Meredith Kercher: Amanda Knox accuses media of portraying her as guilty over 2007 death

Murdered student’s family lawyer calls appearance ‘inappropriate’

Zamira Rahim
Saturday 15 June 2019 19:03 BST
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Amanda Knox accuses media of portraying her as guilty over 2007 death

An emotional Amanda Knox has accused the media of portraying her as guilty of Meredith Kercher’s murder, despite a court clearing her of the crime in 2015.

The 31-year-old wept while speaking in Italy, on a panel at a conference on criminal justice.

Ms Knox, said the press had portrayed her as “a cunning, psychopathic, dirty, drugged-up whore who was guilty until proven otherwise”.

“The prosecutors and the media created a story and a version of me that suited that story, on which people could attach all their fantasies, fears and moral judgments... the dirty, psychopathic man-eater Foxy Knoxy,” she said.

Kercher, a British exchange student, was found dead by police in the flat she shared with Ms Knox in Perugia, Italy, on 2 November 2007.

Ms Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her then-boyfriend and an Italian citizen, were found guilty of murder and sexual assault in 2009.

But two years later the pair had their convictions quashed following an appeal and were released.

The US exchange student spent four years in prison before leaving Italy after the 2011 acquittal.

A hearing held in January 2014 reconvicted Ms Knox, before Italy’s supreme court definitively cleared her in 2015.

Rudy Guede was eventually convicted of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher to death in 2008. He is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for the student’s murder.

Ms Knox’s appearance in Modena for the festival marks her first return to Italy since 2011.

“I’m returning to Italy as a free woman,” she wrote in an Instagram post published before her speech.

Ms Knox currently hosts The Truth about True Crime, a podcast series for Sundance TV.

The murder of Kercher, who was a student at the University of Leeds, has attracted significant media attention since 2007.

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Ms Knox published a memoir about her experience in 2013 and a documentary and film have also been made.

The Kercher family’s lawyer reacted with dismay to Knox’s return to Italy.

“Inviting [Knox] to a technical panel on justice was a mistake,” Francesco Maresca said, branding the appearance “inappropriate”.

“Lawyers for both parties should have been involved,” he added.

Additional reporting by agencies

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