taken into custody and charged with the murder. Her first meeting with her legal counsel was on November 11. Chiacchiera, who thought the arrests were premature, dropped out of the investigation soon afterward, leaving Napoleoni in charge of a major investigation for the first time in her career. Customers who Lumumba had been serving at his bar on the night of the murder gave him a complete alibi. After his bloodstained fingerprints were found on bedding under Kercher's body, Guede (who had fled to Germany) was extradited back to Italy. Guede, Knox, and Sollecito were then charged with committing the murder together. On November 30, a panel of three judges endorsed the charges, and ordered Knox and Sollecito held in detention pending a trial. In a formal interview with Mignini, Knox said she had been brainwashed by police interrogators into accusing Lumumba and implicating herself. Knox became the subject of unprecedented pre-trial media coverage drawing on unattributed leaks from the prosecution, including a best-selling Italian book whose author imagined or invented incidents that were purported to have occurred in Knox's private life. Italian legal procedure In 1989, Italy reformed its inquisitorial system, introducing elements of US-style adversarial procedure. The changes were intended to remove an inquisitorial continuity between the investigatory phase and the basis for a decision at trial, but in practice they took control of inquiries away from police and gave prosecutors authority over the preliminary investigation. Although they have considerable authority over early inquiries and discretion in bringing charges, Italian prosecutors do not customarily use their powers in the aggressive way common in the US system. Unless the defendant opts for a fast track trial (a relatively inquisitorial procedure), murder trials are heard by a Corte d'Assise, which is less likely to exclude evidence as prejudicial than a US court. Two presiding professional trial judges, who also vote on the verdict, are expected to correct any bias of the six lay-judges during their deliberations. An acquittal can be appealed by the prosecution, and faulty application of legal principles in the judges' detailed report on their decision can be grounds for overturning the verdict. A defendant who gives evidence is not given an oath, because they are not considered to be a witness. The settled verdict of another court can be used without collaboration to support circumstantial evidence; in Knox's case the official report on Guede's conviction was introduced