Knox returns to Seattle after murder appeal win

Italy: Amanda Knox was set to fly back to the United States on Tuesday after being acquitted of murder and released from prison in Italy in a dramatic showdown in the battle to prove her innocence.

The 24-year-old Seattle native sobbed and slumped as the verdict was read out and her parents burst into tears in the courtroom in Perugia in central Italy, while British victim Meredith Kercher’s family sat in stunned silence.

She was driven back to the Capanne prison near Perugia and discharged a short time later. Knox was later seen being driven away in a black Mercedes to be reunited with her family after four years in Italian custody.

Local lawmaker Rocco Girlanda, who befriended Knox and published a book of interviews with her last year, told reporters outside the prison gates that Knox would take a commercial flight for the United States on Tuesday.

Knox was acquitted “for not committing the act,” judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann said, reading out the ruling after 11 hours of jury deliberations. Knox’s former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who was appealing the same convictions for the gruesome 2007 killing, was also acquitted and drove away from Terni prison with his father, headed for his home town in southern Italy. Knox’s sister, Deanna, told reporters: “We are grateful Amanda’s nightmare is over. She suffered for four years for a crime she did not commit.

In the United States, the State Department reacted to the verdict saying it appreciated the “careful consideration” of the case in the Italian courts. Knox’s friends in Seattle cheered and wept as they watched the verdict live on television.

Pamela Van Swearingen, a Seattle attorney who became involved to explore what legal options Knox might have, added: “I’m just so grateful. I’m surprised yet not surprised, just grateful.”

But outside the courtroom in Perugia an angry crowd of hundreds of local residents gathered and there were shouts of: “Shame! Shame!” and “Murderers!” Some heckled Knox’s lawyers and one man shouted: “They’re guilty!” AFP