Is Amanda Knox Guilty?

TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN: On November second 2007, police in Perugia

receive a phone call. There's been a break-in. When police

arrive, they discover a young woman has been stabbed to death. She's

Meredith Kercher, a British student, a girl with everything to live for.

REPORTER: Amanda! Amanda! For six years, her American

flatmate, Amanda Knox, has been the centre of a media and judicial

storm, one of three people accused of Meredith's murder. Tonight, the

central evidence for and against Amanda Knox. And, for the first

time, the audio recording of Amanda Knox's prison interrogation.

HER VOICE BREAKS Convicted, jailed, acquitted and now found guilty once

more. It's time, say the victim's family,

for the case to be resolved. We all definitely want some form of

closure, and then we can all start to remember just Meredith.

I was imprisoned as an innocent person.

Meredith Kercher grew up in Croydon, south London.

In August 2007, a new university year is about to start. Meredith,

now 21, prepares to leave for the ancient and beautiful hilltop city

of Perugia, Italy. She was very excited about coming to

Italy, looking forward to learning more about Italian culture, seeing

the city of Perugia and making new friends. She really fought to come

here. She really wanted to be here. Mez, as everyone calls her, is

studying European politics and Italian at Leeds.

Now she has an exchange year in Italy, a country she's been in love

with since a school trip. But saying goodbye to her sister Stephanie

isn't easy. We were just talking on the sofa and

having a little cuddle goodbye, and then I just remember her suddenly

crying and saying that she was going to be sad to go, but she was excited

to come... And I remember being quite taken aback, and I thought,

"Don't make me sad. "I'll miss you but you'll go and have fun".

She leaves on September first, and quickly afterwards moves into the

upstairs flat of this cottage, with three housemates - two young Italian

trainee lawyers and a student on exchange from the United States,

20-year-old Amanda Knox. Amanda has travelled almost 6,000

miles from Seattle on the Northwest coast to study Italian in Perugia.

Photogenic, outgoing and describing herself as quirky, Amanda Knox loves

the Beatles and Harry Potter. She's been studying at university and has

worked three jobs to pay for her Italian adventure.

She is very different from the quiet and studious Meredith. While

housemates, there's said to be tension over Amanda's supposedly

casual attitude to sex, money and housework.

Within weeks, Amanda Knox lands a job in Perugia, working as a

waitress at Le Chic, a pub owned by a popular musician from the Congo,

Patrick Lumumba. TRANSLATION: She gave me the

impression of a good person. If she wasn't a good person, she wouldn't

have worked here. That doesn't mean that her relationship with clients

pleased me, because she often talked to the clients and I had to tell her

to get back to work. On October 25th, Amanda and Meredith

go to a classic musical concert together, where Amanda meets Italian

student Raffaele Sollecito. He looks like her favourite, Harry Potter,

and the two begin a whirlwind romance. Described by friends as

intelligent and sensitive, the handsome Raffaele has come to

Perugia to study information technology.

A week later - October 31st. It's Halloween, and in Perugia, like

every other university town, it's party time. It's one of Meredith's

favourite nights out and she's dressed as a vampire. These will

turn out to be among the last photographs of her alive. Happy,

full of life, and completely at home with her new friends.

What happens on the night of November first 2007 has been the

subject of two trials, three appeals and two supreme court judgments. The

story has more twists and turns than the medieval streets of Perugia.

Police in Italy are searching for the killer of a British exchange

student who was found dead in her apartment in Perugia. Officers

discovered the body of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in her bedroom

yesterday afternoon. The story starts at nine o'clock in

the morning on second November, when a local woman finds two mobile

phones in her garden. She takes them to the postal police, which handles

crimes involving communication devices. They quickly discover one

of the phones is registered to Via della Pergola seven, a small cottage

just 500 metres away. When police arrive here, they see two students

in the driveway. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. They tell the

police the front door is open... And one room has been ransacked.

Police go into the house. One bedroom's a mess. Clothes are all

over the floor and a large rock is lying near the window. Shortly after

the postal police arrive, at 12.51, Raffaele Sollecito calls the elite

police force, the Carabinieri. He doesn't mention that the postal

police are already there, and says nothing's been stolen - details

prosecutors would later claim are significant.

