Italy's top court to rule in Amanda Knox murder case
ROME - Amanda Knox, the Seattle college student who was convicted - then dramatically acquitted - of killing her British roommate in Italy, is enjoying her freedom in America.
But her Italian legal drama is not quite over.
On Monday, Italy's highest court will conduct the final step in Knox's legal process, announcing whether it agrees with the appeals court's decision to free her, ABC News reports.
The prosecution in the case has appealed Knox's acquittal in a 100-page report, which questions apparent contradictions in the ruling.
Knox won't be physically present at the hearing, but she will be following what happens at her home in Seattle.
Knox was an American student studying in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 when she became the center of a murder case that seized the world's attention after her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found stabbed to death.
She and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 of Kercher's murder, which allegedly happened during a drug-fueled sex assault.
But after an appeal, Knox and Sollecito were acquitted and released in October 2011. The fatal blow to the prosecution's case was a court-ordered DNA review that discredited crucial genetic evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito in 2009.
The worst outcome for Knox from Monday's high court hearing would be a re-trial - and another agonizing wait for it all to end.
In the meantime, Knox's defense has appealed her slander conviction - a result of her falsely accusing her former boss, Patrick Lumumba, as her roommate's killer.
In 2009, Knox testifed that she suggested Lumumba after she was hit in the head, yelled at and confused during nearly 50 hours of interrogation by Italian police.
"We believe what Amanda has told us because she is extremely honest," says her father, Curt Knox.
Amanda Knox has already served the three-year sentence for slander during her four years in prison.
In Seattle, Knox is back in class at the University of Washington. She spends free time with her boyfriend, James Terrano, her three sisters or playing the guitar.
She has dedicated the past year to writing a book, "Waiting to be Heard," about her trial and four years in Italian prison that is scheduled for release next month.
But her Italian legal drama is not quite over.
On Monday, Italy's highest court will conduct the final step in Knox's legal process, announcing whether it agrees with the appeals court's decision to free her, ABC News reports.
The prosecution in the case has appealed Knox's acquittal in a 100-page report, which questions apparent contradictions in the ruling.
Knox won't be physically present at the hearing, but she will be following what happens at her home in Seattle.
Knox was an American student studying in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 when she became the center of a murder case that seized the world's attention after her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found stabbed to death.
She and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 of Kercher's murder, which allegedly happened during a drug-fueled sex assault.
But after an appeal, Knox and Sollecito were acquitted and released in October 2011. The fatal blow to the prosecution's case was a court-ordered DNA review that discredited crucial genetic evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito in 2009.
The worst outcome for Knox from Monday's high court hearing would be a re-trial - and another agonizing wait for it all to end.
In the meantime, Knox's defense has appealed her slander conviction - a result of her falsely accusing her former boss, Patrick Lumumba, as her roommate's killer.
In 2009, Knox testifed that she suggested Lumumba after she was hit in the head, yelled at and confused during nearly 50 hours of interrogation by Italian police.
"We believe what Amanda has told us because she is extremely honest," says her father, Curt Knox.
Amanda Knox has already served the three-year sentence for slander during her four years in prison.
In Seattle, Knox is back in class at the University of Washington. She spends free time with her boyfriend, James Terrano, her three sisters or playing the guitar.
She has dedicated the past year to writing a book, "Waiting to be Heard," about her trial and four years in Italian prison that is scheduled for release next month.
Is the liberal news media going to have to bribe another Italian judge or is Amanda rich enough yet to pay her own bribes?
Would US law enforcement even extradite her? She's been acquitted, and to extradite her to face trial again would seem a blatant violation of her constitutional right to NOT be subjected to double jeopardy.
@Bill the libertarianShe could not lawfully be extradited even if they suddenly found video to support their utterly bogus charges: the U.S. Constitution is quite clear about that. But the truth is that Amanda Knox had nothing whatever to do with the murder of Meredith Kercher except (in my personal opinion) to have been the actual intended target: the English-speaking Brit having been confused by Rudy Guede for the English-speaking American.
