, or when he's cooking in his room. Once he set off the fire alarm with all the smoke."

She said she "deeply regretted" having falsely accused Patrick Diya Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner in Perugia, of being the murderer during testimony to police - which she later withdrew - in which she admitted being at the murder scene and hearing Ms Kercher's screams.

Mr Lumumba is suing for damages, and has described Ms Knox as a "compulsive liar". "I'm very sorry about the way Patrick reacted" she said. "The first thing I did was to ask his forgiveness. I felt I was being pressured by the police so I mentioned him, but I'm really sorry".

Asked what she missed most, Ms Knox replied "My freedom". She wanted to "be on my own playing the guitar and listening to music." She said she had come to like the music of the Italian pop singer Jovanotti, especially a song which includes the lines "I know that I'm not alone even when I am alone" ("Io lo so che non sono solo anche quando sono solo.")

She said she wanted to have the line "tattooed on my arm. Who knows when I'll be able to do that." Music was "a big part of my life, it cheers me up and defeats the pain." Ms Knox insisted she was "a normal girl caught up in the wrong story. I am innocent, I did not do what they say I did. I'm a normal person who says normal things and does normal things".

Ms Knox said she had "really believed there was a chance of getting out of here, and that's why I am suffering." She said she was very tired and hardly eating. The first thing she would do if let out would be to "go to a restaurant and eat tagliatelle with mushrooms. But not ossobuco, because I'm a vegetarian".

Antonio Fullone, the prison director, said Ms Knox was studying languages, including Italian, Russian and Chinese, dedicating twenty minutes to each a day and translating Italian poems into English.

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