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Author Topic: Amanda Knox GUILTY in Italy 2009 - Appealed/OVERTURNED 2011  (Read 108276 times)
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MuffyBee
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« Reply #340 on: April 29, 2014, 10:46:39 PM »

http://www.newschannel5.com/story/25382138/italy-court-knox-struck-mortal-blow-in-killing
Italy Court: Knox Struck Mortal Blow In Killing
April 29, 2014

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Nut44x4
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« Reply #341 on: May 02, 2014, 07:09:41 AM »

I have always thought they were guilty 

http://www.nbcnews.com/#/news/us-news/amanda-knox-denies-killing-friend-meredith-kercher-n95351
Amanda Knox Denies Killing 'Friend' Meredith Kercher

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« Reply #342 on: May 02, 2014, 10:05:41 AM »

http://www.today.com/news/raffaele-sollecito-there-are-mistakes-all-over-pages-italian-courts-2D79612834
Raffaele Sollecito: 'There are mistakes all over the pages' of Italian court's ruling
1 hr ago

The ex-boyfriend of Amanda Knox said the report released this week by the Italian appeals court that reconvicted them of murder is "full of errors" and "a fiction" on TODAY Friday.


"I'm still detailing all the aspects of these reports, but basically it's full of errors,'' Sollecito told Savannah Guthrie in an interview from Treviso, Italy. "There are mistakes all over the pages. They invented new evidence. They pictured something happening that was never happening. They invented a fiction, a real fiction, inside their report. We are working to pinpoint every aspect on this report, and I will come up with the details of our appeal against this report."
 
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« Reply #343 on: May 07, 2014, 09:31:09 AM »

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/amanda-knox-cctv-footage_n_5273555.html
Amanda Knox's Alibi Appears Challenged By CCTV Footage: TV Show
Posted April 6, 2014, Updated April 7, 2014


(Screenshot from Quarto Grado)

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« Reply #344 on: June 20, 2014, 05:14:28 PM »

This is an opinion piece, but I find it interesting...

http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/crime/op-ed-dna-laboratory-fraud-revealed-in-amanda-knox-case/article/386758
Op-Ed: DNA laboratory fraud revealed in Amanda Knox case
June 16, 2014

The Meredith Kercher Murder case takes another twist as information emerges that the lab responsible for DNA testing had faulty equipment and that data seems to have been intentionally withheld from the court and defense.
New information in the Meredith Kercher Murder case has now emerged alleging that Patrizia Stefanoni, the lab technician responsible for DNA testing on behalf of the prosecution, committed scientific misconduct by suppressing data from faulty equipment and falsifying evidence in order to support the prosecution’s case.
 
