Italian court prepares verdict in Knox appeal over Kercher murder

Italy’s highest court is expected to rule on Friday on whether to uphold the conviction of American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

The brutal killing and tangle of trials that followed gripped attention on both sides of the Atlantic, inspiring books and films. Kercher’s family said Meredith, who died aged 21, risked being forgotten.

Almost eight years after the murder, the Court of Cassation’s decision could trigger a new legal battle over whether to extradite Knox, 27. Her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 31, could also face decades in jail.

Lawyers for the pair, who each served four years in prison before being acquitted on appeal in 2011 and then convicted for a second time after a retrial last year, argue the prosecution had presented a distorted picture from the evidence.

“If you take the Bible and divide it into many parts you can put together a pornographic book from the pieces,” Sollecito’s lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said as she arrived at court.

South London-born Kercher was found stabbed to death in a house she shared with Knox in the medieval hill town of Perugia in 2007. Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, is serving a 16-year sentence for the crime, but judges ruled he did not act alone.