The Amanda Knox trial was Italy’s (and Europe’s) version of the Casey Anthony trial here in the States. In both instances the accused were exonerated, and in both instances the general public disapproved of the verdict; believing that the respective women were guilty of murder.
In the case of Amanda Knox a long appeals process will commence, yet more than likely the result will be the same.
In the end, only a handful of people really know whether Amanda and Casey are murderers. But the masses are convinced that they know the “real” truth. You know what, maybe, just maybe, they do… TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Reuters
By Deepa Babington | Reuters
PERUGIA, Italy (Reuters) – An Italian public prosecutor said on Tuesday he would appeal against the acquittal of U.S. student Amanda Knox for the murder of her British housemate Meredith Kercher, whose disappointed family vowed that their search for justice would go on.
“We will appeal,” prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told Reuters in a telephone interview. “The (higher) court will decide whether to confirm the first sentence or the second sentence.”
The prosecution will appeal to the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest appeals court.
As Knox waited at Rome airport for a flight to London and then on to Seattle, Kercher’s mother and siblings held a news conference in Perugia and said their ordeal would continue as they looked for the truth about the killing four years ago in the central Italian city.
Kercher’s sister Stephanie said they would wait for the written explanation of the acquittal verdict in the hope that all the killers would eventually be found.
“Once we’ve got the reasons behind the decisions for this one, then we can understand why they have been acquitted of it and work toward finding those who are responsible,” she said.
“That’s the biggest disappointment, not knowing still and knowing that there is someone or people out there who have done this,” she said.
Ivorian drug dealer Rudy Guede was jailed in 2009 and is serving a 16-year sentence for his role in the murder. But investigators believe more than one person was involved in holding Kercher down while she was stabbed and had her throat cut.
As she prepared to leave Italy after four years in jail, Knox thanked supporters who believed in her innocence.
“I will always be grateful for their courageous commitment … (grateful) to those who wrote to me, to those who defended me,” she said in a letter to an Italian-American foundation, published by Italian news agency Ansa.
Seattle native Knox and Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Kercher during what prosecutors had said was a drug-fueled sexual assault four years ago.
Knox, who broke down when she was cleared on Monday night, was guarded by police in an airport restaurant in Rome as she waited for her flight to London.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday urged people not to forget Meredith Kercher’s parents.
“Those parents … had an explanation for what had happened to their wonderful daughter, and that explanation isn’t there … I think everyone today should be thinking about them and how they feel,” he told ITV.
Outside the court on Monday, hundreds of people whistled, booed and shouted “shame, shame” and “bastards” at the courtroom and at U.S. TV crews.
QUESTIONS UNANSWERED
Many questions about the murder remain unanswered, and Kercher’s family sat stunned in the court long after the others had left. Kercher’s sister Stephanie was in tears.
“We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision from the first trial could be so radically overturned,” the Kercher family said in a statement released through the British embassy.
“We still trust the Italian judicial system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge.”
The verdict, an embarrassment for the prosecutor and Italian police investigators, came after independent forensic investigators sharply criticized scientific evidence in the original investigation, saying it was unreliable.
Kercher’s half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in 2007 in the apartment she shared with Knox in the Umbrian hill town of Perugia where both were studying.
Both Knox and Sollecito, 27, said they were innocent throughout the original investigation and trial.
Sollecito, who had been held in a separate jail near Perugia, also left custody but his lawyer refused to say where he would be spending his first night of freedom.
The court upheld a conviction against Knox for slander, after she had falsely accused barman Patrick Lumumba of the murder. It sentenced her to three years in prison, a sentence which she has now served.
The appeal trial gripped attention on both sides of the Atlantic, with an outpouring of sympathy and outrage from many in the United States who saw the American as an innocent girl trapped abroad in the clutches of a medieval justice system.
DNA EVIDENCE QUESTIONED
Kercher, a Leeds University student from Coulsdon in Surrey, was on a year-long exchange program in Perugia when she was murdered, bringing a flood of unwelcome attention to the medieval town in central Italy that her family said she loved.
The murder investigation showed she was pinned down and stabbed to death and evidence suggests that Guede did not act alone, although Monday’s verdict left it unclear who else might have been involved.
Prosecutors had said Kercher resisted attempts by Knox, Sollecito and Guede to involve her in an orgy. Their case was weakened by forensic experts who dismissed police evidence that traces of DNA belonging to Knox and Kercher were found on a kitchen knife identified as the murder weapon.
The experts also said alleged traces of Sollecito’s DNA on the Briton’s bra clasp may have been contaminated.
The defense argued that no clear motive or evidence linking the defendants to the crime had emerged, and said Knox was falsely implicated in the murder by prosecutors determined to convict her regardless of the evidence.
(Additional reporting by Maurizio Troccoli, Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Barry Moody)
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