by Patrick H. Moore
Amanda Knox is back in the news today. She was interviewed this morning by Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” Show on the the eve of her Italian retrial for the 2007 killing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.
The 25-year-old spent four years in prison after being convicted of Kercher’s murder in Perugia, Italy, where they were roommates while studying abroad. An Italian appeals court threw out Knox’s murder conviction in 2011. In March, however, the Italian Supreme Court rejected the Appeals Court ruling and ordered a new trial for Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 29, which will begin in Florence,Italy, on September 30th.
In her interview, a plaintive Knox defended her decision not to return to Italy for the new appeals trial. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that “everything is at stake,” even while insisting she is innocent.
“I was already imprisoned as innocent person in Italy, and I can’t reconcile the choice to go back with that experience,” said Knox. “I just can’t relive that.”
When Lauer asked Knox if she worried that she was handing prosecutors an admission of guilt by not attending the trial, the Seattle native replied:
“I look at it of an admission of innocence, to be quite honest.”
Knox stated that there was no trace of her in the room where her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found with her throat slashed stating logically:
“It’s impossible for me to have participated in this crime if there’s no trace of me.”
Knox also said school and finances were keeping her from attending the trial. Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new legal proceeding. Knox did say that she still had faith in the Italian legal system.
“I believe that people who really care about justice and look at this without prejudice will come to same conclusion.”
While defending herself and her decision to not return to Italy for the trial, Knox acknowledged that the prospect of returning to prison haunted her.
“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 is at stake.”
In an April interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, Knox stated that the Supreme Court’s decision to order a third trial was “incredibly painful.”
“I felt like after crawling through a field of barbed wire and finally reaching what I thought was the end, it just turned out that it was the horizon. And I had another field of barbed wire that I had ahead of me to crawl through.”
Although there are no suggestions that Knox was raped during her four years in the Italian prison, there is strong evidence that she was harassed unmercifully, not by the other prisoners who appear to have treated her with respect, but by the Italian authorities. She was given an initial blood test and then told that she was HIV positive; this later turned out to be untrue. Officials insisted she write a list of previous lovers, which they leaked to the media.
According to Knox, she was sexually harassed and intimidated by prison officials. She reports that a high-ranking prison administrator would take her to his office alone at night and make inappropriate statements, which left her feeling terrified. Furthermore, prison guards forced her to engage in unwanted sexual conversations. ABC News reported that one male guard entered Knox’s cell alone and made sexual remarks to her.
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The last six years have aged Knox beyond her 25 years. Once so bright and vibrant — and no doubt a bit empty-headed in the manner of self-confident American youth — Knox’s days of kinky “sexual experimentation”, and allegedly striking provocative yoga poses at inopportune moments, appear far behind her. She is a sadder and no doubt wiser young woman now. It is a shame that her maturity has been purchased at such a cost — a shadow that hangs over her every waking moment.
Click here to view our earlier post on the Amanda Knox murder case:
Amanda Knox Will Not Return to Italy to Stand Trial