Italy's highest court overturned the murder convictions of Amanda Knox and her Italian former boyfriend of murder Friday, throwing out all charges and ending a long-running courtroom drama over the killing of a British student in 2007.
The ruling in favor of Knox, a 27-year-old former exchange student from Seattle, and her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, 31, was a shock in Italy, where the convictions had been expected to be upheld in the stabbing death of the British student, Meredith Kercher.
It was the second time that the court, known as the Supreme Court of Cassation, had vacated an appellate court ruling in the case, which had been tabloid fodder for years on both sides of the Atlantic and revealed the arcane workings of the Italian criminal justice system.
Gasps went up among spectators in the Rome courtroom, where after 10 hours of deliberation, the presiding judge, Gennaro Marasca, announced the decision. The reasoning behind the decision is to be made public within 90 days.
Supporters of Knox and Sollecito reacted with joy.
"It's Over!," an advocacy group said via its Twitter account, @Justice4Knox.
Giulia Bongiorno, Sollecito's lawyer, who had asked the court for a full acquittal, looked stunned at first. "They cleared them of the charges?" she asked disbelievingly. "There's no retrial?"
A full exoneration in complicated cases is uncommon, and typically the Court of Cassation will send a case back to an appellate court when inconsistencies emerge.
"It's very rare and goes beyond our most optimistic predictions," said Luciano Ghirga, a lawyer on Knox's defense team.
Francesco Maresca, one of the Kercher family's lawyers, said his clients were "surprised, like we are," by the ruling. Britain's Press Association news agency quoted Kercher's mother, Arline, as saying she was "a bit surprised and very shocked."
Another Kercher family lawyer, Vieri Fabiani, said the verdict showed that criticisms of the Italian justice system had been unfounded.
"In the end," he said, the verdict showed that the system "protects the rights of defendants more than other systems."
Neither Knox nor Sollecito was present in the courtroom Friday. Knox has been living in the Seattle area since her original conviction was overturned in October 2011 and had said she would not willingly return to Italy if the court's decision had gone against her. Sollecito attended the case's two days of hearings before the court but chose to await the verdict elsewhere.
Knox and her family issued statements through her defense team expressing deep thanks for the court's ruling.
"I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy," Knox said. "The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal. And throughout this ordeal, I have received invaluable support from family, friends, and strangers. To them, I say: Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your kindness has sustained me. I only wish that I could thank each and every one of you in person."
Kercher was found dead on the morning of Nov. 2, 2007, lying on the floor of her bedroom in Perugia, a university town in central Italy that is popular with foreigners.
Knox and Sollecito were arrested a few days later and spent four years in custody before their original convictions were overturned.
Rudy Guede, a Perugia resident born in the Ivory Coast, was convicted of murder in a separate trial in connection with Kercher's death, as one of three assailants. Defense lawyers for Knox and Sollecito had always argued that Guede committed the crime on his own.
Kercher's death cast a long shadow. Sollecito, who earned a degree while in prison, has complained that he is unemployable in Italy. Knox, who now writes for a weekly Seattle newspaper, has often been hounded by U.S. tabloid reporters and photographers.
Another member of Knox's defense team, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said he had spoken to Knox several times in the hours after the verdict, and that she was very happy.
"It's a problem that's resolved," he said. "She wants to return to the things that matter, like her writing. It's a liberation."
