Prosecutors seek to reinstate Amanda Knox conviction

Italian prosecutors appealed Tuesday to Italy’s highest criminal court to reinstate the murder convictions of American Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend in the brutal slaying of a British student.

Perugia prosecutors filed the 112-page appeal more than four months after an appeals court threw out the convictions against Knox, 24, and Raffaele Sollecito, 27.

Prosecutors Giovanni Galati said he is “very convinced” that Sollecito and Knox are responsible for the Nov. 1, 2007 stabbing death of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British student who shared an apartment with Knox in the university town of Perugia.

Galati told reporters in Pergugia that the appeals sentence must be thrown out, saying it was full of “ommissions and many errors,” the news agency ANSA reported.

The prosecutors’ appeal, which was expected, marks the third and final stage in the criminal case against Knox and Sollecito.

The filing is requesting that a third trial be held.

“They can reorder an entire new trial,” said CBS’ Sabina Castelfranco, in an appearance on 97.3 KIRO FM Seattle’s Morning News. “They can look at how procedurally the first degree and the appeals went and decide there are in fact reasons enough to hold another trial.”

Knox and Sollecito were convicted in a lower court of murdering Kercher in what prosecutors described as a sex-fueled attack. The appeals court said the evidence did not hold up.

Sollecito’s lawyer, Luca Maori, said the high court is expected to issue its decision toward the end of the year.

Maori said the prosecutors move was expected and that he would file his counter-arguments after going over the prosecutors’ appeal.

“We will write our brief to say it’s a mistake,” Maori said.

The high court cannot hear new evidence, and will make its decision based on what has been submitted in earlier trials.

The fatal blow to the prosecution’s case was a court-ordered DNA review in the appellate trial that discredited crucial genetic evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito in 2009.

Unlike the U.S., Seattle attorney Anne Bremner says this appeals process can keep going in Italy.

“You can be tried again and again and again. That’s why we have to really look at our constitution and embrace it and be grateful for it because we can’t be held in jeopardy twice for the same offense.”

Listen to Attorney Anne Bremner

Kercher was found slain in a pool of blood in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia. The appeals court in October said the guilty verdicts against the pair were not corroborated by any evidence, and that the court hadn’t proven they were in the house when Kercher was killed.

Knox has already returned to the United States. Sollecito lives in Italy, but Castelfranco said depending on what happens with the appeal, he may decide to leave the country.

“They could request extradition,” said Castelfranco. “The chances of that extradition being granted are pretty slim.”

Bremner said there needs to be ‘sufficient evidence, basically probable cause,” to convict Knox before sending her back.

“I would advise her to fight the extradition; I think she would win the extradition. I’ve handled extraditions before and they require some form of evidence to take that person’s body physically to another country.”

A third defendant, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year sentence, reduced in appeal from an initial 30 years, was upheld by Italy’s highest court in 2010.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.