Raffaelle Sollecito is appealing a guilty verdict for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. Tiziana Fabi/AFP 
 
 Raffaelle Sollecito, convicted in January alongside Amanda Knox of killing British student Meredith Kercher, is unable to vouch for Knox’s whereabouts for part of the evening leading up to Kercher’s death, it was revealed during a press conference on Tuesday. 
 
 His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, said during the press conference in Rome that Sollecito “spent the night with Amanda” but was not with her during part of the evening. 
 
 The addition to Sollecito’s defence comes as lawyers prepare an appeal to Italy’s Supreme Court against January’s verdict by a Florence court. 
 
 While the Italian always claimed Knox "spent the night" with him, he never said they spent the evening together - which is when the crime took place, Bongiorno said. 
 
 “Whenever he described what happened that afternoon, and evening, he always said he spent the night with Amanda,” Bongiorno said. 
 
 “But for the entire first part of the evening, they were not together. It’s this first part of the evening that’s new [to his defence].” 
 
 Bongiorno said the appeal would revolve around a text message which Knox claims to have sent while with Sollecito at his house the night of the murder. 
 
 "This text message, according to the court's own ruling, was not sent from his house. Therefore the pair were not together," she said. 
 
 Sollecito is relying on the log from his home computer to prove he was home at the time of the killing. 
 
 Sollecito, who was also at the conference, again professed his innocence, saying, “I’m not here to change my story; only a crazy person or a criminal would do that.” 
 
 “I am neither a crazy person or a criminal, I’m an innocent person,” he added. 
 
 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. 
 
 He also said he was in love with Knox but that, ultimately, she was a "stranger". 
 
 However, he added that he and his family have always believed, and continue to believe, in Knox’s innocence. 
 
 Kercher, from south London, was found dead in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, a popular student city, on November 1st 2007. 
 
 Knox and her former boyfriend Sollecito - originally sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for killing Kercher - were acquitted on appeal in 2011 after four years behind bars, but then found guilty again in a shock about-turn by a Florence court in January. 
 
 In April, the court said in its reasoning that there was DNA proof that three people were at the murder scene: Knox, Sollecito and a third person, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, who is the only person still in prison for the crime. 
 
 Kercher was frequently irritated by her behaviour and when her Seattle-born housemate invited Guede into the apartment that night the situation escalated, the court said in the 337-page explanation. 
 
 Guede "behaved impolitely" and an annoyed Kercher interrupted an "intimate moment" between Knox and Sollecito to complain, it said. 
 
 "The cohabitation had reached such a level of exasperation" that the argument quickly escalated, with Guede, Knox and Sollecito "collaborating to immobilize Meredith and use violence against her," it added. 
 
 Guede - whose DNA was found inside Kercher's body - was driven by "sexual instinct", while Knox and Sollecito "wanted to prove their power over Meredith and humiliate her", stabbing her with two knives. 
 
 The larger of the two knives, "which produced the wound on the left part of the neck and from which spurted most of the blood which caused Meredith Kercher's death, was held by Amanda Knox," it said. 
 
 The other was wielded by Sollecito, who cut through Kercher's bra strap, inadvertently planting the only piece of DNA evidence which links him to the scene, it added. 
 
 Investigators have long insisted that 47 cuts and bruises on Kercher and the apparent use of two different knives in the attack pointed to more than one killer. 
 
 Prosecutors had previously alleged that Kercher was killed in a drug-fuelled sex attack, claiming Knox delivered the final blows while Sollecito and Guede held the victim down. 
 
 But the Florence court ruled out the theory, saying that Kercher was not the type of girl to have engaged in such antics. 
 
 The trial will now go back to Italy's highest court, which could uphold or overturn the verdict. 
 
 If it upholds it, officials are expected to begin the lengthy process to extradite Knox from the United States, where she returned on her release from prison in 2011. ||||| Story highlights "This has been a real tragedy," Raffaele Sollecito says 
 
 Sollecito's legal team lays the groundwork for an appeal in his murder conviction 
 
 An Italian appeals court sentenced him to 25 years in prison, Knox to 28 
 
 They were convicted in the death of Knox's former roommate Meredith Kercher 
 
 "This has been a real tragedy," he said. "I'm not a criminal." 
 
 Sollecito's new defense strategy comes as their legal teams prepare to appeal the couple's murder convictions in the death of Knox's former roommate Meredith Kercher before Italy's Supreme Court next year. 
 
 It's a dramatic departure from the past seven years, where the tactic has been to "stick together" and be "tried" together. 
 
 Sollecito attorney Giulia Bongiorno said that approach no longer works. 
 
 "They are not Siamese twins -- one body with two heads," she said. 
 
 The old approach began to change shortly after an Italian appeals court sentenced Sollecito to 25 years in prison and Knox to 28 years in January, and that change continued Tuesday. 
 
