Knox and Sollecito were first convicted in 2009, then acquitted in 2011, when they believed they had been freed to resume their normal lives.
But that decision was found to be flawed by the Court of Cassation in 2013, leading to a retrial in Florence which reinstated the initial convictions last year and increased Knox’s sentence to 28 years and six months.
Lawyers for both defendants said they would be seeking compensation for the time spent in prison — two years on remand before their initial conviction and two more before they were freed on appeal.
Had the convictions been upheld, Knox would have almost certainly faced extradition, which she had vowed to resist.
She said last year: “I would have to be dragged back kicking and screaming into a prison I didn’t deserve to be in.”
A friend of the Knox family, who had spoken on the phone to them at their Seattle home since the verdict, told BBC radio that “everybody is very happy to see this finished, so they can get on with their lives”.
– An innocent abroad –
Since her release, Knox had completed the language studies that took her to Perugia in the first place, found work as a journalist and reportedly become engaged. But her lawyers admitted she had been extremely worried that Friday’s verdict could go against her.
She is unlikely ever to be able to live a completely normal life, such was the fascination with a case that had an irresistible combination of a youthful, photogenic cast, a particularly brutal crime and an endless supply of headline-friendly detail.
Such details ranged from DNA traces found on the victim’s bra strap to the vibrator that Knox kept in a see through toilet bag.
Knox’s supporters always insisted she was simply an innocent abroad who fell victim to a flawed judicial system.
Illustrating what the defence says was systemic police bungling in the case, Bongiorno said in court Friday that 35 people had tramped in and out of the crime scene, making critical DNA evidence unreliable and eliminating any proof either of them were in the bedroom when Meredith died.
“The prosecution say Sollecito’s DNA was on the bra strap but there was none on the floor. Did he manage to touch the bra without touching the floor?
“Not a single trace of Amanda Knox was found in the room. The only creature that does not leave DNA traces is a dragonfly.”
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