New evidence has now surfaced suggesting that scientific misconduct may have contributed to the wrongful convictions of Knox and Sollecito. The alleged misconduct concerns a sample from the tiny metal hook of Meredith Kercher’s bra clasp, which is the sole piece of DNA evidence that the prosecution claims can be attributed to Raffaele Sollecito. No other evidence of any kind was ever found in the room where the murder occurred that implicates Knox or Sollecito.
Careful analysis of the Italian Scientific Police's Lab Data reveals there was contamination in the machine when the famous bra clasp trace was being tested and the laboratory equipment was malfunctioning during that testing. However, complete records of the equipment failure have been suppressed from the data that was released by the prosecution in July of 2009. This data was also denied to the court appointed independent experts, Carla Vecchiotti and Stefano Conti, of the University of Rome — La Sapienza, during the first appeal trial.
This apparent perversion of the course of justice was discovered by Dr. Tom Zupancic, Chief Scientific Officer of Applied Biomolecular Technologies and Chris Halkides, Professor of Biochemistry at UNC Wilmington. Both scientists are members of the Injustice Anywhere advisory board, an organization that I co-founded. Injustice Anywhere currently advocates for eight cases, including Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, through our organization Injustice in Perugia (IIP) — an international organization made up of lawyers, criminal investigators and advocates who are volunteering to assist Knox and Sollecito in their fight for justice.
The validity of the bra clasp evidence has been heavily scrutinized long before this new information came to light. Investigators were left to scramble early on in the investigation when it was revealed that a bloody shoe print originally attributed to Sollecito did not match his shoe tread. The print was actually a match for Rudy Guede. This left the authorities with nothing to hold Sollecito in custody for the crime.
With the renewed challenge to implicate Sollecito, Investigators headed back to the cottage and miraculously found exactly what they needed, collecting the bra clasp off the floor in Kercher’s room, 46 days after her murder, from an unsecured and contaminated crime scene. In an odd spectacle, police video footage reveals investigators gathering around this single piece of evidence as if they already knew they had what they needed. During their celebration, the clasp was dropped on the floor, stepped on, picked back up, and then passed between several investigators wearing visibly dirty gloves as if it was a prized possession. Video footage also shows these same investigators handling multiple pieces of evidence on the floor wearing the same gloves.
Stefanoni’s findings detailed a minuscule sample from the clasp showed a DNA profile that was a partial match for Sollecito as well as DNA from several other males, which strongly suggests contamination. Sollecito was at the apartment on several occasions so finding his DNA would be no surprise. Sollecito also attempted to break down Kercher's door the morning the body was discovered. Two of his finger prints were found on the outside of the door from that event. Investigators very likely made contact with that door with the same gloves used to handle the clasp.
The new information not only reveals that there were severe problems with the DNA data, it also suggests that Stefanoni committed perjury. When asked specific questions at trial about contamination in her lab, Stefanoni told the court that no contamination has ever occurred in her lab.
On May 23, 2009, Stefanoni testified as follows:
PM Mignini: Listen, how many years have you been doing this work?
Stefanoni: Nearly 7 years.
PM Mignini: Approximately 7 years. Have you worked on cases similar to this?
Stefanoni: Yes. Yes, yes.
PM Mignini: Many similar cases?
Stefanoni: Yes, various cases of similar complexity, basically, yes.
PM Mignini: Do you remember if you’ve always followed the same method?
Stefanoni: Yes.
PM Mignini: In the way you basically collected the samples and then in the analysis?
Stefanoni: Yes.
PM Mignini: Right, do you remember any confirmed contamination of samples?
Stefanoni: No, such a problem has never been highlighted to me.
PM Mignini: So you have absolutely no recollection [of such a thing]… and you have always followed this same method that you have described to us today?
Stefanoni: Yes.
Stefanoni’s testimony led Judge Giancarlo Massei to conclude that there was no laboratory contamination, as noted in his motivation document explaining his ruling to convict Knox and Sollecito in 2009:
“In response to a specific question on this point, Dr. Stefanoni declared that she had been working as a biologist for seven years, had always used the same methodology, and had never heard that any problem of contamination of exhibits had occurred.”
The new-found data appears to show that Stefanoni knowingly lied in court, leading Judge Massei to be negatively influenced by the erroneous information.
Data continues to be suppressed to this day
The recent analysis by Zupancic and Halkides further highlights the suppression of information by the prosecution in this case. The data indicates that there was contamination in the machine when the bra clasp was analyzed, meaning that many other samples could have been contaminated during that time. Zupancic and Halkides also uncovered the fact that the prosecution concealed data for the alleged murder weapon as well. Their analysis shows that Raffaele’s kitchen knife profile was generated within a set of tests for which 90% of the results have been suppressed, which according to Zupancic and Halkides, strongly suggests the occurrence of a severe contamination event that the prosecution has never explained. Unfortunately, no electropherograms have ever been presented by the prosecution. The issues with Stefanoni's work can only be clarified through the full disclosure of the EDF files, if they still exist. Until there is full disclosure, many questions will remain.
Zupancic recently gave a presentation at a forensic DNA conference hosted by The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, highlighting his findings. Zupancic spoke with Komo News about the event.
"American attorneys ... were stunned to hear how the Italian forensic analysts and prosecutors connected to the Knox-Sollecito case manipulated and withheld evidence in this case," he said. "Such behavior would never have been tolerated in the American system. It shows an inherent contempt for fairness, the concept of justice and is a serious breach of acceptable judicial practices.”
Zupancic went on to tell Komo News that such irregularities can also happen in the United States when strict adherence to proper collection procedures is ignored or violated.
Knox and Sollecito have recently filed their appeals to the Italian Supreme Court (ISC). Their latest conviction of 28 and 25 years imprisonment respectively came as a shock to many, given the obvious lack of motive and forensic evidence. If the validity of DNA evidence used to convict is fully disproved, questions arise if the ISC will be able to stand by the current verdict, or if they will finally admit their mistake.
The complete detailed analysis of the DNA processing records can be reviewed here.  :

