Amanda Knox found guilty of Kercher murder for the second time
Amanda Knox has been sentenced to 28 years and six months in prison after the Italian court reinstated the previous verdict. Her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito has been sentenced to 25 years.
Miss Knox was sentenced by the Italian Court in 2009, after being convicted of murdering a British student, Meredith Kercher. After a year, the Court of Cassation overturned both verdicts.
The court had also ordered both of the defendants to pay damages to Miss Kercher’s family.
Meredith Kercher, 21, was found stabbed to death in her flat, which she shared with Amanda Knox, in Perugia in 2007. Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast was convicted of murdering the British student and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The verdict had specified that he did not act alone. The prosecutors had insisted that Miss Kercher died as a result of a sex game that went wrong, which involved both of the defendants.
The Italian court is now likely to seek Miss Knox’s extradition. She is currently living in her hometown of Seattle and studying for a Creative Writing degree at the University of Washington.
Raffaelle Sollecito has had his passport taken away, while the case has been re-opened. His national identity card has been stamped to prevent him from leaving Italy. On Friday morning, he had been held at the police station in Udine, after being found in a hotel close to the Austrian Border.
He wasn’t present at the court in Florence when the verdict was being read out. He told the reporters outside the court: “I have nothing to add to what I have always said – I am innocent.”
Justyna Majewska
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