Knox 'so grateful' after court overturns murder conviction

(ANSA) - Rome, March 28 - A tearful Amanda Knox said she was "full of joy" as she absorbed the news that Italy's highest court had overturned her murder conviction and that of her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the 2007 slaying of her roommate.
    The decision by the Cassation Court, Italy's highest appeals body, came as a shock to many including the family of victim Meredith Kercher, as well as the American Knox and Sollecito.
    The pair had served four years in prison in a legal drama that had captured international attention as it played out for almost a decade.
    From her home in Seattle, Washington Knox, 27, said that she was "relieved and grateful for the decision of the Italian Supreme Court".
    Speaking to reporters outside her mother's home, Knox said she was thankful "for the justice I've received and for the support I've had from everyone - from my family, from my friends, to strangers.
    "I am so grateful to have my life back".
    The Cassation Court late Friday overturned last year's convictions of Knox and Sollecito by a Florence appeals court and declined to order another trial. The judges declared in a definitive ruling that the two did not commit the crime, an exoneration, and are expected to release their reasoning within 90 days.
    "I am immensely happy, I can now get my life back," Sollecito said from his home in Bisceglie in Bari province. Knox was convicted of slander for having falsely accused a bartender of the murder early in the investigation, but judges said she had already served the three-year sentence for that crime.
    The pair were initially convicted of the November 2007 murder of Kercher at the original trial in Perugia in 2009.
    Knox was then sentenced to 28 years and six months while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years in the case that saw them both serve four years in jail - including pre-trial custody - before they won their freedom in a subsequent appeal in 2011.
    However, in 2013 the Cassation Court struck down those acquittals and said that evidence linking Knox and Sollecito to the murder scene had not been properly considered, ordering a new trial.
    It suggested Kercher was possibly killed after a violent argument between the roommates, rather than earlier prosecution theories of a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong.
    Rudy Guede of the Ivory Coast was convicted in a separate fast-track proceeding and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
    His DNA was found at the murder scene and inside Kercher, who had been sexually assaulted.