http://murderofmeredithkercher.com/prosecutions-massive-suppression-lab-data-violation-defendants-human-rights/
Murder of Meredith Kercher
a site providing factual information about the murder of Meredith Kercher

The Prosecution’s Massive Suppression of Lab Data
More...
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MuffyBee
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« Reply #345 on: June 20, 2014, 05:17:44 PM »


http://www.king5.com/news/local/Amanda-Knox-appeals-murder-conviction--again-263556141.html
Amanda Knox appeals murder conviction ... again
June 17, 2014

University of Washington student Amanda Knox has filed an appeal with the court of last resort in Italy, the Court of Cassation, asking that her recent murder conviction be overturned and that she be cleared of any guilt of the 2007 murder of her roommate, according to her Seattle public relations representative, Dave Marriott.
Knox’s case has been full of twists and turns.  She was arrested in November 2007 a few days after her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found dead with her throat slit in the flat the young women shared in the university town of Perugia. In 2009, Knox was convicted of the murder along with her boyfriend at the time, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito. 

But in 2011, an appeals court in Perugia threw out the murder convictions, pronounced Knox and Sollecito innocent and released them from prison.  Knox flew home to Seattle and resumed her studies at UW.

Prosecutors appealed the acquittal, which is common practice in Italy and won a new trial. In March 2013, the Italian Supreme Court reversed the acquittal and sent the case to a Florence appeals court which reinstated the murder convictions earlier this year.  The court also increased Knox’s sentence from 26 years to 28 years.
 

Knox is requesting another appeals trial, which could take place later this year, with a final decision expected in 2015, according to Dave Marriott
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« Reply #346 on: June 20, 2014, 05:19:51 PM »

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2014/06/amanda_knoxs_lawyers_asks_ital.html
Amanda Knox's lawyers asks Italy's last resort court for review of conviction (photos)
June 18, 2014

ROME — Amanda Knox's lawyers have formally asked Italy's court of last resort to review the U.S. student's appeals court conviction for the 2007 murder of her British roommate.

Defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga said the paperwork was submitted last Thursday to the Rome-based Court of Cassation.
 
Cassation judges can either uphold the convictions if they find the appeals trial was properly conducted or order yet another appellate trial.
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« Reply #347 on: June 20, 2014, 05:21:18 PM »

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/20/amanda-knox-s-ex-raffaele-sollecito-asks-court-try-me-separately.html
Amanda Knox’s Ex Raffaele Sollecito Asks Court: Try Me Separately
June 20, 1024

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« Reply #348 on: July 01, 2014, 04:26:55 PM »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/amanda-knox-alibi-threatened-as-raffaele-sollecito-abandons-her-in-new-defence-strategy-9576418.html
Amanda Knox alibi threatened as Raffaele Sollecito abandons her in ‘new’ defence strategy
July 1, 2014

PRINT A A A
The former boyfriend of Amanda Knox has cast doubt on her innocence in the murder of the British student Merdeith Kercher.

Italian Raffaelle Sollecito, 30, told reporters in Rome that the evidence showed Knox was not with him at his home at the time of the killing of Ms Kercher, 21. Knox has claimed the pair were together on the night of the murder.
 
