Italy's highest court clears Amanda Knox of Meredith Kercher murder

Italy's highest appeals court overturned the convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, for the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher on Friday, bringing an end to a case that has run for eight years.

The decision came after more than 10 hours of closed door deliberations, marking the final chapter of a criminal trial that polarised public opinion in Italy and the US. ?

"We are all satisfied [with the verdict]. The judges realised the mistakes. This is a victory for justice," said Carlo Dalla Vedova, lawyer for Ms Knox. He added that he had spoken on the phone to his client, who was in tears of joy.

"This verdict proved us completely right," said Giulia Bongiorno, lawyer for Mr Sollecito. She added that he was "very happy" and at home with his family in the south of Italy.

Earlier in the day, Ms Bongiorno called on the panel of five judges of the Court of cassation to annull the criminal conviction on the basis of "a colossal misinterpretation of evidence".

She argued that the sentence by the appeals court was based on unreliable evidence, collected and analysed without following international codes of practice.

"What science throws in a bin, cannot be used by justice," she said, adding that only the "respect of procedures can guarantee the integrity of evidence".

In her two-hour long closing arguments, Ms Bongiorno picked out the mistakes in the 2014 guilty verdict handed down by Florence judges, which condemned Ms Knox and her former boyfriend to 28 and 25 years in prison respectively for murder and sexual assault of their 21-year old British friend.

The three students all studied in the university town of Perugia, in central Italy. Ms Kercher was found dead after being stabbed 47 times in November 2007 in the apartment she shared with Ms Knox and two other students.

Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito were arrested days after and imprisoned for a total of four years. They both denied all accusations against them.

In December 2009 a judge sentenced them to 26 and 25 years in prison. Both were acquitted and freed in 2011 after an appeal. A second appeals court in Florence convicted them again last year after the court of cassation ordered a new trial.

Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast drifter, was convicted of Kercher's murder and sentenced to 16 years in jail two years after the killing.

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