Amanda Knox Trial, Case Update: Doubts Over Italian Justice System

The Amanda Knox case has taken another controversial twist following new doubts raised on the Italian justice system that reconvicted the 27-year-old American student after she had already been acquitted of murder in the same case.

In January this year, an appeals court in Florence, Italy, overturned Knox's earlier acquittal and convicted her for a second time, together with her ex-boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito, of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy on Nov. 1, 2007.

For a third time, the murder case will be heard in Italy's highest court of appeal on March 25, 2015.

Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student, was found half-naked, her throat slit, in the cottage she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007.

Knox and Sollecito were initially found guilty of the murder and were sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively in prison. After spending four years in jail, the two were acquitted on Oct. 3, 2011. Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellman handed out a not guilty verdict on both Sollecito and Knox, pointing out that the pieces of evidence against the accused were all grounded on theoretical terms such as "probably."

Knox immediately returned to her home in Seattle, Washington, to rebuild her life. She has found love with old friend James Terrano and is now a creative writing student.

Despite their acquittal, Knox and Sollecito were surprisingly tried again in absentia on Sept. 30, 2014 in Florence, Italy. On Jan. 30 this year, the court eventually reconvicted Knox and Sollecito of murder, believing the prosecution's argument that Knox was the one who cut the British exchange student's neck with a kitchen knife during a row over money.

The court subsequently sentenced Knox and Sollecito to 28 and 25 years, respectively. A third man, Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede, was earlier convicted of murder in the same case and is serving a 16-year sentence.

Italy's highest court -- Court of Cassation in Rome – must now uphold those convictions in March next year. If the Florence court's verdict is upheld, Italy will attempt to extradite Knox. However, the chances for this to actually happen are minimal, according to diplomatic sources.

Knox said if she is reconvicted, she will become "a fugitive."

A recent report in the New York Observer contends that Knox is innocent of murdering Kercher and has only been targeted because she was a foreigner in Italy.

The article, written by Nina Burleigh, claims that Knox was an "easy target for prosecutors who make up their minds about guilt before truly examining evidence in a crime."

Burleigh earlier wrote a book, "The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox," where she underscores the guilty verdict on Guede, an itinerant African immigrant, handed down by an Italian court for the murder of Kercher.

Italian investigators found Guede's fingerprints at the scene of the crime. Guede also admitted that he was at the house shared by Kercher and Knox moments before the killing. One of his palm prints was also found in a blood stain underneath Kercher's body.

He then fled to Germany but was caught and extradited back to Italy to stand trial. He's now serving 16 years.

With the perpetrator of the crime already established and actually serving time in prison, Burleigh asks why Knox is still being prosecuted.

The author says the answer to this question lies is the "obsession" of Giuliano Mignini, the Italian prosecutor in charge of the case. Burleigh noted that Mignini had already been convicted of corruption.

The author pointed out that Mignini was also the prosecutor in the "Monster of Florence" serial killer case, which Mignini deemed as a masonic conspiracy. He lost the case.

Later he was convicted of illegally tapping the phones of police officers and reporters connected to the Florence case. He was given a 16-month suspended sentence.

Burleigh wonders why the prosecutor was allowed to take charge of the Kercher murder case given his sullied background.

The author says during the trial, no DNA and other pieces of evidence were found to link Knox to the killing of Kercher even though they lived together in the same house.

One forensic evidence that did exist – Kercher's bra clasp -- was mishandled by Italian authorities prior to trial. The piece of metal was left on the floor of the crime scene for six weeks before blood evidence was found on it.

A bloody knife print didn't match the knife police had in custody. This forced Mignini's team to create a theory involving two knives, Burleigh says.

One of Mignini's witnesses against Knox was Antonio Curalato, a homeless man who slept on a bench near Knox's house. Curalato turned out to be a serial witness and heroin addict whom the police had persuaded to testify in two other murder cases.

Burleigh also accuses the Italian police of being sexist and vindictive. At one point, she discloses, a police official posing as a doctor informed Knox that she had HIV, and asked her to name all her previous sexual partners so they could be alerted to the risk.

A devastated and confused Knox complied, but she later found out that it was a trick and that the Italian cops just wanted to know about her sex life. The information about her sexual past was then leaked to the media.

Meanwhile, the controversial murder case may soon hit the big screen with BBC planning to do a film on the case starring Kate Beckinsale and Cara Delevingne. The proposed movie was approved by Kercher's family. However, Knox's lawyers threatened to sue if the film pushes through. The film will be based largely on the book penned by CNN journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau titled "Angel Face."