An Italian court has cleared 24-year-old American Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend of murdering British student Meredith Kercher in 2007 and ordered them to be set free after nearly four years in prison for a crime they always denied committing.
Seattle native Ms Knox and Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito, had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Ms Kercher during what prosecutors said was a drug-fuelled sexual assault four years ago.
A whoop of joy was heard in the court as the ruling overturning their sentences was read out, but Ms Knox herself broke down and was led out sobbing and supported by police officers.
The court quashed the conviction against Ms Knox, who was sentenced to 26 years in jail and against Mr Sollecito, who was sentenced to 25 years, after independent forensic investigators sharply criticised police scientific evidence, saying it was unreliable.
Ms Kercher's half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Ms Knox in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia where both were studying.
Both Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito, 27, had consistently maintained their innocence throughout the original investigation and trial.
Another man, Ivorian drug dealer Rudy Guede, was imprisoned for 16 years for his role in the murder.
The court upheld a conviction against Ms Knox for slander, after she had falsely accused barman Patrick Lumumba of the murders. It sentenced her to three years in prison, a sentence which has now been served.
Tearful
Expectations were running high before the verdict that Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito would walk free after the forensic review discredited DNA evidence used to convict them.
In a tearful address to the court earlier on Monday, Ms Knox pleaded with the panel of two professional and six lay judges to free her, saying she was paying for a crime she did not commit.
"I did not do the things they say I did. I did not kill, rape or steal. I was not there," she said in the fluent Italian she has learned in prison.
"As you could see from the images, Amanda was a nervous wreck who just collapsed. She wasn't able to say anything other than 'thank you' in a flood of tears," one of her lawyers Maria Del Grosso told reporters.
Knox was expected to return to the Perugia jail where she has been held to complete formalities before walking free but her lawyers said they did not know where she would be spending her first night of freedom.
The verdict, a severe embarrassment to the Italian justice system, came after independent forensic investigators sharply criticised police scientific evidence in the original investigation, saying it was unreliable.
Mr Sollecito's father, a doctor, said the court had "given me back my son".
"It was obvious that he had nothing to do with the death of that poor girl," he said. "I finally allowed myself to cry".
Ms Kercher's family members sat stunned in the court long after the others had left. Meredith's sister Stephanie was in tears.
"We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision from the first trial could be so radically overturned," the Kerchers said in a statement released through the British embassy.
"We still trust the Italian judicial system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge."
But on Ms Knox's side, there was unrestrained delight.
"She's a girl who wants to live, she wants to go home, she wants to go to Seattle, she wants to be with her family and so I think she will spend some time to get over these four years in prison," one of her legal team, Carlo Dalla Vedova said.
Ms Kercher, a Leeds University student from Coulsdon in Surrey, was on a year-long exchange programme in Perugia when she was murdered.
The murder investigation showed she was pinned down and stabbed to death. Prosecutors said that she resisted attempts by Ms Knox, Mr Sollecito and Mr Guede to involve her in an orgy.
But their case was weakened by forensic experts who dismissed police evidence that traces of DNA belonging to Ms Knox and Ms Kercher were found on a kitchen knife identified as the murder weapon.
The experts also said alleged traces of Mr Sollecito's DNA on the Briton's bra clasp may have been contaminated.
The defence argued that no clear motive or evidence linking the defendants to the crime had emerged, and said Ms Knox was falsely implicated in the murder by prosecutors determined to convict her regardless of the evidence.