Meanwhile, Amanda says she's worried about her friend Meredith. Her

door's locked, she's not answering her phone. When the door is broken

down, they discover a beige duvet on the floor. Beneath it, the battered

and bloody body of Meredith Kercher. Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini arrives

just after 2pm. He finds Meredith is partially naked, her bra's been cut

off and her T-shirt rolled up above her breasts. It looks like a sexual

assault. TRANSLATION: When you start an

investigation, you don't know what happened, you have to slowly

reconstruct the situation. Forensics teams work inside and

outside the cottage. Right away, they think it's a staged break-in.

Glass shards are on top rather than underneath the scattered clothes.

The large rock seems too heavy to be thrown from the ground to the first

floor window and too big to go through the small crack between the

shutters. A handbag, jewellery case, camera and laptop computer are lying

in full view. There's a line of bloody shoe prints from Meredith's

room to the front door. And in the bathroom, a bloody bare footprint is

on the bath-mat. Over four days, investigators

collect more than 400 items from the apartment, photographing and filming

their work. When police bag Meredith's bra for

evidence, they notice something is missing.

Somehow, the investigators leave without the clasp - a critical error

that will haunt the prosecution case.

The autopsy shows Meredith has been strangled and stabbed on two sides

of the neck, possibly with two different knives. The second fatal

stab severed her thyroid artery. There are 40 wounds - too many,

police believe, for one assailant to have inflicted alone. The

prosecution's view of what happened, later disputed by the defence, is

shown in this reconstruction. Meredith was trained in karate, and

must have encountered overwhelming force.

TRANSLATION: One person couldn't, all at the same time, hold Meredith

still and hold back her hands - because there are very few defensive

wounds - inflict those wounds with a smaller knife and then give her the

fatal blow with the larger knife. It is impossible. Not even Superman

could do it. The behaviour of Amanda Knox and her

boyfriend attracts attention. Meredith's friends tell police that,

far from appearing distraught, Amanda and Raffaele have been seen

laughing and joking. A vigil is held for Meredith, but Amanda and

Raffaele don't attend - they go for dinner at a friend's instead.

And the prosecutor recalls why he was concerned by Amanda's behaviour.

TRANSLATION: When the girls were brought to see the knives that were

in the kitchen, the reaction of Amanda... It was a reaction... She

put her hands on her ears, as if she were trying to block out a terrible

sound she was hearing in her ears. It was like she was having a nervous

breakdown. And then there was this, one of the

defining images of the case, Amanda and Raffaele kissing outside the

cottage where Meredith was murdered. Her supporters say this was only

natural. Did they comfort each other? We've seen that famous

footage of the two of them together. They did. What's wrong with any of

that? Nothing. It did appear to be wrong to some authorities.

November fifth. Four days after the murder. Raffaele Sollecito is called

in for questioning. Amanda goes with him, and once again her behaviour

seems odd. She does yoga and the splits in the waiting room. At this

point, the couple's alibi appears to fall apart.

Amanda had told police she'd spent the night of the murder at

Raffaele's apartment. They cooked, watched a film, made love, smoked

marijuana and went to bed. But separately, Raffaele's story begins

to change. He's no longer sure if Amanda was with him all night.

Amanda's called in for more questioning. As she is only a

witness at this stage, an interpreter is present but she has

no legal representation. What happens next is crucial, and one of

the most controversial twists in the story. Police ask Amanda Knox about

text messages on her phone. In particular, a message from her boss,

Patrick Lumumba. TRANSLATION: "Don't come to work

tonight". I sent that message. It's, like, Sunday. "Don't come to work".

I sent that message. Amanda had texted back, "See you

later". She says she just meant, "See you around", but police now

want to know... Had Amanda arranged to meet Lumumba later that evening

and taken him to her house? At 1.45 in the morning, Amanda breaks down.

TRANSLATION: She says she had entered the house with him because

he was attracted to Meredith and wanted to be with Meredith, and she

stayed in the kitchen and heard Meredith's screams, and HE was the

assassin. That's what she said. Police believe Amanda Knox's story.

They raid Patrick Lumumba's home and take him in. Within hours, his photo

flashes around the world as one of the murder suspects.

But for the police, Amanda Knox has now gone from witness to suspect. If

she's taken Lumumba to Meredith, she must have been at the house.

