Edda Knox, left, comforts her daughter, Amanda Knox, during a news conference held at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport near Seattle, Washington on October 4, 2011. Knox arrived in the United States after departing Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport,. Knox's life turned around dramatically when an Italian appeals court threw out her conviction in the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of her British roommate. UPI Photo/Jim Bryant |
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SEATTLE, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Amanda Knox Friday said she will not return to Italy to face retrial for the death of Meredith Kercher, whom she lived with in Perugia in 2007.
"I was already imprisoned as an innocent person in Italy, and I can't reconcile the choice to go back with that experience," Knox told the NBC's Today Show in her first TV appearance about the upcoming retrial in Florence on Sept. 30. "It's not a possibility, as I was imprisoned as an innocent person and I just can't relive that."
"I don't think I'm going to be put back in prison. I think that we're going to win. That's why I'm fighting this fight, that's why I continue to put forth the defensive argument in court," Knox said.
Knox and ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 for Kercher's death. They were acquitted and released from prison on Oct. 4, 2011. In March, Italy's Supreme Court tossed out the appeals court ruling and ordered a retrial for Knox.
If she is convicted, it is unclear whether the U.S. government would extradite her to Italy. Knox said her lawyers have not talked to government officials to see whether they would allow her to be extradited.
"That's not the primary concern of my lawyers right now,'' Knox said. "I don't believe that they have, precisely because they're still confident that we can win this."
Knox said she has confidence in the Italian legal system and that she will be acquitted again.
"I'm a 9,'' Knox said of her confidence level. "There's always the fear that's lingering and the experience of having been convicted when I shouldn't have, but things have changed. It's not just the prosecution's voice that's out there, and while it is the legal process in Italy where one can be convicted of a crime if there is no motive to be found and if there's only circumstantial evidence, you can't be convicted if there is proof to the contrary."
Knox, 26, currently lives in the Seattle area.
