Amanda Knox May ‘Appear’ in Italian Court
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Oli Scarff/Getty Images(SEATTLE) — Amanda Knox may appear in an Italian courtroom again. But this time, Italians and the press will only get to see her on a screen, via video conference from Seattle, if she testifies in the defamation case against her parents.
Knox is the only witness expected to defend her parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, who are charged with defaming five police officers with the Perugia crime squad.
“Amanda will probably not come back to Italy,” said Carlo Dalla Vedova, her attorney. “If she has to testify, she will probably do so via video conference, which is allowed.”
In October, Knox, along with her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was acquitted of the 2007 murder of Knox’s British roommate, Meredith Kercher.
Upon acquittal, Knox was immediately freed, after four years in prison, and flown back to her home in Seattle.
Knox’s parents face defamation charges after repeating Knox’s version of events to a British newspaper in June 2008, including the details of Knox’s interrogation as she had explained them.
“Amanda told her parents that she was physically and verbally abused by the police officers,” Dalla Vedova told ABC News. “She said she was never given food or water, or an interpreter. She also said she was threatened that ‘things would get worse’ if she asked for a lawyer to be present.”
It was those details that the police officers say offended their reputation and integrity.
“[These types of charges] are common in Italy as an attempt to protect the reputation of public officials,” Dalla Vedova explained.
Dalla Vedova is confident Knox’s parents will not be convicted. “They will be acquitted because what they said is true,” he said.
He adds that there was no professional interpreter present, and that the woman translating for Knox during her nearly 50-hour interrogation over several days, was a police officer.
In a visit with Mellas in Nov. 2007, days after her arrest, Knox is heard on a recording of the meeting telling her mother that she was threatened when she asked for a lawyer.
During closing arguments in the 2011 appeal trial, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini conceded that “it is possible Knox was hit in the head by mistake” during her interrogation.
A hearing was scheduled for Friday, in which the police officers were expected to testify, but it was postponed after some witnesses were not present.
The hearing is now scheduled for January 24, 2013.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio