The 26-year -old (left) revealed her shock at the court's decision which
she watched on an Italian television station from her Seattle home with
her family. She also revealed she has written a letter to the family of
murdered 21-year-old British student Meredith as her family, including
sister Stephanie (right) gave their own press conference in Florence
today. Amanda Knox today fought back tears as she gave her first live interview since she was found guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher for the second time.
The 26-year-old revealed her shock at the court's decision just hours after the family of the murdered 21-year-old British student gave their own press conference in Florence today.
'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. They found me innocent before, how can they find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?'
AMANDA KNOX ORDERED TO PAY £3.6 MILLION COMPENSATION TO MEREDITH KERCHER'S FAMILY
By Tom Leonard in New York
Amanda Knox has been ordered to pay £3.6 million compensation to the Kercher family, compounding financial woes which she insists are already dire.
The figure was set in her first trial and was confirmed by the Florence court that has reconvicted her of murdering Meredith Kercher.
Her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, has been ordered to pay the same sum.
The Kerchers’ legal team had originally requested more than £20 million, split evenly between the pair and Rudy Guede, who remains in prison after being convicted of the murder.
It remains to be seen where she will find such a huge sum - let alone the legal fees to fight possible extradition moves.
Knox is currently finishing a degree in creative writing at the University of Washington, where she had been a student at the time of the murder.
By the time of her acquittal in 2011, Knox’s parents had already spent well £1 million on her legal fees and other expenses traveling back and forth to Italy.
Her divorced parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, took out second mortgages on their Seattle homes and exhausted much of their retirement savings in their efforts to free her from an Italian prison.
When Knox signed a £2.5 million book deal with a publisher she was accused of cashing in on the tragedy of Miss Kercher’s death.
But her supporters defended the move, insisting that Knox needed to repay her parents for all they had spent on her.
She is soliciting donations on her website for her legal defence. In December, she was attacked by Italian prosecutors for seeking donations on the same website for donations to a fund set up to honour Ms Kercher. That appeal has since been removed.
One alternative source of money is to accept lucrative speaking engagements – she is represented by Robert Barnett, the same Washington lawyer who brokered huge publishing deals for Tony Blair, Barack Obama and George W Bush.
Mr Blair has earned as much as £100,000 a time from speaking engagements and Mr Barnett, his spokesman said last year, would assist Knox in “evaluating other opportunities” aside from the book.
But her life in Seattle remains modest. Knox still lives in a £950 a month apartment in the city’s shabby but hip Chinatown district where she moved within weeks of her return home in October 2011.
And she is still shares her home and life with her boyfriend, a handsome classical guitar student named James Terrano.
Her 463-page account of her ordeal, Waiting to be Heard, came out last year. Despite a scrum between some 20 publishers desperate to publish it and an interview deal with ABC that won Fox an hour’s worth of primetime network TV in which to plug the book, HarperCollins drew disappointing early sales for the tome.
Publishers in Britain queried whether the excitement was justified, pointing out that she remains a very divisive figure outside the US.
Amanda Knox has been ordered to pay £3.6 million compensation to the Kercher family, compounding financial woes which she insists are already dire.
The figure was set in her first trial and was confirmed by the Florence court that has reconvicted her of murdering Meredith Kercher.
Her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, has been ordered to pay the same sum.
The Kerchers’ legal team had originally requested more than £20 million, split evenly between the pair and Rudy Guede, who remains in prison after being convicted of the murder.
It remains to be seen where she will find such a huge sum - let alone the legal fees to fight possible extradition moves.
Knox is currently finishing a degree in creative writing at the University of Washington, where she had been a student at the time of the murder.
By the time of her acquittal in 2011, Knox’s parents had already spent well £1 million on her legal fees and other expenses traveling back and forth to Italy.
Her divorced parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, took out second mortgages on their Seattle homes and exhausted much of their retirement savings in their efforts to free her from an Italian prison.
When Knox signed a £2.5 million book deal with a publisher she was accused of cashing in on the tragedy of Miss Kercher’s death.
But her supporters defended the move, insisting that Knox needed to repay her parents for all they had spent on her.
She is soliciting donations on her website for her legal defence. In December, she was attacked by Italian prosecutors for seeking donations on the same website for donations to a fund set up to honour Ms Kercher. That appeal has since been removed.
One alternative source of money is to accept lucrative speaking engagements – she is represented by Robert Barnett, the same Washington lawyer who brokered huge publishing deals for Tony Blair, Barack Obama and George W Bush.
Mr Blair has earned as much as £100,000 a time from speaking engagements and Mr Barnett, his spokesman said last year, would assist Knox in “evaluating other opportunities” aside from the book.
But her life in Seattle remains modest. Knox still lives in a £950 a month apartment in the city’s shabby but hip Chinatown district where she moved within weeks of her return home in October 2011.
And she is still shares her home and life with her boyfriend, a handsome classical guitar student named James Terrano.
Her 463-page account of her ordeal, Waiting to be Heard, came out last year. Despite a scrum between some 20 publishers desperate to publish it and an interview deal with ABC that won Fox an hour’s worth of primetime network TV in which to plug the book, HarperCollins drew disappointing early sales for the tome.
Publishers in Britain queried whether the excitement was justified, pointing out that she remains a very divisive figure outside the US.
KNOX'S STATEMENT IN FULL
Their grief over Meredith's terrible murder will follow them
forever. They deserve respect and support.
I am frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict. Having
been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system.
The evidence and accusatory theory do not justify a verdict of guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt. rather, nothing has changed.
There has always been a marked
lack of evidence. My family and I have suffered greatly from this wrongful
persecution.
This has gotten out of hand. Most troubling is that it was
entirely preventable.
I beseech those with the knowledge and authority to
address and remediate the problems that worked to pervert the course of justice
and waste the valuable resources of the system: overzealous and intransigent
prosecution, prejudiced and narrow-minded investigation, unwillingness to admit
mistake, reliance on unreliable testimony and evidence, character
assassination, inconsistent and unfounded accusatory theory, and
counterproductive and coercive interrogation techniques that produce false
confessions and inaccurate statements.
Clearly a wrongful conviction is horrific for the wrongfully
accused, but it is also terribly bad for the victim, their surviving family, and
society.
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