Amanda Knox, the 25 year-old former exchange student who was convicted of the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher, lost her case before Italy's Supreme Court as the panel ruled she should be retried for the murder. The same ruling came down for Amanda's 29 year-old former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, this according to Fox News on Tuesday, March 26. Knox and Sollecito had their convictions thrown out by an appeals court in 2011, but today that ruling has been reversed.

Amanda Knox said in a statement that it was "painful" to receive news that Italy's highest criminal court has overturned her acquittal, but that she was "confident" about the truth, according to USA Today.

The Court of Cassation ruled that a Florence appeals court must re-hear the case against the Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend for the murder of 21 year-old Meredith Kercher.

The victim's body was found in November 2007 in her bedroom of a house she shared with Amanda and others in Perugia, an Italian university town where the two women were exchange students. Kercher's throat had been slashed.

The motive prosecutors alleged for the gruesome killing was said to be a, "drug-fueled sex game gone awry". Knox and Sollecito were initially convicted of the murder and given long prison sentences.

However, the pair were then acquitted on appeal and released after serving four years of those sentences. In a separate court proceeding, an Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying and is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

Italian law can't force Knox to return from the U.S. for the new trial. Even if found guilty of the crime in the appeals court retrial, lawyers for Amanda would first appeal the case back up to the Supreme court once again.

If the conviction were ultimately upheld there, Knox's attorney Carlo Dalla Vedova said it would first be up to Italy to decide whether to seek extradition. If so, it would then be up to the U.S. to decide if it honors the request.

United States and Italian authorities could also possibly come to a deal that would allow Amanda Knox to stay in America.