Welcome back, Amanda Knox. For the first time since she was acquitted of her roommate’s murder, Amanda returned to Italy to speak about her famous ‘trial by media.’
“Here we go… Wish us, ‘Buon viaggio!’“ wrote Amanda Knox, 31, on June 12, as she shared a picture of her with fiancé, novelist Christopher Robinson, to her Instagram account. The following day, Amanda arrived in Italy. It was her first time back since she was acquitted over the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. Amanda’s imprisonment was why she was back in Italy, as she was invited to speak at the Criminal Justice Festival in Modena, Northern Italy, according to CNN. Amanda will be apart of the “Trial by Media” panel session at the festival, which is organized by the non-profit legal group, the Italy Innocence Project.
Amanda landed at an airport in Milan early on Thursday morning, and the media immediately swarmed around her. Amanda’s trial captivated not just Italy, but the world. Amanda was studying abroad when she was accused of murdering her roommate, Meredith, in November 2007. She was first convicted of murder, faking a break-in, defamation and sexual violence in 2009. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison. She was acquitted on appeal in 2011 and was released from jail. Amanda was convicted of murder again in 2013, before Italy’s highest court absolved all prior convictions for good in 2015, according to Daily Beast. Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede is finishing up the final years of his 16-year prison sentence for his involvement in the crime. Rudy implicated Amanda and her then-Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the crime, saying he was “101 percent Amanda Knox was there.”
“We decided to invite her because she is an icon when it comes to a mass media trial in Italy,” Guido Sola, the festival organizer said about Amanda’s invite, per Daily Beast. “Even mafia trials have never received as much attention as her trial in this country.” Amanda expressed some apprehension about her return. “3 Days till I return to Italy for the first time since leaving prison,” she captioned an Instagram picture of her hanging off a mountain. “Feeling frayed, so I made my own inspirational poster. ‘Hang in there!’ Just imagine I’m a kitten.”
Amanda went into further detail about her return in an essay posted to her Medium account. “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 sensationalizing an already sensational and utterly unjustified story,” she wrote. ”It’s on us to stop making and stop consuming such irresponsible media.”