Amanda Knox to be tried for slander by Italian court

Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were cleared of murdering British student Meredith Kercher

Amanda Knox is standing trial for slander (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

Months after Italy’s highest court acquitted Amanda Knox of the murder of Meredith Kercher, the writer is facing a new trial after being charged with slandering police.

The charges come after Knox testified that she was coerced by police into falsely accusing a Congolese barman of murdering Ms Kercher, her British roommate.

The 27-year-old is not expected to attend the trial which opened in Milan on Wednesday.

However, prosecution witnesses will take to the stand when the trial resumes in September.

Knox's defence lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said he is “not worried” about the case, noting that the statute of limitations runs out in October 2016, requiring exhaustion of all appeals.

Following an eight-year legal saga over the 2007 killing of Kercher, Italy’s highest court overturned the murder convictions of Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in March.

In 2009, the pair were found guilty of sexually assaulting and murdering the student in Purgia, but were both acquitted and released from prison in 2011 after serving four years.

Italian courts upheld the convictions in 2010 and 2014 following appeals trials for the former couple.

However, in March 2015, the court exonerated both Knox and Sollecito.