Amanda Knox Trial and Guilty Charge: Knox Wins Privacy Case Over Publication of Sexual Partners and Diary Details

By Daniel Distant, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Amanda Knox pauses emotionally while speaking during a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport, Washington after landing there on a flight from Italy, October 4, 2011. Amanda Knox returned home to Seattle one day after an Italian court cleared the 24-year-old college student of murder and freed her from prison. | (Photo: Reuters/Anthony Bolante)

The Amanda Knox trial may have resulted in a guilty charge for the 26-year-old for the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2007, but she is now afforded some small solace. Italian journalists who were given access to the now-26-year-old's diary published private information about Knox's sexual partners in 2008, and now she is being awarded damages for the reports.

Amanda Knox's diary was made available to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which is owned by RCS Mediagroup. Two articles ran in 2008 that listed information about her sexual partners, which is against the law in the country, according to the International Business Times.

The reporters were supposed to "filter the documents to comply with the standards for the protection of fundamental rights in the privacy code," a Milanese judge said. Their failure to do so has allowed Knox to win moral damages.

Still, though, the Italian legal system declared the 26-year-old girl guilty in January 2014 for the murder of Kercher. Were Knox to comply, she would spend 28-and-a-half years in prison in the European country.

"I am frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict," she said in written remarks. "Having been found innocent before, I expected better from the Italian justice system. The evidence and accusatory theory do not justify a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. ... There has always been a marked lack of evidence."

Knox's guilty verdict came via a six-person jury and two judges, unlike her first, juryless trial in Italian court which led to her serving four years in prison. Knox did not go to Italy for the trial for fear of being immediately imprisoned for her sentence, but she was still shocked at the verdict, which she saw on TV as it was read by the judge aloud.

"I did not expect this to happen. I really expected so much better from the Italian justice system," she told "Good Morning America" previously. "They found me innocent before (in the 2011 appeal). How can they say that it's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?"

Knox's ex-boyfriend, 29-year-old Raffaelle Sollecito, was also found guilty in the Italian court. He was stopped by the Italian-Austrian border and had his passport stamped, which prevents him from leaving the country.