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Knox mother says she'll fight libel count

SEATTLE, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Amanda Knox's mother said Wednesday Italian libel charges will not deter her from fighting to clear her daughter of a murder conviction.

"I wouldn't say the Italian justice system (is after us.) I would say a few people in Perugia, definitely," Edda Mellas told CNN.

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Knox, an American student living in the Italian city, is appealing her conviction for murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2007. Two men also were convicted.

Mellas and her ex-husband, Curt Knox, were indicted Tuesday on charges of libeling the Perugia police in a 2009 interview in the Sunday Times of London, she and the family's Italian attorney, Luciano Ghirga, said.

They said their daughter "had not been given an interpreter, had not received food and water, and had been physically and verbally abused," the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Mellas said she would attend her own trial only if she happened to be in Italy, but would fight the charges for fear of being arrested there otherwise.

"We have to jump through the hoops until I know that I will never have to go back to that country again," she told CNN.

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A hearing in the parents' case is slated for July 4, Ghirga said.

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