Today, Amanda Knox was cleared of murder charges by an Italian appeals court, ending her four-year study abroad ordeal and guaranteeing her return home to Seattle.
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When the judge announced her acquittal, Knox nearly collapsed into sobs.
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Knox, 24, and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, have spent the last four years in an Italian prison and faced the prospect of a life sentence depending on today’s appeals court ruling.
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Amanda Knox was a 20-year-old University of Washington language student at the time when she embarked on a study abroad program in Perugia, Italy. She and Sollecito, were charged with the murder of Knox’s British roommate Meredith Kercher. She captivated the American media, as some claimed her to be the innocent victim of a foreign “kangaroo court.” She was convicted December of 2009, and sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison.
Ealier this year, they filed for appeal that was to be announced in the fall.
“I want to go home. I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished… I don’t want my
future taken away from me for something I didn’t do because I am innocent,” Knox addressed the court in Italian. “I made myself available up to the point of total exhaustion… I was betrayed. I was manipulated.”
“At the end of the day, every single day in prison is like death,” Sollecito said.
The court’s six jurors and two judges deliberated for hours after hearing their pleas to set them free.
The appeal, and the core to the defense’s argument, revolved around whether the DNA on two key pieces of evidence were credible: one involving the alleged murder weapon, a knife found in Sollecito’s kitchen and on the bra clasp cut from Kercher’s bra during the attack. Experts say that evidence was improperly handled and likely contaminated.
Now four years later, both Knox and Sollecito are able to walk free.
And what does Knox look forward to most upon returning home? Knox says it’s catching up on Harry Potter movies and lying in the grass of her Seattle back yard.
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