Amanda Knox to fly home after being cleared of Kercher murder

• Meredith Kercher’s father says decision is ‘ludicrous’ • Knox family due to board scheduled flight home to Seattle • David Cameron says people should remember Kerchers’ pain Amanda Knox is due to fly back to the US after she and her former boyfriend were cleared on appeal of the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher four years ago. Knox, now 24, sobbed as the panel of judges delivered their verdict in a Perugia courtroom, ruling that she and Raffaele Sollecito should have their convictions overturned and ending a lengthy legal saga throughout which both maintained their innocence. Prosecutors had claimed the pair and Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast-born drifter, pressured Kercher into participating in a drug-fuelled sex game that culminated in murder. Guede, who was jailed for 16 years, is now the only person convicted over the killing. Following her formal release from the Perugia prison where she has lived the past four years, Knox spent the night with her family in Rome. Later on Tuesday, she will board a scheduled flight back to her home city of Seattle. Awaiting her is an uncertain future, expected to begin with negotiations over a lucrative TV interview and memoir about her experiences. And while US opinion has been significantly more supportive of the former language student than in Italy, where Knox has been variously portrayed by prosecutors and the media as a sex-obsessed temptress, a witch and a “she-devil”, resuming any semblance of normal life will be difficult. A friend and supporter of Knox, Corrado Maria Daclon, who heads a foundation that has championed her cause, said the Knox wanted to “reconnect with her family, take possession of her life”. The decision dismayed the family of Kercher, the 21-year-old student from Coulsdon, south London, found partly clothed with her throat cut, at the apartment she shared with Knox and others on 1 November 2007. Kercher’s parents and siblings had previously promised to respect the appeal court’s ruling, but her father, John, who did not attend the hearing, said afterwards that it was “ludicrous”. “How can they ignore all the other evidence? I thought the judge might play it safe and uphold the conviction but reduce the sentence. But this result is crazy,” he told the Daily Mirror . “There were 47 wounds on Meredith and two knives used. One person couldn’t possibly have done that. What happens now? Does that mean the police need to look for more killers? It makes a mockery of the original trial. We are all shocked, we could understand them reducing the sentence but completely freeing them, wow.” Amid the media frenzy over Knox and Sollecito, people should consider the feelings of the Kerchers, David Cameron told ITV1′s Daybreak programme. “I haven’t followed every part of this case but what I would say is that we should be thinking of the family of Meredith Kercher because those parents

Posted by on October 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.