Which trial?

As expected, the appellate court in Florence upheld the 2009 conviction of 
Amanda Knox (your report, 31 January).

This had been overturned in 2011 by the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court.

Her travails continue, although prosecutors now suggest that she was involved in an argument with her flatmate over housekeeping rather than having acted as a she-devil in a sex game.

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The saga will return to the Court of Cassation, but the question over whether the Italian judiciary can accept it got it wrong is on a par with Scotland’s dilemma over the dodgy 
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi verdict.

If such a loss of face proves too much, the next step – some time in 2016 – will be a request from the Italian justice ministry to the US State Department for Knox’s extradition.

The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs will evaluate the petition’s legal sufficiency, but granting an extradition certificate is a highly political matter.

The court transcript reads like a medieval witch trial 
and I cannot see any US president allowing the extradition – or any Italian government 
being daft enough to 
demand it.

(Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews

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