On November 1st, 2007, 21-year old British student Meredith Kercher was found brutally murdered in her bedroom in a cottage in Perugia, Italy. She had been stabbed in the throat with a knife and had bled profusely. A bloody handprint was streaked on the wall above her.

What followed was one of the most sensational and bizarre murder trials in history, leading to the conviction of American Amanda Knox, her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede, born on the Ivory Coast, but living in Italy at the time of the murder.

The Italian prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, initially presented a case about a sex game that had gone wrong. He claimed that Amanda Knox repeatedly stabbed Kercher as the two men held her on her knees. The murder weapon was Sollecito’s 6 ½-inch kitchen knife that was used to slit Kercher’s throat and then taken back to his apartment.

Mignini insisted that Knox’s DNA was on the knife’s handle and DNA from Kercher was on the blade. Since Kercher had never been to Sollecito’s apartment, he couldn’t have come in contact with the knife, unless he had participated in Kercher’s murder.

Lastly, the prosecution offered as evidence a bra clasp that had apparently fallen to the floor after the murderer cut Kercher’s bra in half before she was killed. Sollecito’s DNA was on it.

But do the “facts” actually support the convictions?

On the night Kercher was killed, Knox and her boyfriend say they were at his house watching a movie and smoking hashish. There is no evidence that contradicts this testimony.

Dr. Carlo Torre, a leading forensics expert in Italy, testified that the knife taken from Sollecito’s apartment wouldn’t have made the wounds on Kercher’s body. It didn’t match the size or the shape of the wounds. It also didn’t match a bloody outline of a knife left on the bedding.

Defense expert Sarah Gino, a geneticist and private coroner in Italy, testified that the DNA sample on the knife was too small to be definitive. The presence of Knox’s DNA on the knife handle could also be easily be explained, as she occasionally had dinner at Sollecito’s house.

Independent experts appointed by the judge during the appeal process concluded that the DNA evidence was completely unreliable and very likely contaminated. The judge found that Knox and Sollecito were not guilty of the murder. In his report, he wrote that the case could not be proven and that all of the key evidence against Knox and Sollecito was unreliable. He also called the first court to task for applying an incorrect standard of proof by repeatedly using the terms “probably” to describe what the court thought happened. Probably is not beyond a reasonable doubt.

What about Rudy Guede?

He left a handprint in Kercher’s blood in the room where she was killed. His DNA was found on and inside Kercher. He left his DNA on her purse. His DNA was also linked to feces left in the toilet.

Guede fled to Germany and was extradited back to Italy. He had a history of breaking into homes and offices by throwing a rock through the window, the same situation found at the cottage.

A footprint found in Knox and Kercher’s bathroom that was originally attributed to Sollecito was later identified as belonging to Guede, who was convicted of Kercher’s murder in 2008 and is serving 16 years in prison.

Guede was recorded during a Skype conversation before his arrest telling a friend that Amanda Knox was not present the night the crime took place. After his arrest Guede claimed that he and Kercher were having sex in her room when he needed to use the bathroom. While Guede was in the bathroom, Knox and Sollecito came into the cottage and murdered Kercher.

Last Thursday Knox and Sollecito’s acquittals were overturned, and Knox, who remains at her home in Seattle, was sentenced in absentia to 28½ years in prison. Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.

I don’t believe there is any mystery as to who actually murdered Meredith Kercher. Why then do Italian authorities continue to try to convict Knox and Sollecito?