High court reviews Knox, Sollecito convictions

(ANSA) - Rome, March 27 - The long-running murder case of American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito resumed Friday as Italy's highest court reviewed their convictions amid defence arguments of innocence.
    Italy's supreme Cassation Court on Wednesday heard prosecution arguments in the high-profile case that dates from the November 2007 murder of Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher in the students' Perugia home.
    The pair have consistently maintained their innocence and as arguments began Friday, Sollecito's lawyer Giulia Bongiorno reiterated that argument.
    "Raffaele is innocent," Bongiorno has said.
    Sollecito was present with his lawyer as the case resumed.
    Knox has remained in her home city of Seattle, Washington.
    She has said that she will never, willingly, return to Italy and her lawyer told the media earlier in the week that Knox was "very, very worried".
    "I don't think she is sleeping a lot," added Carlo Dalla Vedova.
    If the Cassation Court finds them guilty, Knox may be liable for extradition under a 2006 treaty between Italy and the United States.
    Also Wednesday, the prosecution asked the high court to trim three months off the pair's sentences as a related minor crime had timed out.
    The pair were initially convicted of Kercher's murder at the original trial in Perugia in 2009.
    Knox was then sentenced to 28 years and six months while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years in the case that saw them both serve four years in jail - including pre-trial custody - before they won their freedom in a subsequent appeal in 2011.
    However, in 2013 the Cassation Court struck down those acquittals and said that evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the murder scene had not been properly considered, ordering a new trial.
    It suggested Kercher was likely killed after a violent argument between the roommates, rather than earlier prosecution theories of a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong.
    The case has had a high profile internationally, given the fact the two young women - one from the US, the other from Britain - were studying at a university for foreigners that draws students from around the world.
    Race was also a factor, as the third person convicted in the case was a black man from the Ivory Coast.
    Rudy Guede was convicted in a separate fast-track proceeding and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
    His DNA was found at the murder scene and inside Kercher, who had been sexually assaulted.
    Kercher's family will await the outcome in England but will be in contact with their lawyers representing them as civil plaintiffs.