Amanda Knox has broken down in tears on her first return to Italy since her acquittal in the murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher.
Ms Knox, 31, recalled her four years in jail after she was arrested in 2007 for the murder of British exchange student Ms Kercher in the house they rented in Perugia.
She became the focus of a sensational murder case, where she was depicted as an angel-faced man-eater dubbed Foxy Knoxy, while many in her native America defended her as an innocent victim caught in a judicial nightmare abroad.
Ms Kercher, a student from Surrey, was found semi-naked on 1 November 2007 in a pool of blood, her throat cut.
Ms Knox, who was initially convicted of the murder before being cleared on appeal, said she felt fearful upon her return to Italy.
Advertisement
"I'm afraid of being harassed, mocked, framed, I'm afraid that new accusations will be levied against me just because I'm here giving my version of events," she told a criminal justice conference in Modena, northern Italy.
In an emotional speech in which she cried at one point, and at several others struggled to fight back tears, she launched a stinging attack on the media, which she said had failed to probe the authorities over an arrest she said was based on no evidence.
More from World
"It was impossible for me to have a fair trial," she claimed, recalling how in the eyes of many she had become "the dirty, psychopathic, man-eating Foxy Knoxy".
"They convicted that doppelganger. That person was sentenced to 26 years in jail," she said.
"The verdict fell upon me like a crushing weight," she added.
"I could only suffer in silence from my prison cell".
Ms Knox said the media invented a "false and baseless story, which fuelled people's fantasies".
She reached out the man who prosecuted her, Giuliano Mignini, saying she now recognises he was trying to find justice after a brutal murder and was moved by a "genuine and noble" intent. She said she hoped to one day meet him outside a court of justice.
"And I hope that he will also see I am not a monster, I am simply Amanda," Knox said.
Prior to her arrival in Italy, she published an essay called Your Content, My Life, discussing her decision to accept an invitation from the Italy Innocence Project.
In it, she said that "while on trial for a murder I didn't commit, my prosecutor painted me as a sex-crazed femme fatale".
She added that the media "profited for years by sensationalising an already sensational and utterly unjustified story&quoRead More – Source
[contf] [contfnew] 
Sky News
[contfnewc] [contfnewc]
