Friends of Amanda Knox Fight Back on YouTube

Feb. 17, 2011— -- Amanda Knox was shocked and upset after seeing clips from an upcoming TV movie about her conviction for the murder of her roommate in Italy. Her supporters were also outraged and are trying counter the film by posting their own video of Knox on YouTube today.

As a camera slowly moves into a close-up of Knox, her voice -- cracking and verging on tears -- is heard trying to explain to the court why she gave confusing statements to police in Perugia, Italy, during her nearly 50 hours of interrogation.

"I was terrified because I didn't know. I didn't know what to do anymore," Knox tells the court in a distraught voice.

Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murdering Knox's roommate Meredith Kercher. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito got 25 years. They are both appealing their convictions.

The video, created by "Friends of Amanda" and "Injustice in Perugia," ends with a full screen reading, "ENOUGH" and "Let them go."

The video is part of an effort to combat the images in the Lifetime TV movie, 'Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy," which airs Monday.

Scenes from the movie trailer have upset both the Knox and Kercher families with graphic scenes portraying Kercher's sex assault and murder. The trailer also showed Knox, portrayed by Hayden Panettiere, in a steamy bed scene with Sollecito. At one point the Italian prosecutor states ominously, "Under the angel face, she is capable of anything."

Knox lawyers filed a complaint Feb. 3, against Lifetime TV, YouTube and Google asking them to stop distribution of the video and to remove trailers from the Internet.

YouTube has pulled down the trailers and Lifetime reedited them, but so far has not agreed to pull the movie.

The Knox complaint stated the TV movie may induce "an evil opinion" of Amanda Knox, particularly among the jurors currently considering her appeal. The document also states the movie appears to infringe Knox's "fundamental constitutional rights" and jeopardizes her right to a fair trial.

Knox lawyers say they will take further legal action.

Amanda Knox Sees Movie Scenes on TV in Prison Cell

Knox was hyperventilating when she was surprised by a TV newscast in her Italian prison cell about Panettierre playing her in the movie.

Knox's stepfather Chris Mellas told ABC News that in her weekly phone call home, Knox was emotional and said, "I was physically ill when I saw the images. I thought I was going to throw up."

Knox, who was 20 at the time of the murder, explained how strange it was to see a "girl who looked like her, dressed like her, playing her life," the stepfather said. Knox, who is now 23, fought back tears during the phone call, explaining her frustration with having no control over her life and how her life is being portrayed. Her family said she is not aware of the magnitude of the press surrounding her life, and that she avoids watching television and readings newspapers.

Knox's family tried to get Panettiere to meet with the imprisoned American before starring in the new Lifetime movie.

Amanda Knox's stepfather, who visited with her in her Italian prison last week, said the family objects to the portrayal of Amanda in the movie.

"We, quite some time back, asked Hayden to visit Amanda, but they never got back to us after several conversations," Mellas said.

Mellas told ABC News last week, "This thing with Lifetime, I think, is them doing nothing more than trying to make a buck. And it's disgusting. It's not appropriate to profit off other people's pain."

Lifetime is owned in part by NBC Universal, Hearst and Disney, the parent company of ABC News.

"We have to act to protect Amanda, given the biased nature of the content in the trailer, and the unknown, and potentially harmful content of the actual film. The movie harms Amanda's presumption of innocence as afforded her by the Italian constitution," Mellas said.

Kercher's family was also taken aback by the trailer.

Kercher's father, John Kercher, told the London Sun that Kercher's mother Arline can't bear to watch the preview and he found it upsetting.

"Your imagination runs riot as it is about what happened," John Kercher told the newspaper. "But to actually see it like this is very distressing. The scenes are absolutely horrific.

"It's awful what these film people have done," he said.

The parents of Amanda Knox have been hit with legal problems of their own this week. An Italian court ordered them to stand trial on July 4 for allegedly libeling the Perugia police for repeating their daughter's claim in a newspaper interview that police who interrogated her were abusive, didn't allow her to have a lawyer and cuffed her on the back of her head during the grilling.