Amanda Knox claims inmate tried to seduce her behind bars

Amanda Knox becomes cub reporter at local newspaper

05 November

Convicted murderer Amanda Knox has been given a job as a freelance journalist reporting for her local newspaper the West Seattle Herald.

The 27-year-old spent four years in prison for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, before she was acquitted in 2011. Earlier this year, an Italian court upheld the original murder conviction, but Knox has refused to leave the United States and the case is being appealed.

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Now it has emerged that she is writing about everything from human-interest stories to local theatre for the West Seattle Herald.

The newspaper says it approached Knox "originally to give her the opportunity of a normal life".

Web editor Patrick Robinson tells the Daily Beast: "We simply asked her, as we would ask anyone of that age and stage, if they would be interested in writing for us as a qualified writer of that scale and this level of journalism."

Robinson describes her as a "very bright, very capable, highly qualified writer" and says he was "flabbergasted" by how good her photography had become.

He insists her infamy has nothing to do with why she was hired. "It doesn’t matter what people say or think – the truth is that she’s a West Seattle resident. She grew up here," he said. "Why not give her the opportunity to be an actual human being versus a celebrity?"

In one article, currently on the Herald’s website, Knox interviews Mathew Wright, the artistic director of a local theatre.

"Mat appears young and casual, sipping a tall energy drink which no doubt has something to do with his busy hands," she writes. "He is also focused and purposeful – as soon as he starts talking you can tell he knows what he’s doing."

Only one person, Rudy Guede, is currently serving time in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher, who was found stabbed to death in the house she shared with Knox in November 2007.

Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are preparing to appeal their reconviction, but Knox has said she will never return to Italy to face the 28-year jail sentence handed down to her.

Amanda Knox's 'links to drug dealer' used in extradition bid

04 July

Italian prosecutors claim they have evidence of extensive links between Amanda Knox and a cocaine dealer in Perugia, it has been reported.

Prosecutors are currently pushing for Knox to be extradited from the US to face justice in Italy following her reconviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

They claim Knox had phone conversations with a drug dealer in the days before and after Kercher's murder on 1 November 2007. Knox was also said to have had a "relationship of a sexual nature" with the supplier and spent cash at an alarming rate while in Italy, reports The Independent.

One man has already been convicted for dealing cocaine based on information from Knox's phone. A police report attached to Knox's file states: "In the course of the investigation regarding the criminal proceedings 9066/07 [Kercher's murder] they discovered that an Italian person from time to time replenished Amanda Knox's narcotic substances, as well as having allegedly had with her the relationship of a sexual nature."

Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito are preparing an appeal over their reconviction at Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation. Only Rudy Guede, the third person to be convicted of the murder, is currently serving time in prison. Knox has said she will never return to Italy from Seattle to face the 28-year jail sentence handed down to her.

Earlier this week Sollecito cast doubt on Knox's testimony in one final bid to overturn his own conviction. He suggested Knox might not have been with him at his home at the time Kercher was killed, pointing to phone records that show she was out on a street when she sent one text message, not in his home as she had claimed.

Despite threatening Knox's alibi, Sollecito said he was convinced of Knox's innocence. "I always believed, and still believe, that Amanda Marie Knox is innocent," he said.

Amanda Knox's alibi under threat as ex launches appeal

1 July

Raffaele Sollecito is making a fresh appeal that threatens to undermine his ex-girlfriend Amanda Knox's alibi on the night of Meredith Kercher's murder.

At a press conference in Rome today, he told reporters that he was unable to say where Knox had been during the early part of the evening on 1 November 2007 in Perugia.

Sollecito has previously said that smoking marijuana that night had fogged his memory, but his new defence appears to place more emphasis on his doubts about Knox's whereabouts.

"I'm not here to change my story," he said. "Only a crazy person or a criminal would do that."

Sollecito said he did not doubt Knox's innocence, but added that he was "not the guarantor of Amanda Knox, I am Raffaele Sollecito".

The 30-year-old has been gradually distancing him from Knox as he prepares a last-ditch defence before Italy's top appeals court.

Both Knox and Sollecito were reconvicted in January this year for their role in Kercher's murder, with Sollecito sentenced to 25 years in prison and Knox to 28 years. The Florence court said it was Knox who delivered the fatal knife blow to her 21-year-old roommate Kercher, adding that her wounds indicated multiple aggressors.

The case must now be considered again by the supreme court, which will decide whether to ratify the guilty verdict or order another trial, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Knox, now 26, claimed that she had been watching television and making love with Sollecito on the night Meredith was fatally stabbed.

But Sollecito's lawyers said that when he previously described being with Knox that day he "always meant he spent the night with Amanda". They added that for the "entire first part of the evening, they were not together".

His lawyers are also planning to draw attention to a text message sent by Knox on the night of the murder. Knox claimed she sent it from Sollecito's house but phone record show she sent it from the street. "It shows Amanda was out, but has been used to prove the guilt of both Knox and Sollecito. Why?" asked his lawyer.

Amanda Knox: does CCTV footage prove she is a liar?

6 May

PREVIOUSLY unseen CCTV footage has cast doubt on Amanda Knox’s claim she was at her boyfriend’s house on the night her flatmate Meredith Kercher was murdered.

Knox claims she spent the night with Raffaele Sollecito and had not been at the flat she shared with 21-year-old Kercher in the Italian university town of Perugia.

But footage from a security camera has emerged, showing a woman resembling Knox walking through a car park near her flat.

The video, aired by Quarto Grado, an Italian investigative TV programme, was time-stamped 8.53pm on 1 November 2007, the night of the murder.

The woman seen in the video is wearing jeans and a long overcoat similar to one worn by Knox in the days after the murder. Quarto Grado also suggests she walks in a similar way to Knox.

According to the programme, the same camera earlier recorded Rudy Guede, who is serving 16 years for Kercher’s murder. Just two minutes before the unidentified woman is seen, Kercher is said to appear on the CCTV video going home.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, the author of Angel Face, a book inspired by the case, told The Times that the footage had not been used in the trial because it was not deemed helpful to either side.

She added: “If that is Amanda, she proves herself a liar, even if she is not a murderess.”

Yesterday, sources in the Perugia prosecutor’s office said the timing was consistent with an alleged sighting of Knox and Sollecito in a local square and that the woman’s clothing was consistent with that described by a shopkeeper who said he saw Knox the following morning – although she insisted she woke up late.

Knox, who is free at home in Seattle, is appealing against her conviction at a second murder trial in January at which she was sentenced to more than 28 years in prison.

Last month, the Italian judge who convicted her said Knox inflicted the fatal knife blow that killed Kercher, while Sollecito and Guede held her back.