After nearly four years in an Italian prison, American student Amanda Knox was freed Monday when an appeals court acquitted her of the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher.
Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were originally convicted of Kercher’s murder in December 2009. Knox, 24, was sentenced to 26 years in prison while Sollecito, 28, received a 25 year prison sentence. An appeals jury of six citizens and two judges overturned both convictions in the hearing in Perugia. Knox cried as the verdict was read.
In her address to the court yesterday, Knox reiterated her claims of innocence and asked to be freed. "I've lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible," she said of Kercher. "I'm paying with my life for things that I didn't do."
"She had her bedroom next to mine, she was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead. But I was not there. I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn't there. I wasn't there at the crime," Knox added."I insist I'm innocent and that must be defended. I just want to go home, go back to my life.”
Kercher, 21, was found dead in the flat she shared with Knox and two other women on November 2, 2007. She had been sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled. In addition to Knox and Sollecito, a third person was convicted in Kercher’s murder. Rudy Guede, a resident of Perugia, was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison. His conviction was upheld, but his sentence was reduced to 16 years.
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