Amanda Knox set to stay away from retrial

AMANDA Knox is not planning to return to Italy to face a new trial for the murder of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher after the country’s top court yesterday overturned her acquittal.

The defence lawyer for the former American student said she had no plans to fly back to Italy where she and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, served nearly four years of a 26-year prison sentence after being convicted of murder in what the prosecution claimed was a sex-game that went wrong.

Yesterday, Knox, nicknamed Foxy Knoxy, whose memoir Waiting to be Heard is scheduled for publication next month, said the news her acquittal had been overturned was “painful”.

Knox, who is expected to give her first TV interview since her release in 2011 on 30 April, said in a statement: “It was painful to receive the news that the Italian Supreme Court decided to send my case back for revision when the prosecution’s theory of my involvement has been repeatedly revealed to be completely unfounded and unfair.”

She added: “No matter what happens, my family and I will face this continuing legal battle as we always have, confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the face of wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity.”

The American left Italy a free woman after the 2011 acquittal. The body of 21-year-old British exchange student Ms Kercher was found in November 2007 in a pool of blood in the bedroom of a rented house that the two women shared in the Italian university town of Perugia. Her throat had been slit. Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s Italian boyfriend at the time, was also convicted and acquitted.

Yesterday, Ms Kercher’s sister spoke of the “long journey ahead”. Stephanie Kercher said the decision represented a step forward for the family who still hope to discover precisely what happened to the Leeds University student, who her family call Mez, on the night she died.

Speaking from her home in Coulsdon, Surrey, she added: “There are a lot of unanswered questions still. We are very hopeful that it going back to court will help find those answers and find out the truth of what happened that night. Whilst we are not happy about going back to court, and it will not bring her back, we have to make sure we have done all we can for her. We still have a long journey ahead and we are very grateful for the support of the public and in Italy – we just want justice for Mez.”

Prosecutors alleged Ms Kercher was the victim of a drug-fueled sex game gone awry. Knox and Sollecito denied wrongdoing and said they were not even in the apartment that night, although they acknowledged they had smoked marijuana and their memories were clouded. An Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the murder in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.

It could be months before a date is set for a fresh appeal court trial in Florence, which was chosen because Perugia has only one appellate court. Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial and one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said she had no plans to do so.

“She thought that the nightmare was over,” Mr Dalla Vedova said. “(But) she’s ready to fight.”

“If the court orders another trial, if she is convicted at that trial and if the conviction is upheld by the highest court, then Italy could seek her extradition,” Mr Dalla Vedova said yesterday.

It would then be up to the US to decide if it honours the request. US and Italian authorities could also come to a deal that would keep Knox in America.

He spoke minutes after relaying the court’s decision to Knox by phone shortly after 2am local time in Seattle. Whether Knox ever returns to Italy to serve more prison time depends on a string of unknowns.

Should she be convicted by the Florence court, she could appeal against that verdict to the Cassation Court, since Italy’s judicial system allows for two levels of appeals – by prosecutors and the defence alike.