Italian court weighs whether to reopen Amanda Knox sex-murder case
This file picture taken on March 12, 2011 shows Amanda Knox in court before the start of a session of her appeal trial in Perugia’s courthouse. Italian prosecutors lodged an appeal against the acquittal of US student Amanda Knox, accusing her of murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher in the university town of Perugia in 2007.
Amanda Knox may be safely in Seattle but her trial in an Italian court room goes on without her.
An Italian court is expected to decide today whether to reopen the murder charges against the 25-year-old American student for the stabbing death or her British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007.
Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had initially been sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for killing and sexually assaulting Kercher, but were acquitted on appeal after four years in prison.
A drifter from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted separately for the murder.
Despite the acquittals, ABC News reports that both Italian prosecutors and Kercher's family want to see Knox and Sollecito back in prison.
"We feel that Amanda and Raffaele are guilty and were in the room with Rudy Guede," Francesco Maresca, lawyer for the Kercher family, told ABC as he entered Italy's supreme court in Rome Monday.
Knox, who will not appear in court in Italy, "is anxious and waiting for the decision. She would love to come back to Italy, as an innocent and free person," Luciano Ghirga, the American's lawyer, told reporters outside the court.
According to CNN, if the judge decides to reopen the case, Knox may have to return to Italy and face an appellate court.
If she refuses to leave the US, the Italian government could ask the government to extradite her but its unlikely there will be enough evidence for the US government to agree.
In legal paperwork published in December 2011, the judge in the case wrote that the jury had cleared the pair of murder for lack of evidence proving they were guilty.
Knox is trying to resume a normal life in her hometown of Seattle and studying at the University of Washington. She wrote a memoir on her ordeal, due to be published in April by HarperCollins.