Amanda Knox to Return to Italy for First Time Since Acquittal

Amanda Knox to Return to Italy for First Time Since Acquittal
Amanda Knox prepares to leave the set following a television interview in N.Y., on Jan. 31, 2014. (Mark Lennihan/Photo via AP)

ROME—Amanda Knox is returning to Italy for the first time since she was convicted and imprisoned, but ultimately acquitted, in the murder and sexual assault of her British roommate in the hilltop university town of Perugia.

The American was invited to attend a conference on June 14-15, organized in Modena by the Criminal Chamber of the northern city and the Italy Innocence Project, which seeks to help people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Amanda Knox
Amanda Knox talks to reporters outside her mother’s home, in Seattle, WA, on March 27, 2015. (Ted S. Warren/Photo via AP)

Knox, 31, will be speaking on the role of the media in judicial errors on the last day of the conference.

“The Italy Innocence Project didn’t yet exist when I was wrongly convicted in Perugia. I’m honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time,” Knox, who is from Seattle, said Tuesday on Twitter.

Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were initially convicted in the slaying of student Meredith Kercher in 2007.

Meredith Kercher
Murdered 22-year-old British university student Meredith Kercher. (Italian Police/File Photo via AP)

Their convictions were annulled by the country’s highest court in 2015 after a yearslong series of flip-flop higher-court decisions.

Judges in that final ruling cited flaws in the investigation and said there was a lack of evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, including a lack of “biological traces” connecting them to the crime.

Italy’s highest court did, however, confirm a conviction against Knox for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner in the case.

An Ivorian immigrant is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder.

Rudy Hermann Guede
Rudy Hermann Guede, of Ivory Coast, left, on Dec. 22, 2009. (Stefano Medici/File Photo via AP)

Europe’s human rights court on Jan. 24, ordered Italy to pay Knox financial damages for police failure to provide legal assistance and an independent interpreter during a long night of questioning following the Nov. 1, 2007 murder of her British roommate.

But the court said there was insufficient evidence to support claims of psychological and physical mistreatment.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said in its ruling that Italy hadn’t succeeded in proving that “the restriction of Ms. Knox’s access to a lawyer … had not irreparably undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a whole.” It said Italy must pay Knox $20,000 (18,400 euros) in damages, costs, and expenses.

The sensational murder of 21-year-old Kercher attracted global attention, especially after suspicion fell on Knox and Sollecito.

Kercher was found nude under a blanket in her locked room, with her throat slit and having been sexually assaulted. While Knox and her former boyfriend were initially convicted in Kercher’s slaying and handed hefty sentences, both were eventually acquitted.

The Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said that the family remained bitter that years of court decisions “resulted only in the conviction of Rudy Guede.”

Raffaele Sollecito
Raffaele Sollecito leaves after attending the final hearing before the third court verdict for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, in Florence, Italy. (Antonio Calanni/File Photo via AP)

Prosecutors argued throughout the trials that the murder could not have been the work of a single perpetrator.

Sollecito sought $565,000 (500,000 euros) for wrongful imprisonment—the maximum allowed under Italian law—but was denied because the court said he had contributed by making contradictory statements made during the investigation.

Dalla Vedova said that Knox let the deadline for wrongful imprisonment filing lapse without seeking compensation, instead focusing on the human rights issue.

“It is impossible to compensate Amanda for four years in prison for a mistake. There will be no amount. We are not looking for compensation of damages. We are doing this on principal,” he said.

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