Amanda Knox was pictured enjoying herself at a cocktail party after she arrived in Italy for the first time since she was released from prison in the country in 2011.
Knox, 31, will speak at a conference for wrongly-convicted crime suspects this weekend, seven and a half years after she fled Italy when her own conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher was overturned.
Shying away from cameras as she touched down in Milan, the writer and campaigner kept her head bowed as she left the airport and she was joined by her fiancé Christopher Robinson and her mother.
But the 31-year-old seemed to cheer up at a cocktail party on the eve of the opening of the Criminal Justice Festival at the Law University of Modena, in northern Italy.
Her arrival comes as she penned an essay on Medium about her return to the country, saying aged 24 she ‘fled the country in a high-speed chase, paparazzi literally ramming the back of my stepdad’s rental car’.
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Former US convict Amanda Knox (pictured right) laughing as she attends a cocktail event on the eve of the opening of the Criminal Justice Festival, at the Law University of Modena, northern Italy on Thursday. It is the first time she has been in the country since she was released from prison in 2011
Knox laughing at a cocktail event on the eve of the opening of the Criminal Justice festival, in Modena, Italy. It is in contract to when Knox landed in Milan earlier, where she kept her head bowed
Knox appeared sombre and with her head bowed when she landed. But appeared more relaxed at the cocktail event in Modena, Italy
Amanda Knox today arrived in Italy for the first time since she was released from prison in the country in 2011
Knox, 31, will speak at a conference for wrongly-convicted crime suspects this weekend, seven and a half years after she left Italy when her own conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher was overturned
Shying away from cameras as she touched down in Milan, the writer and campaigner kept her head bowed as she left the airport
Knox (left) was convicted of murdering her roommate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher (right), in their Perugia apartment in 2007. She was later cleared of the killing
Wearing her auburn hair pinned back, the justice campaigner, who was escorted by plain clothes officers, appeared sombre as she was flanked by expectant travellers and press.
Knox, who has pursued a career in broadcasting and campaigning since leaving prison in 2011, wore dark grey trousers with a check pattern and a black T-shirt.
She paired the look with a cream blazer and a black leather backpack.
The former exchange student, who spent four years in Italian prison after she was wrongly convicted of the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, can be seen clutching her passport in the photos.
Speaking about her wrongful conviction in an essay published yesterday, Knox said prior to her trial she thought her ‘innocence was a guarantee of her freedom’.
‘I was wrong. The moment I was acquitted was just as insane. I had prepared myself to grow old in prison. I’d forgotten what it was like to walk on grass’ she penned.
On Sunday, the 31-year-old took to Instagram to share her uneasiness in the days leading up to the trip by posting a photo of herself clinging to the side of Rattlesnake Ledge in Washington State.
Novelist Christopher Robinson, 36, who is engaged to Knox (back right) held his arm out to passing cameras as the couple touched down in the airport
Knox’s fiancé Robinson, who proposed to Knox with an elaborate sci-fi-themed display last November, sported multicoloured trousers and a trilby hat at the airport
Amanda Knox shared an Instagram post Sunday night revealing the anxiety she is feeling as she prepares to return to Italy for the first time since getting out of prison eight years ago. In the caption of the photo taken at Rattlesnake Ledge in Washington state, Knox wrote: ‘3 Days till I return to Italy for the first time since leaving prison. Feeling frayed, so I made my own inspirational workplace poster. “Hang in there!” Just imagine I’m a kitten’
Wearing her auburn hair pinned back, the justice campaigner appeared sombre as she was flanked by expectant travellers at the airport. Knox, who has pursued a career in broadcasting and campaigning since leaving prison in 2011, wore dark grey trousers with a check pattern and a black T-shirt
Knox paired the look with a cream blazer and a black leather backpack as she was joined by her fiancee at the airport
Knox exits the airport from a side entrance upon her arrival in Linate airport, Milan
Knox was convicted and imprisoned, but ultimately acquitted, for the murder and sexual assault of her British roommate Meredith Kercher in the university town of Perugia in 2007, but was acquitted and lives in the US
Knox kept her head down and did not speak to waiting journalists at the airport today
She wrote in the caption: ‘3 Days till I return to Italy for the first time since leaving prison. Feeling frayed, so I made my own inspirational workplace poster. “Hang in there!” Just imagine I’m a kitten.’
Knox announced last month that she would be discussing ‘trial by media’ at an event hosted by the Italy Innocence Project in Modena on June 14 and 15.
‘I’m honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time,’ she said.
Speaking candidly about the surreal moments in her life Knox wrote in the online essay that she’d been approached by a woman who apologised for treating her as entertainment during her trial.
