US student Amanda Knox, seen here in court in Italy in 2011, is set to be interviewed about her murder conviction and acquittal for the first time. Source: AFP
AMANDA Knox, a US student who spent four years in jail in Italy on charges of murdering her British roommate before she was acquitted, is to give her first television interview, US network ABC announced overnight.
"Now, after the dramatic Italian trial, conviction, and the court appeal that finally acquitted and freed her she will speak to ABC News," the US network said, announcing that the interview will be broadcast on April 30.
The interview comes just as Knox, who was a college junior at the time of the incident, launches a press tour promoting her memoir Waiting to Be Heard, which will be published by HarperCollins on April 30.
HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which also owns this website, did not reveal financial details.
However The New York Times has said Knox sold the rights to her story for nearly $4 million.
In October 2011 an appeal court in Perugia, northern Italy, freed the American Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, after acquitting them of the 2007 killing of British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox and Sollecito had initially been sentenced to 26 and 25 years behind bars.
Foxy Knoxy was Knox's schoolgirl nickname and was originally her MySpace sign-on.
The moniker was adopted widely by the media after the death of her roommate and revelations about Knox's personal life, including images of her kissing her co-accused boyfriend.
According to the Times, HarperCollins acquired the rights to Knox's book after a "heated auction among publishing houses that stretched for days."
The Times said several publishers had submitted bids for the book, including Crown, part of Random House; St. Martin's Press, a Macmillan unit; Simon & Schuster's Atria; and Penguin Group USA's Dutton.
Knox had hired Washington attorney Robert Barnett of the law firm Williams & Connolly to negotiate the deal. She returned to her home town of Seattle, Washington after her acquittal.
