ITALY: Amanda Knox released from prison
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REPORTING FROM LONDON -- Amanda Knox was released from an Italian prison Monday, just two hours after an appeals court overturned her murder conviction in the 2007 slaying of her British roommate.
A pair of dark vehicles pulled out of the gates of Capanne Prison, outside Perugia, and swept past a large crowd of photographers, according to news footage.
Corrado Maria Daclon, the secretary-general of a foundation that has championed Knox’s cause, drove with the 24-year-old Seattle native. He told the Associated Press that Knox just “wanted to go home, reconnect with her family, take possession of her life and win back her happiness.”
Photos: The Amanda Knox appeal
In court, Knox had burst into tears when she heard the jury’s decision to overturn her 2009 murder conviction in the slaying of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.
“She was afraid,” one of her attorneys, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said on Sky Italia. “She’s always affirmed her friendship for Meredith, so this tragedy, this trial, has marked her forever, and the memory of Meredith will stay with her. But she’s a girl who wants to live, wants to go back home to Seattle, to her family.”
Knox’s alleged accomplice, former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, was also exonerated by the appellate panel in Kercher’s death. Sky Italia said he was seen crouching down in his father’s gray BMW as he left prison near Terni on Monday.
The victim’s family released a brief statement, CNN reported.
“We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned,’ the statement said. ‘We still trust the Italian judicial system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge.”
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-- Janet Stobart