14 DAY TRIAL // In March this year, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that Amanda Knox, who once stood accused of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher but was later acquitted, would stand trial again. She is now telling Matt Lauer that she’s not going back to Italy for the retrial.
Kercher was killed in her bedroom at the apartment in Italy she shared with Knox. Knox and her then- boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito were arrested, charged and, in a first trial, found guilty of all charges.
They spent 4 years in prison but were eventually acquitted in 2011.
Knox is now back in the US, having started all over again. She’s not even considering the option of traveling back to Italy for the retrial, she tells Lauer in an interview on The Today Show. You can find it embedded below.
“I was already imprisoned as an innocent person in Italy, and I can't reconcile the choice to go back with that experience,” Knox explains of the retrial that starts on September 30.
“It's not a possibility, as I was imprisoned as an innocent person and I just can't relive that,” she continues.
Initially, she thought she’d go back because she knows she’s innocent and she’s eager to prove it again. However, other considerations are now preventing her from doing it, such as money problems, her school schedule and, last but not least, that small possibility that she’s found guilty and sent back to prison.
“I don't think I'm going to be put back in prison. I think that we're going to win. That's why I'm fighting this fight, that's why I continue to put forth the defensive argument in court. I look at [my decision of not going back to Italy] as an admission of innocence, to be quite honest,” she says.
“I was imprisoned as an innocent person. It's common sense not to go back,” Knox continues before adding that a prison sentence is always at the back of her mind.
“I have to prepare in my mind what that would be like. I thought about what it would be like to live my entire life in prison and to lose everything, to lose what I've been able to come back to and rebuild. I think about it all the time. It's so scary. Everything's at stake,” she explains.