In a Today interview Friday morning, Amanda Knox's former boyfriend Raffaello Sollecito took to television to explain why he won't implicate her in the 2007 murder of her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher -- "because it's the truth."

Sollecito told Savannah Guthrie that even though his own family pressured him to bargain with law enforcement and implicate Knox, he refused. " It was normal because I cannot throw a 20-year-old innocent girl for just giving me the opportunity to live my life, because I wouldn't have ever lived a life like that.

"The situation was dramatic and serious," he said, "so I had to be very serious [and not play] a game with some people who wanted this game to be played."

Kercher was found dead in the Perugia, Italy apartment that she shared with Knox in November 2007. She sustained over 40 stab wounds and a slash across her neck, and was also found to have been sexually assaulted.

Sollecito and Knox had only been a couple for a week before they were both under investigation for the murder, which prosecutors blamed on a sexual game gone wrong. Sollecito and Knox served four years of jail until they were both acquitted of the crime in 2011.

Earlier this year, Italy's highest court overturned the acquittal decision and ordered a new trial. But Sollecito said he did not fear the possibility of returning to prison. "It's something like a very far-away thought in my mind. I already know that I'm innocent and we already have proved it. So for me, it's kind of nonsense."

"We already got evidence of our innocence, so we will fight until the end without any worry," he continued, adding his faith is in God and less so the Italian justice system. "The Italian justice system... you don't know what to expect."

Another man, Ivorian Rudy Guede, is currently serving a 16-year sentence for Kercher's sexual assault and murder.

Sollecito now resides in Switzerland and remains in contact with Knox: he has even visited her in her hometown of Seattle.

When asked if Knox has expressed gratitude to him for his actions, Sollecito answered, "[Amanda] told me that she thinks that I'm a kind of hero, but I don't feel so. And I don't need any kind of gratitude.

"I did it because I know it's the truth. It's the good thing to do. It's the only way for me."

Sollecito released a book on his experience, entitled Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox in 2012; last month, Knox released her own book on the matter, Waiting To Be Heard.

See the video of Sollecito's interview:

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