TRANSLATION: She put herself at the scene of the crime. She admitted to

accompanying Lumumba as if she were an accomplice in his project. She

was in the room next door when the crime happened, in her version. This

fact pushed the police to suspend the audition in order to protect her

rights. November sixth 2007. Amanda Knox and

Raffaele Sollecito are arrested. Waiting to be taken to jail, Amanda

makes another attempt to tell police what happened with Lumumba by

writing out an explanation in English. "In my mind, I saw Patrick

in flashes of blurred images. "I saw him near the basketball court. I saw

him at my front door. "I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my

hands over my ears because, in my head, I could hear Meredith

screaming. "But I have said this many times, so as to make myself

clear - "these things seem unreal to me, like a dream. "I want to make it

clear that I am very doubtful of the verity of my statements Because they

were made under the pressure of stress, shock and extreme

exhaustion". But, despite her uncertainty, she

doesn't retract her accusation. Lumumba remains in jail, pleading

his innocence. In the city square, members of the African community

protest against his arrest. TRANSLATION: The black man is always

the thief and the assassin. She wanted them to believe what she was

saying. It was just because I was black.

At this point, another African immigrant enters the story.

20-year-old Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, is living in Perugia.

Detectives find his bloody thumbprint on a pillowcase that was

underneath Meredith's dead body. Because he's an immigrant, they have

his prints on file. Police raid his tiny bedsit

apartment and test his toothbrush for DNA. It matches traces found on

Meredith's bra strap, on her body and on the left sleeve of her

pale-blue sweatshirt. Rudy Guede has fled the country. He's arrested in

Germany. Perugia attorney Valter Biscotti

volunteers to defend him. TRANSLATION: I met this young man in

this prison in Schiffenstadt, Germany, and he seemed to me like a

guy who was scared, someone who was in the middle of a story that was

bigger than him. He was surprised to see a lawyer who arrived from Italy

for him. Extradited back to Italy, Rudy Guede

confirms to police that he's lived in the country since the age of

five. A keen basketball player, he'd met Amanda and Meredith after

shooting hoops with students who lived in the apartment below theirs.

They partied and smoked dope together. Meanwhile, the case

against Patrick Lumumba, as outlined by Amanda Knox, collapses. A

customer at the bar has given him an alibi and he's freed. How did Amanda

Knox come to mention Lumumba's name to police?

For the first time, we can hear an audio tape of her explanation to the

prosecutor. A transcript of this was presented in court, but not the

audio. Accompanied by three lawyers and an

interpreter, on December 17th 2007, Knox is asked why she told police

Lumumba committed the crime. So what's the extent of the police

evidence at this point? It includes a knife found at Raffaele

Sollecito's apartment they believe could be the murder weapon. But they

need more, so return to the crime scene. 46 days after the murder,

they find Meredith's bra clasp under a mat. Using rubber gloves, they

pick it up and inspect it. It will become the most controversial piece

of evidence in the investigation. The defence will claim the delay in

collecting it could have resulted in contamination. Investigators also,

for the first time, use luminol, a chemical that highlights invisible

blood stains. Three clear footprints appear in the hallway, plus other

small bloodstains. More new evidence, but it will be

controversial. In Seattle, the campaign to prove

Amanda is innocent is under way. Her family turn to a crisis

communications firm and a group called Friends of Amanda Knox. It

was just this kind of small group of people that were called "the

Americans" in our offence. I think there was one quote that the

Americans would send in the marines to get Amanda Knox.

The campaign helps recast Amanda as a victim, a young American girl

being railroaded into an injustice far away from home. I love Italy.

I've been to Italy. And I have great respect for their courts. I do think

we have a rogue prosecutor. In Italy, if you speak against the

prosecution, you can be prosecuted, so nobody can speak. And it's a

perfect storm of a potentially very unfair prosecution. The prosecutor

denies this accusation and believes he personally has become the focus

for criticism of the prosecution case.

TRANSLATION: I don't know why, but I was the lightning rod in this case.

It was a personal attack. Amanda Knox's DNA has been found

mixed together with Meredith Kercher's in five blood stains in

the flat. Plus, tests show the bare footprints match the size and shape

of Amanda's and her boyfriend's feet. And the kitchen knife from

Raffaele's apartment shows Amanda's DNA on the handle and a tiny trace

of Meredith's DNA on the blade. The clock spins forward almost one

year, to September 2008. Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy

Guede appear before a judge in Perugia. With so much publicity now

surrounding Knox, Guede opts to be tried quickly and separately.