Sollecito, a student of robotics, accompanied by his lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, pointed to text message evidence that he said implicated Knox rather than him.

On the night of the murder, Knox, 27, claimed that she’d sent an SMS to Patrick Lumumba, confirming that she would not be working at his bar in Perugia that night.

But in the January 2014 appeal, which saw their convictions confirmed, judges noted that Knox had lied in saying she had sent the text from inside Sollecito’s house, possibly in attempt to place herself away from the scene of the crime.

“She gave me an alibi. I had nothing to do with it,” Sollecito said today regarding the judges’ deliberations.

His declaration was repeated by Ms Bongiorno, who said the pair had gone on to sleep together that night. “It’s [the declaration relating to] this first part of the evening that is new,” she said.

“This text message, according to the court’s own ruling, was not sent from his house. Therefore the pair were not together,” she said.

Sollecito denied he was changing his story. “Only a madman or a criminal would change versions, and I’m neither mad nor criminal,” he said. “There’s proof that I was at my place and I was watching Japanese cartoons.”

Asked where Knox may have been in those missing hours, Sollecito said he was concentrating only on defending himself and could not vouch for her whereabouts.

Despite casting doubt on Knox’s testimony, Sollecito said he was convinced of Knox’s innocence. “I always believed, and still believe, that Amanda Marie Knox is innocent,” he said. He wanted only to ensure that evidence against Knox was not unfairly used against him.

Both Sollecito and his lawyer claimed that his January conviction was unfairly influenced by Knox’s original pre-trial statement, in which the American falsely claimed to have heard Ms Kercher being murdered by Mr Lumumba.

Legal experts believe Sollecito’s defence team are hoping that Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation will dismiss his 25-year prison sentence and order a retrial. Knox will not return from the US for the trial.

The pair were first jailed for the murder in Perugia in 2009, with Sollecito handed a 25-year sentence and Knox 26 years, a year longer because she falsely accused Mr Lumumba of the murder. The slander was seen as the act that convicted Knox the first time around, despite the lack of forensic evidence. Sollecito was seen to have incriminated himself with vague statements about the pair’s activity on the evening of the killing.

Both were freed on appeal in October 2011. The Supreme Court of Cassation ordered the appeal to be reheard in Florence in January this year. A person is not considered definitively convicted in Italy until the Supreme court has ruled them guilty.

The Supreme Court said prosecutors’ claims that Guede, the only person definitively convicted of the crime, could not have acted alone, warranted more attention.
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« Reply #349 on: March 24, 2015, 05:46:22 PM »

Tomorrow is the final verdict, I expect the court to uphold the verdict.

This brat her ex boyfriend need to be held accountable for their actions.

I hope like hell Italy requests her extradition and the US does the right thing.


I have always believed that Amanda and Raffele were guilty.

Justice for the TRUE victim, Meredith Kercher.

 
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« Reply #350 on: March 27, 2015, 10:52:31 PM »

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/lawyer-knoxs-boyfriend-makes-final-court-appeal-29945399
Italian Court Throws out Knox Conviction Once and for All
March 27, 2015

Amanda Knox, who maintained that she and her former Italian boyfriend were innocent in her British roommate's murder through multiple trials and nearly four years in jail, was vindicated Friday when Italy's highest court threw out their convictions once and for all.

"Finished!" Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova exulted after the decision was read out late Friday. "It couldn't be better than this."

The surprise decision definitively ends the 7½-year legal battle waged by Knox, 27, and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, 31, to clear their names in the gruesome 2007 murder and sexual assault of British student Meredith Kercher.

The supreme Court of Cassation panel deliberated for 10 hours before declaring that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding insufficient evidence to convict. Instead, had the court-of-resort upheld the pair's convictions, Knox would have faced 28 ½ years in an Italian prison, assuming she would have been extradited, while Sollecito had faced 25 years.

The case attracted strong media attention due to the brutality of the murder and the quick allegations that the young American student and her new Italian lover had joined a third man in stabbing to death 21-year-old Kercher in a sex game gone awry.

