Amanda Knox, an American girl accused of murdering her roommate in Italy while she was a student in 2007, told the TODAY Show she will not be returning to the country to face a retrial.
Knox, 26, is accused of killing her British roommate Meredith Kercher while both were students in Italy in 2007. According to Reuters, Knox was convicted in 2009 along with her boyfriend at the time Raffaele Sollecito. However, they were both acquitted on appeal in 2011.
Now, the Italian Supreme Court ordered Know to be retried, ruling against the appeal, the TODAY show reports. Knox gave her first television interview about the retrial in Florence on Sept. 30.
"I was already imprisoned as an innocent person in Italy, and I can't reconcile the choice to go back with that experience," she told the TODAY Show's Matt Lauer. "It's not a possibility, as I was imprisoned as an innocent person and I just can't relive that.
"I don't think I'm going to be put back in prison. I think that we're going to win. That's why I'm fighting this fight, that's why I continue to put forth the defensive argument in court."
Knox is unsure if the United States would allow her to be extradited if the Italian courts re-convict her, but it is not what her lawyers are focused on at this point.
"That's not the primary concern of my lawyers right now,'' she said. "I don't believe that they have, precisely because they're still confident that we can win this."
Knox believes there is enough evidence to prove her innocence the third time around, and her absence during the trial should not count against her or be taken as a sign of guilt.
"What is being on trial here is not my character. It shouldn't be. What should be on trial is the facts of the case. If you look at the facts of the case, there's proof of my innocence," she said. "There's no trace of me in the room where my friend was murdered. There's traces all over the place of the man who actually did this. Rudy Guede was convicted, his DNA was everywhere, and it's impossible for me to have participated in this crime if there's no trace of me."
The 26-year-old believes the case her lawyers have made is strong, and claims she is innocent of the crime she is being accused of.
"There's always the fear that's lingering and the experience of having been convicted when I shouldn't have, but things have changed," Knox said. "It's not just the prosecution's voice that's out there, and while it is the legal process in Italy where one can be convicted of a crime if there is no motive to be found and if there's only circumstantial evidence, you can't be convicted if there is proof to the contrary."
