Amanda Knox won't return to Italy for murder retrial, says family spokesman

AMANDA Knox will not retu to Italy for a retrial in the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher, a spokesman for her family said.

Italy’s high court ordered that Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito be retried for the killing after their initial convictions were overtued for "lack of evidence." The new trial is due to begin next month.

David Marriott, a spokesman for the Knox family, CNN the 26-year-old would not travel to Italy for the trial and that there is “no requirement she be there”.

However, there is still the possibility she could be forced to retu to the country if Italy requests her extradition from the US.

Kercher, 21, was found dead in the villa she shared with Knox in Perugia, in central Italy, in November 2007. After a high profile trial in which the lead prosecutor initially claimed Kercher died as a result of a violent sex game, Knox and Sollecito were found guilty of the killings and sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively.

Both convictions were overtued on appeal in 2011 after lawyers for pair successfully argued that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no credible murder motive.

A third suspect, Rudy Guede, a drifter from the Ivory Coast, is currently serving a 30-year sentence after he was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder.

After she was released Knox retued to her hometown Seattle where she enrolled in a college course and attempted to put her life back together.

According to CNN, the new prosecution will attempt to prove the original claim – that Kercher was killed in an erotic game that got out of control.

British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in the villa she shared with Knox in 2007. Picture: AP

Knox has said that such claims were “a bombardment of falsehood and fantasy”.

Knox (L) and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito during their trial in Perugia. Picture: AFP