‘Katie’ debuts with Amanda Knox boyfriend

The former boyfriend of Amanda Knox will talk publicly for the first time about the relationship he had with the West Seattle native and the murder of her roommate in Italy.

Katie Couric has landed an interview with Raffaele Sollecito, for her new TV talk show that begins next month, simply called “Katie.”

In promoting the show, Couric says Sollecito talks for the first time on American television about the 2009 murder of Meredith Kercher. He will discuss life after his time spent in an Italian prison and his reunion with Knox.

Knox, who was a UW student studying in Italy, and Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of murdering the Kercher during a drug-fueled sex game.

Kercher’s body was found with more than 40 stab wounds in the apartment they shared.

Knox told the court: “I did not do the things they say I did. I did not kill, rape or steal. I was not there,” Knox said in Italian. “I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I do not want to be punished. I do not want to be deprived of my life for something I did not do, because I am innocent.”

A forensic science review dismissed police claims that traces of DNA were found on the kitchen knife identified as the murder weapon.

The appeal court threw out Knox’s 26 year jail term and the 25 year sentence Sollecito was serving and ordered that they be freed in October of last year.

While Knox and Sollecito were acquitted, a third defendant is still in jail.

Knox has landed a nearly $4 million book deal about her story, based on diaries she kept while in prison. The still-untitled book is due out in early 2013. Her publisher says she’ll give a “full and unflinching account” of her struggles and the complexities of the Italian judicial system.

Sollecito wrote a tell-all book too, which will be in stores this fall.

There have been several books about Kercher’s murder. Investigative reporter John Follain has just published another account of the case called, “A Death in Italy.” In it, he describes Knox as a pretty young American woman from Seattle who seemed “bizarrely unemotional” in the aftermath of the crime.

By LINDA THOMAS

AP file photo