Italian court frees Amanda Knox on appeal

Perugia, Italy (AHN) – At around 3:45 p.m. EST, the fate of Amanda Knox was read.

After spending nearly four years in prison, Amanda Knox has been freed from an Italian prison. She was acquitted on all charges but found guilty of defamation and must pay court charges. Amanda was sentenced to three years, but having already spent four in prison, she will go simply go back to collect her things and will then be released.

Inside the court room there were stunned sighs and cheers. Outside the courtroom the crowd was more vocal and boos were chanted along with chants of victory.

Amanda Knox, the American exchange student accused of killing her British roommate in Italy, appealed overnight, pleading in Italian and pausing for breath, for the jury to free her so that she can return the the United States.

Knox said, “I’ve lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible. I am paying for my life for things that I didn’t do. I did not kill. I did not rape. I did not steal. I wasn’t there. She had her bedroom next mine, she was killed in our own apartment. If I had been there that night, I would be dead, but I wasn’t.”

Knox spent four years behind bars in Italy for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21 year-old Brit who shared an apartment with Knox when they were both students in Perugia.

Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to death in her bedroom. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25.

Doubts have been cast over the DNA evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the crime. Two experts found that police conducting the investigation had made stark errors in evidence including possible contamination and thus raised doubts over the the traces of DNA found at the scene and on the knife believed to be the murder weapon.