Killer Knox: ‘Appeal will set me free’

JAILED murderer Amanda Knox is counting on an appeal to quash her conviction for killing roommate Meredith Kercher, an Italian prison visitor said yesterday.

Walter Verini, an opposition politician in the Chamber of Deputies, spoke to Knox as part of his monitoring of conditions in the country’s prisons.

A jury in Perugia last week convicted Knox of murdering Meredith Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, in the house they shared there. Knox was sentenced to 26 years.

Mr Verini said Knox told him she still has faith in the Italian justice system, including the appeal her lawyers are preparing.

“My rights were respected, I believe so,” Knox told him.

Knox told Verini: “I still have faith in Italian justice. I have a huge desire to be free but there is only one path I have chosen for leaving here, and that is the appeal that my lawyers are preparing.”

Mr Verini said: “She looked tranquil and confident that her arguments will be heard, sooner or later.

“Her eyes are the eyes of a young person who just got sentenced to 26 years, but also of someone who has not given up.”

He said he spoke to Knox for only a few minutes as he visited the Capanne prison on the outskirts of Perugia.

He said she was writing when he arrived and welcomed him “with a kind smile”.

Books were on Knox’s bed in the cell she is sharing with a 53-year-old woman from New Orleans who is serving a four-year sentence for drug dealing, he said.

Knox has asked for permission to work in the prison laundry, and she seems to have a good relationship with the other inmates, he said.

“She is able to socialise and I think she’s treated well,” he said, adding that he was not allowed to discuss details of the legal case with Knox.

After the verdict was announced following 13 hours of deliberations, Knox burst into tears. The jury also convicted Knox’s co-defendant and former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, of murder and gave him a 25-year prison sentence.

It will be months before an appeals trial can begin.

Knox has alternately been depicted as a cold-blooded “she-devil” or an innocent foreigner who fell victim of a much-criticised Italian justice system. In the United States, the coverage has been largely favourable to her and critical of the Italian handling of the case.

The US Embassy in Rome and Knox’s lawyers said that a meeting with consular officials is scheduled for Friday.