Meredith Kercher’s family news conference after Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito verdicts
Members of Meredith Kercher’s family have said they “are still on a journey to the truth” and may never know what happened to her.
It comes after guilty verdicts were reinstated against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for Meredith Kercher murder in 2007.
An Italian court sentenced Amanda Knox to 28 years and six months, and Raffaele Sollecito to 25 years, on Thursday, with their lawyers saying they would appeal.
Amanda Knox, 26, remains in the US and Meredith Kercher’s family called for her to be extradited.
Reports suggest her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffele Sollecito is being held by police after he was found in Udine, near the Slovenian and Austrian borders.
Meredith Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon in south London, was stabbed to death in the flat she shared with Amanda Knox in the college city of Perugia.
Members of Meredith Kercher’s family have said they “are still on a journey to the truth” and may never know what happened to her
Her sister, Stephanie, told a press conference in Florence on Friday: “I think we are still on a journey for the truth and it may be the fact that we don’t ever really know what happened that night, which is obviously something we’ll have to come to terms with.”
She added: “We hope that we are nearer the end so that we can just start to remember Meredith for who she was and draw a line under it, as it were.”
Meredith Kercher’s brother, Lyle, said he believed extradition would be appropriate “if someone has been found guilty and convicted of a murder, and if an extradition law exists between those two countries”.
Amanda Knox has said she will only be extradited to Italy from the US “kicking and screaming”.
In a statement after the case concluded, she said she was “frightened and saddened by this unjust verdict”.
Raffaele Sollecito’s lawyer, Luca Maori, said his client had heard the verdict on TV and looked “annihilated”.
He had earlier been at the Florence court, which imposed a travel ban on the 29-year-old and ordered that his passport be revoked.
The court noted that there was a “real and actual the danger that Raffaele Sollecito could escape Italian justice” – but he is free to move in Italy until the verdict is confirmed.
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were also ordered to pay damages to Meredith Kercher’s family as part of the ruling.
The Kercher family’s lawyer, Francesco Maresca, called the verdict “justice for Meredith and the family”.
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