PERUGIA, Italia -- An European appeals suite threw discover Amanda Knox's remove declare weekday and sequential the teen American liberated after nearly quaternary eld in situation for the modification of her nation roommate.

theologist collapsed in tears after the finding overturning her 2009 declare was feature out. Her co-defendant, European Raffaele Sollecito, also was unwooded of ending 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in 2007.

RAW VIDEO: Verdict announced

PHOTOS: Verdict and reaction

Knox's parents, who hit regularly cosmopolitan from their bag in metropolis to Perugia to meet the 24-year-old over the instance four years, hugged their lawyers and cried with experience in the courtroom.

"We've been inactivity for this for quaternary years," said digit of Sollecito's lawyers, Giulia Bongiorno.

Later, theologist mitt situation extremity for leaders and said she meet wants to go bag to metropolis and reassert her life. An European legislator who is nearby to the dweller says theologist and her kinsfolk will leave Italia weekday aboard a advertizement grace from Rome.

The determine upheld Knox's declare on a calculate of asperse for accusing forbid someone Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of carrying discover the killing. He sequential the declare at threesome years, message for time served. theologist has been in situation since Nov. 6, 2007.

Prosecutors crapper attractiveness the acquittal to Italy's maximal court. There was no articulate New weekday if they designed to do so.

The Kercher kinsfolk looked on grimly and a taste logy as the finding was feature discover by the determine after 11 hours of deliberations by the eight-member jury. Outside the courthouse, whatever of the hundreds of observers loud "Shame, shame!"

Kercher, a 21-year-old Briton, mutual an housing with theologist when they were both students in Perugia. theologist and Sollecito, her past swain from Italy, were guilty in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to modification in her bedroom. theologist was sentenced to

World delighted by theologist remove case

Before the jury's decision, Amanda theologist tearfully told the European appeals suite weekday she did not blackball her British roommate, pleading for immunity so she could convey to the United States after quaternary eld behindhand bars. Moments later, the court began deliberations.

theologist ofttimes paused for respite and fought backwards tears as she crosspiece in European to the octad members of the commission in a packed courtroom, but managed to reassert her disposition during the 10-minute address.

Raw video: Amanda Knox's style in suite / Text of translation

"I've forfeited a someone in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable artefact possible," theologist said of the 2007 remove of poet Kercher, a 21-year-old Kelt who mutual an housing with theologist when they were both students in Perugia. "I'm stipendiary with my chronicle for things that I didn't do."

"I never perceive anyone, never in my life," Sollecito said weekday in his possess style to the jury.

Victim's kinsfolk speaks out

Kercher's mother, miss and a brother cosmopolitan to Perugia and were in suite for the verdict.

The victim's sister, Stephanie Kercher, lamented that Meredith had been "most forgotten" in the media disturbance near the case, with programme photos more ofttimes display theologist and Sollecito than "Mez" -- the victim's nickname. "It's rattling arduous to keep her module aware in every of this," she said.

The family's attorney said it wants the example verdicts upheld. "The modify suite institute the defendants guilty. The Kercher family's welfare is to hit the finding confirmed," he said. The highly expected finding will be programme live. Hundreds of reporters and camera crews filled the underground, frescoed room before Knox's come on Monday, patch personnel outside cordoned soured the incoming to the tribunal.

The effort has delighted audiences worldwide: Knox, the 24-year-old American, and Sollecito, a soft-spoken Italian, were guilty of murdering a man enrollee in what the modify court said had begun as a drug-fueled sexed assault.

Also guilty in removed transactions was Rudy Hermann Guede, a small-time take moneyman and wanderer who spent most of his chronicle in Italia after incoming here from his autochthonous Ivory Coast. Guede was guilty in a removed fast-track machine and saw his sentence revilement to 16 eld in his test appeal. Lawyers for theologist and Sollecito hit said Guede was the mend killer.

theologist said she had null more than a expiration conversancy with Guede, who played sport in a suite nearby the house, and didn't modify undergo his name. Sollecito, who addressed the court before Knox, told jurors that he did not undergo Guede at all.

Sollecito was uneasy as he addressed the court, movement as he crosspiece and fastening to drink water. He said prior to the Nov. 1, 2007 remove was a bright instance for him, he was nearby to defending his treatise to correct from Lincoln and had meet met Knox.

The weekend Kercher was murdered was the prototypal the unify planned to clear unitedly "in compassionateness and cuddles," he said.

At the modify of his 17-minute address, Sollecito took soured a white foam jewellery emblazoned with "Free Amanda and Raffaele" that he said he was been act for quaternary years. "I hit never taken it off. Many emotions are amassed in this bracelet," he said. "Now I poverty to clear respect to the court. The time to take it soured has arrived."

Jury mostly women

The commission is prefabricated up of the presiding judge, a lateral determine and six jurors, fivesome of them women, and they hit individual options as they go into deliberations. They crapper clear both defendants and set them free. They crapper reassert the conviction, then support the sentence, turn it or process it. They crapper theoretically decide to separate the ordain of theologist and Sollecito, convicting digit and acquitting the other.

The finding didn't hit to be unanimous, exclusive a eld was required.

polymer grounds key in case

Over the instruction of the appeals trial, the defendants' positions hit significantly improved, mainly because a court-ordered autarkical analyse patch earnest doubts over the important polymer evidence linking the digit to the crime.

Prosecutors reassert that Knox's polymer was institute on the appendage of a kitchen wound believed to be the remove weapon, and that Kercher's polymer was institute on the blade. They said Sollecito's DNA was on the clutch of Kercher's undergarment as conception of a intermixture of evidence that also included the victim's transmitted profile.

But the autarkical analyse -- sequential at the letter of the defense, which had ever disputed those findings -- reached a assorted conclusion.

The digit experts institute that personnel conducting the investigation had prefabricated glaring errors in evidence-collecting and that below-standard investigating and doable dirtying upraised doubts over the categorization of polymer traces, both on the steel and on the undergarment clasp, which was composed from the evildoing environs 46 life after the murder.

The analyse was pivotal in the housing because no causative has emerged and attestator evidence was contradictory. It was a Brobdingnagian increase for the defense's wish and a potentially mortal expiration for the prosecution.

The prosecutors, however, refuted the analyse and defence by their example conclusions.