New Amanda Knox decision expected Friday
ROME - Judges at Italy's top criminal court are deliberating the fate of Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend in the latest twist in the nearly eight-year-long legal odyssey over the 2007 murder of the American student's former roommate, Meredith Kercher.
The verdict is expected Friday. A decision to confirm the convictions could result in an extradition request from Italy for Knox, who is currently free in the United States. Knox has vowed never to willingly return to Italy.
Lawyers for Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend made a final appeal to Italy's top criminal court Friday, urging it to overturn the pair's murder conviction for Kercher's slaying -- their second such conviction -- saying there were errors of "colossal proportions" in the guilty verdicts.
Attorney Giulia Bongiorno dissected the 2014 Florence appeals court decision to show what she said were numerous errors of fact and logic that resulted in prison sentences of 28 1/2 years for Knox and 25 years for Raffaele Sollecito in the death of student Kercher.
Knox and Sollecito each served four years in prison before being acquitted on appeal in 2011 and then convicted for a second time after a retrial last year,
The high court has several options as it weighs the case anew: It can confirm the guilty verdicts, raising the question of extradition for Knox. It can overturn the convictions and order a third appeals trial. Or it can overturn the convictions without a new trial, tantamount to acquittal.
Knox was awaiting the decision in Seattle on "pins and needles," attorney Carlo Dalla Vedova said.
Sollecito was in court Friday, joined by his girlfriend, sister and father. Bongiorno said Sollecito would not return to court to learn his fate, but was calm "because he knows he's innocent."
48 Hours' Crimesider will have full details of the verdict when it is announced.