Su'prise, su'prise, su'prise

Rico says he never thought this would be the outcome, but Elisabetta Povoledo has an article in The New York Times about the Amanda Knox case:

A court in Perugia, Italy overturned the homicide convictions of Americans Amanda Knox and a co-defendant and ordered them freed, ending a sensationally lurid trial of murder and rough sex that made Knox notorious on both sides of the Atlantic.
An appellate court jury of eight Italians, which included two judges, delivered their verdict after more than eleven hours of deliberations. Knox and her supporters packing the court let out whoops of joy and relief as the verdict was read on live television, prompting court officials to shout for silence. Knox broke down in tears.
The decision overturns the December of 2009 ruling that convicted Knox and got her sentenced to 26 years in prison and her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, a former boyfriend, to 25 for the 2007 stabbing murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, a Briton who shared an apartment with Knox. The case was built largely on DNA evidence that legal experts called flimsy and suspect.
Knox, 24, from Seattle, was returned to prison to collect her possessions, but was expected to be on her way home later in the day.
All three figures in the trial were young, promising students in Perugia, a fact that largely ignited the media hype that surrounded the case from the start. Unprecedented international attention in a murder trial in Italy was fueled by looming question marks over means and motive that made the case a classic whodunit.
“We’re thankful Amanda’s nightmare is over,” Knox’s sister, Deanna, read in a statement after the verdict was read. “We’re grateful for the support we have received from all over the world.”
Giulia Bongiorno, a lawyer for Sollecito, said “we’ve been waiting for this for four years.”Earlier in the day, Knox read a tearful statement in fluent Italian beseeching the court to overturn the verdict, claiming her innocence. The joyful reaction of the defendants contrasted sharply with the looks of ashen disappointment by relatives of Kercher.
The British media had openly sympathized with the tragic figure of Kercher and her family, which backed the prosecution in seeking to uphold the original trial’s outcome. “The lower court found the defendants guilty,” said a lawyer for the family, Francesco Maresca, at a press conference as deliberations were underway. He said the Kercher family wanted to “have the verdict confirmed”.
The trial and retrial of Knox attracted widespread attention, partly because of its sensational details and the differing portraits of the main defendant, who was alternately described as a hard-working college student caught up in an arcane foreign justice system and a marijuana-smoking criminal.
Kercher was found stabbed and bloody in her room on 2 November 2007 in what prosecutors described as a game of rough sex involving Knox and her boyfriend that went horribly wrong. Knox and Sollecito were arrested a few days later.
The appeal, which began last November, was dominated by the re-examination of the DNA evidence. Court-appointed independent experts said that the DNA had been collected in a way that could have allowed for contamination and that the genetic information on two main pieces of evidence could not be matched to the defendants with certainty. Bongiorno argued that evidence collected 46 days after the police first went through the scene should have been thrown out.
In their closing arguments, prosecutors dismissed the findings of the independent experts, calling them inept and inexperienced. They also reiterated other evidence from the first trial, including eyewitness evidence placing Knox and Sollecito at the scene.
The appeals court upheld Knox’s conviction on a charge of slander for accusing a bar owner, Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, of committing the murder. The court set the sentence for that conviction at three years and a fine of 22,000 euros, or about $29,000.

Rico says this Lumumba is not this Lumumba...