'Home Alone' Raffaele Sollecito to Abandon Amanda Knox in Final Appeal of Meredith Kercher Murder

Raffaele Sollecito will appeal against his conviction for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher by distancing himself from his co-defendant and ex-lover Amanda Knox and potentially incriminating her.

Sollecito's lawyers were variously quoted in the Italian press as saying that Sollecito "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.

Regarding the change to his defence, Sollecito's lawyers, Luca Maori and Giulia Bongiorno said their client will "think only about himself," as he appeals to Italy's top court against the long jail sentence he was handed in January.

IBTimes UK contacted Sollecito's defence team for a comment but received no reply before publishing.

Maori and Bongiorno have called a press conference to explain Sollecito's new defence strategy.

Kercher, from Croydon, south London, was found with her throat slashed inside the apartment she shared with Knox in the university town of Perugia, central Italy, on 1 November 2007.

Prosecutors say she was killed by Knox, Sollecito and Rudy Guede, a drifter from the Ivory Coast, after an argument erupted in the house.

Knox and Sollecito have long claimed they are innocent, maintaining they were watching a movie at Sollecito's house in Perugia the night of the murder.

The couple were arrested days after Meredith's body was found and the two were sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively in 2009.

After a series of appeals and opposite rulings, they were found guilty of murder and sentenced to 28 and-a-half and 26 years in jail by a Florence appellate court in January.

In a series of interviews after the sentence, Sollecito appeared already willing to distance himself from Knox.

"The focus was all on Amanda through her peculiar behaviour," he told the CNN.

"In my case I really did nothing wrong and I don't want to pay for someone else's peculiar behaviour," he said referring to reports according to which Knox turned cartwheels while in police custody hours after the murder and made conflicting statements.

They are both to lodge another appeal at Italy's top court, the Court of Cassation in Rome, which is expected to hear the case in early 2015.

Guede was sentenced to 16 years at the end of a separate trial and is serving his sentence in Viterbo jail, near Rome.