Amanda Knox thankful 'for justice' after murder conviction overturned in Italy

Amanda Knox says she's "so grateful to have my life back" after Italy's highest court overturned her murder conviction in the slaying of her roommate.

Knox spoke briefly Friday evening to reporters gathered outside the Seattle home of her mother, Edda Mellas. She was flanked by her mother and her fianc, Colin Sutherland.

"Right now I'm still absorbing what all this means and what comes to mind is my gratitude for the life that's been given to me," she said.

The 27-year-old Knox said she is thankful "for the justice I've received and for the support I've had from everyone from my family, from my friends, to strangers ... I'm so grateful to have my life back."

Asked what the future held, she said, "I don't know. I'm still absorbing the present moment, which is full of joy."

In a statement earlier in the day, Knox said that knowing she was innocent gave her "strength in the darkest times of this ordeal."

An appeals court in 2011 cleared Knox in the 2007 slaying of British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, and ordered her released after she had spent four years in prison. Her acquittal was overturned. She was convicted in absentia in 2014. On Friday, Italy's highest court overturned that murder conviction, finally closing Knox's long legal saga.

"Meredith was my friend," Knox said in response to a question about what she would say to the Kercher family. "She deserved so much in this life. I'm the lucky one."

Shepherding her daughter back into the house, Mellas said the family was "so thankful that everything is finally right."

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The surprise decision definitively endedthe 7 1/2-year legal battle waged by Knoxand co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, 31, to clear their names.

The supreme Court of Cassation panel deliberated for 10 hours before declaring that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding insufficient evidence to convict. Instead, had the court-of-resort upheld the pair's convictions, Knox would have faced 28 1/2 years in an Italian prison, assuming she would have been extradited, while Sollecito had faced 25 years.

"Finished!" Knox's lawyer CarloDallaVedovaexulted after the decision was read out late Friday. "It couldn't be better than this."

The case attracted strong media attention due to the brutality of the murder and the quick allegations that the young American student and her new Italian lover had joined a third man in stabbing to death 21-year-old Kercher in a sex game gone awry.

Flip-flop guilty-then innocent-then guilty verdicts cast a shadow on the Italian justice system and polarized trial watchers on both sides of the Atlantic, largely along national lines.

Though it cleared Knox of murder, the supreme Court of Cassation upheld a slander conviction against her for wrongly accusing a Congolese-born bar owner in the murder. The court reduced the sentence to three years. Since Knox already spent nearly four years in Italian prison, she won't have to serve that time.

The decision to overturn the convictions without ordering a new trial amounted to a rebuke of another high court ruling two years ago that vacated Knox and Sollecito's 2011 acquittal, ordering yet another trial. Such a direct contrast in decisions by two high court panels is as rare as the double rainbow that arched over the monumental courthouse near the Tiber river during the deliberations.

The five-judge panel's reasoning will be released within 90 days.

Knox has sought to resume a normal life since returning to the United States three years ago, recently announcing her engagement and writing theatre reviews and human interest stories for a weekly paper in her hometown.

Kercher, 21, was found dead Nov. 2, 2007, in the apartment that she shared with Knox and two Italian lawyers-in-training. She was half-nude beneath a duvet soaked in blood with her throat slashed. Investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted.

DNA evidence in Kercher's room led police to arrest a man from Ivory Coast, Hermann Guede, who was convicted of the murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence.

The court that convicted Guede ruled he did not act alone, citing the absence of defensive wounds on the victim and concluding that bruises on Kercher's arms indicating she was restrained while one or two others inflicted numerous stab wounds.

Victim's mother 'shocked'

The Kercher family attorney, Francesco Maresca, was clearly disappointed by the decision.

"I think that it's a defeat for the Italian justice system," he said. `'Whoever was Guede's accomplice does not have a name."

Kercher's mother, Arline Kercher, told Britain's Press Association news agency that she was "a bit surprised and very shocked."

"They have been convicted twice so it is a bit odd that it should change now," she said.

It is a strange justice for me, long, uncertain, a little opaque, a lot of darkness,-Diya'Patrick'Lumumba, falsely accused

Also disappointed by the decision was the bar owner, Diya'Patrick'Lumumba, who was jailed for two weeks after Knox falsely accused him of the murder and is convinced of Knox's guilt.

`'It is a strange justice for me, long, uncertain, a little opaque, a lot of darkness," he said outside the courtroom. `'This is a judicial error in Amanda's case."

The couple maintained their innocence, insisting that they had spent the evening together at Sollecito's place watching a movie, smoking marijuana and making love.

Knox and Sollecito were convicted by a Perugia court in 2009, then acquitted and freed in 2011, and then convicted again in 2014 in Florence after the Cassation court overturned the acquittals and ordered a new appeals trial.

That Florence appeals conviction was overturned Friday.

In closing arguments, Dalla Vedova pounded away at the absence of any physical trace of Knox in the room where Kercher was found and highlighted doubts about the presumed murder weapon, a bread knife found in Sollecito's kitchen drawer that bore Knox's DNA which the defense said was from kitchen use . The defence lawyer also said Knox's false accusation was coerced by police and obtained without being advised she was a suspect. He has challenged the slander conviction with the European Human Rights Court in Strausbourg.

Sollecito's defence lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, argued there were errors of `'colossal proportions," in the guilty verdicts.

Sollecito, who turned 31 on Thursday, sat in the front row during hours of arguments during the Cassation Court over two days, a new girlfriend by his side. He returned to his home in southern Italy to await the decision followed by Italian police presumably ready to act in case his conviction had been upheld.

"You have your whole life ahead of you now, Raf," Sollecito's lawyer, Luca Maori, told Sollecito by cell phone from the steps of the courthouse under the glare of TV cameras. Sollecito has completed his computer science degree, but has said the notoriety surrounding the case has made it difficult to find a job.

Speaking to reporters, Maori added: "He almost couldn't speak. Eight years of nightmare over."