Seattle woman Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend were acquitted Friday by Italy’s highest court, eight years after the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher in Perugia.
The ruling by Italy’s supreme Court of Cassation puts an end to the dramatic case, according to reports. The 2009 guilty verdicts against Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, of Rome, Italy, were overturned in 2011, then reinstated last year. Friday’s acquittal is the final decision, according to reports.
Grateful. Relieved. All words said by #AmandaKnox just now to media #liveonkomo pic.twitter.com/VdKU9DqcC6
— Thomas Lin (@TLinkomo4) March 28, 2015
Knox and Sollecito have been out of jail since 2011, after four years in prison in connection with the case. Knox, now 27, has lived in Seattle ever since and where she now writes for the West Seattle Herald.
According to The Guardian, Knox released a statement through her lawyer thanking supporters. “I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy. The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal,” the statement said.
Kercher’s family told the paper that they will not release a statement Friday.
Kercher, a British woman, was 21 when she was sexually assaulted and murdered in 2007, in the flat that she shared with Knox, a study abroad student from the University of Washington, and two other women.
After the murder, Knox and Sollecito were questioned by Italian police and arrested. Soon after, a third man, Rudy Guede, was also accused in the case. Guede was tried separately and was found guilty.
Perugia prosecutors maintained that Knox, Sollecito and Guede killed Kercher in a sex game. Knox and Sollecito’s attorneys said the couple were at Sollecito’s apartment the night of the murder and argued that physical evidence could not show that the couple were in the room where Kercher was killed.
The Court of Cassation will release a statement of explaining the ruling within 90 days, according to the Associated Press.
Knox issued a statement to reporters Friday evening. (Video via KIRO 7’s Facebook page.)
Amanda Knox issues a statement – This comes after Italy’s highest court overturned the murder conviction against her and her ex-boyfriend >> http://kiro.tv/1ykvIqJ
Posted by KIRO 7 Eyewitness News on Friday, March 27, 2015
Whether she likes it or not, Amanda Knox will probably spend the rest of her life rebuffing her detractors, those who still believe she murdered in cold blood, that she exploited a bungling police force, the public’s sympathy and the myth of her persona, her status, her guilt, her willingness to throw others under the bus, her savviness in extracting millions.
Her essence mirroring the bowels of an easily impressionable public where she has become a telegenic hyper deity to be revered and equally despised and a permanent fixture on tabloid covers where her innocence or guilt ever really mattered to begin with…
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2015/03/amanda-knox-acquitted-but-guilty/