Italian court hands Knox 26 years for Briton's murder
PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court sentenced American student Amanda Knox to 26 years in prison and jailed her ex-boyfriend for 25 years after they were found guilty of murdering Knox's British roommate during a drunken sex game.
Lawyers for Knox, 22, Raffaele Sollecito, 25, said they would appeal the sentences and Knox's family denounced the verdict as a "failure of the Italian judicial system."
The November 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher and the defendant's 11-month trial in the university town of Perugia, drew huge interest around the world. In 2008 a man was sentenced for his part in the murder.
Knox burst into tears and hugged her lawyer as a judge read the verdict to a court packed with media, many from the United States and Britain. An impassive Sollecito turned and looked at his family as his stepmother shouted: "Be strong, Raffaele!"
"There is contradiction between the weakness of the proof and the gravity of the crime," Knox's lawyer Luciano Ghirga told journalists on the steps of the courthouse. "This was a crime with no motive ... Amanda is desperate."
Asked if he would fight on, Knox's father Curt replied: "Hell yes."
Later Kurt Knox and Amanda's sister Deanna told ABC's 2020 program they were angry with the Italian justice system.
"This is completely unjust. I'm in complete shock," said Deanna Knox.
Kurt Knox called the sentence "a failure of the Italian judicial system" and said the court had make a mockery of the legal concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt to come up with a guilty verdict."
He said the Knox family would be "very disappointed" if the U.S. State Department did not get involved in his daughter's case.
Both Knox and Sollecito maintained their innocence. Knox told the court during closing arguments Thursday she was "afraid of having the mask of a murderer forced upon me."
The American student, from Seattle, was accused of killing of 21-year-old Kercher, who was found semi-naked with her throat slit in the bedroom of her apartment in Perugia, where she was doing a year of overseas study.
Source: Washington Post
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