The dynamics of this murder (based on the real evidence) strongly suggest that it was perhaps not a sexually-motivated crime at all - and not a burglary gone bad either - but rather a lying-in-wait to murder someone and then dress it up to look sexually motivated. Security photos strongly suggest that the real killer - burglar and sometime police informant/spy Rudy Guede - was first in and out of that flat some 90 minutes before Meredith was killed, at about the time that Amanda Knox failed to return home to change clothes for work at Le Chic. Knox was not there because of the lifesaving SMS from Lumumba telling her she was not needed that night - and her resultant decision then to stay with Raffaele. Rudy loitered 20 minutes - clearly long enough to get in and out again - then was photographed leaving - but actually took nothing at all.Â
Security photos then show Rudy returned just before 9 PM - minutes before Meredith arrived - and evidently hid in the bathroom, attacking Meredith once she was inside and had locked the door with her key. He stabbed her once in the throat almost immediately after interrupting her phone call to her mother and while she was standing upright near her bed. From there, evidence suggests Meredith was dying within a minute or less following a short but extremely violent fight for her life - mortally wounded before she even got her jacket and shoes off from her walk home. She never screamed and she was not actually stripped of her clothing and sexually assaulted until she had bled out enough to offer no resistance - perhaps as long as ten minutes: Rudy literally had to drag her from her own massive blood pool and strip her of her already blood-soaked clothing before attempting to rape what was essentially a blood soaked near-corpse. I believe this was all intended to make the crime look sexually motivated more than to actually fulfill Rudy's lust for a British college student. (It is also curious that Rudy - though he would have known of DNA as a forensic tool - actually made special effort to leave his own all over Meredith along with all his prints!)Â
We may thank accredited Forensic Reconstruction Engineer Ron Hendry for pointing out the forensic photo details which demonstrate much of this.
Well now..Amanda's back in the news. At least she prettier than Lindsay Lohan.
I always love the ignorant and stupid comments of some idiots who post as if they know all the facts and were on the jury! (Too many to respond to personally so I'll just say it here.)Â Really people? Get a freakin' life! Seriously, I would much rather let a guilty person walk free than let an innocent person rot in jail! And as far as Italy, they seriously need to let this go! They had their chance, she got hers, she won, she's not there anymore, IT'S OVER!!! They need to quit wasting the time, money and resources on this! Besides, if they did make her go back and go thru the whole thing again, isn't that double jepardy? If Amanda was smart, she would stay the hell away from there, probably shouldn't even go anywhere near Europe!
@Zoso So-called "double jeopardy" is a part of the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. I have no idea if Italy has a similar prohibition. If they do not then there would be no protection against being tried several times for the same crime.
@Zoso we do the same thing in our courts here.....
@SandyBeach @Zoso No, we do not. The ONLY way a person can be tried again for the same crime is if the original trial results in a mistrial Mistrial means that it never occurred.
Maybe the Italian Government should finaly give it up! Just let her live her life without the continued pain and agony!
She's a murderer. Karma will catch up to her.
@newspuppy Please explain how you KNOW for a fact that she is a murderer.
@Furd @newspuppy Crystallized dog slobber or maybe a crystal hairball.
I saw Amanada the other day in West Seattle driving. Her License Plate was - IDIDIT
chuckle
@TheREALtruth No, that was your own you saw reflected in a window. It says "IDIOT".Â
Just let it go, guys...that ship has sailed.
@Mumblix Grumph Actually it has sailed and sank.... I will wait for the book and not read it!
@Grumpa @Mumblix Grumph Sank?  From the article it reads as if she is back to a pretty normal life.
I guess lack of evidence, corrupt court system and a prosecutor that should be in jail will not stop them from trying to get a guilty verdict. The verdict is Not Guility, so move on!
@Dark Dad In Italy, they actually have a verdict form of "proved innocent" (in addition to one of "not proved guilty".) That is what the second court returned - on some charges (e.g. transporting "the knife") on grounds that the crime was never in fact committed at all in the first place!Â
Corrupt police, corrupt prosecutors, corrupt judges. (I mean, the top cop actually bragged that he could tell she was guilty by her wiggle! He also bragged that he could hear her being slapped and screaming in the interrogation room! He was proud of this!Â
I am convinced that this was all a "perfect storm" of anti-American sentiment after the Italian court ruled that Italy could not try an American soldier in absentia (and in violation of NATO treaty) on charges of murder for the shooting death of an Italian police/"intelligence" officer - Nicola Calipari - and wounding of journalist Giuliana Sgrena in the Baghdad war zone in 2005. Seven days after the court ruled and dismissed the charges, Meredith Kercher was murdered by small-time burglar and police informant Rudy Guede - at at time and in a place where normally American Amanda Knox would have been home alone - and police immediately focused on proving that Knox was the actual murderer.
I say, stay away from Italy.
Go Amanda and Rafeille! Â Very best wishes to you both. Â Hope your nightmares will soon be over! Â Praying for wisdom in Italy and courage.
What the,,,, did I step back in time? One day it's a Colton story and then Amanda. Or is KOMO still recycling stories like another worn out Jay Leno monologue?
@SgtPepperSpray The Italians are doing the "recycling" - trying to extract every last bit of publicity at the expense of an innocent person.
@JLS1950Â @SgtPepperSpray The only publicity the Italians are generating is all negative.
