Florence: Amanda Knox, the American student who became tabloid fodder, will not be in court on Thursday to hear Italian judges give their verdict in her retrial for the murder of Briton Meredith Kercher when the two were roommates studying abroad in 2007.
Knox, who is living in Seattle, is standing trial alongside her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. She denies any involvement in the brutal killing and has declared she will remain a "fugitive" if found guilty.
Six years of trials and investigations have so far failed to clear up mysteries surrounding the murder of Kercher, 21, who was found stabbed to death in her bedroom in the picturesque town of Perugia, where she shared a student flat with Knox.
Knox, 26, and Sollecito, 29, were convicted of the murder in 2009 and spent almost four years in jail, but the verdicts were overturned on appeal and Knox immediately returned home to the United States (US) upon her release in 2011, where she has remained.
