Italy's highest court acquits Amanda Knox of killing roommate

Published March 27, 2015
FoxNews.com




Italy's highest court Friday acquitted American Amanda Knox of murder, ending her legal saga.

Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, had been convicted, acquitted, and convicted in three different trials over the 2007 murder of Knox's flat-mate Meredith Kercher in the Italian university town of Perugia.

The ruling Friday came after a nearly eight-year legal battle on two continents that first sent Knox and Sollecito to an Italian prison for Kercher's murder. The court found the two guilty in December 2009 of murder and sexual assault and sentenced Knox to 26 years in prison, including one year for slander, and Sollecito to 25 years.

Both were acquitted and freed in 2011 after spending nearly four years in prison.

Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle following the acquittal but was then tried and convicted in absentia and ordered a new appeals trial in 2014.

Lawyers for 27-year-old Knox and Sollecito – who was also appealing the latest conviction for the murder – made a final appeal in court Friday, saying there were errors of "colossal proportions" in the guilty verdict.

Attorney Giulia Bongiorno dissected the 2014 Florence appeals court decision to show what she called errors of fact and logic that resulted in a new prison sentence of 28 1/2 years for Knox while upholding 25 years for Sollecito.

Judges at the high Court of Cassation began deliberating shortly after noon. A decision to confirm the convictions could have resulted in an extradition request for Knox, who is currently free in the U.S.

She has said she would never willingly return to Italy.

In her closing arguments, Bongiorno said even Knox's original statement to police – which was never entered as evidence and was later changed – exonerated her client.

[E, RALA]

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