Amanda Knox Wants to Return to Italy, Where She Was Falsely Convicted of Murdering Roommate
Amanda Knox may return to Italy — eventually.
At the Death Becomes Us true crime festival in New York City last weekend, Knox, 31, spoke out about plans to return to Italy, according to The International Business Times.
“I have an amazing family and friends and an incredible support network. But you have got to face up to your fears alone if you want to heal, and I know the main thing that still terrifies me most is returning to Italy,” Knox said, the outlet reports.
“It’s something I know I have to do, and I will do it, but it really does scare me … I know I have to go back at some point, I’ve just got to prepare myself for it,” she reportedly added.
This is a desire Knox also expressed in a 2017 interview with PEOPLE, during which she said, “Perugia is probably the least welcome place for me in the entire world. And that’s scary. But the only way that I’m going to come full circle is by physically, literally, coming full circle.”
Related: Amanda Knox, Four Years After Acquittal: Her Life Today
Knox was an American student studying abroad in Perugia in 2007 when she was accused of brutally murdering her roommate, Meredith Kercher, who was found dead in her bedroom on November 2. It was a dramatic case that saw controversial twists for years to come.
Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were both convicted for the murder of Kercher, 21, a British exchange student who lived with Knox in Perugia. Prosecutors alleged the crime had taken place during a sex game run amok, though hard evidence against the young couple was scant.
Knox and Sollecito spent four years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2011. However, the pair were convicted again in absentia in 2013 before being acquitted again in 2015.
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Rudy Guede, a Perugia-based bartender, is currently serving a 16-year sentence for Kercher’s murder, NBC News reports.
“I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy,” Knox said when her conviction was definitively overturned by Italy’s highest court on March 27, 2015, according to the New York Times. “The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal.”
In January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay $20,000 in damages to Knox for failing to provide her legal assistance during her initial questioning after Kercher’s murder, according to the AP.
