Italy court: Amanda Knox to be retried for Meredith Kercher murder
In
an unexpected decision, the Italian supreme court in Rome is
overturning Amanda Knox's acquittal, saying she will stand trial again
for the murder of roommate Meredith Kercher. NBC's Michelle Kosinski
reports and Italian legal expert Praxilla Trabattoni discusses the case.
By Ian Johnston, Michelle Kosinski and Stephanie Siegel, NBC News
Amanda
Knox was ordered to stand trial again for the murder of her roommate by
Italy's top criminal court on Tuesday, but there appeared to be little
the country could do to force her to return for the new hearings.
The
Court of Cassation, Italy's final court of appeal, overturned the
acquittals of both Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito over
the 2007 killing of British student Meredith Kercher.
In a statement responding to the decision, Knox slammed prosecutors and vowed to fight on.
"It
was painful to receive the news that the Italian Supreme Court decided
to send my case back for revision when the prosecution's theory of my
involvement in Meredith's murder has been repeatedly revealed to be
completely unfounded and unfair,” said Knox, who is now aged 25 and
living in the Seattle area.
“I believe that any questions as to my innocence must be examined by
an objective investigation and a capable prosecution,” she added. “The
prosecution responsible for the many discrepancies in their work must be
made to answer for them, for Raffaele's sake, my sake, and most
especially for the sake of Meredith's family. Our hearts go out to
them.”
Theodore
Simon, one of Amanda Knox's attorneys, discusses the Italian supreme
court's stunning decision to overturn her acquittal saying "we fully
expect she will be exonerated."
Knox said that she and her
family would “face this continuing legal battle as we always have,
confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the face of
wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity."
Kercher, 21, died from knife wounds in an apartment that she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy.
Prosecutors
argued that Knox and Sollecito killed her after a drug-fueled sexual
assault in a case that drew worldwide attention.
Young, attractive
and with a seemingly bright future, the prosecution’s allegations
suggested Knox’s outward appearance belied a secret, more sinister
nature.
Knox was routinely referred to by a nickname “Foxy Knoxy” in newspapers as every detail of her life was examined.
She
and Sollecito, who turned 29 on Tuesday, were prosecuted and found
guilty of killing Kercher. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison,
while Sollecito got 25, but they were acquitted after serving four
years.
Small-time drug dealer Rudy Hermann Guede, who knew Knox, was convicted and given a 16-year sentence.
Ted S. Warren / AP, file
Amanda
Knox, seen in October 2011 in Seattle shortly after her release, will
now be retried in Italy for the murder of Meredith Kercher.
Meredith’s sister Stephanie Kercher, 29,
told Britain's ITV News that the family welcomed the court's decision to retry Knox and Sollecito "in the sense that we hope to find the answers.”
“We
are never going to be happy about any outcome because we have still
lost Meredith, but we obviously support the decision and hope to get
answers from it,” she said. "There are still so many unanswered
questions, all we have ever wanted to do is do what we can for Meredith
and to find out the truth of what happened that night."
"Rudy
Guede's conviction was on the basis that there was more than one person
there so that is something that needs to be looked into,” she added.
Francesco
Maresca, a lawyer representing Kercher's family, said in a statement on
Monday that the acquittals were "defective" and "lacked transparency,"
Reuters reported.
TODAY's
Matt Lauer talks to Amanda Knox's father, Curt, who says his daughter
is currently focused on being with her friends, many of whom have stayed
her friend while she was in prison.
"There was a lot of external pressure and the judge showed a will from the start to acquit," Maresca said.
Italian law cannot compel Knox to return to Italy and she could be tried in absentia.
Knox’s attorney, Theodore Simon, told TODAY that the student and her family were confident her acquittal would be upheld.
He
characterized the outcome of Tuesday’s court decision as a “revision”
of the case, as opposed to a retrial, saying: “Merely because they have
sent it back for revision does not mean that anything else will happen
other than she will be recognized as not guilty and the same thing will
happen again.”
“From what I understand, [Court of Cassation judges] have sent [the
case] back for revision and reconsideration. They will review it. They
may simply affirm that there was a ‘not guilty’ before and it should
remain the same. They may seek to take some further evidence, but
nothing has really changed.”
Simon said there was no reason for Knox to have to return to Italy, saying her presence was “no issue” in Tuesday’s ruling.
The Italian appellate court hearing the case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties.
"If
the court orders another trial, if she is convicted at that trial and
if the conviction is upheld by the highest court, then Italy could seek
her extradition," another of Knox's lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, told
The Associated Press.
Since her release from prison in 2011, Knox has resumed her studies in Seattle.
Knox's book about the case is due to be released in April.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. ITV News is the U.K. partner of NBC News.
Oli Scarff / Getty Images
The
long legal saga of Amanda Knox, an American student accused of the
violent death of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, has
made headlines around the world since it began in Perugia, Italy, in
late 2007.
