PERUGIA, ITALY | An Italian appeals court threw out Amanda Knox’s murder conviction Monday and ordered the young American freed, a stunning reversal four years after she was jailed for the death of her British roommate.
Miss Knox, 24, collapsed in tears after the verdict overturning her 2009 conviction was read aloud, and her lawyers draped their arms around her in support.
Her co-defendant, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, also was cleared of killing 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in 2007.
It wasn’t clear how soon Miss Knox could leave Italy, but nothing in Italian law would prevent her from returning home, even if prosecutors appeal the acquittal to Italy’s highest court, legal experts said.
One of Miss Knox’s lawyers, Carlo della Vedova, said he didn’t know when Miss Knox would leave Italy.
Miss Knox had an outdated passport that had to be renewed, but it’s not clear how quickly that could be done or if the paperwork had been completed already.
The eight-member jury acquitted both Miss Knox and Mr. Sollecito of murder after a court-ordered review of the DNA evidence cast serious doubts over the main DNA evidence linking the two to the crime.
“We’ve been waiting for this for four years,” said one of Mr. Sollecito’s lawyers, Giulia Bongiorno.
The judge upheld Miss Knox’s conviction on a charge of slander for accusing bar owner Diya “Patrick” Lumumba of carrying out the killing. He set the sentence at three years, meaning for time served.
Miss Knox has been in prison since Nov. 6, 2007.
The Kercher family looked on grimly and a bit dazed as the verdict was read aloud by the judge after 11 hours of deliberations. Outside the courthouse, some of the hundreds of observers shouted “Shame, shame!”
The victim’s sister, Stephanie Kercher, who was in Perugia with her mother and brother for the verdict, lamented that her sister “has been nearly forgotten.”
“We want to keep her memory alive,” she said after the verdict.
Yet inside the frescoed courtroom, Miss Knox’s parents, who have traveled regularly from their home in Seattle to Perugia to visit her over the past four years, hugged their lawyers and cried with joy.
Miss Knox herself was so overwhelmed with tears that two guards pulled her arms to escort her out of the courtroom.
Prosecutors can appeal the acquittal to Italy’s highest court. There was no word late Monday if they planned to do so.
Earlier Monday, Miss Knox tearfully told the court she did not kill her roommate. She frequently paused for breath and fought back tears as she spoke in Italian to the eight members of the jury in a packed courtroom, but managed to maintain her composure during the 10-minute address.
Miss Knox and Mr. Sollecito, Miss Knox’s former boyfriend from Italy, were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Miss Kercher, who was stabbed to death in her bedroom.
Miss Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Mr. Sollecito to 25.
Also convicted in separate proceedings was Rudy Hermann Guede, a small-time drug dealer and drifter who spent most of his life in Italy after arriving here from his native Ivory Coast.
Guede was convicted in a separate fast-track procedure and saw his sentence cut to 16 years in his final appeal.
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