Slinging a bra around her microphone, a prosecutor in the trial of American Amanda Knox, accused of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, sought to show how DNA evidence linked Knox's boyfriend to the crime.
The bra's back strap bear multiple traces of DNA belonging to Ivorian Rudy Guede - already convicted separately in the case - while that of Knox's Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, appeared only on a hook.
"Why?" asked deputy prosecutor Manuela Comodi on Thursday. "It's very simple," she said. The jury is due to begin considering its verdict on Friday.
Stretching the back strap out from the microphone stand, Comodi said Guede could have been pulling the garment away from the victim while Sollecito worked at unhooking it.
Prosecutors are seeking life terms for Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, for their alleged role in what they have portrayed as a drug-fuelled sexual misadventure in which Kercher refused to participate.
Prominent defence lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, in closing arguments Monday, had dwelled on the point that the scene of the crime was "teeming" with Guede's DNA while the Italian defendant's appeared only on the bra hook.
Minutes after Comodi's demonstration, Sollecito was allowed to make a "spontaneous declaration" to the court, in which he denied killing Kercher, 21, who died of multiple knife wounds to the throat.
"I didn't kill Meredith, and I wasn't in that house the night of the crime," the bespectacled defendant told the court in the medieval walled city of Perugia, in central Italy.
"Why would I take part in a murder?" he asked. "I am not violent, never have been, and never will be.... If Amanda had asked me to do something I didn't agree with I would have said no."
Comodi also challenged a defence assertion that a shoe print allegedly incriminating Sollecito was not his.
The print "matched perfectly," she said, calling the conclusion the "clearest possible."
Raising her voice to a shout, Comodi said it was "a completely different print from Rudy's."
Prosecutors have portrayed Sollecito, who completed an engineering degree while in custody, as weak-willed and in thrall to Knox, who became his girlfriend only a week before the murder.
In closing arguments, chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini alleged that Knox "harboured hatred" for Kercher and led Sollecito and Guede in "an unstoppable crescendo of violence."
Also on Thursday, lawyers for the civil plaintiffs in the case, including Kercher's family who are seeking 25 million euros ($A40.65 million) in damages, were allowed a final say.
"Meredith knew all three of her attackers," said the family's lawyer Francesco Maresca. "That is why they killed her, to silence her over the assault."
Knox also faces a defamation suit from her former part-time employer, Patrick Lumumba, whom she accused of the murder in the early days of the investigation.
The Congolese bar owner and musician spent two weeks in jail before being released without charge.
He was forced to close his bar and now works occasionally at the University of Foreigners which Knox and Kercher attended, lawyer Carlo Pacelli told AFP.
Pacelli told the court Thursday that Knox "didn't move a finger" to recant her accusation, knowing it to be false.
Knox charged that aggressive police questioning - she alleged that a woman police officer struck her twice on the back of the head - led her to accuse Lumumba during 54 hours of questioning over a four-day period.
Civil plaintiffs also include the owner of the cottage Knox and Kercher shared with two Italian women,
Dubbed the "house of horrors," it went without tenants for two years.
Separately, Knox's parents Curt Knox and Edda Mellas reportedly face a defamation suit from Perugia police whom they accused of "abusing" their daughter.
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