Amanda Knox speaks to Diane Sawyer (not seen) in New York during an interview in this undated photo released by ABC. Knox, 25, spent four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher while both were exchange students at Perugia University in Italy. She was acquitted on appeal in 2011 and she returned to her Seattle-area home, but Italy’s high court last month ordered a retrial. Photo: Reuters/ABC/Ida Mae Astute

Amanda Knox has claimed that what happened to her when she went on trial for the murder of Leeds University student Meredith Kercher in Italy could have happened to anyone.

In an interview on American TV, Knox, who once more faces claims that she was involved in the killing in Perugia, said she wants the truth to come out and for her to be “reconsidered as a person”.

“What happened to me was surreal but it could have happened to anyone,” she said.

Asked about what it was like to be called a “she-devil with an angel face” and “sphinx of Perugia” after being accused of Kercher’s murder, Knox told ABC’s Diane Sawyer: “They’re wrong.

“I was in the courtroom when they were calling me a devil. I mean it’s one thing to be called certain things in the media and then it’s another thing to be sitting in a courtroom fighting for your life when people are calling you a devil.

“For all intents and purposes I was a murderer, whether I was or not. And I had to live with the idea that that would be my life.”

I want the truth to come out. I’d like tobe reconsidered as a person

Knox added: “I want the truth to come out. I’d like to be reconsidered as a person.”

Last month, Italy’s highest criminal court overturned Knox’s acquittal for the murder of Leeds University student Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey.

Knox returned to her home in Seattle after she was dramatically cleared in 2011 following four years in jail.

She faces the prospect of an extradition request from the Italian Government and a new trial in Florence. Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Sollecito, 29, denied wrongdoing. They were convicted following a high-profile trial but were released after an appeals court found the prosecution lacking and criticised large swathes of the case against them.

Italian law cannot compel Knox to return to the country for a fresh trial but she could eventually face an extradition request.

It would then be up to the US to decide if it honours it.

Knox and Sollecito have consistently protested their innocence and claim they were not even in the apartment on the night Kercher died.

The case mounted against them by prosecutors was ripped apart by the Italian appeals court which noted that the murder weapon was never found, DNA tests were faulty and prosecutors provided no motive for murder.