"Why I think Amanda Knox is innocent..."

This morning, an Italian court convicted Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox was not present in Florence but learned of the verdict from her home in Seattle, USA. Her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, has also been convicted for a second time.

The judge handed down a sentence of 28.5 years for Knox, 25 years for Sollecito.

The courts have branded Amanda Knox a murderer. For Meredith’s family, this is long-awaited justice. And to millions of news-watchers, this young woman is the very personification of evil.

But I think Amanda Knox is innocent. 

Yes, I’m a jury of one. Currently 16 317 kilometres away from where the crime took place. And I am aware that I am basing my personal verdict not on forensic evidence heard in a courtroom but on feverishly watching the story unfold over seven years on international television.

But I am not alone in this.

There are thousands of people – Knox’s friends and family obviously included – who maintain that Knox is innocent. Now she’s been convicted once again, it’s that much harder to keep arguing for her innocence. The word GUILTY will appear next to Amanda’s face in the media a million times today alone.

That doesn’t make it true.

Let me refresh your memory about what’s happened so far:

In November 2007, the body of 21-year-old English student Meredith Kercher was found on the floor of her apartment in Perugia, Italy – a place she shared with Amanda Knox and two local girls.

Knox and Raffael Sollecito (the Italian boy she’d been dating for less than a fortnight) were arrested by police. Newspapers around the world speculated that Meredith was killed in a sex game gone horribly wrong. Knox, who never cried publicly and was seen kissing her co-accused outside the crime scene, was crucified in the media. She was called “Foxy Knoxy”.

In December 2009, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of Kercher’s murder and sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison respectively. They both successfully appealed their verdicts in 2011, when an Italian court ruled that the prosecution had mishandled vital DNA evidence. That October, Knox was released from jail, where she’d already spent four years behind bars. She returned to Seattle.

A man from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede was then arrested in connection with the same murder. After his DNA was found at the crime scene, the Italian courts sentenced him to 30 years in prison (the sentence was reduced to 16 years following an appeal).

Then in March last year, the Supreme Court of Italy decided that Knox and Sollecito would be retried for the murder. Double jeopardy – the law that means you cannot be tried for the same crime twice – does not exist in the Italian legal system. Knox decided not to return to Italy for the case.

Which brings us back to this morning, when both Knox and Sollecito were slapped with a murder verdict for the second time.

And I’m left reeling.

Knox says she’s “frightened” and “has her heart in her throat”. Reflecting on the case, that’s how I feel too. You see, I have accidentally over-identified with Knox. She is my age. She’s got blue eyes and dark blonde hair.

That’s where our similarities end but somehow, it’s enough. There is something that keeps me coming back for more information on Knox’s convictions: It’s exasperation. It’s exasperation coupled with a profound resentment and disappointment in the way Knox has been vilified by news outlets. Her noxious nickname “Foxy Knoxy” and the way people became fixated on her good looks and sexuality really irk me and make me question how she’s been treated.

Knox was damned as much for being sexually promiscuous as she was for the crime itself. Her behaviour was also deemed inappropriate: she was seen kissing Sollecito outside the crime scene, she wore a casual t-shirt and smiled in court, she was never seen crying until she was sentenced, and in every public appearance she was stoic, unmoved. And then there was the cartwheel incident – when Italian police officers allegedly saw her do a cartwheel in between interrogations right after Meredith Kercher was found dead.

With all that public vilification, it doesn’t seem to matter that there was insufficient evidence to convict Knox and Sollecito.

It doesn’t matter that the minuscule traces of DNA the prosecution based their entire case on were legally too small to count, or that the clasp from Meredith’s bra (the piece of fabric with a virtually undetectable trace of Sollecito’s DNA) lay on the floor of the crime scene for days before it was picked up and then not bagged properly, or that officers on the scene didn’t adhere to international protocols on evidence collection.

Forensic experts have condemned the Italian police force for contaminating the crime scene. The “murder weapon” doesn’t match Meredith’s wounds, and it hasn’t been conclusively linked to either Knox or Sollecito.

Then there’s the evidence that should be there, but isn’t: Like, for instance, any trace whatsoever of Knox being in the bedroom where Meredith died. Whereas, Rudy Guede’s DNA was found on Meredith’s body and in the room, which is why he’s serving time for her murder. He is guilty. But that gets in the way of a more salacious narrative: that “Foxy Knoxy” forced her housemate into a fatal sex game.

The lasting fascination with Knox and the case is all about hanging onto what shocks us most. She doesn’t look like a killer, and I’ve always detected a note of sick delight in the way people declare she’s guilty. Because she’s good looking, because she was exploring her sexuality and because she didn’t sob in the court room or react in the ways we think we would.

Picture her now, at home with her family, waiting to hear whether she’ll be extradited to Italy to serve that sentence. It’s up to the USA now, to protect her and keep her in America, or to abide by the extradition agreement they have with Italy and send her back to Florence for 28.5 years.

In her quietest moments alone, Amanda Knox knows in her heart whether she’s guilty or innocent. But to most of the world, she’s a depraved murderer too cowardly to return to the country where she committed her crime.

The very strong case for her innocence will haunt me forever.

Have you followed the Amanda Knox case? Have you felt uncomfortable about the sexualised way the media has portrayed her? Do you believe justice has been done?

UPDATE: Amanda Knox responds to verdict

Amanda Knox sat down with Good Morning America reporter Robin Roberts to talk about her conviction, the Kercher family, and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

In the interview, she reveals that she’s written a letter of support to Meredith Kercher’s family. “It’s in the mail,” she says.

She also responds to news that her co-accused, ex-boyrfiend Raffaele Sollecito, was stopped on the Italian border and advised not to leave the country. “My first thought was, oh my god, Raffaele,” she begins.

Amanda’s voice is unsteady, like she’s moments away from crying.

See it all here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4hafGvxj9o