Controversy continues

Amanda Knox boarded a plane for her hometown of Seattle on Tuesday morning after she and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted of the murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

The pair had spent over four years in an Italian jail accused of killing Knox's roommate in a drug-fuelled sex game in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.

They were cleared after independent experts testified that the small amount of DNA evidence linking the former couple to the crime was not reliable. With the judge's words ordering immediate freedom for the two defendants, they and their families burst into tears of relief.

Outside the courthouse, Knox's younger sister expressed her family's gratitude.

"We are thankful for the support we have received from all over the world, people who took the time to research the case and could see that Amanda and Raffaele were innocent," Deanna Knox said.

"And, last, we are thankful to the court for having the courage to look for the truth and to overturn this conviction," she added.

But not everyone was pleased with the acquittal. Onlookers crowded in the piazza outside the Perugia court chanted "Shame!" after hearing the verdict.

Several hours later, the family of the young murdered student Meredith Kercher held their own press conference where they said they will appeal the verdict.

'Back to square one'

One man, Rudy Guede, is in prison for the crime, but police and prosecutors have always insisted more people were involved.

"We do find that we are now left looking at this again and thinking how a decision that was so certain two years ago has been so emphatically overturned now," Kercher's brother Lyle said on Tuesday.

"This obviously raises further questions inasmuch as there is of course a third defendant, Rudy Guede, who has been convicted... and at the time I understand the court agreed he wasn't acting alone."

If that were the case, he said, who were Guele's accomplices?

"Really for us it feels very much like going back to square one and the search goes on to find out what truly happened," Lyle Kercher added.

Italian justice

While both the Kercher and Knox families have been careful to express their respect for the Italian legal system, the American media in particular have been highly critical of the first trial, depicting it as justice gone awry. But according to Italian legal expert Maurizio Bellacosa, the outcome of the appeal is proof of the ample opportunity the Italian system gives to defendants.

"The Italian system is full of guarantees for defendants who can ask for a new examination of all the evidence in second trial. That’s what happened [in the Amanda Knox case] with a new expert opinion on the technical issues of the case - like the analysis of the DNA traces and so on," Bellacosa said.

An appeal will now be made to the Supreme Court and could take more than a year.

Author: Megan Williams, Rome / ccp
Editor: Michael Lawton