Flip-flop guilty-then innocent-then guilty verdicts cast a shadow on the Italian justice system and polarized trial watchers on both sides of the Atlantic, largely along national lines.
 
Though it cleared Knox of murder, the supreme Court of Cassation upheld a slander conviction against her for wrongly accusing a Congolese-born bar owner in the murder. The court reduced the sentence to three years. Since Knox already spent nearly four years in Italian prison, she won't have to serve that time. The decision to overturn the convictions without ordering a new trial amounted to a rebuke of another high court ruling two years ago that vacated Knox and Sollecito's 2011 acquittal, ordering yet another trial. Such a direct contrast in decisions by two high court panels is as rare as the double rainbow that arched over the monumental courthouse near the Tiber river during the deliberations.

The five-judge panel's reasoning will be released within 90 days.
 
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« Reply #351 on: September 07, 2015, 07:17:36 PM »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11850009/Amanda-Knoxs-lawyer-on-why-she-was-acquitted.html
Amanda Knox's lawyer on why she was acquitted
The lawyer for Miss Knox breaks down the reasons why the Italian supreme court threw out the case against against the American

By Vin Shahrestani, and agencies, video source APTN10:52PM BST 07 Sep 2015

Amanda Knox's lawyer said that the explanations by Italy's top criminal court for why it threw out murder convictions against Knox and her former boyfriend supported what the defence laywers had always argued.
Carlo Dalla Vedova said the explanation from the Court of Cassation showed "the lack of evidence and the uncertainties of the entire reconstruction of the accusation."

The court on Monday issued its formal written explanation, as required by Italian law, for its March ruling vindicating Knox and Raffaelle Sollecito once and for all in the legal battle over the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy.

The court wrote there was an "absolute lack of biological traces" of Knox, an American, or co-defendant Raffaele Sollecitio in the room or on the body of the victim.

In March, the Cassation Court declared that Knox, now 28, and Sollecito, now 31, did not murder 21-year-old Kercher
Knox and Sollecito served nearly four years in Italian prison after a first, lower court conviction in 2009 by a Perugia court.

Video
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« Reply #352 on: September 07, 2015, 07:21:37 PM »

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/top-italian-court-throws-out-amanda-knox-murder-conviction-n423006
'Stunning Weakness,' 'Glaring Errors' Blamed for Amanda Knox Acquittal
September 7, 2015

Italy's top criminal court said Monday that it threw out the murder convictions of American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend earlier this year because of "glaring errors" and a hit-and-miss hunt for a scapegoat to satisfy public opinion.

The stunning ruling in March — which wasn't explained until Monday's filing was published — marked one more twist in a years-long saga that boomeranged through the Italian criminal justice system, captivated two countries and left Knox and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, to serve four years in jail.

At the center of the case was the brutal 2007 killing of Knox's 21-year-old roommate, Meredith Kercher.

Knox and Sollecito were arrested after Kercher was found dead in a pool of blood in the apartment the two women shared in the university town of Perugia, with as many as 40 knife wounds over her half-naked body.

Prosecutors argued that Kercher was killed as part of a sex game. Knox and Sollecito said they were alone together on the night in question, watching a movie, smoking pot and having sex, but they were convicted of the killing two years later.

In 2011, the convictions were overturned. Knox fled Italy for her hometown, Seattle, where she remained during a second trial and where she promised she would stay — even if she was convicted again.

"I will not willingly submit myself to injustice," she told TODAY in an interview last year.

In March, a conviction was once again overturned.

The latest decision, from the Court of Cassation, Italy's equivalent of the Supreme Court, slammed police and prosecutors for "stunning weakness" and "investigative bouts of amnesia."

Because no biological evidence from Knox or Sollecito was found at the house in PErugia where Kercher was murdered, the 52-page opinion said, their "participation" in the killing should have been "excluded."

"There was no shortage of glaring errors in the underlying fabric of the sentence in question," the court wrote.

