Meredith Kercher’s family has slammed “insensitive” plans for a new Disney-backed drama about Amanda Knox’s trial over Brit’s 2007 death in Italy

Disney’s plans to dramatize the case of a woman wrongly convicted of fatally stabbing a 21-year-old exchange student have been criticized for a “lack of sensitivity.”

The lawyer representing the family of Meredith Kercher, the British woman tragically murdered in Perugia 17 years ago, is just one of those criticizing the premise of the eight-part series focusing on Amanda Knox.

Knox was jailed in 2007, found guilty of fatally stabbing Kercher, although she was ultimately acquitted of murder in 2015 due to lack of evidence – after she had already served four years of her sentence.

Kercher was an exchange student from the University of Leeds and shared a flat in Perugia, Italy, with Knox in 2007, where the attack was initially reported to have taken place.

An eight-part series chronicling Knox’s journey to freedom is currently in production for Hulu, the subscription streaming service owned by Disney.

Meredith Kercher, from Coulsdon, was killed just three months after moving to Italy to attend a study abroad program at the prestigious University of Perugia (pictured in an undated photograph released in November 2007).

Knox and Sollecito, photographed in Italy shortly after the case made headlines in 2007, had only dated briefly before Meredith’s death.

Knox is pictured leaving with prison police after a court hearing in Perugia on September 16, 2008.

Filming began last week in Orvieto and will continue from Tuesday until the end of the week in Perugia, where the apartment on Via della Pergola where Kercher was killed was even used as a chosen location.

The Kercher family’s lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said: “We have already talked too much about this case, and at some point you will have to close this chapter.”

Speaking to The Times, she added: “But Knox doesn’t want to close this chapter.

“This continuous stirring is a demonstration of lack of sensitivity. She’s making money, she’s on TV years later… It seems Knox doesn’t want people to forget this story and is doing everything she can to keep it alive.”

A statement from Meredith Kercher’s sister, Stephanie, said, “She will forever be remembered for friendship and kindness that no amount of media can change” and spoke of an “indescribable emptiness.”

Meredith’s parents Arlene (center) and John (right) Kercher, both of whom died in 2020, and her sister Stephanie (left) at a press conference in Perugia in November 2007.

Meredith Kercher (pictured) died tragically in 2007.

Kercher’s real killer was eventually identified as Rudy Guede from Ivory Coast after his DNA was found on her body.

He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and then released in 2021 because he only had to serve 13 years for good behavior.

But Knox’s 2011 libel conviction against Patrick Lumumba, whom she accused of killing Kercher, hung over her head for years.

In June this year, Knox apologized to the court and said she had wrongly accused him after she was under intense police pressure for hours, adding that she had been “scared, deceived and mistreated”.

She said: “I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the police pressure.”

But two judges and six jurors found her guilty of libel.

She previously told the judge: “I never meant to slander Patrick; he was my friend.”

Lumumba’s lawyers said the bar owner’s reputation was damaged regardless of whether she knew who the killer was.

Knox initially accused Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba (pictured outside a court in Perugia, central Italy, Tuesday, September 16, 2008) of killing Kercher.

“When Amanda accused Patrick, he became known everywhere as the monster of Perugia,” Lumumba’s lawyer Carlo Pacelli told reporters, saying the conviction should be upheld. Lumumba was not in court.

Knox is now 37 years old and has two children. She spends her time advocating for criminal justice reform and speaking out against wrongful convictions.

A 2011 film for American television, a 2013 memoir, Waiting to Be Heard, and a 2016 Netflix documentary are just some of the ways she has already told her story.

Knox reportedly received $3.8 million (£2.9 million) for her book deal.

Now the mother of two young children, she co-hosts a podcast with her husband while speaking out against wrongful convictions.

The new series, Amanda: A Coming of Age Horror Story, is created by Monica Lewinsky, who became famous for her affair with then-US President Bill Clinton – a story that Disney has also decided to turn into a TV movie. drama.

Knox is also an executive producer on the new drama. She is played by Grace Van Patten.

Show bosses say it tells “the true story of how Amanda Knox was wrongfully convicted of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher and her 16-year odyssey to freedom.”

Lawyer Maresca disapproved of Knox’s conversations with American universities in 2018, for which she was reportedly paid £7,500 each.

Speaking to The Times, he went so far as to say that upholding her libel charges casts doubt on her complete innocence.

“Knox’s silence at this time would be most appropriate,” he concluded.