ITALY: Family members grateful Amanda Knox goes free

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REPORTING FROM LONDON -- Family members expressed gratitude Monday to the Italian court that overturned the 2009 murder conviction of Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend, and asked for privacy to recover from the ordeal.

‘We are thankful that Amanda’s nightmare is over,’ Knox’s sister, Deanna, told reporters. ‘She suffered for four years for a crime she did not commit.’

Photos: The Amanda Knox appeal

Jurors in the Italian town of Perugia decided to free the 24-year-old former American exchange student and her alleged accomplice, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, who had been serving 26 and 25 years in prison, respectively, for the murder of Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher.

‘We are thankful to the court for having the courage ... to overturn the conviction,’ Deanna Knox said. ‘We now respectfully ask that you give Amanda and the rest of our family our privacy that we need to recover from this horrible ordeal.’

Sollecito’s father, Francesco Sollecito, said he was ‘immensely happy.’

‘Finally ... substance has been given to everything that we’ve tried desperately to show during the first trial,’ he said. ‘It’s evident that Raffaelle had nothing to do with the death of that poor girl, Meredith Kercher, who is in our hearts in any case.... At the end, I allowed myself to weep.’

He said he would have liked to speak with Kercher’s family ‘because they have had their daughter taken from them in a cruel and terrible manner.’

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-- Janet Stobart

Perugia, Italy, on Oct. 3, 2011. Credit: Pietro Crocchioni / EPA