Italy reinstates Amanda Knox murder conviction
Ruling comes after third trial in Italian court
FLORENCE, Italy – More than two years after Amanda Knox returned to the U.S. apparently home free, an Italian court Thursday reinstated her murder conviction in the stabbing of her roommate and increased her sentence to 28 1/2 years in prison, raising the specter of a long extradition fight.
Knox, 26, received word in her hometown of Seattle. The former American exchange student said she was “frightened and saddened by the unjust verdict” and blamed “overzealous and intransigent prosecution,” “narrow-minded investigation” and coercive interrogation techniques.
“This has gotten out of hand,” Knox said in a statement. “Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system.”
Lawyers for Knox and her 29-year-old ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who was also found guilty, vowed to appeal to Italy’s highest court, a process that will take at least a year and drag out a seesaw legal battle that has fascinated court-watchers on both sides of the Atlantic and led to lurid tabloid headlines about “Foxy Knoxy” and her sex life.
It was the third trial for Knox and Sollecito, whose first two trials in the 2007 slaying of British exchange student Meredith Kercher produced flip-flop verdicts of guilty, then innocent.
After the acquittal in 2011, Knox returned to the U.S., where she evidently hoped to put herself beyond the reach of Italian law. But Italy’s supreme court soon ordered a third trial.
On Thursday, the panel of two judges and six lay jury members deliberated 11 1/2 hours before issuing its decision, stiffening Knox’s original 26-year sentence, apparently to take into account an additional conviction for slander, while confirming Sollecito’s 25-year term.
Legal experts said it is unlikely Italy will request Knox’s extradition before the verdict is final. In Italy, verdicts are not considered final until they are confirmed, usually by the supreme Court of Cassation.
Kercher, 21, was found dead in a pool of blood in the bedroom of the apartment she and Knox shared in the town of Perugia, where they were studying. Kercher had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed.
Knox and Sollecito denied any involvement in the killing. After initially giving confused alibis, they insisted they were at Sollecito’s apartment that night, smoking marijuana, watching a movie and making love.