Amanda Knox befriended by Italian prosecutor who jailed her for murder

For years they stood opposite each other in an Italian courtroom at the centre of a murder trial that gripped the world.

But the prosecutor who had Amanda Knox jailed for the killing of a British student has now struck up an unlikely bond with her, sealed in a tearful secret meeting.

Giuliano Mignini still believes that Ms Knox - acquitted by Italy’s High Court of the murder in 2015 - was present at the scene of the crime. But he says his opinion of her has now changed upon striking up a friendship through WhatsApp.

“Amanda has changed a lot and I think I can say that I know her,” Mr Mignini told The Telegraph, breaking a years-long silence on the 15th anniversary of Meredith Kercher’s death.

“She was defamed by the British tabloids and presented like a Circe but really she is a normal girl from the West,” he said, referring to the enchantress of ancient Greek mythology.

Much of the transformation has occurred in the last two years, during which Ms Knox began corresponding with him by letter, first through a priest, who had counselled them both, acting as a go-between, and later directly with messages on WhatsApp.

They regularly exchange holiday greetings, family pictures and personal news. A genuine friendship has developed, says Mr Mignini, now retired from the court.

“Now she has a family and a lovely baby girl named Eureka and is taking part in a worthwhile project regarding justice in the US,” he said.

“We have different ideas about the trial that involved us, but now I have a good opinion of her.”

Kercher was found stabbed to death in her Perugia flat on November 2 2007.

American Ms Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially convicted of murder and sentenced to serve 26 and 25 years, respectively, before ultimately being acquitted by Italy’s High Court.

A third man, Ivory Coast immigrant Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate fast-track trial and has been released from prison after doing his time and recently published a book. Italy’s high court maintains he did not act alone.

Neither the prosecutor or Ms Knox, now 35, have spoken publicly about her trip with her family in June. But it clearly had a profound impact on Mr Mignini, a devout Catholic with four daughters of his own, whose typical Sunday involves mass, a large Italian lunch with red wine, la passeggiata walk through the city centre and then the match at Perugia’s football stadium.

Ms Knox’s emotional return to Perugia and top-secret meeting with her former prosecutor came after many months of correspondence and delicate negotiations. They were brokered by Don Saulo Scarabattoli, Mr Mignini’s priest in his youth and, coincidentally, also the prison chaplain at Capanne women’s penitentiary, where he befriended and counselled Ms Knox while she was incarcerated.

While in Italy in June, Ms Knox also took a trip to Gubbio with her ex-boyfriend Mr Sollecito, and had a jolly reunion with her lawyers, Luciano Ghirga and Carlo Dalla Vedova - all, she says, as a part of addressing her trauma.

“It was nice, the nicest,” Mr Sollecito, now a computer engineer in Milan, told The Mirror.

Mr Mignini has not revealed specifics about what was discussed at the meeting. Ms Knox did shed many tears, however, and they hugged. He met Eureka Muse, her daughter, as well as Christopher Robinson, her husband. Ms Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas, travelled with the family, but refused to meet Mr Mignini.

Now retired, Mr Mignini slowly warmed to Ms Knox’s repeated requests to meet him over the years. Both feel they were pilloried by the press.

He has a book coming out this month and she has a podcast and a memoir yet to be made into a film.

In an email interview released this week in Italy’s Oggi magazine, Ms Knox said “I am still the Amanda who set foot for the first time in Perugia. I have the same personality, the same dreams, the same sense of humour. The difference is I now carry within me a huge and profound well of sadness that before wasn’t there. But you know what? Deep down I am grateful to this well: it allows me to help others in a more efficient way.”

Mr Mignini is also trying to come to terms with his judicial system’s failure to adequately do justice for Kercher and her family. He is actively lobbying city officials to have Via della Pergola renamed in her honour.

“I hope that the street will be dedicated to Meredith,” he told The Telegraph. “There is already a plaque in her honour, but it is the minimum Perugia can do to remember this girl from London who met her death in my city.”

His position remains that media pressure and other outside influences compromised judges in the appeal court’s decision to acquit.

In true Catholic tradition, he has forgiven but not forgotten, and remains haunted by a dearth of redress for the one true victim.

“You ask me if there was justice for Meredith, and painfully, I have to answer no, she did not get justice.”