Amanda Knox has opened up about the reason for her unlikely friendship with the Italian prosecutor who convicted her of murdering Meredith Kercher – revealing she sees it as a form of ‘therapy’ that helps the other feel ‘absolved’.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini and Knox forged a bond in the years after her conviction was overturned, with the lawyer stating previously he now has a ‘good opinion’ of her.
The former adversaries have grown close despite Mignini believing Knox was at the scene of the crime and declaring that British student Meredith ‘did not get justice’.
Meredith, 21, who was studying at Leeds University, was found stabbed to death in her bedroom of the apartment she shared with Knox in the Italian hilltop town of Perugia on November 2, 2007.
American student Knox, 20 at the time, and her Italian boyfriend Sollecito, who was 23, were arrested four days later and went on to be convicted at trial twice.
Both convictions were overturned due to a lack of any evidence linking them to the crime and the pair were ultimately exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015.
Police also arrested Rudy Guede, who ran a local bar. His bloody fingerprints and DNA found at the crime scene ensured his conviction for murder, and he served 14 years of his 30-year prison sentence behind bars.
Knox’s correspondence with Mignini began when she wrote him letters, delivered by go-between priest Don Saulo Scarabattoli, before moving to the messaging platform WhatsApp and eventually meeting again.
Amanda Knox has struck up a friendship with the prosecutor who worked to have her jailed for the death of Meredith Kercher. Pictured, Knox and her former lover Raffaele Sollecito reuniting in Italy 15 years after they were arrested and wrongly convicted of the murder of Ms Kercher
Giuliano Mignini said that he now has a ‘good opinion’ of Knox after the pair began corresponding via WhatsApp – and even send each other Christmas cards
Meredith Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was killed just three months after moving to Italy for a study abroad programme at Perugia’s prestigious university (pictured: in an undated photo released in November 2007)
They now share personal news, family photographs and send holiday greetings to each other, after developing a friendship.
Knox, now 37, from Seattle, Washington, divulged that the pair even send each other Christmas cards – but her family always questioned why she had forged such a relationship with the man who sent her to jail.
Some questioned if she had ‘Stockholm syndrome,’ she said in an interview with The Guardian.
But her real reason for the improbable friendship, she said, is that it offered her the chance to put her side across to the man who believed she was involved in Meredith’s death.
In essence, she wanted him to admit that he had got it wrong, she stated.
On that note, she has yet to extract a straight answer from Mignini, now 74, who maintains that at the time he was prosecuting her he believed she was guilty, she said.
Knox told the paper: ‘He says things to me like, ‘I know you’re not lying. I just think that you don’t remember what really happened’ which is incredibly patronising.’
However, she added that he has since told her that it is ‘very likely’ and ‘possible’ that he made ‘mistakes’.
Amanda Knox, 37 and from Seattle, was falsely convicted of Meredith’s murder twice and served four years in prison
Raffaele Sollecito, 38, originally from Milan, was convicted alongside his former lover
Meredith’s parents Arline (centre) and John (right) Kercher – who both died in 2020 – and her sister Stephanie (left) at a press conference in Perugia in November 2007
Amanda Knox, left, and her then-boyfriend Italian Raffaele Sollecito, after they were named as suspects
Amanda Knox (pictured speaking in 2019, file photo) wrote an article called ‘Patrolling the Trolls: The Sorry State of Reporting Online Abuse’ – recalling when she received death threats in prison
Meredith Kercher’s killer Rudy Guede (pictured waving from the window of a volunteer centre in 2016, file photo) was formally released from prison 13 years after the grisly murder
She also recalled how in 2022, after meeting him face-to-face in the aftermath of Meredith’s murder, her conviction, and the overturning of her verdict, Knox had wanted him to acknowledge the ‘hurt’ caused by her miscarriage of justice.
That for her was a defining point in her friendship with him, she said, in which she came to realise each could help the other.
When asked how, she said: ‘Because as much as I want him to absolve me, I think he wants me to absolve him more.
‘The one time in my life where I felt unstoppable was when I realised that it wasn’t about what I was going to get from him, it was about what I was going to give him.’
Elsewhere Knox – who has a new memoir coming out titled, ‘Free: My Search for Meaning’ – said she believes the spirit of her murdered roommate Meredith Kercher still ‘haunts’ her.
Speaking with People, Knox said: ‘I’ve described it as feeling haunted by Meredith, but not in that bad way that people sort of project on to me.
‘More in this benevolent spirit who is reminding me of the value of life, the privilege it is to live and the privilege it is to fight for your life. Because she fought for hers.’
Despite being freed and declared innocent, Knox told the outlet that she has never been allowed to fully live her life.
She added: ‘There’s always this subtext, like «Look at Amanda living her life while Meredith is dead».’
Knox continued: ‘Any expression of life in my life is seen as an offense to the memory of my friend who got murdered.’
She also spoke about her husband, Christopher Robinson, with whom she has two children – a daughter named Eureka, born in 2021, and a son named Echo, born in September 2023.
The couple met in 2015.
Robinson, she said, knew she had been involved in a scandal but had decided not to delve into the exact details at the start of their relationship, adding that he had thought she had something to do with ‘someone being pushed out of a window’.
