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Meredith Kercher murder: Amanda Knox breaks down in first live interview after second guilty verdict and says 'It hit me like a train' Meredith Kercher murder: Amanda Knox breaks down in first live interview after second guilty verdict and says 'It hit me like a train'
(about 3 hours later)
Amanda Knox wept as she gave her first live interview since being found guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher for the second time. Many were no doubt hoping that the Meredith Kercher murder case would have drawn to a close by now – not least the victim’s family. But another day of drama today ensured that the spectacle will continue for some time.
The 26-year-old expressed her shock and fear over the court’s decision, which she watched on an Italian television from her home in Seattle. Following Thursday night’s decision by an appeals court to reinstate convictions on Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox, Sollecito has had to surrender his passport to police after reportedly briefly crossing the border to Austria.
“I couldn't believe what I was hearing,” she told Good Morning America. “This really has hit me like a train. I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system. Judges in Florence, who reinstated the verdict that the pair were guilty of killing the British student Ms Kercher in 2007, had ordered Sollecito to hand in his passport. But on Thursday Sollecito had already left the courtroom when the decision was delivered.
“They found me innocent before, how can they find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?” Police said the 29-year-old former boyfriend of Knox, 26, was picked up in the village of Venzone, 40 miles from the border crossing. Italian media said he briefly crossed into Austria before returning to Italy, but his lawyer denied he was trying to escape.
In the latest twist in the tortuous legal process, an appeals court in Florence ruled that Knox, 26, and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 29, should serve 28 years and six months and 25 years in prison respectively for their part in the killing of Ms Kercher, 21. “Raffaele Sollecito had no intention of fleeing. He went to the police station in Udine voluntarily,” said the lawyer Luca Maori, who described the conviction of his client as being “devoid of logic”.
Meanwhile, Amanda Knox protested her innocence in a series of interviews given in the US, to where she returned after her original conviction was quashed by the appeals court in Perugia in 2011.
In one interview Knox said: “I’m not going back to Italy willingly. They’ll have to pull me back kicking and screaming into a prison that I don’t deserve to be in. I will fight for my innocence”. Knox, fighting back tears, told Good Morning America that the court’s decision “hit me like a train”.
  
The pair already spent four years in an Italian jail after their first conviction, which was subsequently quashed in 2011. In one interview Knox said: “I’m not going back to Italy willingly. They’ll have to pull me back kicking and screaming into a prison that I don’t deserve to be in. I will fight for my innocence”. Knox, fighting back tears, told Good Morning America that the court’s decision “hit me like a train”.
If the verdict is confirmed in the Supreme Court - the same court which ordered the retrial - Italy will seek Knox’s extradition. The family of Ms Kercher has urged the United States to agree to extradite Knox if her conviction is upheld after a final appeal process, which could conclude in 2015. “It would set a difficult precedent if a country such as the US didn’t go along with laws that they themselves uphold,” said her brother, Lyle.
“I'm going through waves of emotion,' Knox told Robin Roberts. “ My first reaction was, ‘No, this is wrong. I'm going to do everything I can to prove that it is’. Sollecito’s sentence has been confirmed as 25 years in prison. The Florence appeals court actually increased Knox’s original sentence to 28 years and six months after prosecutors demanded additional punishment for her slanderous claims that an innocent Perugia bar owner had killed Ms Kercher.
“I felt very determined, but it was only on my way here that I really got my first cry.” Both Knox and Sollecito have already served four years in jail for the murder of Ms Kercher who was found with her throat slit in 2007 in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia.
Robin Roberts interviews Amanda Knox on ABC's 'Good Morning America' in New York, 2014 (Reuters/Andrew Kelly) She said that her first thought was for Sollecito, who was in Italy at the time of the verdict. He has had his passport confiscated after being found in a hotel near the Italian border, but will not yet return to prison. But despite seven years of claims and counterclaims, and four trials, justice seems as far away as ever. Neither convictions nor acquittals are definitive under the Italian justice system until signed off by the Supreme Court of Cassation. Italy’s highest legal body is also able to annul verdicts as it did after criticising the Perugia appeal court’s decision in 2011 to free the pair. This raises the prospect of a drawn-out legal process.
“My initial thought after the verdict was, ‘oh my God, Raffaele’, ” she said.  The case continues to divide opinion. Americans have depicted Knox as the victim of a vindictive justice system, which has failed to provide convincing forensic evidence of the pair’s guilt. Many British and Italian observers, on the other hand, point to the lies and changing alibis given by the pair, and Knox’s attempt to blame an innocent man for the murder.
“I feel very supported and respected and believed here and I know that he feels very supported and respected by people in Italy, but he is vulnerable. Meredith’s sister Stephanie said she had not been able to grieve properly due to the drawn-out struggle to establish the basic facts of the night their sister was killed. “It may be that we never know the truth about what happened,” she said. Many observers agree. Meo Ponte, a journalist for La Repubblica, said: “By now I think this inquiry is no longer based on fact but on emotions. I believe the affair is destined to remain a great mystery.”
“I don't know what I would do if they imprisoned him. It's maddening.”
Knox also said that her thoughts were with Meredith’s family and that she had sent them a letter.
“I just want them to know that I really understand that this is incredibly difficult,” she said. “When the case has been messed up so much, a verdict is no longer consolation for them. 
“The thing that people want when they've been victims is just simple acknowledgement - and they deserve respect and that's been lost. I wish them the best.”
But Knox vowed to fight against the verdict, saying she would not willingly return to Italy.
Speaking before the verdict was read out, Knox told BBC’s Newsnight programme: “I'm definitely not going back willingly. They will have to catch me and pull me back kicking and screaming into a prison that I don't deserve to be in.”
However, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said that if the Supreme Court in Italy turns down her appeal, the United Sates will have to abide by its decision.
He told NBC News: 'The United States seeks extradition of more people than any country in the world. We’re trying to get NSA leaker Edward Snowden back and we’re not going to extradite someone convicted of murder?'
Professor Dershowitz also cast doubt on the possibility that Knox could be protected by double jeopardy laws  because she was initially found guilty and her acquittal was heard at an intermediate appeals level.
“If that happened in the U.S., it wouldn't be double jeopardy,” he said.
However, a legal expert told CNN that Knox is not likely to serve any more prison time in Italy.
Sean Casey, from Kobre & Kim in New York, said: “She was once put in jeopardy and later acquitted. Under the treaty, extradition should not be granted.”
Ms Kercher’s brother, Lyle, who was in the court for the verdict, said he would not be able to forgive those responsible for his sister’s death.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Kercher said: “I think you’d have to be a very strong-willed – arguably religious – person to find that forgiveness. I think it is so easily forgotten what happened to Meredith. When I read reports even now, I find myself skimming past the paragraphs that refer to what actually happened to her because it is so horrific.”
Kercher's sister, Stephanie Kercher (L) and brother Lyle Kercher speak during a press conference in Florence, 2014 (EPA/Maurizio Degl' Innocenti) The jury, of two judges and six lay people, took far longer than the expected eight hours to arrive at the verdict, indicating some disagreement.
Kercher, 21, was found dead in a pool of blood in the bedroom of the apartment she and Knox shared in the town of Perugia, where they were studying. Kercher had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed.
The original trial in 2009 relied on  DNA evidence, confused alibis and Knox’s false accusation against a Congolese bar owner. The pair was convicted and spent four years in prison.
Prosecutors originally argued that Kercher was killed in a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong, but in the latest trial, a new prosecutor instead argued that the violence stemmed from arguments between roommates Knox and Kercher about cleanliness.