The Italian man sentenced to 28 years in prison for the 2007 murder of U.S. student Amanda Knox ‘s roommate in Italy has been freed.
Early Friday, Perugia Court of Appeals overturned the 2013 appeal verdict of court that found Raffaele Sollecito and Knox guilty of the killing of 21-year-old Knox’s roommate, British student Meredith Kercher.
The first trial court was hearing the appeals trial.
Sollecito was found guilty of killing Kercher during a sex game gone wrong, and Knox was convicted of slander for falsely accusing a bar employee.
He served four years of the 28-year sentence, but is expected to be freed with a new sentence of one to three years.
Knox has always denied involvement in Kercher’s murder. The American will be granted new extradition proceedings as she awaits the ruling of Italy’s supreme court in October.
Last month, Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, appealed their conviction in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a British student who was found stabbed to death in a house in Perugia, Italy.
In papers filed on the appeals court’s website, Knox’s lawyers accuse prosecutors of bungling a murder investigation that continued for eight years and ultimately resulted in “shocking” errors.
“In the tribunal it became clear that the alleged wrongdoing did not originate in the judges’ hands; it was the work of the defendants’ lawyers and the defense lawyers in general,” it states.
The 26-year-old Knox is expected to be freed within hours, if the decision is accepted by the court.
Kercher was found stabbed to death inside the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia in 2007.
Three years earlier, in November 2005, Knox had been arrested in Kercher’s death, and spent four years in prison before being acquitted in 2011.
A verdict by a lower court in 2015 confirmed the acquittal, but said that Knox and Sollecito must serve time for slander.
Sollecito spent four years in prison before being released in 2011, and was ordered to serve the entire 28-year sentence after a lower court in 2015 decided he deserved it.
Kercher’s family contends the case shows how the system of justice can be more unpredictable than in other countries.
“The UK judicial system put an American fugitive behind bars before a British jury, only to then free her after seven years,” Kercher’s brother, Lyle, said in a statement last month. “The good news for Meredith’s family, the last time Amanda Knox was free of Perugia, Amanda Knox and her friends killed her.”
Knox returned to the United States in 2011 and has since been studying at the University of Washington.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.