Italy's justice minister ordered an investigation on Monday into comments to the media by the judge who reinstated murder convictions for U.S. student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Alessandro Nencini, who last Thursday sentenced Knox to 28 years and six months and Italian Sollecito to 25 years in jail for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, spoke to several Italian newspapers the morning after the verdict.
Sollecito's lawyers said the comments showed the judge had been biased against their client and had violated the legal maxim that jury deliberations remain secret. They asked Italy's judicial governing body to consider disciplinary action and queried whether the court's decision was still valid.
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