WASHINGTON (AFP) - Amanda Knox, the American whose trial and conviction for the murder of a young British student in Italy made her a household name, is getting married, a US newspaper reported.

She recently became engaged to Colin Sutherland, a 27-year-old musician she has known since high school, the Seattle Times said.

Knox, who graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle and is now working at a library, confirmed the news without providing details, the report said.

Knox, 27, was at the centre of a long and still unresolved legal drama in Italy that cast her as a participant in the brutal 2007 murder of a fellow student, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.

Kercher's body was found with 47 stab wounds in the apartment she shared with Knox in the town of Perugia.

An autopsy showed Kercher had been raped.

Knox and her former Italian fiance Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of the murder in 2009, and spent four years in prison after being sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively.

Knox and Sollecito were acquitted on appeal in 2011, but the judgment was annulled in 2013, and she was sentenced on a rehearing of the trial to 28 years and six months in prison.

If the verdict is confirmed on appeal, a fight over her extradition to Italy is likely.

Knox returned to the United States after her 2011 acquittal, vowing never to go back to Italy.

In a memoir, Waiting To Be Heard, she denied any role in the murder.