New drug links to Amanda Knox reported

Amanda Knox will not return to Italy from the US for the new trial. Photo / AP

Italian prosecutors pushing for Amanda Knox's extradition from the US claim they have evidence of her extensive links to cocaine dealers in Perugia, it has been reported.

Police in the Italian city where the British student Meredith Kercher was murdered have reportedly already convicted one man for dealing cocaine based on information from the American's phone.

They say that details from Knox's file show she had phone conversations with a known drug dealer before and after Ms Kercher's death, was getting through cash at an alarmingly fast rate and had an alleged "relationship of a sexual nature" with the supplier.

Lawyers now plan to use these alleged drug links against Knox as they prepare to try and force her back to Italy on an extradition warrant to face justice, the Mirror reported.

Even as she and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito await an appeal over their re-conviction for the murder at Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation, Knox has said she will never return from Seattle for what currently stands as a 28-year jail sentence.

The police report attached to Knox's file reportedly stated that: "In the course of the investigation regarding the criminal proceedings 9066/07 [Kercher's murder] they discovered that an Italian person from time to time replenished Amanda Knox's narcotic substances, as well as having allegedly had with her the relationship of a sexual nature."

The fresh reports of drug links came as Sollecito told reporters in Rome that the evidence showed Knox was not with him at his home at the time of the killing of Ms Kercher,21, as her alibi claims.

Ms Kercher, from London, was killed on 1 November 2007 in the flat she shared with Knox. The American, Sollecito and Rudy Guede have been convicted of the murder but only the latter is currently serving time in prsion.

Knox and Sollecito have been convicted, had their convictions overturned and then reinstated by Italian courts in January this year. They are preparing for one final appeal to overturn the convictions once more.

Sollecito denied he was changing his story. "Only a madman or a criminal would change versions, and I'm neither mad nor criminal," he said. "There's proof that I was at my place and I was watching Japanese cartoons."

Asked where Knox may have been in those missing hours, Sollecito said he was concentrating only on defending himself and could not vouch for her whereabouts.

Despite casting doubt on Knox's testimony, Sollecito said he was convinced of Knox's innocence. "I always believed, and still believe, that Amanda Marie Knox is innocent," he said. He wanted only to ensure that evidence against Knox was not unfairly used against him.

- UK Independent