Amanda Knox: “It’s Common Sense Not To Go Back” For Retrial

Amanda Knox already served four years of a 26 year sentence in Italy for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007. Following an appeal by Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, the two were acquitted in 2011 by an Italian court.

In the meantime, the Italian high court has now overturned that acquittal and a set a retrial for September 30. Knox spoke to the Today show‘s Matt Lauer in her first television interview since her acquittal:

“I was already imprisoned as an innocent person in Italy, and I can’t reconcile the choice to go back with that experience. It’s not a possibility, as I was imprisoned as an innocent person and I just can’t relive that. She continued: “I don’t think I’m going to be put back in prison. I think that we’re going to win. That’s why I’m fighting this fight, that’s why I continue to put forth the defensive argument in court.”

When Amanda Knox was asked by Lauer why she wouldn’t return to Italy for the retrial she said: “There are so many factors that are not allowing me to go back — financial ones, ones where I’m going to school, ones where I want the court to proceed without distraction. I was imprisoned as an innocent person. It’s common sense not to go back.”

Knox. who is now 26. said that she is allowed to be represented by her lawyers and that if re-convicted can appeal to the Italian Supreme Court once again but that she could be extradited if found guilty again: “That’s not the primary concern of my lawyers right now,” she said. “I don’t believe that they have, precisely because they’re still confident that we can win this.”

She spoke in the interview about the her belief that the evidence in her favor will prevail: “There’s always the fear that’s lingering and the experience of having been convicted when I shouldn’t have, but things have changed,” she said. “It’s not just the prosecution’s voice that’s out there, and while it is the legal process in Italy where one can be convicted of a crime if there is no motive to be found and if there’s only circumstantial evidence, you can’t be convicted if there is proof to the contrary.”

Amanda Knox spoke towards the end of the interview about the effects four years jail time had on her. She said she had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that the upcoming retrial was causing her condition to get worse.