US student Knox faces retrial over roommate's murder

ROME - The Associated Press

Amanda Knox pauses while speaking during a news conference at Sea-Tac International Airport, Washington after landing there on a flight from Italy in this October 4, 2011, file photo. Italy's highest appeals court is due to begin reviewing the Amanda Knox case in the final steps of the Meredith Kercher murder trial, March 25, 2013. REUTERS/Anthony Bolante/Files

Italy’s highest criminal court has overturned the acquittal of U.S. student Amanda Knox in the slaying of her British roommate and ordered a new trial.

The Court of Cassation ruled Tuesday that an appeals court in Florence must re-hear the case against the American and her Italian-ex-boyfriend for the murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.

Kercher’s body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox and other roommates in Perugia, an Italian university town where the two women were exchange students. Her throat had been slashed.

Prosecutors alleged Kercher was the victim of a drug-fueled sex game gone awry. Knox and Raffaele Sollecito denied wrongdoing. An Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.