 New tactics 
 
 JUST WATCHED Sollecito now questions Knox's behavior Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sollecito now questions Knox's behavior 03:31 
 
 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Amanda Knox at her parents' home in Seattle, Washington, on March 27, 2015. Knox and Raffaele Sollecito (not pictured) were acquitted by Italy's highest court in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher. Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Amanda Knox appears on NBC's "Today" show. Knox spent four years in jail because of murder charges in the death of her roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Appeals Court Judge Alessandro Nencini, center, reads the verdict in the death of British student Meredith Kercher in Florence, Italy, on Thursday, January 30, 2014. The appeals court upheld the convictions of Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the 2007 murder of her British roommate. Knox was sentenced to 28½ years in prison, raising the specter of a long legal battle over her extradition. Sollecito's sentence was 25 years. Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Sollecito, left, and his father, Francesco, leave after attending the final hearing before the verdict on January 30. After nearly 12 hours of deliberation, the court reinstated the guilty verdict first handed down against Knox and Sollecito in 2009. Hide Caption 4 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bartender Knox originally accused of Kercher's murder, talks to the press outside the courthouse during a break form the appeal trial of Knox and Sollecito on September 30. Hide Caption 5 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Knox and her former boyfriend Sollecito were convicted in 2009 to 25 years in prison (Sollecito got 26 years). The conviction was overturned in 2011 for "lack of evidence." But Italy's Supreme Court decided last year to retry the case, saying the jury that acquitted them didn't consider all the evidence and that discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered. Hide Caption 6 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found dead with her throat slit in an apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy, on November 2, 2007. Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial When Knox was detained for questioning in 2007, she implicated Lumumba, the owner of a bar where Knox worked. Lumumba was taken into custody and released after two weeks in prison when his alibi was corroborated. He later won a libel suit against Knox. Hide Caption 8 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Sollecito , Knox's boyfriend at the time of the murder, was convicted in December 2009 with Knox and released when their cases were overturned. Prosecutors testified that police scientists found Sollecito's genetic material on a bra clasp of Kercher's found in her room, while his defense claimed there wasn't enough DNA for a positive ID. Hide Caption 9 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast native raised in Perugia, was convicted separately from Knox and Sollecito and is now serving 16 years. Guede admitted to being with Kercher on the night she died, but said he didn't kill her. Both Knox and Sollecito argued that he was the killer, and Guede suggested the couple took Kercher's life. Hide Caption 10 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Meredith Kercher's family lawyer Francesco Maresca, left, argued in court in 2011 that the multiple stab wounds implied more than one aggressor killed Kercher. Pictured from left are Maresca, Kercher's father John, sister Stephanie, brother Lyle and brother John at a press conference in 2008. Hide Caption 11 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Carlo Dalla Vedova, one lawyer on Knox's defense team, argued in court that "the only possible decision to take is that of absolving Amanda Knox" in his closing argument for her appeal hearing. Hide Caption 12 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Carlo Pacelli represented Patrick Lumumba in his civil suit case. He called Knox two-faced and a "she-devil." Hide Caption 13 of 14 Photos: The Knox-Sollecito retrial Giulia Bongiorno, the lead lawyer on Raffaele Sollecito's defense team, compared Knox to Jessica Rabbit on the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Knox is not bad, just "drawn that way," Bongiorno said in her closing statements in the 2011 trial. Hide Caption 14 of 14 
 
 JUST WATCHED Sollecito: I am not responsible for this Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Sollecito: I am not responsible for this 04:09 
 
 JUST WATCHED Will Amanda Knox go back to Italy? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Will Amanda Knox go back to Italy? 07:33 
 
 Sollecito's lawyer John Kelly started laying the groundwork in February. 
 
 "It's imperative that the Italian courts consider Raffaele's case separate from Amanda's case," he said. "By necessity, he has to distance himself and his case from Amanda and her case." 
 
 In a CNN interview at the time, Sollecito followed his attorney's lead. 
 
 Though he said that the evidence clears them both, he used more selective language. 
 
 "There is nothing against me and nothing very strong against Amanda," Sollecito said. "And in my case, I really did nothing wrong, and I don't want to pay for someone else's peculiar behavior." 
 
 In a note on her Facebook page in February, Knox acknowledged Sollecito's new stance and appeared to back it up. 
 
 She said he's a scapegoat. 
 
 "The only reason he has been dragged into this is because he happens to be my alibi," she wrote. 
 
 Raising questions 
 
 Knox's behavior on the morning Kercher was found stabbed to death in the apartment she and Knox shared seems to be a new wrinkle in the Sollecito defense. 
 
 That was early November 2007, and he and Knox had been dating for only a week. 
 
 Sollecito expanded on his doubts in an interview with Italian television that also aired on NBC. 
 
 Knox had spent the night with him but went back to her place to shower, he said. When she returned, she was "very agitated," he said. 
 
 She told him that it looked like someone had broken in and that there was blood in the bathroom, Sollecito said. But rather than call police, she showered and returned to his place. 
 
 He finds it odd, he said. 
 
 "Certainly I asked her questions," he said. "Why did you take a shower? Why did she spend so much time there?" 
 
 He didn't get any real answers from her, he said in the interview. 
 
 "I'm not saying that Amanda is responsible for all this situation, but they focus on her and they accuse her all the time, but I have nothing to do with all these circumstances and all these accusations," Sollecito said. 
 
