The family of murdered British exchange student Meredith Kercher has issued a veiled plea to Amanda Knox to stay away from her grave, as the American prepares to face a fresh trial alongside her Italian ex-boyfriend. 
 
 Almost six years after the 21-year-old from Surrey was brutally killed in the university town of Perugia, an Italian court will on Monday start hearing a fresh appeal against Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's first-grade convictions for her murder. 
 
 Neither defendant will be at Florence's appeal court for the hearing but will be represented by their lawyers. Both have always protested their innocence. 
 
 In a string of recent interviews, Knox has defended her decision not to return to Italy and expressed a desire to visit Kercher's grave. 
 
 But, in a carefully worded statement issued through their Italian lawyer, the British family made it clear Knox's presence would not be welcome. "It took us as a family nearly five years to even begin to feel ready to lay Mez to rest and it is still extremely painful now," said her elder sister Stephanie. 
 
 "However, she now has a place near to us that we and her friends can visit to take flowers and spend time … Her grave is now her safe place to sleep in peace and be with us and we hope that is respected by all." 
 
 Kercher added: "For me, I hope that despite the fact that the case continues, she is resting in peace but, knowing Mez, she will be fighting until the end." 
 
 A Leeds University student in Perugia on a year abroad, Kercher was found dead in November 2007 in the flat she shared with Seattle-born Knox and two Italian women. Her body was covered with stab wounds and her throat had been slit. 
 
 Days after the murder, Knox, now 26, and Sollecito, 29, were placed in preventative detention in jail and, more than two years later, were convicted of the murder. Those convictions were quashed on appeal in 2011 after a court in Perugia found fault with the way the original investigation – particularly its forensic evidence – had been handled. 
 
 To the joy of their families and the jeers of many Italians outside the court, the defendants were released from prison, with Knox flying immediately to Seattle. But in March, Italy's supreme court overturned their acquittals and ordered a fresh appeal to be heard. 
 
 Another man, Rudy Guede, from Ivory Coast, is serving a reduced sentence of 16 years in an Italian prison after opting for a fast-track trial and being convicted of the murder in 2008. 
 
 In its explanation of why a fresh appeal was necessary, the supreme court criticised what it said were the "numerous deficiencies, contradictions and manifest lack of logic" in the first appeal trial. It said the Florence court, which is to be presided over by judge Alessandro Nencini, would have to make "a uniform and global analysis of the evidence" rather than, as it said the appeal trial had done, taking each piece individually and undervaluing some of it. 
 
 Among other suggestions, it re-floated an original theory of the prosecution that Kercher had been killed as part of a group sex game that spun out of control. 
 
 In a series of interviews in the buildup to the new trial, Knox, who is now studying at the University of Washington, has said she is scared of returning to Italy in case the verdict goes against her. "I have plenty to fear because I was already imprisoned wrongfully," she told ITV's Daybreak. "This, as an innocent person, is the ultimate nightmare." 
 
 If the new appeal – which is expected to last months – confirms her conviction and if that were then upheld by the supreme court, Italy could request her extradition from the US. However, observers say that even then it would be unlikely to succeed. 
 
 Knox's co-defendant, Sollecito, will not be in court on Monday either, but his father, Francesco Sollecito, said he would attend later hearings. 
 
 On Friday, Francesco Maresca, the Kercher family lawyer, said of the fresh appeal: "The hopes are to have a complete, total, neutral and balanced trial which can then lead to a sentence which, whatever it is, is properly developed and well-reasoned." ||||| Story highlights Meredith Kercher's family says they decided not to attend 
 
 The Italian Supreme Court has sent the case back an appeals court 
 
 Knox is staying in the United States and was not in court 
 
 She has said she is afraid to return to the country where she spent four years in jail 
 
 The latest chapter in Amanda Knox's long legal battle began Monday in Florence, Italy, with a retrial over the 2007 killing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher 
 
 But Knox, 26, who has expressed concern about returning to a country where she spent four years behind bars, was not in court. 
 
 Neither was Kercher's family, which said in a statement submitted by their lawyer in court on Monday that they would be following the new trial closely from the United Kingdom. 
 
