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Knox convicted again of 'sex game murder' case
Amanda Knox on ABC's Good Morning America in New York last Friday. She will probably have to wait several months for a definitive ruling in her case.
Rome - Amanda Knox, who was convicted by an Italian appeals court of murdering a British student in 2007, will probably have to wait several months for a definitive ruling in the case, a criminal lawyer said.
Knox, 26, who returned to the United States two years ago as a free woman after a court tossed out her 2009 murder conviction, was sentenced in absentia by an eight-person jury last Thursday to 28 years and six months in jail for murder and slander. Her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, got a 25-year jail term.
Last Thursday's verdicts are not final because lawyers for Knox and Sollecito said they will appeal to Italy's highest court.
"It will take months. They may schedule it around October or November," said Mr Andrea Castaldo, a criminal lawyer and professor at the University of Salerno, about a possible hearing at Italy's top court.
The defendants' lawyers must wait until the Florence appeals court publishes its reasons for last Thursday's verdict, which could take as long as three months.
An eventual extradition filing by Italy to the US can be made after a final conviction by Italy's top court or sooner if authorities request "precautionary measures" such as an arrest, Mr Castaldo said.
"It really hit me like a train," Knox, a Seattle native, told ABC's programme Good Morning America in an interview last Friday.
"I will never go willing back to the place where... I'm going to fight this to the very end. It's not right and it's not fair."
Knox and Sollecito were convicted of killing British student Meredith Kercher in 2007.
Sollecito was located by police on Friday about 50km from the Italian border with Slovenia.
After being notified of his foreign travel ban, he voluntarily followed policemen to a police station and was scheduled to be released once the paperwork was done, said police officer Glovanni Belmonte.
Before the death of her housemate, Knox was an exchange student in Perugia, a university town of 170,000 in central Italy known for its Baci chocolates.
She was originally sentenced to 26 years, and served almost four years in prison before the verdict was overturned in Oct 2011.
Sollecito, now a 29-year-old computer studies graduate, was sentenced to 25 years in jail in the first ruling in 2009 and found not guilty on appeal in 2011.
On March 26 last year, Italy's highest court approved a prosecutor's request to void the appeals court verdicts and try the pair again.
Kercher, a 21-year-old London native and Leeds University exchange student, was found dead in her bedroom, half-naked and with her throat slashed on Nov 2, 2007 in the house she shared in Perugia with Knox and two other women.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said at the original trial that Knox had masterminded a drug-fuelled sex game involving Sollecito and Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast native who grew up in Italy, which turned violent, leading to the murder.
Guede was found guilty in a separate "fast-track" trial in 2008 and sentenced to 30 years.
His jail term was reduced to 16 years in a 2009 appeal.
Like Knox, Sollecito has always denied any wrongdoing, saying all he and his girlfriend wanted at the time was to be isolated in their "little fairy tale".
Washington Post
Amanda Knox on ABC's Good Morning America in New York last Friday. She will probably have to wait several months for a definitive ruling in her case.
Rome - Amanda Knox, who was convicted by an Italian appeals court of murdering a British student in 2007, will probably have to wait several months for a definitive ruling in the case, a criminal lawyer said.
Knox, 26, who returned to the United States two years ago as a free woman after a court tossed out her 2009 murder conviction, was sentenced in absentia by an eight-person jury last Thursday to 28 years and six months in jail for murder and slander. Her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, got a 25-year jail term.
Last Thursday's verdicts are not final because lawyers for Knox and Sollecito said they will appeal to Italy's highest court.
"It will take months. They may schedule it around October or November," said Mr Andrea Castaldo, a criminal lawyer and professor at the University of Salerno, about a possible hearing at Italy's top court.
The defendants' lawyers must wait until the Florence appeals court publishes its reasons for last Thursday's verdict, which could take as long as three months.
An eventual extradition filing by Italy to the US can be made after a final conviction by Italy's top court or sooner if authorities request "precautionary measures" such as an arrest, Mr Castaldo said.
"It really hit me like a train," Knox, a Seattle native, told ABC's programme Good Morning America in an interview last Friday.
"I will never go willing back to the place where... I'm going to fight this to the very end. It's not right and it's not fair."
Knox and Sollecito were convicted of killing British student Meredith Kercher in 2007.
Sollecito was located by police on Friday about 50km from the Italian border with Slovenia.
After being notified of his foreign travel ban, he voluntarily followed policemen to a police station and was scheduled to be released once the paperwork was done, said police officer Glovanni Belmonte.
Before the death of her housemate, Knox was an exchange student in Perugia, a university town of 170,000 in central Italy known for its Baci chocolates.
She was originally sentenced to 26 years, and served almost four years in prison before the verdict was overturned in Oct 2011.
Sollecito, now a 29-year-old computer studies graduate, was sentenced to 25 years in jail in the first ruling in 2009 and found not guilty on appeal in 2011.
On March 26 last year, Italy's highest court approved a prosecutor's request to void the appeals court verdicts and try the pair again.
Kercher, a 21-year-old London native and Leeds University exchange student, was found dead in her bedroom, half-naked and with her throat slashed on Nov 2, 2007 in the house she shared in Perugia with Knox and two other women.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said at the original trial that Knox had masterminded a drug-fuelled sex game involving Sollecito and Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast native who grew up in Italy, which turned violent, leading to the murder.
Guede was found guilty in a separate "fast-track" trial in 2008 and sentenced to 30 years.
His jail term was reduced to 16 years in a 2009 appeal.
Like Knox, Sollecito has always denied any wrongdoing, saying all he and his girlfriend wanted at the time was to be isolated in their "little fairy tale".
Washington Post
