Italy's top court: Knox investigation had major flaws

Italy's high court said on Monday that the investigation into the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, of which American Amanda Knox was convicted but acquitted on appeal, had "major flaws".

In March, the court acquitted Knox and her Italian ex-lover Raffaele Sollecito of Kercher's murder, ending an eight-year legal saga which saw the two convicted, acquitted and convicted again before being finally cleared.

In the 52-page document released Monday the court underlined the absence of a "body of evidence" allowing for a conviction "beyond a reasonable doubt", saying there was no "biological trace" linking the two to the grisly murder.  

Kercher, 21, died after being stabbed 47 times and having her throat slashed.

Her half-naked body was found in a pool of blood in a back room of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, central Italy.

The court document said the fluctuations in the trial were the result of "major flaws" or oversights in the investigation as well as "omissions" in the police searches.

Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede was jailed for the murder in 2008 but, in a judgement that was to have serious implications for Knox and Sollecito, the judge in his trial ruled that he could not have acted alone.

Prosecutors maintained to the end that Knox and Sollecito fatally slashed Kercher while Guede held her down.

Knox and Sollecito were first convicted in 2009, then acquitted in 2011, when they believed they had been freed to resume normal lives.

But that decision was found to be flawed by the Court of Cassation in 2013, leading to a retrial in Florence which reinstated the initial convictions and increased Knox's sentence to 28 years and six months.

Then in a dramatic finale in March, Italy's top court threw out Knox's conviction, after ten hours of deliberation.

Since her release, Knox had completed the language studies that took her to Perugia in the first place, found work as a journalist and reportedly become engaged.
Source: AFP