Amanda Knox Retrial Update: Won’t Go Back To Italy; Not an Admission of Guilt

Amanda Knox Retrial Update: Amanda Knox says she won't go back to Italy to face trial again. Amanda Knox gave her first TV interview on The Today Show with Matt Lauer about the retrial that is coming up in Florence, Italy, on Sept. 30.

Amanda Knox retrial extradition won’t happen unless she is found guilty. Lawyers said Amanda Knox will not return to Italy for the new appeals trial in the 2007 killing of her roommate.

Amanda Knox's attorney Luciano Ghirga told La Nazione that after meeting with Amanda Knox and her legal team that the former Seattle college student said she will not go back to Italy for the new trial. The Amanda Knox murder trial is scheduled to start on Sept. 30 in Florence, Italy.

Amanda Knox, 25, was convicted of the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy. Amanda Knox spent four years in prison before the conviction was thrown out by an Italian appeals court in 2011. The Italian Supreme Court rejected the Appeals Court ruling in March. Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 29, have been ordered a sit for a new trial. The Supreme Court filed its papers on June 18 that said the Supreme Court judges supported the prosecutors' original theory. Prosecutors claimed that Amanda Knox and Sollecito caused Kercher’s death during a forced "erotic game" that turned violent. The Supreme Court judges ruled on the Appeals Court process, not the testimony or evidence in the case.

The Supreme Court judges said the appeal should be annulled "due to the multiple shortcomings, contradictory events and manifest lack of logical reasoning."

In her first TV interview, Amanda Knox she told Matt Lauer "I was already imprisoned as an innocent person in Italy, and I can't reconcile the choice to go back with that experience. It's not a possibility, as I was imprisoned as an innocent person and I just can't relive that. I don't think I'm going to be put back in prison. I think that we're going to win. That's why I'm fighting this fight, that's why I continue to put forth the defensive argument in court."

Amanda Knox doesn’t see that as an admission of guilt. Amanda Knox she told Matt Lauer "I look at it as an admission of innocence, to be quite honest. Besides the fact that there are so many factors that are not allowing me to go back — financial ones, ones where I'm going to school, ones where I want the court to proceed without distraction. I was imprisoned as an innocent person. It's common sense not to go back."

In an essay Amanda Knox wrote for TODAY.com, she says she is haunted by the idea of going back to prison. Amanda Knox she told Matt Lauer "I imagine it all the time because I have to think the worst-case scenario. I have to prepare in my mind what that would be like. I thought about what it would be like to live my entire life in prison and to lose everything, to lose what I've been able to come back to and rebuild. I think about it all the time. It's so scary. Everything's at stake."

This will be Amanda Knox's third trial for the alleged murder of British roommate Meredith Kercher. Amanda Knox spent almost four years in an Italian prison starting in 2009. On Oct. 4, 2011, Amanda Knox and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted on appeal and released from prison. The Italian Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Knox in March after they rejected the appeals court ruling.

If Amanda Knox is convicted again, her lawyers can appeal to the Italian Supreme Court. We don’t know if the U.S. will let Amanda Knox be extradited if she is convicted again.

Amanda Knox she told Matt Lauer "That's not the primary concern of my lawyers right now. I don't believe that they have, precisely because they're still confident that we can win this. What is being on trial here is not my character. It shouldn't be. What should be on trial is the facts of the case. If you look at the facts of the case, there's proof of my innocence. There's no trace of me in the room where my friend was murdered. There's traces all over the place of the man who actually did this. Rudy Guede was convicted, his DNA was everywhere, and it's impossible for me to have participated in this crime if there's no trace of me."

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world news
amanda knox
Retrial Update
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