TRANSLATION: I was convinced that if he had been tried with the others,

that with all the international media clamour and the international

pressure there would have been surrounding this trial, they would

have dumped all the blame on Rudy. The prosecution's case is a tabloid

editor's dream. They say Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy

Guede killed Meredith Kercher in a sex game gone wrong. Guede denies

this and pleads not guilty. His defence is that he wasn't in the

room when Meredith was murdered, he was in the bathroom. Meredith had

invited him over, he said. When he got there, Meredith was furious

because money was missing and she was blaming Amanda. He says he

comforted Meredith, and things got physical, but they didn't have full

sex. He went to the toilet, then says he heard Amanda enter the

apartment. TRANSLATION: He heard Amanda's voice

as she came in. He was in the bathroom or just about to go into

the bathroom, and then he really did put on his headphones and listen to

music, rap I think, at full volume, and then heard a scream. He came out

and came up against a male figure. Rudy Guede says this man lunged at

him with a knife, cutting his hand. He claims the attacker then yelled

"Black man found, black man condemned," and ran away. Guede

found Meredith bleeding in the other room. He tried to stem the blood

with towels, and left a bloody thumbprint on the pillowcase. But

the bleeding didn't stop, and Guede says he panicked.

He tried to help her. He took her in his arms and should have called

help, but he was scared and ran away, and he feels guilty for this.

Rudy Guede is found guilty of Meredith's murder and sentenced to

30 years. The judge's verdict says Rudy Guede did not act alone. He's

led away to prison. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito will now stand

trial for the murder and sexual assault of Meredith Kercher.

The world's media is focused on Amanda Knox. Her face fills the

front pages. Could this attractive, bubbly, all-American girl be capable

of murder? As they did at Rudy Guede's trial, the prosecution again

suggests the murder was the result of a sex game gone wrong. Again,

this is strongly denied. Amanda and Raffaele claim they weren't in the

house that night. To support their case, the prosecution produces

evidence they claim places the couple at the scene of the murder.

First, there's the DNA found in the bathroom. The prosecution says it

shows the mixed blood of Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher in the bidet

drain, the sink drain and on a cotton bud box. There is also a

large drop of Amanda's blood on the bathroom tap. According to the

prosecutor, this shows Amanda and Meredith were bleeding at the same

time, strong evidence there was a fight.

TRANSLATION: The principal evidence was mixed blood traces from which

were extracted mixed DNA of Amanda and Meredith. The only explanation

for that mix is that Amanda was bleeding and touched objects that

were covered in Meredith's blood. There's no other explanation.

But Amanda's lawyers say this proves nothing - two young students living

together means it's perfectly normal to find mixed blood and DNA in the

bathroom. They say it's possible Amanda's DNA isn't from her blood at

all but from her saliva. Sarah Gino is the forensic biologist on Amanda

Knox's defence team. TRANSLATION: In the case, the test

was done for blood. But was the test done for saliva? No. So we can't

know if inside that mixed trace there was blood because it had been

demonstrated, or just saliva. Or maybe there was blood from both of

them, but what does that mean? Maybe someone had a bloody nose one time

and then, at a another moment, someone cut their finger and put it

down, and their blood got mixed. Then there was the kitchen knife

found in Raffaele's Sollecito's flat. This, say the prosecutors, is

the murder weapon, which has been cleaned. But they have found DNA of

Amanda Knox on the handle and a minuscule amount of Meredith

Kercher's DNA on the blade. But the words "too low" are written on the

DNA reports for the knife. The test should never have been carried out,

say the defence, there's not enough reliable DNA. When questioned by

journalists, the prosecution stands by its forensic evidence.

TRANSLATION: It is not too little. The genetic profile is low, but it

is absolutely reliable. In fact, we were able to get it, which means

there is no uncertainty about the attribution of that profile to the

victim. More DNA evidence is presented, this

time on Meredith's bra clasp. Police says Raffaele Sollecito's DNA is on

one of the hooks. This is the only evidence placing him in her bedroom.

There is no DNA evidence that puts Amanda in the room.