 Knox was convicted in 2009 of murdering Kercher, a 21-year old British exchange student who was found stabbed to death in November 2007 in the villa the two young women rented in the central Italian university town of Perugia. 
 
 The convictions of Knox and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito , were overturned in 2011 for "lack of evidence." 
 
 After her acquittal, Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle, where she has been living since. 
 
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 But Italy's Supreme Court decided last year to retry the case, saying the jury that acquitted Knox didn't consider all the evidence, and that discrepancies in testimony needed to be answered. 
 
 The retrial's opening day Monday was dominated by procedural items. The presiding judge, Alessandro Nencini, read out the facts of the case, including the conviction of Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede for his role in Kercher's murder. 
 
 The defense teams asked for several items of evidence to be retested for DNA, and Nencini agreed that a knife found in Sollecito's apartment would be re-examined. The court also agreed to hear testimony from Luciano Aviello, who served time in jail with Sollecito and claims that his brother killed Kercher. 
 
 Also absent from the proceedings Monday was Giuliano Mignini, the Perugia prosecutor who won the original conviction and then lost the appeal. 
 
 However, Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bartender Knox originally accused of Kercher's murder was in court. Lumumba spent several weeks in jail after Knox accused him, and he won a defamation suit against her, for which she was ordered to pay €22,000 ($29,800) for his court costs. Also in the gallery were Perugia residents who attended the original trials. 
 
 Court was adjourned until Friday, when Aviello will testify. A verdict is expected by the end of the year. 
 
 Afraid to go back 
 
 Knox has said she's scared to return to Italy. 
 
 "I'm afraid to go back there," she said in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo in May. "I don't want to go back into prison." 
 
 The high court also said evidence could support prosecutors' initial argument -- that Kercher was killed in a twisted sex game gone wrong. 
 
 Knox has said such claims are "a bombardment of falsehood and fantasy." 
 
 "No one has ever claimed that I was ever taking part in deviant sexual activity. None of my roommates, none of my friends, none of the people who knew me there. This is simply coming out of the prosecution," she told CNN in May. "I was not strapping on leather and bearing a whip. I have never done that. I have never taken part in an orgy. Ever." 
 
 The Supreme Court's decision to send the case back to the appeal court for retrial "may be interpreted by the American authorities as double jeopardy -- twice tried for the same fact or the same case," said Riccardo Montana, a law lecturer at City University in London. "In Italy it's not like this, because this is still the same trial." 
 
 Sollecito, Knox's former boyfriend, said he plans to stay in the Dominican Republic with a friend. He said he has no immediate plans to return to Italy. 
 
 Watching from afar 
 
 If the court convicts her, Knox will be ordered to return to Italy. If she refuses, Italy could request her extradition from the United States. But it's not clear if American authorities would comply. 
 
 Knox has said she would be willing to take a lie detector test. 
 
 "I'd do anything to prove my innocence," she told CNN affiliate ITV earlier this month. "I don't think that is necessary. But like I said, I'm doing everything to prove my innocence. It's just very sad that's what it has come to." 
 
 Knox isn't the only person watching the retrial from afar. 
 
 Citing health reasons, Kercher's family said in a statement that they decided not to return to Italy for the beginning of the trial after speaking "at great length." 
 
 "It is an extremely stressful time for us all and we desperately want to find truth and justice for Meredith, who was so brutally and unnecessarily taken from us, and so we have decided to support each other in the UK and follow closely here," the statement said. 
 
 The family said they would remain in close contact with their lawyer, who was in the courtroom Monday. 
 
 "We trust that the evidence will be reviewed and any additional testing requested to be granted so that any unanswered questions can be clarified and the court can clearly decide the next steps in this tragic case," the statement said. ||||| U.S. student Amanda Knox's second appeals trial in her British roommate's murder opened Monday in the absence of the star defendant. 
 
 Italy's highest court ordered a new trial for Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, overturning their acquittals in the gruesome 2007 slaying of Meredith Kercher with a harsh assessment of an appeals court acquittal in 2011. The Court of Cassation said the acquittal was full of "deficiencies, contradictions and illogical" conclusions. 
 