Related:
Revealed: Why court cleared Amanda Knox
Report: Amanda Knox 'loves Italy' and might return
Italian judge slams Amanda Knox prosecutors
What's next for Amanda Knox? Questions and answers about the case
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
An
Italian court on Tuesday ordered the retrial of Amanda Knox, the
American college student jailed for four years for killing her British
roommate, Meredith Kercher, but acquitted after an appeal. Here are some
questions and answers arising from the decision:
What just happened here?
The
Court of Cassation, the Italian equivalent of the Supreme Court,
overturned the acquittals of Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele
Sollecito, and ordered them to stand trial again before an appeals court
in Florence.
They had been convicted in 2009 when Knox was
sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito got 25 years. An appeals
court freed both of them when it overturned the convictions in 2011,
ruling that prosecutors had provided faulty DNA evidence, no murder
weapon and otherwise insufficient proof.
What was the basis for Tuesday's court ruling?
We don’t
know yet. Italian law gives the court three months to explain its
decision. In the American system, an appeals court would generally
explain itself upon issuing the ruling.
Any idea what they might be thinking?
Prosecutors
have filed 16 points of appeal — essentially disputes over how the law
was applied at trial, not over the facts of the case. Among other
points, prosecutors question the appeals court’s ruling that DNA testing
was faulty and that certain witnesses were unreliable.
This sounds an awful lot like double jeopardy.
Italian
law prohibits a version of double jeopardy — being tried anew for a
crime for which you have already been cleared, said Praxilla Trabattoni,
an Italian lawyer who was followed the case. This case is technically
different.
Trabattoni said that the Supreme Court was essentially
saying that "when the appeals court was evaluating whether she did it or
didn’t, the appeals court did that on the basis of evidence that
shouldn’t have been admitted.”
Italian law says that a judgment is
not definitive until it’s cleared every degree of trial, Trabattoni
said, and the Supreme Court is considered the third degree of trial,
after the lower court and the appeals court. If the Supreme Court had
upheld the acquittal and then prosecutors had brought a new case
entirely, that would be considered double jeopardy under the Italian
system, Trabattoni said.
What happens next?
After the
Supreme Court issues its explanation, an appeals court in Florence gets
the case. A retrial probably would not begin until late this year or
early next year.
Where is Amanda Knox these days?
She
is a student at the University of Washington, where she stayed up until
at least about 2 a.m. Pacific time to learn her fate, one of her
lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, told reporters, according to The Associated
Press. Now 25, she has a memoir, “Waiting to Be Heard,” coming out
April 30, for which publisher HarperCollins reportedly paid her $4
million.
In a statement Tuesday, she said: “No matter what
happens, my family and I will face this continuing legal battle as we
always have, confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the
face of wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity.”
Does she have to go back to Italy for the retrial?
No.
And it appears unlikely that she will. Knox spent almost four years
behind bars after her original arrest and conviction, before the appeals
court reversed it. The retrial can go forward without Knox being
present.
“It simply will proceed, it will be strenuously defended,
and we fully expect she will be exonerated,” one of her lawyers,
Theodore Simon, told NBC News.
What happens if the conviction is reinstated? Does she get sent back to jail in Italy?
We’re
several big steps away from that, but it’s possible. First, Knox would
have to be convicted by the appeals court. Then the Italian Supreme
Court would have to uphold
that verdict. Then Italy would have to seek Knox’s extradition from the United States.
The
United States and Italy have an extradition treaty under which the U.S.
would be bound to send Knox back, said Juliet Sorensen, who teaches
international criminal law at the Northwestern University School of Law.
Such a decision would risk a political furor here at home. Knox has
been portrayed by the American media as someone caught up in a
hopelessly dysfunctional Italian legal system.
Still, if the
conviction is reinstated, “I expect that Italy will make that request
because it’s a serious crime,” Sorensen said. “At the end of the day, if
she’s convicted of murder, I don’t foresee the Italian authorities
letting it drop.”
And Meredith Kercher’s family? What do they make of this?
Kercher’s sister Stephanie, 29,
told ITV News, the British partner of NBC News, that all the family ever wanted was the truth about the night of Nov. 1, 2007.
“We
are never going to be happy about any outcome because we have still
lost Meredith, but we obviously support the decision and hope to get
answers from it,” she said.
What became of Sollecito, the boyfriend?
He
released his own book last year: "Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and
Back with Amanda Knox." In it, he reportedly wrote that police slapped
and stripped him during an interrogation, and that they tried to get him
to save himself by turning on Knox.
These days he is 29 and studying in Verona, according to British newspaper reports.
Giulia Bongiorno, one of his lawyers, stressed that the Supreme Court ruling was not the same as a conviction.
“Unfortunately
we have to continue the battle,” she told reporters, according to
Reuters. “This is a sentence that says, with regards to the acquittal,
that something more is needed.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.