Amanda Knox proclaims innocence on TV

‘I want the truth to come out. I’d like to be reconsidered as a person’

Amanda Knox has claimed that what happened to her when she went on trial for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy could have happened to anyone.

In an interview on American TV, Ms Knox, who once more faces claims that she was involved in the killing in Perugia, said she wants the truth to come out and for her to be “reconsidered as a person”.

“What happened to me was surreal but it could have happened to anyone,” she said.

Asked about what it was like to be called a "she-devil with an angel face" and "sphinx of Perugia" after being accused of Ms Kercher's murder, Ms Knox told ABC's Diane Sawyer: "They're wrong.

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“I was in the courtroom when they were calling me a devil. I mean it’s one thing to be called certain things in the media and then it’s another thing to be sitting in a courtroom fighting for your life when people are calling you a devil.

“For all intents and purposes I was a murderer, whether I was or not. And I had to live with the idea that that would be my life.”

Miss Knox added: “I want the truth to come out. I’d like to be reconsidered as a person.”

The full interview is due to be broadcast tonight, while Ms Knox’s book Waiting To Be Heard is published in the US today.

Last month, Italy's highest criminal court overturned Ms Knox's acquittal for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey.

Ms Knox returned to her home in Seattle after she was cleared in 2011 following four years in jail.

She faces the prospect of an extradition request from the Italian government and a new trial in Florence.

Miss Kercher (21) was found with her throat slashed in her bedroom at the house she shared with American Ms Knox in November 2007.

Prosecutors claimed she was the victim of a drug-fuelled sex game gone awry.

Ms Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito (29) denied wrongdoing.

They were convicted following a high-profile trial but were released after an appeals court found the prosecution lacking and criticised large swathes of the case against them.

Italian law cannot compel Ms Knox to return to the country for a fresh trial but she could eventually face an extradition request.

It would then be up to the US to decide if it honours it.

Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito have consistently protested their innocence and claim they were not even in the apartment on the night Ms Kercher died.

The case mounted against them by prosecutors was ripped apart by the Italian appeals court which noted that the murder weapon was never found, DNA tests were faulty and prosecutors provided no motive for murder.

Rudy Guede, a small-time drug dealer from the Ivory Coast, is the only person who remains behind bars over the case in Italy, where he is serving a 16-year sentence for sexually assaulting and killing the British student.

He has always admitted being present at Ms Kercher’s home on the night of the murder but denied involvement.