Knox announced last month that she would be discussing ‘trial by media’ at an event hosted by the Italy Innocence Project in Modena on June 14 and 15. ‘I’m honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time,’ she said
The American, pictured arriving in Italy today, spent nearly four years in an Italian prison after she was convicted of murdering her roommate Kercher in 2007
The body of the 21-year-old British exchange student was found by police in the Perugia apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007. Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested and later convicted of murder and sexual assault in 2009
She said that she had hope in the wake of the 2016 Netflix documentary about her case.
‘Of all the surreal moments in my extremely surreal life, the one that brings me the most hope right now, while I’m polishing up the speech I’m about to give to a potentially hostile audience in Italy, came in the wake of that Netflix documentary.
‘A woman approached me, crying, after I gave a talk, and she said something I’d been told before on Twitter. I wish I could say it’s been thousands or even hundreds of people who have tweeted the sentiment at me, but it has only been a few dozen. Still, hearing this woman say it to my face, it shocked me.
‘She said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you as entertainment.”‘
Knox has always maintained her innocence, insisting that she and Sollecito had spent the evening together at Sollecito’s home watching a film, smoking marijuana and being intimate
Knox was joined by friends and her fiancee as she prepared to the conference in Modena
The body of the 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kercher was found by police in the Perugia apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007.
Officers discovered Kercher’s throat was slashed and she had been sexually assaulted.
Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested and later convicted of murder and sexual assault in 2009.
The couple maintained their innocence, insisting that they had spent the evening together at Sollecito’s home watching a film, smoking marijuana and being intimate.
Describing her ordeal earlier this year, Knox said: ‘I was interrogated for 53 hours over five days, without a lawyer, in a language I understood maybe as well as a ten-year-old’. In 2011 the Perugia Court of Appeal acquitted the pair of the more serious charges, though upholding a minor conviction for Knox
Knox returned to the United States that year. In a flip-flop series of court decisions in her absence, her murder conviction was reinstated and then finally overturned again in 2015
In the final ruling judges cited flaws in the investigation and said there was a lack of evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, including a lack of ‘biological traces’ connecting them to the crime
Knox was joined by her future husband Christopher Robinson (pictured in the background at left wearing a hat)
Describing her ordeal earlier this year, Knox said: ‘I was interrogated for 53 hours over five days, without a lawyer, in a language I understood maybe as well as a ten-year-old.
‘When I told the police I had no idea who had killed Meredith, I was slapped in the back of the head and told to “Remember!”
‘I trusted these people. They were adults. They were authorities. And they lied to me.’
In 2011 the Perugia Court of Appeal acquitted the pair of the more serious charges, though upholding a minor conviction for Knox.
Italy’s highest court did, however, confirm a conviction against Knox for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner
Earlier this year a European court awarded Ms Knox €18,400 ($20,000) in damages after finding that Italian authorities had ‘violated her human rights’
She is now engaged to fiancé Christopher Robinson, a novelist who proposed to Knox with an elaborate sci-fi-themed display last November
She returned to the United States that year.
In a flip-flop series of court decisions in her absence, her murder conviction was reinstated and then finally overturned again in 2015.
In the final ruling judges cited flaws in the investigation and said there was a lack of evidence to prove their wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt, including a lack of ‘biological traces’ connecting them to the crime.
Italy’s highest court did, however, confirm a conviction against Knox for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner.
Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian, is serving a 16-year sentence for Kercher’s murder.
Knox will speak at an Italy Innocence Project conference for wrongly-convicted crime suspects this weekend in Modena. The now-31-year-old is pictured in 2016
It’s been eight years since Knox left Italy after her conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher was overturned. She is pictured at 21 years old during her trial in 2008
Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito (together in November 2007) both maintained their innocence after being convicted of Kercher’s murder and sexual assault in 2009
Italian police are seen outside the house where Kercher’s body was found in November 2007
Earlier this year a European court awarded Ms Knox €18,400 ($20,000, £16,350) in damages after finding that Italian authorities had ‘violated her human rights’.
She is now engaged to fiancé Christopher Robinson, a novelist who proposed to Knox with an elaborate sci-fi-themed display last November.
During the proposal he took her into their front yard where he had staged a fake meteor, which contained a ‘data crystal’ describing their ‘coalescence’.
They have been dating since February 2016 and Knox made the relationship public with a change in her Facebook status later that year.
The couple met after Knox – who became known as Foxy Knoxy during her ordeal – had reviewed Robinson’s book, War of the Encyclopaedists, on her blog.
Ivorian national Rudy Guede (left) is currently serving a 16-year sentence for Kercher’s murder
Knox is seen smiling at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport in October 2011 as she prepared to return home to Seattle following her acquittal
Knox and is engaged to novelist Christopher Robinson (above together). They have been dating since 2016, having met when Amanda reviewed his novel for a local magazine