 The appellate court in Florence is expected to re-examine forensic evidence to determine whether Knox and her former boyfriend helped kill the 21-year-old Kercher while the two women shared an apartment in the Umbrian university town of Perugia. 
 
 Knox, now a 26-year-old University of Washington student in Seattle, has not returned to Italy for the trial, nor is she compelled by law to do so. The appellate court hearing the new case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties. 
 
 `'We refute the idea that because Amanda is not coming, that Amanda is guilty, that Amanda is using a strategy. Amanda always said she was a friend of Meredith's, Amanda has always respected the Italian justice system," Knox's defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga told reporters before the trial opened. 
 
 Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, now 29, were convicted and later acquitted in Kercher's death. Knox served four years of a 26-year sentence, including three years on a slander conviction for falsely accusing a Perugia bar owner in the murder, before leaving Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal. 
 
 The bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, showed up at the trial Monday, saying he did so to underline the damage he suffered from Knox's false accusations. 
 
 "I say the same thing I said six years ago. I think she is guilty, and that is why she slandered me," Lumbumba told reporters. Knox's conviction for slandering Lumumba has been confirmed by the high court, but it asked the Florence appeals court to determine if it should reinstate it as an aggravating circumstance that Knox lied to derail the investigation and protect herself from becoming a murder suspect. 
 
 In its first move, the Florence court rejected a motion by Knox's lawyers to exclude Lumbumba from the new appeals trial as a civil participant, a status that allows him to seek further damages. His lawyer says Lumbumba is owed more than 103,000 euros ($139,500) in legal fees. 
 
 Knox's protracted legal battle in Italy has made her a cause celebre in the United States and has put the Italian justice system under scrutiny. Italian law allows prosecutors to appeal acquittals. In the United States, the principal of double jeopardy would have prohibited another appeals round after her acquittal. 
 
 At the same time, the trials have left the Kercher family without clear answers in the death of their daughter. 
 
 Kercher's body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, a central Italian town popular with foreign exchange students. Her throat had been slashed. 
 
 A third man, Rudy Guede, was convicted in the slaying and is serving a 16-year term. That court found that Guede had not acted alone. 
 
 "We are still convinced of the presence of all three of the defendants at the scene of the crime," Kercher family lawyer Francesco Maresca told "I think she is talking too much, sincerely, and this attitude of continuous playing the victim is inappropriate." 
 
 In the stunning 2011 acquittal overturning lower court guilty verdicts against Knox and Sollecito and throwing out their long prison terms, a Perugia appeals court criticized virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors. The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no murder motive. 
 
 Yet the Court of Cassation ruling was likewise strident, criticizing the appeals court ruling and saying it "openly collides with objective facts of the case." The high court said the appellate judges had ignored some evidence, considered other evidence insufficiently and undervalued the fact that Knox had initially accused a man of committing the crime who had nothing to do with it. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Patricia Thomas contributed from Florence, Italy.
– Amanda Knox's retrial began in Italy today, with Knox herself, of course, not in attendance. Raffaele Sollecito, who was also convicted of Meredith Kercher's murder in 2009 only to see the conviction overturned in 2011, is also staying away. He's in the Dominican Republic with a friend, CNN reports. Neither is required to be present, and though they could be declared in contempt of court, that carries no additional penalties. As for what will happen during these new proceedings, which could take months, the AP explains that the appellate court will likely take a fresh look at the forensic evidence. In deciding to retry the case last year, Italy's supreme court said "a uniform and global analysis of the evidence" was needed. A related narrative making headlines: Knox said in a recent interview that she'd like to be able to visit Kercher's grave, but in a statement yesterday, Kercher's family "made it clear Knox's presence would not be welcome," writes Lizzy Davies for the Guardian. "It took us as a family nearly five years to even begin to feel ready to lay Mez to rest and it is still extremely painful now," the statement reads. "However, she now has a place near to us that we and her friends can visit to take flowers and spend time … Her grave is now her safe place to sleep in peace and be with us and we hope that is respected by all."