Knox, 36, hoped to overturn conviction for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering British student Meredith Kercher

A Florence court has upheld a slander conviction against Amanda Knox for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher.

The American, 36, had asked for the conviction to be dropped, saying she had returned to Italy in the hope of “clearing my name once and for all of the false charges against me”.

She cried when the sentence was read on Wednesday and told her lawyers: “I didn’t expect it, I’m very disappointed,” the Italian news agency Ansa reported.