@Furd@JLS1950@SgtPepperSpray The ones pressing the issue think it is positive - that it is a matter of "national pride".Â
 Besides, I think some of them have "good reason" to hope that nobody goes snooping around to find out how this crime was REALLY committed - who got Rudy out of jail in Milan - who paid his train fare back to Perugia - who gave him instructions for the night of Nov 1 - why Mignini really needed a horrible sex crime just then - why the chief investigator was so surprised to find a dead British girl - why it was so important to that investigator to frame the American girl for the crime - why on the very eve of the acquittal in the second trial another American girl of about the same age and appearance was run down and killed on a road and her body thrown into an irrigation ditch by a driver who appears to be a relative of another lead "investigator" in the Knox case - why the suspect in this second murder was represented for defense by one of the members of the Knox prosecution team...
There is something really smelly in Umbria, and it is NOT spoiled Parmigiano-Reggiano!
This prosecutor seems determined to make this a lifetime commitment on his part. Maybe it's time to let it go and move on. There must be other cases for him to take charge of. This has become an obsession with this lawyer.
If this had been a fat ugly college coed two things would have happened 1 No one would have heard about it. 2 she would still be in prison.
@Exiled_Patriot Well, likely YOU would not have cared... but what does THAT prove?
Yup, kind of pretty, rich kid. Everyone is not-guilty, the final thing that needs to be determined is the cost for that verdict. Just ask OJ.
I doubt that Exiled....Italian court system is a big joke though. They need to lick their wounds and let it go.
if they don't agree. what happens next. some Italian hit man comes and drags her back to jail?
@Bizquick Some of us suspect the original murder was a botched "hit".
Italy has spent so much time and money on this case. No wonder Italy is broke with the rest of Europe.
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A little bigoted perhaps? What does race have to do with this?
I agree, what the heck does race have to do with this? Retarded court system in Italy maybe.
It's been a while since we had a Foxy Knoxy Friday. All is right with the world again. Thank you KOMO.
Oh, oh, does this mean another fund raiser is right around the corner?
I agree...just leave her alone and put this to bed already!
Argh, I thought this was all over with. Italy is really acting like a toddler, with all this attention seeking.
Just send her back there and get over this already!!!!!!!
@Grumpa Let's send YOU over there, Grumpa. Sending one citizen off to be unjustly treated is as good any other, and you have a nastier attitude.
@JLS1950 @Grumpa You must be a family member. You seem to know more about this trial then anyone I have read about or seen on the tube at least judging by the long dissertations you have posted.  She is not completely without fault she made it tough by changing her story every time they interviewed her. Perhaps if she was not so stoned it would have been easier to remember.
@Grumpa @JLS1950 Nope, not at all related, and I don't know any of them at all either. I *might* have gone to school with her uncle more than 40 years ago, but that has not been proved. In fact, I have never even registered with either Friends of Amanda or Injustice in Perugia websites.
I have been following this case since its inception - right after the Holland Michigan verdicts in the 1979 Janet Chandler murder cold case - which apparently actually WAS everything the Italian police and prosecutors tried to make of this case. At first, I was saddened and angry and did not much question what the Italians claimed. But then I looked at the "evidence" they claimed to have and I switched sides quite immediately: what should have been there was not, and what they claimed they had found was essentially impossible or was irrelevant because it would have been there even if no crime were committed. And what they claimed was "impossible" quickly proved not only very possible but indeed extremely likely.
Through nearly four long years I posted and argued with a large number of people online - more than a few of which I was able to reveal were Italian "plants" very likely working for Italian military intelligence; other were simply offended Italians and offended Brits and many very credulous Americans. I also found the PMF and TJMK websites, which have consistently published absolute crap and false "science" about the case. I have worked more than 40 years in a very technical field, and have studied a great deal of science in many disciplines including DNA and physics and even physiology - and some forensics. I am able to understand many scientific arguments, and I am able to detect many pseudo-scientific fallacies very quickly: it is just a matter of many years' study and practice.Â
This case was hosed from the very start: police postulated and claimed things that were just not possible. They claimed "expertise" that they clearly did not have. They also lied repeatedly. The luminol "evidence" was the most comical, because they forgot that "mopped clean with bleach" would light luminol up like a Christmas tree - as well as remove shoe prints clearly visible in the crime scene photos. They also claimed that Knox and Sollecito somehow removed every strand or fragment of their own hair, all semen, spittle, other bodily fluids, finger, hand and foot prints, etc. from the "orgy" crime scene while carefully leaving all of Rudy's in situ - despite that they were supposedly trying to "shield" Rudy by naming another man. It was just not plausible. They claimed that the whole house had been wiped clean of Amanda's fingerprints (she lived there - why hide her expected presence?) when in fact they never even looked for such fingerprints! They claimed to have found a book in the murder scene that Amanda said she was reading and had left at Raffaele's - thus "destroying" her alibi story just in time for a critical hearing - when in fact their own dated digitial photos and video showed none other than prosecutor Mignini himself examining the very book at Raffaele's apartment more than a month before it was "found" half a kilometer away in the murder house!
