From her small cell in Capanne prison just outside the Italian city of Perugia, Amanda Knox has taken to using just one word to describe her strained circumstances: "limbo."

Only last December, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison for the brutal murder of her flatmate Meredith Kercher, so “limbo” seems an odd choice of words.

Yet 23-year-old Knox continues to maintain her innocence and her appeal hearing is scheduled to start this week (24 Novemeber 2010), which she fervently hopes will overturn her conviction. Many convicted killers go through these same legal motions, yet in Knox’s case there has recently been a groundswell of support for her cause from both criminologists, forensic experts and politicians – including, latterly, Rocco Girlanda, an Italian MP who has written a book in support of her campaign for freedom.

For him, as with so many others, her case continues to exert a peculiar fascination and remains mired in the same series of claims and counter claims which dogged it from the beginning. As a result, the public facts and speculation have been muddled. Some facts however, have been undisputed from the start and remain no less chilling. On the morning of 2 November, 2007, 22-year-old Meredith, who had travelled to Italy to learn Italian at university, was found lying semi-nude in a pool of blood in her room in the cottage she shared with Knox. She had been sexually assaulted and her throat was slit. The murder had clearly been frenzied.

Four days later police had arrested three suspects: Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Patrick Lumumba, a local bar owner, who was later released and exonerated. The same month, Rudy Guede, a 22-year-old drifter from the Ivory Coast was also arrested and later convicted of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher. His DNA was found in several locations in Meredith’s room, alongside his bloody handprint on her pillow.

Amanda Knox: the appeal begins