Amanda Knox insists ‘I did not kill my friend’

Amanda Knox has again proclaimed her innocence and dismissed the findings of an Italian appeals court that says she delivered the fatal blow to her roommate in 2007.

She said there was no DNA, hair, footprints, or handprints to show she was there when Meredith Kercher was killed.

Knox was speaking after an Italian court released an explanation of her conviction. In a retrial, Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her then boyfriend, were found guilty of the 2007 death of Kercher, Knox’s one-time roommate.

“I did not kill my friend. I did not wield a knife. I had no reason to,” Knox said. “In the month that we were living together, we were becoming friends. A week before the murder occurred, we went out to a classical music concert together... We had never fought.”

The Florence appeals court said a third person convicted in the murder, Rudy Guede, did not act alone, and cited the nature of the victim’s wounds.

Ruling Judge Alessandro Nencini, who presided over the second appeal, said Kercher and Knox disagreed over the payment of the rent in the house they shared in Perugia and “there was an argument, then an elevation and progression of aggression”.

Knox dismissed those allegations out of hand. “If I were there, I would have traces of Meredith’s broken body on me. And I would have left traces of myself around — around Meredith’s corpse,” she said. “And I — I am not there. And that proves my innocence.”

When asked what type of person Judge Nencini must think she is, Knox cited his report. “He believes the prosecutor when the prosecutor describes me as a person who was capable of not only completely disturbing everyone around me, but then getting drugged up,” she said. “But I’m not that person.”

Meanwhile, Claudio Hellman, the judge who previously threw out their convictions, has lashed out at colleagues.

“The Florence Appeal Court has written a script for a movie or a thriller book while it should have only considered facts and evidence. There is no evidence to condemn Knox and Sollecito,” he said.

“It’s a verdict that, it seems to me, is the result of fantasy and has nothing to do with evidence.”

Guede is the only person in jail for the slaying, and many aspects of the crime remain unexplained.