After years of legal twists and turns, Italy’s highest appeals court is set to rule on Friday on whether to uphold the conviction of American Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Both Knox, now 27, and Italian Sollecito, 30, have maintained their innocence during a process which saw them first convicted in 2009.

That ruling was overturned and both were freed from jail – Knox returning to the US where she remains despite being convicted for a second time last year in a new trial ordered by the Italian legal system.

Also reconvicted, Sollecito has attended the latest hearings at the Court of Cassation in Rome into Meredith Kercher’s brutal killing in 2007.

The 21-year old exchange student was stabbed to death in a house she shared with Knox in Perugia in central Italy.

The case has inspired books and films and riveted media attention for almost eight years.

The Kercher family’s lawyer Francesco Maresca has