Amanda Knox Retrial Date Set In Italy

The Amanda Knox retrial will begin on September 30. According to The Independent, an Italian appeals court has now set the date to retry Knox for her alleged involvement in the 2007 death of roommate Meredith Kercher.

The American student was convicted for the murder in 2009 in an Italian court in a trial widely believed by Americans to be a miscarriage of justice. On October 2, 2011, that conviction was overturned, and Amanda Knox returned to the United States. But the Italian Supreme Court overturned the acquittal in March.

Her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and then cleared in the crime. His acquittal was also overturned.

Sollecito talked to the Today Show in May, explaining why he never took a deal to free himself at the expense of Amanda Knox, even though they’d been boyfriend and girlfriend for only a week at the time of the accusations: “[I] cannot throw a 20-year-old innocent girl for just giving me the opportunity to live my life because I wouldn’t have ever lived a life like that…the real facts are that we are innocent.”

Knox turned 26 on Saturday. She has spent much of the time since her return to America writing and promoting a book about her experience called Waiting to be Heard, in which she described her difficult experience in an Italian prison where sexual abuse was common.

Another person, Rudy Guede, is already serving a 16-year sentence for the crime. Most Americans believe that the evidence suggested that the motive was robbery. His fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene of the murder, and many of Kercher’s valuables were stolen.

However, Guede constructed an elaborate story, which Italian prosecutors believed, of a complicated sex game gone wrong that resulted in Sollecito and Knox assisting him in the murder.

The Huffington Post said that Knox now lives in Seattle, Washington. Because she does not feel she can get a fair trial in Italy, Amanda Knox isn’t expected to return for the retrial.

[Italy field photo by Pava via Wikimedia]
[Amanda Knox photo credit: CleveredFool.com via photopin cc]