Amanda Knox, the 24-year-old American student who was convicted of murdering her 21-year-old roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in 2007, is facing an Italian appeals court today to plead her innocence.
Today Knox tearfully addressed the court: “I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn’t there.”
Knox has been in an Italian prison for nearly four years.
As Reported By CBS News:
Knox frequently paused for breath and fought back tears as she spoke in Italian to the eight members of the jury in a packed courtroom, but managed to maintain her composure during the 10-minute address.
“I’ve lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible,” she said of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old Briton who shared an apartment with Knox when they were both students in Perugia.”I’m paying with my life for things that I didn’t do.”
Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend from Italy, were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to death in her bedroom.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. They both deny wrongdoing.
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Kercher family as they continue to cope with the death of their young daughter.
SOURCE: CBS
