1 of 2 | 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 Monday when an Italian appeals court threw out her conviction in the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of her British roommate. UPI Photo/Jim Bryant |
License Photo
FLORENCE , Italy, Jan. 30 (UPI) -- An Italian court will decide Thursday whether or not to uphold the overturned conviction that acquitted Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in the murder of a British exchange student in 2007.
The 26-year-old Seattle native and her then-boyfriend were convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher in November 2007. After serving 4 years of the 26 and 25 they were respectively sentenced to, the twosome was released after an appeals court acquitted them in 2011.
A third man, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede was also convicted of the murder and is serving a 16-year sentence after striking a deal with the prosecution.
Italy's Supreme Court overturned the appeal in March claiming the jury did not consider all the evidence and discrepancies in the case before acquitting Knox and Sollecito.
The case was remanded to Florence and new deliberations began in September 2013. After hearing the defense team's final rebuttal Thursday, the jury retired to deliberate and is expected to announce the verdict after 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET).
Kercher -- Knox's roommate in Perugia -- was found partially naked in a pool of blood in the house she shared with the Seattle native. Italian prosecutors have been pushing the case that she was murdered in a "sex game gone wrong" since the beginning of the trial. The prosecution is calling for Knox to receive a 30-year sentence in the slaying of Kercher.
Asked what she'd do if found guilty by the Italian court, Knox said she'd become "a fugitive."
[CNN]
