Amanda Knox's former boyfriend and murder suspect, Raffaele Sollecito, reportedly asked her to marry him last year in an attempt to seek asylum in the United States. 

Sollecito made the desperate proposal in March 2013, which was six years after they were both tried in Italian court for the 2007 murder of Knox's roommate, British student Meredith Kercher. Sollecito's ex-girlfriend, Kelsey Kay, said he made the proposal to avoid serving more jail time, according to The Daily Mail. 

Sollecito and Knox, who broke up years ago, are facing new convictions in a retrial of their case in Italy after their previous murder convictions were overturned in 2011. 

If she is convicted again, Knox said she plans to be a "fugitive" and remain in the United States. If Sollecito is re-convicted, he could face a lengthy prison sentence because he is an Italian citizen. 

Kay told RadarOnline this week that he presented the question to Knox and her lawyers in an attempt to become a U.S. citizen and avoid jail. "Raffaele told me that when he had been in Seattle in March, his lawyers and Amanda's lawyers had a meeting where he had proposed the idea of the two of them marrying," Kay said. "It would've been natural to the public that the two of them got married."

However, she said it would have only been a marriage of convenience. "Raffaele proposed the idea to Amanda and her lawyers so that he could obtain citizenship in the United States and stay," Kay claimed. 

She said it is important that the public know the truth about the Knox and Sollecito. Knox is now in another committed relationship with classical guitarist James Terrano. 

"And what had happened - according to him - is in the meeting, he had proposed marriage and that she had told him that she was seeing someone for the past few years and that (it) wasn't an option," Kay said.

Kay, who is from Idaho, said Sollecito also proposed to her during their very short-lived romance in an attempt to stay in the United States. 

Knox has stayed in Seattle during the murder trial while Sollecito has been present in Italy. 

Knox and Sollecito are accused of stabbing Kercher, 21, to death and raping her in Perguia, Italy in 2007. Prosecutor Alessandro Crini has requested guilty verdicts and jail sentences of 26 years for both of the defendants. Crini also said the court should increase Knox's sentence for a slander conviction from three to four years. 

Knox and Sollecito both served four years in jail for the murder of Kercher. Both were freed on appeal in 2011, but Italy's highest court ordered them to face a retrial in March 2013. 

Both the defense and the prosecution have made their final arguments, and the court will begin deliberations on Jan. 30, which is when a verdict is expected. Knox's lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said a request for extradition could be made only after a guilty verdict is confirmed by Italy's highest court, which could take over a year. 

Despite the story of the marriage proposal, Sollecito's father, Francesco Sollecito, said his son does not have any intentions of trying to escape justice, and has been present throughout the trial. He added that his son has been looking for jobs abroad because he "hoped his story" would soon come to an end. 

Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder, but his conviction specified that he did not commit the murder alone.