Italy’s top appeal court on Tuesday overturned Amanda Knox’s acquittal for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher and ordered a retrial.
Kercher died in an apartment that she shared with Knox, who lives in the Seattle area, in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.
Knox, now 25, and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were prosecuted and found guilty of killing Kercher in a case that drew world-wide attention.
Prosecutors argued that Knox and Sollecito killed Kercher after a drug-fueled sexual assault.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, while Sollecito got 25, but they were acquitted after serving four years.
However on Tuesday, the Court of Cassation, Italy's final court of appeal, said Knox and Sollecito would both face a retrial.
Italian law cannot compel Knox to return to Italy and she could be tried in absentia.
The Italian appellate court hearing the case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties.
It is unclear what would happen if she was convicted in a new appeals trial. "If the court orders another trial, if she is convicted at that trial and if the conviction is upheld by the highest court, then Italy could seek her extradition," Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova told the AP.
Knox spent four years in prison before her guilty verdict was overturned.
Small-time drug dealer Rudy Hermann Guede, who knew Knox, was convicted and given a 16-year sentence.
Since her release from prison in 2011, Knox has resumed her studies in Seattle.
