Amanda Knox’s acquittal for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher has been overturned by Italy’s highest court which ordered a new trial.
Asked if Amanda would come to Italy for the trial, Knox’s lawyer said: ‘I don’t think so’
Ms Kercher’s family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said after the ruling: “Yes, this is what we wanted.”
Knox called the decision “painful” but said she was confident in the truth.
The Court of Cassation ruled that an appeals court in Florence must re-hear the case against the American student and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of 21-year-old student Ms Kercher. The exact issues that have to be reconsidered will not be known until the court releases its full ruling within 90 days.
Knox, now a student at the University of Washington, said: “It was painful to receive the news that the Italian Supreme Court decided to send my case back for revision when the prosecution’s theory of my involvement in Meredith’s murder has been repeatedly revealed to be completely unfounded and unfair.”
She said the case must now be examined by “an objective investigation and a capable prosecution.
“No matter what happens, my family and I will face this continuing legal battle as we always have, confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the face of wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity,” she said.
Student Ms Kercher’s body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox and others in Perugia, an Italian university town where the two women were exchange students. Her throat had been slashed.
Prosecutors said she was the victim of a drug-fuelled sex game gone awry. Knox and Sollecito denied involvement and said they were not even in the apartment, although they acknowledged they had smoked marijuana and their memories were clouded.
An Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the murder in a separate trial and is serving over a 16-year sentence. Knox and Sollecito were also initially convicted of the murder and given long prison sentences, but were then acquitted on appeal and released in 2011.
The high court’s ruling overturned the appeals court acquittals.
“She thought the nightmare was over,” Knox’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said after the decision was released.
Italian law cannot compel Knox to return from the US for the new trial. Mr Dalla Vedova said Knox would not go to Italy “for the moment” but would follow the case from home. He said he did not think the new appeals trial would begin before early 2014. Asked if she would come to Italy for the trial, he said: “I don’t think so.”
It is unclear what would happen if she was convicted in a new appeals trial.
“If the court orders another trial, if she is convicted at that trial and if the conviction is upheld by the highest court, then Italy could seek her extradition,” Mr Dalla Vedova said.
It would then be up to the US to decide if it honours the request. US and Italian authorities could also come to a deal that would keep Knox in the US. Knox, now 25, and Sollecito, 29, were arrested shortly after Ms Kercher’s body was found.
The appeals court that acquitted them in 2011 criticised virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors. It noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no murder motive. It is not clear what part of the appeals sentence was faulted by the high court in ordering a new trial.
Knox criticised the Perugia prosecutors saying they “must be made to answer” for the discrepancies in the case. She said “my heart goes out to” Ms Kercher’s family.
The court also upheld a slander conviction against Knox. During a police interrogation, Knox had falsely accused a Perugia pub owner of carrying out the killing. The man was held for two weeks based on her allegations, but was then released for lack of evidence.
Mr Dalla Vedova had argued that the slander verdict should be thrown out because she was questioned without a lawyer eventhough police essentially treated her as a suspect in their 14-hour interrogation session.
Key dates in the Kercher murder case
These are the key dates in the case of American student Amanda Knox, convicted in the murder of British roommate Meredith Kercher.
• November 2, 2007: The body of Ms Kercher, 21, is found in her Perugia apartment. Investigators say she was killed the night before.
• November 6, 2007: Knox is arrested with then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Diya ‘Patrick’ Lumumba, the Congolese owner of a pub where Knox occasionally worked.
• November 20, 2007: Lumumba, implicated by Knox’s statements to police, is released from jail for lack of evidence.
• December 6, 2007: Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede is extradited from Germany and jailed on arrival in Italy.
• October 28, 2008: Judge indicts Knox and Sollecito on murder and sexual assault charges. Guede, who was granted a fast-track trial, is convicted of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
• January 16, 2009: Trial of Knox and Sollecito opens in Perugia.
• June 12, 2009: Knox takes stand; tells court she was shocked by Ms Kercher’s death, offers alibi, says police beat her into making false statement.
• December 4, 2009: Court finds Knox guilty of murder and sexual assault, sentences her to 26 years in prison. Sollecito is convicted of same charges and sentenced to 25 years.
• December 22, 2009: Appeals court upholds Guede’s conviction but cuts sentence to 16 years.
• November 24, 2010: Appeals trial for Knox and Sollecito opens in Perugia.
• December 16, 2010: Italy’s highest criminal court upholds Guede’s conviction and 16-year prison sentence.
• June 29, 2011: Independent forensic report ordered by the appeals court finds much of the DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito is unreliable.
• October 3, 2011: Appeals court clears Knox, Sollecito of murder convictions, orders them freed immediately
• March 26, 2013: Italy’s highest criminal court overturns acquittal of Knox and Sollecito, orders new trial.