Amanda Knox ready to take the stand in upcoming slander trial in Italy

Amanda Knox, an American woman famously jailed in Italy and then acquitted in the 2007 murder of her roommate, lamented the fact that she’s still “fighting to clear (her) name” some 16 years later, while the man convicted of the grisly crime is “free from prison” and continues to hurl accusations regarding her involvement in the high-profile slaying.

Despite the ongoing legal ordeal, 36-year-old Knox said she is “excited” at the prospect of vindicating herself “once and for all.” In a series of posts to X, she added that she’s not “afraid to travel back to Italy and take the stand” in her own defense.

While she was not prepared to do so more than a decade ago, “all these years later, I finally am,” Knox wrote. “I want my daughter and my son to see what standing up for the truth and for your principles looks like.”

Knox was just 20 years old when she and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were accused of killing Meredith Kercher during a study abroad trip in the Italian city of Perugia. On Nov. 7, 2007, Kercher was found naked under a blanket with her throat slit on the floor of the bedroom she shared with Knox in the Hilltop University dorms. Authorities almost immediately identified Knox and her Italian paramour as suspects in the case, which quickly nabbed international headlines, many of them including the nickname “Foxy Knoxy.”

The case involved two convictions and two appeals before the pair were eventually acquitted of the slaying in 2015. By then, Knox had spent four years in prison.

The court at the time, however, did uphold her 2011 conviction for slandering Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner she claimed was involved in Kercher’s killing. He was behind bars for two weeks before someone backed up his alibi.

Knox was was sentenced to three years already served, but went on to appeal the case in 2019. Her legal team specifically cited a 2019 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that concluded her rights to a lawyer and an interpreter were violated during her initial interrogations with Italian authorities.

In October, an Italian court agreed to grant Knox a new trial.

Rudy Guede, an immigrant from the Ivory Coast, was convicted during a separate trial and sentenced in 2008 to 16 years behind bars for Kercher’s killing.