What police claimed was a "confession" was not a confession at all. Amanda's "constantly changing story" actually never changed at all except in a grammatically-perfect document (actually two such documents) written for her by police in a language she could not then either read or speak understandably - and which she was forced to sign after an uninterrupted 6-8 hour interrogation following more than 40 hours of questioning by police over just 4 days. At all other times, she has told ONE consistent story: that she was at her boyfriend's apartment all night, and found her house open and unsecured with suspicious bloody footprints on the floor when she returned home next day.
Italian police have consistently fed absolutely provable (and proven) lies to the Italian and British tabloid "press" especially - where those lies seem to have been considerably "enhanced" as they were translated from Italian to English and sometimes back again, and spun into the stuff of National Enquirer as you see at the checkout stand. But actual police photos and video proved the original claims to be complete hokum just over and over again.Â
To my mind, any American who is not just bloody damned angry with the Italians over their treatment of our fellow American - and especially those who continue to claim Amanda Knox as "guilty" - are outrageously disloyal and unpatriotic idiots who are using Knox as a way to prop up their own wilted egos and assuage their own guilt over some matter. It is all simply unconscionable.
Uh no Grumpa. They need to get over it and move on.
@wetrock Where did you come from? Under a wetrock?! Sorry had to do it.... :-)
@Grumpa Why? Much of the evidence that Knox haters kept using against her was discredited. Her changing story had to do with interrogation methods that are illegal in our country. You try being questioned for 50 hours straight while being yelled at in a foreign language, slapped, hit in the head (people doubt her but she is not the only person to say these methods were used) and see if you don't try to give them what they want just to make it stop. There is just nothing there to hold her. She had no history of violence, no motive was ever presented. Seriously, just stop.
@andyourpointis @Grumpa You have some sort of obsession with this person. I do not and I don't care about the details of the crime or trail. I have traveled and lived in Europe and I can tell you that you are on your own when you leave our borders. So get over it!!
@andyourpointis @Grumpa "interrogation methods that are illegal in THIS COUNTRY" that is the problem with most people here, they think because they are americans and we just roll over and give constitutional rights to whom ever crosses the borders. All other nations must do the same. Ain't happening! you leave the borders of this nation your on your own. better hope your a rich sexy looking coed or your screwed.
@Exiled_Patriot @JLS1950 @andyourpointis @Grumpa That warning predated even your beloved Shrub. If it is new on the passports, that just means Obama is making a long-standing truth clearer to the American people. The U.S. has very little sway over the Italians or in fact over any other nation - go back and look what happened with the terrorist murderers from the Achille Lauro when they landed in Italy.Â
If you want to blame someone living in a white house in this case, blame Shrub, who left Amanda Knox to rot in an Italian prison and did not even protest that the Italians failed to call her consulate and get a proper interpreter as required by both treaty and Italian law before interrogating her for 6-8 hours overnight. (They were required to record the questioning too - also by Italian law and even if she was merely a "witness" - but they said they did not do that either.) But Shrub never questioned the matter at all. At least Obama and Hillary made clear to the Italians that they were watching the case from every angle and recording what they saw. THAT is what led the Italians to appoint an outside judge well known for his fairness instead of another of Mignini's "inner circle": it was made clear to them that they were in the crosshairs for some BAD publicity in the UN and in the European Court.
@JLS1950 @Exiled_Patriot @andyourpointis @Grumpa to answere you rage President Obama sure would just bow to them and their National sovereighty. Oh he has. Look on your passport some time and read what it says on it for your safety travaling over seas. You have no rights when you leave the USA. Your president sold you out.
@Exiled_Patriot@andyourpointis@Grumpa Okay, so the Italians beat a false "confession" out of our citizen, our sister, our daughter... and we are supposed to just bow tho their "national sovereignty"??? Tell you what, go live in Italy for a year or two and THEN tell us this.Â
It is not just that the methods would be unlawful here (they are in fact still used here even - and it costs people's freedom and even lives... cf. Kevin Fox) the problem is that they are BARBARIC "methods" in a manner that is illegal even in Italy. (Knox was supposed to have an independent translator and an attorney present during all questioning.) The chief investigator Edgardo Giobbi actually bragged that he was able to determine "guilt" because Amanda Knox wiggled! He bragged that he heard her getting slapped around and screaming... And then they denied that and conveniently "discovered" that they "hadn't recorded" the documented 6+ hour non-stop interrogation as required by even Italian law. Giobbi and Mignini are probably even still watching those "non-existent" interrogation videos over and over! They are both sick-sick-sick critters!