Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox’s former Italian boyfriend, said Tuesday that she provided alibis for him that he will use to try to persuade Italy’s court of last resort to dismiss his conviction for the murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.
Raffaele Sollecito hopes the Court of Cassation will rule he deserves yet another trial and throw out the 25-year sentence he received in January from a Florence appeals court, which convicted both him and Amanda Knox for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, 21.
His lawyers will stress apparent contradictions in the Florence court’s 337-page verdict explanation.
That court signaled it believed a memo Amanda Knox wrote, while being held for questioning, in which she indicates Raffaele Sollecito had no role in the murder.
“She herself lets me off the hook and gives me an alibi,” Raffaele Sollecito, 30, said.
He noted the court accepted findings that an Amanda Knox text message, shortly before the murder, to the owner of a Perugia pub where she worked, had been sent while outside Raffaele Sollecito’s house.
Yet he insisted he wasn’t trying to pin the murder on Amanda Knox.
Flanked by his lawyers in Rome, Raffaele Sollecito stressed what he described as his steadfast belief in the innocence of Amanda Knox, whom he had been dating for barely a week when Meredith Kercher was slain in Perugia, Italy.
“I want to make clear that I and all the people around me, including my family, have always believed, and we still believe today, in the innocence of Amanda Marie Knox.”
The Florence court sentenced Amanda Knox to 28 ½ years in prison.
Amanda Knox, 26, who has repeatedly proclaimed her innocence, has been in America since an earlier court ruling, in 2011, acquitted both her and Raffaele Sollecito.
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