Knox, Sollecito definitively acquitted for Briton Kercher murder

The Italian Court of Cassation on Friday definitively overturned the convictions of American citizen Amanda Knox and Italian Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007.

The judges acquitted both defendants "for not committing the crime", annulling a guilty sentence to 28 years and six months and to 25 years in jail, respectively, ruled in a second appeal in 2014.

Both defendants have always claimed their innocence.

Italy's highest Court gathered on Wednesday, and retired late morning on Friday after listening to the closing arguments from Sollecito's defense lawyers.

The judges' ruling was delivered after hours of deliberations, and with dozens of journalists waiting for it.

In fact, the final verdict put an end to an almost eight-year-long judicial case, which has drawn an unprecedented media and audience attention at international level.

"This is really an important day for Sollecito and this sentence gives us full reason since the previous conviction ruling was full of errors," Sollecito's lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said.

"Sollecito endured four years in prison, and has always faced this long judicial battle with his head high and the utmost respect for institutions," Bongiorno added.

Amanda Knox, 27, and her former partner Raffaele Sollecito, 31, were found guilty of killing 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, who was murdered in November 2007 in the central city of Perugia where she was attending the University for Foreigners.

The British girl was found stabbed to death, and with her throat slit, in the flat she shared with Amanda Knox and two other students. She had been sexually assaulted.

Knox and Sollecito were arrested few days after the crime. According to prosecutors' initial thesis, Kercher had been the victim of a twisted erotic game involving both defendants.

A Perugia first grade court in 2009 found them guilty of the murder, and sentenced them to 26 and 25 years of jails, respectively.

A third person, Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of conspiracy to murder in a separate judgment after pleading guilty, and he is currently serving a 16-year sentence.

In 2011, an appeal court overturned the guilty verdict against Knox and Sollecito because of "lack of evidence", and both were freed from jail.

Amanda Knox returned to the United States.

However, the verdict was reversed once again in March 2013. The Italian highest Court ordered in fact a retrial, accepting the prosecutors' argument that relevant DNA evidences against the two defendants had been disregarded in the appeal.

A second appeal opened in Florence and the court sentenced Knox and Sollecito for the second time in January 2014. The judges in Florence said though the murder of the British student had resulted from a domestic argument, rather than from a sex game that went wrong.

Now, the final verdict delivered by Italy's highest court puts the final word to the whole process, leaving the Ivorian Guede as the only accountable person for the death of Meredith Kercher.

Amanda Knox waited the verdict in her home in Seattle along with her parents, her lawyer said. She had previously declared she would never voluntarily come back again to Italy even if definitively convicted.

Sollecito, who faced a travel ban after the second conviction pending the final appeal, attended the whole hearing at the Court of Cassation this week, but was not present when the verdict was read out.

The family of the victim did not attend the court's hearings.

"Meredith's family is astonished by the sentence as much as we lawyers are," one of their lawyers, Francesco Maresca, told reporters outside the court.

The lawyer added their legal team "took note of the full acquittals, but believed that Meredith's murder has not received full justice".

"The Italian judicial system has clearly not been able to find a full answer to all facts," he said. Enditem