Amanda Knox Ex: My Dad Told Me to Abandon Her, But I Refused and Stayed in Prison
Amanda Knox's ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, said that his father told him to cooperate with the prosecutors and abandon the girl he had known for a week and convicted of the murder of her roommate. But Sollecito said he refused to testify against Knox, and instead chose to spend four years in prison.
Sollecito said in an exclusive interview with NBC's "Today" show on Friday, "[Amanda] told me that she thinks that I'm a kind of hero, but I don't feel so."
"And I don't need any kind of gratitude … I did it because I know it's the truth. It's the good thing to do. It's the only way for me."
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Amanda Knox is from Seattle and was studying in Perugia, Italy, when she was convicted of murdering her English roommate, Meredith Kercher, in 2009. Kercher was found half-naked and said to have died in an orgy gone awry, according to prosecutors.
Knox had only been dating Sollecito, an Italian, for nine days in 2007 when they were caught up in an international murder trial. The two served four years out of a 26-year sentence after their conviction was overturned in October 2011. But the Italian Supreme Court two months ago ordered another trial of the case to begin sometime next year.
On the Today's show, Sollecito, who is promoting his new book Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, said, "I'm innocent, and we got evidence of our innocence, so we will fight until the end without any worry."
When asked if he was afraid of going back to jail, Sollecito responded, "No. It's something like a very far-away thought in my mind. I already know that I'm innocent and we already have proved it. So for me, it's kind of nonsense."
The two met in Seattle recently and are "good friends," according to Sollecito. Sollecito currently lives in Switzerland, but plans to return to Italy.
