Amanda Knox is set to speak at a criminal justice festival. Reuters
Amanda Knox is set to speak at a criminal justice festival. Reuters
Amanda Knox is set to speak at a criminal justice festival. Reuters
Amanda Knox is set to speak at a criminal justice festival. Reuters

Amanda Knox back in Italy for wrongful conviction talk


Jamie Prentis
  • English
  • Arabic

Amanda Knox, a former American exchange student who became the focus of a sensational murder case, arrived in Italy Thursday for the first time since an appeals court acquitted her in 2011 in the killing of her British roommate.

Knox arrived at Milan's Linate airport en route to the northern city of Modena, where she is scheduled to participate Saturday in a panel discussion on wrongful convictions.

She was accompanied by her fiancee kept her eyes down as she exited the airport and did not respond to reporters' questions.

The killing of her roommate in the university town of Perugia, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, on November 1, 2007 attracted global attention, especially after suspicion fell on Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.

Ms Kercher's nude body was found under a blanket in her locked room; investigators said her throat was slit and she had been sexually assaulted.

Knox's October 2011 acquittal - following a lower court conviction that brought a 26-year prison sentence - was one step in the long legal process that saw multiple flip-flop rulings before she and Mr Sollecito were definitively acquitted in 2015 by Italy's highest court.

Knox's slander conviction and three-year sentence for having wrongly accused a Congolese bar owner, however, remained intact.

In all, Knox spent four years in jail, including during the investigation, before her 2011 acquittal freed her to return to her native Seattle, where she has lived since. An Ivorian immigrant, Rudy Guede, is serving a 16-year murder sentence for Ms Kercher's slaying.

Europe's human rights court in January ordered Italy to pay Knox 18,400 euros (Dh76206) in financial damages for failures to provide adequate legal and translation assistance during her early questioning.

The European Court of Human Rights noted that Knox "had been particularly vulnerable, being a foreign young woman, 20 at the time, not having been in Italy for very long and not being fluent in Italian."

After the decision, Knox, who has been active in raising awareness around wrongful convictions, wrote on her blog that the court's ruling meant her slander conviction was unjust.

Before travelling to Italy, she published an essay titled "Your Content, My Life," about the decision to accept the panel invitation from the Italy Innocence Project. She talked about the impact intense media coverage and social media amplification had on her case - and continues to have on her life.

"While on trial for a murder I didn't commit, my prosecutor painted me as a sex-crazed femme fatale, and the media profited for years by sensationalising an already sensational and utterly unjustified story," Knox wrote. "It's on us to stop making and stop consuming such irresponsible media."

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Founder: Shamim Kassibawi

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Sector: Tech 

Size: 20 employees

Stage of funding: Seed

Investors: Three founders (two silent co-founders) and one venture capital fund

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COMPANY PROFILE

Company: Bidzi

● Started: 2024

● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid

● Based: Dubai, UAE

● Industry: M&A

● Funding size: Bootstrapped

● No of employees: Nine

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Director: Jon Favreau

Starring: Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, John Oliver

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

57%20Seconds
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Dust and sand storms compared

Sand storm

  • Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
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Match info

Deccan Gladiators 87-8

Asif Khan 25, Dwayne Bravo 2-16

Maratha Arabians 89-2

Chadwick Walton 51 not out

Arabians won the final by eight wickets

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Director: Saeed Roustaee

Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi

Rating: 4/5

Springtime in a Broken Mirror,
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1. Fasting 

2. Prayer 

3. Hajj 

4. Shahada 

5. Zakat 

T20 World Cup Qualifier

October 18 – November 2

Opening fixtures

Friday, October 18

ICC Academy: 10am, Scotland v Singapore, 2.10pm, Netherlands v Kenya

Zayed Cricket Stadium: 2.10pm, Hong Kong v Ireland, 7.30pm, Oman v UAE

UAE squad

Ahmed Raza (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Darius D’Silva, Mohammed Usman, Mohammed Boota, Zawar Farid, Ghulam Shabber, Junaid Siddique, Sultan Ahmed, Imran Haider, Waheed Ahmed, Chirag Suri, Zahoor Khan

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Players in: Junaid Siddique, Darius D’Silva, Waheed Ahmed

Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

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Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
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Torque: 300Nm @ 1,600rpm
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Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Director: Venkat Prabhu
Rating: 2/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

Celta Vigo 2
Castro (45'), Aspas (82')

Barcelona 2
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Red card: Sergi Roberto (Barcelona)

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Valorafutbol – sports and entertainment

Workfam – employee engagement

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