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KNOX

‘I’ll never accept being called a murderer’

Raffaele Sollecito, who was on Friday cleared of the killing of British student Meredith Kercher, has said he "will never accept being called a murderer".

'I'll never accept being called a murderer'
Raffaele Sollecito was on Friday cleared of the killing of British student Meredith Kercher. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

During a press conference, the 31-year-old said he was labelled a murderer "without a shred of evidence".

He added that during the ordeal, which lasted more than seven years, his family had been "torn apart".

"It's not true that I wasn't expecting this sentence," he was quoted by La Repubblica as saying.

"This sentence had to end this way. Now I can get on with my life."

Sollecito also said that his relationship with Amanda Knox, also acquitted of the murder by Italy's top court, had been one of pure affection and that they had not been accomplices in Kercher's murder.

"My relationship with Amanda was a simple story of affection. From this moment on I will not accept being labelled a murderer."

Sollecito said he had spoken to Knox, 27, but did not have any plans to meet up again.

The Italian was twice convicted of having helped Knox in the knife slaying of Kercher in the university town of Perugia in 2007.

The case against the pair was thrown out on the basis that a series of blunders in the police investigation and earlier trials meant it could never be proven the former couple were at the scene of the crime.

Sollecito, who heard the news of his legal victory from his sister, who was present in court, said he felt like "somebody who had been kidnapped and then freed after seven years and five months."

"When I got the call from my sister, it was like being reborn, it was the start of a new life," he said.

But for the Kercher family, the final verdict is a bitter pill to swallow.

Her mother, Arline, said on Friday she was “surprised and very shocked” by the verdict, and that the decision by the Court of Cassation in Rome was “odd” given the pair had been convicted twice following the killing in 2007.

Sollecito said: “I’m sorry that the family of Meredith is disappointed. But they have to believe that the truth is the final judgement.” 

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AMANDA KNOX

‘I never fought with Kercher’: Knox

American Amanda Knox said on Thursday that she was innocent of murdering her British housemate Meredith Kercher, claiming that the pair had "never fought" and were "becoming friends" in the weeks leading up to the student's murder.

'I never fought with Kercher': Knox
Amanda Knox in court during her 2011 appeal. Photo: Mario Laporta/AFP

Knox was sentenced in January to 28 years and six months in prison for the crime – which took place at the home she shared with Kercher in Perugia in 2007 – while her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito received a 25-year jail sentence.

Releasing their reasoning behind the conviction earlier this week, judges said that the pair had killed the British student after a fight broke out between her and Knox.

Judges said that Rudy Guede, who is currently serving a 16-year jail sentence for the murder, “behaved impolitely” towards Kercher, who interrupted an “intimate moment” between Knox and Sollecito to complain.

"The cohabitation had reached such a level of exasperation" that the argument quickly escalated, with Guede, Knox and Sollecito "collaborating to immobilize Meredith and use violence against her," the explanation said.

READ MORE: 'Kercher was not killed in sex game': judges

But Knox on Thursday refuted the judge’s reasoning, arguing that she was developing a friendship with her housemate.

“I did not kill my friend…in the month that we were living together, we were becoming friends,” she told American TV channel CNN. “We had never fought,” Knox said.

During the trial prosecutors said that Kercher had a particularly fraught relationship with Knox, who regularly brought men back to their home for sex and left vibrators lying around.

But Knox this week said that while “maybe Meredith was a little bit uncomfortable about certain issues of hygiene…these were not issues that were going to ever lead to any kind of violence.”

“They never led to any kind of aggressive communication between us,” Knox said.

Judges, however, argued that DNA evidence links her and the two men to the scene, with Knox wielding the knife which killed Kercher.

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