Sollecito to tell of ‘hell’

Amanda Knox’s former boyfriend will be the first to tell about the Italian murder trial that made them famous worldwide.

Twenty-seven-year-old Raffaele Sollecito has a deal with Simon and Schuster’s Gallery Books for a book scheduled to come out this autumn.

Mr Sollecito and Ms Knox were cleared on appeal last year of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

The publisher announced yesterday in New York that Presumed Guilty: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox would cover his relationship with Ms Knox, their arrests and imprisonment in Italy for murder and their eventual release last year after the convictions were overturned.

The financial terms were not disclosed.

Last month, Ms Knox agreed to terms with HarperCollins for a memoir due next year. The deal was reportedly worth $4 million (€3.05 million).

The news comes weeks after it was announced that prosecutors have asked Italy’s highest criminal court to reinstate the murder convictions.

The appeal, which was expected, marks the third and final stage in the criminal case against the pair.

They were found guilty in a lower court of killing Miss Kercher, from Coulsden, Surrey, in what prosecutors described as a sex-fuelled attack, and sentenced to 26 years and 25 years respectively.

An appeals court rejected the conviction, freeing Knox to return home to the US after serving four years in prison.