In an interview with the magazine Oggi Amanda Knox has revealed that she and Raffaele Sollecito still write to each other and that this contact with her former boyfriend helps her to endure her life in prison.
Knox, who was 23 on 9th July, and Sollecito are serving 26 and 25-year sentences respectively for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007. Another man, Rudy Guede, is serving a 30-year sentence which has been reduced to 16 years for involvement in the murder.
Interviewed in the Capanne Prison, Perugia, Knox told Oggi how she spends her days:
She rises at 6 am, does some yoga exercises and then reads her mail. Besides receiving mail from friends and family, she receives over 300 letters a month from unknown well-wishers. Later she plays volleyball, then devotes the afternoon to reading and to her studies, which are progressing more slowly than she would like. She is currently reading Sartre, Moravia and Dostoyevsky in Italian, a task which she finds laborious but worth the effort. She also plays the guitar and sings, activities which help her find inner peace, and she attends Mass.
Knox refutes reports that she is going blind and says she does not understand why the British newspapers continue to make up stories about her.
Asked about her reaction to Mafioso informer Luciano Aviello’s claim that his own brother murdered Kercher, Knox said that she had already been aware of the situation and did not allow herself to hope for an early release.
Knox told Oggi’s reporter that she misses her family, friends, house and her home town of Seattle, especially its skyline. Asked about her much-publicised short haircut, she said that she had had her hair cut mostly for practical reasons but also as a protest.
She said that, although it is difficult, she still has faith in the Italian justice system.
