(CNN) Amanda Knox once told reporters she would never "willingly" go back to Italy, after a retrial in 2014 saw her convicted for a second time of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

However, the American former exchange student has announced her plans to return to the country in order to speak at a criminal justice conference, after Italy's Supreme Court overturned her conviction in 2015.

Knox will speak at the Criminal Justice Festival in Modena, in northern Italy, which is being organized by the Italy Innocence Project and the Camera Penale di Modena, an association of lawyers. The festival will run from June 13 to 15.

"The Italy Innocence Project didn't yet exist when I was wrongly convicted in Perugia," Knox wrote on Twitter . "I'm honored to accept their invitation to speak to the Italian people at this historic event and return to Italy for the first time."

Guido Sola, one of the festival's organizers, told CNN: "Amanda Knox is the icon of trials that the media carry out before the trial in court is conducted."

Read More