Nightmare finally over, says Sollecito

Raffaele Sollecito said he needs to heal wounds inside his heart and soul now that he has been cleared of the 2007 murder British student Meredith Kercher.

Sollecito, 31, who was acquitted alongside his US former girlfriend Amanda Knox, made his first public comments since the judicial saga ended on Friday night when Italy’s top criminal court overturned their earlier convictions.

“I feel today like someone who was kidnapped, who after seven years and five months has returned to freedom,” Sollecito said, referring to the time since Kercher was found fatally stabbed in her bedroom of the house she shared with Knox and other roommates.

Sollecito and Knox spent four years in prison, including time served after they were convicted early in the case. Later convictions by a Florence appeals court brought sentences of 25 years and 28 and a half years respectively.

“Everyone was pointing a finger at me, like I was a murderer, without a shred of evidence,” said Sollecito.

He told how he wanted to shed the “wound that has accompanied me for seven years and five months” and described his acquittal as a “rebirth”.

The Florence appeals court that convicted Sollecito and Knox most recently ruled that the pair acted in concert with Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast, who was convicted of Kercher’s slaying and sexual assault in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year prison term.

Sollecito said he spoke with Knox by phone after they were cleared by the Rome-based court, when they were celebrating with their respective families. Both of them “exchanged many good wishes for a new future”, Sollecito said, who added that he had no immediate plans to see Knox.

Sollecito’s lawyer, Luca Maori, said Guede is the one “who knows exactly what happened” when Kercher was slain and appealed to him to say what he knows.

Kercher’s family said they were disappointment and bewildered at the acquittals.