The alleged murder weapon, a kitchen knife found at Sollecito's house, was kept in a cardboard box — "the kind that gadgets are wrapped up in for Christmas" — and a bra clasp said to have carried DNA evidence was left on the floor for 46 days.

The third person accused in the murder, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, who is serving a 16-year sentence after opting for a fast-track trial, left "copious" biological traces at the scene, the court said.

Avid media attention and the nationalities of the people involved led to "a spasmodic search for one or more guilty parties to offer up to international public opinion," the court concluded, which "certainly did not aid the search for the truth."

Further prosecution is barred under Italian law.
 
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« Reply #353 on: January 24, 2019, 11:51:31 AM »

https://komonews.com/news/local/europe-court-orders-italy-to-pay-damages-to-amanda-knox-01-24-2019
Europe court orders Italy to pay $20,000 in damages to Amanda Knox
January 24, 2019

MILAN (AP) — Europe's human rights court on Thursday ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox financial damages for police failure to provide legal assistance and an independent interpreter during a long night of questioning following the Nov. 1, 2007 murder of her British roommate. But the court said there was insufficient evidence to support claims of psychological and physical mistreatment.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said in its ruling that Italy hadn't succeeded in proving that "the restriction of Ms. Knox's access to a lawyer ... had not irreparably undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a whole." It said Italy must pay Knox 18,400 euros ($20,000) in damages, costs and expenses.

"Ms. Knox had been particularly vulnerable, being a foreign young woman, 20 at the time, not having been in Italy for very long and not being fluent in Italian," the court noted.

After more than seven years of legal battles and flip-flop decisions, Knox was definitively acquitted of Meredith Kercher's murder by Italy's highest court in March 2015. But a damaging conviction and three-year sentence for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner of the murder was confirmed, leaving a cloud over her acquittal.

Knox, who is now 31 and lives in Seattle, wrote in her blog after that the ruling means "that my slander conviction was unjust."

"I never should have been charged, much less convicted, of slander," she wrote.

It was during questioning in the wee hours of Nov. 6, 2007 that Knox accused Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar where she sometimes worked, of the murder. Knox's defense had long claimed that the accusation was coerced.

The court noted she had quickly and repeatedly retracted the statement. It said that despite her lawyer's request, there was never an investigation to clarify the circumstances of "the incriminating statements."

It also said that the interpreter assigned to her acted more as a "mediator, and taking on a motherly attitude which was not called for in the circumstances," and that Knox's complaints about the inappropriate conduct were never examined in Italian courts.

The human rights court, however, said there was not enough evidence to conclude Knox had "sustained the inhuman or degrading treatment" she claimed. Knox said she had been slapped twice on the side of the head by police, while also being subjected to pressure, threats of imprisonment and shouting.

Knox's defense attorney, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said the decision "is not a big surprise for me because the supreme court already said there were many mistakes." He said he was considering whether to challenge the standing conviction for malicious false accusations.

"I hope Patrick Lumumba will understand also through the outcome of this decision that she was put in a very difficult situation," Dalla Vedova said.

The sensational murder of 21-year-old Kercher attracted global attention, especially after suspicion fell on the photogenic Knox, and Knox's then-Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. Kercher was found nude under a blanket in her locked room, with her throat slit and having been sexually assaulted. While Knox and her former boyfriend were initially convicted in Kercher's slaying and handed hefty sentences, both were eventually acquitted.

An Ivorian immigrant, Rudy Guede, is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder.

The Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said that the family remained bitter that years of court decisions "resulted only in the conviction of Rudy Guede."

Prosecutors argued throughout the trials that the murder could not have been the work of a single perpetrator.

Sollecito sought 500,000 euros for wrongful imprisonment — the maximum allowed under Italian law — but was denied because the court said he had contributed by making contradictory statements made during the investigation. Dalla Vedova said that Knox let the deadline for wrongful imprisonment filing lapse without seeking compensation, instead focusing on the human rights issue.

 
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