A tearful Amanda Knox has told an appeals court in Italy that accusations that she killed her British roommate are unfair and groundless.
Knox fought back tears as she addressed the court Monday, minutes before the jury went into deliberations to decide whether to uphold her murder conviction. A verdict is expected later in the day.
Knox said that she had "lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible". "I'm paying with my life for things I didn't do." She said she wants to go home and "back to my life."
"She had her bedroom next to mine, she was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead," Knox said. "But I was not there."
Her family have said they will take her back to Seattle immediately if it is overturned, despite prosecutors vowing to appeal. Knox’s father Curt told ABC News that the family would not rest until Amanda had been released.
“We will do everything we can. If it happens to go bad we have another alternative in going to the Supreme Court within Italy and we won’t stop until she comes home to us,” he said.
“She’s obviously very tense. She is 24 years old and she’s looking at a potential life sentence, so that’s not a pleasant experience for anyone.”
Mr Knox said the family is hopeful, as is Amanda, that the jury will see “she really had nothing to do with this horrific crime”.
Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2009. Knox had been sharing a cottage with Ms Kercher when she was killed in what prosecutors say was a brutal sex game which went wrong.
Ms Kercher’s throat had been slit and she had been sexually assaulted.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian man.
They deny wrongdoing.
Throughout the trial and subsequent appeal, Ms Kercher’s family say they feel the true victim has been “completely forgotten”.
“In these four years, Meredith has been completely forgotten. But we need to find justice for her, we need to find the truth for her,” Ms Kercher’s sister Stephanie said in an interview on Italian television.
3 News / AP