An Italian appeals court on Monday acquitted American student Amanda Knox of murdering her roommate, a stunning turnaround in Ms. Knox's yearslong quest to clear her name and end her nightmare journey through the Italian justice system.
Two judges and six jurors acquitted Ms. Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito of murder and sexual-assault charges in the 2009 slaying of 21-year-old U.K. national Meredith Kercher. The judges also ordered Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito to be released from prison as soon as their paperwork had been processed.
Cheers erupted inside the court room as the ruling was read, and a sobbing Ms. Knox hugged her family. Ms. Kercher's family, who also attended the hearing, sat in silence, staring into the distance.
Outside, hundreds of Perugians had gathered and directed shouts of "Shame on you!" at the medieval courthouse as news of the verdict trickled out. Prosecutors can appeal the ruling to Italy's highest court, which would be their final legal recourse.
The court upheld the conviction of Ms. Knox on charges of slander for telling police that a local barman was the killer. She was ordered to pay a €22,000 ($29,428) fine and sentenced to three years in prison, a sentence that has been exhausted by the four years Ms. Knox has already served.
The murder Ms. Kercher, who was found partially clothed in a pool of blood in 2007, and the arrest of Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito days later, on suspicion they stabbed Ms. Kercher to death during a sexual assault, set in motion a legal drama that has riveted the world media. Prosecutors have portrayed Ms. Knox as the mastermind of the assault while Ms. Knox and her lawyers maintain she is a falsely accused martyr, caught up in a study-abroad nightmare.
Lawyers for Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito, who were respectively 20 and 23 years old at the time of the murder, have focused their appeal on debunking key pieces of evidence. In the first trial, prosecutors said a knife that was used to slash Ms. Kercher's throat contained traces of Ms. Knox's DNA on its handle. A court-appointed panel of forensics experts delivered a report to the appeals court, however, saying the amounts of DNA found on a knife were insufficient to link the items to Ms. Knox.
In mounting their defense, the defense lawyers also seized on the media attention, to depict Ms. Knox as the victim of a media-fueled smear campaign. Hordes of journalists descended on Perugia from around the world to cover the final hearing of the appeals trial, clogging the town's cobblestone piazza with satellite trucks and TV cameras.
In her closing arguments last week, Mr. Sollecito's lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, compared Ms. Knox to Jessica Rabbit, the sultry vixen in the animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," adding that Ms. Knox "isn't bad, she's just drawn that way."
Earlier in the day, Ms. Knox, 24 years-old, denied killing her former roommate in a tearful address to a packed courtroom in this idyllic medieval town.
"I am paying with my life for things I didn't do," Ms. Knox told the courtroom in Italian, struggling to maintain her composure. "I did not kill. I did not rape…I was not there," she said.
"I never hurt anyone, never in my life," Mr. Sollecito told the court moments earlier. He maintained that he and Ms. Knox hadn't been present in the apartment she shared with Ms. Kercher the night of her slaying. Instead, he told the court, the two were together at his home.
Ms. Kercher's family was planning to hold a news conference on Tuesday and didn't plan to comment on the ruling Monday, said Francesco Maresca, the Kercher family's lawyer. Ms. Kercher's mother, brother and sister spoke to reporters at their hotel in Perugia before the verdict was delivered, expressing concern that the public's memory of Ms. Kercher's death was being drowned out by what her brother, Lyle Kercher, described as a pro-Knox "PR machine."
"Meredith has been almost forgotten in all this," said Stephanie Kercher, the victim's sister. "It's very difficult to keep her memory alive."
Ms. Knox, from Seattle, told the court how Ms. Kercher "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."
Ms. Knox had been serving a 26-year prison sentence. Mr. Sollecito had been serving 25 years in prison. A third person, Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede, was convicted of murdering Ms. Kercher in a separate trial that was fast-tracked at his request. Mr. Guede, who denied murdering Ms. Kercher during his trial, is serving a 16-year prison sentence, having exhausted the appeals process.
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