Court says Amanda Knox fought with victim before killing

FLORENCE , Italy, April 29 (UPI) -- American Amanda Knox slit the throat of her British roommate after the pair argued about money in 2007, a Florence, Italy, appellate court said Tuesday.

Judges explained their guilty ruling in a 337-page document released Tuesday. It noted Meredith Kercher, 21, was killed in the apartment she and Knox shared in the town of Perugia, by multiple attackers, including Rudy Guede and Knox’s boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito, but it was Knox “who lashed the deadly wound to the throat” of Kercher, the court said. It added the group had gathered to use drugs before the incident.

Knox and Sollecito were convicted 2008 but served only four years of 26-year sentences before their sentences were overturned. An appeals court reheard the case in 2011 and acquitted the pair after it was established DNA tests were contaminated by police, but in 2013 the Supreme Court dismissed the acquittals, criticizing the lower court for “contradictions and inconsistencies” in its decision.

Guede was found guilty in a separate trial in 2008, and is serving a 16-yerar prison term for the killing.

The release of the document, explaining the court’s reasoning, allows Knox to appeal to Italy’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Cassation. If the court confirms the decision, it will likely begin an extradition fight; Knox returned to the United States in 2011 after her earlier conviction was overturned.