David Balding, a DNA statistician at University College London, is

recognised as one of the world's leading analysts. In 2012, he is

asked by the Italian Forensic Association to study Meredith

Kercher's bra clasp and to give an independent view on whether

Sollecito's DNA is present. His findings are not part of the court

case. When you just look at the evidence

by eye, you can see very strongly all of Raffaele Sollecito's DNA

types are there and that can't be explained by any kind of

environmental contamination. I calculate how likely is the evidence

under the prosecution assertion that DNA is there from Raffaele Sollecito

and again how likely it is without him being present. And the former is

much greater than the latter, so that's when I say that's extremely

strong evidence. But forensic experts representing

the defence remain adamant that the bra clasp had been contaminated and

is unreliable. TRANSLATION: As far as the bra clasp

is concerned, what happened? This bra clasp was collected 46 days

after the first crime scene inspection, and a mixture of

biological material was found. There was a profile attributable to the

victim, which is normal, and other material that was attributable to

Raffaele Sollecito. There were other traces, but they were not attributed

to anyone. The defence also uses the crime

scene video to question the DNA evidence presented by the

prosecution. I have looked at the crime scene... The videos. Bloody

shoe prints, cleaned up. Cleaned up, not saved. A bra strap collected

weeks and weeks and weeks after the initial collection, that now

supposedly connects Amanda, Raffaele and Meredith.

But the prosecution keeps producing evidence they say connects Amanda

Knox and Raffaele Sollecito to the crime scene.

TRANSLATION: Amanda's footprints, which were revealed by the luminol,

showed DNA attributed to Meredith, which means Amanda was walking in

bare feet covered in blood. They argue this is proof the couple

came back during the night to clean up and stage the break-in, leaving

bloodstained footprints in the bathroom and corridor. The defence

says there is no proof the prints actually were bloodstains. The

luminol may have revealed another substance such as bleach. The

prosecution also presents evidence to challenge the couple's story of

what they did that night and the next morning. They show Raffaele's

cellphone was turned on at 6.02am, despite the couple's claim they

slept until ten. Then there's the telephone call to the Carabinieri,

when Sollecito knew nothing had been stolen, and failed to mention the

postal police were at the scene. They also question Raffaele

Sollecito's changing alibi and prison eyewitnesses who contradict

Knox and Sollecito's stories. In court, the prosecution accuses

Amanda Knox of being the leader of a sexual attack on Meredith. They say

this was payback for Meredith's disapproval of Amanda's lifestyle.

TRANSLATION: The erotic game was always part of the case. I think

that night, Amanda wanted to make Meredith pay for judging her, which

she found offensive. A girl from Seattle that worked

three jobs to get to Italy to study abroad, an honour student from

Seattle Prep, doesn't overnight, in my experience, turn into a depraved

murderess. Overnight. The court's claims make difficult

hearing for the Knox family. Obviously, listening to those types

of things were horrible. It was an all-out attack on her character by

individuals that have no idea who she truly is as a person. One of the

things that we have tried to do this entire time is obviously support

Amanda by always having somebody over here, somebody to visit her and

stuff like that. And we have to stay strong in order for her to stay

strong. Amanda Knox spends two days on the stand telling her version of

the story. Millions worldwide watch her explanation of why she put the

pub owner Patrick Lumumba in the frame.

They told me that I was trying to protect someone...

INTERPRETER TRANSLATES INTO ITALIAN ..but I wasn't trying to protect

anyone. They continued to put so much

emphasis... ..on this message that I had received from Patrick... ..and

so I almost was convinced that I had met him.

Her case is this. She was at Raffaele's house when the murder

happened, watching a movie and reading her e-mails. She can't prove

it because two of their three computers were damaged when police

tried to search the hard-drives. Throughout the year-long trial,

Meredith's family fly in from London to testify and witness the key

hearings. They try to keep the focus on Meredith and their quest for

justice. Third December 2009. The eve of the

verdict. Amanda's family arrives to hear her plea for freedom. She knows

that she's innocent and has had nothing to do with this and we're

just very hopeful that the court will see and be able to see that in

the evidence that's been presented. Amanda is now almost fluent in

Italian. 323 days since the trial started.

The verdict is broadcast around the world.

Guilty of murder. 25 years for Raffaele Sollecito and 26 for Amanda

Knox, the extra year for slandering Patrick Lumumba.

The Kerchers' Italian lawyer is satisfied.

TRANSLATION: The failed alibis, the behaviour of Sollecito and Knox,

Knox's statements, the slander of Patrick Lumumba. These are all

elements that, once put together, allowed the determination of guilt.

But Knox's family are angry. They keep tight-lipped as they leave the

courtroom. Push back, push back. Chris, Chris, stop it.

And when they return to Seattle, they immediately start preparing her

appeal. There's not one piece of physical evidence to link this girl

to this crime. They draft legal, forensic, media and political

support from the US and Italy to strengthen the defence team. It

takes a year to get to the appeal. By now, Knox and Sollecito have been

in jail for three years. This time, there's a new judge and a new

prosecutor, Giancarlo Costagliola. TRANSLATION: Despite the fact that

there had already been a conviction, the deputy judge said at the

beginning of the hearing that the only thing that was certain was that

a girl was dead. Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's

defence teams decide to focus on Rudy Guede. They call prison

inmates, convicted criminals, to testify that Guede has confessed to

them in prison. June 27th 2011. Rudy Guede takes the

stand. By now, after an appeal, his sentence has been cut from 30 to 16

years. He denies he made a jailhouse confession and is asked about a

letter he has written claiming Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito

killed Meredith. The key focus of the appeal is on

the DNA - Knox and Kercher's DNA on the knife, Sollecito's on the bra

clasp. Is it enough to place the defendants at the crime scene or

not? The court appoints independent experts Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano

Conti from the University of Sapienza, Rome, to review the

science. Their report is scathing about prosecution forensic methods.

They cite US manuals and standards, highlighting errors made when the

evidence was collected. They do find a new trace of DNA on the knife from

Sollecito's kitchen that hasn't been tested. However, they argue, it's

too small to be of use. This report helps the judge focus his decision

on whether there is reasonable doubt about the DNA samples. For

Meredith's mother and the rest of her family, the hearings are

agonising. Everything that Meredith must've felt that night, everything

she went through, the fear and the terror, and not knowing why... And

she didn't deserve that. No-one deserves that.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito await their fate for the second

time. Not guilty. She will be freed, she

will be going back to Seattle, Washington, at the end of her

four-year ordeal. There's sufficient reasonable doubt for Amanda Knox and

Raffaele Sollecito to be released immediately.

I'm Deanna Knox, Amanda Knox's sister, and I have a few words on

behalf of our family. We are thankful that Amanda's nightmare is

over. She has suffered for four years for a crime that she did not

commit. TRANSLATION: It is evident that

Raffaele had nothing to do with the murder of that poor girl, Meredith

Kercher, who remains in our heart. Some in the gathering crowd becoming

increasingly agitated about the verdicts.

TRANSLATION: There were people out on the stairs in front of the

courthouse, and for a long time they yelled, "Shame on you!"

SHOUTING A dark sedan ferries Amanda Knox away to a safe house deep in

the Italian countryside for an emotional reunion with relatives

after almost four years in jail... ..while Meredith's family is left

stunned and pained by the acquittal. Meredith has been almost forgotten

in all of it. The media photos aren't really of her. There is not a

lot about what actually happened in the beginning, so it's very

difficult to keep her memory alive in all of this.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE. The media's photos will be of Amanda

Knox arriving home at Seattle Airport. I'm really overwhelmed

right now. I was looking down from the aeroplane and it seemed like

everything wasn't real. Erm... What's important for me to say is

just thank you to everyone who has believed in me... Who has defended

me, who has supported my family. Um...

Amanda finds a home in Seattle's International District and returns

to the University of Washington to study creative writing. She starts

writing a book about her experience, reportedly receiving a ?4 million

advance, although claims that all of the money goes on legal expenses. --

a $4 million advance. Back in Italy, Rudy Guede is still

in prison, where he's been beaten up by inmates. He's begun studying to

build himself a future and will soon be eligible for parole. His lawyer

claims that Rudy Guede has been made a scapegoat.

TRANSLATION: I am convinced Rudy is innocent. Rudy was lynched by the

media. He was the weakest link. He was the weak one who had to pay for

them all. In the sentence, it says he is not the actual murderer. It

says he didn't handle the knife, or anything, but because the judge

found he took part in the group violence, he is guilty.

