Arabic version: شقيقة كيرتشر تنتقد عرض أماندا نوكس الكوميدي في مهرجان فرينج

According to BBC News, Meredith Kercher’s sister Stephanie has criticised Amanda Knox’s solo comedy show, Cartwheel, which is due to run for 11 days at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from Friday. The Fringe website describes the show as being about motherhood and how Knox will explain what happened in Perugia to her daughter.

Speaking directly to Knox on BBC Breakfast, Stephanie Kercher said she should think about Meredith’s family and friends and “turn the tables” if it had happened to her own sister. Responding to Knox’s suggestion that Meredith Kercher would find the comedy funny, she said: “Meredith absolutely wouldn’t find these topics of any comedy value.” She added that her family’s pain remained immense nearly two decades later.

Knox said the show honours Kercher’s memory. Its title refers to a claim that she did cartwheels in a police station after Kercher’s death. Knox told the Telegraph that she does not joke about Meredith’s death or murder, but about being vilified. In an Instagram statement, she said people who signed a petition against the show had not seen it, and that it contains false assumptions and mischaracterises the production.

The petition, started by a friend of Meredith Kercher, has received just over 2,400 signatures. It says the show disrespects Kercher’s memory and risks normalising violence against women. Stephanie Kercher said she wanted Prime Minister Andy Burnham to explore the issue. The Gilded Balloon Teviot, the venue hosting the show, said the Fringe offers a platform for a wide range of voices in keeping with freedom of expression.

Kercher, 21, was found dead in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia in 2007. Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted, later acquitted on appeal, convicted again at a retrial in 2014, and finally cleared by Italy’s top appeals court in 2015. Rudy Guede served 13 years of a 16-year sentence for Kercher’s murder.