PERUGIA, Italy - American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early today after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.
Her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years. They were also convicted of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, 21, a student from England.
As soon as the judge read the verdict just after midnight following 13 hours of deliberations, Knox, 22, began weeping and murmured, "No, no," then hugged one of her lawyers.
Minutes later, Knox, who is from Seattle, and Sollecito, 25, were put in police vans with sirens blaring and driven back to jail.
Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment, Italy's stiffest sentence. Courts often give less severe punishment than prosecutors demand.
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The American's father, Curt Knox, when asked if he would fight on for his daughter, replied, with tears in his eyes, "Hell, yes."
"This is just wrong," her stepmother, Cassandra Knox, said, immediately after hearing the verdict. Her family had insisted she was innocent and a victim of character assassination.
One of Knox's lawyers, Luciano Ghirga, was asked if she was desperate.
"Yes, I challenge anyone not to be," he replied.
A group of local youths who gathered outside the courthouse shouted insults at the Knox entourage as they entered.
Knox and Sollecito were charged with murder and sexual assault in the slaying of Kercher more than two years ago. All three were studying in Perugia.
Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit on Nov. 2, 2007, in the bedroom of the house she shared with Knox. Prosecutors contended the 21-year-old Leeds University student was murdered the previous night.
Kercher family lawyer Francesco Maresca called the verdict and sentence "satisfactory" for the family, but he acknowledged that the defendants' loved ones were also pained.
"There is deep suffering on all sides," Maresca said, adding that the victim's family planned to hold a news conference today.
Knox and Sollecito had been jailed since shortly after the slaying.
The prosecutors contend that on the night of the murder, Knox and Sollecito met at the apartment where Kercher and Knox lived. They say a fourth person was there, Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivory Coast citizen who has been convicted in the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Guede says he was in the house that night but did not kill Kercher.
The prosecution says Knox and Kercher started arguing, and that Knox joined the two men in brutally attacking and sexually assaulting the Briton.
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