Rome (dpa) - Italy's supreme court started on Monday examining
whether to uphold the acquittal of Amanda Knox and her former Italian
boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of British student
Meredith Kercher.
Judges at the Court of Cassation in Rome were expected to reach a
decision in the evening.
Sollecito, a student in the northern town of Verona, and Knox, a
US citizen who has returned home, were not present at the hearing.
In 2007 the 21-year-old Kercher was found with her throat cut, in
the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a university town in
central Italy. The case attracted huge international media attention,
particularly from the United States and Britain.
Sollecito and Knox were identified as the prime suspects and
arrested soon after the murder. They were sentenced to 25 and 26
years in jail respectively in a first ruling in 2009. They were found
not guilty on appeal in 2011 and set free.
Prosecutors and Kercher's parents have asked for the appeal trial
to be declared void and for Knox and Sollecito to be tried again. In
Italy, verdicts can be appealed twice before they become final.
The Court of Cassation was also due to rule on the appeal by
Knox's lawyers against a three-year jail term for libel after she
falsely accused a Congolese pub owner of killing Kercher.
Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede is serving a final conviction for
killing Kercher. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2008,
reduced to 16 years by an appeals court and confirmed by the Court of
Cassation.
