Knox struck fatal blow in killing — Italian court
MILAN AP — The Italian appeals court that reinstated the conviction against Amanda Knox in her ritish roommate’s murder said in a lengthy reasoning made public Tuesday that Knox herself delivered the fatal blow out of a desire to “overpower and humiliate” the victim.
Presiding udge Alessandro Nencini concluded in a -page document that the evidence “inevitably leads to the upholding of the criminal responsibility” against Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of -year-old Meredith Kercher in a hillside villa occupied by students in the university town of Perugia.
The udge said the nature of Kercher’s wounds, which he said were inflicted by two knives, and the absence of defensive wounds indicated multiple aggressors were to blame, also including Rudy Hermann uede, an Ivorian man convicted separately and serving a -year sentence.
Nencini presided over the lorence-based panel that reinstated the first trial guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito in anuary, handing Knox a year sentence including the additional conviction on a slander charge for wrongly accusing a Congolese bar owner. Sollecito faces years.
The release of the court’s reasoning opens the verdict to an appeal back to the supreme Court of Cassation. If it confirms the convictions, a long extradition fight for Knox is expected.