Amanda Knox To Return to Italy For First Time Since 2011 Release From Prison

Amanda Knox will be returning to Italy for the first time since she served almost four years in prison after being wrongfully convicted with the murder of her then-roommate, Meredith Kercher. In June, Knox plans to speak at a conference in Modena hosted by the Criminal Chamber of the city and the Italy Innocence Project, an organization which seeks to help people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.

“The Italy Innocence Project didn’t yet exist when I was wrongly convicted in Perugia,” Knox wrote when she announced the news on Twitter. “I’m honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time.”

Knox’s case made international headlines in 2009, when she and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted and sentenced to 25-26 years in prison despite a glaring lack of forensic evidence. In 2011, an appellate court acquitted the two and Knox was immediately returned to her home in Seattle, Washington. The case continued to make its way through Italian courts, with Knox again being convicted in 2013 and then finally acquitted once and for all in 2015. Rudy Guede was found guilty of the murder and sexual assault and continues to serve his time in an Italian prison.

Since her return to the United States in 2011, Knox has worked on behalf of wrongfully accused people like herself, and has also finished up her degree and gotten engaged. She has been the subject of a number of TV shows and documentaries, including most recently a Netflix documentary that followed the details of her case. In January, Knox was rewarded financial compensation from Italian high court for violating her rights during the initial arrest and questioning procedures.

On June 14, Knox will make her historic return to Italy, where she will speak on the role of the media in judicial errors. She will be the final speaker at the conference.

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