A US college student charged with the murder of a housemate took the witness stand for the first time on Friday, defending herself against the charges and accusing Italian police of poor treatment.

Amanda Knox, 21, has been held in jail since November 2007, soon after Meredith Kercher, 21, of Surrey, England, was found with her throat slit, semi-naked and wrapped in the house the two women shared with two others.

Prosecutors allege that Knox, 21; her Italian boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito, 24 and a third man murdered Kercher in a drug-fueled sex game that went awry.

On Friday, Knox appeared in Perugia’s Renaissance-era court house to tell her side of the story. Knox said that she had been yelled at by police and hit on the head twice while she was being questioned. “They kept calling me stupid,” she added.

She said she been pressured by Italian authorities to offer false testimony, in which she accused Patrick Lumumba, her boss at a bar where she worked, of the crime.