Amanda Knox found guilty on all charges
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PERUGIA, Italy — American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of a British woman, Meredith Kercher.
Knox was sentenced to 26 years imprisonment and Sollecito was given a 25-year sentence.
The semi-naked body of 21-year-old Kercher was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in her room in Perugia in November 2007.
Both Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, had maintained their innocence throughout the trial. An eight-member jury, including two magistrates deliberated all day Friday before reaching a decision.
Prosecutors said Kercher, who was studying at Leeds University, was stabbed to death in an extreme sex game. They said she was tortured and eventually killed because the game went too far and she knew her attackers.
Knox addressed the jury in Italian Thursday, saying she feared “having the mask of a killer forced onto my skin”.
She said she was “confident my conscience is clean”.
Sollecito also addressed the court Thursday and said no motive had emerged for his alleged role in the murder.
A third person, Rudy Guede, 22, from the Ivory Coast, has already been convicted of the murder and sexual violence and sentenced to 30 years in jail. He is appealing the sentence.
Knox’s mother, Edda Mellas, said before the verdict the family would continue to battle for her daughter’s freedom if she was convicted.
While the circumstantial evidence against Knox and Sollecito was strong, defense teams challenged the forensic work placing the two at the crime scene, saying it was spotty at best.
The prosecution had made much of a break-in at the cottage that Kercher and Knox shared, claiming it was staged, and merely a clumsy attempt by Knox and Sollecito to hide their own guilt.
Sky News and Fox News contributed to this report
admin @ December 5, 2009