Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito reunite 15 years after Meredith Kercher's murder
GUBBIO, ITALY: Amanda Knox and her former lover Raffaele Sollecito have reportedly reunited in Italy as many as 15 years after they were wrongly convicted of the murder of Briton Meredith Kercher. The two were spotted smiling as they visited the historic town of Gubbio, the same place they had planned to visit the day Kercher's body was found. Sollecito, 38, told The Mirror that it was "the nicest" thing to reunite with Knox after all these years.
Now a computer engineer in Milan, Sollecito said, "There was also something very light about it, Ms Knox saying 'Why don't we go back to Gubbio?' She was saying we can go after all this time with her family and I could see they were planning a lot to do there. It was bitter-sweet to go back as we were supposed to go there in such different circumstances, but it was just nice for us to be able to talk about something that wasn't the case."
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On November 1, 2007, Kercher was found dead on her bedroom floor in a grisly crime scene. Bloodstained fingerprints at the scene were found to be those of Rudy Guede, but by the time they were identified, police had charged Kercher's American roommate Knox and Knox's Italian boyfriend Sollecito for the murder. Knox and Sollecito's prosecutions received international publicity.
Guede was tried separately in a fast-track procedure. He was found guilty in October 2008 of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher. Guede later exhausted the appeals process and subsequently began serving a 16-year sentence. In December 2020, an Italian court ruled that Guede could complete his term doing community service. He was released from prison in 2021.
Meanwhile, Knox and Sollecito were released after nearly four years following their acquittal. The two were reportedly acquitted at a second-level trial. In 2013, the appeals verdicts of acquittal were declared null, however, for "manifest illogicalities" by the Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy. The appeals trials, which had to be repeated, took place in Florence. Both of them were convicted yet again in 2014. However, in March 2015, their convictions were annulled by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of Cassation ordered that no further trial should be held. They were, thus, acquitted and the case subsequently ended.
After Kercher's murder, a funeral was held on December 14, 2007, at Croydon Minster, which was attended by more than 300 people. It was followed by a private burial at Mitcham Road Cemetery. A degree the slain student would have received in 2009 was awarded posthumously by the University of Leeds.
