The Italian court that convicted Amanda Knox of Meredith Kercher’s murder says the British student’s wounds indicate multiple aggressors, and that the two exchange students fought over money on the night of her death.
The appellate court in Florence issued a 337-page explanation for its January guilty verdicts against the American and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
The release of the court’s reasoning opens the verdict to an appeal back to the supreme Court of Cassation. If it confirms the convictions, a long extradition fight for Knox is expected.
She has been in the United States since 2011 when her earlier conviction was overturned.
Ms Kercher, 21, was found dead in a pool of blood in 2007 in the apartment she and Knox shared in the town of Perugia.
The court said that a third person convicted in the murder, Rudi Hermann Guede, did not act alone.
It noted that at least two knives were used to attack Ms Kercher and there were also finger imprints on her body, indicating she had been restrained – ruling out that Guede was the only attacker.
The court said there was ample evidence of a bad relationship between the two room-mates, despite Knox’s attempts to play down differences in court, and cited statements by Guede under police questioning that Ms Kercher had accused Knox of taking money from her room.
The document said: “It is a matter of fact that at a certain point in the evening events accelerated; the English girl was attacked by Amanda Marie Knox, by Raffaele Sollecito, who was backing up his girlfriend, and by Rudi Hermann Guede, and constrained within her own room.”