Judge laments unsolved murder after Knox release

Rome: British student Meredith Kercher's killing in Italy in 2007 is now "unsolved" following the acquittal of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the appeals judge who freed them said yesterday.

The murder "will remain an unsolved truth," judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann told reporters in the university town of Perugia where the gruesome killing and sexual assault and the ensuing high-profile investigation took place.

"No-one can say what really happened. The only person is Rudy Guede," he said, referring to a local drifter who is now the only person convicted for a murder that investigators said must have been carried out by more than one person.

"For the moment, Amanda Knox is completely innocent," he added, ahead of an appeal against the acquittals by the prosecution expected to be launched next year after the publication of the appeal court's reasoning for its verdict.

Dad talks of trauma

Meanwhile, in Seattle, Amanda Knox's father said she would like to go back to her university and finish her degree, but that he worries about what four years in prison have done to his 24-year-old daughter.

"What's the trauma ... and when will it show up, if it even shows up?" Curt Knox said. "She's a very strong girl, but it's been a tough time for her."

The strain built steadily for years as the now 24 year old sat in a prison half a world away from her loved ones. Knox's father said that at least some of that pressure was released when she gained her freedom.

Amanda Knox's life turned around dramatically on Monday when an Italian appeals court threw out her conviction in the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of her British roommate. On Tuesday, photos of her crying in the courtroom after the verdict was read appeared on the front pages of newspapers in Italy, the US, Britain and around the world.

She was again overcome with emotion as she returned to Seattle for the first time. "Thank you for being there for me," Knox tearfully told her supporters in front of a crowd of international reporters.

"I'm really overwhelmed right now," she said at a news conference minutes after she was escorted off a British Airways flight out of London.

Knox sobbed at the news conference and held her mother's hand as her lawyer Theodore Simon said her acquittal "unmistakably announced to the world" that she was not responsible for the killing of Meredith Kercher. After her parents offered their thanks to Knox's lawyers and supporters, Knox spoke briefly, saying, "They're reminding me to speak in English, because I'm having problems with that."

Knox's acquittal, fuelled by doubts over DNA evidence, stunned the victim's family and angered the prosecution, which insists that she was among three people who killed Kercher, 21.

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini expressed disbelief at the verdicts. Mignini maintains that Knox, Sollecito and another man killed Kercher during a lurid, drug-fuelled sex game.

Mignini said he will appeal to Italy's highest criminal court after receiving the reasoning behind the acquittals, due within 90 days.