Associated Press: An American college student and her Italian former boyfriend went on trial Friday accused of sexually assaulting and murdering her roommate in a slaying that shocked Italy.

Amanda Knox from Seattle and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito appeared in front of an eight-member jury in the tiny courthouse in Perugia, central Italy, for the first session of what is expected to be a long trial.

The defendants -- who both proclaim their innocence -- were indicted in October for the slaying of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher, who was found stabbed to death in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a picturesque, medieval city 115 miles north of Rome.

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