Trump: Amanda Knox is innocent

NEW YORK, March 2 (UPI) -- Celebrity developer and reality TV star Donald Trump says he will boycott Italy while U.S. college student Amanda Knox remains in prison for a 2007 homicide.

Trump told KOMO-TV, Seattle, that following the trial through news reports convinced him Knox is innocent. Knox, a University of Washington student spending a year abroad, was sentenced to 26 years in prison after a court in Perugia found her guilty of killing her British housemate, Meredith Kercher.

"There's no evidence that links her to this crime other than she said some stupid things after being tormented for hours and hours and hours," Trump said. "It's amazing a lot of people in Italy think she's guilty, but the evidence isn't there. Even the prisoners think she's innocent. They have a better instinct than you or I."

Italian police said Knox, her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast immigrant convicted in a separate fast-track trial, killed Kercher during a drug-fueled sex game. Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito said Guede was the only killer.

Trump called the prosecutor a "maniac." He said he may offer financial help to Knox's family during her appeal.