 Tuesday's news conference in Rome was a profile in contrasts. 
 
 At one point, Sollecito called into question Knox's version of events on the morning Kercher was found stabbed to death, saying it was "imagination and hallucination." 
 
 Yet, a few minutes later, he added, "Amanda and I still believe she is innocent." 
 
 There are some anomalies, Bongiorno said, but the legal team hopes that Italy's high court will rule in their favor by "annulling the sentence in full." 
 
 Long-running case 
 
 Since Kercher's death, Knox and Sollecito have gone through a legal odyssey that led to a conviction in 2009 that was overturned, followed by a second conviction in January. 
 
 Knox is now living in the United States. Sollecito lives in Italy. 
 
 Another man, drifter and drug dealer Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast, is serving 16 years for Kercher's murder. He was tried separately from Knox and Sollecito. 
 
 He admitted having sex with the young British woman but said someone else killed her while he was in the bathroom. ||||| Local 
 
 Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito are shown outside her apartment following the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in November, 2007. (AP file) 
 
 Report: Amanda Knox's former boyfriend to abandon her alibi in final murder appeal 
 
 Amanda Knox's former boyfriend is reportedly abandoning her in his last and final appeal in the murder of Knox's roommate. 
 
 Lawyers for Raffaele Sollecito told Italian reporters Monday that Sollecito's appeal for his murder conviction will distance himself from Knox and potentially incriminate her. 
 
 Sollecito's lawyers were quoted in various news reports saying he "was home alone that night" or that he is "only sure about the fact that he was at home," leaving open the possibility that Knox was not there, IBT Times UK reports. 
 
 Sollecito and Knox have both stated repeatedly in their previous trials the two were together November 1, 2007 in his home in Perugia, Italy when Meredith Kercher was murdered in the apartment she shared with Knox and others. 
 
 "It's stunning because we've been hearing consistently Raffaele Sollecito had been corroborating Amanda Knox's account, essentially an alibi," says Anne Bremner, the attorney for the Friends of Amanda Knox. 
 
 Bremner says in addition to his testimony, Sollecito's memoir "Honor Bound" is based entirely on the premise he stood by Knox and told the truth because it was the right thing to do. 
 
 "The question is what does he have to do or feel he has to do to get through this thing. Maybe he's been advised to distance himself from Amanda Knox, but he can't deviate from what the truth is," Bremner says. 
 
 The couple was convicted in 2009. After several appeals and rulings, an appellate court upheld both convictions in January, sentencing Knox to 28-and-a-half years in prison, Sollecito to 26 years. 
 
 Both have maintained their innocence and are appealing to Italy's top court, the Court of Cassation in Rome. The case is expected to be heard in early 2015. 
 
 Prosecutors originally argued that Kercher was killed in a drug-fueled sex game gone awry ï¿½ an accusation that made the case a tabloid sensation. 
 
 But at the third trial, a new prosecutor argued that the violence stemmed from arguments between roommates Knox and Kercher about cleanliness and was triggered by a toilet left unflushed by a third defendant, Rudy Hermann Guede. 
 
 Guede, who is from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in a separate trial in a verdict that specified he did not commit the crime alone. He is serving a 16-year sentence. 
 
 Knox has repeatedly maintained her innocence and vowed that she is innocent. In her blog, she has written frequently about the injustice and lack of evidence in the case. 
 
 "Experts agreed that my DNA was not found anywhere in Meredith's room, while the DNA of the actual murderer, Rudy Guede, was found throughout that room and on Meredith's body," she wrote in her most recent post. "This forensic evidence directly refutes the multiple-assailant theory found in the new motivation document. This theory is not supported by any reliable forensic evidence." 
 
 If Knox's conviction is upheld by Italy's highest court, the country could request her extradition from the United States. But Bremner says her legal team would fight extradition as vigorously as possible. 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
 
 
 
 Josh Kerns is an award winning reporter/anchor and host of KIRO Radio's Seattle Sounds (Sunday afternoons 5-6p) and a digital content producer for MyNorthwest.com. Josh Kerns , MyNorthwest.com 
 
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– A major turnaround in the Amanda Knox case: For years, she and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito have faced authorities as a pair, and both had their more than 20-year sentences upheld by an appeals court in January. But Sollecito has increasingly been distancing himself from Knox, as part of what CNN describes as a new defense strategy begun in February with an eye on his final appeal in 2015. Perhaps the boldest salvo in that about-face came at a news conference in Rome today, during which Sollecito himself called Knox's story on the morning Meredith Kercher was found "imagination and hallucination." Knox spent the night with him, but not the full evening, his lawyers now say, per the Local: "For the entire first part of the evening, they were not together. It’s this first part of the evening that’s new [to his defense]." Still, Sollecito said, "I'm not here to change my story," and added, "Amanda and I still believe she is innocent." A lawyer for the Friends of Amanda Knox responds, per mynorthwest.com: "It's stunning, because we've been hearing consistently Raffaele Sollecito had been corroborating Amanda Knox's account, essentially an alibi"—even in his memoir, Honor Bound. "Maybe he's been advised to distance himself from Amanda Knox, but he can't deviate from what the truth is."