Amanda Knox defends her innocence after returning to Italy

In fluent Italian, Amanda Knox has delivered a scathing indictment of her treatment. | WATCH

Amanda Knox, the American college student who was twice convicted and twice acquitted of murdering her British roommate in the Italian city of Perugia in 2007, made a passionate defence of her innocence during her first visit to Italy in eight years.

“My innocence didn’t save me because the prosecutors and the media created a story and a version of me...on which people could overlay their fantasies, fear and moral judgment,” Ms. Knox, 31, said at a conference in Modena, northern Italy on Saturday as she slowly and deliberately read a statement in Italian.

“People liked that story of the dirty, psychopathic man-eater Foxy Knoxy, ” she said, using a moniker the British press gave her soon after the crime.

“They condemned that doppelgänger, that packaged person, designed by others...I wasn’t that person they invented.”

Italian media have been captivated by Ms. Knox’s return. Paparazzi crowded around her on Thursday when she arrived at Milan’s Linate airport and the press has been following her every move. She refused to speak publicly before her comments on Saturday, which were delivered at a criminal law conference during a session titled “Trial by Media.”

Video captured Ms. Knox attending a pre-conference cocktail party with her fiancé, and later dabbing tears from her eyes during a conference session where an Irish speaker spoke about his wrongful conviction and 15 years in prison.

Knox cries and wipes her tears during her speech.

An Italian court convicted Ms. Knox in 2009, sentencing her to 26 years in prison. Her boyfriend at the time of the murder, Raffaele Sollecito, got a 25-year sentence.

Prosecutors argued that Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito took part with a third man in a sex game that went awry and resulted in the murder of Meredith Kercher, who was found with multiple stab wounds and her throat slashed.

An appeals court overturned the ruling against Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito in 2011, after which Ms. Knox, who had spent almost four years in prison, immediately left Italy, never to return until this week. A judge ordered a second trial -- Italy has no provision to prevent somebody from being tried twice for the same crime -- that ended with a conviction in 2014. The following year, Italy’s highest appeals court threw out the verdict.

“The fact that despite the appeals court ruling I continue to be considered responsible for the pain the Kerchers feel shows how strong false narratives can be,” Ms. Knox said.

With her voice breaking, she said she contemplated suicide while in prison. When she finished reading her statement, many in the audience stood and applauded.

Italy has remained fascinated through the years with Ms. Knox, who was 20 at the time of Ms. Kercher’s murder. Italian media regularly recount Ms. Knox’s exploits in the U.S., such as her conducting a program on gender discrimination, and her posting a photo on Instagram of herself at a murder mystery party. In late 2017, Italian newspapers reported when Ms. Knox wrote in “Westside Seattle” that she misses Ms. Kercher and she too has a right to cry.

Ms. Knox, who has worked in Seattle as a journalist and commentator since returning to the U.S., hit the headlines in Italy again when she said she has nothing against Italy and will speak Italian to her children.

In January, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay Ms. Knox EUR18,400 ($20,700) because Italian authorities didn’t provide her with a lawyer and professional interpreter when she was initially questioned by police.

During the initial interrogations, Ms. Knox accused a bar owner in Perugia, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, of the murder. Police arrested but then cleared Mr. Lumumba, who later won a libel suit against Ms. Knox.

The day Ms. Knox departed for Italy, she published an article on “Medium” titled “Your Content My Life” in which she took aim at the media for publishing sensational articles and photos as clickbait.

“I’m about to return to Italy for the first time since I was released from prison and fled the country in a high-speed chase, paparazzi literally ramming the back of my stepdad’s rental car,” she wrote.

- The Wall Street Journal