For a while, this seems like the end of the story, but fate, or the

Italian justice system, has another twist in store. Now it's the turn of

the prosecution to appeal, and on 26th March 2013, Italy's highest

court, known as the Court of Cassation, orders a new trial,

overturning Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's acquittals. They say the

first appeal did not debate many of the 10,000 pages from the first

trial, focusing too much on the DNA evidence.

TRANSLATION: The Court of Cessation was very, very harsh. It commented

on the lack of logic, the lack of coordination in the reasoning. It

was severe, almost devastating, for the judges.

September 30th 2013, the second appeal begins. This time, the drama

switches to the birthplace of the Renaissance - Florence. Amanda Knox

isn't in the courtroom. She refuses to travel from America, and defends

her decision on television. I look at it as an admission of

innocence, to be quite honest, because, I mean, besides the fact

that there are so many factors that are not allowing me to go back,

financial ones, ones where I'm going to school, ones where I want the

court to proceed without distraction, it's... I was

imprisoned as an innocent person, and that... It's common sense not to

go back. Only Raffaele Sollecito is present

in court. He makes a plea to the judge and jury.

Unlike in the appeals court, this judge orders a police forensics lab

in Rome to test the new trace of DNA found on the kitchen knife. It's a

minuscule amount from where the blade meets the handle. The new test

finds that the DNA matches Amanda Knox. Prosecutors say it further

proves her involvement in the murder, but the defence says the

most likely explanation is that Amanda used the knife when staying

at Raffaele's apartment. Six years and two months after

Meredith Kercher's murder, the second appeal of Amanda Knox and

Raffaele Sollecito is coming to a close, the judgment watched by the

world. Sollecito doesn't wait to hear the verdict, speeding off in a

taxi. Amanda Knox stays in the United

States, plagued by the same fears she shared on television. 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. And it's so scary.

Everything's at stake. Shortly after 9.30pm local time, after

deliberating for more than 12 hours, the judge and jury enter the hall.

Within the past hour, an Italian Court of Appeal has reinstated the

convictions of the American citizen Amanda Knox and her former Italian

boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of...

This time, an even longer sentence. 28 years and six months for Amanda

Knox, 25 years for Raffaele Sollecito. The lawyers give their

verdict. TRANSLATION: This trial has been

media driven. Everything has been amplified. These kids were taken to

prison four days after the body was found. They were the first suspects.

And they never lost that image. TRANSLATION: If it was a

media-driven trial, it's not due to the Kercher family, who have been

absolutely silent. So, if we are talking about a media circus, we

need to look at the behaviour of the suspects and their followers.

In court, the victim of Amanda Knox's original slander, Patrick

Lumumba, is relieved. He's been awarded 40,000 euros' compensation.

Raffaele Sollecito has disappeared. But the next day, police find him

near the Austrian border. His lawyers say he wasn't trying to flee

the country. He's expected to remain free until his final appeal.

Back in Florence, Meredith's sister and brother face the media and are

asked if they think Amanda Knox should be extradited from America to

Italy. If somebody's found guilty and

convicted of a murder, if an extradition law exists between those

two countries, then I don't see why they wouldn't. I imagine it would

set a difficult precedent if a country such as the US didn't choose

to go along with laws that they themselves uphold when extraditing

convicted criminals from other countries. It probably leaves them

in a strange position not to. Knox and Sollecito will appeal one

last time. Then, if the verdict is upheld, Italy will decide whether to

request Amanda Knox's extradition. It's not the end of it. It's another

chapter, moving things forward. Anybody losing anyone close to them

is hard. Losing somebody so young and the way that we did is,

obviously, 100 times worse. And then on top of that, to have all the

media attention that has gone on for so long just makes it very, very

difficult to cope with. Even if the guilty verdicts are

upheld on appeal, Amanda Knox has vowed to keep fighting to clear her

name. After her conviction, she releases a written statement saying

she is frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict, followed by

this photograph which reads, "We are innocent".

I think we all definitely want some form of closure, even just having it

almost at an end of the Italian justice system, and knowing that

that's the final decision, and then we can all start to remember just

Meredith, rather than focusing on who did it or what happened.

Six years have passed since the death of Meredith Kercher.

So, are Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito guilty?

On January 30th 2014, the Italian justice system said yes. But with

another appeal in the pipeline, the hard reality for Meredith's family

is that their ordeal is still not over.