ROME – Italy’s high court on Tuesday harshly faulted the appeals court that acquitted American student Amanda Knox of murdering her roommate, saying its ruling was full of “deficiencies, contradictions and illogical” conclusions. It ordered a new appeals court to consider all the evidence to determine whether Knox helped kill the young woman.

In March, the Court of Cassation overturned Knox’s acquittal in the 2007 murder of British flatmate Meredith Kercher, 21, and ordered a new trial.

On Tuesday, the high court picked apart the 2011 appeals court decision that freed Knox, faulting the judges for ignoring some evidence and undervaluing the fact that Knox had initially accused a man of committing the crime who had nothing to do with it.

Kercher’s body was found in November 2007 in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, a central Italian town. Her throat had been slashed.

Knox, now 25, and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 29, were initially convicted of the crime and sentenced to long prison terms. A Perugia appeals court acquitted them in 2011, noting, among other things, that DNA tests were faulty.

 


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