Amanda Knox’s day of reckoning approaches

The Seattle family of Amanda Knox face a triple whammy of Italian justice as they await the jury's verdict, expected later this week, in the marathon trial of Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder in Perugia of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

Not only do they dread a guilty verdict against their 22-year-old daughter who has always denied killing Meredith: they also face three threats of civil damages allowed under Italian law. On one charge, they could even be jailed.

First, the Perugia police are threatening Knox's parents with a defamation case for remarks they made in a Sunday Times interview in June 2008. Curt Knox and his former wife, now called Edda Mellas, told the paper their daughter had been beaten by the police during her interrogation following the discovery of Kercher's body on November 2, 2007.

"She told us she was hit in the back of the head by a police officer with an open hand," said Curt Knox, who has since repeated the claim.

The police have denied the alleged abuse and demanded that Knox and Mellas be investigated for defamation, which carries a jail sentence in Italy of up to three years.

Second, Franceso Maresca, a lawyer for Meredith Kercher's family, confirmed on Friday that the Kerchers are seeking compensation of £22m for their daughter's death, payable in equal parts by each of the three defendants - Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast, who has already been found guilty in a fast-track trial and jailed for 30 years, but is appealing his conviction.

Third, Diya 'Patrick' Lumimba, a Congolese bar owner in Perugia, is seeking unspecified damages from Amanda Knox for defamation. The American girl worked in his bar and claimed he had killed Kercher. Because of the accusation - of which he was later cleared by police - he was briefly jailed.

All three civil charges will depend on the outcome of the criminal trial in which Knox and Sollecito are charged with murdering Kercher as a result of what prosecutors believe was a sex game that went wrong and ended - they say - with Knox plunging a kitchen knife into her British housemate's neck.

Today, Sollecito's attorney will make his closing arguments, to be followed by Knox's lawyers. A verdict is expected on Friday or Saturday.