The court will decide whether to confirm the convictions of Knox and her former boyfriend for the 2007 murder of her British roommate in Italy. The decision could lead to an extradition fight.
Amanda Knox in New York in January 2014.
Mark Lennihan / AP
Italy's highest court is expected to decide Wednesday whether to confirm the guilty convictions of Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the 2007 murder of Knox' British roommate in Italy.
The final ruling in the highly-publicized case will come more than seven years after Knox and Sollecito were accused of sexually assaulting and fatally slashing the throat of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, who was sharing Knox's apartment while they studied in the Italian town of Perugia. The body of Kercher, a University of Leeds student, was found half-naked in her locked room in November 2007 after what prosecutors said was a drug-fueled sex game gone wrong.
The ruling could set in motion the extradition process for Knox, 27, who is currently living in her native Seattle and has vowed never to go back to Italy after she was released from prison there in 2011.
Knox and Sollecito were convicted in Kercher's slaying in 2009, but their convictions were overturned by a Perugia appellate court in 2011. After that, Knox returned to Washington State.
However, their acquittals were thrown out in 2013, and the pair was convicted again by a Florence appeals court, which sentenced Knox to 28 ½ years and Sollecito to 25 years in prison. A third person, Rudy Hermann Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was also convicted in the murder and is serving a 16-year sentence in prison.
Knox and Sollecito have repeatedly maintained their innocence. "I am frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict," Knox said in a statement released after the 2014 guilty verdict.
She vowed that she "will never go willingly back" to Italy and would fight her extradition "to the very end" in her interview with ABC's Good Morning America last year. This February, she got engaged to Colin Sutherland, a musician who moved to Seattle from New York.
Wednesday's ruling from the Court of Cassation could result in different outcomes: a confirmation of their guilty verdicts and the push for extradition, another appeal trial or an overturning of their guilty verdicts which would close the sensational case for good, the Associated Press reported.
A lawyer for the Kercher family told The New York Times that they would push for Knox's extradition if she was found guilty. "The family wants to get to the bottom of this case, and if that means extradition, then it means we will do this, too."
The U.S. and Italy have an extradition treaty and the U.S. would likely grant Knox's extradition request, Julian Ku, a professor of international law at Hofstra University, told The New York Times.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1Glz836
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