Amanda Knox speaks at a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport, Wash., after landing there on a flight from Italy on Oct. 4, 2011.
Credit: Reuters
Why is she on trial again?
In 2009 an Italian court convicted the American exchange student of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007. She was sentenced to 26 years in jail; her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito got a 25-year sentence. However, the pair was acquitted by an appeals court two years later. Now Italy’s highest court has ordered a retrial.
Why?
Knox and Sollecito’s acquittal has always seemed shaky. They were acquitted because of police errors related to the handling of the evidence at the crime scene. But Rudy Guede, who was also convicted in Kercher’s murder and continues to serve a prison sentence, didn’t act alone, and Knox and Sollecito remain the only other suspects.
Does that mean Knox has to return to Italy?
No. According to Italian law, the accused doesn’t have to attend his or her trial. That’s why Silvio Berlusconi has been absent from his own court proceedings. Knox can watch the trial from her home in Washington state, where she now attends university.
And if she’s convicted?
She won’t have much to worry about then either. The U.S. is highly unlikely to extradite a citizen. At most, a conviction would finally give the Kercher family the truth – or parts of it – about what really happened when Meredith’s throat was slashed as she lay in bed.
