Italy's top court is set to review American Amanda Knox's conviction in the gory murder of a British student, potentially opening the door to a fierce extradition battle in a case that has riveted the world.
The court will on Wednesday examine the verdict that found so-called "Foxy Knoxy" and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito guilty of killing Meredith Kercher in the university city of Perugia in 2007, and will either uphold it or send the case back to the appeals court.
Kercher was found in a pool of blood in a student house that she shared with Knox in November 2007, half-naked and with her throat slashed. She had been stabbed 47 times in what prosecutors immediately dubbed a satanic rite.
The pair were originally sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for the murder, but were acquitted on appeal in 2011 after four years in jail.
Knox, 27, returned to the United States a free woman, but the couple were found guilty again in a shock about-turn in January last year after judges supported prosecutors' theory that Kercher was killed during a sex game gone wrong.
The Seattle native was handed 28 years in prison, while Sollecito was given 25 and had his passport confiscated.
Knox, who was reported last month to be engaged to a childhood friend, will not be present in court, saying in a recent interview that she would have to be dragged "kicking and screaming".
US authorities may try to argue she has been a victim of double jeopardy - being tried twice for the same crime - but the extradition treaty acknowledges that there is no limit on the number of times cases can be appealed under the Italian legal system.
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